One of the mistakes underlying present education theory is what Popper called “the bucket theory of mind”. He refers to the common-sense idea that we gain knowledge about the world through opening our senses and recieving it. Filling up our buckets so to speak. This idea is false, and the contrasting view “the searchlight” describes what is really going on. Essentially gaining knowledge is something active, we encounter problems and guess the solutions, eliminate the ideas that does not work until we get to an idea that works. By doing that we are creating knowledge about the world.

In education “the bucket” can be seen in the fact that the underlying assumption of school is to carve out a piece of valuable knowledge from our tradition and pass it on to the students. Knowledge is something that is present in the minds of the educators and the students are thought to be the recievers of this knowledge. The comedian Louis CK describes it thus:

-Hi what is my job?

- Here’s what we need you to do, we need you to make children know maths

- Wow, do they wanna know math?

- No they don’t wanna know it.

Admittedly Louis makes it a bit tendentious for comedic purposes, nevertheless, the situation is more or less what he describes. It is a picture of taking a group of young people and making them know things, in a way similar to how you would program a computer to do certain things. The system's success is measured based on how well the teachers have made them know maths, or other subjects.

I describe it as “regurgitation over problem-solving”. I want to use learning about democracy as an example of the problems that are caused by this.

Learning about democracy

In Sweden learning about democracy is mandatory in school. The purpose of this is to make the children into peaceful democratic citizens. One thing to be noted, lest I am sounding all to negative, this is working! Or rather, children in democratic countries such as Sweden do tend to grow up as decent individuals. I tend to think this is despite of compulsory schooling, yet I only want to point out problems with the school as I see it, if I could push a button that would remove the institution of schooling I would not do it. I am a firm believer in democracy and forcing your policies on other people is wrong, even if they are policies which in your eyes would make them freer.

Democracy in the swedish curriculum.

Here is a part of the swedis

  • Understanding comes from solving problems
  • Someone can recite the content of a theory without knowing what it means
  • I once sang a song by Brel in french, I didnt understand a word, yet I was able to sing it.
  • The only way to have problem-solving is to start with where the student is coming from
  • Merely answering questions is not enough, asking is certainly not enough
  • Educators job are primarily about understanding the problem-situation of a student. Schooling does the opposite, it forces a problem-situation on a student.