Personal Opinions- The Educational System of New Zealand
I don't write to force my opinions on others, or to stand up for what I believe.
I write to hear other ideas, and open my mind to knew concepts, ideas, views, and so on.
I'm interested in philosophy, it's a subject that can never give you a definite answer, correct or incorrect. I think that's why I love discussing it so much. No one person can be wrong to an extent. Hence there are various perspectives for one to consider.
I was on a boat trip in the weekend and had a brief discussion with some interesting people, (it's incredible how many people there are on this earth, how individually unique they are, and how much knowledge they have to share with others), and we found ourselves on the topic of the education system in New Zealand. (I am also sure this applies to many other countries but I don't want to state falsely just in case). Conformity in the education system in this country has always been an issue for myself.
Public schools, especially High Schools and Colleges, are coming to be the most highly hypocritical of all educational structures. One of the key virtues that Principals, Teachers, and Heads of Education Departments adhere to is that 'every student is unique.' They enforce the idea that each individual should not conform to their peers. That they should strive to be different, the best they can be. They are automatically falling into the dissimulation category.
Throughout schools today the curriculum has become so precise and intransigent that the human brain is adapting to the lack of flexibility given in the classroom. For example, in a science class 2008, I was speaking to the class teacher about velocity, time, and distance (yes we were studying physics) and she told us that 'velocity' has a meaning that is more extensive than the one she had previously given us in class. After enquiring what the more extensive meaning was she stated that 'I am not eligible to know until next years science class.' I find it difficult to only understand what I am given, so naturally I researched it when I got home that evening. The human brain is a world full of files, both empty and full. The information that we are given is automatically saved, (excluding the many children who find it unnecessary to learn anything and have the ambitions of a slug), and personally, I find it absolutely inevitable to learn the most about something as possible. It really frightens me when I think of the extensive amounts of knowledge in this world, and how little I know myself.
In the classroom the thirty three or so students are taught the curriculum. From day one each individual is learning the equivalent as the one opposite them. Their knowledge is cloned (unless, like myself, the student spends countless hours at home researching the information that was not given by teachers), and their abilities are alike. Not conforming? I am fairly sure that this system has already produced the educational world an army of identically able people. Of course, to an extent, this is an unfair statement. I am not expressing that I believe every human being in the schooling system to be of the same capability. Indeed many children have incredible amounts of brain power, and every person will learn differently to the other. I am however conveying that I believe the educational establishment to be confined, restricted and narrow.
For children to adapt, and in many ways for mankind to advance as a species, the knowledge provided to young minds needs to be divergent and expansive. Perhaps the government is afraid. While the young people of today learn what they can understand themselves, they have the ability to limit and administer their actions. Without knowledge disparate to that of the Government, they will always be above that of 'us'.
Home-schooling for the majority of my educational life has really opened my eyes to the lack of flexibility in the educational systems of today. Tied in with the conformity of uniforms, and appearance, the public schooling methods are indeed creating a mass army of clones. Surely after year thirteen of education in a school you can become your own different person? The human brain is the most adaptable of living creatures on this earth, capable of religiously getting into routines. After thirteen years of conforming and being hand fed what everyone else is given, it is difficult, and almost impossible to rebel from these traditions. Learning at home offered me the opportunity to learn what I chose to, and to be different and unique in any way I chose (in too many ways I must admit!), thus I have been very conservative at high school, aware of the conformity that I could very easily fall into. I have however achieved to maintain a very un-biased way of learning, both at high school and in my own home.
Is it the Governments way of maintaining a manageable group of people? Or is it a safe and reliable system of learning? Universities have this far managed to keep their knowledge supply fairly flexible. We can just hope it stays that way.
- Joy Foster
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