What is education?
Posted By Marc on February 22, 2010
For the past 4 days, I have been involved in a rather intense discussion over at the Small Wars Council on “What is education?”. One of the truly nice things about the discussion is that it immediately started off at a fairly “high” level – i.e. talking about philosophy and effects of differing systems of education.
Talking systems
While the overall discussion centers on Professional Military Education, that focus has only served to highlight problems in all forms of higher education. Most particularly, the problem of immediacy vs. long term effects or, to use another version, the commodification of education.
Educational systems do not spring sui generis; they reflect, refract and intensify socio-cultural traits that are operating in the broader society. Thus, for example, Dewey’s educational reforms are perfectly in keeping with both the Fordist production system, the development of scientific management and the deployment of large, conscript militaries which require more than impressed cannon fodder.
The system of Professional Military Education (PME) in both Canada and the US is also extremely “conservative”, much more so than the learning that takes place in the field during current conflicts. This should not surprise anyone who bothers to think about it; it is actually quite necessary as a safety measure for society. At the same time, and especially if a society is involved in a war, that inherent conservatism can lead to significant difficulties, not the least of which is when learning in the field leads to totally different experiences from learning in the classroom.
Dewey’s educational system was, as I noted, part and parcel of the Industrial Age. Unfortunately, we are not fighting Industrial Age opponents at the moment, and the differences in interpretation between the field and the classroom are starting to have a deleterious effect on both. It is time for the military, in both Canada and the US, to start moving further towards an Information Age system of education.
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I’d go so far as to say virtually all educational streams in both Canada and the United States are not equipping students, or rather, citizens with the breadth of knowledge required to compete in the New Economy (I really hate that term, but I think you know what I’m referring to with it). The more I teach the more this becomes apparent. I think that a large part of this simply has to do with a confusion over what education is or what we want it to do or what it should do. Perhaps the difference between now and the initial institution of Dewey’s educational policy was that there was an underlying accepted goal of the system and what it was supposed to produce. Now, between the public education system, the expectations of students and their parents, universities and corporate firms, there is implicit discord in expectation and interpretation of what educational systems are supposed to enable people to do.
Hi Greg,
I’d agree with that, although there was a lot of fighting against Dewey and his “reforms” as well. I was chatting with Judith last night, and I described the current, public education system as the degenerate end state of Dewey’s vision; the inherent, reduction ad absurdam of what he set out to produce. And, as far as producing citizens is concerned, as far as I can see, that isn;t what is being “produced” – we are producing consumers.