“For generations we have tried to make the world a better place by providing more and more schooling but so far the endeavour has failed. What we have learned instead is that forcing all children to climb an open-ended ladder cannot enhance equality but must favour the individual who starts out earlier, healthier, or better prepared; that enforced instruction deadens for most people the will for independent learning; and that knowledge, treated as a commodity, delivered in packages and accepted as private property, once it is acquired, must always be scarce.”
– Ivan Illich, 1974
Human beings are by nature curious, active and exploratory. People learn in real-life situations by problem-solving and by interacting with their environment. Learning occurs in random and informal ways. It is motivated by the needs and interests of students, therefore education should not be forced to submit to an obligatory curriculum.
– John Glazebrook
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This quote is always one that has stayed with me. In response to traditional modes of education which attempt to force information into bored brains Paul Tillich (educator) said, "The fatal pedagogical error is to throw answers, like stones, at the heads of those who have not yet asked the questions."
Bro here:
I live in a country where most children are not forced to climb the open-ended ladder. Having seen the results, I do not accept that "the endevour" (of providing schooling) has failed. Quite the contrary.
Unschooled people (as a whole) do not have a far higher will for independent learning than those who have been to school. possibly the opposite.
On a separate note, I suspect (and this is just postulating) that if all learning is motivated by the needs and interests of the students, then very little real expertise will develop. History shows us that the boundaries of knowledge are pushed by those who study and learn in a disciplined manner, taking the hard with the easy. Like solutions that exist before the problems they solve (eg lasers*), some knowledge must be gained before the student has the desire to use it to solve a problem. This could be considered an obligatory curriculum.
*Lasers were a classic case of a solution looking for a problem. They were developed before anyone dreamed about ways they are now used. It could not have happened the other way around.
I had half written my response to your comment, dear brother, but then had to go and chase James with a poo and Campbell managed to lose everything I'd done! So here goes again...
I think the quote, in its plain reading stands fine. The idea that 'more education = world a better place' cannot stand up. Otherwise the western highly educated countries would be utopias by now. In my politics classes, we used to discuss the problem of war and poverty. "Give everyone more education" was the answer from a number, and that call has been coming out since the enlightenment, but it hasn't worked yet. More schooling simply doesn't equal 'world a better place'. There are, as you know, issues of the heart to consider!
His second sentence also stands. If the purpose of education is to enhance equality, it again will not work in its ultimate form. There are divisions in society. Sure, educating a few of the people from the lower parts might bring them up. But it's not healing the gulf - it's just shifting people across it. And if everyone shifts across, another gulf will be made.
As for deadening the will for learning by enforced instruction. Didn't you ever hear this question at high school at uni: "Will there be a test on it?" If the answer was no, more than half the class went to sleep. Why don't kids want to do maths in holidays? Becuase it's seen as comuplsory, boring work.
Learning done in response to needs and interests and problem solving. The guy who invented lasers was clearly interested in them. The laser was the solution to his problem of "What if". It didn't matter that it didn't have an immediate application in the broader world. It had an application to his mind and his way of thinking. Personally, I would never never never go and invent a laser... in fact, I so didn't like science myself that I was completely unmotivated to study for my chemistry exams and as a result got 20 marks less than in everything else. REaly... the amount I use (or think about) what I learned in chemistry in every day life is laughable. However... once I got into gardening and discovered that you need to work out the ph of soil, I was motivated to go back and think "What did I learn?"
The same with nutrition in Home Ec. boring. yet once I've had a need for it, I've self-educated in ways unheard of for me previously!
As for the limited will to learn of unschooled people in your country. I respectfully submit that the culture and religion that stifles innovation has more to do with that than lack of schooling.
Besides: who sets up the obligatory curriculum in the first place? What we learn at school is so random. There's so much knowledge out there and we don't even touch on a quarter of it. A curriculum is just someone else's needs and interests. Why not mine?
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