After more than one hundred years of tinkering with our education systems we continue to make one giant assumption: that education and learning are the same thing. They are not. They do occupy the same sentences on a regular basis and one should ultimately facilitate the other but they are long since estranged. So how are they different?
Education has become a highly politicized system designed to automate the learning process along prescribed guidelines. It is forged around long held and long since overtaken views on child development and what young people are required to be in order to become the ideal and "economically viable" citizen. It is realised through a narrow and highly limited curriculum rigidly adhered to and designed by education “experts”. It measures progress and generates failure.
Learning is remarkably different. It is not the domain of social policy. It is not prescribed but runs along the lines of individual interest and passion. It is a process as old as mankind and shows no fear that the majority will suffer if the individual has their say in what they learn and how they do it. It’s curriculum is based on life itself and is always open to change. It is not designed by someone sitting in an ivory tower but relies instead on shared wisdom passed down through communities all over the world. It never measures progress but values effort and the journey of discovery.
It is not the fault of our schools. They all have to conform to the politics of education but the very best witness this disconnect and respond as best they can. All are exam factories but supplement the damaging effects of this reality with real life learning opportunities and a sense of community that all children require. Some fail miserably.
We have been hearing these things for years. Strong and powerful voices like Dewey, Holt, Illich, Postman, Hemming and many others have tried to speak above the din of nonsense and rhetoric but I fear it falls on deaf ears. As long as education remains a political domain the divide between the two will remain. Perhaps, if we can recognise and acknowledge the divide then we might just find a way forward? We must live in hope.
John Hassall, Founder and Creative Director, Johass
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