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Re: Equality: Fundamental Truth, or necessary sham?

I absolutely agree with Paul that education is the key (to pretty much everything) but i also entirely disagree with his assessment of it at present. I can and need only quote it:
 
'At the present, our school system is geared towards
pumping out what I can only describe as 'drones'
(people suited to dull, repetitive and, ultimately,
unrewarding work). There is no thought given to the
future of culture, or the development of critical
thought: the student is nothing more than the
mouthpiece for the ideals of the state.'
 
Our school system (if i grant the very dubious assumption that such a concept can be identified given the variance of type and level of schools and schooling, from private to comprehensive to stana, from rich catchment areas to poor catchment areas in which the everyday practicalities of teaching method and content are wildly different, from secular to religious schools...the list of differences within the 'school system' that continually alter the ever changing government programmes is not endless but very long and getting longer) has massive problems but is far from the brave new world Paul describes.
More and more it seems to me that the media should be considered when assessing the state of our society's education system, and i will concede many parts of Paul's view if they are given with regard to certain parts of the equally multifarious media.
The decrease in methods of rote learning is an excellent example an increase in the promotion of individual _expression_ and active questioning etc etc. The fact that more and more so-called 'vocational' subjects are entering into school curriculums does not equate in any way to the production of drones, rather it marks another move away from both the outmoded German university system and the scholastic school system.
On a last and possibly rather flippant point which i hope shall not be given too much attention: it is, under present circumstances entirely questionable whether we have a state and whether that 'state' can properly said to have ideals.
 
cheers,
andy
 
 
 

 

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