Throughout history, there have been few subjects as hotly debated as education. Even today, we in America struggle to decide how best to teach our children, so that, hopefully, they do not grow up to be serial killers and axe murderers, and, instead, live on to carry some amalgamation of their parents’ finest political views. From public schooling to homeschooling, we search for the best option, but is the subject matter of all our teaching relevant? In the early 1800s, one English poet tried to approach this question: Matthew Arnold. Despite Arnold’s initial disregard and difficulty with school as boy, his love for literature–specifically poetry–grew as he aged, so much so that by 1851, when he was 29, he became an inspector of schools. Then, in 1880, he wrote a piece titled “The Study of Poetry” (Johnston). Being the prolific and influential writer he was, it is understandable that Arnold was a voice of reason in his day, speaking to teachers and students at 280 schools, both in his country and in others (Johnston); in fact, it is his thoughts on culture and criticism that could still carry some weight today in the reformation of our own education systems. While his piece on criticism (“The Function of Criticism at the Present Time”) may be more widely applied to poetry, he raises some points that could be used to shine a critical light on more than the arts (Greenblatt 463). Indeed, his thoughts in the latter piece raise the question: are we teaching “the best that is known and thought in the world”?
Before we can truly dive into that discussion, Arnold’s ideology must be explored more thoroughly. Fortunately, researchers have already compiled work into sound arguments for this endeavor: Bruce Novak, a teacher at the University of Chicago, wrote an article titled “Humanizing Democracy: Matthew Arnold’s Nineteenth-Century Call for a Common, Higher, Educative Pursuit of Happiness and Its Relevance to Twenty-First-Century Democratic Life,” and for what Novak lacks in the creation-of-short-titles department, he makes up for in analysis of Arnold’s key ideas. He describes Arnold’s view on democracy and education, saying, “the key to shaping a humanized democracy lay in shaping a humanizing system of public schooling” (Novak 595). Indeed, as Novak goes on, much of Arnold’s argument can be summed up as a desire to preserve one’s individuality and humanity (600). How one does that, per Arnold, appears in his essay on criticism; “disinterestedness,” or the “free play of the mind on all subjects which it touches” (Greenblatt 458) is how we ought to approach any literature being taught.
Taking these ideas into consideration, then, what happens if we apply them to our present-day education? What of the ideas and subjects children (and us) were expected to know by heart? Well, it is difficult to say much of consequence as to the beneficiality of the public education system as a whole, or truly critique it, given that there are almost fourteen-thousand districts, each with separate ways of ruling their charges and coming up with curriculum. Even so, there are some studies and professional opinions that can allow us some insight into just how useful the topics of education are to everyday people. One such 2006 study, created by an education economist, education history, and educational policy professor of Stanford University, David Plank, discusses the demand and supply of public education in the U.S.A. and branches off into the thoughts of critics and the media, as well as some general statistics from parents and children regarding their perceptions of public schools. He writes in his introduction how critics “have begun to argue that the traditional education system is incapable of meeting new and more ambitious expectations for the performance of schools and students” (Plank 15) and notes how public schools have instituted new levels of competitiveness and accountability procedures. This alone is cause enough for discussion since the procedures mentioned have not increased the efficacy of learning. Plank says on the current state of the American Education system that “students have failed to meet apparently reasonable performance standards, both globally and with respect to particular groups of students, including minorities” (Plank 16). But, how much students fail to meet performance standards is not clear. Everyone appears to have varying levels of agreement on the matter, with the media’s reviews on public education being “excessively negative” and education journalists seeing the system as “more balanced” (Plank 17). But why has this been happening? Is it merely the new procedures and standards that have led to a decrease in student achievement, or could the problem go deeper than that? To answer this question, it is beneficial to ask the students directly–something Plank did. On top of classroom obstacles such as disruptive peers, students reported “‘they view most of what they learn in their classes — apart from ‘the basics’ — as tedious and irrelevant’” (Plank 20). In other words, these students feel as if they are not invested in what is being taught, or even that the material is not engaging to them and could be more challenging.
To make matters worse, plenty of people beyond students have become disillusioned with the American education system. A reporter for UWIRE text, a college news and press release distributor established in 2007 with a well-established repertoire of editors and writers, Daisy Carter writes about the US education system, discussing the history we’ve been taught in our schools. She mentions the tamed version of slavery–tamed enough to be as wildly incomplete and inaccurate as James Anthony Froude’s 1888 report on freed slaves in Trinidad–and even mentions the differences between the US and Germany, suggesting that Germany has done a better job at detailing their more gruesome moments in history. She writes, “The United States Education system has been shown time and time again to be a system that idolizes American exceptionalism” (Carter) which is a signal that our system, and the pieces that make it up, could be leading us towards a big problem. If our education system is unable to get facts right–no matter how horrifying or how much we might want to forget them–then what is the point in trying to teach our children “the best that is known and thought in the world”? Not all that is the best is necessarily the easiest to swallow.
So, not only are our public schools not cultivating the “humanized democracy” of Arnold’s dreams and instead forcing children to study subjects which are, in many cases, completely unimportant or trivial to them, but those same subjects are often presenting only a nationalist view, or that of “American exceptionalism.” It is for these reasons that we must begin to rethink our approach to education–not reform it, exactly, as more studies and discussion must be had–since we do not seem to be teaching what Matthew Arnold espoused. Learning the best that is known and thought in the world may be a lofty goal, but it is in humanity’s best interests to do so, for the simple reason of personal fulfillment. Ideally, our schools will one day be focused more on humanizing education, rather than the strict system and procedures that result in so much dissatisfaction.
Works Cited
Carter, Daisy. “The US Education System.” UWIRE Text, 26 Feb. 2021, p. 1. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A653206708/ITOF?u=tel_a_cumberland&sid=ebsco&xid=cd01d165. Accessed 16 Mar. 2022.
Greenblatt, Stephen, and Matthew Arnold. “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. E – the Victorian Age 10e, W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Johnston, Eileen T. “Matthew Arnold.” Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2020. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohost-com.cumberland.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=88807333&site=eds-live.
Novak, Bruce. “Humanizing Democracy: Matthew Arnold’s Nineteenth-Century Call for a Common, Higher, Educative Pursuit of Happiness and Its Relevance to Twenty-First-Century Democratic Life.” American Educational Research Journal, vol. 39, no. 3, [American Educational Research Association, Sage Publications, Inc.], 2002, pp. 593–637, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3202480.Plank, David. “Unsettling the State: How ‘Demand’ Challenges the Education System in the US.” European Journal of Education, vol. 41, no. 1, Mar. 2006, pp. 13–27. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.cumberland.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/j.1465-3435.2006.00243.x.
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