Why Do Kids Need To Get Educated?

The Sunday Comics in the Washington Post has a feature in which kids write in with questions, usually science related, and the cartoonist answers them, usually with some kind of fun experiment. This week the question some kid asked was something like this: “Since we have the internet, why do we need to go to school?” I would suggest that the child who asked that has been very poorly served by whatever school he attends. The answer, though, didn’t make me feel much better. The sage on the page said that you go to school so you can learn critical thinking so that you can know what is true and what is false on the internet. Notice that the answer still privileges the internet as the source of all knowledge!

Then, the very next day, the Kid’s Post section–a page of news and features designed to hook children on the daily newspaper–asked, for its back to school issue, “Why do kids need to go to school?” The answers this time were that if you go to school, you’ll make more money; school teaches you to get along with others; it helps you set goals; it helps you participate in our democracy by making you knowledgeable about political issues.

Neither adult writer said ANYTHING about academics. NOTHING about literacy (even though you have to be able to both read and write to take advantage of the internet, if that’s going to be the criteria). NOTHING about learning what needs to be transmitted to every generation. NOTHING about science or math. NOTHING about any kind of content whatsoever.

This accords with the dogmas of progressive education, of course. Dewey said that students should learn processes, not content. It doesn’t matter what they read, as long as they know how to read. Sadly, though, many students are not even learning processes anymore–such as how to read, write, calculate–as the focus shifts to socialization. (I would argue, though, that a society consisting only of other children your same age is hardly a society at all.)