What do we mean when we say "Education?"
But first, a couple of quotes:
I had remembered a quote from Mark Twain, which I can find no confirmation of on the internet, "I spent my entire life learning, except for the time I spent in school." Apparently the real quote is, "I've never let my school interfere with my education," which doesn't support the point I was going to make as well. Oops.
"Education has replaced, 'I learn.'" --Ivan Illich
And John Taylor Gatto, award-winning teacher, sums up the seven lessons taught in school (full essay "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher" here:
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/7lesson.htm):
1. Confusion 2. Class Position 3. Indifference 4. Emotional Dependency 5. Intellectual Dependency 6. Provisional Self-Esteem 7. One Can't Hide
OK, now to the point. School, and "education" have very little to do with learning. One of the best predictors for success in school is if a child can read before she begins attending school. School has many purposes: Keeping kids busy while their parents are at work, learning to accept long stretches of boredom and rote-work in preparation for an adult working life, even (in the best cases) preparing children to become good citizens and respect each other. Learning, whether math, English literature, or life skills, happens as a byproduct of education, if at all.
Arthur discovered his own interest in mathematics and pursued it to learn more. I think that supports my thesis.
I would love to be able to homeschool my kids, but most of the time my daughter enjoys school. She is very social, so for her school is a place to see her friends. She gets frustrated by the disjoint classes (she gets very focussed on a task and dislikes being interrupted at arbitrary 45 minute intervals to switch to equally arbitrary tasks), but she has to learn to put up with some things she does not like--school is excellent for learning that. There are cliques and children who enjoy being manipulative and hostile, so she gets to learn important lessons for dealing with others and how to handle confrontation--school is good for that too. And I think it important to expose her to the seven lessons above, in order to help innoculate her to them. Then at home we get to explore her interests and do some real learning: math, art, language, literature, and yes, computers (art again, we are mainly using the computer for stop-motion animation).
Whether or not computers are used in school is a trifle compared to fixing the basic assumptions and design that make schools a poor place for learning. It's not that they fail at helping children learn, it's that helping children learn is not even a goal of school.
--Dethe
Email is where knowledge goes to die. --Bill French
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