My Opinion on 5 Works about Education, Teaching, and Learning - Volume 7
There are two main steps to making things better: one is problem finding, two is problem solving. Each of these five works does both, but they find and solve very different problems.
Sowell is wonderful. He's an economic historian, which is a great combination because he digs into the statistical data as well as the history. He's autobiography is a great book and shows that he worked in the real world before academia, and worked in government, which helped open his eyes to how that works so poorly. From high school dropout to leading American intellectual, he has a good story and good arguments. He's also a photographer, and was a US Marine. Interesting people are often complex.
In this article Sowell points out that people commonly study failures in black education, and seemingly purposefully ignore the successes. This goes over an all-black high school that succeeded for a long time, from 1870 to 1955. Then the government destroyed it for political reasons. If I had to pick one key item that helped the success of Dunbar it was self-selection, and when that was taken away the school failed. I can cover the main ideas of the essay in seven quotes.
"The history of Dunbar High School places in sharp relief the importance of time and tradition. Not only did the institution have a decisive head start as the first black high school in the country; the community from which it came had a similarly decisive head start in freedom, combined with stable employment opportunities in the federal government, even before the Civil War. These circumstances in turn drew into Washington a nucleus of like-minded and highly qualified Negroes, as well as a larger mass of less favored but also ambitious blacks receptive to their leadership."
"What Dunbar had was a solid nucleus of parents, teachers, and principals who knew just what kind of education they wanted and how to produce it. They came from one of the oldest and largest urban black middle classes in the nation. But the beneficiaries of this situation were not exclusively, or even predominantly, middleclass students. Because the knowledge and educational values of the black elite were institutionalized and traditionalized, they became available to generations of low-income black students. Despite the fashionable (and sometimes justified) criticism of the old "black bourgeoisie," they were a source of know-how, discipline, and organization otherwise virtually unavailable to lower-class blacks. The possibilities of transmitting this sophistication from a fortunate segment of the race to a wider range of receptive individuals may now have declined with the exit of the black middle class to the suburbs and with the rise of ideological barriers insulating "militant" black youth from such influences."
"Considering the general effect of white liberals on black education, it may be that the absence of such people and their "innovative" programs should be counted among Dunbar's major advantages."
"What the Dunbar history shows is the enormous importance of time, tradition, and institutional circumstances in providing the essential setting in which individual achievement can flourish."
"Black schools that have been educationally successful generally have not shared a common teaching method or educational philosophy. They have almost invariably had a high level of parental involvement."
"The point is that certain human relations are essential to the educational process, and when these conditions are met, then education can go forward - regardless of methods, educational philosophy, or physical plant."
"Schemes for "open enrollment," voucher systems, or any other form of free choice by black parents of public school children invariably run into the argument that uneducated ghetto parents cannot make informed educational choices. Yet the history of Dunbar High School shows that only a relative handful of people need to understand the complexities involved in creating a first-rate education. Once they have created such an education, the others need only be able to recognize it."
There is so much to learn from this 19 page paper: student self-selection as a key to success, the purposeful ignoring of black school success, the destruction of school success for political campaigns, the importance of parental involvement, the importance of high quality teachers, the ability to succeed with high class sizes, that it's hard to maintain a successful institution and easy to destroy one, that relationships are the key to educational success, how politicians restricts choice to damage people while saying they're helping, the importance of the leadership group, and more. It helps reinforce my ideas about student self-selection and parental oversight.
'Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education' by Ken Robinson 2015
Robinson's basic idea is that creativity is important to teach and learn. As he stated in his 2006 TED Talk 'Do schools kill creativity?', "My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status."
For decades he worked to encourage art education in the United Kingdom, as he says in the book, “Learning in and about the arts is essential to intellectual development.” He inspired millions of people with his books and speeches. His basic idea is antithetical to government schooling though, and it appears to me that he had limited success in implementation because of this.
His book has a lot of insightful nuggets:
"One problem with the systems of assessment that use letters and grades is that they are usually light on description and heavy on comparison."
"When children aren’t given the space to struggle through things on their own, they don’t learn to problem-solve very well."
"A system that sets people against each other fundamentally misunderstands the dynamics that drive achievement."
"Personalization means teachers taking account of these differences in how they teach different students."
"The key to raising achievement is to recognize that teaching and learning is a relationship. Students need teachers who connect with them. And above all, they need teachers who believe in them."
