Last week I read that Korea has banned sales of coffee in school; this follows recent news that France has banned cellphones in school for the under-15s. I am not sure if I agree with the bans or not – my own context in UWCSEA Singapore is so different to Korean and French national systems that comparisons are in any case futile – but I have been wondering about these stories as simply distractions. I am inclined to think, from what I know of French and Korean systems that there are more pressing educational matters for national legislation.
We can all relate to coffee and phones; they are part of the systems we know – and that’s the problem. It’s hardly a new one – Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote of false needs, and argued that systems can infantilize us by dazzling us with toys and trivial products, so that we are too busy making silly choices to focus on what matters. And I do mean ‘infantilize’. As we parents know, offering a choice to a raging toddler is an excellent distraction. Alas, we are not toddlers now, and we do a lot less raging that we ought.
Raging, perhaps, that contemporary expressions of preference are actually so very limited (Latte or flat white? Zipper or button fly? Iron man or Captain America?), when there are bigger issues to consider.
If we are too busy arguing about banning smartphones or not, then we will never get to the issue of supporting the development of autonomous, responsible young citizens who can be trusted to be partners in a conversation about their future. If we are too busy arguing about banning coffee, then we may never get to the issue of why a system causes so many to need artificial stimulants to function.
We’re probably all guilty of falling into the pit of choice-overload. Steve Jobs revealed that the question of which washing machine to purchase dominated his families’ dinner table for weeks. I know I have spent hours working out which books to buy as presents for distant relatives I barely know.
So can we reduce our choices? There are some obvious ways – Obama wrote “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make….you need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.” Now Obama’s choices were genuinely more profound than most of ours, of course, but the message applies at all scales I think.
If the focus of our culture has become choosing which goods to consume, rather than satisfying and meaningful work, then we are a culture of permanent children. If we are seduced by newspapers or websites where the news is given less space than the adverts then we are effectively disenfranchised. Where our attention is shifted from the latest famine or war or tragedy onto the latest sale on Orchard, or the latest phone, then we can see that we are nudged into a role of consumer, rather than informed actor or citizen.
None of this is to deny that we need to advance policies on, for example, coffee or phones. But it is a reminder that we serve greater goals than simply narrow behavioural ones, and to forget that is to lose sight of what is most important in education.
References
- Neiman, S., (2017) Why Grow Up? Penguin Random House
1 Response
Strangely, I was clicking my way through the latest postings on LinkedIn while drinking coffee, and I came up your blogpost!
I have more pressing matters and I'm procrastinating. I'm good at that.