
The Invented History of 'The Factory Model of Education' - benbreen
http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model/
======
Htsthbjig
The "history of Education" goes as far as two 2500 years ago, when Socrates
created the Academy, or Confucius created the equivalent in China, and other
people in India.

In between we have lots of things, like the creation of the Library of
Alexandria, personal master disciple, the creation of guilds, Universities...

There were very different models for learning.

The factory model did exist long long time ago. Romans teached legionaries
this way 2000 years ago.

The main difference today is that today this model is the only model in lots
of countries. If I want to teach(I am engineer and studied economics too) my
children in Germany on my own(homeschooling) I go to jail. That is the
Prussian model, forcing the same model onto everybody without alternatives.

~~~
mafribe

        If I want to teach [...] my children in Germany on my own(homeschooling) I go to jail. 
    

As far as I understand the legal situation in Germany (please correct me if
I'm wroing), you are free to set up your own school with qualified teachers
and teach your children. The law exist to ensure that all those who teach
children posses teaching qualifications.

------
A_COMPUTER
The argument against "factory education" was against compulsory state-run
education with a one-size-fits-all curriculum and overarching social goals. It
was criticized because it was intended as a pipeline to push Americans into a
very narrow social and economic model of American citizenship beneficial to
the state and industry. So it is not so much turning education into a factory,
but integrating education as a high quality tool in the factory that is the
state. Industrialism needed workers, America had a bunch of farmers.

I won't claim to be an expert on this or even correct, but I tried to read
what Dewey was trying to do in his own words. It didn't come across quite as
menacing as Gatto made it out to be, but I believe he got the intention right.
I agree with the author that the term has been misused, you can't make sense
out of the way Khan uses the term.

------
EGreg
I wouldn't invoke the "factory model" but rather the "prison model" that pg
talks about

[http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html)

Here is what I would recommend:

[http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=158](http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=158)

~~~
kirsebaer
"School is a Prison", 45 min interview with Prof Peter Gray, Boston College,
author of "Free to Learn" about democratic free schools and non-compulsory
education. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_DJAZ-
ByV0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_DJAZ-ByV0)

------
vezzy-fnord
The article seems to be debunking a straw man.

I don't know about Khan's claims, but having read Gatto, he very much openly
acknowledges that it took well until the first half of the twentieth century
before the present compulsory schooling system we know today took root, and
that the beginnings were relatively decentralized and bound on the state
level.

~~~
technomancy
Indeed; the idea that there was some intentional shadowy conspiracy to
generate docile adults to meet the demand of the state is quite far-fetched.
But the idea that the growing demands of the state gradually shaped the
educational system seems nearly unavoidable.

Because of the human need for narrative, people always try to frame these
stories in terms of heroes or villains and the actions they took. The truth is
this kind of thing happens through a kind of emergent behaviour; no one person
makes these choices, but they're forced into them through the structure and
needs of the organizations they're a part of. On the one hand this seems more
mundane and dull, but on the other hand in a way it's more sinister since a
human can be stopped or reasoned with, but an organization usually cannot.

------
kijin
Of course there will be variation, and even outliers, when you compare data
from a large geographic area over a long time. But just because there is
variation doesn't mean that the generalization is wrong. Generalizations are
just that: statements about a larger phenomenon that necessarily ignores
internal variation.

I don't think Sal Khan ever insinuated that there has never been a single non-
factory model educational system in the West in the last ~150 years. If that's
the proposition you're trying to refute, you're arguing against a straw man.

What I think Sal Khan was getting at -- and what I think the other authors
mentioned in the article are trying to say -- is that the general social
milieu from which the modern educational system arose was biased toward
excessive standardization, categorization, and homogenization. After all, that
was the world view of industrial modernism. Standardize everything, bin things
into neat categories, and throw away products that don't meet the spec.

When you've got an entire generation obsessed with that modernist hammer,
everything looks like a nail, including education. No wonder modern schools
(and prisons, as another commenter mentioned) ended up with uncanny
similarities to modern factories. It needn't have been intended. It needn't
have been a conspiracy. It needn't have been imposed from the top down. It
could have just emerged spontaneously all over the place. That's how trends
and world views work.

Nowadays, commerce is king. Everyone is obsessed with ROI, everyone wants to
hire an MBA, everything is explained in terms of supply and demand, and every
relationship looks like that between a buyer and seller. Just like the
industrial mindset gave birth to last century's schools, this new mindset is
shaping today's schools. Schools, and universities in particular, are becoming
more and more like a business. Students and parents are being treated as
customers, and are being ripped off just like Comcast customers. But the
commercial mindset hasn't replaced the industrial mindset; both are alive and
well, interacting with each other in very dangerous ways.

Just because there are exceptions doesn't mean that this general trend doesn't
exist. In fact, it would be very strange if a society's mindset didn't
influence the design of its educational institutions. And if we're ever going
to start thinking about the big picture and come up with long-term solutions,
somebody needs to raise awareness about general trends, even at the risk of
ignoring variation.

~~~
harrumph
>Nowadays, commerce is king. Everyone is obsessed with ROI, everyone wants to
hire an MBA, everything is explained in terms of supply and demand, and every
relationship looks like that between a buyer and seller.

It is very important to remember this isn't akin to a natural process such as
weather nor to cultural evolution. The decisions made over the past 20 years
to mischaracterize education as a commercial process are, above all, political
decisions and increasingly proven to be the ideological line of hyper-wealthy
persons who are actively defunding and destroying public education under the
rubric of "reform".

------
calibraxis
Good to read a counterpoint to these claims about the "Prussian factory
model"! I recall being disappointed reading Gatto and Khan, because there's
too much asserted and too little analyzed/cited. (Or perhaps I missed it...)

------
glial
Can anyone recommend a good resource for understanding the history of
education, both worldwide and in the United States? Goals, philosophies,
implementations, outcomes?

~~~
glial
Kind of disappointed that nobody's able or willing to provide one :-(

