Schooling Is Not Education !

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A Look At Some Of The Undesirable Aspects Of Schooling

What Is Education ?

I pose this question as if there were a straightforward answer or, as if somehow, I will have an epiphany whilst writing this, that will reveal a definitive truth about what education is and its purpose.

If we look at the noun in its simplistic form and try to search for a dictionary definition you will find your answer ‘education – the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university’.

Alas, there you have it. The definition was there already so, is there any need for this blog post in the first place?

What education is, should be common sense knowledge, right? For many years, I believed education was exactly what the dictionary describes. I believed that education was a process of instruction. I felt that education was something that happened to me, rather than a collaborative process that I was an active participant of.

What Does Schooling Look Like in England?

So, let’s look at the education system in England. The age to start compulsory education in England is five and compulsory education ends at aged eighteen. For most this education will take place in environments such as schools. Personally, I believe this is where the idea of education becomes misrepresented. When we think of education, we think of schooling. However, education and schooling are two separate things. The dictionary definition of education would be more fitting to describe schooling. It is in school, that education is presented as instructional. Schooling is both instructional in academic teaching filtered all the way down to discipline.

Whilst I use schooling as an umbrella term, there are many types of schools in England. For example, Faith schools, Academies and Private schools. My portrayal of schooling will mainly represent state schools, which is governed by the National Curriculum. The National Curriculum is only compulsory in state schools, although many other types of school do opt into teaching the national curriculum.

Primary Education is divided into two distinct milestones which is key stage one and key stage two. Primary education is for students aged between five and eleven. During the primary year’s students are taught ‘how to read’, ‘how to write’, ‘how to count’ etc. The teacher is portrayed as the bearer of knowledge and the child as an empty vessel. What is not considered is firstly, perhaps the child is not being taught these things by a teacher alone and secondly, that children bring their own knowledges to the classroom from environment and social interactions.

The idea that children do not know how to learn unless they are taught is baffling. Children, unlike us indoctrinated adults, are naturally inquisitive and learn without necessarily been taught. Anyone who has had more than a minute conversation with a five-year-old should be able to confirm this theory. They are constantly exploring, constantly questioning and constantly creating. They can imagine a broom stick is a horse and when they dress up, they become the character. But by the time they reach secondary School (KS3 and KS4), most students would have lost the ability to be creative and are not questioning. By the time many students reach secondary school, they become reliant on the teacher for instruction and lose the ability to think critically. Something they did naturally as children.

Schooling goes against the way children organically learn. In fact, school often penalises students for these basic instincts.

The Disengaged Student

So, what could be happening to children in primary education, that makes them so disengaged by the time they reach secondary education?

I will try to explain my beliefs on this matter. Not all academics will agree with me, but I know plenty will. Curriculum reform has constrained the national curriculum in such a way, that many schools are opting into teaching kids to pass rather than understand and create. We see this expressed through what curriculum subjects are valued. For example, students from the age of five will be encouraged to focus on core subjects such as maths and english rather than creative subjects such as art and music. How is this feasible to a child’s development if children learn best through creative play and exploration?

Once students are ‘taught’ all the vital skills that is necessary for their ‘development’, they are then tested. One might think that the test will show all that a child has learned, but this is not the case. In fact, I am yet to come across a test that is capable of doing so. The exam tests how well the system is working rather than the individual student. Bizarre. Yet, students as young as five are routinely tested. This may not be so bad for the five-year-old who is a star reader and has already memorised and regurgitated the times tables. However, for many five, six, seven, eight-year olds, the test results become a measurement of their worth. Those that score higher, has their confidence built and are presented as successes. However, those children with the lower scores label themselves as failures.

A teacher may not say outright you failed but this doesn’t negate the information a child receives from a low-test score because they are comparing themselves to their peers. That is part of the nature of testing, its competition to do the best. This feeling cannot be good for a child’s sense of worth, therefore directly impacting on their development. Furthermore, placing value on those subjects inadvertently tells a child that only some skills are good to have, and others won’t help them.

The school system also presents the idea that all children develop the same skills at the same time. This again is false. Children develop skills at different rates and in different ways. I once heard it being explained like this. When you go to a clothes shop, there are many sections, tall, petite, regular. This is to cater to the differences in people. So why should education be any different. Trying to teach children with a one size fits all method will only cater for one type of learner and leave other learners with a feeling of inadequacy.

So, if all these labels and feelings are conjured up during the primary school phase, it isn’t a surprise that by the time many students reach secondary school, they already have a negative association with ‘education’. It isn’t unimaginable that students who have already decided that they are ‘not smart’, based on their assessment (reinforced by the system of course), may have lower self-esteem which would undoubtably impact on how they perform in exams (perhaps).

If schooling is the definition of education we ascribe to, then the approach of passing tests to justify how educated you are will continue onto, college, undergraduate, postgraduate, masters and PhD. Contrastingly, the higher up and more ‘educated’ you become, you see the school system for what it is, a fallacy.

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