No one has ever had a clear answer when I asked them why we should educate, but the most thoughts centered around having people understand enough to make informed political decisions. These decisions require a set of basic facts, logic, and skills, and so we should teach the them. Clear and easy enough.
But the idea is no longer possible to achieve. Some political decisions are easy to be informed of. For example, I know enough to decide on say medical marijuana or teaching evolution. Some decisions are easy to reason through even without enough information. I can reason that making the immigration process clearer and simpler would actually decrease illegal immigrants. But some decisions are both hard to be informed of and hard to reason through. Take health care. I have a vague idea of what could work. But I am no way near informed or am I able to reason through the complexities. I might eventually get there but it would take time. And it's time that we don't have.
Few of the pressing problems facing US right now are health care, the economy, the war(s), and global warming. I don't think I understand these issues enough to make informed decisions on any of them. And I don't think I have the time to learn enough to be informed decision maker. How can I vote on these issues (or the candidates who campaign based on them) informatively? I would be making a guess, maybe an semi-educated guess, but not an informed decision. Using the goal of education above, I must say the school system has failed me. Good thing I can't vote.
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if i really had to boil it down i would have to stick by my feeling that the purpose of education is more social than it is political. or, if anything, politics falls under the larger social umbrella. all idealistic notions aside, you could argue that we educate to enable people to operate in society as social beings in a way that follows some social order. i think that requires facts, logic, and skills.
ReplyDeleteif the purpose of education was simply to empower people to make political decisions this would be a very different world. i actually think it's quite the opposite - that we are not educated in the ways of politics (or with politics in mind) so that only a select few can make political decisions on the behalf of even fewer under the guise of operating on behalf of the masses. that has little to do with education. education only factors in in so far as it helps determine how far into politics you go, and i don't necessarily mean intelligence, i mean status. and even that isn't always so straightforward (i.e. the amount of money you have or the type of money you come from).
the point of the government is to govern. typically it is governing the masses. yes, you want the masses to have some knowledge of how the government works, but with limits. you want them to know enough so they can elect and re-elect individuals to do jobs that need to be done, but you don't want them to know enough about the intricacies of system so that they can't have power enough to overtake the governing body. or more plainly put, you want the masses to know enough so they can give power, but not enough to take that power away. and politics? politics is largely a game. an elaborate game played by politicians who balance appeasing their constituants with their own political party and their own career and financial interests.
(i realize i am oversimplifying, but it is for the sake of the argument.)
all one has to do is look at the health care debate, for example. it is a complicated issue, but it is complicated more by the politics than probably what you would conclude based on the set of facts and logic. it's politics.
so in this way, education has not failed you because that is not what it was meant to do. i don't believe its purpose is have people understand enough to make political decisions, in the purely political sense or in the way you mention them.
idealized notions aside, the social reasons are so that there isn't chaos. you educate people, and should educate them, so they can take in facts, external stimuli, etc. and use logic to make sense of the world so they can operate in it, and part of that requires a sense of order. i think you could argue that this is eventually tied to politics (order, governing, etc.), and that would be fair to a point, but it would still be grounded in the social.
now, giving time to the idealized notions on why we should educate...we should educate so that we all can have an understanding of the world we live in. so that we have some concept of nature, of art, of technology, of people, of everything. everyone should have the tools to at least begin to understand these things. so that we can do live. so that they can survive.