// June 9th, 2012 // No Comments » // Free essays
Nowadays, educational system is often criticized and many specialists work on its improvement. Often, the criticism of the existing educational system is quite reasonable and is supported by persuasive arguments revealing the fact that modern education does not really provide ample opportunities for students to develop and realize their skills and abilities. At the same time, one of the major problems of the modern educational system is the problem of equal access to education of absolutely all people.
Naturally, many problems that existed in the past in this sphere have been eliminated but, unfortunately, the current educational system does not fully provide equal opportunities even regardless the officially proclaimed policy of tolerance. However, often this problem is omitted in numerous researches related to the current situation in education. This is why the work of Harry Brighouse “On Education” is particularly interesting to analyze and discuss.
Basically, Harry Brighouse is particularly disturbed by the problem of what he calls justice for education but, in actuality, it is the mentioned above problem of equal opportunities though a bit modified. To put it more precisely, the author of “On Education” underlines that children should not simply have equal access to education but also have the possibility to fully realize their potential, skills and abilities. It means that he stands on the ground that all students should have equal opportunities to enjoy the benefits of the educational system, which, according to the author of the book, is far from perfect.
On analyzing Harry Brighouse views of the modern educational system, it is necessary to underline that the author argues that schooling should be guided by the fundamental principle, often overlooked: the moral principles of children to be taught. Actually, this is exactly where his strive for equal opportunities in education becomes mostly apparent, though the author does not directly postulate this idea, but it is possible to arrive to such a conclusion from the context of his arguments.
In this respect, it is worthy of note that according to Harry Brighouse the modern educational system should focus on four basic interests that all children share and, what is more, these interests should be equally satisfied for all students, or to put it more precisely, all students should have ample opportunities to satisfy all four fundamental interests.
Obviously, in order better understand the author’s position, it is necessary to thoroughly analyze all of the four interests suggested by Harry Brighouse. First of all, he estimates that children should have a possibility to develop the ability to make their own judgments about what values to adopt. Unquestionably, this is very important point in Harry Brighouse’s arguments because in the current situation the ability to make independent judgments, at large, and independent judgments about what values to adopt, in particular, is extremely important.
In this respect, it is worthy of note that in the modern world, it is really difficult to provide or develop such an ability because nowadays practically the whole world is dramatically influenced by the process of globalization which eliminates not only geographical borders but also cultural and ideological ones. In such a situation there exists a threat of loosing identity by individuals representing different cultures since the world is getting to be really united that results in the situation when practically identical values dominate in different societies even though such values used totally unacceptable in the past.
Consequently, the arguments of Harry Brighouse seem to be really persuading because in such socio-cultural context children are really in a great danger to be succumbed to moral and ethical values dominating in the society at the present moment. As a result, children are really deprived of a possibility to choose freely what values to adopt but they simply accept those values which are dominant. What is probably the most dangerous in this process is the fact that children do it unconsciously while adults, including educators, do not really make sufficient efforts to change the situation for better. (more…)