What Is School For?

CuddleDuncan

What is school for?

I'm talking about primary and secondary school here, or whatever it's called wherever you are. From the ages of around 5 to 16-18. (I'm not talking about tertiary education at 18+, which I know Americans sometimes refer to as "school".)

What is its purpose? Why do we, as a society, insist that our children go there?

I work in education, and this is a question that I have been considering for a while. And which many of my students ask me.

DaringSprinter

I think the idea is that it should give the next generation a shared knowledge base.

In practice, its main function seems to be teaching the next generation to work unreasonable hours plus overtime. ...In America, anyway. Can't speak to other countries.

_marC

Primarily to teach basic problem solving skills, but getting social skills with peers is a good reason too

SunsetSnuggles

To temporarily memorize information so you can pass tests for things you'll never use in real life. Schools should be teaching interpersonal skills, mental health awareness, respect, autonomy, and empathy.

~ Sunset Snuggles

JohnR1972

I can’t speak for other countries but in the US, our school system is an extension of the industrial revolution and mass production. Children are sorted into “batches” by age then progress through the assembly line together from one grade to another unless one is “defective” and has to be “reworked” by repeating a grade.

The goal of American K-12 education is not to create creative or critical thinkers, it is to create useful employees who know how to follow instructions. Compliance and conformity are prioritized over individual needs of the students. Everyone starts the school day at the same time, changes classes at the same time (when the bell rings), everyone eats lunch at the same time - perfect training to get someone accustomed to work on a factory assembly line.

I highly recommend the 2015 book “Excellent Sheep” by William Deresiewicz, a former professor at Yale University. His book focuses more on higher education but he addresses the themes I outlined above in much more detail.

JohnR1972

And just to clarify, I am not blaming the teachers for this situation. The US Chamber of Commerce and the state Chambers of Commerce have been influencing education policy for decades to get schools to produce more of the type of graduates they want to hire - those smart enough to follow directions and compliant enough to not question those directions.

sunnysideup

I think it's to teach discipline and responsibility and obedience, read, write, communicate, and preparation for college. And to have some sense of culture - understand basic history, literature, art, an understanding of what math is, some knowledge of science.

I think on critical thinking it kind of fails. It just filters for people who are good at paying attention to bookwork, reading comprehension, and memorizing things. Other skills are not so grown unless the student is active in clubs or extracurricular projects, but this is not most students.

Smart people learn they can be very lazy to get by, which hurts them later in life. Those who don't have the skillset for bookwork are left with reduced self esteem.

A huge skillset learned through school is the ability to socialize - but seems some people get damaged here. I wish schools would offer more practical classes like relationships, safety, automobile troubleshooting, an accounting/finances/tax class. Maybe more vocational classes for those who want to work when they graduate.

achetocuddle

@JohnR1972 Inclined to agree and thanks for the book recommendation.

CuddleWho

There's a book The Case Against Education. The author argues that the main utility of education (and he's talking about both through high school as well as higher education) in society is actually as a certification of students' intelligence, work ethic, and conformity. It's been a while since I read it, but as I recall he claims that education actually does a pretty poor job of increasing students' knowledge or critical thinking skills or socializing skills or anything else, compared to what they'd get if they just lived their lives during their youth doing something else.

I am sympathetic to this argument. I used to be involved in higher education, and I am pretty pessimistic about its value.

TheFunCartel

Education is designed for those who can’t employed (teachers etc).

Minestrone101

Sorry for the late reply. I had my 10 years away from the Oscar's to reflect.

School is good for so many things: the top ones include literacy and teaching you how to think.

Through reading and engaging w texts and different subjects, your overall level of comprehension improves. While many people can read, not everyone has the literacy to decipher a news article or the literacy AND critical/skeptical thinking skills to read and watch material on the internet and question or critique its validity.

You may think basic schooling is useless, and while it can be improved (eg. - Asian countries blow US grades and standards out of the water and Finland has the best elementary programs in the world w no homework and lots of recess), students still learn good material and transferable skills: core subjects, basic reading and arithmetic, a decent idea about how the world works (inventions, history, the Pythagorean theory, Darwin, etc.), how to write a paper (directly related to how to write a cover letter or memo), or the grit and creativity to complete a project. Parents found during the pandemic how sucky it was to teach their children- bc its hard and takes a lot of training and planning.

