I wanted to do a visual post this week, so I decided to experiment with Canva to create a week mood poster that shows some of the ideas I have been thinking this week after a forum threat that Huw initiated.
This is actually something that has been bugging me forever (well, at least since I was in uni and working in the education system). What is education for? What is the role of the school as an educational institution? Why do we need a structured education? Can we compare what is education for primary/elementary school or high education?
I have to admit, that since I am a mother this question resonates even more than before. Maybe because of my personal experience with structured education, or maybe because of my professional background, or maybe because my studies… every day I am more convinced that the education given by school is not necessary. I believe that what children need is play and experiment with their real life, not living in an artificial bubble of learning where they “only” interact with their peers (aged group) and have a curated random content that needs to learn in some specific path. Sorry, I know I can be very critical and pessimist with structured education, but I am being very general and taking a very radical side here – just to make the exercise -.
In that way, my first quick answer when asking what is education for? (elementary ed.) is saying that basically, is a place where parents can leave their children while they are working. That way children can learn what is needed to become future workers that will maintain the (wheel) system. If I have to answer what is higher education for? I would say that is the place where a tame citizen will go in order to learn more specific skills and get a certificate of course! it will allow developing their professional life. Is this pure instrumentalism, isn’t it?
If I consider myself as a feminist anti-capitalism activist, can I be part of this (educational) system that collaborates to perpetuate this system that I don’t believe? This is a very short post about all my contradictions and internal dilemmas.
- Being an outsider of the structured system (practicing unschooling) is a true way to battle the instrumentalism of the education?
- The constructivist that Hamilton & Friesen (2013) propose, can be implemented in the current system? degrees/evaluations/tests/structure, etc.
- Are these thoughts coming from privilege? I know I can afford to unschool my son, I have the resources/knowledge to give him the skills he will need in the future. Is a school, then, the only way to offer equality? Equality means homogenization?
Hello Lidia, good to read your thoughts here.
It’s really interesting – and positive – to see how play and creativity seem to be increasingly valued within early years education. Although I don’t have any expertise in the area I became interested because my son’s school made a considerable shift towards emphasising play at the point that he was enrolling. Over two years I was able to see how he and other children seemed to flourish in an environment where they moved relatively freely between different learning zones to match their interests, rather than mostly being situated in a single classroom taking a more conventional and structured approach.
Having said that, I do know some other parents – a minority, I think – who were unconvinced and felt that children should be focusing on ‘the basics’. Not that it was an either/or situation, but I guess it does show how we can have different views on what the role of education should be.
Related to this, I’m always interested to read what Kate Cowan and John Potter at University College London are up to in this area. Things like really capture the imagination:
https://playingthearchive.net/