The Urgent Need to Learn What You Already Know

Image from Tom Brown's School Days

A common lament in contemporary education is that we need to reflect the diversity in our classrooms. We need aboriginal materials, written by aboriginal authors, because some students are aboriginals. We need to teach aboriginal languages. We need heritage language classes of all sorts. We need materials on black history, because some of our students are black. We need gay materials, because some have gay parents; materials must be "relevant to their daily lives," and so on and on.

One teacher writes, “It would be a wonderful world in which teachers had time and energy to tailor curriculum for the kids they actually have in their classrooms: by ethnicity, skin colour, national origins, interests, gifts, learning styles, family situations . . .”

If we stop and think, this makes little sense. It is saying, we should force kids to sit in the classroom for hours every day to tell them things they already know. And quite likely know more about than the teacher does.

The classic idea of education is rather different: it is that school is for learning things.

This is why, in the really old days, it was ancient history that was taught, and not modern or local history. Not “even though,” but because none of those little towheads were Athenians, Romans, or Trojans, and familiar with that lifestyle. It was Latin, Hebrew, Ancient Greek, or Sanskrit that were taught, not “even though,” but because none of them would already speak it at home.

When did we invert things so completely? When did we kill school and stop educating our young?