Education - preparing the cogs?

S

shnaek

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I was reading this article by Rothbard today "http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard33.html" and the following sentence gave me pause for thought:

"under the guise of “democracy,” education has become mere mass drilling in the techniques of adjustment to the task of becoming a cog in the vast bureaucratic machine."

Our education system here in Ireland, and in the Western world in general, appears to be almost completely geared towards producing workers and not producing thinkers. As it stands we need both, and the absence of the latter is a big reason for the failure of our democracy here in Ireland.

Surely one cannot have democracy without an educated, informed and thoughtful electorate? It appears to me that our education system should be the first thing that we change in our drive to secure the foundations of our democracy. Or is it expecting too much that a national education system can ever teach people the art of independent thought?
 
Teachers can't do it on their own, even if they were willing and able (and that's a big "if"). Parents should teach their children how to think. Catholicism and independent thinking are not good bedfellows. It is no coincidence that corruption, petty crime and a lack of awareness of one’s responsibility as a citizen is so much more common in Catholic countries.
 
Could it not be introduced into the English paper, whereby students are presented with a statement and asked to give 3 coherent answers both for and against? Such as:

"Immigration is good for the Irish economy" or
"Europe would be a better place had Germany won WWII" or
"The internet is the greatest ever human invention"
 
Purple said:
It is no coincidence that corruption, petty crime and a lack of awareness of one’s responsibility as a citizen is so much more common in Catholic countries.
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This is nonsense. My work takes me all over the world and I deal with a vast array of nationalities and religious disciplines. Without doubt traditionally Catholic countries and districts are the easiest to deal with, pose less of a security threat, and corruption is not a worrying issue.
Working in Southern Asia, certain Muslim controlled parts of Eastern and northern Africa is nothing short of a nightmare. My security detail is increased tenfold and I minimise my time there, they are always ‘get in, get out’ tours. I’m travelling to Mogadishu soon; It’s nothing short of the wild west.
 
Purple said:
Catholicism and independent thinking are not good bedfellows. It is no coincidence that corruption, petty crime and a lack of awareness of one’s responsibility as a citizen is so much more common in Catholic countries.
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Purple that's one of your more sweeping statements, and to be perfectly blunt it's a load of rubbish, I'm surprised at you! We're all aware of your thoughts on Catholicism but linking this to education, crime and basic decency in the manner you did is so simplistic (and fundamentally wrong) that you're only making yourself look stupid.
 

When I did the leaving cert we were presented with something similiar, a selection of pictures and we had to expand on them. We each could take what we saw in each picture and develop it.
English Poetry was left open to ones own interpretation of it at times as well.
I found Irish a very rigid and structured curriculum.
 
bullbars said:
When I did the leaving cert we were presented with something similiar, a selection of pictures and we had to expand on them. We each could take what we saw in each picture and develop it.
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That sounds great

bullbars said:
I found Irish a very rigid and structured curriculum.
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Seperate debate but I can't for the life of me understand why Irish is not an option subject at the LC. I'm happy for it to be there for those who have an interest in it, but I would question the value added by making everyone study it. It was my only pass subject in the LC and I was glad to see the back of it TBH. Not sure having an admitedly poor level of Irish has done me much harm either. Again, I admire those who can speak Irish but it's not for me and many others I suspect.
 
Firefly said:
Seperate debate but I can't for the life of me understand why Irish is not an option subject at the LC.
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I would disagree but like you said, separate debate.

the manner in which Irish is "taught" needs to be revised completely. As you state, and I'd wager you are not alone, you were glad to see the back of it. In my opinion this os down to the teaching method and curriculum, not the language itself. As a language it is a lot easier to learn than English. I found Irish was drilled in to us not that we learned it as a language. I did higher level Irish and got high marks, not because I was fluent but because I learned chunks of useful phrases.

As a side note, I find it useful to converse with other Irish people when we don't want the other nationalities around us to know what we are talking about!
 

I should have added "than protestant countries" and specified that I was talking about Europe.
I deal with customers in a good few countries (10-15) and I don't notice a massive deference (the ownership of the company matters more than where it’s based).
The developed European countries with a reputation for corruption are usually not protestant.

