{"id":63282,"date":"2017-02-10T22:06:34","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T04:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=63282"},"modified":"2017-02-10T14:15:49","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T21:15:49","slug":"schooling-of-the-young-assessment-of-costs-and-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/02\/10\/schooling-of-the-young-assessment-of-costs-and-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Schooling of the Young \u2013 Assessment of Costs and Benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Professor Susan Engel is a development psychologist and School Director in the USA. Writing in the Huffington Post<\/em> she has this to say about schooling in her country. \u00a0Far too many children in this country spend their energy warding off the tedium, frustration and constriction of school. At worst, they end up dropping out. At best, they simply put their heads down and try to get through it unscathed; sometimes this means getting through school without being damaged, but just as often it means successfully resisting new ideas, new experiences, or any fundamental change in <\/em>outlook. Even when it works, though, it\u2019s a poor solution. Research suggests that even when students can tolerate 16 years of suppressing their needs in the interest of future wages, things don\u2019t turn out well. They become dissatisfied adults. Which of us hopes for that for our child?<\/em><\/p>\n

On reading this heartfelt comment on the state of educational affairs in her country (the USA) our thoughts must surely turn to the sad state of things educational in our own \u00a0country \u2013Sri Lanka. There is a belief – held foolishly by our political and educational leaders \u2013 that the greater the number of years spent at school or college, the greater the educational finesse of the product and, hence, \u00a0its worth to society as a whole. Schooling is a kind of penance imposed on children to ensure the stability of social structures which largely serve adults – the myth that schooling is unreservedly good for children is part \u00a0of a tradition promoted and fostered by adults. The contrary view – that the faster they get out from the prison-house of regimented education, the better – is the impassioned cry of those trapped in schools. In this context, the recent announcement by the ruling elite that compulsory school education will be extended by a further three years must be viewed with astonishment and dismay. A distinction must be made between school education and learning \u2013 the latter must be a life-long activity while sitting in classrooms presided over by pedagogues is an imposed artificiality that must be terminated as quickly as possible. Children must metamorphose into adults by working with loving adults. The faster they get out of school the better.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma \u00a0Professor Susan Engel is a development psychologist and School Director in the USA. Writing in the Huffington Post she has this to say about schooling in her country. \u00a0Far too many children in this country spend their energy warding off the tedium, frustration and constriction of school. At worst, they end up dropping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-r-chandrasoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}