Schooling versus Education

As a student in the Intercultural Youth Development Program, I spent two years researching, discussing, and trying ways to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to succeed. It was not difficult to come to the conclusion that helping underprivileged students succeed in school will translate to advancement in the socio-economic system. What I question is whether or not this is an appropriate measure of success. Success in school does not necessarily result in an education. Success in school is achieved primarily through obedience to authority, clever test-taking strategies, and surrender of personal interests in favor of the narrow state-mandated curriculum.

This is coming from someone who by all measures was very successful at school. When people mistakenly assume I am exceptionally intelligent I quickly inform them that being good at school is different than natural raw intelligence. I know dozens of people who are truly exceptionally intelligent, and more often than not they do not thrive in school because they find the subjugation of their natural curiosity unbearable and are constantly questioning authority. I am lucky in that I was taught early to be deferential to authority, but also to remain skeptical of its true intentions. So here I am, with nearly perfect transcripts from two universities - an abundance of schooling - but almost no education.

Working at a large public school in the suburbs has been a perfect opportunity to observe how schooling and education are two fundamentally different concepts. Schooling is centered on behavior management: following an arbitrary schedule of bells to the second, total deference to all authority figures, allegiance to school before family, completing pointless tasks in the quest for more grade points, stifling of individual expression in order to be perceived as a "good student". I observe all of this every day. Few, if any, students receive a true education, at best they receive practical and technical job training so they may immediately enter the workforce in agriculture, computer programming, or nursing. This gets at the real goal of schooling - to create homogenized, predictable, and submissive employees for the socio-economic system. A real education cultivates individuality, arouses natural curiosity, develops critical thinking skills, involves young people in the community, and encourages young people to follow their passion regardless of practicality.

If I am starting to sound overly idealistic, paranoid, or unrealistic, then please watch the video below of an interview with John Taylor Gatto (thanks for the link Nancy). Gatto was named the New York State Teacher of the Year several years ago, despite his absolute disdain for the mainstream model of schooling. His book, "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling" is excellent. Gatto convincingly tracks the development of public schools, explains their currently failing state, and has suggestions about what must be done. Anyone interested in education, it the broadest sense of the term, should read this book.