Many people with lower or no education end up forced to work jobs that they don't like (or that can get old and repetitive) at wages that are below most careers that are offered that require a bachelor degree . I don't mean to be elitist, but most pple when they're young want to be a rock star , fly to the moon, win a court case, or do something to impact the world- if you don't have the skills to study and pass the bar exam or the MCAT, etc., then you might end up doing something you hate.

Malcom X said education is the passport to the future. Why else were slaves and former slaves were barred from reading and learning? WEB Dubois and Frederick Douglas had their opinion about higher education (Dubois was a professor at Harvard) vs. Trade School (Tuskegee Institute first taught blue collar work like carpentry and brick laying to facilitate social and socioeconomic progress without rocking the boat).

Education, and more importantly reading, opens the mind to new possibilities- if you had been on a resort in Jamaica or a road trip up and down Coastal Highway 1 or backpacking in Europe, you have education partly to thank - that it gave you the vision to do something good for your spirit and helped you chase dreams or seek experiences that you otherwise wouldn't have thought of.

Sadly, the reverse is true :

• the school-to-prison-pipeline : those who performed poorly in school by about the 3rd or 4th grade were statistically destined to be locked up - truancy and poor grades leads to low self- efficacy, unemployment after graduation, and eventually crime.
• the 30,000 word rule: kids with well-educated parents tend to have a vocabulary of 30,000 more words than their peers who have less educated parents by the age of 3.
• PROGRESA, a public program in Latin America that started in Mexico, effectively reduced child labor, increased the socioeconomic level of families, reduced poverty, and spawned healthier families. The formula: families received a monetary subsidy, free medical check ups, and nutritional assistance if their children attended the school year w 75% attendance or more. On average, students stayed in school longer (7th or 8th vs. 3rd or 4th grade dropout rates) and this program is cheaper than pure welfare.

So yeah, I'm a big proponent of public education. It's nor without its flaws. I'll also post a diagram to address the drudgery and root memorization and repetition that does characterize early childhood education- one reason why Mark Twain hated it!

Minestrone101

The order of learning from simple and root repetition to creativity and original work.

Minestrone101

What is school good for?

Socialization.

RadiantHugs

I can't possibly be more eloquent then the late Sir Ken Robinson on this topic. So here is the link to his TED talk, in fact the most popular one given: https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity?language=en

In theory, school is for imparting critical thinking skills, and for imparting skills to function and become a successful, productive member of society.

I'm afraid the modern version of school fails miserably at both of those. What school and college has become is a way to get a rubber stamp so you could go to a prospective employer and prove you achieved a certain minimum standard when it comes to reading, writing, and technical competency. Beyond filling that narrow purpose, it is not wise to have any more expectations from it.

marcustanaka

@cylee1180 said it best.

I've yet to meet someone who has immigrated from the third-world country who questioned the importance of school. Questions like this come when people take their education for granted. Take away money, power and influence and THEN let's talk about the need for school/education.

GreatHornedOwl

@SunsetSnuggles The goal of education is, or at least should be to teach critical thinking skills. That should not cause students to be forced to memorize huge amounts of useless junk. Who cares what year the Magna Carta was signed. It just isn't important. What is important, is knowing what the Magna Carta was, how it came about, and how it affected the next 800 years of western civilization.

I'm a retired electronics engineer, which is one of the most mathematical of the engineering fields. In college, I studied Calculus, Differential Equations, Partial Differential Equations, Linear and Matrix Algebra, Vector Analysis, Boolean Algebra, and probably a few more that I can't think of right now.

One might think that I'm good at arithmetic. One would be wrong. I'm terrible at arithmetic. I managed to get through elementary school without memorizing the multiplication tables. I haven't memorized them yet, and I don't intend to.One of my favorite professors in college, was a Dr. Axelrod. I think that his favorite saying was "When solving an engineering problem, it is permissible to think. All of his exams were open book. He didn't care one bit how much we might have memorized. He cared only that we knew how to apply what we had learned. Every one of his exams would contain at least one problem that we would look at and think Huh? It would completely different from everything that we had ever thought about before. However, we could be absolutely certain that we knew everything that we needed to know to solve that problem. To this day, I can still remember some of those problems.

