Noam Chomsky - The Purpose of Education

[Music] well we can ask ourselves what the purpose of an educational system is and of course there are sharp differences on on this matter uh there's the uh traditional an interpretation that comes from the enlightenment which uh holds that uh the highest goal in life is uh to inquire and create uh to uh search the uh Riches of the past try to uh internalize the parts of them that are significant to you carry that quest for understanding further in your own way uh uh purpose of Education from that point of view is just to help

people uh uh uh determine how to learn on their own uh it's you the learner who is going to achieve uh in the course of education and it's really up to you what you'll U what you'll Master where you'll go how you'll use it how you'll go on to uh uh produce something new and exciting for yourself maybe for others that's one concept of Education the other concept is essentially IND doctrination uh people have to the idea that from childhood uh young people have to be uh uh placed into a framework in which they'll follow

orders except existing Frameworks not Challenge and so on and this is often quite explicit so for example after the uh in the uh after the activism of the 1960s there was great concern across much of the uh educated Spectrum uh that uh uh young people were just getting too free and independent uh that the country was becoming too Democratic and so on and in fact there an important study on What's called the crisis of democracy too much democracy uh arguing that uh uh there are claiming that there are certain institutions responsible for the indoctrination of

the young it's their phrase and they're not doing their job properly that's schools universities churches we have to change them so that they carry out the job of indoctrination and control more effectively that's actually coming from the liberal internationalist uh end of the spect of the inter of the uh spectrum of educated opinion and in fact since that time there have been many measures taken to try to uh turn the educational system towards more control more indoctrination uh more vocational training uh uh imposing a debt which traps students young people into a life of Conformity

and so on that's the exact opposite of the what I referred to as the tradition that comes out of the Enlightenment and there's a constant struggle between those uh in the colleges in the schools in the schools do you uh uh do you train for passing tests or do you train for a creative uh inquiry uh pursuing interests that are aroused by material that's presented that you want to pursue either on your own or in cooperation with others and this goes all the way through uh uh up to uh graduate school and research just two

different ways of looking at the world when you when you get to a say a research institution like the one we're now in at The Graduate level it uh it essentially follows the enlightenment tradition fact science and couldn't progress unless it was based on uh inculcation of the uh her to challenge uh to question Doctrine question authority search for Alternatives uh use your imagination act freely under your own impulses Cooperative work with others is constant as you can see just by walking down the Halls uh that's my view what an educational system should be like

down to kindergarten uh but uh there's uh certainly are powerful structures in the society which would prefer people to be indoctrinated conform not ask too many questions be obedient uh fulfill the uh roles that are assigned to you and don't try to shake systems of power and authority uh those are choices we have to make either as people that wherever we stand in the educational system as students as teachers as people on the outside trying to help shape it in the directions in which we think it ought to go well there certainly has been uh

a very substantial growth in new technology technology of communication information access interchange it's surely a major change in the nature of the culture and Society uh we should bear in mind that the technological changes that are taking place now while they're significant uh uh probably come nowhere near having as much impact as technological advances of say a century ago plus or minus so the shift say let take just communication the shift from u a typewriter to a computer or a a telephone to the uh email is significant but it doesn't begin to compare with the

shift from uh a sailing vessel to a telegraph I mean the time that that cut down in communication between say England and the United States was extraordinary as compared with With The Changes taking place now and the same is true of other kinds of Technology like just introduction of say Plumbing of widespread Plumbing in the cities had a huge effect on health much more than the discovery of antibiotics so the changes are real and significant but we should recognize that others have taken place which in many ways were more dramatic uh the as far as

the technology itself and education is concerned uh the technology is uh is basically neutral it's kind of like a hammer I mean you can the hammer doesn't care whether you use it to build a house or whether a torturer uses it to crush somebody's skull hammer can do either uh same with the modern technology say the internet and so on the Internet is extremely valuable if you know what you're looking for I mean I use it all the time for research I'm sure every one does if you know the kind of what you're looking for

you have a a kind of a framework of understanding which directs you to particular things it lets you sideline lots of others uh then this can be a very valuable tool of course you always have to be willing to ask is my framework the right one maybe I ought to modify it maybe if there something I look at that questions that I should rethink how I'm looking at things but you can't pursue any kind of inquiry without a a pretty relatively clear framework that's directing your search and uh helping you choose what's significant what isn't

what can be put aside what ought to be pursued uh what ought to be challenged what ought to be developed and so on I mean you can't expect somebody to become a biologist Say by uh uh uh giving them access to the uh uh Harvard University biology library and say just look through it that'll give them nothing and the internet is the same except magnified enormously uh if you don't understand know what you're looking for if you don't have some kind of a conception of what matters always of course with the Proviso that you're willing

to question it if it seems to be going in the wrong direction if you don't have that uh exploring the Internet is just uh picking out the random factoids that don't mean anything uh so behind any significant use of contemporary technology the internet communication systems what Graphics whatever it may be uh behind unless behind it is some uh well constructed directive conceptual apparatus it is very unlikely to be helpful it may turn out to be harmful for example random exploration through the internet turns out to be a um a cult generator you pick up a

