Philosophy of education

Lookin' for some original ideas here. I'm writing a paper.
What is the purpose of education?
What is education?
What should education be?

 

the purpose of education? to teach people how to live and make a living, obviously. Teach the necessary skills for getting by. Meagain's first point hits an important point, in that education cuts out some trial and error learning (not all though, as anyone who's ever been a teenager knows, haha). Anyways, thats what school education should be about.

education is also there to teach about who we are and where we came from. This is the humanities, history, and even religion and philosophy. Some is appropriate for school, some (religion) isn't. It is about teaching kids (and adults) to be more than working stiffs, drones or pawns. It's to teach creativity and understanding, to make well rounded, informed, and able individuals.

 

wow dude.. that's like 6 years of my study you ask me to explain on the spot! Hehe.. I'll give you some more extreme views..

1. purpose of education is a way of controling youth and mold them into a character that they're supposed to be playing in society

2. education is what is being given in school.. the opposite of 'raising kids', which is done at home. Education is pre-planned and has set rules, raising kids happens more natural and on the fly

3. Education should be more open and on free base.. an extension of how parents raise their children.. schools should give kids the chance to learn from other adults, so they have a more wider experiences than only their parents can give them

blah.. this feels like work to me

Good luck.. narrow your questions though.. way way way to broad/wide

 

Thanks for the responses.
Let me try to narrow down a bit:

Is education simply an institution designed to maintain the class system?

Should teachers be given some freedom to choose what to teach, or should everything be explicitely decided by a school board...or some other body?

Should students be "protected" from certain "extreme" ideas? What types of things do don't belong in the classroom?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

 

teachers should have freedom to teach what they see fit, but not with too much bias (there's probably always going to be SOME bias). There should be standards but there has to be some flexibility in them, otherwise you risk stifling both the students' interest and the teachers' creativity.

And students should be exposed to all kinds of ideas, so they can get an understanding of what's out there. In school they can get a basic understanding without so much bias. They could learn, say, about terrorism and Islam either from Bush, or in a class room where there can actually be a discussion and deeper understanding than they might otherwise get.

Still, religion doesn't belong in school. And creationism is not science.

 

Not only does education perpetuate the class system (any rich kid can get into Yale as long as daddy buys a wing of the dorm, regardless of the plethera of smart and hard-working kids that deserve it more) but it also serves as a mechanism to keep kids from stealing our jobs. If kids graduated high-school ready to do anything but flip burgers all the white-collar folks would be feeling the pressure. Most of what you have to do in school is busy-work. They waste your time with years of it.

Real education would be children having access to any information they wanted when they wanted it, and being able to go with it. Real education would mean parents actually have to raise their children. All kids naturally want to, and naturally will learn. They can and will learn anything they can get their hands on. For example 6th graderes are better at complex things like computers than their parents. A young child can learn 6-7 languages before kindergarten with ease, where an adult will take years to pick up one. Forcing bookloads of busy work on children takes the joy and ease out of learning for them, basically giving our version of an education system the opposite result of what we think it is there for. It stifles their desire to learn.

It is up to a parent to decide what ideas are too extreme for their children. All ideas are subjective, but a child is too young to understand that (they believe anything they are told as truth) so parents need to be very involved in raising their children.

There isn't any subject that shouldn't be taught in the classroom, it is about HOW it is being taught. Facts should be tought in school. Teaching a child that people of certain cultures believe in God is one thing, that's a fact - teaching a child that God exists, not a fact. Teaching a child the democratic party platform, that's a fact - teaching a child that the democrats are the right party, not a fact.

I personally think that our educational system, as it is now, is a dinosaur and needs to die already. It has allowed parents to become lazy, children to become jaded, and our society suffers for it.

 

Education is the mindless System that millions of children are forced to go through in order to earn money to fuel their country's economy.

 

My Chem teacher always has these 'God quotes' on the board in the morning. It pisses me off that hes so ignorant. Todays was something like 'how can one look around at the world and not see the obvious evidence of an intelligent and benevolent creator' and it was by Lord Kelvin.

A couple days ago he had one that read "living in Gods image is having dominance over his land and all his creation in his command". How stupid is that? Someone who thinks they hear a voice in their head carries out commands to better suit their religious views/needs? My Chem teacher is so lame...

 

I guess what I should have said is that education conditions the young to accept their role in the class system. It teaches them to learn their place and to work towards filling their (mostly) assigned roles. I can see your point there, but I think it's a bit more insidious than that.

As for the language thing, the fact that the young can learn languages more easily and more effeciently has nothing to do with education. They are simply hard-wired to do it. (see Noam Chomsky) Most children, by the time they are three years old, have almost completely mastered their native tounge -- and in some cases, multiple tongues. This, to me, is one of the greatest miracles of evolution. As we get older, we simply lose our ability to soak up linguistic information.

Good comments, people. Thanks.

 

The purpose of education is to get ready for when you need it in a job,, emergency, etc...

and for a job.

 

Absolutely. It isn't like I think there are some big-wigs up at the top rubbing their fingers together and going "exxxcellent..."

Our schools wern't intended and formulated to be the way they have become. This happened over time as we became more of an industrial nation (moving away from agriculture) and children were no longer needed at home.

 

a teacher sits under the tree and students come by freely - i have tried this philosophy of education and like it quite well . i work for cookies .

 

a teacher sits under the shady tree andstudents come by freely . i have tried this
philosophy of education and like it quite well .
i work for cookies .

once i asked a bored of education
president what is your philosophy .
and she would not say . eh ? an
educator with no philosophy will
fail every student at the end of the
day , at the end of knowledge .

 

I have been reading an interesting essay of Ivan Illich about the "vernacular" culture, as opposed to a commodity driven society. Education and taught language are the commoditization of what used to be a communication process done in a wage-free and non-forced enviroment. The rise of industrialization is closely linked with these two and began in the 9th century with the creation of a standard language and the teaching of it to the larger population by paid teachers. Very interesting stuff and connects one of the main problems with industrial society, wage earning and commodity driven, values that need to change if we are to create a society more in line with nature and the our inherent relationship with it.

 

there's an existent natural language that all children speak from birth like a birdsong . it is peace with this language that will change society .

 

That sounds very interesting. Do you have a link or a title?

 

a~rg te klomen um na~


our natural language has only been repressed , and is our human necessity for communing with nature completely . our first necessity is to feel whole . then the life balance will be restored . tinkering with society values ? ha ! the industrial empire can play that game quite well .

 

google ivan illich vernacular values or http://www.homepage.mac.com/tinapple/illich/1980_vernacular_values.html