This book helped me realize that many millions of people around the world see the problems in schools, and that they hold onto false hope for a reform that's fundamentally opposed to the inherent purpose of government schools.
'Turning Around a Troubled School: A journey of school renewal' by Peter Hutton 2022
Hutton ended up running a school in Australia after an unusual path. He was in the Army Reserve and helped with a cadet training program that was cadet-led. That started him thinking about student-led learning. Years later he was trying to become a principal, but no one would hire him. Then in 2009 he was offered the job of a failing school that was planned to be closed soon called Templestowe College. In the US it would be called a public (government) middle and high school.
Hutton had a struggle on all fronts. He got the job because it was undesirable. Because he was desperate he started accepting suggestions for any changes. That idea grew. It was also competitive with other schools because of school choice in the area. Anything that might possibly work he allowed. To help get enrollment up so they wouldn't close, Hutton started allowing almost any elective, which grew to dozens and beyond. Some kids just go to the school part-time. Some run businesses out of the school. It's unique. These recruitment strategies allowed him to grow the school from 286 students to 1,150. He then left government schools and founded 'Future Schools', which has over 100 locations, then left that and runs a Montessori school in Australia.
This book helped reinforce my view that some rare government schools can be turned around in certain circumstances, but that there's always massive resistance. It also helped me see that personalized and individualized education has a strong sales and recruitment value.
'Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation' by Pete Hegseth and David Goodwin 2022
Pete Hegseth is a US army veteran, a news personality, and the US Secretary of War. David Goodwin founded The Ambrose School as a classical Christian school in Idaho in 1995. The book is largely Goodwin explaining to Hegseth the history of education in the United States and the idea of classical Christian education.
This book does great at explaining and criticizing the history of education in the United States. Almost no one knows that schools usually started as religious institutions. How schools went from Christian to atheist is fascinating.
The solution that they point to is okay, it's classical western education. Essentially going back to the education of European medieval universities, which is what our education system originally grew out of, along with modern western civilization. This is often called The Great Tradition of western civilization. Goodwin and Hegseth use a Greek word: "Paideia, simply defined, represents the deeply seated affections, thinking, viewpoints, and virtues embedded in children at a young age, or, more simply, the rearing, molding, and education of a child."
I think that solution will have significant limits, but it will help the society if that tradition can grow. Two issues jump out at me. One, in medieval universities it made sense to study Greek and Latin because the books were still in those languages. Now it's pretty easy to buy a decent translation, so the utility of studying those old languages is less. That leads into an irony in classical schools, which I might write a separate article on. Two, classical schools are going back to the tradition that led to the modern era which led to atheist schools. It's not obvious how reviving the tradition would correct for the paradox of tolerance in Christianity and the emergence of rationalism better than the original tradition.
This book helped me see how ironic the change was for schools founded as Christian schools to become atheist schools, and how breaking the ties with the past has separated modern western culture from what made western culture great.
'The Life of Lycurgus' by Plutarch 100 AD
Lycurgus made the laws for Sparta, which is a great example of a militarized slave state made for war, a society based purely on the idea of organized violence, which needs a unique type of discipline. A very successful society for a long time, although opposed to freedom, peace, and prosperity. Lycurgus lived around 800 BC, so Plutarch is writing 900 years later. We often think of ancient as one time, but there are levels to how ancient the ancients are.
The best example of Lycurgus's view of education and training is in another work by Plutarch, his collected essays titled 'Moralia', in his 'Sayings of the Spartans'.
"Lycurgus, the lawgiver, wishing to recall the citizens from the mode of living then existent, and to lead them to a more sober and temperate order of life, and to render them good and honourable men (for they were living a soft life), reared two puppies of the same litter; and one he accustomed to dainty food, and allowed it to stay in the house; the other he took afield and trained in hunting. Later he brought them into the public assembly and put down some bones and dainty food and let loose a hare. Each of the dogs made for that to which it was accustomed, and, when the one of them had overpowered the hare, he said, "You see, fellow-citizens, that these dogs belong to the same stock, but by virtue of the discipline to which they have been subjected they have turned out utterly different from each other, and you also see that training is more effective than nature for good."
