Watching Richard Dawkin's "faith school menace" raised again for me the whole topic of the difference issue of the role of indoctrination in education.
For me, the are two intertwined themes involved in the program. Firstly, at a macro level, there is the problem of society self-segregating on the basis of faith. This I think is clearly a significant issue for any multicultural society, since it at best merely fosters an insular and closed-mind outlook, at worst is actively divisive and detrimental to social cohesion and integration. The second issue is the question of, within those faiths and faith schools, what is the impact on the individual education and development of the children. The program illustrated the first of these themes by referring to the sectarianism in Northern Ireland, and the second by a subtle ridiculing of a faith guided science teacher's understanding of evolution (and her only slightly less confused pupils).
In both examples however, there were some statements which went to the heart of the issue, namely, the concept of indoctrination.
In the Northern Ireland example, one of his inerviewees demanded to know whether Dawkins thought it was a basic human right for parents to determine how their children are educated. This at first seems something hard to disgree with, but Dawkins repeatedly dodged the question. His problem I think was, while it sounds like an intuitive right of the parents, for him the rights of the child are also involved, and he is aware that the power of education to mould and shape our personalities means it is a double-edged sword. Passing on values and outlook is not only a desirable thing but arguably also a duty, but things become more complicated if the values are unacceptable. Would we tolerate domineering and cult-style parents 'brainwashing' their children with horrific views? I doubt it, and if not, then we, like Dawkins, could not agree to the interviewee's point, no matter how sensible it first sounds.
Simply put, Dawkins (and again I would largely agree with him) actually has issues with some people's values, whether these are explicitly important to them, or merely bundled into their declared faith without much thought on their part.
But this then leads into a much larger and complicated area - namely how much society as whole should do to influence the values which are propagated to the next generation. While a simple liberal assumption might be that it shouldn't do anything, and doesn't, the reality is it most definitely does, especially through it's educational insitutions. Hence if those institutions have differing value sets, then it is a problem.
I don't however want to go deeper into this topic here (even if I knew what to say), but in this instance we can extricate ourselves because normally, fundamentalists and some religious doctrines excepted, the moral values transmitted in faith schools do not vary so much from society's in general, at least not enough to cause a problem. Also (again fundamentalists apart) while parents might like their children having the same 'background' as they did, and hence feel some identification with a faith school which openly touts being of their background, I seriously doubt moral value education plays much of a role in their choice of school (again, because for the most part the values are so coherent across schools, even of different faiths). What is surely most important for them is the 'practical' education their child receives, and how it prepares it for one particular social role - a job.
It is from this perspective that faith schools are particularly worrying. Again it was one of the interviewees that crystalized this point, although this time it was Dawkins asking the question, and his point being proven without him saying anything. At a muslim school, he was interested to know how they were being taught certain areas of science which their teacher openly admitted disagreeing with on grounds of faith. The teachers were claiming each student independently weighed up the arguments and they all invariably came down on the side of faith. This fact showed how powerful the influence of faith teaching is, since even when they were being taught (albeit one couldn't tell how well) the scientific knowledge, they were uniformly rejecting it. It was however when he asked one student for some examples, and got some ridiculous non-scientific 'fact' about how salt and fresh water don't mix, that one saw just how worrying the practical implications are. It was summed up poignanlty by his simple but sad follow up : "and you're the one who wants to be a doctor isn't it?". The poor girl probably didn't see the ridiculousness of her situation, but the point was clear to us - if this she was going to come out of school with such a confused and useless understanding of simple physics, then what hope had she of ever achieving such a job. As a side not it is important too not to think it is an islamic only issue (no other faith school was brave enough to let him in) since Christian and other religions also have many views contrary to science. In the Christian case lay people might think these are not really seriously taken, but they are part of the catechism and the teachers are inevitably more devout.
For me the point is that indoctrination IS involved, but a special kind of indoctrination. In the case of science etc. it is an indoctrination into the world view that our society uses and relies upon. Even a relativist has to agree that whatever about the ultimate superiority of any particular world view, WITHIN a given system, such as our society, then there is a hierarchy. Believing salt water separates from fresh might be your own perogative, but is not going to help you get a job. Of course, as the revolutions in science have shown, even the 'establishment' views are not perfect, but they are the best there is at any given time for the roles and functions around at the time. And, most most importantly, and what massively differentiates this kind of indoctrination from the religious type, is it has an inbuilt self-correction mechanism, which allows these revolutions to take place. Again, at an abstract level it migth be argued whether it might be better to live in blissful ignorance with unchanging truths out of an ancient book, but again 'better' here would need not to include wanting a job.
So the question really is not whether education should be indoctrination, it is and it must be, but what, and how much, indoctrination is justified in the context of schooling. I.e. which values should be impressed on all (via a mandatory curriculum), which should be supported but not overly dictated, and which should be excluded.
My view is that government should be more open about what values it is promoting, and encourage debate and support; however this active behaviour needs to be tempered with a restraint as to which values are covered. But since there is promotion going on anyway, directly or indirectly, planned or not, then this can only be a change for the better. In the case of faith schools then, for subjects such as science a national curriculum should be mandatory, and contradictory teaching not supported (it might be a step too far to outright ban it!). The science example shows how sometimes faith values are simply not compatible with the purpose of the insitution. This is not to force the values on people outside of that setting, but inside the government funded institution it should call the shots.
This is particularly important given the evidence presented that children generally tend to prefer the most fantastical (and purposeful -i.e. theological) explanation for a problem, so modern world view has already it's work cut out (and probably exactly why it is a modern one, since it probably took so long to overcome our childlike tendencies).
A point worth making is that faith in schools per se is not necessarily a problem - many people, possibly Dawkins himself - have emerged unscathed from schools run by religious orders. However it may be in the past there was less interference in secular subjects. It could well be that with religious partipation on the wane, some religious bodies are more proactive involved outside of their initial domains, and this is a new and growing problem. Or, as seems to be the case in the UK, schools, 'acadamies' are being setup by people with a very clear agenda.
So just because faith schooling wasn't an issue in the past, doesn't mean it isn't one now.
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