David Larabee's Three Goals Of Education

How the education system for youth is constantly debated on and often people fall into two groups, those who have power and those who don’t. This creates a divide in what the a child’s education should be focus on, the good of the society by filling its needs or the individual to help them succeed. Public education has the tough job of having to balance these under financial constraints that make it unrealistic to have a perfect system. Because it requires less financial resources, public schooling has become less focused on each individual and more society’s needs. David Larabee argues that “[schools remain] publicly funded, publicly controlled, and radically decentralized which [focus] more on being accessible than on teaching the curriculum.”

This need for a new system is known, but one that can perfectly balance the needs of society while still caring for each individual is close to impossible with the given resources. Education has fallen short in developing students outside of societal needs, and this is largely due to society’s outlook on everything. People in today’s society measure one’s success often by the their material wealth and their standing in society’s class rank. This will cause children to strive for higher paying jobs and seek opportunities that look good to others, instead of searching for opportunities to fulfill themselves. This focus on material goods falls under social mobility, the first of David Larabee’s three goals for education. The second of Larabee’s three goals is social efficiency, which puts an emphasis on filling positions in society that need to be filled.

Each teacher should be able to teach effectively to each student in and efficient manner, but they also must be able to understand everyone. Rose speaks to point when writing “teaching carries with it the obligation to understand the people in one’s charge, to teach subject matter and skills, but also to inquire, to nurture, to have a sense of who a student is” (Rose 216). Teachers being able to sense who each individual student is allows them understand what is the best way to teach this individual within the classroom’s rules. This focus on students within the classroom creates an acceptance for any idea creating balance within society. This allows students be unique and have a great sense for themselves, creating a better place for ideas to