The Aims of Education
Since Plato, we talk about the aims of education.
Have we come along in answering that question? Should happiness be the main aim of education? And, if so, how do we achieve it?
Have we come along in answering that question? Should happiness be the main aim of education? And, if so, how do we achieve it?
Comments (99)
I edited the post. But, what's your take on the matter? Should happiness be the main aim we should be striving for in educating the youth?
And, how would one go about doing that?
I mean, the purpose, and even meaning is very wide, and varied. It depends on what it is, and intentions, though it also exceeds both. Learning a martial art could be for confidence, health, carrying on a tradition, self-defense, the instillation of discipline. The teacher's intentions could range from total philanthropy to narcissistic egotism.
As for the education system though, I think that it is mainly to situate you for particular occupations and employment.
No, I don't believe so. It seems to me that we're brought into a world that is capitalistic rather than being a capitalist.
Quoting All sight
What do you mean by that? I don't understand what you mean by 'The teacher's intentions could range from total philanthropy to narcissistic egotism'.
Quoting All sight
That's detrimental to the wellbeing of an individual, to think of themselves as a cog in a machine, or some such matter.
First, aid the individual in discovering what his native traits are -- the who and what I am.
Second, to apprehend the nature of 'the world' in its physical and social manifestations.
Third, to aid the individual in finding a congruent path between his nature and social expectations.
Fourth, to discover what is for him good work, and acquire the necessary skills.
Rats. Just noticed that we don't live in an ideal world. Well, that's a problem, but we can still pursue my Four Goals. (Note: This kind of education can not take place where society is in a state of advanced deterioration.)
Primary school is still... 'primary'. Education for children through 6th or 8th grade is the critical phase. "High school" (9-12) really should be quite academic, but still not overly structured and restrictive. By the time one is 18 they will, one hopes, be reasonably insightful, reasonably capable, and reasonably socialized individuals. Of course, there is variation.
Acquiring linguistic skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) and numeracy requires structure. (This must begin in infancy when the parent is responsible for development.) Children need quite a bit of freedom (within safety limits) to discover who they are, at times without adult direction.
Apprehending the physical and social nature of the world again requires structured learning, as well as unstructured interaction. Children need to be free to be who they are becoming. ('becoming' can be a very messy process; clean-up crews on hand?)
A criticism: Parents aspiring to produce accomplished children fill their days with rigid school schedules and extra lessons in music, dance, sport--all sorts of structured activity. This runs counter to the child having unstructured time for personal discovery.
Finding a congruent path between personal identity and social expectations requires ethical training. Some social expectations are good, and some are not. What one likes and dislikes isn't a sufficient guide. Individuals need a grounding in right and wrong as well.
Finding good work (work that one likes, and which contributes to both the individual and society) is a daunting task--made more so by the state of advanced capitalism in which billions of people must operate. There is 'good work' available, but not nearly enough to go around. Most people are going to find 'good work' hard to find.
I think children benefit growing up in a permissive -- and reasonably safe -- environment; what is permissive for young children may not be appropriate for older children, and visa versa. Actually, this is true for adults too. We like being able to explore possibilities without constant restraint and prohibitions.
This is a deadly 'instrumental' approach: feeding children through the educational processing plant to prepare them to fill slots in the capitalist machinery as cogs on wheels. We do this, of course, in as much as we know what jobs there will be (12 to 16 years into the future) and what the requirements to fill them are. The products of this processing will be mostly unable to assess why their lives have become one of monotonous production and consumption. What a waste!
Unless you think that capitalism is the final organization of society, The People need to think about alternative arrangements to meet needs. From my perspective, capitalism is not the final form of society, and is, in fact, becoming the central threat to human fulfillment.
We certainly want a much larger proportion of the population residing in the "flourishing" category. Nothing against positive psychology, but it seems like more will be required -- like changing material conditions of economies, for instance, to achieve the desirable end. For instance, the kind of school system that would promote positive psychology is most likely not the kind that @all sight suggested. But the factory school is what we've got because it suits economic ends.
I mean that if I teach you something, it is possible to do so for many purposes. Ranging from intending to solely elevate and benefit you, to attempting to solely elevate and benefit me...
I figure that starving, lack of gainful employment, lack of respect and a sense of belonging, and being a social tool without a use is likely far worse for someone's well being than feeling like a "cog in a wheel".
Was there a golden age where people were happier and more fulfilled?
I don't know.
Can we assess the happiness of ages past? The dead are a devilishly difficulty demographic to survey.
What we can do is assess the happiness people feel at the time of the survey. There are various institutions (Gallop organization, Michigan Institute for Social Research, etc. You can google happiness surveys. It's about what one would expect: Some countries are happier than others right now, and over time some countries have been happier and unhappier.
