CL>Hello All!
CL>The following material was prepared by my colleague and friend Graham
CL>Oliver http://www2.waikato.ac.nz/education/edstudies/oliver/education.htm
CL>My motivation for posting arises from views espoused by 
CL>some (not necessarily here) about the role of the school 
CL>and what constitutes education.
CL>I thought these notes might provide a base for the start of some
CL>discussion.
CL>Something we would want to take very seriously indeed might
CL>be missing from  the efforts we are most used to as
CL>"educational". In fact when some vital elements are missing,
CL>it can be argued that much of so-called "education" is
CL>actually an abuse of the learner which does serious harm.
CL>There are three main forces at work here:  
CL>We grow up and go through a schooling system, usually
CL>regulated by the State,  called an "education" system.
CL>People who get a lot of this system are often  called
CL>"educated", and we are widely encouraged to get a lot of it
CL>ourselves,  mainly so that we can get a good job. We may not
CL>always enjoy this (and many  of us don't succeed at it). We
CL>might think that it could be done much better.  But it is so
CL>much a part of our world that we take its existence for
CL>granted,  and rarely seriously question what it is for.
I'm not sure I accept that last.. Seems to me that
we do a great deal of questioning as to what it is 
for and what we wish it to accomplish...
CL>The State -- even the democratic State -- has an interest in
CL>our compliance  with its authority and administration.
Which is why, traditionally, schools/colleges have 
been considered the enemy of autocratic governments. 
Political unrest is a characteristic of colleges, in
particular...
CL>"Education", as a word, implies positive value. When a
CL>teacher is said to be  "educating, this can usually be
CL>interpreted as praise. If someone is said to  be "well
CL>educated", this normally conveys that, at least here, they
CL>have acquired some valuable qualities. 
CL>The combination of these three forces means that, on the one
CL>hand we are not  very critical about the sorts of things
CL>that "education" is applied to, and  on the other, because
CL>the word conveys something positive, it is useful to slap it
CL>on any learning process we want other people to think well
CL>of, simply  because of the positive aura which the word will
CL>present to us. It has ideological, or manipulative value.  
There's one questionable leap here; that "we" are
not critical about educational subject matter, a
conclusion for which there are AMPLE counter-
examples.  Certainly it has the potential to be
manipulated...
CL>The characteristics  of
CL>"training" will be explored more fully in a separate note,
CL>but clearly training is much more narrow in scope and is
CL>very much applied. It is instrumental, not necessarily
CL>worthwhile, and the role of reasoning in it is  weaker. In
CL>fact it need not entail reasoning at all. In contrast,
CL>education  implies something about breadth of knowledge and
CL>understanding, is intrinsically valuable, and while it will
CL>not involve the cultivation of reason at every point, reason
CL>is essential to it. 
I'll buy that...
CL>... continued inthe next message ...
Ok... Me too....
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