The
biggest crime, according to progressive education,
Is
teaching children factual information.
That’s
right, you heard it here first:
Teaching
children factual information is the absolute worst.
Barely
has a child’s first day in school begun
Than he
learns the fundamental precept of progressive education,
namely: Forget the Facts, Pump Up the Fun!
Fun!
Fun! Fun! Just think of all the fun! Away with the tedium of hard
work and perseverance,
The
lesson must be fun or The Fun Police will be putting in an
appearance.
That’s
right: The Fun Police are in control,
Trying
to make Education the New Rock ‘n’ Roll.
The Fun
Police, by the way, are inspectors, whose job it is to go into
schools complaining
That
there’s far too much teaching and not nearly enough entertaining.
When
you teach them English, don’t make them learn the parts of speech,
No –
leave linguistic awareness beyond every child’s reach;
But do
give them a certificate
To
celebrate being illiterate.
When
you teach them science, dispense with Bunsen burners,
In case
you set fire to your eager little learners.
These
days, The Most Fun You Can Have in Science
Is
answering multiple choice questions about Health and Safety
compliance,
A cause
of far more merriment,
Than
any difficult experiment.
When
you teach them French, don’t make them learn any actual words;
English
children speaking French sound like trainee nerds.
“Excusez-moi,
Monsieur, parlez-vous le Francais?” No! Give that child a
gag.
Get him
to do something utterly pointless, I mean fun, like colouring in a
flag,
In
whatever colour he feels it ought to be decorated,
(To
suggest otherwise would be both elitist and antiquated).
Whatever
the subject, the story’s the same:
Attendance
at school should be one, big, fun game.
Which
is just the sort of half-arsed thinking which leads us
mild-mannered teachers to go round spitting pedagogical invective,
For we
all know that learning doesn’t have to be fun – it simply has to be
effective.
