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Bertrand Russell is not shy with words; these notes omit much.
"On Education" by Bertrand Russell opens with the "evils" of educational institutions. One perhaps should define what "evil" means. Homeschooling is noted as perhaps lacking in sufficient socialization, and could make an outcast of a child. Evil softens to "grave defects", and then to "not satisfactory".
A noteworthy question is whether education should produce independent judgment, or instill particular beliefs. Or, what kind of individuals, and what kind of community do we hope to see?
Education could be for character, or for knowledge, though these twine a bit: someone with the right character knows they need at least some knowledge, and some right knowledge might help one towards being a better character.
to make men and women capable of learning from experience should be one of the aims which early education should keep most prominently in view
To "sacrifice civilisation to justice" would make education uniform across the board, which while ideal may not be practical; Russel as an educated aristocrat certainly benefited from various advantages. "Those people" redlined into "those neighborhoods", by contrast, may never have had a chance. Russell does aim for the democratic and universal, where possible.
The notion of an ornamental versus a useful education is touched on; certainly the leisure class could go more for the ornamental as their bills are paid by some other means. This could be good or bad. A useful education, on the other hand, may "gratify the needs and desires of the body". This also could be good or bad: an engineer who brings clean water to a slum versus one who makes, I don't know, bluetooth enabled tea kettles swiftly destined for the landfill.
On discipline:
On sending my little boy of three to spend his mornings in a Montessori school, I found that he quickly became a more disciplined human being, and that he cheerfully acquiesced in the rules of the school. But he had no feeling whatever of external compulsion: the rules were like the rules of a game, and were obeyed as a means of enjoyment. The old idea was that children could not possibly wish to learn, and could only be compelled to learn by terror.
On the other hand, excess gamification may be a step too far. Some have complained about point-grazing and leaderboard-climbing on duolingo.
The change in educational methods has been very much influenced by the decay of the belief in original sin. The traditional view, now nearly extinct, was that we are all born Children of Wrath, with a nature full of wickedness; before there can be any good in us we have to become Children of Grace, a process much accelerated by frequent castigation. … It is pathetic to see this naturally kindly gentleman lashing himself into a mood of sadism, in which he can flog little boys without compunction, and all under the impression that he is conforming to the religion of Love.
The use of the word "evil" in the introduction becomes more clear. Bertrand Russell did also pen "Why I Am Not a Christian".
Various contrasting men from history are presented; presumably different education with emphasis on different things would be necessary to produce the different characters. Different schooling systems are reviewed, as well as characteristics of the ideal citizen.
Passionate beliefs produce either progress or disaster, not stability. Science, even when it attacks traditional beliefs, has beliefs of its own, and can scarcely flourish in an atmosphere of literary scepticism.
Otherwise a fairly ideal (if hopeful) picture is painted, though without some of the problems of "The Republic". Russell claims to be working on the individual, and not society.
Russell starts this young, very young. People with, or considering having, small people may find things here to consider.
Fear of the dark and other such fears are claimed to "not arise if grown-up people did not create them"; other fears may be instinctive. Experiments with his own children and personal anecdotes are offered.
Apart from special fears, children are liable to a diffused anxiety. This is generally due to too much repression by their elders, and is therefore much less common than it used to be. Perpetual nagging, prohibition of noise, constant instruction in manners, used to make childhood a period of misery. I can remember, at the age of five, being told that childhood was the happiest period of life (a blank lie, in those days). I wept inconsolably, wished I were dead, and wondered how I should endure the boredom of the years to come.
Kids need to play; this imitates adult activities. These days the risk over over-gamifying things is probably important. "Sexual symbolism in children's play" is chalked up as "utter moonshine", probably a dig at Herr Freud.
We do not believe that Hamlet ever existed, but we should be annoyed by a man who kept reminding us of this while we were enjoying the play. So children are annoyed by a tactless reminder of reality, but are not in the least taken in by their own make-believe. … His games do not take up time which might be more profitably spent in other ways: if all his hours were given over to serious pursuits, he would soon become a nervous wreck.
