: J.E.G. Dixon
: F for Failure A Critical Examination of the Ineradicable Defects of Canadian Education
: BookBaby
: 9781483543475
: 1
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: Pädagogik
: English
: 150
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The curriculum of different 'subjects' is useless, the subjects being unrelated to each other. The subjects imposed on our pupils do not impart a knowledge of the world we live in; to prepare them to make their way in the world; to manage money; to know the system of government we live under; or teach the most basic values of life. Post-secondary degree programs are a mere repetition of the high school experience. Universities perpetrate fraud against their students in five major ways: they have forfeited their duty to determine matriculation by conceding to the schools the qualifications of admission and thus raise false expectations; they recognize the importance of concentration of study too late; there is no final examination on the whole major discipline; all courses have equal value towards degree credits, whether in Greek Philosophy or Intro Sociology, and the teaching method is the lecture, which is not teaching. The origins of the malaise are twofold: the fundamental error of introducing democratic principles into policies and practices of education, of schooling, and of teaching; and the obsession with the social policy misnamed progressivism, as the propagandist of equality, champion of mediocrity, and enemy of standards. In my re-organized schools, the early years will be given to acquiring a mastery of one's language in its spoken and written forms, the foundation of all learning. At the age of 9 or 10-it might vary more widely- pupils will be required to choose a single field of learning or work which they will pursue to the exclusion of all else. In other words, I am turning on its head the current practice of learning piles of useless and unrelated 'subjects' , and have them discover an interest, a talent, a passion, a skill, and pursue it into all the various and numerous related fields it will inevitably lead to. Work of the mind and work of the hand are treated as being equally important. There will be no examinations.

II

Like today’s pupils, I was required many decades ago to take courses in English, French, Latin, Geography, History, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. It was easy to see the utility of some of them, notably of English and French, and the futility of others.. I had no difficulty in understanding the value of Latin, because my teacher explained it well. (And here let me point out the difference between ‘utility’ and ‘value’.) Geography was merely interesting, and seemed to have no value or utility. History, as taught, was a study in boredom-until someone got his head chopped off, generally for motives we did not understand for the simple reason that the ethos or temper of the age was not explained or discussed. At least these deeds were not judged by ourmores: it is a heinous fault to judge earlier ages by later values or ideas.

Physics and chemistry were closed books to me, though matters of utter fascination to some of my friends. As for mathematics: well, arithmetic in all its functions was easy and very useful. I did well in algebra and geometry, yet from that day to this fail to understand what they are for, and the teachers never explained their use or application.

I look about me and see in Canada today what amounts to essentially the same system, namely, a curriculum of many different subjects, most of which are neither useful nor valuable, and which, as modules of learning, have no relationship to each other. So what are they for, all these unrelated and questionable areas of knowledge?

Knowledge, knowing things, seems to be the be-all and the end-all of education. It is not. Knowledge in itself has little to do with education. It is, among other things, merely an easy way for teachers and administrators to assess what a pupil has learnt.

Who knows what the capital of Canada is? Of what worth is it to know? Who discovered Labrador? Of what value is knowing it? How deep is Lake Superior? Is English an inflected language? Where was Einstein born? Who started the American Civil War? How does an oyster-catcher open an oyster? Who wrote “Ode to a Mouse”? What is the fastest bird? What and where is Vimy Ridge? What are the constituent elements of water? What is evolution? Why is the sky blue? Well, the last three questions, yes, because we need to learn the laws of Nature.

Being able to answer the other questions may be knowledge. It is not education. They are merely the content of ‘subjects’. Yet quizzes are popular, and many people are impressed by others’ vast store of general knowledge. There are popular quiz shows on television in which contestants are lined up and peppered with questions on every topic under the sun, and the winners, the people who demonstrate the vaster store of knowledge, win huge cash prizes and are ogled with awe and admiration by an uncomprehending public. I say ‘uncomprehending’ for the simple reason that the contestants, while they may know a lot of facts, are not therefore necessarily educated, or even learned or intelligent. They simply have their heads filled with masses of information.

The same may be said of spelling-bees. Young schoolchildren compete every year for prizes in the correct spelling of words. We will not dwell on the curious fact that many of the words foisted on the youngsters are so strange and bizarre as to make of the competition a farce: the fact is that a spelling ability is no guarantor of a sound knowledge of the English language.

The subjects imposed on our pupils do not impart to them a knowledge of the world we live in; they do not prepare them to take up an occupation and to make their way in the world; they do not enable them to understand the importance of handling and managing money, the principles of household economy; they have nothing to say about the system of government we live under; and they do not teach the most basic values of life. If one aim of this kind of schooling is to help us to develop our memory, that is no mean thing. But at what a vast cost in wasted time! All these subjects have little bearing on the development of the intelligence, of the ability to think and to question, which it seems to me should be one of the two primary purposes of education.

Our studies, and the current