Seth Godin, in his book, Lynchpin, notes how the country of France made a conscious effort to not follow the factory model that was present in the industrial revolution, particularly in England. They focused on the refinement of handcrafted goods which are of the most desirable sort, even today (p. 64). Godin also notes how today’s education system trains us to be cogs in the machine, to be part of the factory system as replaceable and non unique as possible to make us simply one of the interchangeable parts.
I agree with everything Godin writes about this particular subject, though there is one logical extension of his writing on which I would like to expand. Not only does the education system of today perpetuate this factory ideal, the education system itself has developed this factory mentality to such an extent that any choice or attempt to create great, unique learning is squashed by the factory system.
It is easy to recognize how the modern educational system in the United States is like a factory. Student enter in grade K and are passed along the educational conveyor belt gathering the parts of an education along the way. At certain points along the conveyor belt, literacy is added, and some math and maybe a little more of on or another depending on the day of the belt, but generally everyone gets the same amount as the preceding and following student. The conveyor belt stops somewhere around the students 18th birthday and the student walks and talks and functions just as her educational instructors designed.
Somewhere along the line, a teacher, fed up with this factory system attempted to educate this student with a unique piece of instruction, a hand crafted instruction, if you will. But the system shuns such ideas. The hand crafted lesson doesn’t conform to the scripted curriculum or the students IEP or the states standard of learning. And it most certainly doesn’t appear on the federally mandated end of grade testing syllabus!
So what we are left with is just the factory, plugging along making parts for itself without regard to any other ideas.
It is time to start hand crafting education again.
