Another Look at Organized Education

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I was stunned---and pleased---to learn about the famous Ken Robinson (Sir Ken Robinson), a very clever and insightful educator from Britain.  This gentleman is famous for looking at education from the perspective of: is it out of date?

Is our system of education out of date?  Ken Robinson says it is.  He says a lot more.  He says:
* The present system of organized education came into being in the industrial age.  (I have to agree; look at this animation based on one of his talks.  I believe it sets out his thesis briefly and tellingly, and if you want to disagree with him, this is where you would start.
* The curriculum hierarchy and organization within academe (and most definitely in the high school curriculum) has been taken from the Renaissance.  (There are worse places it could have been taken from, but still, one gets the picture.)
* Mass education is based on the premise that all students learn at the same speed; in other words, the best way to classify them is by date of manufacture, clearly an idea borrowed from industry.  Ken Robinson strongly condemns this one-size-fits-all paradigm.  (I partially agree; see below.  Some things have to be taught in a regimented way, but it is a mistake to teach everything the way you teach math and English, for instance.)
* He says that there is far too much classifying of young children as ADHD---a synonym for "Easily bored in school."  He points out a number of factors why this should be so, and he is vehemently opposed to prescribing Ritalin (and other drugs) for the purpose of making children more adaptable to a class environment.  (Again, I partially agree; the diagnosis of ADHD is a little too easily arrived at.  There are most certainly environmental factors that can be adjusted to make young children perform better in classroom environments, and, at least in Elementary School, classroom environments must come to a compromise with the needs of modern, over-stimulated-by-the-media kids who are easily bored.)
* The Arts are greatly undervalued, while the Sciences and Mathematics, and the Languages and the Humanities are over-valued.  (This is true, but hard to avoid.  Since the community funds education, by and large, it can hardly be blamed for emphasizing utilitarian skills.  If a township is going to pay for the school with tax dollars, they're going to want the kids to learn spelling and figuring, so that the damn kids can at least work in the supermarket.  Parents, too, have a say in what subjects are taught in college.)

Ken Robinson's main interest is Arts Education.  He sees modern education as a vast machine to destroy creativity in young people.  He defines creativity as the ability to have ideas that have value.  In the absence of a better definition, one has to admit that this is a good one.  Finally, the biggest statement Robinson makes:

* Mass education at present is geared towards the skills of yesterday, while nobody knows what the future will bring.  (The industrial analogy is obvious.)  He feels that a curriculum that, instead of stifling creativity (with Ritalin, perhaps) actually encourages and develops it, is the best strategy for organized education.

Ken Robinson's ideas are far-reaching, and each person ---most of all, each parent--- must decide for him- or herself how far he or she can espouse Ken Robinson's principles.  Perhaps it is time for schooling to be split into two parts: a traditional regimented schooling for part of the day, in which traditional skills are imparted, and a highly individualized schooling for the rest of the day, based on the child's interests, the family's financial resources, and special opportunities available in each locality.  At least this second part should involve parents; they can join the student in the lessons, or be part of the instruction package.  Wouldn't it be interesting to see little Katie Jane's mother (or grandmother) showing the class how to make a gingerbread house for the holidays, or a videoclip for YouTube?

However we may deplore mass-production, in some ways it makes possible our standard of living.  Nobody would want to pay for a hand-crafted automobile, for instance.  But we buy mass-produced food very reluctantly, simply because we can't afford something home-grown, or we don't know how to make a cheesecake, for instance.  So a realistic approach to a better system of education has to be based on compromise.

The founding fathers, it seems, had anticipated that a one-size-fits-all education system will not succeed in a highly diverse new republic, with citizens with highly individualistic tendencies.  In the 18th century already, it must have been clear that the liberal education that the founding fathers (for the most part) must have enjoyed, could not be foisted mutatis mutandis on the people.  I have said that a liberal (college) education was intended for the landed gentry, who did not have to work for a living.  This class has dwindled, as a proportion of the population, but it still exists.  (Instead of working, though, they have to worry for a living.  They're condemned to forever look anxiously over the shoulders of their investment advisors.)

At any rate, Ken Robinson is a breath of fresh air in the heated education debate.

Archimedes