Education is About so Much More than Merely Preparing Young People for Employment
“In praise of useless knowledge” – Top grades are not the benchmark of a good education, so let’s encourage learning for its own sake, insists Dr Shirley Lawes…
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‘Knowledge’ is coming back into fashion after a 20-year period when it became almost a dirty word in education.
During that time, the belief in the transmission of knowledge as the central mission of education was replaced by a focus on ‘learning’, and any number of psychologically-based ideas such as ‘self-esteem’, ‘learning styles’ and ‘multiple intelligences’, to name but a few.
Arguably, the expansion of the curriculum since the late-1990s explicitly gave schools a greater responsibility for the social and mental health of the child.
This expansion of the curriculum expressed a shift in emphasis from developing an understanding of the world, to an understanding of the self: to elevate therapeutic goals over academic aims.
But now, it seems the tide has turned and knowledge has been rediscovered. Well perhaps, and perhaps not.
Unfortunately, the rediscovery of knowledge has taken an instrumental form – and instrumentalism is the enemy of education.
The idea that we might want to learn something just because it’s there to learn – because it offers another window on the world – is difficult to justify in the credential-seeking educational world that we live in.
Knowledge for its own sake is ‘pretty dodgy’, according to a former Minister of Education – and that attitude has dominated the educational outlook of policy-makers, parents, pupils and sadly, many teachers, for too long.
The pleasure of learning something for the sake of it is anathema in many schools today, obsessed as they are with examination results and league tables.
Despite the rhetorical support of a return to a knowledge-based curriculum, the present government has done little to support teachers in rediscovering their subject expertise and to think beyond the limited requirements of internal and external assessment and examination.
Indeed, an instrumental understanding of knowledge in subject disciplines seems to be perpetuated rather than challenged in current policy thinking.
More than this
The educational legacy of the past two decades has been to rob pupils of the joy of learning, and to stifle their curiosity to understand the world.
Of course, not every school is an examination factory (although too many are), nor is every teacher an automaton ‘delivering’ the prescribed curriculum in particular ways to optimise exam success.
But there is enough of that attitude and ethos around in education to outlaw, or at least marginalise, some areas of knowledge and some subject disciplines, because they do not have direct application or ‘use’ value.
This means that generations of children and young people are likely to grow up with a very narrow view of what education is and its purpose.
They do not develop that for themselves – it is the adults around them that influence their thinking and narrow their intellectual horizons.
Top grades are not the benchmark of a good education, although I am not disputing the importance per se of testing as a measure of attainment. I’m just saying that education is much more than this.
At this point, I should confirm that I am talking about all young people, not just the few. Every pupil should be exposed to ‘useless’ knowledge, as I have called it – not just the elite few in the independent sector and the ‘best’ state schools.
In my experience, the huge expansion of academy and free schools seems to have done nothing to rekindle a belief in knowledge, merely increasing competition and a ‘teaching to the test’ mentality.
There is now an implicit acceptance of a contingent relationship between education and the needs of the economy, but this was not always so. Is it no longer possible to assert the value and importance of education as a good in itself?
A fundamental part of education and the work of the teacher is to inspire young people with a love of learning and this can only be done through knowledge within subject disciplines and the confidence to provide intellectual challenge.
Intellectual transformation
So what ‘useless’ knowledge would I want to see included in the curriculum for all pupils? Let’s take the example of Latin, which is now taught in very few schools and rarely to all pupils.
Latin is perhaps the greatest casualty of the instrumentalisation of knowledge, because, it is argued, it is no longer ‘relevant’.
‘Relevance’ has served as the excuse for wiping out swathes of foundational knowledge from the curriculum, and Latin has been a target of so-called anti-elitest thinkers and policy-makers in education.
The fact that Latin has been the preserve of private and selective schools in the past is a reflection of the views of many educational professionals and policy-makers have of the abilities of the majority of young people and of the sort of education of which they are worthy.
My view is that educational elitism is best fought by storming the intellectual barricades, not by creating an accessible, relevant, self-affirming curriculum alternative.
Whether or not to teach Latin says something about how we understand what it means to be educated and whom education is for.
In fact, there are many reasons why we should teach Latin in schools – and some of them might even be seen as instrumental justifications.
For example, Latin is useful in relation to understanding the structure of language.
But more importantly, it is also intellectually challenging, it offers insights into the ancient world that inform our own, and it is interesting in its own right, not because it will increase employability, but because it is there to come to know.
Every child should have the opportunity to come to know; some will be bored, some confused, some excited and some inspired – and that is what education is all about.
‘Useless’ knowledge of a subject like Latin does not need justification.
If education is about understanding the world, then Latin has an important contribution to make – understanding the past and all the cultural heritage it brings, helps us understand the present and informs the development of our vision for the future.
That is not a functional, mechanical process, but about knowledge that opens minds, provides personal enrichment and takes us beyond our parochial experience.
An important part of education is the initiation of pupils into the achievements of the past in order to understand the intellectual achievements of humanity.
‘Useless’ knowledge it may be, if we consider education to be only about acquiring qualifications and skills to get a job.
But if we believe that the central aim of education is the intellectual transformation of the individual, then useless knowledge is essential.
5 ways to celebrate useless knowledge
- Initiate discussions with staff about this article
- Encourage the idea of teachers as curriculum innovators
- Introduce Latin, classical studies, ethics, philosophy or some other ‘useless’ subject
- Organise regular enrichment trips to museums and galleries
- Promote expertise and passion in subject discipline
Shirley Lawes is an education researcher, consultant and former teacher educator at UCL Institute of Education, and a member of the Academy of Ideas education forum committee.
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