Education

My gut agrees with my adversary on matters educational. A classic training is worth more than any modern curriculum.

And yet my mind questions the matter. Education had many different and subjective inputs and outputs. I have yet to see a treatise which reviews the matter fairly and from all angles.

Are we socializing our young? Bringing them out of the intellectual slime so that we can continue to rape the planet? Offering them the opportunity to be philosophers or plumbers? Assuaging the aspirations of the parents? Keeping the politically correct off our backs? Funding the culture wars to ensure our own political futures? Reinforcing inbred dogmas? Teaching them how to learn? Child-minding future petty criminals? Keeping the unemployment figures down? Minimizing the budget deficit? Creating the odd genius? At the expense of the duds down the back? Teaching them how to learn by themselves? Or teaching them simply how to cope with modern complexity? Are we simply yearning to belong to some elite parents club? Or do we want our kids to be billionaires?

And the list goes on. Ask 100 people and I am sure you will get 100 different answers. It would have to be facilitated though; most Australians do not have the capacity to analyse their own thoughts which is itself an indictment of our (previous) education systems. And if you leave the review of inputs and outputs to the professionals then you will get the usual answers flocking around certain ideological camps of interest. As valid as these camps of thought are I am sure they are tainted with self-interest and unwritten and possibly poorly understood assumptions.

My guess is that the right answer is entirely subjective and depends on what assumptions you make to start with. And the best answer will be very complex and by that very result impossible to implement without being fucked up.

At the very least someone ought to explore the assumptions fully. I, for one, would be interested in a read.

And just as an aside I know that 10 years-olds, like my daughter, should not be offered T-ball as a sport. To date, on matters educational, it is the one thing that I can assert without question. Oh, and also, when I talk to the teachers at my daughter’s school I do not understand a word they are saying; they may as well be speaking Greek for all that is communicated.

p.s. that is not my Lola below. It’s a photo I took at a shopping frenzy in Gerringong; a pertinent insight into the valuable society that we have created.