What is the purpose of education?

[robertsona]

So in my English class we finished reading a play called The History Boys a little while ago (very good play, even if some of it strikes me as outlandish). The play essentially dedicates itself to analyzing the typical dichotomy of pedagogy in today's schools, and how it affects the kids in the play who are trying to get into Oxford and Cambridge.

There are two teachers featured in the play, Hector and Irwin (I know this seems more like an advertisement for the play than a Critical Thinking thread thus far, but don't worry!). Hector teaches "learning for learning's sake". He has the kids study quotes and poems and engages in class discussions that sometimes run off into intellectual tangents--you've probably had a Hector before. He's that English teacher you loved in 11th grade or so. He's the one that really boosted your interest in whatever field of study you ended up pursuing. This is the type of teacher who turns students into full-fledged scholars; scholars into professors, etc.

Then there's Irwin. Irwin is the poster boy for pedagogical pragmatism; he's introduced into the fictional school of the play for one reason and one only: to get these kids into "Oxbridge", as it's referred. He teaches the kids simply how to take tests well, how to write essays that admissions officers will like, etc. Arguably, students who have Irwins for teachers are more likely to become Fortune 500 CEOs and the like. But at what cost? Is it worth the potential sacrifice of priceless intellectual stimulation?

What do y'all think? Hector, Irwin, both? What pedagogical model do you think best fits our world today? Is living a typically "successful" life or an intellectually fulfilling one better? Tell me what you think.

Edit: Wow, this post is a lot shorter than I thought it would be.

[Reincarnate]

You can still enjoy the intellectual stimulation of learning for learning's sake while also learning how to play the game of learning for the sake of improving your standard of life. You don't have to give up one for the other.

[Cavernio]

I feel like this could go into the thread about asian vs western parenting, because although I don't even feel that a...(omg I can't think of the word, so I'm going to say) prejudiced...representation of western parenting could be Hector, but because asian 'prejudiced' parenting is Irwin. If you have too much Irwin in your life, it could actually hinder you in the long run, when you're called upon to think for yourself, be creative, or are basically just presented with a problem that you haven't been taught how to deal with.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

You can still enjoy the intellectual stimulation of learning for learning's sake while also learning how to play the game of learning for the sake of improving your standard of life. You don't have to give up one for the other.

I've heard this argument before about the humanities, but I think it only holds for a very select few people who had been brought up with parents who could guide them through the self-learning process. I was one of the most autodidactic students at my college, and I don't think I have the discipline to, for example, self-study an entire degree's worth of art history or literature while getting a degree in something else.

The reason classes in liberal arts subjects are useful to the learning process is because there's so much room to misunderstand, misread, or get wrong the fundamentals of the subject. I knew a very talented engineering student who attempted to self-study philosophy in his last semester and instead of enlightening himself, he became a cognitive Chernobyl who would contaminate every discussion with Randian bullshit. Instead of changing him for the better, it actually made him worse simply because he didn't have a professor to tell him "no, you've actually got this enormously wrong."

As for the topic title, the truth-discovering value of liberal arts education is paramount to the development of society because we're all members of a democracy who are expected to evaluate arguments and vote on them. If we were run by an educated elite, most of the population could probably go into trade schools and be fine, but since we're collectively the rulers of our respective countries the education of the average citizen is pretty ****ing important.

[Cavernio]

"but I think it only holds for a very select few people who had been brought up with parents who could guide them through the self-learning process."

But but...how can you truly guide someone to self-educate themselves while not telling them what's right and wrong, thereby making it not self-learning at all? Paradox!

In all honesty though, I'm not sure that critical thinking is something that can be taught. The requirements for it, IMO, seem to be 1) a decent brain, and 2) the opportunity to be privvy to various sides of arguments, revolving around numerous topics (basically, exposure) and 3) the motive to ponder those arguments for yourself (or I suppose someone forcing you to ponder them would also work) and finally 4) the time required to do 3 and 4.

As far as having everyone be educated because everyone because everyone plays a part in voting for who has 'control' of our country, that doesn't seem quite right, but for me to get into that would be very off-topic. Suffice it to say that I agree with the outcome we want Arch, but I disagree as to the why.