Adults can also become nervous wrecks, though it usually goes by burnout these days. The argument here is not to suppress the instincts and dreams, but to channel them in useful directions. Plus suitable time for rest and recreation, if at all possible, which for some amounts to three jobs as they Red Queen run the rent. Russell was writing during the Roaring Twenties.
Negative aspects of competitive games are called out: to win someone else must lose: us against them, ingroup verses outgroup.
The instinctive desires of children, as we have seen, are vague; education and opportunity can turn them into many different channels. Neither the old belief in original sin, nor Rousseau's belief in natural virtue, is in accordance with the facts. The raw material of instinct is ethically neutral, and can be shaped either to good or evil by the influence of the environment.
This shaping can be for the negative; an example given is perfect, dead, Latin where one only must avoid errors—"niggling, unenterprising, and lacking in generosity"—never to create something new in an ever-changing science. Probably there needs to be some balance between moving fast and breaking things, and preserving some modicum of tradition. Young Russell was doubtless a bit too far on the preserving tradition side.
The conception of a society as a mould (Sparta, or ancient China) or a machine (an Industrialist, or a Communist) or as a tree is interesting.
The purpose of social organization is to secure these simple ends (maximizing of production). The difficulty is that actual human beings will not desire them; they persist in wanting all kinds of chaotic things which seem worthless to the tidy mind of the organizer. This drives the organizer back to the mould, in order to produce human beings who desire what he thinks good. And this, in turn, leads to revolution.
The tree, if cut down, can take a while to grow back to something of similar stature and strength. What other conceptions of society could there be?
On the downside, Russell is pro-eugenics, which caused various problems for some of "those people".
Some people dread constructiveness in human affairs, because they fear that it must be mechanical; they therefore believe in anarchism and the "return to nature"
Left to himself, an older child will seize a younger child's toys, demand more than his share of grown-up attention, and generally pursue his desires regardless of the younger child's disappointments. A human ego, like a gas, will always expand unless restrained by external pressure.
Instead of self-sacrifice Russell pines for justice, as self-sacrifice can hardly be universal. Justice, however, is difficult to teach to a solitary child, as the child is so very different from the adults, and adults hold the position of judge, jury, and executioner.
Truth and frankness dispel difficulties, but the attempt at repressive moral discipline only aggravates them.
Property or material goods is something one could be selfish about; this has pluses and minuses: the fear of losing possessions, to the point of pulling up the ladder on others. On the positive side, "property cultivates carefulness and curbs the impulse of destruction".
But in judging whether children are truthful, a certain caution is necessary. Children's memories are very faulty and they often do not know the answer to a question when grown-up people think they do.
Much other good observations and advice here; "contempt is a bad emotion" for one who sees much humbug in the world.
Some people still advocate a fair amount of punishment, while others consider that it is possible to dispense with punishment altogether. There is room for many shades between these two extremes.
Russell tends towards not much by way of punishment—"physical punishment I believe to be never right"—and relates how Madame Montessori isolated as if sick a problematic child, while still allowing them to view the progress of the other children. The person giving the praise or blame must be respected.
A child should not be told that he has done better than so-and-so, or that such-and-such is never naughty: the first produces contempt, the second hatred. … praise should not be given for anything that should be a matter of course.
Play with others is good; older children better provide attainable ambitions, and recent recollections of just learned lessons—how did the quadratic equation go, again? Excess stratification by the "years" is probably a bad thing, though associating with contemporaries is important.
Most of the inequalities in the existing world are artificial, and it would be a good thing if our behaviour ignored them. Well-to-do people imagine themselves superior to their cooks, and behave to them in a different way from that in which they behave in society. But they feel inferior to a duke, and treat him in a way which shows a lack of self-respect. In both cases they are wrong: the cook and the duke should both be felt and treated as equals.
The importance of games with peers is called out, though this seems to contradict the point that competitive games can be bad made earlier.
the right sort of love should be the natural fruit resulting from the proper treatment of the growing child, rather than something consciously aimed at throughout the various stages. … The child has no important function to perform in relation to his parents. His function is to grow in wisdom and stature, and so long as he does so a healthy parental instinct is satisfied.
