The facets of education

Education has several distinct facets. My goal here is to identify the main ones to provide a foundation for thinking clearly about it.

I. Education is an investment in the student

This is the obvious and essential aspect of education: resources are devoted to developing a person’s abilities. Many societies invest substantial resources in their schools and accordingly make demands on these schools that they provide a return on this investment; sometimes a quantifiable return on investment in the form of standardized test scores. Many parents invest significant money, and sometimes time, in their children’s education.

II. Education is an investment by the student

I contend that the student is the primary investor in their education, because they unavoidably contribute 100% of the time required to be educated. And I assert this even if the education costs a lot of money that is paid by the state or the student’s parents, because I attach a lot of value to “years of one’s life”. To the extent we put a low or zero value on children’s time because they aren’t yet capable of producing anything of economic value, and thus don’t concern ourselves too much over how their days are spent, I totally, vehemently disagree.

Because in the case of primary/secondary education, the time invested by students comprises the fleeting years of childhood that will never come again: years that could be spent playing, pursuing one’s own interests, or just lazing about staring up at the clouds. To the extent that adults compel a child to spend the bulk of their scant childhood doing something they don’t want to do, basic morality requires that we’re able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the compulsory activity is vastly more likely to be in the child’s best interests than whatever the child wants to do. To the extent we’re unable to prove this, we’re guilty of depriving an innocent soul of its freedom without cause. This holds regardless of whether we have posters of smiling apples on the walls.

III. Education is child supervision for parents who work, and for society.

Many children have two parents who work (or a single parent who works) and are too young to be left unsupervised at home during the workday. They must therefore be supervised by someone, somewhere. School is the common solution to this critical problem. However, as a solution it has several shortcomings, as parents will readily tell you: 1) schools are sometimes closed for the day while work is still on; 2) kids are sometimes too sick to go to school; 3) the school day is usually shorter than the workday; 4) school is usually closed for the entire summer.

Supervision of older children is an important tool for many societies to reduce juvenile crime, hence truancy laws. It’s a bit ironic that to avoid the necessity of locking up delinquent youth in juvenile detention centers, we take the approach of preemptively locking them up in a different kind of juvenile detention center.

IV. Education is a social, cultural experience (usually).

The vast majority of education is a social experience; the obvious exception being solo homeschoolers or adults learning on their own time. Students often interact with other students, and thus in theory develop their social skills, albeit in an unnatural environment.

And while students are theoretically learning the explicit lessons of their classes, they’re definitely absorbing the implicit values and practices of its culture. Values like good behavior and good grades; providing correct answers to questions; being quiet and not talking out of turn; and knowledge of whatever subjects the school demands. And practices like obeying the teacher, raising one’s hand to ask a question, getting permission to use the restroom, observing the transitions indicated by the school bell, receiving praise or rewards for good work or good behavior, work being graded A-F, taking quizzes, and passing or failing a class.

As a result of these values and practices in a social environment, some students learn how to cheat; some learn to see themselves as failures. In many cases, precocious students learn not to do too well in school, lest they stand out too much from their peers, and especially not to correct or challenge their teachers. And, perhaps worst of all, kids with enormous potential learn that they don’t have to try too hard to excel, and so never learn to try.

V. Education is an economic institution

Education usually involves money. Teachers must be paid, buildings must be built and maintained, books and supplies must be bought. Private schools also have revenue, and possibly donations, and must remain financially solvent. In post-secondary education, for some reason, the amount of money involved becomes staggering — even as the number of students per class often goes from a couple dozen to a couple hundred.