[Kilroy_x]

tbh teaching to the test is useless if you don't absorb the material in the process. That's the only problem I have with the form of pragmatism you're mentioning. That being said, our society is incredibly classist, and people are kind of bad at assessing the quality of work/preventing subjective perceptions of others from influencing how they view the work of others and etc. Once you get into "oxbridge" you basically just have to keep up appearances and fulfill a minimum standard of work, is what I'm saying, even to get straight A's. Or at least that's how it seems to me. Then, when you get out into the working world, whoever hires you is going to do so pretty much entirely on the basis of appearances and school record (since presumably you don't have a work record yet), and they won't be able to compare you against the other, better educated people they didn't hire because; *gasp*; they didn't hire them.

I don't know, maybe this is all overly cynical, but it's the narrative I've constructed atm to explain why there are so many idiot engineers pulling at or near six figures.

[devonin]

The joys of working in the capitalist economy after school though are that at least in theory, the system should be in place that if you aren't actually competant, you just get fired.

[Kilroy_x]

Originally Posted by devonin

The joys of working in the capitalist economy after school though are that at least in theory, the system should be in place that if you aren't actually competant, you just get fired.

Right, but competency is probably a fairly mediocre standard defined less by what would be ideal or even rational to expect from people performance wise, and more by averaging what you actually get, or rather drawing the line as far below average as necessary before the act of rehiring the amount of people below the cutoff becomes more appealing than putting up with them. I don't really see companies as firing the bottom 50% of their workforce consistently. I think a standard number is actually the bottom 10%. Now imagine if, in school, being in the 11th percentile was sufficient to pass the class. Yeah.

[Without A Contraceptive]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

You can still enjoy the intellectual stimulation of learning for learning's sake while also learning how to play the game of learning for the sake of improving your standard of life. You don't have to give up one for the other.

exactly...

both approaches to teaching are important, but fostering thinking is infinitely more so than irwin's approach. learning how to write essays that fit the college admissions formula is crucial, but these banal skills should not be at the top of any english teacher's agenda. living a "successful" life as you (rbtsna) put it is extremely difficult without simultaneously living an intellectually fulfilling one. the only ceo i know personally is one of the most intelligent, creative, deep-thinking people i know.

knowing how to take standardized tests and all the other garbage may be important when you are finishing high-school and applying for college, but when applied to the "real world" they are pretty meaningless. teachers should always inspire learning for learning's sake.

[ffraxis]

basically: in order to learn at least a minimum so that when you are "working" at your job, you will do better.

technically though, if someone has more work experience, lets say, because this person dropped out grade 10 and started working, they would be the better candidate over someone who attended school.

its all about work, although reincarnate raises a point, there is a small percentage of people who do follow through, because really, with so much to learn, there is a tendency to feel overwhelmed. There is also so many "distractions" and so many areas one can focus. Really its great to be thinking about the joys of learning that everybody seems to have forgotten over the years, but what then? If someone who has devoted their life to learning, what then? Obviously they would apply this knowledge to the real world, however it divides again, because will this person apply this knowledge to benefit themselves or society (the masses) as whole? Another factor is what if society rejects the knowledge this person has come up with, because its "radical" or it upsets the norm, or what if this knowledge has already been discovered, but the person who worked hard was not aware of this? Really the whole idea of education is very questionable from lets say, an economic perspective/business perspective since you can just teach people specific things, and done, they now have an area that they can work with their entire life. Then people will argue that education increases variability when choosing a job, true, but because people tend to specialize in specific fields, they limit the variability offered. Really think about, after high-school, post secondary allows you to choose your own courses because you already have a job in mind, or at least the idea. Then this changes over time, people change preferences based on other factors and so forth. Regardless of this, the options offered are narrowed down, and then people end up working jobs that are specialized. The question is: does education help people think? People can memorize and absorb information and later apply it, using simple thinking, but innovation, which is one of the ways to become successful in any society, does education help people become innovative, or are they just winding up for a job, that requires memory, experience and incentives?

Just throwing this out there.

[Attractive]

In America, education is the process by which the state beats down youth and vigor into a lifeless pulp. We congratulate those who have had the life beat out of them, for we know they are valuable. They will do what they are told and will not question or understand the currents that carry them to and fro.

Education is a process of socialization which attacks the instincts in the most violent of ways, shaping them to fit the desires of those in power.