It would certainly depend on "who you ask". The people on top are probably happier and more content than the people on the bottom. People whose modest expectations have been fulfilled are probably happier than those whose large expectations have only partially been fulfilled. Etc.
In the world it is quite possible to not starve, have 'gainful employment', but still have a lack of respect and sense of belonging. The employed may still feel like a social tool with no use, or no positive use.
Alienation and anomie. Many suffer from it. The cause is purposelessness, a lack of personally relevant purposefulness.
I'd like to thank you for this wonderful post. I think the first step in education is to understand our wants and needs first. How would you go about understanding your wants?
Quoting Bitter Crank
How would one go about this issue? Psychometric testing like IQ tests, and personality tests?
Quoting Bitter Crank
So, how does one go about doing this? Are you talking about the sciences or humanities?
Quoting Bitter Crank
This is the process of individualization or socialization?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yup, no comments here. Just some ambiguity about how to implement such a thing.
Quoting Bitter Crank
So, again individualization taking place is paramount. How does one encourage the becoming aspect of a child? Can it be accomplished through education?
I know you addressed these questions; but, I'm just asking from my POV about their use.
So, what are your thoughts about individualization and socialization with respect to education? That's a question that's kind of bugging me.
I meant that society is capitalistic where capitalism prevails. And universities were inherently democratic in most capitalist societies.
Quoting All sight
That's true; but, then it's a no win situation. With that in mind then the goal should be the development of happy workers or happy individuals in society.
I don't think it's complicated, and speaking of "relative happiness", a person in a society with a wider range between the well to dos, and the got nothin's may report themselves to be less happy and fulfilled than someone in a flatter land. Comparatively, we have television, full of beautiful super genius lovable gods surrounded by prosperity, and even see the representation of others on social media as aiming at implying as much about that about themselves as possible, and comparatively one may feel like an ugly miserable loser. So that it being uncommon for all of your siblings to survive childhood would not be as terrible, if it were happening to everyone.
There is a certain degree of isolation, and insulation that takes place today like never before. Close my door and the world is gone.
Though, aren't we all just really spoiled? Would it be better if it were a lot harder to survive (as it unquestionably was at all other points in history)? I don't find that suggestion off the wall or offensive, but I do find it dangerous, and irresponsible. Perhaps it is so that we rejoice and find fulfillment in the greatest of hardships, but cannot fight the urge to set fire to heaven, because everything's a little too perfect.
Yeah, and one can have everything, and be completely better off in every measurable respect to every other person not only alive, but that has ever lived, and still "feel" that way. At some point, the problem is you.
Happiness isn't some ideal goal... like the pursuit of it (which originally was the pursuit of property), but never acquisition. Just ever increasing levels of adulation. Sounds so banal, and sad.
Then how does one attain happiness in educational settings? Happiness is not easy to attain. There are different senses of happiness. Like one where 'highs' are pursued instead of contentment. Therefore contentment should be the aim of education to some degree.
I'm not.
Do you mean like satisfaction? Like they're happy with the education they got, rather than feeling displeased? Or do you mean reaching a place where one just feels good feelings all the time, and never bad ones? The first seems rudimentary, and the second terribly nightmarish.
Of course not, you're a hippopotamus.
Well, yes to the first; but, the intricate problem is that these aren't issues that can be addressed through education, or can they?
You can't answer "yes" to a multiple choice question...
The first is like anything at all, any product, service, public good, it has to be satisfactory to some extent, and not a complete let down. Otherwise why keep it around?
Just keep in mind that what you are doing here is no more than setting out your own preference.
You don't really say much that is conducive to reply. Quips, and winning and losing.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/freedom-learn/201309/schools-are-good-showing-not-learning
I promise you that it is not. Inferring that I'm in support of it, because I say it is so...? Not everyone works like that.
Ok?
It's not. Most stuff taught in high schools and universities is never used at work.
Yeah, and they tend to tell you that when you get the job, or even during the education process. That you don't actually start learning until you get the jobs. The fact is still that occupations have educational requirements.
Aristotle implied that education should provide happiness based on a hierarchy of importance. To him, mathematics stood above politics or writing. Is this view still embraced to this day, as treating happiness by the intellectual rigor of the field of study?
This is the more nuanced view of education presented by Aristotle. Eudaimonia is the second more popular view promoted by him. However, I can't get the Platonic elitist view out of my head, which Aristotle rehashed with treating happiness as an intellectual activity. This same line of reasoning is presented by utilitarianism and Mill, even Bertrand Russell held this view of education.
Sure. Organisations have to look as if they are acting rationally. But they are not. They will choose someone with a degree over someone who pulled out just before graduation, but with higher marks. it's called the Sheepskin effect.
