Ideology, Culture, and Education

Education has been a cornerstone of civilized society for thousands of years, closely linked with culture and ideology. In ancient China, Confucian philosophy laid the basis for the imperial examination system; in Renaissance Europe, learning was intertwined with humanistic values. In modern America, the philosopher and education reformer John Dewey believed that education had a vital role in the fostering of a democratic society. To Dewey, education needed to become more practical, with more focus on real-life situations; he believed that such practicality was not apparent in the conventional education system (that perhaps still exists to this day). In a way, Dewey believed that the education system was undermining and even attacking the basis of democracy, for the system favored the wealthy and failed to teach social responsibility for the common good. However, though Dewey was correct that education must emphasize practicality, he failed to realize that the problem with education was not necessarily ideological, but cultural. If the issue of education is to be solved, it must be done with insightful changes in methodology and cultural thought, not with idealistic, reckless ideology.

Dewey believes that education gives an unfair advantage to the rich. To Horace Mann, another education reformer, education, however, can be the "great equalizer [of] man" (Mann). Both believe that ideally, education can make men equal. However, such idealism is incorrect. The whole purpose of education is to make men better, to make them more intelligent and capable; but education itself is not enough to motivate a person to achieve anything. The learner themselves must have the will and motive to succeed - or not. A student from an alternative high school said, "It's your ass, and your life, and you either make the most of [the] opportunity [education gives you] or you don't. It's up to you" (Broder). In a similar vein, the American satirist Mark Twain said that he did not want "education to interfere with [his] learning". Thus, education is to improve men, not make them equals; those that seize the opportunity and use their resources have a better chance to prosper, and those that do not will fail. Dewey and Mann, then, are in fact regurgitating Marxist and Communist ideals, believing that education can and must erase the unique differences and imbalances of people. Both make a futile case against the upper class (as the communists had), for it is human nature to have an upper class, and, in the case of education and learning, the upper class will simply be the students that learn best.

The problem, with education is not that it is not living up to democratic ideals and turning into some kind of destructive elitist bastion; the problem simply is not ideological. If education is to be changed, then the culture behind it also must be changed; the whole purpose of education - to teach - needs to be reviewed and revised. Education is currently criticized as unable to teach students about the realities of life. Yet this is true in some ways and false in others. Progressive education advocate Leon Botstein, for example, states that "high school turn[s] out not to be [like real] life", because high school is corrupted by "popular culture" and "the tyranny of peer groups" (Botstein). And yet, this kind of high school life is very similar to how society functions, for there are many diverse socioeconomic groups in America that are hostile - or at least not amiable - to each other. It turns out that high school does teach students, at the least, about the social realities of life, that stereotypes exist, and that there are stronger groups with more power and self-righteousness, in high school and real life. Nevertheless, as Horace Mann said, education should "prevent both the revenge and the madness" (Mann). As the scholar Todd Gitlin suggests, perhaps an increased focus on the liberal arts is necessary in education. Education must expose children to new and different ideas, beliefs, and cultures. The culture behind education of America has for too long had a Cold War mentality, where there was emphasis on technological and scientific learning - a cold, concrete curriculum. Going beyond Gitlin's suggested Eurocentric curriculum, which includes "Mozart", "Jane Austen", and "Rembrandt", the liberal arts must teach children to see not only differently, but also how societies work and function, including their own (Gitlin). Education thus must have a shift from a technical, mathematical mentality to one more focused on practicality and creativity.

For example, schools in East Asia also face a similar cultural problem. There are many statistics that show that Asian schools perform better than their American counterparts. However, this is not the entire story. East Asian education, throughout its many millennia of history, has suffered through the issue of imposing an almost unbearable amount of stress on students. Education has become a life and death struggle. For example, there is a Japanese saying: "Four hours of sleep, pass. Five hours of sleep, fail." With such pressure, contrary to Floyd Norris' statement that East Asian education emphasizes "practical[ity]", students are really only taught to apply practicality so that they can do good on tests and focus on education, not so that they could actually learn to apply such skills in real life. Students in Asia do not devote themselves to intellectual development; they devote themselves entirely on getting good test scores so that they would either succeed in life or fail miserably. In this respect, American schools actually triumph, because colleges look not just for test scores or grades, but also extracurricular activities. In education, students must be encouraged to be flexible and creative, and applying their skills innovatively and not just focusing day in and day out on nothing but their studies.

Dewey was at least right, then, in emphasizing that education must not only give the student book-based knowledge that can be easily evaluated on written tests. Education must also teach the student the options and opportunities for what they can do in life. The only problem is that such a kind of learning is not necessarily testable. It can only be shown through the achievements of students later in their lives; and certainly, some students will do better than others. Such inequality is inevitable, and any attempt to 'equalize' all students as Dewey and Mann suggests is ridiculous. True democratic ideals rest on the humanistic idea that the individual, given freedom, through his ability for intelligence and rational thought, must live up to his full potential. To make him like every other goes against this principle.

Dewey thus wrongly mixes ideological "democracy" with education in his argument that education needs to be made "equal" for all, that it can not favor an elite. Yet, education has always brought about an elite - those who learned better than others. For the problem of education to be solved, there not only needs to be more emphasis on practicality as Dewey rightly suggests. America also needs to reexamine its own culture, and see what it needs to focus on - whether this means there needs to be more focus on the liberal arts, or on real-life simulating internships, or anything else. The issue of education needs to steer away from ideology, and more towards methodology. The important thing to solve is not what is taught, but how it is taught. Education must bring about the greatest potential in all, so that those who are better than the rest can use their applied skills and talents to better all of society, bringing about the common good.