I’ve been scratching my head recently trying to discover a word. I’m pretty sure such a word exists. It would describe somebody who has fantasies about being god-like. If some omniscient being out there knows this word, please get in touch with me and let me know. It’s driving me crazy, almost as much as the fantasies about being god-like. Now, I don’t mean this in a blasphemous way, but it’s just that sometimes I want to be able to change things without all the bother of lobbying MPs and putting in my own application to become Prime Minister. Perhaps there is even a word to describe somebody who fantasises about having god-like powers but is too lazy to run for Parliament. Having recently viewed a website showing words allowed in a game of Scrabble, I now believe there must be a word for everything ever imagined or otherwise, but unfortunately my pocket dictionary doesn’t quite suffice.
Anyway, my latest power-crazy fantasies were to do with changing the education
system. Not just a little bit, but massively. It started to flit across my mind as
I undertook a long car journey, which always gives me too much time to think. I was
listening to a radio station that was broadcasting one of these countdowns of
greatest singles ever, and suddenly they were playing Pink Floyd’s song about
bricks in the wall and not needing any education. Aside from the obvious reason for
actually needing some sort of grammatical education that’s apparent in the line
“we don’t need no education”, it started me off on a chain of thoughts. You see,
I remember when that song was first in the charts, because I was at school myself,
and even asked my teacher why the children were singing about that. I remember
imagining she would come out with a great defence of school, but
she must have been quite a radical teacher, or maybe just pissed off with her lot.
For instead, she started to ramble about the unworthiness of the education system,
before stopping herself when she realised she was telling all this to somebody who
(a) she needed on side for the next year, without planting seeds of rebellion into
such a young and malleable mind, and (b) didn’t understand what she was saying and
was only trying to make conversation as they washed out paint pots.
But let’s face it, kids of all types go through phases, or even years, of hating school. Maybe it’s because they can’t do the work. Maybe they don’t like the enforced socialisation of being one amongst so many, one who may be jostled in corridors, ridiculed for having the wrong trainers, or bullied mercilessly for years on end. They may be the type of kid who would prefer to be building brick walls instead of singing about them and learning how to talk about them in two foreign languages.
Okay then, I said to myself as I drove along humming hits from yesteryear, why not
let kids leave school at 12 or 13, as they did in the past? Release them to start
useful apprenticeships or to do menial jobs that tire them out too much to spend
their evenings trashing bus shelters. There always have been, and always will be,
kids that don’t like school, even if they don’t realise how lucky they are to have
the opportunities that many children around the world would walk twenty miles a day
to have. Ah, I replied to myself, but do we not have an obligation to educate the
youngest members of our society? Is it not better for society as a whole if we ensure
that all of our members are equipped with skills that will, in turn, help our society
to be productive? At this point, I was starting to feel like a Victorian
philanthropist and felt I was venturing too far into the realms of the philosophy
of education, about which I don’t know very much, really. Besides, I was also starting to
wonder if I should have taken the previous left-hand turn, as I couldn’t see any
more sign posts to my destination.
However, it is something I’m still pondering on: are our reasons for keeping kids in school against their will particularly valid? Do I really feel comfortable being a part of a system that I don’t wholly subscribe to? And what the hell does being a brick in the wall mean anyway? Anyone would think I’m not looking forward to going back to school...
added 1/1/05
© Copyright laws apply to the contents of this website. 2003-2005