Prussian discipline inevitably destroys education
This text is part of: "I would never send my kids to school" by Piotr Wozniak (2017)
Schools undermine intelligence
Modern schools in industrialized societies have a destructive impact on the prospects of lifelong learning, adaptation to adult life, mental health, social cohesion, creativity, innovation, etc. One of the most destructive components of schooling is discipline. As schools grow to become factories of graduates, they need to enforce discipline for their efficient operation. This inevitably results in the loss of freedom for students. As a result, we remove the most essential factor necessary for developing intelligence: freedom in decision making in the learning process.
Teachers are powerless
While I pour scorn on modern schooling, I keep talking to teachers to see how school transforms their thinking. There is a surprising and an overwhelming conclusion: most of teachers are lovely people with the best intent at heart. However, their understanding of brain science is not too good. Teacher colleges seem to propagate knowledge frozen at the level of Piaget, Vygotsky, and even Freud. In my little quiz on the role of sleep, I tested a dozen of students of medicine and a dozen of teachers. They all had no clue beyond "sleep is important for rest". Beyond poor understanding of the brain, for most of those lovely people, there are a few factors that convert their good intentions into an oppressive system that harms children:
- teachers often do not appreciate the Fundamental law of learning
- teachers are not free to implement their own ideas on learning, and classroom feedback often goes to waste
- teachers are bound by compulsory curriculum and compulsory schooling
- the greater the conviction of the need to help children, the greater the risk of transferring the harms of discipline onto young minds
Youthful zeal of Mr Hester
Tyler Hester (see: Mr Hester) is a good example of how good intentions may turn school into a robotized place. Mr Hester has excellent educational credentials and his goals are lofty. Instead of pursuing a career in the theory of education, he decided to help children and teach. For Mr Hester, education is the "civil rights issue of the generation". On the wall of his class, an ominous quote is quite predictive of what awaits students: "99% perspiration".
Mr Hester's class is an acme of Prussian discipline and efficiency. Missing homework results in 60 minutes detention after class. It is unacceptable to talk during the class. Mr Hester will enforce that expectation. If the students do not meet expectations, Mr Hester will call home. This way, parents and teachers can team up to "help" children accomplish the goals set by adults. This well-intended control is the root cause of the sense of helplessness. Many a teen suicide resulted from this kind of teamwork where the young mind could see nobody who would understand her problems, of which poor progress at school was just of one of a myriad of concerns.
There are rules aplenty in Mr Hester's class: where to keep hands, where to keep feet, how to stand, how to wait, how to respond, how to react to the bell, how to follow directions, what language is permitted, etc. Students learn how to begin a sentence when they agree, and how to begin a sentence when they disagree. For violations there are verbal and visual warnings, demerits, calling home, referrals to dean, etc. There are also rewards, praise, merits, BHAG tickets, and, most surprisingly, joy of learning. As pleasure of learning is a network-level phenomenon, which is a reflection of high quality choices guided by the learn drive, true joy of learning in direct instruction is virtually impossible. Fake joy of learning is possible. It is not the joy of learning per se, but the joy of reaching benchmarks, goals, obtaining rewards, grades, badges, tickets, and the like. Fake joy of learning does not translate to coherent knowledge as stipulated by the Fundamental law of learning. Mr Hester has extensive management skills, but those skills do not take into account some vital findings from neuroscience. The site that promotes Hester's methods is called Agape management. Sadly, management works well in a factory, it may do ok for low-level rote learning, but it is bound to be counterproductive in efficient learning that aims at high creativity and innovative thinking.
Infectious perfectionism
Mr Hester's example is infectious. All teachers realize, sooner or later, that for the factory to work, there must be minimum noise level on the assembly line, and maximum synchrony in the determined single-minded effort towards the achievement (i.e. grades and certificates).
Courtney Fleming has provided a quintessential comment that shows how the system destroys love, even if love is taken as the key starting point in approaching students:
I am just starting my second year of teaching. A couple of years ago I saw your videos and thought you were too strict, too cold, your expectations were too high for middle schoolers. Now I'm teaching in a challenging school and my classroom management is awful, my kids don't respect me, and behaviour problems in my classes are draining me. You were right all along - by letting my kids get away with so much, I'm telling them that I don't expect much of them. Semester 2 starts next week and I'm ready to start fresh with high expectations, clear and consistent consequences, and a belief that I can get more or of my students than they could ever imagine. Thank you for these videos!
One of the viewers noticed how military training is a great prep to teaching:
I went into teaching right after getting out of the military. People thought I was too "strict" with my students. After the first year, those same people were asking me for class management advice. Being strict doesn't mean you don't care for your students
A comment from Carole Powers shows that love and best intentions will not prevent the quest for military-level discipline:
I have been teaching for 29 years. After viewing this video, that I so appreciate, I am just in tears! Thank you for the action that follows your heart. Tell your mom for me, that she is to be commended for raising a righteous man. I really loved your honesty about your first year of teaching. I respect how you decided not to continue to struggle but to change, to learn to manage our students. I am doing the same and in my quest I am coming across some great resources, like you
Mr Hester's videos are a goldmine of comments that illustrate divisions that could only come from a mutation to a feudal system. While teachers are enthusiastic and full of praise, students are horrified. These are two classes of people set against each other by the system: (1) well-educated and good-hearted teachers who plan to lift up the new generation, and (2) the target of the oppression: young minds yearning for freedom to learn. That dichotomy can best be described with the old biblical maxim: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Remedies
The universal remedy to all the aforementioned problems is free learning. It may have a form of unschooling or it may take place in a democratic school. For free learning to thrive, compulsory schooling must end. As for the Prussian system, it is bound to hurt kids, but the concept of classroom management benefits a great deal from taking the management out of the equation. If the teacher's prime focus is the relationship with a student, if they both play complementary roles of mutual consolation in the prison of school, the drudgery of robotized learning can be alleviated. Instead of the rules imposed on the student, the teacher can observe and adapt via experience. Real Rap With Reynolds is a good example of focusing on humans rather than on the achievement.