« Here's a child destined for coffee | Main | I Am So Jealous »
August 12, 2005
Nock's Theory of Education in the United States, Part II
(You can find Part I here.)
So, where were we?
Ah, yes. We thought we were building our system of education on sound, noble, ideals, but in fact we built them on flawed popular misconceptions of those ideals.
We looked at two of those ideals, equality and democracy. The third was that a literate populace is the best thing to ensure a free society. Here, Nock argues that the theory itself is unsound: just because a person can read doesn't mean that he understands what he is reading. A literate, but uneducated, citizenry finds itself at the mercy of propagandists, able to take in information but unable to think about it and act appropriately, or even to discern between good material and bad. So it was a nice idea, Mr. Jefferson, but it doesn't tend to work out in practice.
And so Nock concludes that there's not necessarily anything wrong with our system of education. In fact, it works very well when you look at what it is truly based on, rather than what we think it is based on. It attempts to educate every child in the same way, assuming each one is educable to the same level (and since each is not, it must educate to the level of the least educable). It attempts to allocate the same resources and advantages to every school, frowning when one school has more advantages than another.
But we know that there is something wrong with our system of education. What can we do to fix it?
According to Nock, nothing. Not only is there nothing we can successfully do, but in fact we will not do anything. We will not do anything because the changes that would have to be made would necessarily cause us to admit that 1) not all children are educable to the same level, and 2) democracy does not mean that no one should have an education that everyone does not have:
If we let go of the equalitarian idea in our theory, the democratic idea would disappear with it; for if all persons are not educable, then some persons may pretend to a distinction to which all others may not pretend, whereby education becomes a kind of class-prerogative; and this is undemocratic.
We're not, as a society, going to do that. We will not choose to do so. We would far rather choose to keep our flawed, unworkable system of education.
We're stuck.
Ever since then we've been throwing "solution" after "solution" at the problem, while leaving the real core of the problem untouched. This allows us to feel that we are doing something, while we in fact mean to do nothing.
But although we haven't addressed the problem, we have found a way to ease our situation somewhat. We have made one change that not only brings our actual practice more in line with our flawed foundations, but does away with that tricky problem of educable folks. It's obvious that not everyone is educable; however, everyone is trainable. Everyone can be trained to do something. So, all we need to do ... all we did ... is to substitue "training" for "education." We have replaced formative knowledge with instrumental knowledge.
Nock explains that the purpose of education used to be the acquisition of formative knowledge:
The intention was, moreover – and this is most important – that the character of this progress through the schools and the undergraduate college, right up to the doors of the university or technical school, should be purely disciplinary. The curricula of the primary and secondary school and of the college should be fixed, invariable, the same for all participants. There should be no elective studies. The student took what was deemed best for him, or left the place; he had no choice.
The knowledge gained in this way did two things: it trained the mind in a certain way, and it provided the student with the wisdom of centuries of thought and experience. This is formative knowledge. A mind filled with formative knowledge is well-equipped to turn to any occupation. Once through this course of study, the student might go on to higher education, or to a training academy, any number of things. For those who could get through it, this formative knowledge bred the well-educated person.
But in our equalitarian, democratic soceity, the important thing is that all people be educated. All people are not educable to the same degree, therefore all people cannot get through the course of study, the mental discipline, that imparts formative knowledge. "Traditionally," Nock says,
the undergraduate college put the whole burden of education on the student. The curriculum was fixed, he might take it or leave it; but if he wished to proceed bachelor of arts, he had to complete it satisfactorily. Moreover, he had to complete it pretty well on his own; there was no pressure of any kind upon an instructor to get him through it, or to assume any responsibility whatever for his progress, or to supply any adventitious interest in his pursuits.
Can you imagine a modern-day university employing such tactics? No, our goal is to get as many students literate and degreed as possible. And so we had to devise new tactics. We shifted the burden of education onto the teacher and the institution. We streched the realm of the undergraduate college backwards into the secondary school, to remediate college students who were not ready for college work. We began to loosen up the traditional curriculum, to offer electives and choices. And in a surprisingly short time, the typical education of an American college student did not at all resemble the typical education of a European college student. Our high schools and colleges were no longer imparting formative knowledge, because there was no longer any way they could.
So what were they doing?
In the course of this procedure there came to pass the complete obliteration of a most important distinction which several writers have of late tried to revive, myself among them … the distinction between training and education.…We are quite free to say that the vast majority of mankind cannot possibly be educated. They can, however, be trained; anybody can be trained. Practically any kind of mentality is capable of making some kind of response to some kind of training; and here was the salvation of our system’s theory. If all hands would simply agree to call training education to regard a trained person as an educated person and a training-school as an educational institution, we need not trouble ourselves about our theory; it was safe. Since everybody is trainable, the equalitarian side of our theory was safe. Since training in anything for anybody is a mere matter of money, equipment and specific instruction the democratic side of our theory is safe. Since a trained citizenry is equivalent to an educated citizenry, the patriotic aspect of our theory might have as much made of it as ever. Since, finally, opportunities for every conceivable kind of training might become abundant and cheap, in innumerable cases to be enjoyed for nothing, or nearly nothing, the parental sentiment in behalf of posterity was satisfied.
We threw over formative knowledge for instrumental knowledge. Instrumental knowledge is practical knowledge. It trains us to get a job. It trains us to perform certain tasks, and to function in certain areas. In a world where instrumental knowledge is prized, the classics have virtually no place. They are not useful. The knowledge base of the educated man of old has become impractical, luxurious.
If we really look at it, our system of education does a pretty fine job of training students in instrumental knowledge. It's doing exactly what we want it to do. All that's lacking, according to Nock, is clear thinking about the problem. We must simply let go of this idea that we're trying to give our students an education, and admit that our actual goal is to train them. We must let go of the idea that our colleges and universities function as the colleges and universities of the Old World. We should admit that they are institutes and academies, rather than universities. We should stop pretending to be something we're not, and run with what we've got.
Nock states that he doesn't believe American education will ever change. He doesn't believe we will ever recover an education that partakes of the Great Tradition (the classic authors and classic works). That's quite a depressing concept, but I'm afraid he's right.
Posted by lynx at August 12, 2005 12:19 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.caerdroia.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/386
Comments
Thankfully parents are still free to homeschool and thus provide their children with a classical education.
Nock is right Public Schools are just training grounds for worker drones. Kids are not taught to think for themselves, they are merely taught to memorize the material they need to complete a task.
Posted by: Alasandra at August 21, 2005 5:20 PM