The problem with education is religious
Reading the previous post about higher education made me a bit more aware of how education worked. Given that, my sociology teacher said something very interesting today. While he was handing out the exams, he asked about the marks and once he proved by show of hands that the highest grades went to women, he simply repeated a few times until fade out 'Typical".
In a world of equality shouldn't this word never surface when it comes to something as trivial as educating the masses? So I pondered and was a bit angry at the situation. If we constantly observe women as having the higher grades, then couldn't we draw the conclusion that the education system isn't actually oriented to properly educate our males? For years now I've been constantly hearing about research on education, and I fear we'll never change our ways.
Why?
Well, I got to thinking about the origins of school and realized that schools were originaly kicked off the ground by the help of religious groups. And it does make sense to think so, when looking at a church ceremony and school in parallel I realize how twin looking the two are. The most primitive way of teaching masses? Get on top of the mountain and show the people below how things work.
I also have to realize that having drastic changes in the way we educate people will come at a harsh cost and won't be accepted widely. After all, religion still hangs on the rope. It is my belief that the way education is taught today is still too close to our animalistic ways, and since we see ourselves as such powerful and intellectual 'beings' then why not use all this might to create a much better, appropriate and actually beneficial system?
Of course, since I always enjoy pointing out problems and rarely solutions, here's a few things that could help:
- Practice makes perfect: Actual field research.
- Goal oriented classes. This can be seen in primary schools: 1st grade learns how to write, second learns how to write better, third learns mathematics, fourth, etc...
- Classes revolve around the students
All three points could be elaborated upon a lot more.
Still, the problems that can be seen in our system is quite apparent, from the disgusting display of arrogance on the teachers part, to the very narrow minded administrations.
I guess religion isn't dead yet, but I can't wait to slice it's belly open and hang it with it's own intestins!
2 Comments:
Very interesting mini-essay. I think you're on to something here.
I'm afraid I must partially disagree.
I believe the first real schools were formed in acient Egypt, by the pharaoh (did I spell that right?) to teach his many many offspring the basics of science at that time (like that the earth is flat, and dont go too far or you will fall off). Then, the Jews doctrinated education as a way of spreading the message of Moses, who was spreading the message of God. Then, in acient Greece, religion was once again removed from teaching, and mostly philosophy, no wait, a methodoligy for thought was passed on by the institutions (as well as mathematics and some sciences). I would like to point out, trivialy, that this was performed in the nude. Then, the Romans didnt really go to school, and were mostly home ghrown. Fianlly, after the Dark ages, during which all teaching was reserved to monks and priests, schools began to appear to teach the religion to the masses (also accelerated by the invention of the printing press). These schools soon evolved to have less and less religion and more and more science and philosophy. They would pave the way to universities, whereas the lower education (what we now call grade and high school) was still reserved to religious orders, and the very rich.
Now, with the begginings of colonisation, the Missionaries started to build schools to indoctrinate the masses of the "lower " civilisations that were met along the way, on the path to total global domination.
This brings me to my point, that only the schools that were limited in scope to pure and utter submission were ever really the type of schools you are refering to. Universities and Colleges mostly limit their religious affiliations to maximise the scope of what they are teaching. It is essential to remember that religious teaching (in schools) will only serve to limit the maximum amount of knowledge transmited, as most science and litterature seems to go against religious beliefs.
Now, as for your suggestions, I absolutely disagree with the last point, regarding the classes revolving around students. I think that if classes revolve around students, too many people would want to gradute to higher learning. This is already becoming a big problem. There is virtually no way to filter out the stupid anymore already, what with all the warnings and sueing going on today, and the education system allows too many to go further and further because they beleive that that (not a typo, I meant to repeat that) is the right thing to do. But at this rate, I will have an electrical engineer serving me fries with my burger because there are a hell of a lot less people needed to do electrical engineering than to flip burgers. And we also risk the possibility of more and more incompetance making it to the top of the ladder, which can only hurt in the long run.
That is why I beleive that the student should be given the toughest time possible in school, so that some form of filtering of the morons is present.
The other two points are absolutely valid as far as I care.
But thats only my opinion...
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