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Noam Chomsky - The Purpose of Education

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    Well, we could ask ourselves what the purpose of an educational system is
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    and there are sharp differences on this matter.
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    Now, there's the traditional interpretation
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    that comes from the Enlightenment
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    which holds that the highest goal in life is to inquire and create,
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    to search the riches of the past,
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    and try to internalize the parts of them that are significant to you
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    and carry that quest for understanding further in your own way.
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    The purpose of education from that point of view
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    is just to help people determine how to learn on their own.
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    It's you, the learner, who is going to achieve in the course of education.
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    It's really up to you what you'll master,
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    where you'll go, how you'll use it.
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    How you'll go on to produce something new and exciting for yourself, maybe for others.
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    That's one concept of education.
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    Now the other concept is essentially indoctrination.
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    People have the idea that from childhood
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    young people have to be placed into a framework in which they'll follow orders,
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    accept existing frameworks, and not challenge.
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    And this is often quite explicit.
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    For example, after the activism of the1960s,
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    there was great concern across much of the educated spectrum
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    that young people were just getting too free and independent,
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    that the country was becoming too democratic.
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    There was an important study on what's called the crisis of democracy--too much democracy--
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    claiming that there are certain insitutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young--
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    that's their phrase-- and they're not doing their job properly.
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    That schools, universities, churches---we have to change them
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    so that they carry out the job of indoctrination and control more effectively.
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    That's actually coming from the liberal internationalists' end of the spectrum of educated opinion.
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    In fact, since that time there have been many measures taken
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    to try to turn the educational system towards more control,
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    more indoctrination, more vocational training.
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    Imposing a debt which traps students--young people--into a life of conformity.
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    That's the exact opposite of what I referred to as the tradition that comes out of the enlightenment.
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    There's a constrant struggle between those.
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    In the colleges and the schools, do you train for passing tests?
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    Or do you train for creative inquiry?
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    Pursuing interests that are aroused by material that's presented, you want to pursue either on your own
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    or in cooperation with others.
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    And this goes all the way through up to graduate school and research.
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    Just two different ways of looking at the world.
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    When you get to a research institution like the one we're now in,
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    at the graduate level, it essentially follows the enlightment tradition.
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    In fact, science couldn't progress unless it was based on inculcation of the urge to challenge,
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    to question doctrine, question authority, search for alternatives, use your imagination freely of your own impulses.
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    Cooperative work with others is constant as you can see just by walking down the halls.
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    That's my view of what an educational system should be like down to kindergarten.
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    But there certainly are powerful structures in society
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    which would prefer people to be indoctrinated,
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    to conform, to not ask too many questions, to be obedient,
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    to fulfill the roles that are assigned to you and not shake systems of power and authority.
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    Those are choices we have to make, wherever we stand in the educational system.
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    As students, as teachers, as people on the outside trying to help shape it in the direction that we think it ought to go.
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    Well there certainly has been a very substantial growth in new technology--
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    technology of information, communication, access interchange.
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    It's surely a major change in the nature of the culture and society.
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    We should bear in mind that the technological changes that are taking place now,
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    while they're significant, probably come nowhere near having as much impact
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    as technological advances of a century ago.
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    Let's take just communication.
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    The shift from a typewriter to a computer or a telephone to email is significant.
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    But it doesn't begin to compare with a shift from a sailing vessel to a telegraph.
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    The time that that cut down in communication between England and the United States
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    was extraordinary as compared with the changes taking place now.
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    The same is true of other kinds of technology.
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    The introduction of widespread plumbing in the cities had a huge effect on health,
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    much more than the discovery of antibiotics.
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    So the changes are real and significant,
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    but we should recognize that others have taken place that were much more dramatic.
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    As far as the technology itself and education is concerned,
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    technology is basically neutral.
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    It's kind of like a hammer.
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    The hammer doesn't care whether you use it to build a house
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    or whether a torturer uses it to crush somebody's skull.
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    A hammer can do either.
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    Same with modern technology, say, the internet, and so on.
