- Have you ever thought about why we have to send our children to school? Do we have the choice not to school our child?
The school is considered so holy that there is no
life without school. The school/college is more important than bread, butter,
and water.
Schools and colleges that we see today are the
products of history. In the beginning, for hundreds of thousands of years,
children educated themselves through self-directed play and exploration. There
were no master plan buildings and closed cages (classrooms) as we see today or
been in one of the cages ourselves.
In relation to the biological history of us as
humans, schools are very recent institutions or the factories of
discipline (one of the synonyms of discipline is punishment). The meaning of
discipline in English is ‘the practice of training people to obey rules and
behave well’.
The
education system as we know it today is only about 200 years old. Before that,
formal education was mostly reserved for the rich. But as industrialization
changed the way we work, it created the need for universal schooling. For
various reasons, some religious and some secular, the idea of universal,
compulsory education arose and gradually spread. Education was understood as
inculcation. In America, in the mid-17th century, Massachusetts became the
first colony to mandate schooling, the clearly stated purpose of which was to
turn children into good Puritans.
An old classroom image for representation only:Image source:https://www.gradelink.com/blog/4-old-school-teaching-practices-to-retire/
Learning during ancient times:
In ancient times the children of hunter-gatherers and agriculturists also trained their children to be well skilled in hunting
and land plowing respectively. Adults in hunter-gatherer cultures allowed
children almost unlimited freedom to play and explore on their own because they
recognized that those activities are children's natural ways of learning and
fun for children.
Hunter-Gatherer children and their training, representational image only:
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| Image source: https://ypte.org.uk/factsheets/hunter-gatherers/what-are-some-pros-and-cons-of-a-hunter-gatherer-lifestyle |
The same approach is not possible now in an
industrial culture as everyone is expected and trained to produce the same
quantity and quality goods within the same given time. For this standardization
to be achieved, in schools today the strict uniform, regulations, control, code
of conduct is framed.
Today the parents are so obeying they are ready to
adhere to the school master’s timetable, caning, unwilling uniform, whether he
says full body cover uniform or half body naked.
With
the rise of agricultural production, and later the industrial rise, the
children became forced labourers. Play and exploration were suppressed. Wilfulness,
which had been a virtue, became defiant that had to be beaten out of children.
Few anthropologists have reported that the hunter-gatherer groups they studied
did not distinguish between work and play—essentially all of life was
understood as play. But currently, in schools, the high level of discipline is
making children differentiate between what is living and what is for living. The
modern education system was designed to teach future factory workers to be
“punctual, docile, and sober”.
The formation of societies and
need for schooling:
Slowly
the agriculturists and hunters formed their societies, ceased their nomadic
life, and started settling down in particular areas. And slowly those societies
became steeply hierarchical, with a few kings and lords at the top and masses
of slaves and serfs at the bottom. Now a lot of people, children included, were
servitude. The important lessons that children had to learn were obedience,
suppression of their own will, and the show of reverence toward lords and
masters. A disobedient act could well result in harmful punishment. To teach
all these to children the need of schools was felt.
Now
in today’s school system, we see there is a strict aspect of discipline,
uniform, and homogeneity. Everybody should follow the same lesson, same
uniform, same timing, same exam and the same choice of teacher. Now that you
become more trained to suppress your will and show obedience to your future
masters (The boss of your company/workplace).
Below is a picture depicting a classoom:Image Source: https://icytales.com/who-invented-school-and-why/
An account of punishment shared by a
German teacher:
The
brute force methods long used to keep children on the task on the farm or in
the factory were transferred into schools to make children learn. Some of the
underpaid, ill-prepared schoolmasters were clearly merciless. One master in
Germany kept records of the punishments he meted out in 51 years of teaching, a
partial list of which included: "911,527 blows with a rod, 124,010 blows
with a cane, 20,989 taps with a ruler, 136,715 blows with the hand, 10,235
blows to the mouth, 7,905 boxes on the ear, and 1,118,800 blows on the
head". Clearly, the master would have been proud of all the education he
had provided.
How will this exercise of strict disciplining help
the business owners, masters, and lords?
The
factory masters have already reaped and experienced the benefit of disciplining
for their cause. In the olden days when child labor was not prohibited in many
countries, the business owners, like landowners, needed laborers and could
profit by extracting as much work from them as possible with as little
compensation as possible. People, including young children, worked most of
their waking hours, seven days a week, in beastly conditions, just to survive.
The labor of children was moved from fields, where there had at least been
sunshine, fresh air, and some opportunities to play, into dark, crowded, dirty
factories.
In
a similar fashion today, the so-called saviors or employers in the industry see
schooling/college as a way to create better workers. To them, the most crucial
lesson is punctuality, following directions, tolerance for long hours of
tedious work, and a minimal ability to read and write the job manuals/records.
