More about: The Prussian System of Schooling

by Sasha Alyson

In The Origin of Modern Schooling, I listed certain characteristics of the schooling that children around the world experience:

  • Children are required to attend.
  • It runs from kindergarten to grade 12.
  • Students are divided by age, not by what they need or want to learn, nor by what they’ve already learned.
  • The teacher is the authority. The children provide empty heads which the teacher is paid to fill.
  • There is little or no opportunity for students to explore a subject in depth, to develop a passion, to hone a skill. There’s an hour for one subject, then an hour for another.
  • Teachers are considered qualified if, and only if, they have the required certificate.
  • Whether they can teach well is irrelevant.
  • Whether they love or hate children is irrelevant.
  • Whether childhood is a happy time is irrelevant. That’s not on the spreadsheet.
  • Curriculum is fixed, and taught at a fixed rate, even if that doesn’t work for some students… even if it doesn’t work for anybody at all.
  • There is little or no recognition of superb teachers.
  • It centers around a standardized curriculum and lesson plans, not real-life experiences.
  • Students and teachers alike believe that the main purpose of school is preparing students to pass the exam.

These, I wrote, evolved from the system which was created in Prussia more than two centuries ago.

A number of readers have challenged this, or asked for details. For others who are skeptical, here are my responses to the most frequent comments and criticisms from readers.

“You missed (fill in the blank).”

Correct. A three-minute history of modern schooling is going to miss more than a few details. It’s going to miss entire chapters! This is an overview, addressing the question: How did so many bad ideas about “education” come together in schools around the world? From what I can learn, the answer is that these schools can trace their lineage back to the Prussian system.

“Schools existed long before Prussia did.”

Absolutely. The gurukul of India are often mentioned; also Plato’s academy, and others. But these generally were set up with learning as their primary goal. Generally they were voluntary; students were not required to attend, they wanted to do so. Often teachers were not paid, or received donations; they wanted to transmit knowledge and wisdom. This is the antithesis of the system that is widespread today, in which children are required to attend, even where it obviously does them no good. I find no linkage to suggest that these early learning-focused schools were the foundation for what we have today.

“Others had compulsory education before the Prussians.”

“Fake News,” announced one critic. “Massachusetts had compulsory schooling law in 1642.” Wrong. The 1642 law required that parents teach their children to read, which is quite the opposite of requiring that parents send their children to schools where quite possibly the child will not learn to read.

Even where schooling was compulsory, the law often wasn’t enforced. In the late 20th century, many developing countries also had compulsory schooling laws, but in reality, attendance was up to the parents and child until the U.N. began a strong push, in the 1990s, to get all children into schools, even as it paid no attention to whether they learned anything.

“Your list of school characteristics has a lot of generalizations.”

That’s going to happen, when we list characteristics of schools around the world. Generalization is useful as long as we understand its limitations.

For five years, I’ve been looking at school systems throughout the world, especially in developing countries where policies are heavily shaped by U.N. agencies and Western NGOs. In these countries, the features I list are widespread. In most wealthy countries, poorer children attend schools with these characteristics, while those from wealthier families attend quite different schools which focus on developing initiative, leadership, critical thinking, self-confidence, as well as covering the basics more thoroughly. (Yes, there are exceptions, notably in Scandinavia.)

I ran a Twitter poll recently in fifteen diverse countries, asking: What do your schools focus on? A decisive majority said their schools primarily teach children to pass tests. It’s not surprising that this focus leads to the characteristics I’ve mentioned. (Poll detail: What do your schools teach?)

Related stories

Left: Schooling vs. education. The United Nations has convinced much of the developing world that getting more children enrolled in school is the same as expanding education. The consequences have been devastating.
Right: The origin of modern schooling: Worldwide, children attend schools that use rote memorization to teach for the test, and leave students unprepared for the real world. How did this system become so widespread?
Left: How aid undermines education. Too many children in developing countries enter secondary school unable to read their own name. It wasn’t always this way. Here’s how self-serving Western aid has contributed to illiteracy.
Right: Branding by UNICEF. More and more children display UNICEF-branded knapsacks as they walk to and from school. Does this improve the quality of their education? Or does it just increase the value of the UNICEF brand?
Left: Mimicry. The aid industry collects piles of data about things that don’t really matter, while ignoring the things that do. To understand this, it helps to understand the concept of mimicry.
Right: The campaign against reading. The aid industry says it promotes reading. But its actions — such as dumping unwanted books from the USA — are motivated by self-interest, and consistently undermine reading in the global South.
Left: Masters of Deceit. Raising funds for “girls’ education” has become big business…. and remarkably often, the aid industry has crossed the line into deceit and dishonesty.
Right: Libraries that don’t work: Big NGOs tend to focus on appearance over substance. One result — libraries filled with the wrong books — undermines education in Africa. Karim F Hirji describes what he’s seen in Tanzania.

Other stories of interest

Left: A License to Meddle: Different students choose different subjects. Does this really call for U.N. intervention? Or is it just a License to Meddle?
Right: Selling good karma. Aid, in theory, is about helping others. But to a very large extent, it’s about purchasing permission to feel good about ourselves while ignoring unpleasant realities. Want proof? Ask the birds.
Left: Experts vs. Chimps: Do “development experts” have any more wisdom than dart-throwing chimpanzees? Well, it’s a tight contest. It turns out, the experts who get in the news have a sorry track record, though they try to hide it.
Right: Do African perspectives matter? The Global Partnership for Education shapes education policy in 70 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia. Its CEO, chair, and 7-member evaluation team are from the USA, Australia, and Europe.
Left: “Sometimes I feel like a sign board.” A Kenyan professional, working at a Western NGO, tells what it’s like: Pointing the way for an ever-changing succession of ex-pats who are paid much more, but don’t know what to do.
Right: What would make a better future? There are ways that wealthier countries can genuinely help others, if they want to. Give the aid money directly to the poor, for example. Here are ideas.