Three Views of Education

My original plan for this post was to quote from and link to an article on education, and debate the pros and cons of that article's position. I have done this before here and here, both of which were worthwhile exercises in my view.

However, I've recently come across two other articles I want to deal with, and rather than rehashing my thoughts on the subject three times, I thought I'd try to let the articles interact themselves. The three are as follows:

Critical Thinking? You Need Knowledge by Diane Ravitch, education professor at NYU
Things You Really Need to Learn by Stephen Downes, researcher with a background in philosophy at the National Research Council of Canada
'If You've Got a Trade, You've Got It Made' by Mike Rustigan, professor emeritus of criminal justice at San Jose State University

All three express dissatisfaction with the current American educational system, but for (seemingly) different reasons.

Ravitch believes that so much emphasis has been put on 'how to think' that students don't have any meaningful facts to think about:

Inevitably, putting a priority on skills pushes other subjects, including history, literature, and the arts, to the margins. But skill-centered, knowledge-free education has never worked.

Downes, on the other hand, thinks that an over-emphasis on facts is precisely the problem:

Your school will try to teach you facts, which you'll need to pass the test but which are otherwise useless. In passing you may learn some useful skills, like literacy, which you should cultivate. But Guy Kawasaki is right in at least this: schools won't teach you the things you really need to learn in order to be successful, either in business (whether or not you choose to live life as a toady) or in life.

Rustigan doesn't have a problem with facts or critical thinking in themselves, but feels that for many students they're simply a waste of time:

There are plenty of high school kids who find college-prep classes boring and irrelevant. Many drop out because they feel school is not preparing them for anything practical. Most of these kids are not lazy or defiant; they just want to work with their hands, learn a skill and pursue a solid, honorable, blue-collar trade after high school.

Downes believes that, rather than learning providing facts or skills like "how to be a business toady," learning should be about things like how to predict consequences, communicate clearly, stay healthy, and live meaningfully.

Ravitch seems to object to this idea, listing several movements in education that have had similar goals. According to Ravitch,

None of these initiatives survived. They did have impact, however: They inserted into American education a deeply ingrained suspicion of academic studies and subject matter. For the past century, our schools of education have obsessed over critical-thinking skills, projects, cooperative learning, experiential learning, and so on. But they have paid precious little attention to the disciplinary knowledge that young people need to make sense of the world.

There certainly seems to be something to that. As a professor of education, Ravitch is uniquely qualified to point out how the zeitgeist in her profession has gone astray.

Of course, Rustigan argues that it is the political and social attitudes toward education that matter most, rather than just how teachers are trained. In his view, the problem is not that we focus on a particular set of facts (or facts in general), or on a particular set of thinking skills (or thinking skills in general). Rather, Rustigan argues that in conducting this debate we have forgotten the practical education needed by so many students who have no interest in college:

For too long, academic elites and politicians -- both Democrats and Republicans -- have oversold us on the necessity of getting a college degree. We have reached the point at which it has become almost un-American to admit that for a sizable number of our young people, college is a waste of time.

According to a growing number of demographers and labor experts, the U.S. soon will be experiencing a severe shortage of skilled workers. Blue-collar baby boomers are retiring, but schools aren't preparing the next generation to take their place. Our nation needs blue- collar workers -- skilled mechanics, machinists, welders, carpenters and electricians, as well as computer, solar and cable technicians, etc. -- just as much as it needs college grads.

As one retired plumber told me: "No one is going to outsource your local repair guy.[...]"

I have to admit they both make good points. A student cannot develop skills without a context grounded, to a large extent, in either data or practical problem solving. I'm still inclined toward the Downes piece, partially because the list format suits my mechanic nature, and partially because the article (although including some admittedly strange comments) is full of gems like these:

Creativity, in other words, often operates by metaphor, which means you need to learn how to find things in common between the current situation and other things you know. This is what is typically meant by 'thinking outside the box' - you want to go to outside the domain of the current problem. And the particular skill involved is pattern recognition. This skill is hard to learn, and requires a lot of practice, which is why creativity is hard. [...]

Communicating clearly is most of all a matter of knowing what you want to say, [...] it is better to spend time being sure you understand what you mean than to write a bunch of stuff trying to make it more or less clear. [...]

Indeed, you should view the study of mathematics, history, science and mechanics as the study of archetypes, basic patterns that you will recognize over and over. But this means that, when you study these disciplines, you should be asking, "what is the pattern" (and not merely "what are the facts"). And asking this question will actually make these disciplines easier to learn. [...]

[...] what you are doing right now is the thing that you most want to do. Now you may be thinking, "No way! I'd rather be on Malibu Beach!" But if you really wanted to be on Malibu Beach, you'd be there. The reason you are not is because you have chosen other priorities in your life - to your family, to your job, to your country.

It's hard to argue with someone who can say all that clearly and succinctly.

In the end, I think the three articles differ in what they see as needing the most improvement rather than in what ideal education should look like (in the broad strokes, anyway). I think the following represents some take-away points all three authors would support:

Education should be holistic. In order to learn effectively, we need the right blend of facts, cognitive skills, and practical skills all developing together. All students need to know certain things in order to have a common context; they need to use these facts to learn how to think through the situations and arguments they will be confronted with throughout their lives; and they need to grow the aspects of their identity like practial labor skills and health, not just the topics that make them better thinkers or (with due respect to Joel's view of education) conversationalists.

Education should take the individual student into account. The right blend will vary from student to student, emphasizing each student's particular interests and talents as they develop. All students probably need to learn some basics of statistical reasoning, but then they should be able to move on to great literature and the works of ancient thinkers like Cicero or Confucius (leaving the trigonometry and calculus for future engineers and economists). Many students need to skip training meant to lead into college and spend more time on things like how to bake bread, clean blood off of silk, fix plumbing and repair cars. None of these tracks should be more prestigious than the other, regardless of the average salary figures of those who go through them.

Education should be purposeful. All three authors make the point that improving education is worthwhile because of the effects of education. Education is a means, not an end in itself.  Ravitch says "Until we teach both teachers and students to value knowledge and to love learning, we cannot expect them to use their minds well." Rustigan says "I'm betting we would then start to see fewer dropouts and more young adults with a chance to become productive members of society." Using the minds God has given us well and being productive members of society both reflect fulfilling our callings and honoring God with what He has given us. As Downes put it,

If you don't decide what is worth doing, someone will decide for you, and at some point in your life you will realize that you haven't done what is worth doing at all. So spend some time, today, thinking about what is worth doing. You can change your mind tomorrow. But begin, at least, to guide yourself somewhere.

As you may have guessed, I tend to favor these ideas. I'd like to hear your thoughts, though, whether on this or on the articles.