I have received a missive from someone who describes themselves as an educator who takes offence at what I have written. Have a read (seems I might have touched a nerve):
"The role of education is to equip our young people to be effective and productive members of society. The education process teaches them how to indeed maximise their income and make themselves attractive to the employers, what else should it do? Your bleeding heart, sugar-coated, unreal words suggest that you are yourself little more than someone with little real experience of the world of men or of work. As a career teacher I have taught for over thirty-five years and have seen my students enter well-paid and successful careers because of that which I have instilled in them.
We seek to produce people who can demand the highest salaries and command the highest positions. This is what education is about, not the 'be happy and make a difference fluffiness you preach. Good job you are a priest, you can do little damage there."
Some interesting points arise from this communication. Some are, I fear, far from the the reality of my work life and some of my correspondent's comments rely strongly upon assumptions made from their own life which I suspect is a life lived outside of the real, working, world.
Now before my teaching friends reach for shotguns and hounds, please understand that I am not saying that being a teacher isn't work, for it most certainly is (and very challenging and rewarding work too), but I am saying that it is not the world of work the majority of those in work experience and that the parameters from within which conclusions are drawn are not the 'real' world.
So, let's address the issues and see what this brings forth:
The role of education - is surely to 'educate. Simples? Education is the art of imparting the skills, knowledge, customs, values and beliefs of the society in which the pupil finds themselves. It opens the eyes, encourages questions and brings forth answers that the student can make their own in such a way as they can develop their passions, practice the things they enjoy and maximise their potential to be creative, scientific, linguistically-enabled or any other art, craft or science that makes them who they are.
I recall in one of the Lawrence books Ursula Brangwen sees cruelty in a botany lesson for it makes the children aware of something that will never be open to them in their drab mill-worker's lives. Their being aware of stamen and the biology of the plant is a door to a world they now know of and yet will never be part of. The education she sees in the closely knit rows of back-to-back worker's cottages is that which trains the children to respond to the alarms for the start and close of work and for meal breaks. It teaches enough to generate the drones of the Industrial age and leaves nothing of the person developed or revealed. This is surely:
Education that teaches maximised income and attracts employers - The blue collar drones who once laboured in out dark satanic mills and grimy, unsafe mines, factories and industrial places. The underclass who were not taught to think but merely be obedient and submissive. The very people who (generally) no longer exist in today's society. To think as my correspondent does is to think with the mindset of the post-war, Daily Mail, dinosaur rather than as an effective or realistic educator. I would rather have Neill's 'Summerhill' than this glimpse of days (thankfully) long gone.
That said, I'm not sure whether this person is a teacher of the elite or the proletariat but I'm assuming that this person is turning out 'haves' rather than the 'have nots'. In seeking to produce 'people who can demand the highest salaries and command the highest positions' I fear that they might be breeding those among us who have found that they can live their miserable lives miserably in comfort and plenty. This, is as I understand it not at all what education is about and without those who are 'happy and make a difference' the world we live would be even sadder than that which such'educators as this correspondent seek to create (for surely this is hell rather than heaven).
"I can but end with a rejoinder to the comment, "Good job you are a priest, you can do little damage there."
What a sadness you are an educator, for you do untold damage!
Good job I'm a priest isn't it? Someone needs to remedy the errors and antisocial outworkings of educators such are portrayed here;)
Then when you get your converts you make them twice as fit for hell as you are yourselves perhaps?
Pax
7 comments:
Well said Vic.
What a terrifying attitude for an "educator" to hold. What a severely limited, telescopic horizon he (I assume it is a he), has.
Surely if the world is to follow his teaching, with his sole aim apparently to make money, he will produce a society which "knows the cost of everything, and the value of nothing"
Of course we all need to make a living, of course it is good to aim for the best we can manage for ourselves and our families, but there is a world outside these limited values. A world of music, literature, art, spirituality and not least, religious faith.
I know which I would choose.
I chanced across this on an 'I feel lucky' and am appalled that you preach such a liberal and antagonistic approach to work. We learn to ensure that we can provide for our families and to pay our way within society just as the Bible teaches. What would happen to the world if every one went off and did whatever they pleased on the grounds that it made them happy? Where would the people be to do the mundain or the people to manage them and worse still what would happen to the structure of such a society.
You preach an unchristian brand of communism maskerading as christianity and I, having been a churchwarden for more than twenty-five years oppose you trendy young clergy who wish to erode our church and society and the way that we believe and live.
Wow!
I'm liberal, trendy and young - I can live with that!!
If the comments from Anon are typical of those who teach them I'm afraid we have a bit of a problem. That said I have to assume that many of the comments aimed in my direction are more Daily Fascist than factual.
Thanks for your comments Ray (you too Anon - I assume you're not an English teacher ;) )
Vic
Vic,
I suspect that coming from an earlier generation, from a blue-collar working class background, education was primarily directed to keeping us of the streets and preparing us for tradesmen or labouring jobs. If we had a grasp of English and Arithmetic, there might be a chance to progress to a lowly white collar, clerking post. Having failed the 11+ this wasn't an option.
I left school at 15 with no qualifications, worked as a telegram boy and than joined the Army. I'v always been in work, and over my lifetime, I struggled to progress, learn and to gain some formal recognition of my training and experience, I now possess a level 7 vocation qualification in Leadership and Management. But have struggled with the academic requirements of the discernment process, in the past year or so.
I'v had to go back to school, be given tuition in basic English grammar and have done a university led course in Essay Writing. Things, which could and should have been part of my initial primary/secondary education.
The education system in my time, turned out young people, who could read and write and do basic sums, but little else was offered in the East End of London. And, if I'm honest, we didn't expect much more.
I know that my children and now my grand children did much better than either I or my two siblings. My eldest grand daughter just got her 12 GCSE Passes, she now goes on to A levels and hopefully UNi, preparing for a career in the Army as an Officer.
If she does a 5 year short-service commission as a graduate, she will leave as a Captain, with skills that will allow her to move into a management position and be employable in lots of different roles in business.
We owe it to our young people to give them the opportunity to make a better life for themselves, education is a key part of that. If necessary, we use selection and vocational or technical training to stream people into areas that suit their aptitudes and interests, rather than turning out thousands of clones, seeking to do non-degree's, which will leave them unemployed and in gross levels of debt, some of which might never be paid off.
I agree with Ray that your educator, sounds to have been cloned from the 'Thatcher' mould, and should be consigned to history as a curiosity. They should not be anywhere near preparing young people for the life of work.
Trendy young clergy. He he, sorry, couldn't resist!
I know - how funny is it that at last I'm trendy
Better still - young?
Made me laugh too :)
Pax
Wow! That makes me young too!!! And trendy! I haven't been that for over 40 years - come to think of it, I wasn't then, either.
Amen to Ray's comment, by the way.
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