factoid here and a factoid there and somebody else reinforces it and all of a sudden you have some the craz picture which is some factual basis but nothing to do with the world uh you have to know how to evaluate interpret and understand the say biology again the the person who wins the Nobel Prize in biology is not the person who read the most Journal articles and the most notes on them it's the person who knew what to look for and cultivating that capacity to seek What's significant always willing to question whether you're on the

right track that's what uh education is going to be about whether it's using computers in the internet or pencil and paper and books well I education is discussed in terms of whether it's a worthwhile investment that does it create human capital that can be used for economic growth and so on that's a very strange it's a kind of a a very distorting way to even pose the question I think do we want to have a society of free creative independent individuals able to appreciate and uh gain from the cultural achievements of the past and to

add to them do we want that or do we want people who can increase GDP they not necessarily the same then not the same thing and u a an education of the kind that uh say bergant Russell John dwey and others talked about that's a value in itself whatever whatever impact it has in the society it's a value because it helps create better human beings after all that's what an educational system should be for on the other hand if you want to look at it in terms of costs and benefits uh take the new technology

that we were just talking about where' that come from well actually a lot of it was developed right where we're sitting uh down below where we now are was a major laboratory back in the 1950s where I was employed in fact which was uh had lots of scientists engineers people of all kinds of interests philosophers others who are working on developing the basic character of the and even the basic tools of the uh technology that is now common computers and the internet for example uh were pretty much in the public sector for decades just funded

in places like this where people were exploring new possibilities that were mostly unthought of at heard of at the time some of them worked some didn't the ones that worked were finally converted into tools that people can use that's the way scientific progress takes place it's the way cultural progress takes place generally classical artists for example came out of a tradition of craftsmanship that was developed over long periods with Master Artisans with others and some sometimes you can rise on their shoulders and create do uh marvelous things but it doesn't come from nowhere if there

isn't a a a lively cultural and educational system which is geared towards encouraging creative exploration uh independence of thought uh willingness to challeng to cross Frontiers to challenge accepted beliefs and so on if you don't have that you're not going to get the technology that can lead to economic gains though that I don't think is the prime purpose of uh uh cultural enrichment and education as part of it um there is in the recent period particularly an increasing uh shaping of uh education from the early ages W on towards uh passing examinations uh that can

be taking tests can be of some use uh both for the person who's taken the test see what I know and where where I am what I've achieve what I have it for instructors what should be changed and improved in in developing the course of instruction but beyond that I don't really tell you very much much I mean I know for for many many years I was on I've been on admissions committees for uh uh entry into a advanced graduate program maybe one of the most advanced anywhere and we of course pay some attention to

test results but really not too much I mean you can a person can do magnificently on every test and understand and very little I mean all of us who've been through schools and colleges and universities are very familiar with this uh you can be assigned uh you can be in some say course that you have no interest in and uh there's demand that you pass a test and you can study hard for the test and you can uh Ace it to use the idiom you do fine and three week a couple of weeks later you

forgot what the topic was I'm sure we've all had that experience I know I have uh uh it's it it can be a useful device if it contributes to the constructive purposes of Education uh if it's just a set of hurdles you have to cross it can turn out to be not only meaningless but it can divert you away from things you ought to be doing actually I see this regularly when I talk to teachers just give you one experience from a couple of weeks ago but there's plenty like it I happened to be talking

to a group which included many school teachers that one of them was a sixth grade teacher teaches kids guess 10 or 11 or 11 or 12 something like that she came up to me afterwards and I'd been talking about these things and she told me that of an experience that she had just had uh in her class after one of the classes a a little girl came up to her and said she was really interested in something that came up and she asked how she could uh could the teacher give her some ideas about how

to look into it further and the teacher was compelled to tell her I'm sorry but you can't do that you have to study the past this uh National exam that's coming that's going to determine your future teacher didn't say it but it's going to determine my future like whether I rehired and so on the system is geared to get the children to pass hurdles but not to learn and understand and explore that child would have been better off if she had been allowed to explore what she was interested in and maybe not do so well

in the test about things she wasn't interested in and they'll come along when they fit into her interests and concerns and uh so a test I don't say that test should be eliminated they can be a useful educational tool but ancillary you know something that's just helping improve for ourselves for instructors and others what we're doing and tell us where we ought to be uh moving but they don't even passing tests doesn't begin to compare with with searching and inquiring and uh into pursuing topics that engage us and excite us that's far more significant than

passing tests and in fact if you purs if you if that's the kind of educational career that you're given the opportunity to pursue you'll remember what you discovered is a famous physicist world famous physicist right here at MIT who uh like a lot of the senior faculty was teaching freshman courses he want said that uh in his freshman course students will ask what are we going to cover this semester and his standard answer was it doesn't matter what we cover it matters what you discover and that's right teaching ought to be uh in uh inspiring

students to discover on their own uh uh to to to challenge if they don't agree to look for Alternatives if they think they're better ones uh to work through the great achievements of the past and try to master them on their own because they're interested in them if that's the way uh teaching and uh is done students will uh really gain from it and will uh not only remember what they studied but will'll be able to use it as a basis for going on on the own and again education is really aimed at just uh

helping students get to the point where they can learn on their own CU that's what you're going to do for their for for your life not just absorb material given to you from the outside and repeat it [Music]