User:Gunitag/Education

Education and schooling are two terms often used interchangeably to describe what happens, ideally, to every child in Canada between the ages of approximately 5 and 18. Going to school is mandated by law and, as a teacher candidate, it behooves me to determine how I define these terms. As soon as one is charged with this task, however, it quickly becomes clear that further research is required to demarcate just how and why the two ideas and ideals of schooling and education are not, in fact, interchangeable.

In his article, “Education and Schooling: A Relationship That Can Never Be Taken For Granted”, Ken Osborne explores the history of the creation of mandatory schooling for children in the Western world. Osborne is highly critical of the notion that education and schooling are one in the same and draws a stark comparison between the two historically. He quotes many 19th century English thinkers who criticized the public school system as the creator of homogenous opinion that had little to do with “education in any real sense of the word” (24). Osborne describes mandatory schooling as an Industrial Age solution to the problem of child labour. He goes on to explain that the education received within was a means by which individuals might be best suited to participate in national matters such as politics and identity. Moreover, he states that school and education were a way to define a person once religion failed to be the centre of his or her existence. After this historical overview, Osborne goes on to state that school is a “tool of social policy” (27) but that education is still defined classically as “the development of intellect, character, and personal style, rooted in the internalization of classical values and the acquisition of an informed intellectual autonomy” (29). He extends these definitions of schooling and education to teacher training programs (schooling/education of a different sort) in order to ensure that as a society we continue to produce teachers with a “willingness to tune into the never-ending conversation of what it means to be human” (34). He criticizes the present system of education and schooling as one preoccupied with accountability (i.e., curriculum outcomes, education standards) and standardized assessment and says that these preoccupations result in what he calls “curricular disempowerment” (38). By understanding the difference between schooling and education, being critical of these differences, and by formulating teaching strategies in response to this criticism, Osborne concludes that “we will ensure that students’ experience of schooling is truly educational” (39).

While Osborne’s article only focuses on the Western history of educational institution, this is not necessarily a shortcoming since institutionalized education is largely a Western ideal. This fact is exemplified in the documentary by Black et al. entitled, "Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden" which blatantly criticizes the Western agenda to educate the world by comparing the value of the knowledge of indigenous peoples with the value of that which a Western education provides. The film is harsh in its view of the Western education system and even goes as far as to describe schools and schooling as regimented and almost prison like. Coupled with the first hand testimony of those who were taken from their homeland and deposited into the schooling system describing the problems that have arisen simply because of this altruistic? endeavour, the film provides a bleak view of education and schooling whereby the first is demeaning and the second almost inhuman.

When viewing this film together with Verna St. Denis’ article about the inclusion of a deep Aboriginal history to the Canadian curriculum as wholly differing in spirit from the inclusion of multicultural folklore to the same, one finds oneself in a slight quandary yet again regarding the purpose of education and schooling–especially in the most present context. St. Denis argues that multicultural curricula that touch on Aboriginal issues do little more than teach about cultural artifacts. She argues for “the need for meaningful Aboriginal content and perspectives that address the ways in which racism and colonialism shape the lives of Aboriginal people in Canada’ (314).

If we take St. Denis’ claims and juxtapose them with Osborne’s call for tuning into the conversation about being human and we consider that we are in Canada at this moment in time when Truth and Reconciliation is happening, we cannot help but wonder when the education system in Canada is going to catch up with the make-up of its schools. For if schooling in Canada is the mandated law that each child attends at least a public institution from ages 5-18, then each child is going to have at least one personal truth and one voice in the conversation. As such, education must attend to these truths and these voices. While schooling and education may have been a necessary part of the national machine at one point in history, it remains today as an integral part of (almost) every child’s developmental experience. My current working definition of schooling in light of the Osborne article, the documentary, and the St. Denis article is the compulsory situation each child must endure personally, socially, emotionally, and psychologically; while education is that which we, as teachers, provide to enhance each child’s personal, social, emotional, and psychological interaction with the world, so that they too may speak up with confidence in the conversation about what it means to be human. As such, I believe that educators are responsible for ensuring that schooling is tolerable-- even pleasant!--and that education is always changing.

Ken Osborne, Black et al., and Verna St. Denis all present comprehensive treatments of education and schooling in differing contexts. Osborne discusses the historical beginnings of schooling and uses this to enlighten current educational practices. Black et al. show what current educational practices mean to the global community of non-Western populations. And St. Denis brings it home by demonstrating the alterations that need to be made to current Canadian curricula to include the real history of Aboriginal people in Canada. After examining these three perspectives on education and schooling, I have come to my own different but complimentary definitions of what these two often interchanged words mean. In fact, I doubt I will ever use the two words without clarification or justification again. In many ways, just inquiring into one’s working definitions of complex conceptual words is often enough to provoke examination. However, such examination may never have led anywhere new, had I not been exposed to the opinions and reflections of the three works cited.

Definition of my philosophical and practical identity–especially in light of my eventual unleashing into the classroom–ought to be something I always ponder and alter as the conversation of what it means to be human continues through time. Harper states it best when she quotes Joan Scott as saying that the “project of history is not to reify identity but to understand its production as an ongoing process of differentiation, relentless in its repetition, but also–and this seems the most important political point–subject to redefinition, resistance and change” (8). Anyone who thinks that schooling, education, and teaching are not political acts is fooling herself. And in order to be responsible political citizens in this, the most important of all arenas, we must be critical of our beliefs, definitions, and identities for we will wear these obviously and everyday for every child to see. Indeed, it will be these very beliefs, definitions, and identities that our students remember when they reflect on their own.

Works Cited:

Osborne, K. (2008). Education and schooling: A relationship that can never be taken for granted. In D. Coulter & J.R. Wiens (Eds.), Why do we educate? Renewing the conversation (vol. 1, pp. 21-41). Boston: Blackwell. (Chapter 2)

Schooling the world: The white man's last burden. Black, C., Marlens, N., Hurst, J., Grossan, M., Davis, W., Norberg-Hodge, H., . . . Lost People Films (Directors). (2010).[Video/DVD] Malibu, Calif.: Lost People Films.

St. Denis, V. (2011). Silencing Aboriginal curricular content and perspectives through multiculturalism: "There are other children here". Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 33(4), 306-317.

Harper, H. (1997). Difference and diversity in Ontario schooling. Canadian Journal of Education, 22(2), 192-206