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    The internet is extremely valuable if you know what you're looking for.
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    I use it all the time for research, I'm sure everyone does.
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    If you know what you're looking for, you have a kind of framework of understanding
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    which directs you through particular things,
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    and lets you sideline lots of others.
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    then this can be a very valuable tool.
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    Of course, you always have to be willing to ask
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    "Is my framework the right one?"
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    "Maybe I have to modify it.
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    "Maybe if there's something I look at that questions it, I should rethink how I'm looking at things."
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    But you can't pursue any kind of inquiry without a relatively clear framework
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    that's directing your search and helping you choose what's significant and what isn't.
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    What can be put aside, what can be pursued,
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    what ought to be challenged, what ought to be developed.
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    You can't expect somebody to become a biologist
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    by giving them access to the Harvard University biology library
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    and say, "Just look through it."
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    That'll give them nothing.
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    The internet is the same except magnified enormously.
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    If you don't understand or know what you're looking for,
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    if you don't have some kind of conception of what matters--
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    always with the proviso that you're willing to question--
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    if you don't have that, exploring the internet
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    is just picking out random factoids that don't mean anything.
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    Behind any significant use of contemporary technology--
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    the internet, communications systems, graphics, whatever it may be--
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    unless behind it is a well constructed, directive, conceptual apparatus,
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    it is very unlikely to be helpful.
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    It may turn out to be harmful.
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    For example, random exploration through the internet
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    turns out to be a cult generator.
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    You pick up a factoid here, a factoid there
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    and somebody else refers to it.
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    All of sudden you have some sort of crazed picture
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    which has some factual basis but nothing to do with the world.
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    You have to know how to evaluate, interpret, and understand.
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    Say biology again.
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    The person who wins the Nobel prize in biology
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    is not the person who read the most journal articles and took the most notes on them.
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    It's the person who knew what to look for.
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    And cultivating that capacity to seek what's significant--
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    always willing to question whether you're on the right track--
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    that's what education is going to be about.
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    Whether it's using computers and the internet or pencil and paper and books.
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    Well, education is discussed in terms of whether it's a worthwhile investment.
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    Does it create human capital
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    that can be used for economic growth and so on.
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    And it's a very distorting way to even pose the question, I think.
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    Do we want to have a society of free, creative, independent individuals,
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    able to appreciate and to gain from the cultural achievements of the past, and to add to them?
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    Do we want that?
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    Or do we want people who can increase GDP?
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    It's not necessarily the same thing.
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    An education of the kind that Bertrand Russell, John Dewey and others talked about,
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    That's a value in itself.
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    Whatever impact it has in the society, it's a value
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    because it helps create better human beings.
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    After all, that's what an educational system should be for.
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    On the other hand, if you want to look at it
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    in terms of costs and benefits,
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    take the new technology that we were just talking about, where did that come from?
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    Well, actually a lot of it was developed right where we're sitting,
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    Down below where we now are was a major laboratory back in the 1950s,
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    where i was employed in fact.
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    Which had lots of scientists, engineers, people of all kinds of interests--
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    philosophers, others.
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    Who were working on developing the basic character
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    and even the basic tools of the technology that has now come.
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    Computers and the internet for example,
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    were pretty much in the public sector for decades,
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    funded in places like this, where people were exploring new possibilities
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    that were mostly unthought of, unheard of at the time.
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    Some of them worked, some didn't.
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    The ones that worked were finally converted into tools that people could use.
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    Now that's the way scientific progress takes place.
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    It's the way that cultural progress takes place generally.
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    Classical artists, for example,
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    came out of a tradition of craftsmanship that was developed
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    over long periods with master artisans, with others.
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    Sometimes you can rise on their shoulders and create new, marvelous things.
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    But it doesn't come from nowhere.
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    If there isn't a lively cultural and educational system
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    which is geared towards encouraging creative exploration,
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    independence of thought, willingness to challenge accepted beliefs.
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    If you don't have that you won't get the technology that will lead to economic gains.
