From Beyond Culture

Citing Washburn (1973) on the importance of play in learning

“Through play (emotional, repetitious, from within) children prepare for the adult life of their culture.  Separation of education from life…is new in the history of primates.  In the American school there is no view of adult life…In schools discipline is substituted for the internal drive to learn… to be a part of culture.  Through a profound misunderstanding of primate biology the schools reduce the most intelligent primate to a bored and alienated creature.” (italics in original) (pg 204)

In his own words

“The failure to understand the significance of play in maturing human beings has had incalculable consequences, because play is not only crucial to learning but (unlike other drives) is its own reward.  Following from this, one would assume that one of the greatest faults in modern education is overstructuring, which does not allow for play at every point in the educational process.” (italics in original) (pg 204)

On peer versus teacher-led learning and modern education as a socializing institution

“Large classes force teachers into becoming disciplinarians.  In this sense, school life is an excellent preparation for understanding adult bureaucracies:  it is designed less for learning than for teaching you who’s boss and how bosses behave, and keeping order.” (pg 205)

“Sitting regimented at desks according to predetermined, fixed schedules is no way to treat a primate capable of running up to a hundred miles in one day.” (pg 205)

“Some how, in the United States we have managed to transform one of the most rewarding of all human activities into a painful, boring, dull, fragmenting, mind-shrinking, soul-shriveling experience.” (pg 207)

On the guiding philosophy of modern education

“The guiding philosophy of education has within it the implicit notion and culturally patterned belief that a teacher’s job is to transmit a body of knowledge to students.  But many people learn better by teaching others, not by listening to professors.  As currently, organized, most universities are very expensive ways of educating professors.” (italics in original) (pg 208)

“[What is learned in schools] is that bureaucracies are for real and are not to be taken lightly.  The organization is placed above everything else.  Later, and to their regret, many people discover that jobs are just like school except that the teacher has now become the boss, so nothing has really changed.” (pg 209)

“Sitting still in confined places is one of the worst punishments that can be inflicted on the human species.  Yet this is what we require of students in school.” (pg 211)

Modern education