Factory model of education
This reference is used to annotate "I would never send my kids to school" (2017) by Piotr Wozniak
When education is seen as an industrial process, we can represent an education system with the factory model of education.
The factory model of education is employed in most schools in many countries. Schooling is massive. There is a massive input of raw materials: kids. Massive output of low-quality products: slightly educated graduates. On the assembly line the kids get a uniform treatment along the prescriptions of the curriculum. There are assembly line workers: teachers, who work on assembling the product: knowledge in young heads. Child brains are seen as tape recorders that register the appropriate content.
"The Invented History of 'The Factory Model of Education'" by Audrey Watters is a great read full of interesting titbits from the history of education. The problem with the text is that it denounces innovators such as Sal Khan (see: Experts do not understand Khan Academy). He is seen as a person who tries to "automate" education. In reality, Khan actually frees student minds to elect courses and proceed at their own pace. This is what schools should aim at: freedom to learn. This is the direction in which schools are evolving slowly and reluctantly.
The text concludes:
And so too we’ve invented a history of “the factory model of education” in order to justify an “upgrade” – to new software and hardware that will do much of the same thing schools have done for generations now, just (supposedly) more efficiently, with control moved out of the hands of labor (teachers) and into the hands of a new class of engineers, out of the realm of the government and into the realm of the market.
I feel this is also addressed to me. When I "peddle" incremental reading, I supposedly peddle a technological upgrade. Indeed, new technology supports the brain in its explorations. SuperMemo and Khan Academy are new arrivals. The control does not move to the new class of engineers. The control moves to the hands of the student himself.
At the negligible risk of being mentioned in another text on "invented history" a hundred years from now, I will predict that soon schools will change or will be subject to a massive die out. Anyone who had a chance to compare the experience of Khan Academy with the experience of sitting in a bench knows that kids will no longer tolerate the displeasure of schooling. The old factory model of education is dying. Its actual history does not really matter or weigh in on its impending doom.
Quoted excerpts come from the following reference:
Author: Audrey Watters
Tile: The Invented History of 'The Factory Model of Education'
Link: http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model
Backlink: Myth: Students are naturally lazy and do not like to learn