Education vs. Brainwashing

I hear talk about children not turning out the way people wanted, or how the new generation has a different mindset than intended. This sounds as if we had tried to teach the children what they should and shouldn't think--as if all our education was just an attempt to brainwash them. And really, education is a lot like brainwashing, at least on the surface. The difference is that brainwashing teaches what to think, while education teaches how. If all we teach children is what to think, we are simply programming them as we would machines. This de-humanizes them. Teaching children how to think makes them rational creatures, which makes them more human. If we follow Plato's reasoning, the perfect human in the realm of ideas is a rational creature, and therefore the more rational we become the more we become like the 'idea' human.

Which, then, does education do today? Does it teach what or how? I can't speak for all forms of education or curricula, nor do I have an intimate knowledge of public schools in general. I can tell what I do know:

Right now there is a struggle going on over whether or not Evolution should be taught as fact in schools. So far, any attempt to cast even the shadow of a doubt on the theory (note it well!) has been fought and defeated. This isn't about the truth of Evolution as a theory, so I will go no further than to say that its validity is very much in question. But even if it were universally accepted as truth, teaching it as a fact--a fact that not only should not be questioned but cannot be questioned--defeats the purpose of education. It teaches students what to think, not how or why.

I compare this to my homeschooling. Again, I only know the curriculum I have used. But by this curriculum I am learning to think logically and to scrutinize ideas with reason: not to accept them blindly as 'fact'. I am learning, when I come upon a piece of information, to discern whether it is true or not, and what meaning it has, if any, in the broader scope of the world. I am learning, as someone (I forget now who)* said, to greet reason with open arms. And that should be the purpose of education.


* This in itself says something. I've forgotten the fact of the name, but I remember the idea.