Danny ChaiIn Sunday school today, Jieun asked the kids what they’re scared of (to find an application of the verse – “give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you”). One kid said the only thing he’s scared of is girls, because they sometimes chase him and they might kiss him. His application this week is, when he finds himself afraid that girls might chase and potentially kiss him, he’ll pray to God. That killed me.
I once had a conversation with a teacher who wondered why we make students read so much fiction. After all, when you’re working, everything you have to read is non-fiction. Therefore, it would seem that schools can better prepare kids for the real world by emphasizing non-fiction over fiction.
I found this question fascinating. Mainly because of the assumption behind it: that the primary purpose of education is to train kids to work. I think that this assumption is so widespread that it’s essentially taken for granted. And I happen to disagree with it.
Preparing kids to work is certainly one goal of education. But to me, and you may call me crazy, but I’m not even sure it’s top three. Far more important is stuff like building character. And that’s precisely why it’s so important for kids to read fiction. Non-fiction teaches facts. But good fiction says something about life. Great fiction says something about character. Often better than, say, history or biographies can, because they distill the lessons of the messiness of real life into a meaningful narrative. That’s the power of metaphor: it distills truth. It’s why great comics can say something deep about real life. It’s why I think Jesus speaks in parables. And because building character is so important, maybe even of primary importance, that’s why reading fiction is vital in a good education. Among other reasons.
But like I said, I’m completely alone on this: the unspoken assumption that education is for preparing people for work is essentially taken as given. Any time you hear a politician talk about needing to compete in a global economy, you hear them talking about “investing” in education. Education is simply an investment toward economic productivity. Michael Bloomberg wrote an article for Newsweek a while back and he wrote: “America has the most advanced, cutting-edge universities in the world, driving innovation in every field. But to maintain that edge, we need a public-school system that is just as good, and that prepares our students to succeed in the new economy.” Again education = economic preparation.
Even when people think somewhat outside the box with education, they still hold on to the basic assumption. Jonathan Alter wrote in Newsweek about Huckabee’s interesting ideas on education: “In early 2007, when he was an asterisk in the polls, Huckabee distinguished himself from the rest of the Republican field in part by discussing the importance of art and music education in the schools. he explained how right-brain development is important not just to enrich the lives of students but to inspire the creativity necessary to help the United States keep its edge in the global economy.” It’s refreshing to see someone emphasize the different aspects of education, here art and music. But disheartening that, in the end, they’re still seen as a means to prepare people to contribute to the economy. Everyone sees education that way. But not me.
Another assumption I disagree with: that economics is a zero-sum game. Capitalism and markets are inherently competitive, and there will be winners and losers. But there is an unspoken assumption that if someone else is gaining, then we must be losing. You can see this assumption in the quotations I included above. We have to have good education to maintain our economic edge; if we’re not winning, we’re losing. Everyone freaks out about falling behind.
I disagree with that. In fact, this assumption contradicts a basic tenet of free-markets. Any free-market person will tell you that free-trade benefits everyone overall. When we open up trade with another country, both countries benefit. There are particular segments who get hurt, but on the whole, free trade benefits all parties. That’s the exact opposite of a zero-sum game – everyone benefits at the same time. Yet those same free-marketers almost all simultaneously argue how important it is to maintain our economic edge over everyone else. I dunno. I don’t think we need to freak out so much about falling behind; the pie is not fixed, it’s increasing. Yes, there are times when competition demands winners and losers. But it’s not true that if someone else is gaining, that we must be necessarily losing.
Happily, I’m not alone on this. Michael Bloomberg wrote in Newsweek basically the same thing about China: “While we should recognize that China and the United States are competitors, we should also understand that geopolitics and global economics are not zero-sum games. Just as a growing American economy is good for China, a growing Chinese economy is good for America.” Well said. It’s possible in global economics to have simultaneous winners. Free-marketers acknowledge this in theory, but seem to forget it in practice.
That same zero-sum mindset extends to education also, as if education were a furious competition. You constantly read articles about how American children are falling behind in math and science or whatever, and how we need to do something about it. Granted, our country can probably stand to teach our kids math and science better. But it’s crazy to make our goal in education to be better than everyone else.
That’s what’s happening in the U.S. and other rich countries. Because educators have a competition mindset, there’s a ridiculous emphasis on teaching more, more, more, sooner, faster, earlier. I remember being the only kid in my kindergarten class who could read. Nowadays, if your kid can’t read when kindergarten starts, he’s behind. Maybe it’s good that our educational system is getting better. But there’s got to be a theoretical limit; we can’t teach 2 years to read, teach calculus to 3rd graders. We’ll be exhausting our kids, if we’re not already. So at some point, the competition mentality has to break down.
In any case, it’s the wrong mentality to have in the first place. If you step back and think about it, the goal of education can’t be to be better than everyone else; that’s logically untenable and an impossible universal goal. Rather, it should be to develop each child to their fullest, character-wise, intellectually, emotionally, even physically. We have to stop seeing education as a competition, and think more about developing individuals. It’s impossible to standardize, but it’s the only thing that’s logically consistent.
So yeah, let’s stop freaking out that East Asian kids are doing so much better than ours in learning math and science. Again, we do truly need to improve on that. But beating East Asia is a terrible goal, especially when you see the toll it takes on those students.
So those are some assumptions I disagree with. The point of education is not primarily to prepare workers for the economy. The economy is not a zero-sum game. Neither is education. No one cares.