What are schools really for?

The thug's definition of power is:

The ability to make things happen;

The civilised person's definition of power is:

The ability to get others to accept your description of the world.

This provokes questions such as:

• Who describes my world?
  
• Who describes your world?
  
• Who describes our world?

We send children to school to learn. But, to learn what?

The usual response to that question is something like: to learn useful things that will help them survive in society and have a good life. OK, that's pretty good, as far as it goes, but answer me this:

• Where is the scientific evidence that shows clearly and unambiguously that schooling is the best way to cater for the needs of children?

My point is that most schools are bureaucratically organised production facilities. Yes, I know that most people would not like to put it that way. But surely it is clear that children are corralled, restrained and constrained by people - teachers and their assistants - organised on the basis of economies of scale through specialisation of function.

There are clearly many children who do not survive this experience very well, and for whom the outcome of their schooling is clearly not what was intended. Given that each of us lives only once upon this Earth, who does this system serve, if it does not serve all children properly?

The curse of the command structure

This concept is the reason for this blog.

The basic insight I want people to look at and discuss is that all large organisations are built around a pyramid shaped power or command structure, but command structures are NOT communication networks. Discuss? Hey, prove it wrong if you can!

"Hierarchy of authority" is a more fluffy way of saying command structure. This means that each person in the organisation officially reports to just one direct superior but that each person above the very base level may have one or more people who report to him or her. This is true of armies, monasteries, government agencies, commercial and industrial firms and corporations, and educational institutions. "Old news" you might say, but "hierarchy of authority" misses the deep problem.

The deep problem is that communication - I mean real communication - is a two-way process, and bureaucratic command structures do NOT function well, if at all, as channels for the two way, equal to equal, interchange which is essential for real communication to occur.