Rousseau's Emile

“There would be no difficulty if our three educations were merely different.  But what is to be done when they are at cross purposes?  Consistency is plainly impossible when we seek to educate a man for others, instead of for himself.  If we have to combat either nature or society, we must choose between making a man or making a citizen.  We cannot make both.  There is an inevitable conflict of aims, from which come two opposing forms of education: the one communal and public, the other individual and domestic.” –Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau writes the above quote in the first few pages of Emile, right after he begins to establish where education “comes from” (nature, men or things) and what it’s purpose should be (to make a man).  He argues, contrary to Locke, that childhood is not simply a pre-cursor to manhood; therefore children should not be treated as “little adults”, but should be allowed to live naturally as children. They should be introduced to reason and morality as they have the capacity to understand it and use them.  As children, they will only understand the huge concepts in “bits and pieces”, and even then, we can’t be sure that children are understanding concepts as we would like them to, because they may not have arrived at stage of development that would allow them to take in such complex ideas. I agree that as educators we should be careful not to infringe upon childhood too early with ideas that students have plenty of time to learn.  I also appreciate Rousseau’s understanding of the difficulty it takes to at once produce a person who can live for themselves and function in a society full of people with different needs.  That task will always be a difficult one.  Unfortunately, I think some people have given up on educating children for anything besides a very narrow idea of success…

I saw the movie Waiting for Superman this weekend.  It was supposed to be about schools, I think. But what it was really about (at least one of the things it was about) was the misunderstanding American folks have about the purposes of education. It was based on the premise that American schools are failing, and failing is defined as having a high drop-out rate, having low standardized test scores, and producing students that are inadequately prepared for high-skilled tech jobs that Americans must hold in order for our country to remain economically competitive.  Our education system will be deemed successful, according to the movie, when all American students are proficient in math and science, they go to college, and get the best jobs. For schools to produce these kinds of students, they need to have to have great teachers. Great teachers are those who are the most charismatic, innovative and produce high standardized test scores in their classes. These great teachers are out there, but can’t succeed at their jobs because they are outnumbered by bad teachers who are allowed to continue teaching under the protection of the teachers’ unions. So where can students go to learn from great teachers only? Where can they get the education needed to make them successful in the future economy? Where can great teachers continue to be great without having to worry about bad teachers screwing up their work? Charter schools. 

Obviously, I’m leaving some parts of the movie out.  But I think the premise that success is only material wealth, and that it can only be produced in very few educational spaces, is faulty, especially when it’s so closely linked to the economic power of the nation.  At the same time educating kids to be critical thinkers and members of communities is looked down upon, we’re expected to work really hard for the big American “community” without question. 

I’m not completely sure how Rousseau’s idea of the citizen and the man would fit here. I suppose our society would be exactly the thing Rousseau would want to get kids away from, because we’re obviously teaching them very early on about competition, standardization and segregation, long before they know what they’re getting into.  I suppose he would continue to argue that Plato’s republic has long since been dead, so educating someone to be a “citizen” in our day and age is worthless.  They could only turn out to be greedy and individualistic, devoid of all of the characteristics he would value.