Progressive Schools

 

George Bernard Shaw went to a progressive "experimental" school in Dublin, and hated it.

 James Joyce went to a Jesuit school a few blocks away, and although he did not end up a faithful Catholic, always praised the classical education he got there.

Education is conservative by its nature. It is the process of passing on to each new generation the accumulated wisdom of their ancestors.

This is true through to graduate level. New Ph.D.’s and new faculty are judged by a panel of those already ensconced—a practice designed to ensure orthodoxy, and prevent innovation, comparable to and derived from the apostolic succession among the clergy. Lone must ensure the preservation of the deposit of faith.

Education establishments are designed to resist change. This is not a bug; it is a necessary feature. Change is often desirable; but the education system is not there to do it.

From whence does change come? From open communication among the very intelligent. The Internet is ideally suited for this. New art movements always arise outside the academies. Major philosophers have almost never been professors of philosophy; major poets never arise in English departments. Einstein was a patent clerk, not a physics prof; the current IT revolution began in garages. The Wright Brothers rn  bicycle shop.

Unfortunately, once science supplanted theology as our core faith, the education system went of the rails. Science is meant to experiment and innovate. Science has no core of knowledge, only eternal doubt and a technique to test beliefs.

We began, under the influence of science, to rely on the education system to experiment and innovate, instead of to educate; destroying the key mission.

This is one reason why the education system has stopped working. It often now literally has students sit in a group and decide for themselves what is real: “their truth,” “their lived experience.” Even if this makes sense, there is no reason to spend time in school. One already knows what one knows.

Having no remaining purpose, schools and universities have even taken it as their mission to destroy the civilization. Including trying to shut down free discussion so that innovation cannot take place.