But some say that he did not bring in dogs which were of the same stock, but that one was of the breed of house dogs and the other of hunting dogs; then he trained the one of inferior stock for hunting, and the one of better stock he accustomed to dainty food. And afterwards, as each made for that to which it had become accustomed, he made it clear how much instruction contributes for better or worse, saying, "So also in our case, fellow-citizens, noble birth, so admired of the multitude, and our being descended from Heracles does not bestow any advantage, unless we do the sort of things for which he was manifestly the most glorious and most noble of all mankind, and unless we practise and learn what is good our whole life long.""
Sparta then restructured everything for war, partially built on the ideas of the ancient society in Crete. This lifestyle is so different it's hard to imagine. This is from Plutarch's 'Life of Lycurgus' in his 'Parallel Lives' or 'The Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'.
"The training of the Spartans lasted into the years of full maturity. No man was allowed to live as he pleased, but in their city, as in a military encampment, they always had a prescribed regimen and employment in public service, considering that they belonged entirely to their country and not to themselves, watching over the boys, if no other duty was laid upon them, and either teaching them some useful thing, or learning it themselves from their elders. For one of the noble and blessed privileges which Lycurgus provided for his fellow-citizens, was abundance of leisure, since he forbade their engaging in any mechanical art whatsoever, and as for money-making, with its laborious efforts to amass wealth, there was no need of it at all, since wealth awakened no envy and brought no honour. Besides, the Helots tilled their ground for them, and paid them the produce mentioned above. Therefore it was that one of them who was sojourning at Athens when the courts were in session, and learned that a certain Athenian had been fined for idleness and was going home in great distress of mind and attended on his way by sympathetic and sorrowing friends, begged the bystanders to show him the man who had been fined for living like a freeman. So servile a thing did they regard the devotion to the mechanical arts and to money-making. And law-suits, of course, vanished from among them with their gold and silver coinage, for they knew neither greed nor want, but equality in well-being was established there, and easy living based on simple wants. Choral dances and feasts and festivals and hunting and bodily exercise and social converse occupied their whole time, when they were not on a military expedition."
This led to unique ideas about training, upbringing, and the structure of society.
"But Lycurgus would not put the sons of Spartans in charge of purchased or hired tutors, nor was it lawful for every father to rear or train his son as he pleased, but as soon as they were seven years old, Lycurgus ordered them all to be taken by the state and enrolled in companies, where they were put under the same discipline and nurture, and so became accustomed to share one another's sports and studies. The boy who excelled in judgement and was most courageous in fighting, was made captain of his company; on him the rest all kept their eyes, obeying his orders, and submitting to his punishments, so that their boyish training was a practice of obedience."
"Of reading and writing, they learned only enough to serve their turn; all the rest of their training was calculated to make them obey commands well, endure hardships, and conquer in battle."
"Nor was their training in music and poetry any less serious a concern than the emulous purity of their speech, nay, their very songs had a stimulus that roused the spirit and awoke enthusiastic and effectual effort; the style of them was simple and unaffected, and their themes were serious and edifying. They were for the most part praises of men who had died for Sparta, calling them blessed and happy; censure of men who had played the coward, picturing their grievous and ill-starred life; and such promises and boasts of valour as befitted the different ages."
"Their bodily exercises, too, were less rigorous during their campaigns, and in other ways their young warriors were allowed a regimen which was less curtailed and rigid, so that they were the only men in the world with whom war brought a respite in the training for war."
"In a word, he trained his fellow-citizens to have neither the wish nor the ability to live for themselves; but like bees they were to make themselves always integral parts of the whole community, clustering together about their leader, almost beside themselves with enthusiasm and noble ambition, and to belong wholly to their country."
It's so interesting to look at a society with such different values than myself, and how they were able to be successful according to their own standards. You can almost reverse some of it to move toward the type of civilization I value: individualism and choice, tutors, parental involvement, reading and writing. This helped me realize how adaptable humans are, and how values, purposes, and education are the core of what a society is and becomes.
Conclusion
Four of these works show education as a problem, and attempt to solve it. Lycurgus saw Spartans as weak and restructured the society for war, Hegseth and Goodwin see the loss of western culture and are reimplementing classical Christian education, Hutton had a failing school and allowed options to increase enrollment, Robinson saw the lack of creativity in schools and promoted art. Sowell's paper is different, he took a working solution, we see how it came about, and how it was eliminated. There's a self-reinforcing power function here; society creates the educational apparatus, and education shapes the society. The destiny of a society is contained in its educational institutions.
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