I don’t have any connection with any protestant religion. I was raised catholic and am now an atheist. Catholic, Protestant etc; they are all just different brands of crazy to me.
 

Is this just a personal opinion or an actual fact? It seems like a very sweeping statement.
 
What are my thoughts on Catholicism (as opposed to other religions) that you are aware of?

List three EU states that you consider to have a problem with corruption and list three that you consider at the lower end of the scale.

Mine are (in no particular order):
Corrupt
Italy
Greece (Orthodox, not Protestant)
Ireland

Not Corrupt
Germany
Switzerland
Holland

The problem isn’t Catholicism per se, it’s a culture that is didactic and authoritarian in nature rather than one which seeks to make the individual responsible for their own actions and morality.
 
Switzerland where the head of the central bank had to recently resign? Where there are very dubious practices over the years that allowed people use their banking system to avoid tax and launder money? Where sporting bodies like FIFA decide to locate because of their lax laws.

Germany where there have been huge corporate scandals over the years. Remember Siemans? Volkswagon?

Holland is not squeaky clean either and their record at investigating and prosecuting white collar crime is as pitiful as ours.

None of this proves these Countries are corrupt but corrupt behavious happens everywhere. Just don't see the link between religion and corruption.
 
Hi

How would you class Northern Ireland in all this? Surely its unfortunate history exposes the fallacy of any 'four legs good, two legs bad' theory?

Sectaranism (in common with racism) is a bigger problem than the perceived failings of any particular religion or denomination.

Also, I'm puzzled by your belief that Italy and Greece have "didactic and authoritarian" cultures?
 
bullbars said:
the manner in which Irish is "taught" needs to be revised completely.
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I agree 100%. Irish needs to somehow be a "cool" language for Irish kids to learn. It's kinda like playing the piano for me...when I was forced to lessons by my parents I used to hate it but now I wished I could play (and will probably send my own kids
 
T McGibney said:
How would you class Northern Ireland in all this? Surely its unfortunate history exposes the fallacy of any 'four legs good, two legs bad' theory?
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Ethnic groups identifying on the basis of religion is just another form of tribalism. The problem in Northern Ireland is no different to the problem in Rwanda or Darfur or any other area where to tribal groups compete for dominance (rather than coexistence based on equality and a shared identity).

T McGibney said:
Sectaranism (in common with racism) is a bigger problem than the perceived failings of any particular religion or denomination.
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Agreed.

T McGibney said:
Also, I'm puzzled by your belief that Italy and Greece have "didactic and authoritarian" cultures?
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Cultures that espouse a top-down morality rather than one which comes from within the individual will be more likely to find corruption morally acceptable. Hierarchical religions are, by their nature, didactic and authoritarian. Where religion influencing culture stops and culture starts influencing religion I don’t know. Communism also falls into that category as it is, to all intents and purposes, a religion.
 
I would have to generally agree with Rothbard's comment. Government sets education policy which ultimately results in a certain curriculum, which will certainly not include any teaching that leads to questioning the state, government and politicians. I had a great sociology teacher in my last year in school who seriously challenged us to question government policy and Keynesian economics. Her reward for doing so was threat of suspension for not teaching the curriculum (I should mention this was in Germany not Ireland).

Purple said:
Teachers can't do it on their own, even if they were willing and able (and that's a big "if"). Parents should teach their children how to think.
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I generally agree that parents should be taking a lot more responsibility for their kids education, and not solely rely on schools. But I think that overall much can be improved in the way teachers teach; i.e. not simply prepare kids for an exam.

I agree, I am not happy that my kids will be forced to spend time learning a language that will not give them an economic advantage; or I should say, not as much as economic advantage as many other languages. I would be much happier if Chinese, Japanese or Spanish were offered as a substitute for earning Irish.
 
Purple said:
Mine are (in no particular order):
Corrupt
Italy
Greece (Orthodox, not Protestant)
Ireland

Not Corrupt
Germany
Switzerland
Holland
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Looks like your perceptions can be backed up by some studies:
http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/#CountryResults
In order of ranking:
Netherlands: 7
Switzerland: 8
Germany: 14
Ireland: 19
Italy: 69
Greece: 80

Bear in mind that these rankings are based on public sector corruption.
 
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