Popper on Education

Thank you, Rafe Champion, for putting together this page.

http://www.the-rathouse.com/RC_PopperEdu.html

'If I thought of a future, I dreamt of one day founding a school in which young people could learn without boredom, and would be stimulated to pose problems and discuss them; a school in which no unwanted answers to unasked questions would have to be listened to; in which one did not study for the sake of passing examinations'. Unended Quest, p. 40.

"Do no harm" and "give the young what they most urgently need in order to become independent of us, and to be able to choose for themselves" would be a very worthy aim for our educational system, and one whose realization is somewhat remote although it sounds modest. Instead, "higher" aims are the fashion, aims which are typically romantic and indeed nonsensical, such as "the full development of the personality".