Musings on Modern Pedagogies

I’ve had occasion to be thinking a lot lately about schooling and the type of education I believe that my kids should receive. I consider myself fortunate to have received both public and private high school education, and I can see the advantages and disadvantaages of both. I still can’t help wondering whether the whole education system itself is in tune with the real needs of my kids? I have a nagging feeling (intuition?) that it isn’t. This line of questioning led me to some Montaignean wisdom on the subject:

I gladly come back to the absurdity of our education: its end has not been able to make us good and wise but learned. And it has succeeded. It has not taught us to seek virtue and embrace wisdom: it has impressed upon us their derivation and their etymology.

Come to think of it, this statement sums up my feelings about my own education. I’m working hard to correct the imbalance on that score.

Aside: the definition of pedagogy?: from paidagōgos, slave who took children to and from school.

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