Charlie Martin is a better writer, but I have said all of this in the past. Quote:
It would take far more than one article to explain how we got here, but at least one of the root causes is the Prussian model of education we adopted early in the 20th century. And no, I'm not using the ad Hitlerum fallacy here — our model of education is literally Prussian, coming from educational reforms instituted in Prussia and eventually throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire long before Hitler. The goal was to teach the masses, who were assumed not to be capable of a more advanced education, to become literate and tractable workers in the increasingly industrialized German-speaking state.
The model is essentially industrial, suited for the times: students are raw materials that progress through a series of work stations ("grades") allocated by age cohort, with their progress and eventual quality judged at each stage. Individual capabilities and interests were largely ignored, and the results were mainly measured by how much of the raw materials passed through the whole factory with at least a marginally acceptable final delivery.
And yes, of course, this is a mildly hyperbolic overstatement, but only mildly. The educational system disoriented not toward successfully teaching individual student, but to pushing a mass of students through as a group...