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    Though that I don't think is the prime purpose of cultural enrichment in education.
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    There is, in the recent period particularly, an increasing shaping of education
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    from the early ages on towards passing examinations.
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    Taking tests can be of some use, both for the person who is taking the test--
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    seeing what I know, and where I am, and what I'm achieving--
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    and for instructors--what should be changed and improved in developing
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    the course of instruction.
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    But beyond that, they don't really tell you much.
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    I mean I know for many many years, I've been on admissions committees
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    for entry into advanced graduate programs--
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    maybe one of the most advanced anywhere--
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    and we of course pay some attention to test results, but really not too much.
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    A person can do magnificently on every test and understand very little.
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    All of us who've been through schools and colleges and universities
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    are very familiar with this.
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    You can be in some course in which you have no interest
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    and there's demand that you pass a test,
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    and you can study hard for the test,
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    and you can ace it.
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    And a couple of weeks later you've forgotten what the topic was.
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    I'm sure we've all had that experience.
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    I know I have.
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    It can be a useful device if it contributes
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    to the constructive purposes of education.
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    If it's just a set of hurdles you have to cross,
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    it can turn out to be not only meaningless,
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    but it can divert you away from things that you want to be doing.
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    I see this regularly when I talk to teachers.
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    If you want an experience from a couple of weeks ago--
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    I happeneed to be talking to a group which included many schoolteachers.
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    One of them was a sixth grade teacher
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    who teaches kids who are ten or eleven.
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    She came up to me afterwards and I'd been talking about these students.
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    She told me of an experience that she had just had in her class.
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    After class a little girl came up to her and said she was really interested
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    in something that came up and she asked if the teacher could give her some ideas
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    of how she could look into it further.
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    And the teacher was compelled to tell her,
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    "I'm sorry, but you can't do that,
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    "you have to study to pass this national exam
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    "that's coming that's going to determine your future."
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    The teacher didn't say it, "but it's going to determine my future,
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    whether I am rehired."
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    The system is geared to getting the children to pass hurdles,
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    but not to learn and understand and explore.
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    That child would have been better off if she had been allowed to explore
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    what she was interested in and maybe not do so well on the test about things she wasn't interested in.
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    They'll come along when they fit into her interests and concerns.
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    So, I don't say that tests should be eliminated,
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    they can be a useful educational tool.
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    But ancillary--something that is helping improve ourselves,
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    for instructors, and others, what we're doing--tell us where we are.
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    Passing tests doesn't begin to compare with searching
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    and inquiring into pursuing topics that engage us and excite us.
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    That's far more significant than passing tests.
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    In fact, if that's the kind of educational career
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    that you're given the opportunity to pursue,
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    you'll remember what you discovered.
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    (Someone) is a world famous physicist
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    right here at MIT who was teaching freshman courses.
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    He once said that in his freshman course,
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    students will ask, "What are we going to cover this semester?"
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    And his standard answer was,
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    "It doesn't matter what we cover, it matters what you discover."
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    That's right.
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    Teaching ought to be inspiring students to discover on their own.
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    To challenge if they don't agree.
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    To look for alternatives if they think there are better ones.
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    To work through the great achievements of the past and try to master them on their own
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    because they're interested in them.
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    If that's the way teaching is done,
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    students will really gain from it and will not only remember what they've studied
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    but be able to use it as a basis for going on their own.
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    And again, education is really aimed
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    at helping students get to the point where they can learn on their own.
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    Because that's what you're going to do for you life.
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    Not just absorb materials that are given to you from the outside and repeat it.
Title:
Noam Chomsky - The Purpose of Education
Description:

Noam Chomsky discusses the purpose of education, impact of technology, whether education should be perceived as a cost or an investment and the value of standardised assessment.

Presented at the Learning Without Frontiers Conference - Jan 25th 2012- London (LWF 12)

http://www.learningwithoutfrontiers.com

credits:
Interviewed & directed by Graham Brown-Martin
Filmed & edited by Kevin Grant at wildtraxtv (http://on.fb.me/wildtraxtv)
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Video Language:
English
Team:
PACE
Duration:
21:58
altmediaangela edited English subtitles for Noam Chomsky - The Purpose of Education
altmediaangela edited English subtitles for Noam Chomsky - The Purpose of Education
altmediaangela added a translation

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