school interviews

I asked everyone that I interviewed the same question: What do you think we expect of school (or specifically the public school system) and how does that differ from what it actually delivers?

I first interviewed my mother, Nancy, who is a social worker. She said that we expect school to educate, socialize, and discipline children. For its actual function, however, she felt that it more often beat the creativity out of students and institutionalized racism and sexism, and mechanized the learning process. She added that schools still do succeed in teaching, but the methods used are more often dampening to intellectual curiosity.

I then interviewed my aunt Joanie, who is a public school social studies teacher. Her idea of our expectation of school was the same as Nancy's, but she said that they actually serve as training camps to brainwash children into not seeing the injustices of society. She also felt that they marginalize children by race and class, and even serve to weed out children of different backgrounds.

Next I interviewed my mother's friend, Ro. She said that we expect schools to educate students enough to go to a good college and/or do well in their career. She said that what they actually do is fill students with adequate knowledge in the "classic subjects". She added that while it may not be intentional, schools often favor males in math and science and females in the more artistic subjects.

The next person I interviewed was my other mother, Paula, who manages a day care center. She said that the goal of schools is to socialize children, educate them in the basics that will enable them to lead happy, productive lives, and teach them to problem solve. She said that most schools probably try towards this goal, but some fail.

Last I interviewed my uncle David, who is a photographer. He said that schools are supposed to educate you, adding "everybody knows that!" He said that they also aim to civilize or socialize children to meet the standards of society. He said that the main downside to the current schooling system is the marking system, which makes children care more about passing than learning. It also trains people to be reward/punishment driven, instead of teaching them to think for themselves. Although, he added, that works fine for some.

What I get from this is that a lot of people see something wrong with the school system, mainly that certain children are favored and that it discourages creativity, but only some think this can be fixed. Those that think it can be fixed see it as an intentional attempt to let only the children that fit into society's mold be successful, while those that say it will just slowly make itself better see it as an unplanned defect in the system. I personally don't really think of it as an intentional attempt to keep children down, just because I don't think people are organized enough to pull that off. Discrimination and brainwashing definitely happens in some schools, but I don't think of it as a product of the school itself as much as the teachers. If a single teacher wants to discriminate then they will do so, and that will be a problem within their classroom, but I honestly don't think that there is any conspiracy for the purpose.