The Paradox of Education

We are in a society that values the results of education.

We are a society that believes that education is the right of every child.

We are a society that believes education can unlock the potential of every child.

The role of teachers is to help maximize the potential of every student.

Research consistently points to the in-class impact of out-of-class problems related to immigration, language acquisiton, social integration, employments, diet, abuse, and notions of "class perspectives" on the role of the home in education.

Processes are already underway to extendthe reach of educational insitutions into the spheres, often in colloboration with health, welfare, and police agencies.

The conclusions that can be reached is that the best educational results can be obtained in situations where the educational system assumes control for all aspects of a child welfare, establishing a baseline of expectations.

This raises the spectre of the return to residential schools carried out on a grand scale for the majority of families.

If phrased this way, the above mentioned scenario is not only undesirable to parents and teachers, but reprehensible.

Some educators used to make reference to "equality of opportunity" relying on interventionist educational policies that aim to redress educational deficiencies stemming from out-of-school factors; i.e. schools with large populations weakk in reading or math receive considerably more time on these subjects, often to the detriment of others like history, science, art, and physical education, since the length of a school day is finite.

It has been suggested that the end result of this will be a kind of apartheid class-based educational system where students of upper class families are taught management techniques, middle-class students learn team-work and role-playing, while the lower classes are rewarded with lessons on following orders.

This then becomes the teaching paradox: if we can not stomach to support the best methods available to achieve our desired results, then what is it we really desire from our educational system?