(Thinking is sin, as you are not the master). From this point of view, few have
the opinion that the duller the subjects taught in schools the better.
Industrialists led the revolution to
make education 'a basic need':
Industrialists
led the charge to adopt universal education in America, England, and
elsewhere in other western countries. Factory owners were among the biggest
champions for the Elementary Education Act 1870, which made education
universally available in England. So around the world, everyone involved in the
founding and support of schools had a clear view about what lessons children
should learn in school.
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| Source: https://www.quora.com/Has-your-life-given-you-a-harsh-education |
The
agenda could be economic, religious, disciplinary, or societal homogeneity.
Nobody believed that children need to be left to their own ideas and
creativity, even in a rich setting for learning, would all learn just exactly
the lessons that the adults deemed to be so important. All of them saw
schooling as inculcation, the implanting of certain truths and ways of thinking
into children's minds. The only known method of inculcation, then as well as
now, is forced repetition and testing for the memory of what was repeated,
grading, and ranking (grading as in, fruits and vegetables which are tested and
graded for export).
With
the rise of schooling, people began to think of education as children's holy
work. Sometimes education is considered more important than personal choice and
dignity. And school prescribed uniform is holy. The same dogmatic (being
certain that your beliefs are right and that others should accept them, without
considering other opinions or evidence) methods that had been used to make
children work in fields and factories were quite naturally transferred to the
classrooms today. Learning and education cannot be the same. Learning is a
natural human process, and education is a man-made system.
When
it comes to the education process children do not have free choice. Repetition and
memorization of lessons is tedious work for children, whose instincts urge them
constantly to play freely and explore the world on their own. Just as children
did not adapt readily to laboring in fields and factories, they did not adapt
readily to schooling. This is somehow no surprise to the adults involved.
Willfulness had any value was pretty
well forgotten:
By
this point in history, the idea that children's own willfulness had any value
was pretty well forgotten. Everyone assumed that to make children learn in
school the children's willfulness would have to be beaten out of them.
Punishments of all sorts were understood as intrinsic to the educational
process.
During
earlier periods of schools, in some of the schools, the children were permitted
certain periods of play (break), to allow them to let off steam; but play was
not considered to be a means of learning. In the classroom, the play was the
enemy of learning. You will agree with me today, how particularly in high
schools the sports/PT period is often high jacked by the maths and science
teachers.
Coming
back to the factory model, the model was being transferred to the school system
which was seen as beneficial and important for students’ success as it was
important for a workman’s success in a factory. Factory owners required
docile, agreeable workers who would show up on time and do what their managers
told them. You know in a similar fashion we want children to agree to their
teacher’s command.
Sitting
in a classroom all day with a teacher was good training for that. Early
industrialists were instrumental, then, in creating and promoting universal
education. Now that we are moving into a new, post-industrial era, it is worth
reflecting on how our education evolved to suit factory work, and if this model
still makes sense.
Earlier
the children were brought from jungles and villages to work in factories, and
now children are brought to school to train them to become future obedient
workers in the factory, by following the strict uniform, code of conduct given
by the boss (Teacher/Principal).
Initially,
for children the transition to factory work was unpleasant. The idea that men
had to show up and take orders from a boss—someone they were not even related
to—was demeaning. Factory conditions were often terrible and completely changed
how people organized their days. Time was no longer their own. Now you will not
have a problem as the school system is designed in such a way that you will
become an obedient workman in a short period of time. This will fetch you a
good promotion, prestige, a car, and a Bungalow, all this comes with a little
servitude with the boss. No offense, the boss is again servitude under his
boss.
Conclusion:
In
the 19th and 20th centuries, public schooling and after that colleges gradually
evolved toward what we all recognize today as ideal schooling. The methods of
discipline became more humane, or at least less corporal; the lessons became secular
(this again depends on the master and the agenda driving him); the curriculum
expanded, as knowledge expanded, to include an ever-growing list of subjects;
and the number of hours, days, and years of compulsory schooling increased
continuously.
What
next, for man the schools became like water is for the body. School gradually
replaced fieldwork, factory work, and domestic chores as the child's primary
job. Just as adults put in their 8-hour day at their place of employment
(excluding 2 hours of play in the traffic and smog), children today put in
their 6-hour day at school, plus another hour or more of homework, and often
more hours of lessons outside of school (how will the next lane tuition
survive, and the parents get satisfied with sufficient load on children’s head).
Over
time, children's lives have become increasingly defined and structured by the
school curriculum, codes, and uniform. Children now are almost universally
identified by their grade in school, much as adults are identified by their job
or career.
References:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/200808/brief-history-education
(Written by Maaz Mohammed A.Q)
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