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February 24, 2006
Gifts and Talents
http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2006/02/im-not-really-talented-and-gifted-i.htmlDr. Helen has a post pointing out some of the idiocies inherent in today's American public schools. It's an easy task, I grant you, but the reality is that the schools are doing exactly what we, as a society, have asked them to do. Yes, even the dumbing down of language, the compulsion to conform to an artificial norm, the arbitrariness, and the pointless bureaucracy are essential parts of our public school system's ability to do its job.
There are, fundamentally, four kinds of education (not, as Mark Twain noted, to be confused with schooling): how to live, how to follow, how to lead and how to do a trade.
How to live is going to be learned by any person other than the severely mentally disabled; this is stuff like how to get food, how to buy things in a store, and so on, and we learn it as a natural part of living, to at least some degree. It would be nice if we all taught our kids things like fundamental economics — balancing a checkbook and so on — because the public schools don't tend to teach these skills. Still and all, it's impossible not to learn the names of colors, how to count, basic grammar and so forth unless you are disabled in some way.
Our school system is geared to teaching how to follow. It was, after all, based on the Prussian schools that were designed to create soldiers, so that's not really surprising. We teach people to read and write at at least a basic fluency, how to follow orders, how to keep to a schedule, how to show up, how to accomodate to arbitrariness and abnormality, and how to value themselves based on others' opinions. We teach them how to be content with their lot, and how not to rock the boat. We teach them the consequences of falling outside the norm, rocking the boat, or being different. We teach them our public societal values, and we do it very, very well.
There is still a rump system for teaching how to lead, although it is vastly atrophied. Much of what is left is in certain colleges, but the doctrines on display very publicly right now at Harvard have driven much of that out of even the college level. Classics, history, languages, biography, rhetoric and so forth are not really taught, except by certain schools and certain homeschoolers, in the US. Mentoring is critical here, and there is no place for that in public schools, and little place for it in undergraduate colleges.
Trade school is still available for certain trades, but in most cases we've moved that into college (journalism, engineering, and so on) or on the job training. There is some specialized training, of course, for things like art education (particularly music lessons) provided through private instruction.
Our schools are doing exactly what they were intended to do: equalizing the vast majority of people at a level consistent with holding down a job in our system. The problem is that the idea of education as a singular body of knowledge/skills, combined with the essential monopoly of government-provided education, means that we are, and have been for about a century, leaving everything other than that minimum to chance. Many of the holes this leaves are actually plugged in community college continuing education classes, which tend to focus on life skills, learning how to lead in small ways (assertiveness training comes to mind), broadening trade education and so forth.
I suppose that an ideal system that could be implemented in a nation-wide system would have everyone follow the same basic education, regardless of all factors, up through about age 12 or 13. That's long enough to learn to read and write, how to do everyday math up through early algebra (figuring out who pays what on a complicated restaurant bill, or whether you have enough gas to get to the next gas station or need to stop now), and to learn what your interests and options are. At that point, those people who were gifted enough to learn to lead would be sent to a separate system for that, focusing on a rigorous classical education. Those who have special skills or interests could go into apprenticeship to learn a trade. The vast majority would continue to be schooled as they are now, and could start into the leadership or trade systems later if they developed the desire and ability for that.
But as that would require that we realize as a matter of public policy that everyone is not exactly the same in their intellectual abilities (as we generally recognize for other talents), I don't expect it to happen.
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Comments
Much truth in this.
I would expand "learning to live" to include learning about basic moral, pyschological, and philosophical truths as well. Not the abstract or theoretical things, but the components of human life above the merely physical. Some of this might also be in "learning to follow" (e.g. learning what society demands of us) but there is a core component which is separate (answers to the question of "how do I live as a fully functioning human person").
When I saw your proposed solution at first I thought, "Oh great, the German system where everyone is sorted at age 12 and their destiny is pretty much written in stone." Which of course creates an elitism which doesn't allow enough for people to "wander" before settling into their chosen vocation. But a closer read quieted that fear, since you'd propose sorting only those who essentially self-selected towards learning to lead or a trade.
That's actually a really great idea. If I know at 12 that I really, really want to repair cars, not just as a hobby but as my life's passion, why shouldn't I be allowed to gain hands-on, advanced training in that? If I have a real passion for devouring the classics, why shouldn't that be nutured?
I agree that part of our problem is that we think too small. We try to cram all of learning into a small box labelled "school" and cram that into an even smaller box labelled "the school curriculum" and make that somehow as standard as possible for everyone.
While the desire that everyone has an equal ground makes sense, this should be done by the end of primary school. Then, as you say, it makes sense to begin openning up the possiblities.
As you say, however, it would require facing truths we don't like to face. I think a robust school voucher system might work here, simply because it would allow parents and students to start making those choices, and teachers who want to offer those choices to start offering them, without forcing the system as a whole to acknowledge the hard truths.
Posted by: Dwight in IL at February 24, 2006 11:53 AM
I went to some of the most unimaginably exclusive schools- a top private school in one of America's largest cities, followed by an exclusive liberal arts college and topped off by 'trade school'
masters degrees at two highly distinguished research universities. And I can't call myself educated.
It is no wonder our political and socio-moral life is so debauched. We are a nation of savages who haven't a clue about western civilization or the millenia of intellectual traditions we have abandoned.
Posted by: Josh at February 24, 2006 3:40 PM