Schooling for the Masses - Does One Size Really Fit All?
Opinion piece, stream of consciousness for my ABCommunities Challenge Week Ending 25/03/25
If you've been following my writing for a while or have connected with me beyond the usual comments and compliments, you will know I did not have as positive experience with school as I perhaps could have. Many of my memories are not entirely positive, though I never had truly bad experiences, I never had truly great experiences either.
My time at school could be described as "mediocre" to say the least.
I left without very many qualifications and without an idea of what I wanted to do.
In hindsight, I realise that is the case for more people than we really think.
Which leads me to suspect that the way schooling is done in much of the west, in the UK and the USA for example, may not be the best for all in attendance.
Testing and grades, while useful for academically gifted students, often focus more on memory than true learning. I've always found it ironic that there's so much pressure for teenagers and young adults to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. While for some children, that is fine and works to their benefit - how many of us know people who have changed their career several times before they reached the age of 40, for example?
How many of us know people, or are those people who still don't really know what they want to do 20 years after leaving school?
In fact, many people find themselves chasing their dreams later in life as a kind of adult pivot—writing is one example, but this isn’t reserved just for writers. Many people start pursuing their true passions in their 30s or 40s, even after they've already been through school, college, and even university.
Even if they have exhausted and achieved all they can from school, college and university. Ditching their qualifications in favour of completely different discipline.
While I don’t claim that the education system in the UK or USA is entirely flawed—many people have positive experiences—there are still areas where alternatives could be more fully explored. Many I follow and call friends on here work within the education systems and I know are passionate about doing their best to help children progress in life.
What I would suggest is that information about the alternatives are made fully known to parents, rather than being stigmatised and made to look like "strange or bad choices".
For instance, Ruth and I homeschooled our children from early ages. Our oldest is 21 and works for Police Scotland as a call handler through the emergency services and our youngest son is 18 and studying cooking and hospitality at college level. Our experience homeschooling shows that stepping outside the traditional school system doesn't automatically lead to setbacks, as some critics might assume. In fact, it can provide students with more personalized learning opportunities.
When we first made the decision, it felt like a daunting prospect. But my wife—and particularly her passion and commitment—really drove us forward, and we were both excited about what lay ahead. When she told the head teacher of the local primary school our plans, laying out what she intended to do etc. He said that he was as excited as her to see what happens next.
It was challenging and rewarding. There were mistakes, sure, but we learned and adapted along the way. It wasn't a perfect solution, but then again, neither is traditional schooling—especially for every student.
That is my point I guess. Would I have fared better homeschooled? I doubt it. I think my teachers needed to put more effort in, as my confidence was low when I was a kid and remained that way until adulthood really. Well, until a few years ago. I've never really felt confident about anything - imposter syndrome mixed with depression, anxiety and a whole lot of other things.
But, if I had one of those teachers that actually gave a damn and put in a little more effort, maybe things would have been different. The funny thing is, I've always wanted to write. It’s a dream that I’ve carried with me for as long as I can remember, but school never seemed to encourage that. Music and film journalist was a fond dream of mine, as was writing books or films. I know they are not realistic and we all have those dreams, but I distinctly remember teachers constantly telling me my sentences were "too long and drawn-out". While I understand what they meant, it's not actually good feedback really, is it?
Look at Tolkien - okay, funny example because you either love him or find his love of detail irritating, but he built a complete career and legacy out of writing with a lack of brevity.
While some writing benefits from brevity, other styles benefit from details upon details. It's all about taste and personal preference in my opinion. That is why I find "writing guides" a little hard to take as anything beyond "helpful tips and considerations" because aside from grammar and spelling mistakes and accidental plot holes, things like that, there is no real "right or wrong" way to do writing. Or there is not just one right or wrong way.
So to tie that back in to my original point - there is no one right way of getting education right.
The rigid structure of traditional schooling—uniforms, arbitrary rules, and constant deadlines—was designed with one purpose in mind: social control. While these norms are meant to maintain order, they don't necessarily serve the diverse needs of students who might excel in environments that encourage self-expression and independent thinking. Sure, the passing down of knowledge, skills and social norms was part of it too and it made sense in many ways for larger groups to be educated, while parents worked to support their families.
To understand why we need to reconsider the current education system, it’s important to remember its historical roots. The purpose of schools—especially public primary schools—was originally to reinforce social order, not necessarily to nurture creativity or independent thought. If we truly want to serve all students, we need to ask ourselves: Do these outdated systems still help or hinder their growth in today's world? The future of education isn’t just about better resources or more funding—it's about a willingness to rethink how we approach learning and what we want it to achieve.
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Thanks for reading!
Author's Notes: This is for the Education community as part of my year-long ABCommunities Challenge. Just as a warning - the Filthy community is fast-approaching... hehe.
