Different Education Systems

So many blogs ... so little time.

Recently on the group blog (Feb. 4), I posted a question about the differences between education in the East and in the West. A fellow student's comment has got me thinking about this in more depth.

I've had more training in Anthropology than most but I doubt that this answer will be comprehensive without further research. However, here are my initial thoughts on the subject.

I think the minute that we in America use the term "Education", it implies books and schools.
However, that makes it hard to compare with education systems that are vastly different. Also, the trend, perhaps to keep up with the rest of the world, is that "Education" fits the schools and book model.

Other education "systems" that I could think of that have been used over time are as follows. Hunter and gather societies often just let their children "play at being adult". The behaviors they needed were the same as adults, so they learned by copying their parents or other adults in the community. Everyone still uses this method of education for the basics before children start school. An example of a hunting and gathering society that used this was/is the BaMbuti Pygmies as written about in the book The Forest People by Colin Turnbull, first published in 1961.

Another popular education was the "education" males received when they were inducted into society in the most painful way possible. The circumcision rituals were when the boys became men of the tribe and learned about their place in the society. There is no equivalent learning to this in modern society except perhaps for military boot camps. Incidentally, these rituals were often decried as barbaric by "modern" society, and since "modern" society values the individual over the group, the removal of these ceremonies rips apart these societies at the seems. Perhaps the most important lessons learned here were the "order of things", with the tribal elders at the top of the chain of command.

Another type of education was story telling or oral history. Of course, I have to say something about the Icelandic saga tradition, in which listeners not only learned the values and morals of the days but also the genealogy of the island. A recent example of this type of learning that I can think of was Roots by Alex Haley. He could trace his lineage back to West Africa in much the same way that ancient Icelanders could.

Apprenticeship is still a form that we are familiar with in our society. This type of learning was used for complicated subjects. In this category, I would place shamanism, because I believe that this is how this type of religious training is passed. However, the example that I like better is the training of the Polynesian navigators, which you can read more about in East is a Big Bird by Gladwin. Also, in this book, there was an interesting comparison to the knowledge that a navigator needs to have and the knowledge that is stressed in our schools. Gladwin mentioned that learning to be a good navigator is like being able to be a truck driver. It is about reflexes and complex moves that have to be copied. Then there is the knowledge about the stars and nature that has to be learned so that the ship can know where they are. In this category, I am also reminded of a story I heard about the Australian Aborigines. The young were rounded up by the missionaries so that they could attend school. The parents were very upset about this, understandably, but I think one of the reasons they gave was that it would interrupt their "education". The children needed to learn the Aborigine way of life and they couldn't do that while they were in the classroom. So, I think that this habit of missionaries to "educate" the young may also have wrecked a certain amount of damage on smaller cultures.

Well, that's my two cents for this week. Next week, I think I'll ramble on about the differences that I learned about between schools in the East and the West.