Then we agree.
By whom?
By the common folk, I suppose. You can find it in those ivory towers also. The whole idea of 'competitiveness' hinges on this fact.
Somewhat illusory; I suppose.
I don't think that is true. Aristotle thought that education was for "exercising the mind" or our capacity for reason (he also thought that you should exercise the body, and then the mind), which played directly into his ideas of eudaimonia, and the development of character, which doesn't lead to "happiness" like a feeling one has, but one's manifest well being, and prosperity. Health, and wealth. Not a feeling.
Hence, back to my original observation - why only one, or even some, aim?
What is more important, the aim or the process?
Why must education have a teleology?
Everything you happen to be right about.
Surely you're playing devil's advocate. There is a difference between child-rearing in a jungle and no education compared to a child brought up in a society.
So, under this understanding education only serves a utility-function? How crass.
So education is useless? Or just ultimately not tied down to any particular purpose necessarily? Like you won't discover the purpose of education, hiding behind the nucleus of an atom?
Uhum. To hell with happiness. You want to be happy go to Disney town until you’re sick and tired of it, then, after your fed up with being happy, go back to class where the teachers teach you (and not “facilitate”) about the world.
Problem is that too many teachers today have their heads stuck up their donkey, have no good education themselves, and don’t give a hoot about children’s welfare—which doesn’t consist in being happy, but in being well-informed. Why do we not all get lobotomized just right so as always be happy till the moment we perish? Whatever your personal answer happens to be, it demonstrates that there’s a lot more to life than constantly feeling oneself to be on cloud nine.
And as compared to today—a time that correlates nicely with economic theories which illustrate that it’s in the interest of profit to have an uninformed/dumb electorate/populace—the 50s and 60s in America (at the very least) was one golden age of education. Because those folk were vastly more informed than we presently are. It only led to things such as increased equality between people of different stripes being institutionalized—activities which did not make the respective practitioners persistently happy, like when being bit by police dogs.
Ok, just wanted to throw that in.
I think I get what others are saying though, happiness in the sense of eudemonia … in which case, never mind all of this.
So both of you figure that education shouldn't be for any purpose? How decadent.
This is the modern day conception of happiness. To be 'high' all the time. I'm advocating for contentment and satisfaction through education. As to how to attain or implement that is the performative function of this thread.
See my previous comment.
I wonder about this too. It started with Plato, then Aristotle, and now we continue in their footsteps. Is that a bad thing? I don't entirely know myself. It seems like on the whole of it education is beneficial to society rather than detrimental.
See how this does not follow from what I said?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-be-awesome/
Education should be awesome.
But that's not giving it a purpose; it's not a teleology of education. Any given purpose would inevitably suck.
On another note. Given that education has been reduced to a performative function of utility maximization through intellectual ability, then competitiveness is defined by how high an IQ you have. I'm not saying this happens everywhere, but, if you want to do well in some ivy league college, then IQ matters quite a deal.
It's not the kids who voted for Trump. It was the least educated forty year olds.
I think there are domains of happiness and subjective well-being that education is able to encourage or promote. I don't think the strawman has any support from me to define happiness as a unitary entity that can be possessed.
Which society? I'd say that the US education system is in a state of utter decay. But here in Australia we have managed to keep a high degree of quality despite attacks form economic rationalists.
Hm. happiness and subjective well-being are a side effect of living with the awesome.
I'm in agreement. I just have the implementation in mind, as to how to promote happiness through education. Obviously, not everyone generically goes through that process.
What's the deal with that movement? Everyone should get a reward for just being in school or what? Is this what trying to encourage happiness as a goal has resulted in? It's an utter failure in my mind.
Hah, I really like this. It's a slick way to refer to what I'm come to know as 'becoming-other', a term here elaborated by Elizabeth Grosz (An Aussie academic!):
"Art is the opening up of the universe to becoming-other, just as science is the opening up of the universe to practical action, to becoming-useful and philosophy is the opening up of the universe to thought-becoming. ... [W]hat philosophy and art share in common—their rootedness in chaos, their capacity to ride the waves of a vibratory universe without direction or purpose, in short, their capacity to enlarge the universe by enabling its potential to be otherwise, to be framed through concepts and affects. They are among the most forceful ways in which culture generates a small space of chaos within chaos where chaos can be elaborated, felt, thought."
It'd be nice to add education to this.
It appears capable of bringing together my disgust at organisational irrationality and my views on pedagogy. New favourite thing.
Isn't it an attitude? If so, then it's possible to encourage, no?
It's only through caring and compassion that we can learn to share the sadness of others and the world, to paradoxically increase our own happiness. This subject is almost a taboo in colleges, due to the Puritan nature of Western society in my mind. But, learning about the suffering of blacks or other groups of people happens, fortunately, in college settings and even high school settings.