The courses that I took from him were Feedback Control Systems, and Analog Computers. However, he wasn't just teaching about Feedback Systems and Analog computers. He was teaching us how to "Think when solving an engineering problem." And, that should be the goal of education. More so today, than at any time in the past, there is very little value to memorizing a bunch of stuff that can be easily looked up, If we haven't learned to think about that stuff, then memorizing it is of zero value.

UCpaaHVg6u0

Having lucked out with parents who passed on their skills and values, and having dedicated and inspiring teachers, I still managed to screw it up for my early years. Eventually I took control of my life and decided that my education is what I decide it will be. I think many people in the world would kill for the opportunities that so many casually discard, like it's a burden. School is just the acquisition of a set of tools to enable lifelong growth. The tools are not multiplication tables, or noun declensions, or periodic tables. The tools are confidence, inquisitiveness, and the ability to tie disparate ideas together in a synthesis.

RadiantHugs

Education is designed for those who can’t employed (teachers etc)

@FunCartel I'm not a teacher, but if this comment of yours was meant to be funny, it falls pretty flat and way below the belt. There is nothing funny about it.

I'm afraid that It's an unfortunate comment on our society that teachers get paid way less than the value they deliver. Not all of my teachers were great or memorable, but the handful that actually cared at a time in my life when I was an unteachable brat, I owe my life to.

Minestrone101

Teaching, restaurant management, telemarketing, professional chef, navy seal, prez of the US have got to be some of the hardest jobs in the world.

TheFunCartel

@CuddlesByDeep Thank you for for being so judgmental, always being eager to give a lecture on something you aren’t even sure is a joke, and being ignorant of a George Bernard Shaw quote I was obviously playing off. I suppose asking what I meant never occurred to you. I learnt that thru my edumahcashun that I shoold ask first.

RadiantHugs

I learnt that thru my edumahcashun that I shoold ask first.

Okay good. You are drunk. Carry on then.

TheFunCartel

Not drunk as I rarely drink. But thank you for another unfounded supposition.

RadiantHugs

The George Bernard Shaw quote is "Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach." That one actually is funny. Your distorted version of it is neither interesting, nor funny.

TheFunCartel

@CuddlesByDeep Who said I meant it to be funny? If you knew anything about me (you don’t) you would know that I do not agree with Shaw’s quote. You chose to be judgmental rather than ask yet again. However, it was interesting enough that you commented twice on it. But carry on with your assumptions and judgements if it makes your ego feel good. I will engage no more on this matter. But I am sure you will.

The George Bernard Shaw quote is "Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach." That one actually is funny.

BTW, Shaw’s quote is not funny. It has been recognized for over 100 years now to be disparaging about teachers. That is telling you find it funny. And I am well aware of what Shaw’s exact quote was and the play it is from which you can Google that like you did the quote.

JohnR1972

@cylee1180 @GreatHornedOwl
Thank you both for your thoughtful contributions to this thread. Both of you really added to the substance of this discussion.

TheFunCartel

The goal of education is, or at least should be to teach critical thinking skills

@GreatHornedOwl I agree wholeheartedly. When I was feeling a bit down in grad school at one point I asked my favorite professor in class one day “What is the point of all this education?” He simply said “Question everything”.

Unfortunately, education today has been politicized, standardized and gutted of funding. Thinking, civics and creativity is slowly being siphoned off in the name of homogenizing the process of education so everyone will perform well on testing that is tied to government funding. Questioning the system is blasphemous and not encouraged.

Because of this I left teaching at the University level 30 years ago and it was the best decision I ever made. Gone is the uncertainty of job security, having to constantly play politics, and the general malaise that educators feel when they are the last consideration in a business that is education. And it definitely is a business now.

DaringSprinter

I think the question of what school is for is a bit open-ended.

What it's for conceptually—that is, what the general idea of school is all about—may differ greatly from what it's actually used for (and that, naturally enough, will vary from country to country, and possibly even school to school).

@GreatHornedOwl's experience with Dr. Axelrod sounds darn near ideal to me. Working by rote is no way to build a strong and flexible intellect.

Excellent for building mindless drones, though.