We think of school as a place where children learn. However, in our books, “The Illusion of Education” and “The Illusion of School”, we explain why school is a place where children are processed to define the purpose they may take in the working society. This processing is done by children being able to relate to the knowledge they are given through the quality of language their parents have largely raised them on, the strength of character they have to avoid the many distractions placed upon them and their purpose of effort to keep up with their lessons. As we may see, these factors are traditionally related to the social standing of the parents, by the greater education they have received and their greater awareness to how school actually works.
All books relating to intelligence, those in psychology and education, explain that intelligence testing began with Alfred Binét in Paris in 1905. This is totally incorrect. Binét radically opposed any form of intelligence testing. However, Binét did state that children should be taught to learn how to think before they were taught the normal subjects in school, because he understood how this would affect their ability to learn.. We need to understand why school has always avoided this and to now actively teach children how to think through a subject dedicated to this purpose.
To stop processing children on their homegrown skills is no longer about creating equality in education. It would now be about preparing them for the A.I. world they must survive in. A world that will demand citizens to have higher reasoning skills and better social behaviour than the school is now able to produce. Society and its instrument of school may only achieve this through the creation of a totally new subject within the curriculum set about the education of reason. Benezet proved the potentiality of this in the 1930’s, but his achievement did not suit the purpose of school and was largely ignored. We can no longer ignore discussion upon this or if we do it will be to the peril of our civilization should A.I. develop to become sentient as expected of it.
Roy Andersen