An individual report into alternative visions of education, including views about the role of education and the relationship between education and other social institutions.
Education for Work !.
Introduction.
School was engineered to serve the economy and social order. It wasn't made for the benefit of kids and families, as those people would define their own needs. School is the first impression children get of organized society. Like most first impressions, it lasts. At the time of the education act in 1870 it was argued that the expansion of state provided elementary education was vital to Britain's economic and industrial progress.
The dynamics that make forced schooling detrimental to healthy human development aren't difficult to spot: the work in classrooms isn't significant work; it fails to satisfy real needs pressing on the individual, it doesn't contribute to solving problems encountered in actual life. .
Schools train individuals to respond as a mass. Boys and girls are drilled in being bored, frightened, envious, emotionally needy, generally incomplete. A successful mass production economy requires such a person. Our economy is managed or driven by people who believe the difference between Coke and Pepsi is a subject worth arguing about.
Tradition.
The consequences of a repetitive curriculum have still not filtered through. Most subjects taught at school-in the state and in private systems-are taught primarily because they are part of the traditional curriculum. We believe that it is important that children know about science and literature but we cannot say exactly why.
Some children just don't get it .
Children have a right to understand why they are being taught what they are taught. But even that isn't enough. The curriculum should not be built around a defence of what teachers have been trained to teach; it should be built around giving children the skills they need to know. .
What do children need to know?.