Here are some other things:
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Paul Stewart
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Comments (13)
This is a wonderful reflection and I think some insightful advice. My husband was home-schooled, I went to private Christian school for elementary and middle and then public high school in southern suburbia, now I teach in an urban public school. There certainly isn't just one way of doing education. And I think the more people push for a uniform experience for every student the more problems there will be. As a cog inside the machine my point of view is that the public system's solutions to a multitude of problems lack creativity and awareness of such diverse student needs
My understanding of early public education that "maintaining the public order" was an often unstated though expected outcome of education. It began among the Methodists & Baptists out of their desire for encouraging more people to be able to read the scriptures (with a profound hope they would have a formative effect), along with 'ritin' & 'rithmatic for basic practical, social & economic functioning. Often they would explain to the "Massuhs" how such education would produce docile slaves, but that was rarely the outcome whether intended or not. Even though I was an undiagnosed autistic, public education worked quite well for me. I'm sure I would have excelled being homeschooled as well since I was always a bit of an autodidact, but mom would have encouraged more obedience to her worldview & learning how to think only to the extent to which it could be contained within it. (Dad would have supported her in that.) Our public schools in South Dakota back in the 60s & 70s did quite well with learning us how to think & discern for ourselves. In Watertown I found myself exposed to a lot of different ways of thinking & approaching things & how to see from a varying points of view. Our teachers also did a very good job of reaching out to most & finding where their interests, talents & skills lay & encouraging. Still, there were many who fell through the cracks. When we had foster boys for 17 months, it took me a long time to figure out what was going on with them. They had come to SD from California where they supposedly had excelled at math. Neither one of them seemed to have a single clue even of basic addition & subtraction, much less multiplication, division, algebra, etc. They finally explained to me that in the school they had attended, the only math problems assigned were the odd numbered in the textbooks which had all the answers in the back. Their teachers never bothered to make sure they understood how to arrive at the answers rather than simply copy them down. I'm fairly certain that their experience was specific to their circumstances, school district, teachers, &/or combination of the above, but certainly wasn't working for them where they had been. Not until they moved to Selby, SD followed by Bowdle, SD when a distant relative finally adopted them. Unfortunately, whether or not the origins of public education were primarily about social integration & control, it's pretty clear that the far right wing (along with many others all across the political spectrum) mostly want students to learn how to memorize & regurgitate what we want them to know & specifically not how to think for themselves. In the process, there may remain some allowance for learning the trades, but the more our current system gets attacked & blamed rather than critiqued & improved, it's only going to get worse. (And yes, I read your article as critique & guidance, not attack & blame.)
The topic is close to my heart. I homeschooled my daughter for a few years, before she decided she wanted to have a go at the mainstream education system. Not everyone will have the resources and time necessary to homeschool, but I believe that it's great to have that option. No mass education is able to nurture everyone. Well, it wasn't actually designed to do so.
Interesting read. I think the education system in most countries is utter bollocks. We can put a dude on the moon but hell we can't educate our kids to go to the moon. Exams are outdated and stupid. Damn I hate it so much. I teach for the kids even though I despise the system designed by the rich to keep the minions in their allotted place.
I agree with you, Sir Paul. The education system is clearly flawed, even here in Malaysia. All that matters is students memorise and vomit the correct answers onto exam papers. It's only about knowing the answers, not particularly understanding it. The education system only creates humans that are book smart, not street smart. But the adult world, it requires us to be street smart. It truly sucks. I admire you and Ruth for homeschooling your children. That takes a lot of dedication, determination, passion, and patience.
Is your AB Communities challenge that you will write for each for the Vocal communities or something else? If oso I amy have stuffed in one of my aetciesl where i agve credit to Mike for this diea that I have picked up: https://shopping-feedback.today/writers/vocal-top-stories-are-they-needles-in-a-haystack%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/a%3E If so, I am extremely sorry and will make it up when I do the next review in June. Education is a strange thing, and you are right: so much is about short-term memory. Most of the things I learned at school I never used again.
Great article, Paul. I often regret how blase I about school. I enjoyed and gained far more in college, but it was more geared toward equipping me for a fuller life than work. Congratulations on successfully homeschooling your children!
Interesting stuff. I feel like a big part of the issue with encouraging kids to decide what they want to be is that very few people are fortunate enough to land a job that they genuinely like. I'm pretty close, but I'd probably ditch about half my work if I could. Unfortunately, changing this means rebuilding everything. A society that rewards presenteeism and busy-ness over almost anything else will struggle to find a place for anything that can't be counted, KPI-ed, monetized. Yet most of us don't want that; we want money as a means to an end (even I'm to starve in a garrett, I'd at least like to be able to afford a garrett in which to starve!). But acknowledging this undermines too much of what passes for a social contract, so nobody will do so (nor encourage or even tolerate those who might).
You are a great writer, and this article proves it and even though you were not homeschooled you know what you wanted and went after it. I was a loner in school, but I also knew what I wanted, and I planned the courses that would help me most from the business courses that were offered to teachers who helped me a lot.
Interesting insight on education and the art of writing! It's a popular notion that expressing oneself is the core of rebuilding a generation.
Really thought provoking piece. For me it's less about the structure of the school/ education system and more about individual teachers. I loved English at school but two teachers managed to make it feel like it was the most dreary, life sapping lesson of the week. Contrast that with another who made you feel like you stepped into another world every time you set foot in their classroom. I wish they could have taught every subject because they made learning fun and encouraged you to be the best version of yourself. I'm sure the amazing teachers get beaten down over time though - it must be hard being like that all the time.
I love this article from you! You touch on so many good points, especially the social control one. I was a high-achieving student and still never managed to make my teachers happy because I thought out of the box. It was a huge problem. Having your own ideas on things was almost always an immediate failure. I normally reserved one or two projects out of each year to be creative knowing full well I'd flunk it just because I put a bit of creativity into it. But even as a high-achieving student, I'm not better off for it. My good tests scores just made my school look better statistically but it did nothing for me. Education is so complicated but it definitely feels outdated. And like you said, good teachers who will nurture dreams are so important but even they struggle against the system. Anyway, I'll stop rambling. Wonderful piece from you!
I was homeschooled and went to private and public schools. I found benefits in learning in all three environments, and I wish that I could have taken the best qualities of each and combined them into one. With my girls, I sent my oldest to public school; my youngest went to public, and I homeschooled her through the epidemic (which she wasted away without other kids).