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Schools are for fish
by James McDermott
Most formal education – even for young children – bears a striking resemblance to the medieval university. The university developed from cathedral schools when the church became hierarchical and corrupt. Early universities gave scholars a general education but the greatest emphasis was given to the study of theology. They were modeled after the guilds and most in Northern Europe operated to promote the welfare of the teachers, the church, and the state. Lecture was the primary method of teaching, but this was so at least partially because books were handwritten, rare, and prohibitively expensive. This is also why note taking and memorization were so important. Everyone couldn’t have personal copies of the books the lectures may have been based upon. What made universities legitimate, in my opinion, wasn’t their ability to efficiently transmit useful knowledge. Rather, it was that university degrees became a key for entry and promotion within the church hierarchy and the legal profession. This medieval university system of lecture from books, note taking, and memorization is still with us today, only it now applies to children as young as 6 years of age.
How was it that a university-like system was applied to small children? Enter the state. Prussian monarchs adopted a system of compulsory education and indoctrination for all children from age 7 through age 14. No child was allowed to speak unless he raised his hand. There was a tremendous emphasis placed on obedience to the authority of the teachers and of the state. The Prussian model was adopted all over the world in some fashion and was the precursor to school systems in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and every other modern totalitarian state. It may be said that a mission of the Prussian school was to increase the knowledge of its students, but the mission was to produce a citizenry that was loyal and obedient to the state. Franz de Hovre wrote in 1917, “The prime fundamental of German education is that it is based on a national principle.... A fundamental feature of German education: education to the State, education for the State, education by the State. The Volksschule is a direct result of a national principle aimed at national unity. The State is the supreme end in view.”
19th century American educators such as Horace Mann studied in Germany and were impressed with the orderly Prussian system. He took it upon himself to implement the Prussian system in the United States. Horace Mann is a hero of the public school movement but he was certainly no hero of the faith. Horace Mann was a Unitarian. Unitarians deny the divinity of Christ, His miracles, and His resurrection.
Another hero of the public school movement is John Dewey. John Dewey was no hero of the faith either. He was a signer of the Humanist manifesto, which stated among other things, “Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created,” and, “Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values.”
I believe, therefore, that the modern school never had the conveyance of knowledge as its primary purpose. It has become a tool for professional teachers, the state, and humanist philosophers.
Stuck in the Middle Ages
Modern school methodology, as we have already pointed out, has striking similarities to the methodology of the medieval university. The school is stuck hundreds of years in the past and is having problems getting unglued. Isn’t it interesting how schools have changed so little when so much has changed in the last 700 years? Why do teachers in schools all over the nation give lectures to students who must listen to them in person? Why do teachers write notes by hand on the board? And why must students copy these notes by hand? Teachers in the Middle Ages lectured because books were so expensive most students couldn’t own them. This is also why memorization was so important. Lectures to small groups of students made sense before the computer, the television, the radio, and the printing press, but not any more. Why not provide students the information in printed or electronic form? A teacher could put his lectures in the form of a book and millions of students could read his insights for $20. He could tutor his students via email and neither he nor his students would need to invest the time and money involved in commuting to school. In fact, they wouldn’t need a school building either.
Schools also emphasize theory at the expense of practice, they make everyone take subjects the student doesn’t want or need, and they are credential driven. That is why a person with a diploma can get into college and a person with a degree can get a job ahead of a person who may have acquired knowledge and expertise outside the formal school environment. If I can pass the bar exam, why does the state care where or how I studied to acquire the knowledge? Naturally, the state protects institutional schools and teachers from competition. And this lack of competition has led to other kinds of inefficiencies such as whole word recognition as a system of teaching reading and the “new math.” Furthermore, schools with hundreds or thousands of students, dozens of teachers, properties, and buildings require lots of people and expense besides teachers. If schools were so efficient, let’s see how many schools would survive unchanged if there were no compulsory school laws, if the state charged what it cost them to provide the education, and if school degrees weren’t required to enter fields of study. I believe we would soon see how inefficient schools are.
Socialization, Not!
The worst part about schools, however, is what saves them even when schools are proven to be outdated, inefficient, and expensive. Parents have somehow become sold on the idea that children need schools so they know how to behave in public. The buzz-word is socialization.
Who was it that decided that children would turn out better if they were taken from their parents and their families at very young ages and were segregated into peer groups? It was the state, the liberal philosophers, and the teachers unions. Over the last 200 years, schools have gone from advocating 6 month school years to 12 month school years. The school day is longer. Children generally begin at an earlier age and finish much later. Has this been good for our children? Was it good for us? If we want our children to grow up to be effective in the adult world, we shouldn’t take them away from their parents and have them spend the entire day with children their own age. Children have become peer dependent and promiscuous. They despise authority and are often violent and blasphemous. It shouldn’t be such a radical idea that children generally turn out better when they are raised by their parents. And just because some parents are bad, doesn’t justify the state compelling all parents to send their children to school. School has ruined the children of many good parents.
Conclusion
And for Christians, sending children to school makes no sense at all. The children of most Christian parents attend schools that despise the Christian faith. Our young children are being raised in institutions where it is unlawful to post the Ten Commandments. The Bible says we should not be yoked with unbelievers and that bad company corrupts good character, yet we send our young children to spend all day amongst the children of unbelievers so they can be socialized. Indeed, our children are being socialized, but not for the better.
Even the Christian school environment, however, has similar problems. School is still a costly and inefficient means of transmitting knowledge and Christian children will still generally turn out better growing up with their parents than they will growing up in the Christian school.
Since nearly every living adult in our culture has had several years of formal education, it is hard for many to imagine what life would be like without school. I hope life without schools isn’t so outside the box now that we can’t even consider what life would be like if they didn’t exist. But schools aren’t for people. Schools are for fish.
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