Over the years, I have been writing about misconceptions regarding the schooling process. The purpose of these posts is to explain why I disagree with various comments that I have heard people make about schooling. These are meant as personal thoughts rather than conclusive proof, and I will admit that I'm not always the best at explaining my thoughts. Regardless, I have decided that I should be willing to share these posts when I encounter someone online who makes an argument that I have already discussed.
Recently, I was looking at an old misconception and noticed a number of problems. Although I'm not a very good writer, I should be able to do better. I will keep the old version, but I am going to write a new version and even make a slight change in how I refer to the misconception.
For years, teachers have been pushing for smaller class sizes. To reduce class sizes, we need more teachers. On the surface, this sounds like an obvious solution. More people dedicated to education should result in a better educated society.
There are a couple of big problems with smaller class sizes. For starters, we have limited resources. Imagine having a million students. Hiring a million teachers to provide class sizes of one should work a lot better than having one teacher with a class size of a million students. Now imagine that there are only a million adults. Suddenly, this concept means that we no longer have people left for doctors. Perhaps even more problematic, there would be no farmers. We wouldn't have food. Even if smaller class sizes are reliably better for education, it's clear that there must be limits. Where do we draw the line? That's a matter of opinion.
I want to address one way in which smaller class sizes can be applied. You could have one teacher provide a lecture to 30 students at a time. By contrast, you could have two teachers providing the exact same lecture at the same time to 15 students each. In this case, smaller class sizes don't provide any real benefits.
That brings me to the other big issue I have with this nonstop demand for smaller class sizes. The value of smaller class sizes is highly dependent on what exactly teachers are doing. Let me go back to the idea of having a million students. What's best for their educations, a million teachers dedicated to hindering educations or only one teacher?
When I was in school, my teachers were consistently anti-educational, intolerant, and abusive. Personal attention was focused on threatening my future if I didn't allow them to control my entire childhood. They assaulted my mental health as a means of forcing obedience and conformity. Instead of trying to meet my needs, they tried to change who I was to better fit how they taught. They pushed the message that I had no right to be me. In my case, more personal attention would have been detrimental.
My experiences in school were definitively unhealthy. There is no way that I'm alone. For many students, schooling is downright dangerous. Smaller class sizes can amplify this problem. In extreme cases, this can even result in the loss of lives.
Our schools were never meant to educate. The methodology used today can be considered a destructive force. Do we really want to take resources that could be used elsewhere and give them to a profession that does far more harm than good to society? You have a right to your opinion, but I view this as a horrible idea.
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