Education-the Reformation of Man - Assignment Example

Education-the reformation of man Countries all over the world are talking about educational revolutions, introducing education bills, issuing education Acts and making sure that it comes at a price the entire population can afford so that no one member of the nation is deprived of it. Recently, the world’s largest democracy passed a bill proposed to provide every child with free and compulsory education between the ages 6 and 14. Education and its neglected fragment It is surprising how we can abandon the most important part of education and yet claim glory and compete in acquiring mere theoretical lessons. According to the psychologist Benjamin S. Bloom, any given task falls into one of three psychological domains: cognitive, affective, or psychomotor (Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals; 1956, pp 201-207). The cognitive domain deals with a persons ability to process and utilize information in a meaningful way. The affective domain deals with attitudes and feelings that result from the learning process while the psychomotor domain focuses on physical skills. The flaw with present-day education is that morality takes a back seat; it has only taught man ways to conquer the moon but not the human mind. Living with a deficient educational system Todays age of throttling competitions begin as soon as a child enters school. With the grade system not wholly in effect, the score system makes sure that every child knows exactly by how much they lack or surpass their counterparts. Grown-ups know how to tackle minor shortfalls and can convert a fruitless outcome to a positive lesson learnt, however children have an inclination to win the very first time they try something, else a fear of being inferior, incapable or that of being crowned a clown would settle in on them. Children then become dull, isolated at play, try to win sympathy, lose their confidence, begin to hide their problems and in the process lose their identity, ignore their worth and finally their skill set goes unnoticed. This despicable feeling should be identified and treated soon else strong mental emotions may create a future anti-social citizen or worse leads to the sad beginning of a psychopath. This is education at its peak of failure. The problem here is, everyone becomes a loser, the victim of failure, the parents, the teachers and the society in general. This is where and why the need for a sportive attitude, that of understanding the affective domain of education, can never be over emphasized. Parents need to make sure their children take their studies only as serious as it needs to be. Teachers should inculcate a never say die attitude in addition to exposing the child to the countless opportunities they can venture into in case of poor academic performance. It’s more of a collective responsibility of the parent and the teacher. Platos ideal society Plato is one of the foremost educational thinkers of the early times. He saw education as the key to creating and sustaining an ideal state of society where the ruling authority would be in the hands of the most learned. He believed that talent was distributed non-genetically and hence must be found innately in every child born to whichever caste or social status they belonged to. Thus, he advocated education that is founded on the holistic principle stressing on cognitive facts, polished skills, physical discipline, and music and art. This was also agreed by Aristotle who concisely summarized in the Metaphysics that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Plato committed his theory to identifying every member of the society directly under the state and rendering education that would be tailored to their inborn abilities. This process would be refined several times over till a class of individuals are created crafted with the best abilities to govern the state. He dedicated himself to giving great care to differentiate children according to the various castes and made sure that the most elite class received the most education, so that they could act as guardians of the city and care for the less able. He adds on to his principle by insisting that those suitably gifted are to be trained by the state so that they may be qualified to assume the role of a ruling class. What this establishes is essentially a system of selective public education. It is based on the assumption that an educated minority of the population are, by virtue of their education which was focused on polishing their existing in-born talents, sufficient for healthy governance of the state. In Plato’s dialogue, “The Republic”, he describes his search for justice by re-emphasizing that the pivotal care of the rulers is to be educated on morality and in music and gymnastic, with a little strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State, in which "no man calls anything his own," and "kings are philosophers" and "philosophers are kings". In some more of Platos writings, he explains his elaborate selective procedure of education. In his methodology, he suggests elementary education for all individuals till the age of 18, followed by two years of compulsory military training and then those who qualified the training will be opted for higher education. While elementary education made the soul approachable to the environment, higher education helped the soul to search for truth which enlightened it. No distinction was made based on gender; both boys and girls received the same kind of education. Elementary education consisted of music and gymnastics. It was so designed so that gymnastics would train and blend gentle and fierce qualities in the individual and music would create a harmonious person. This would be followed by two years of compulsory military training, thereafter at the age of 20, a selection was made. The best one would take an advanced course in mathematics, geometry, astronomy and harmonics. The first course in the scheme of higher education would last for ten years. At the age of 30, there would be another selection; those who qualified would study dialectics and metaphysics, logic and philosophy for the next five years. After accepting junior positions in the army for 15 years, a man would have completed his theoretical and practical education by the age of 50. In the Apology written by Plato, he discusses the philosophy of education as advocated by his teacher, Socrates. The Apology begins with Socrates’ crucial sentence prior to the entire speech. Here, he suggests that philosophy begins