Education

The aim of education should be to teach us how to think, rather than what to think.
James Beattie

I think there is a lot wrong with the way I see education in today's schools. Every teacher I have talked to complains about the government's standardized tests because the government is setting the agenda for what people should know; instead of the school district which has a much better idea of what their students actually need to know. Teachers spend so much time on the generic government curriculum that they don't get time to teach anything else that they might be an expert in and/or that their students would find more useful.

There is a school in Massechussets which fascinates me because it is so radically different from the schools we all went to, and yet it works very well. In this school, there are no classes, no tests, no grades. The students can do whatever they want all day (this is a boarding school). It is completely democratic and since the students outnumber the staff they decide almost everything about the everyday running of the school, including who the staff (their "teachers") will be. And yet most students graduate from this school at the usual time and go off to conventional universities and do very well in them.

I think the beauty of this school is really that the students are not forced to follow a standardized curriculum that may not suit them (There are stories of children who didn't learn to read until they were age 11 but as soon as they decided they were ready they caught up to their peers within a few months because they were truly ready). These kids are taught how to think because they are forced to come up with a curriculum for themselves and how and when they are going to find the necessary information. And they really do rise to the occasion.

The aim of education should be to teach us how to think, rather than what to think. What we should think is changing all the time because the world around us is changing. There is real danger in clinging to outmoded ways of thinking and doing things. But if we learn how to think, then we are able to adapt to whatever life throws at us. We have a much better understanding of ourselves and our needs and wants, and are better able to find a way to satisfy them no matter what the outside conditions.