Educational Commodities

In the ongoing, and seemingly endless discussions over the quality of education, there seems to be a fundamenatlal flaw in the debate. All too frequently, education is discussed as if it were a commodity, i.e. something to be produced and distributed; bought and sold. Poor grades are understood to be the results of a poor product and/or poor distribution. There was once a time when education was understood as an activity, i.e., something one did. The teacher engaged in the activity of teaching; the student in the activity of learning. Somewhere, somehow, education became a noun. Education became something the teacher gives and the student receives. Thus, education reform has come to revolve around making a better product and improving its distibution. Distributing education would seem to be a dead end. It has become simply a body of facts to be retained and retrieved if and when they become useful or necessary. Traditional basics of education, e.g. history, philosphy, and literature, have become largely useless in our modern economy since they are of limited efficacy in the creation or distribution of wealth. The result is a population adept at creating wealth and commodities, but clumsy in its accumulation and appreciation of art and culture. Without art and culture, economic activity becomes a near mindless, and endless pursuit of wealth and comfort.