The Failure of Our Education Systems

Angeline Siefring Section #7

Topic: Susan Nieman’s section on Education in Why Grow Up?

Nieman says growing up is a task that never stops; that growing up is a process of sifting through your parents choices and beliefs and deciding what you’ll take as your own. Things like your parents’ music and their religion. We often see people adopt the same beliefs and ways their parents adhere to, but essentially what Nieman is saying here is that growing up is a process of critical thinking. We must question everything in order to draw our own conclusions and be confident in them as individuals. In fact, Nieman says we have to reject some of our parents choices in order to be considered “grown-up.” Which doesn’t necessarily make your parents choices wrong, their choices just may have been the right ones for their time — and yours, the right ones for your time. At least that is what would result if each of successfully took accomplished this concept of critical thinking. 

Nieman goes further into education itself. One quote that stuck out to me was that “much of traditional education is not simply inadequate but counterproductive, killing the very desire to learn it is meant to sustain - as well as the suspicion that this death is not accidental.” I’m sure you’ve all heard some form of this or came to this conclusion yourself. I personally feel that the way our education system is built has indeed done its best to crush creativity and the want to learn. Rather, all we experience is letter grades that we perceive reflect our self worth and our potential for success in life. What’s interesting here is that nieman says this death of the desire to learn may have been on purpose. Nieman says that schoolchildren who are used to sitting still while a teacher babbles on makes them less likely to stand up to lying politicians as adults. Makes sense. We all know how our society is built. The leaders lead, and the followers follow. It’s the rat race. It’s a matter of control, and our education system aims to keep us in line. Nieman states most schools produce docility and dull resentment. We often equate school with prisons

 

Nieman speaks on Kants comments on education. Kant acknowledges that the major function of schooling is to make us sit still, but Kant doesn’t draw the conclusion that this is definitively malicious. Rather, he views it as a matter of discipline. Kant believes the school systems teach children disciple. Discipline is an important virtue to obtain because of tedious exercises such as learning languages and music. However, Kant believed in the need for education transformation, because the school system - at least in Europe, is “spoiled at the outset.” Meaning, it is fundamentally flawed. 

I want to share with you Kants three principles in relation to education, found in his Lectures on Pedagogy. “Pedagogy” meaning approach to teaching.

1. From earliest childhood the child must be allowed to be free in all matters (except in those where it might injure itself, as, for example, when it grabs an open knife).

2. The child must be shown that it can only reach its goals by letting others also reach theirs.

3. One must prove to it that restraint is put on it in order that it may be led to the use of its own freedom, that it is cultivated so that it may one day be free, that is, so that it need not depend on the care of others.

 

Kant believed that private fundraising was the answer for opportunity to reform, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. The Philanthopinum, which was the German progressive school that resulted from this push for reform, closed down after twenty years. But, over and over, teachers and parents see these same issues with the school system, and found their own progressive schools. However, the progressive schools never last as long as traditional ones. It’s like a disease where the antibodies aren’t working.

 

On a lighter note, Nieman mentions that there are a few ways to improve upon the education you did not choose by making choices of your own. She says to avoid being the smartest person in the room and to seek out rooms where you aren’t the smartest. Learning from others is best, rather than becoming ignorant through the narrow lens of only one experiences — yours. Another piece of advice she gives is to learn from the classics, but invent something new. Essentially, old information is good information, just don’t reinvent the wheel. 

We are all the products of educations we did not choose. Therefore it’s our responsibility to help the next generations by making a change to the system that failed us. So, all in all, lets improve ourselves, improve the education of generations to come, and lets find a way for school shootings like yesterdays in nashville to soon not be of concern for our children‘s life or education. 

Below is a link to a short film by Steve Cutts called Happiness. I’m sure you’ve heard of it before. “The rat race” is a metaphor for our society. Our education systems lead us into and keep us trained to stay in the rat race. At the end of the film, the rats are depicted working at desks and stuck in traps. This imagery is a direct juxtaposition of our school life and work life.