Four Convenient Myths of Education
There are four main myths of modern education:
It is this last one which irritates me the most; the first three can be passed off, explained away, or excused partly on the basis of administrative concerns (more about which, later). However, if a person can learn many subjects from different teachers, why can't a person teach many subjects to different learners?
I think that only the absence of hard work, cognitive effectiveness, and communications skill might be obstacles to the ability to teach any subject well. This absence, however, should not be the case in anyone who has graduated from the system of education in which he or she is deployed to teach. After all, hard work, thinking and communicating are three basic traits all systems should imbue the student with in ANY system.
The main reason, going back to the other three myths, is that of administrative departmentalism. Administrators are happy to divide people into neat groups, in what is called a Fordist arrangement. This form of specialisation is economically tidy. It is also efficient but not effective, because it ring-fences knowledge in a world that requires transdisciplinary prowess.
And that brings me back to the idea of putting administrators in charge of systems. About two millennia ago, Paul of Tarsus, in a letter to the church at Corinth, spoke at length about spiritual gifts and the building-up ('edification') of the Church as a whole (you'll find this in chapters 12-14 of the First Letter to the Corinthians). He went so far as to rank the gifts of the Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 12:28).
In that ranking, he placed the gift of apostleship first; that is, the ability to establish and provide strong foundations for an organisation. Prophecy was second; that is, the ability to look forward and provide direction for an organisation. Teaching was third; that is, the ability to provide education and disseminate knowledge relevant to the organisation and its goals. These were the three major, numbered gifts.
He then listed as subsidiary gifts the following: wonder-working, healing, helping, administration, speaking in tongues — in that order. Indeed, he spent all of chapter 14 of that letter pointing out that the gift of speaking in tongues is of the least importance, especially if no interpreter is present or no interpretation is provided.
This is a key to breaking up the myths of education. Good education is provided by establishing firm cognitive foundations, mapping a way forward, and teaching each person to find their way through the map based on the principles earlier established. Mass education, like Fordist mass production and mass food provision, has corrupted good taste. Or as Paul pointed out in chapter 15, "Bad company corrupts good character."
In the case of an impoverished state in which paucity of resources forces standardisation or 'optimal' resource allocation, perhaps the first three myths have to be supported. But whomever aspires to be a teacher, that person should take a good hard look at the idea of specialisation and realise that teachers can, and should be able to, teach anything.
All it takes is sufficient preparation, time, and effort. And of course, if you're that teacher, bear in mind that no matter what language you think you're speaking, it's a good thing if your students understand what you're saying.
- That all students of the same age should be in the same school level or class.
- That school should be timetabled.
- That students should have streams, tracks, or fixed subject combinations.
- That teachers should specialise.
It is this last one which irritates me the most; the first three can be passed off, explained away, or excused partly on the basis of administrative concerns (more about which, later). However, if a person can learn many subjects from different teachers, why can't a person teach many subjects to different learners?
I think that only the absence of hard work, cognitive effectiveness, and communications skill might be obstacles to the ability to teach any subject well. This absence, however, should not be the case in anyone who has graduated from the system of education in which he or she is deployed to teach. After all, hard work, thinking and communicating are three basic traits all systems should imbue the student with in ANY system.
The main reason, going back to the other three myths, is that of administrative departmentalism. Administrators are happy to divide people into neat groups, in what is called a Fordist arrangement. This form of specialisation is economically tidy. It is also efficient but not effective, because it ring-fences knowledge in a world that requires transdisciplinary prowess.
And that brings me back to the idea of putting administrators in charge of systems. About two millennia ago, Paul of Tarsus, in a letter to the church at Corinth, spoke at length about spiritual gifts and the building-up ('edification') of the Church as a whole (you'll find this in chapters 12-14 of the First Letter to the Corinthians). He went so far as to rank the gifts of the Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 12:28).
In that ranking, he placed the gift of apostleship first; that is, the ability to establish and provide strong foundations for an organisation. Prophecy was second; that is, the ability to look forward and provide direction for an organisation. Teaching was third; that is, the ability to provide education and disseminate knowledge relevant to the organisation and its goals. These were the three major, numbered gifts.
He then listed as subsidiary gifts the following: wonder-working, healing, helping, administration, speaking in tongues — in that order. Indeed, he spent all of chapter 14 of that letter pointing out that the gift of speaking in tongues is of the least importance, especially if no interpreter is present or no interpretation is provided.