On evils and war:
I should always give him the feeling that the evil can be combated, and results from ignorance and lack of self-control and bad education. I should not encourage him to be indignant with malefactors, but rather to regard them as bunglers, who do not know in what happiness consists.
Russell calls for ordinary talk before puberty.
Although I disagree with the Freudians in many particulars, I think they have done a very valuable service in pointing out the nervous disorders produced in later life by wrong handling of young children in matters connected with sex.
This section in parts calls for centralized schooling and showing how his methods of raising children differs from the traditional way. With fewer children per parent there is less opportunity for socialization with other children unless they get lumped together by some other means. The means is also important, and much time is spent on the Montessori school model.
There is only one road to progress, in education as in other human affairs, and that is: Science wielded by love. Without science, love is powerless; without love, science is destructive.
But there must never be discouragement of curiosity, even if it takes directions which lie outside the school curriculum altogether. I do not mean that the curriculum should be interrupted, but that the curiosity should be regarded as laudable, and the boy or girl should be told how to satisfy it after school hours, by means of books in the library, for example.
Or you could fill those hours with homework and other such busy work.
As with virtues of character there are virtues of intellect: "curiosity, open-mindedness, belief that knowledge is possible though difficult, patience, industry, concentration, and exactness."
Boredom merely imposed by the teacher is wholly bad; boredom voluntarily endured by the pupil in order to satisfy some ambition is valuable if not overdone.
This gets into the intrinsic versus external motivation, where if the external motivation (carrot, rod) is removed, no motivation usually remains.
Some should know how to play the trombone, but mercifully it is not necessary that every school child should practise this instrument. In the main, the things taught at school before the age of fourteen should be among those that everyone ought to know; apart from exceptional cases, specialization ought to come later.
The note about townsfolk being "generally destitute of knowledge which every cow or sheep possess" has probably only gotten worse since then.
All through education, initiative should come from the pupil as far as possible. Madame Montessori has shown how this can be done with very young children, but with older children different methods are required. It is, I think, generally recognized by progressive educationists that there should be much more individual work and much less class work than has been customary, though the individual work should be done in a room full of other boys and girls similarly engaged. Libraries and laboratories should be adequate and roomy. A considerable part of the working day should be set apart for voluntary self-directed study, but the pupil should write an account of what he or she is studying, with an abstract of any information acquired.
Constant noise is bad both for children and adults; the sights of the country, the smell of damp earth, the wind and the stars, ought to be stored in the memory of every man and woman.
Modern cities still have a long ways to go on the light and noise and air pollution front, which would be an argument for a boarding school, if your school system has them. Long distance commutes for students doubtless wastes both time and energy, just as it does for workers. On the other hand, boarding schools cut the students off and stratify them by youth and year, which may not be the best for social integration. Many modern schools probably also have this problem.
Ecole Normale Supérieure is mentioned as an option for the most clever to help isolate them from "the average Philistine". On the downside, this may make the intellectuals aloof from the common man.
It would have been unfortunate if Mozart had been obliged to learn ordinary school subjects up to the age of eighteen.
Beethoven was also a pretty crummy student. Probably also Einstein?
I am convinced that, at present, only a minority of the population can profit by a scholastic education prolonged to the age of twenty-one or twenty-two. Certainly the idle rich who at present infest the older universities very often derive no benefit from them but merely contract habits of dissipation.
Universities are held to be training schools for the professions, to produce experts for industrial and scientific needs (as demanded by the Plutocrats, who care nothing for culture). Pure learning is held to be that of the aristocracy, and on its way out. Maybe it could work if done in service of the community?
Both in England and in America, the main force tending to its diminution has been the desire to get endowments from ignorant millionaires. The cure lies in the creation of an educated democracy, willing to spend public money on objects which our captains of industry are unable to appreciate.
I guess the ignorant millionaires have been replaced with ignorant billionaires.
Many good points, though in the almost 100 years since the publication of "On Education" we haven't made much progress on some, and have regressed on others.