Decline of Western Education Lets start with entropy. Entropy tells us that the natural manner of all things Is to head towards disorder. No matter how much you clean your desk, if you use It, it will get dirty and things will settle in a chaotic manner. Our life is a gradual decline Into disorder. Over the years, all that humans have done is an attempt to put things into order. People are always trying to control the little world around them, when in actuality, we need to let go and let things fall where they may.
After many failed attempts, humans came up with society, which in Itself is nothing but an idea. It’s an object of thought that functions on the characteristics that we provide. Society was supposed to be the ultimate solution to entropy. It would assign everybody with certain roles, ranks and mannerisms through the use of multiple man made institutions which, as the name Implies Institutionalized people. Institutionalize means establishing something, typically a practice or activity, as a convention or norm in an organization or culture.
Man made institutions have become the monumental building blocks of society Like marriage, religion and education to name a few. Society Is Like a circuit board, made of man-made Institutions, meant to cure humanity of disorder. But due to this being a tough fight against entropy, the path mostly chosen by the dictating class Is ruling through conformity and obedience which leads to the Institution being run by fear. Such Man made Institutions fall because they squander the potential of the Individual to try to tame the masses and because they fall to change and adapt over time.
On closer inspection, after the Curial 2 legislation of ideas like liberty and individualism, it is apparent that the institutions of Society, in this case education, are breaking down due to them being derived from outdated principles and run for outdated purposes. It might be easy to think that the degradation of the American education system is due to things like unfair financial distribution, unmotivated teachers or overpopulated schools, but the predecessor and root cause of it all is the way the system has been built.
The ‘Modern Education’ systems, like the one in the united states, are nothing more than man-made institution. It is an attempt to channeling learning material and methods. To understand in what ways the this system is outdated, the knowledge of its origin must be know first. In a similar attempt to show the negative effects tot today’s schooling, John Taylor Goat traces the founding of the education system In America and the Western World. In many places he provides the thoughts of Influential people and the founding fathers behind the education system, such as, ‘We have, for example, the great H.
L Mencken, who wrote that he aim of the education system Is simply to reduce as many Individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and rain a standardize excellent, to put clown Olsten Ana Orleans point in history, knowledge became the factor separating the worthy from the worthless. There were Just too many people, and Just too much material for each person to learn on their own. A process was needed to convey a select set of instructions to a mass number of learners, hence a man-made institution. For this purpose the education system was born.
Goat also points out in his article that the education system in America was adopted from Prussia where it was used as a means for oppression and sustainable rule for the dictator. Goat 1 51) Before public education systems, the thirst to gain knowledge used to be fueled by passion and Curial 3 curiosity. But knowledge today has lost its value and beauty, and humans have put it up for sale. From Just a glance at history, it is evident that this system was formulated and rooted in a time far different in almost aspect from today.
Once we understand that our education system is actually quite old, its failure can be realized by highlighting certain shortcomings and relating them back to the origin. Perhaps the biggest sign that the education system is collapsing is how uninterested and moved the children in our school classrooms are. John Locke, who was at the forefront of Liberalism and freethinking, believed that knowledge came only from our experiences. Although the education system offers a wide array of subjects, it fails to provide practical knowledge, which according to Locke, shapes us.
A lot of the topic selections taught in schools today are basically unnecessary. Systems based on yesterday are incapable of challenging the children of today who have evolved further than the system, having accounted for the problems of yesterday. Perhaps his is the reason for the boredom Goat talks about when he says, “Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. Having experienced it for 30 years. (Goat 148) One of the main needs for education, like Goat believes, was to standardize the populous. This may have worked brilliantly a 100 years ago, but as individuality and Liberty become more important with time, the standardization is actually harming the students. Certain topics may help an architect, but are useless for a doctor. Lack of practicality is felt while undergoing school lessons. In my day-to-day life, I have barely used any of the material that I have been taught after the 5th grade.
For example, I learnt trigonometry in math class; I worked hard on it and got an A. It Curial 4 means that I am expert in basic trigonometry; But what’s the point, when I have never used trigonometry anywhere except the math classroom. This points to a problem that Sir Ken Robinson, an educator at the frontline of education reform, talks about, object discrimination. (Robinson Talked) Some areas of studies are considered more prestigious than others, when there are no genuine parameters to compare two different subjects.
This isn’t only about academic fields; it is also about chefs, carpenters, musicians etc. If somebody is good at what they do, they should get the same level of respect as everybody else, irrespective of what they do. The fact that everybody is required to take a standard set of classes, also makes testing very inefficient, another problem Robinson points out. (Robinson Talked) Everybody is Deterrent, Ana needs a Deterrent set AT learning techniques Ana materials to grow successfully. The test is not going to be Just to everyone.
Due to this, students mug up the syllabus and spit it out onto their answer sheets. The education system has become a competition for best memorizing skills. On top of that the system for higher education is very expensive. This is fundamentally very upsetting, as it means that knowledge is only meant for ones with a fortune, or for the ones who already know a lot (Students with As get scholarships). In his essay, Idiot Nation, Michael Moore alas about how the governing authorities take advantage of this tightly woven system and use it to force their marketing propaganda on students. Moore 140-141) Such examples show how orthodox institutions can harm the people by bounding them. As a kid from quite a conservative family, half my life decisions were already made for me before I was even born. I was to be Hindu without getting to experience any of the other religions; Career options were reduced to a doctor or an engineer. I never thought about what Curial 5 I wanted to do with my life because my career path was already highlighted. We are being oriented with these details to such an extent that after a point in time it becomes all we know. The only thing interfering with my learning is education” (Albert Einstein). The system itself acts like walls holding students back. According to Ken Robinson, one of the biggest reasons for the failure of our education system, is the constant conformity and killing of creativity. Taking one step further, Goat believes this is an underlying purpose of the education system to dumb down a population. (Goat 1 53) But in all truth a perfect system cannot exist in this indecent world. So we have to make the most of what we have. The current system, no matter how bad, happens to be the only one we have.
So what we can do is make alterations to make it better. In his book, ‘The Social Contract’, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Geneva philosopher, says that individuals need to give up their decision-making capability to a higher governing power. In return, the governing body would show a path to the ones being governed and bring order to society. But the government always had to keep in mind the consent of the ones being governed. That should be the basis of the education system. We need society (parents, teachers, friends) to highlight directions, not Just force us into one.
The true meaning of the education system has escaped us, and instead we are creating barriers for people, so that they don’t try anything new. The Society needs to give the governed, deciding power on what field of study to choose and not be Judgmental about it. In an enhanced education system everyone would start out with general studies, but then branch out according to their passion instead of grades. Here the teacher has the main role. The teacher’s Job would more importantly be to work with every parent, ND find out what the student likes or is good at.
