The uses and abuses of education have occupied me of late. We force kids to undergo over a decade of this system – 6 hours/day, 5 days/week, 30-35 weeks per year. Indoctrination or training the mind? or just waste of time?
Or just a holding pen for kids?
There are many views, but only one outcome – the ones they endure and survive.
“Down through history and all over the world, education has had two great goals: to help people become smart and to help them become good.”
Ideas Man 2 
April 23, 2007 at 7:55 pm
The word “education” comes from the Latin verb “educere”, to lead out. Education is supposed to lead people out, i.e. to develop what is in them and might remain dormant.
In this sense education is not only for kids: it is for all of us, all our lives.
Education for all, though a noble intent means the setting up of a system, a one-size-fits-all method. People are individuals and need educating individually by people wise enough to undertake the task.
This is without regard to the fact that government designed education has goals beyond and apart from educational ones. Training kids to be workers, for example.
Education is for developing people and giving them the best chance of reaching their potential in an individual and social context. The best education is that you achieve for yourself but we all need to be kick-started. Talented teachers are worth their weight in gold but who is educating the teachers?
April 25, 2007 at 9:19 pm
While corporations controlled the government, the government trained workers for the corporations. Workers who do not question authority. Workers who obey their bosses.
April 26, 2007 at 11:53 am
Education is best served per request. Forced schooling does little good. In a society without open access to schools, education is seen as a way up toward greatness. In a society with required schooling, education is seen as a chore, no better than cleaning the toilet with a tootbrush.
To put a spin on an old saying:
If you give a man a fish every day, he has a happy life. If the man catches his own fish every day, he appreciates the work that went into obtaining the fish–and therefore he appreciates the value of the fish and has a happy life.
April 26, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Still, toilets do need to be cleaned.
April 27, 2007 at 2:17 am
Yes, of course, whig.
But, how many people truely appreciate the act of toilet cleaning? And yet, we all should… because sanitation is good for health, aesthetics, and optimum functionality.