Last articles on the cost of universities have generated considerable interest on elementary, middle, and high school education. I wrote four articles on this subject since the beginning of these LETTERS. I want to summarize them here for the benefit of new readers.
The aim of education in Turkey at the time of Ataturk was (a) to acquire modern knowledge, to learn to think analytically and (b) to acquire a modern conception of the world.( The problem with the Conception of the World will be discussed in an other article) According to the self-taught Eric Hoffer, the purpose should be to produce “learning” people, not “learned” people. As we will see, the U.S. does not achieve any of the two aims of the Ataturk era that were the same as European aims.
American public schools are the way they are because of the teaching method of John Dewey. Around
1900 large numbers of European peasants were immigrating to the U.S. Most of them were illiterate and did not speak English. It was a big task to train them and to convert them to useful citizens. The American Public Education System was “redesigned” for a specific purpose to meet this challenge. This job was given to the philosopher John Dewey (1850-1952) who became the most influential man in Public Education., in fact, he was called “The Father of American Education”. Dewey wanted to make education “child-centered”. In his book “The School and Society“ [The University of Chicago Press, Second Edition, 1915] he said, “The mere absorption of facts and truths is so exclusively individual an affair that it tends very naturally pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no obvious social gain in success there at. Indeed almost the only measure for success is a competitive one, in the bad sense of the term….” He obviously did understand that learning is a purely individual mental process and there is no such thing as a collective learning. That apparently troubled him, because he believed in the supremacy of the society over the individual and all the other socialist failed ideas that eventually carried the socialist countries of the 20th century to destruction.
In practice, “Child-centered Education” meant that no theoretical (conceptual) knowledge was given to the child. He/she was taught practical (concrete) knowledge in form of so-called class projects, which would develop his/her “social spirit”. Thus, in stead of teaching systematically history, geography, physics, and chemistry, the teacher might, for example, talk about the preparation of woolen textiles, she can give children bits of information on the raising of sheep, the parts of the country, where sheep are raised, etc. The child sees and feels this material as part of his/her life. Hence the term, “child-centered”. Thus, the childen never get any comprehensive and systematic knowledge of history, geography, physics, chemistry, or what ever.
This system has very grave consequences. Ayn Rand, in her book “The new Left –The Anti-Industrial Revolution” [Signet books (1971) pp. 152-204] made an enlightening analysis of the Dewey System.. She said, “The perception of reality, the learning of facts, the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, are exclusively individual capacities; the mind is an exclusively individual “affair”; there is no such thing as a collective brain”. Sacrificing one’s knowledge and truth to any social pressure is what we call a lack of intellectual integrity. Thus, “the goal of the Dewey system is to stunt,, stifle, and destroy the child’s capacity to develop “intellectual integrity. Dewey encouraged learning by memorizing instead of learning by understanding.
Dewey’s system produced millions of Americans who have much practical knowledge, but are unable to think conceptually. The fact that “Johnnie can’t read” is a normal result of this system. After the Russians launched
the Sputnik, there was a revue of U.S. Education. In the 1980’s “The National Commission on Excellence in Education” was created. Their finding called “A Nation in Risk – An imperative in Education Reform” was published in 1983. It said “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well viewed it as an act of war.” Twenty six years passed since that report and nothing has changed. In competition with European and Japanese kids, ours can’t measure up. We cannot hope to stay as a superpower with an education like that. We should get rid of the Dewey system. Why isn’t anything ever done about it? It is inconceivable that a superpower that sends a man to the moon and back, may be unable to fix its own public education. It reminds me of “Brave New World”. (See Appendix) The governments under the influence of Business may not want a smart citizenry who would not swallow all the advertising garbage and would be easier buyers. Anyway, enough hard-minded kids will learn to think in spite of Dewey. Those are feeding the universities plus the foreign students who were taught to think. That deal was probably still adequate 26 years ago but it is no more valid. Business has changed. Things have gotten high-tech. Computers have invaded our country. Brave New World or not, the Dewey System must go!
To get rid of the Dewey system there are a number of things that must be done:
(1) A new curriculum must be written for the entire country for classes 1 – 12. that should be as strong as the French and Japanese curriculums that emphasize the teaching of thinking and philosophy in 12th grade.
(2) The influence of local ignorant school boards on this curriculum must be definitely prevented.
(3) The Department of Education must prepare yearly examination questions for all high schools and devise a cheat-proof way of using them that does not show the identity of the student to the grader of the paper.
(4) The schools must be judged by the percentage of successes and failures, and failing schools must be closed. Same, teachers must be judged by their success in educating their pupils.
If these things are done, U.S. Public schools can be brought to the level of European schools. Unfortunately,
to do the above four measures, one must act federally. But education is a job reserved to the states. Here, there are constitutional difficulties. These measures cannot be done without changing the constitution, and we know how difficult that is. If this nation does not want to keep on deteriorating under the stupid Dewey system and eventually crumble like the Ottoman Empire and the USSR, its Congress would find ways of fulfilling the above four conditions.
The new President-Elect Obama has campaigned on a platform of change. Education should be on top of his list, and here is a tough problem that requires his unusual authority and capabilities. I wish him much success.
A P P E N D I X
B R A V E N E W W O R L D
Aldous Huxley’s book “Brave New World” was a utopia first published in 1932. It described a society existing “700 years after Ford”, that produced its people, not by sex, but by mass incubation of human eggs (??). The society consisted of four working classes and a master class. Each class was prepared differently in the incubators., giving less intelligence to the working classes.
The TIME editor that prefaced the TIME edition of “Brave New World” in 1963 found that ”Life has imitated Huxley’s art” and many unusual ideas of the book have already been applied. Today we are going to add another one to that list.
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