Equality in Education
Equality in Education
Ch.2 of Bryan Wilson, ed., Education, Equality and Society, London, 1975, pp.39-61.
I
To speak of equality in education is rather like speaking of equality in love. Young men sometimes wax indignant about the unfairness of their lot, and say there ought to be arrangements whereby the available girls should be shared out equally, so that everyone should get his whack; or, more sophisticatedly, that the most desirable girls should be made to bestow their favours on egalitarian principles, so that the total female talent be fairly distributed and nobody be deprived of his rightful meed of femininity. We smile; not only at the ludicrous incongruity of bureaucrats in the Ministry of Love issuing ration cards to students giving them 2.7 date-points per week, but because the very vehemence of the young men's protestations shows that they do not understand the nature of love or what personal relations really are like. It is the same with education. Learning or teaching are like loving and friendship in being primarily a matter of personal initiatives and personal responses. I learnt because my teachers talked to me and listened to me, often told me things and often tried to see what my difficulties were and help me overcome them, and occasionally inspired me or enraged me or led me to have new insights entirely of my own. And so it is with all pupils and all teachers. In so far as anybody is educated by anyone else at all it is by personal contact and personal commitment. Institutions and syllabuses, examinations and educational authorities may have their part to play, but what makes education a reality is a personal relationship [40] between teacher and pupil, and with personal relationships no questions of equality can arise. Educationalists can ask whether one child has as many books or as many footballs as another child, or whether his teachers have as many `A' levels or as many Certificates or Diplomas of Education. They can also ask whether a
Ch.2 of Bryan Wilson, ed., Education, Equality and Society, London, 1975, pp.39-61.
I
To speak of equality in education is rather like speaking of equality in love. Young men sometimes wax indignant about the unfairness of their lot, and say there ought to be arrangements whereby the available girls should be shared out equally, so that everyone should get his whack; or, more sophisticatedly, that the most desirable girls should be made to bestow their favours on egalitarian principles, so that the total female talent be fairly distributed and nobody be deprived of his rightful meed of femininity. We smile; not only at the ludicrous incongruity of bureaucrats in the Ministry of Love issuing ration cards to students giving them 2.7 date-points per week, but because the very vehemence of the young men's protestations shows that they do not understand the nature of love or what personal relations really are like. It is the same with education. Learning or teaching are like loving and friendship in being primarily a matter of personal initiatives and personal responses. I learnt because my teachers talked to me and listened to me, often told me things and often tried to see what my difficulties were and help me overcome them, and occasionally inspired me or enraged me or led me to have new insights entirely of my own. And so it is with all pupils and all teachers. In so far as anybody is educated by anyone else at all it is by personal contact and personal commitment. Institutions and syllabuses, examinations and educational authorities may have their part to play, but what makes education a reality is a personal relationship [40] between teacher and pupil, and with personal relationships no questions of equality can arise. Educationalists can ask whether one child has as many books or as many footballs as another child, or whether his teachers have as many `A' levels or as many Certificates or Diplomas of Education. They can also ask whether a