47. Academics are a means to an end, not an end
[From Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams http://www.squidoo.com/stop-stealing-dreams]
Go back to the original purpose of school: we needed to teach citizens to be obedient (to be good workers), to consume what marketers sold them (to keep industry going), and to be able to sit still (to be good workers).
Academics are one way to reinforce those ideas. Sure, there were a few things (like basic arithmetic and the ability to read) that all civilized people needed, but we kept adding to the list, creating a never-ending list of topics that students could be confronted with as a test of their obedience. By conflating learning (a good thing) with obedience (an important thing for the industrial age) and consumption (essential for mass marketers), we confused ourselves. We came to the conclusion that increasing all three of these in tandem was what society wanted, and we often used one to get more of the other.
Of course, those who were creating the curricula got focused on the academic part.
At first, we used primers and memorization as a direct method of teaching obedience. Then, though, as we got smarter about the structure of thought, we created syllabi that actually covered the knowledge that mattered.
But mattered to whom?
School is still about obedience and compliance and consumption, but now, layered on top of it, are hours every day of brute-force learning about how the world actually works. The problem is that we don’t sell it well, it’s not absorbed, it’s expensive, and it doesn’t stick.
Now that obedience is less important and learning matters more than ever, we have to be brave enough to separate them. We can rebuild the entire system around passion instead of fear.
Tags: stopstealingdreams
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