Education not a production line

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Every day, it seems, politicians and the public debate the hot-button issue of how to save our failing schools. Students are not being properly taught, it is claimed. There is too great an emphasis on tests. The tenure system allows bad teachers to remain in the classrooms. Teacher training itself is poor. Can student test scores measure what makes a good or bad teacher? Do charter schools actually succeed where public schools do not?

May I suggest that these probes are like trying to figure out how to fix broken chairs on the deck of the Titanic? The problem is that the whole educational system in place today is anchored on a faulty foundation.

It all started in the middle of the 19th century, when the industrial revolution transformed the way people lived. Society shifted from the unity of an agrarian culture to the diversity which came as manufacturing and industry took center stage.

Division of labor was introduced, creating cheaper goods and more profits. The downside, of course, was that most people could no longer be familiar with the whole picture and began to feel that their world was fragmented.

Unfortunately, the economy of the factory spread into areas where it had no business; one of these areas was education. It became more efficient to conceive of children not as wayward human beings learning and absorbing skills at different rates from their extended families, but as entities to be moved along a conveyor belt, shaped by specialists at every turn and tested at specific points to see if they were up to standard — like automobiles or shoes. The rhythm of the factory became more important than the rhythm of the heart. 

This approach has basically continued to the present day. Educational theories come and go, but often are tantamount to no more than speculation as to exactly what tests best measure the production of a better product. 

education, education policy, Point of View, Gerald Lebowitz
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