Personal education utopia - Essay Example

Personal Education Utopia Introduction The Greek philosopher Plato first mentioned about the concept of Utopia, a perfect world, an ideal place, the final destination, the extreme of perfection and so on. This paper is an attempt to explore that how would the educational system look like under a utopian society. In other way, the paper will define the perfect educational system. Discussion In this utopian world of education, the principles laid down by John Rawls would receive due consideration. Rawls viewed education as an opportunity for people to progress and transform their lives and an egalitarian society would be the one, which would provide “equality of opportunity”. This would mean that every child, regardless of his or her background, race, cast, color, creed, language, culture, ethnicity, social class, and others (Levitas, pp. 87-89), would receive the same opportunity to educate him or her and stand in lines with other (Schubert, pp. 67-68). Important here to note is that this equality of opportunity would not only mean that state would take up the responsibility for the education of its students and would pay all the expenses in this regard but it would also mean that all the resources and tools which complement educational progress would also be divided equally. For example, children from poor families or lower middle class families fail to afford computer, continued internet access, educational gadgets, personal transport, access to libraries, ability to hire private tutors and others (Halpin, pp. 78-79). This Utopian society would create an educational system where there would be absolutely no way to trace that which student is coming from which background. All the resources, which affect the learning process, would be disturbed evenly and if not then privileges would be removed. For example, no student would have the permission or access to come to school by his or her own car and everywhere would come through school bus. Important here to note is the fact that under education would no longer remain a choice for the governments. They will not be able to label educational spending as expenditure but as an investment, an ongoing investment, whose investment levels even the governments could not cut down (Winch & Gingell, pp. 13-14; Levitas, pp. 87-89). Without any doubts, stakeholders are not the only ones to influence educational process but the learning environment itself influences the learning system largely. All the educational institutions would have to be built according to the highest modern building and architectural standards. In addition, in such a way that not only the buildings are environment friendly, sustainable and beautiful but also that in every inch and step of the school there should be hidden message to the students who want to ponder (Schubert, pp. 67-68; Noddings, pp. 30). State of the art classrooms, with machines to regulate the temperature all around the year, access to computers and internet within the class, cleanest environment with almost 0 percent germs and others. In addition, more than 50 percent of the learning would have to take place outside the classroom. Streets, gardens, libraries, labs, parks, recreational centers, and others would be the possible places where children would learn (Schubert, pp. 67-68). This Utopian educational system will not teach student technical and scientific skills and subjects but at the same time, the focus would be to teach the students regarding their responsibility as a human being and a person of the society. These schools would put in enormous amount of resources to ensure that they children are tolerant and liberal about the cultural differences (Torres & Teodoro, pp. 103-108; Noddings, pp. 30). They would learn to respect every human culture, every human civilization, race, religion, ethnicity and others. In fact, this respect would not remain restricted to humans but at the same time, children would learn to live in harmony with the plant and animal life as well. These children would learn to base their life on basic principle that it the job of every generation to leave this planet in the same condition or form, if not better, in which they received the world from their ancestors (Winch & Gingell, pp. 13-14; Levitas, pp. 87-89). In this educational system, teachers will no longer be allowed to consider themselves as “teachers”. In other words, teaching, in no possible way would remain a commercial venture, a business opportunity, or mere job for the teachers. It would entail a huge responsibility, similar to that given to the soldiers in the wars from which they cannot back out. Teachers will have to spend longer durations with their students so that they could bond (Claeys, pp. 168-169). In addition, teachers will not have the choice to leave their class, school, or subject in the middle of any academic year (Halpin, pp. 78-79). The responsibility of the teachers will not end as the leave the premises but it would be their duty to live their lives according to the highest moral conduct. This is important because the students view their teachers as their role models. Children undergo a certain period in their lives where they may avoid the instructions of their parents but they would give immense respect to the view of their teachers. Therefore, when a student observes his or her teacher uttering an inappropriate word or engaging in any unethical activity, for the student, it is not the teacher doing it but it is his or her role model doing it this making it obligatory on them to follow the same (Schubert, pp. 67-68; Torres & Teodoro, pp. 103-108). Teacher’s performance evaluation would not ask the teacher to explain what he or she has taught to the students during a given period but at the same time, it will ask to teachers to tell that what they have learned from their students. In Utopian society, the learning process would be a two way learning process with students learning from the experiences and knowledge of the teachers and teachers learning from the imaginations and questions of the students (Torres & Teodoro, pp. 103-108; Noddings, pp. 30). More importantly, when imaginative and inquiry driven students, this utopian educational system would be able to create generation of young people who would not accept anything as the way it as but they would always seek to critique on various systems and offer suggestions for its improvement. This never-ending process of inquiry, imagination, and improvement will create a truly egalitarian society (Claeys, pp. 168-169). In this Utopian society, along with taxes, abiding by the law and others, the responsibility of every parent would be to ensure his or her complete involvement and attention towards the matters concerning the education of their child. If any parent fails to pay attention towards the educational matters of the child, it would considered as an offence similar to that of tax evasion or law breaking and punishable by law in the same way (Halpin, pp. 78-79). Before even parents are allowed to put their child into school, it would be mandatory on the parents to attend comprehensive training sessions, lectures, and workshops so that they could understand their role in the learning process of their children (Blake, pp. 70). The way of measure the level of education would not remain restricted to grades, result sheets and exams but it would go on to include a holistic evaluation of various factors of the student’s personality. Education would be nothing but a name for constant development and improvement. If the child is able to prove that he or she has been able to realize her or her inner talents, hidden potential, knows more than he or she knew is the past and others then he or she is “educated” for that period of time (Claeys, pp. 168-169). The purpose of education would be not be to impose data, facts and figures and information on the students but the purpose would be to help students in realizing their inner strengths and guide them towards the path which is best suited for them (Blake, pp. 70). Furthermore, rather than forcing students to bind by the predefined laws of the completing a certain topic in a certain numbers of days or completing certain books in a year to being promoted into the next grade, this educational system will allow children to develop and grow at their own pace. Nevertheless, the teachers would be paying great deal of individual attention to all students and the rest would depend upon their potential (Winch & Gingell, pp. 13-14). Works Cited Blake, Nigel. The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of education. Wiley-Blackwell, 2003. Claeys, Gregory. The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2010 Halpin, David. Hope and Education: The Role of the Utopian Imagination. Routledge, 2002 Levitas, Ruth. The Concept of Utopia. Peter Lang, 2010 Noddings, Nel. Philosophy of education. Westview Press, 2006 Schubert, William Henry. Love, justice and education: John Dewey and the Utopians. IAP, 2009. Torres, Carlos Alberto., & Teodoro, António. Critique and utopia: new developments in the sociology of education in the twenty-first century. Rowman & Littlefield, 2007 Winch, Christopher, & Gingell, John. Key concepts in the philosophy of education. Routledge, 1999. Read More