Roger Scruton on Modern Education
In 2016, in an essay on Rousseau, Scruton wrote on “discovery” education, and traditional education in this 7830 essay https://www.roger-scruton.com/homepage/about/music/understanding-music/179-rousseau
Three quotes:
“Modern liberals tend to scoff at the idea of tradition . . . The traditional curriculum existed not because it empowered people, but because it contained an accumulation of social knowledge — knowledge of the human mind, the human character and the human heart — whose utility is obvious to those who have studied it, but inconceivable to those who have not. The modern Jean-Jacques, obsessed with inequality and social power, will therefore never understand the institutions which most offend him, and his relentless efforts to undermine them will deprive both him and everyone else of the knowledge required to put the damage right.”
“Modern sex education is conceived as a ‘liberation’ from fear, doubt and disease – a ‘how to’ manual for children, which is also a form of vicarious paedophilia for their teachers.”
“Even if it were possible to educate children in this way, one thing is certain: that each generation would know less than the one before. The labour of discovery would have to be endlessly repeated, and the process whereby knowledge accumulates would come to a halt.”