Could It Be 200 Feet Tall And Made Of Foam Rubber?

Sir Ken Robinson is arguing against an educational paradigm built on two traditional pillars: economic and intellectual. These pillars were initially implemented due to the belief that they were the most efficient in advancing progress. Thus, these pillars became educational law, and the standardized movement began: standardized tests, standardized curricula. Robinson argues that education and its insatiable thirst for systemic efficiency has defined progress as a must-be-measured quantitative value for the child as a general homogenized entity, based on raising the bar “academically,” with no regard to children of different strengths and capabilities. In the same way, Brave New World illustrates a society in which efficiency, standardization, conformity are all held as sacred virtues. The progress of the population as a whole must usurp in importance the progress of individuals. In fact, the individual must be eliminated, and we must all work together in the same way for the same cause. “Ninety-six identical eggs working ninety-six identical machines!” (7), exclaims The Director while passionately preaching about Bokanovsky’s Process. The process of one bokanovskified egg producing ninety-six embryos signals “the principle of mass production at last applied to biology” (7). This directly parallels Robinson’s assertion that education is, “modeled on the interests of industrialization and in the image of it.” He describes how schools are “organized on factory lines, with ringing bells, separate facilities, specialized into separate subjects, and systemized by age group…as if the most important thing about them is their date of manufacture.” In Huxley’s futuristic society, the most important thing is the manufacturing of human beings. Individual countries race to be the first to mass produce the most. Mankind is given a few standard, simple goals, purposes, and desires, and conditioned to not want anything more. They are to desire orthodoxy, cheap, soma-induced, sex-crazed happiness, and an efficient work ethic. And this philosophy is applied to every individual equally. Bernard Marx epitomizes the problem Robinson claims exists in the education system. Bernard is not satisfied by this philosophy; he cannot adopt it unconsciously and religiously as the rest of his peers can. His mind rejects it because he is visibly different, and this physical difference has resulted in the shaping of a mental difference, causing a longing in him to value different things. In the same way, Robinson speaks for the children who are not what the institution classifies as “academic.” Maybe they are more right-brained, more artistic, and cannot keep up with educational standardizations. For this, they are penalized: failed, left behind, alienated. Similarly, Bernard is shunned, whispered about, alienated.