Liberating Education: Part 1

Book titles can be very entertaining and enlightening.  Though we are not supposed to judge a book by it's cover I often do by its title.  My title, "Liberating Education" may or may not be either, however, I did want to draw attention to the word liberating.  Liberating  in this isolated phrase can be taken as a verb modifying the noun - setting education free, which of course assumes education is in some sense in bondage, or it can also be an adjective - meaning a kind of education that sets a person free.  The heart of my educational philosophy is twofold: to liberate from and liberate for. 



A brief journey down the rabbit hole will hopefully suffice to explain what we need to be liberated from before we can liberate for.  In short, we need to liberate our culture from the dominant educational system.  Liberation is necessary because the end of this education is utilitarian, monopolistic, destructive to human creativity, weakens the family, sets children against their elders, and aggressively pushes an anti-religious and materialist worldview.  I think many involved in this system are well-intentioned, work hard, genuinely care about children, and love learning.  I think the many bright men and women who come out of the system is a testimony of strong parents and teachers; but I think these cases are in spite of the system and are sign posts to the resilience and genius of the human spirit, not the system.  Now, I do not dream of defending all these claims here, however, I would like to briefly look at the roots of our current system (part 1) and offer an alternative vision (part 2).

Compulsory public education finds its roots in the late 19th century, born of the Industrial Revolution and designed to further the industrial and economic engines of society in order to bring progress.  Though this vision was in many ways noble in terms of educating all people for democratic ideals and had positive results for many, it has been carried through the the 1960's and today seems to be at a place of decay and instability (note the constant educational reforms and changes).  At the inception of our system men such as Horace Mann popularized ideas that were born in Prussia and, interestingly, were not immediately accepted here.  From what I understand this was the case because families and local communities saw the industrial model as invasive to local control.  Also, and most importantly, the intended end of this education was utilitarian as opposed to moral or religious (as the case was in New England and even the post-war boom of education.   What happened was slowly the ideas of Mann, and then, one of the most influential philosophers of education, John Dewey, took hold of the whole country.  We began organizing our schools along industrial lines, with bells and schedules, and the techniques of efficiency and management in order to produce children suited to work in an industrial society.  This was effective in many ways, especially at centralizing and nationalizing the schools of our country. The story told is, "work hard and you'll get a good job to make good money, to get things, which will hopefully buy the quality of life that can make you happy."  This story worked for a long time and many young men and women entered the world with many skills and basic knowledge necessary to be socialized.  Though I disagree with this philosophy of education at deep levels, it provided stability and opportunity for many people.  For more on why these ideas are not working today, see Ken Robinson's video, Changing Educational Paradigms. 

Now, to compare further, prior to the dominant model of education today, in the not too distant past there were no public schools, teachers unions, teaching programs and degrees, educational experts, or billions of dollars to spend on new facilities, materials, books, and programs and bureaucracies.  On the contrary, it is historical fact that America in the 18th century and early 19th was the best educated nation in the world.  For example, in 18th c. New England, literacy was over 90%.  It was also not the quasi-literacy we know of today, where college graduates may not know the first president, founding documents, or dates of the Revolutionary or Civil War.  One can support this idea of better literacy (though isolated to certain regions) with a cursory glance at a sermon by Jonathan Edwards, Puritan revivalist of the First Great Awakening during the 1740's.  Education then was about learning the truth and becoming virtuous (more on this in part 2).  Early universities like Harvard and Yale literally engraved this vision into the very stones of their institutions for generations to remember what is now occurring there is not what once was. Ironically, it is this very word of supreme importance, "truth"  is nowhere to be heard or found in discussions of education today.  Instead we hear endless discussions of new techniques.  The very nature of the current system is biased against the freedom to be inventive, creative, disciplined, and entrepreneurial.  It was this freedom to flourish, create, imagine, that was the heart of what it means to be human, and I believe is at the heart of what has made America a great country.  Unfortunately, and this is the heart of my critique here, what education has now become is nothing less that the quenching and destruction of the human spirit. I don't fully understand how and why it got here, but I do know by experience that true education, as a discussion, is now hidden behind a massive cacophony of voices clamoring for more money, more change, less parental interference, more standardized tests, and higher standards.

If education isn't for work or socialization, then what is it for?  When you break the veneer off to reveal what has been hidden, I believe a three-fold relationship will emerge that is the heart of education: a learner, a teacher, and a lesson. It is this simple and profound truth that has been lost in obsessive talk about techniques.  Consider this relationship: sometimes the learner and teacher can be the same person, alone, staring at a sunset.  Many times its a mom or dad sitting with a child and reading or talking - it's a relationship.   It is absurd to confine education to the period of 8:00 to 3:00 for 12 years, yet sadly, this is what many believe it to be.    Again, if people learned before compulsory public education, and they were educated in superior ways to today, what was education then?  The answer is so simple and inexpensive it is unbelievable to most people and a threat to those in power.  In fact if put into practice our entire political and economic structure would come crashing down.  The answer is that families and local communities, generally organized around home and hearth, nature and religion educated humans into better human beings astronomically cheaper, more efficiently, and superior to what our current models are doing.

 In summary, I have tried to sketch that education as it is now in its dominant form is deeply flawed.  It is so chiefly because the purpose is utilitarian as opposed to humanistic (in the general sense as for the benefit of humans individually and communally).  This merely materialistic end is then applied in a standardized way to masses of people in order to create individuals to function in our economy in search of material happiness.  This cuts off the deepest part of human nature's development, the sacred, mysterious, spiritual, and religious.  I also tried to point out the story we tell and believe is deeply ingrained in our society, and with the help of our system of education actually enslaves us  to the idea that things will make us happy, that the experts are saving us, that education isn't about truth and virtue, but about gaining techniques to be materially successful.  The cacophony of voices assume this same story and constantly urge the need for more money and a new technique for our times because the truth is, the millions of people aware of the problems of compulsory public education threaten it and those in power who require it.  To repeat again in summary: real education doesn't have anything to do with all the things we assume it does: buildings, books, programs, computers, every child with a laptop, aides, etc.  Education is essentially the relationship of learner, teacher, and lesson and the model that has been most successful at this relationship is a healthy family and community organized around home and hearth, nature and religion.