with a sincere admission of ignorance; he later clarifies this statement by dramatically stating that whatever wisdom he has, comes from his knowledge that he knows nothing. Expert words on education In this wild world of competitions we belong to, it pays to give importance to that trivial feeling of falling down before emerging a winner. That little but powerful feeling which if left untreated lingers to a permanent failure. Time and again, wise men have advised that failures are the stepping stones to success. That statement may be easy to say but history bears witness that to those that pay little heed to it have had a painful fall. John Locke mentions in his book, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, “That the difference to be found in the manners and abilities of men is owing more to their education than to any thing else, we have reason to conclude, that great care is to be had of the forming children’s minds, and giving them that seasoning early, which shall influence their lives always after:”(John Locke, 2001, p33). He goes on to explain that just as how the strength of a body is developed by getting the body accustomed to good physical exercise, so does the mind by rendering it with the right amount of endurance to discipline. And the incredible principle and foundation of it is this: that a man is able to deny himself his own desires, cross his own inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs as best though his passion leans the other way.  He points out the common error people make in the upbringing of children. He says that inculcating good values in children should begin at the age when the mind is most tender to accept, oblige and blend their lives according to the orders. The blunder most parents make is that they relish in the misbehaviour of their children and refuse to condemn some of their actions on the pretence that they are still too small to understand and implement. It serves as a good sport for the parents to sit back and watch those growing minds perform innocent mistakes. This criminal negligence can prove to be costly when the misbehaviour soon implants in the child and grows to an undisciplined character. The author is quick to warn that too much of restriction on the child by imposing rules and forcing them to humble down too much can have a more drastic effect on them than the former of relaxation. Children should be given due freedom to experiment, to wander, to explore but caution should be observed that they don’t exceed limits in doing so. The great art lies in how to keep up a child’s spirit easy, active, and free, and yet at the same time to restrain him from many things he has a mind to that may implant a bad habit in him. In line with modern Montessori education, he also points out the negative aspects of most of the widely followed curricula in schools, that of given an over emphasis on memory assignments. Children are burdened with the tasks of committing historical dates and events to their minds and retrieving them without any correction in the examinations, leaving them no room for their reflections or enhancing their thinking. Most often, soon after the tests are over, the facts and figures evaporate off their minds. Their minds are used as a mere warehouse for the moment. Parents need to realize that these are the minds that dare to explore, that quiver not to wander into the unknown and discover their abilities. Killing such a spirit of youth would culture a dull and unexcited attitude in them. The author gives an alternative method of teaching children; by repeated action. Thus bowing to a gentleman when he salutes him, and looking in his face when he speaks to him, is by constant use as natural to a well-bred man, as breathing; it requires no thought, no reflection. Having this way cured in your child any fault, it is cured for ever: and thus one by one you may weed them out all, and plant what habits one pleases. Herbert Read mentions in his Education through Art that the most consistent challenge is in attempting to evince why education should be synonymous with art. He identifies aesthetic values with life values argued that we were gloriously ignorant of art. According to him, there is a harmony that runs parallel between the environment and a human being. That symbiosis, that invisible commonality goes unnoticed by adults, children, however, could be deliciously full of this exaltation. Thus in policies geared towards tacking school choice, alcohol, and drug abuse, bulling, citizenship, and standards in education, for example, art education had an irrefutable role to play. His response was that children could display more radiantly through art a superfluity of expression because their dreams, their delicacy and charms, their secrets and bodily restlessness possess those formative powers that intoxicate art making. A child was in a circus, and afterwards painted an elephant, and painted it purple. The instructor did not deem it fit for to choose such a colour for so exotic an animal. In this example, it dawns upon the child that the elephant has a tumultuous spirit; a majestic presence. To symbolize this elephant, purple is chosen. Read sums up his Education through Art as: “What I have in my own mind is a complete fusion of the two concepts, so that when I speak of art I mean an educational process, a process of upbringing; and when I speak of education I mean an artistic process, a process of self-creation” (Read, 1966, p23). Children through art convey a presence of themselves whose output can appear astonishing because of their uninhibited consciousness. Conclusion Education is a training of the mind and heart towards endurance, towards achieving betterment and discipline. The mind is enriched with its intellectual inputs, the heart with values and a passion to learn and excel while yet giving in to those around. The heart begins to think with a brain of its own, with reason and science powered by human morality. In essence, the survival of this race is neither upon the fittest nor smartest but the ones who learn to truly educate themselves in its entirety. Works Cited 1. Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education, trans., 1964, p 21-60. 2. Read, Herbert. Education Though Art, 1970 3. The Internet Classic Archives. 1994-2000. “The Deeds of the Divine Augustus”.6 August 2009.< http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.mb.txt> 4. Wikipedia. August 2009. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals; pp. 201–207; 1956. 6 August 2009. Read More