Recent news in education has irresistibly brought me back to a book I recently read and a very influential theory.
Let’s start with the book.
Far away classical colleges
This book (Marc Laurendeau. From cynical laughter to journalistic gaze), these are the memoirs of the great Marc Laurendeau, written by him and Pierre Huet.
We return in particular to the classical college that Mr. Laurendeau attended in Montreal in the 1950s. Religion was obviously omnipresent there. For example, I learned that students (men…) always had to carry a confession note, which they could be asked to show at any time. Beware the guilty!
Religion obviously weighed heavily on the curriculum, with all the dangers that implies. But Laurendeau also recalls this: “We were not told that we were the elite of tomorrow. Rather, we were told that we were called to shine in society, to become responsible citizens. We were taught that social commitment was important.”
I obviously have no desire to return to that time, and that is a path not to take. But this idea of thinking of education in terms of public service and civic duties towards society remains beautiful, fair, and important. A certain idea of transmitting knowledge valued beyond its simple profitability can also be anchored to it — what we call a liberal vision of education.
Let’s get to the theory.
An influential theory
Around the same time, particularly at the University of Chicago, economists were developing the theory of human capital to think about education. It has become one of the most influential conceptions of education.
Education, for the individual and for the community, is here thought of on the model of capital, of an investment, whose profitability must be predictable for it to be justified. We can measure this profitability, then orient educational policies according to these measures. Individuals, but also institutions, will take all this into account to decide what to do in education.
While this approach is not without merit, its perils are also evident.
The content transmitted can quickly cease to be valued primarily for its intrinsic value and become valued primarily for its instrumental value, its profitability, which unfortunately does not exclude the possibility that it may have little intrinsic value.
Economic self-concern can leave little room for the common good, and the sovereign economic actor will leave little room for the responsible citizen.
Educational institutions – schools, universities, etc. – can cease to be places relatively sheltered from economic and ideological pressures (I insist) and become economic actors themselves, organizations, especially concerned with profitability and customers, who must be recruited and not offended.
I think we are not there yet, fortunately, at least not in the worst aspect.
But let’s get back to current events as promised. It’s up to you to decide to what extent they give us reasons to worry.
The news
We have, largely financed by public funds, schools that are nevertheless called private, and profitable, which accentuate inequalities before school and upon leaving. This, we can fear, also threatens an ideal of training responsible citizens fairly offered. We learned these days that the directors of these schools sometimes earn double what is offered in the public sector, and sometimes even more than the Prime Minister. Is this justified? According to what vision of education?
For years, universities have been recruiting as many students as they can, from wherever they can, and in some cases this is probably justified. But is it always? Among other reasons to ask this question: when we learn that up to one in two people admitted to a program that leads to a teaching career drops out, we can wonder whether the admission of too many weak applicants plays a role.
We learned just recently that university studies have been less profitable than before for several years. But how can we judge the value of these studies, other than by economic indicators such as salary? Can we at least talk about it? Could becoming a responsible citizen be a noble goal?
Here is another but delicate subject, still linked to what education should be and the place granted and recognized to knowledge. The results obtained in the examinations of the Ministry of Education in French are, we are told, disastrous. Let us not deny it: many causes contribute to this. But is it possible to at least consider that the decline of an ideal of citizenship anchored in a language, a culture, a literature, a common history could play a role here? And therefore lead to a certain decline of a liberal ideal of education.
Many other topics that raise questions come to mind. What about you?
The fact remains that there must be a path between these two paths… Perhaps we sometimes take it.
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ChatGPT. The paragraph ChatGPT wrote in my last column is the one that starts with “ChatGPT can simulate counterfactual reasoning” and ends with “no conscious thought.”