Kinds of Good and Education

At the start of Book II of Republic, Glaucon talks about three different kinds of good: category one is stuff that we do for its own sake even though we don’t care about what comes out of it, category two is stuff we do for its own sake and that also has something we want to come out of it, and category three is stuff that we hate doing but that we do anyway because something good comes out of it. Glaucon and Socrates then argue about which category “justice” falls into.

These three tiers made me think of how the schools I’ve attended fell into similar categories of the different kinds of good, and how the external goal was different for each. 

The school that most solidly fell into category one was the Montessori school that I attended for seventh grade. There was no curriculum, we could take recesses whenever we wanted, and there were no grades. We never talked about what the “point” of school was. College was never discussed. We were given access to textbooks, tutors, and reading groups, and we were encouraged to use them. I had a fantastic year, I learned what I wanted to learn (meaning I read a lot of books, made videos, and baked), and I barely touched math. 

The school that fell more into category two was the Arts and Sciences charter school that I attended my senior year of high school. We had A days and B days so that students could take way more electives than schools that used the same schedule every day. It encouraged students to explore their own interests, and to learn by doing projects. At the same time, college was an ever-present underlying motivator. School was seen as a form of social mobility, an “equal access” way to reach the well-paid jobs. 

The school that fell most into category three was the public school I attended in Spain my junior year of high school. Nobody expected school to be fun, and the teachers weren’t expected to motivate the students. For example, in my psychology class the teacher would have a student read out loud from the textbook, then she would ask us to highlight certain passages, and for homework we would copy by hand the passages we’d been told to highlight. And we’d be tested on the material every few weeks. I noticed that unlike in my classes in the United States, students weren’t motivated by the idea of going to college. Most people preferred to stay in the towns they grew up in. The goal of the school, then, seemed to be to prepare students for the job market. Since the job market is stratified, school reflected that. Students dropped out and were held back at levels way higher than my schools in the United States, creating an educational hierarchy that matches the occupational hierarchy.

Did you guys notice an external goal that your school seemed to focus on? And did your school do anything to make learning fun for its own sake?