This is an issue that Ive been thinking about for a while as a result of my personal experience with the educational system, and I have tended to think that the main problems with public education are hierarchy and standardization, which exist either explicitly (as in elementary/secondary schools) or implicitly (in higher education). Hierarchy exists in the classroom in the sense that the instructor is generally given significant power over the students, especially in pre-higher education. Standardization can be seen in standardized tests, but also in the general expectation that almost every student will conform more or less to the same image of compliance. Thus, students are expected to follow a rigid schedule, learn the same things, and more or less act like a passive, easily-controlled mass. These issues are interconnected. A student who either does not conform, whether due to personality differences, pathology, being gifted and talented, or for any other reason, is usually treated as a threat to the instructors ability to control the classroom. Since this control is one of the primary concerns of instructors, this lends a powerful incentive to squash any nonconformity, even the most benign. The end result is that schools tend to encourage complacency and a lack of interest in education and discovery--the exact opposite of what I would consider the legitimate purpose of schooling.
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 15:16:13 +0000