This is a key to breaking up the myths of education. Good education is provided by establishing firm cognitive foundations, mapping a way forward, and teaching each person to find their way through the map based on the principles earlier established. Mass education, like Fordist mass production and mass food provision, has corrupted good taste. Or as Paul pointed out in chapter 15, "Bad company corrupts good character."
In the case of an impoverished state in which paucity of resources forces standardisation or 'optimal' resource allocation, perhaps the first three myths have to be supported. But whomever aspires to be a teacher, that person should take a good hard look at the idea of specialisation and realise that teachers can, and should be able to, teach anything.
All it takes is sufficient preparation, time, and effort. And of course, if you're that teacher, bear in mind that no matter what language you think you're speaking, it's a good thing if your students understand what you're saying.
Labels: 1 Corinthians, Economics, Education, Odd Thoughts, Resources, Spiritual Gifts
etched with acid at 4:43:00 pm
6 Comments:
I don't agree entirely that one person can teach every subject, if only for reason of content mastery.
I'll stick with mathematics, since it's familiar territory for me. All along you've been asserting that mathematics, like theology, starts off from assuming some axioms and making repeated use of modus ponendo ponens to arrive at theorems. True in principle, but a pain in the ass in practice.
What students should take away from learning mathematics is, firstly, the use of reasoning according to accepted logical rules (as described in the paragraph above) to arrive at conclusions. Secondly, an appreciation of the ability of mathematics to solve problems - what Wigner called the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics - as well as proficiency in the actual manipulation of mathematical symbols to solve problems which they might encounter in day-to-day life. And thirdly, an appreciation of some of the structure that underlies algebra and geometry.
Without specialised knowledge - the kind one learns at A-levels or IB but forgets soon after the test - the second objective cannot be met as problem solving cannot be demonstrated except in the most trivial of instances. Also, the third cannot be met unless the teacher's knowledge of mathematics includes a certain amount of real analysis, topology and abstract algebra, topics which are normally covered at university level.
This just for mathematics. Would you demand of a teacher that he learn every subject at university level, whether on his own or in a formal setting?
I think you are setting an unreasonably high bar. How much do you think you need to learn in order to teach a subject? I'm quite certain that you're still thinking in GEP terms.
At the same time, my point implies that you can teach geography. Admit it. Or physics. Or chemistry. Or economics. All the way up to A-level if you were forced to do so. How much university-level stuff would you need? And why?
Come off it, NBL. I'm talking teachers, presumably in classes before university level, not academic professors.
How many humanities teachers can do long division?
How many science teachers can explain why long division works?
I think none of that is necessary to teach long division. Don't go into the ontological aspects. Re-read my argument. My argument is against teachers specialising.
I can do long division. I also assert that the sciences are a narrow subset of the humanities and that mathematics is an even narrower subset, based on empirical evidence.
For example, have you ever wondered why you can get a BA or BSc in Mathematics, but seldom a BMath?
My argument is that because of limits on how much a person can know (imposed by brain capacity, time taken to learn, or some other constraints), specialisation is a necessary evil.
I agree that you can teach other subjects at a level sufficient to answer exam questions. Which is what I was trying to get by bringing up long division. Someone who is familiar with the process can drill a student until the student can do it perfectly. But unless that someone took the time to think about the decimal place-value system, it would not be apparent why writing and moving some numbers around would give the right answer. (Did you learn how to take square and cube roots by hand? That mumbo-jumbo depends on a little-taught bit of calculus.)
I don't know how you view mathematics. To me it's a lot more than a collection of recipes to get from a bunch of numbers to another bunch of numbers - which, unfortunately, is how many of my non-math-teacher friends view it. And I am sure they view their subjects in different ways than I do.
And my university gave out BSc's in Literature. :)
The view does indeed count, but there are many ways to the objective. Of course you would see things differently; a topologist would also see things differently from a statistician, but both think they are mathematicians.
Think of the idea of specialisation conceptually, and you will see that I set the same limits as you in principle. However, I don't make them as limiting in practice.
You can teach mathematical logic by storytelling. I was quite surprised to be talking to an ex-KGB colonel who was trained as an aeronautical engineer, and hearing that he had to learn Russian fairy tales as part of his training. :)
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