Education Factories

                The video posted on Mr. Dominguez’s blog (D, by the way is super cool :D)draws many parallels with regards to education with Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World.  I was actually really amazed by the similarities between the two.  What’s more I actually agree with most of the things said in the videos.  As we move forward in life the education system we currently have becomes increasingly outdated and alienates more of the world’s children. 

                First of all, I was amazed by the comment made in the video about how today’s education system is very similar to the workings within in a factory.  Split into groups based on age, “batches” of children are bussed into schools that operate according to a bell schedule and split into specific pieces, also known as subjects.  What’s more education, according to the video, is resulting in losing its subjects by splitting students into two main groups, those who succeed and those who do not, and by assigning ‘grades.’

                In Brave New World, children are produced, much like supposed intelligence and individuals are produced in school, in “hatcheries”.  Within these hatcheries, the children are put on an assembly line, for Henry Ford, whom they worship, created this noble device.  Just like there are desks in which each student is confined to at school where they develop, in the novel there are “racks upon racks of numbered test tubes” in which the children develop.  What’s more each learning process in the novel is separate, just as subjects are in school.  There’s a room for birthing, a room for establishing a fear of books and flowers, and there’s a room for erotic play, and so forth and so on.  Furthermore, the people are split into groups during the “pregnancy” based on how dumb or successful they are supposed to be.  These groups are Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons.  These groups are similar to grades.  There are even pluses and minuses within each grade.

                All in all, there are so many similarities between the views of education and the happenings within the novel Brave New World.  It is made very obvious how detrimental these practices are to society, regardless of the good intentions that may be attached.