trail-blazing

 

                Setting our education free

 This powerful visual was part of the ANC 1994 election campaign. As I recall, it was designed by Hunt Lascaris and has inspired much of what we have tried to do at Vega. Of course the meaning then was to liberate the people from Bantu Education and to have an integrated school system with access to all. In many ways this has been achieved.

A school is not a factory

The other meaning is to free education from the narrow and limiting context of mere instruction. Far too much of what I see happening in education institutions is teaching and instruction. This is contrary to the core meaning of education which comes from the Latin, to lead out; to bring out, or elicit. As British novelist James Carr said: A school is not a factory. This contradicts the essence of education which, British poet Muriel Spark better described as a leading out of what is already in the pupil's soul.

Education is a developmental process. Literary critic Harold Bloom suggests it is getting students to know themselves. Education has become far too focused on class results.

Perhaps we should better flesh out the purpose of education so it really is a liberating force and not the teaching of people to repeat the past.

An education system should surely:

• Help pupil's identify and develop themselves.
• Show where and how to find information and this requires reading and research skills.
• Develop the ability to hold and present a point of view, both verbally and in writing.
• Teach students that we are all framed by our contexts and to show them that there are always other context and that perhaps the most important one is the human context.
• Show and allow the pupil's to practice both analytical and creative thinking: these are both parts of a single process; do not teach them as separate things. The arts and sciences are not in competition. They are equally important and a good education is using the whole brain!
• Celebrate great thinkers throughout history to inspire pupils.
• Education should be a continuous discovery and a source of amazement - as opposed to being a transmission of knowledge. British author, Edward Blishen, said that the teacher must be prepared to be a medium for that amazement.
• Focus on questions rather than answers and encourage new ways of thinking and doing things.
• Understand the mathematics of financial and economic systems and that nothing is cast in stone. All our theories are constructed.
• Learn about and understand positive and negative forms of human engagement.
• Make us more sensitive to the plight of others and that education should take us out of bubbles and not construct them.
• That an educated response needs to be, in the words of John Bogle, firstly, philosophically right, then ethically right and finally, economically right.

(Your comments and input to improve the above would be appreciated.)

The greatest challenge

Perhaps the greatest challenge in education is to find methodology and systems to engage the individual student and assist them to bring out themselves. The idea of throwing information out to a class and hoping that some of it will stick so an exam can be passed has very little to do with genuine education.

To all the hard working teachers working almost against the tide to achieve this, you deserve a huge accolade; you are part of the most important profession in the world.