Which, brings me to guilt. It seems that this is an important emotion that can serve as an impetus to strive for a better society. Without guilt, we would not want to increase happiness for ourselves and others.
If it were, it would be an attitude towards something. But that does not sound right, since there is not obviously an object that is awesome.
That's not how it goes. Rather, happiness will be one result of education if you are doing it right.
No, it can be narcissistically directed at one's self. And, this does sound right because it happens every time we want to Instagram or tweet what we are/ate/did/said because we are so special and everyone needs to know how special we are. Obviously, none of this takes place in reality. More like some fantasy world that we construe.
So, how does that happen, then if you care to elaborate?
Pretty circular. Whatever floats your boat then.
I'd rather call it foundational.
Since happiness is correlated with awesomeness, then you do agree that education should promote happiness?
That would be awesome?
It’s been going on for a while where I'm at.
Quoting Posty McPostface
Because it’s contradictory to our innate sense of merit, to feeling rewarded for successfully overcoming challenges, for doing good, and for being correct in our beliefs. It’s getting everything for nothing. And children sense that this is a vein, or empty, worth.
I could argue there are good intentions behind it—such as in wanting children to not feel worthless—but, from my experiences, it doesn’t work for the reasons just mentioned. In my experience, the hardest thing to teach is a genuine interest in wanting to learn, to gain more knowledge and, possibly, wisdom. This by learning how to question. The good teachers I had knew how to do so—thereby bringing about self-esteem in us as a consequence of our held effort and desire. Not by teaching that we should hold self-esteem so as to learn. Don’t know if this is what other as calling “awesomeness” but it certainly wasn’t about having fun in the classroom. It was about learning, and when there was a mutually pleasant, reciprocal interest on the part of students and teacher(s), the fun then followed.
But since I take it you’re looking for something more concrete, the number one way to making education better? Decrease class sizes. Make it more personal. This can only make things better regardless of the qualities of the teacher(s). There are other factors, such as in selecting for better teachers via better pay that draws in more candidates, but impersonal interactions are always a lot less effective than personal ones.
Then, share with us what aims should education promote?
So, in the end, do we feel guilt or shame in getting something for nothing? Guilt is a powerful motivator.
Setting aims for education is counterproductive. Instead, be awesome. But of course what counts as awesome cannot, by that very fact, be specified.
I can show you, I can't tell you.
Whatever floats your boat. As they say, a rising tide lifts all boats.
Don’t know. Children, I believe, just feel the vanity to it without knowing how to articulate it. Adults, sometimes, learn to believe that getting everything for nothing is the best way to go. And I somehow doubt these adults feel shame or guilt about it—but I do believe they yet feel empty inside.
This seems to be an issue of finding meaning in one's life. I suspect it is an issue of not knowing what one wants. So, part of the aim of education should be to identify what a person wants and needs, and try to have them achieve that, within reasonable circumstances.
What do you think?
I suspect also, that there's a deeper issue here. We are no longer treated as subjects in academic settings. Instead, we're a bundle of potential utility to the economy, which schools have to realize.
Is that something you would agree with?
Well, to me that sounds more like the role of a counselor. Good teachers however can wear many hats. Thing is, shoot … I think the best way I can express this is via the parable of the person who teaches the famished other how to fish rather than giving him/her food. Does this make sense?
I think it was Aristotle that I’m now paraphrasing: A good teacher is to be admired more than a parent, for the parent only gives the gift of live, whereas the good teacher gives the gift of living life well.
But, as others have said, this won’t happen by “telling”.
Quoting Posty McPostface
Definitely.
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I'll be out for a while.
Cheers, thanks for posting! :smile:
Yet, wants are tricky because they are temporal and changing. We also face a society where almost all wants can be realized. Nobody cares about positive liberty/freedom or doing what we ought to do. What only matters to an individual and to our consumerist society is the gratification of negative liberties.
Hence, should an aim of education be the entertainment of moral or positive liberties? So, how do we attain an equilibrium of mediating positive freedoms with negative freedoms?
Would that be impossible to implement?
There was nothing spiritual about going to school in my earlier years. College was mostly devoid of spirituality in my experience also. Given our affinity for Puritanism and Western Christianity, there should be more of an emphasis on this aspect of education, or not?
Happiness. That's an interesting take on education. :smile: I think there's an obvious answer here: education should prepare us to take part in the grown-up world as well as it can. These preparations could and should take many forms, ways to achieve happiness not being the least of them. :wink:
Education, in practice, and in the present day, is about teaching us to pass tests that should indicate we've learned something. But it's not the 'something' we concentrate on, it's the tests, and the test results. This surely cannot be optimal?