Teach virtue, patriotism if you want unthinking robots
Play
Student-activist group Education for the Liberation of Siam has expressed concern about the draft charter, insisting that the fundamental purpose of the education system is to instil “virtue, discipline and pride in the nation”.
If drafters follow that reasoning we would turn out robots that know only what to think and not how to think, further retarding the progress of our country.
I would suggest that we should instead follow the advice of Bertrand Russell. “Education should have two objects,” he wrote. “First, to give definite knowledge, reading and writing, language and mathematics, and so on; secondly, to create those mental habits which will enable people to acquire knowledge and form sound judgements for themselves.”
We almost have a bottom-of-the-barrel education system as it is. Let’s not justify its shoddiness by saying that’s what we should aim for.
Burin Kantabutra
