On What’s Wrong With Education and How to Actually Fix It

Our education system is still dominated by a model developed over 180 years ago

(Source: author)

There’s no overestimating the importance of education for a person to grow as an individual and to be assimilated into society and become a contributing member to it. Yet while few people would say that education is unimportant, most people would probably say that education isn’t as good as it can be or should be.

I have taught at colleges and universities since 1998. That doesn’t mean that I know everything about education, but between all those years of teaching, and of course, being a student K through 12, bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, and a PhD, I’ve developed some opinions, at least educated opinions, no pun intended, about what’s wrong with education and how it can be better.

The Problem — The Assembly Line

I think there are two main reasons why education isn’t better than it could be and should be. The first one is what’s known derisively as the factory model of education. It’s the system of education that most people are used to because most people have grown up in it.

It was instituted first in Prussia, which later became Germany, in around the 1830s. In the 1840s it spread…