The article elucidates the incorrect approach to education, practiced by most teachers. The author states that the student is considered an “animate sausage casing” into which education can be stuffed. Criticizing this method of education, the author explains the precise manner of education explicated by Socrates dating back to two thousand years, as one in which the student is not stuffed with education; rather knowledge is extracted from the student’s mind. The author also quotes a well-known Harvard philosopher, William Errest Hocking, who had stated that education entails the instruction of what is “inside” of a person.
The author furthers the argument by citing a dialogue “Meno” in which Socrates proves this point to the observers by taking an illiterate slave boy and showing them the how much geometry the boy knew because of the innate knowledge of principles of geometry in his mind “waiting to be called out”. The author effectively states the futility of the numerous discussions and controversies of the educational content as the manner simply involves what the student should learn rather than what should be taken out of the student.
The author also mentions another college student who had succinctly stated his inability to learn anything because of the time spent studying, expressing his dissatisfaction with the “sausage casing” approach to education. The student was provided with so much material to absorb that there was no scope “to draw on his resources” and no encouragement was provided for his skills of analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating to use. The author ends by stating that real education must not simply function to create “dunces” but the drawing out the “latent” knowledge in each individual to enable them to hone their skills of analyzing, evaluating, and concluding.
The article is enlightening and highlights the weaknesses of the current system of education. Rote learning should not be the focus of education and high-quality education involves the drawing out of knowledge from the students rather than providing them with a hoard of material to learn and reproduce. The article sheds substantial light on the fact that each individual possesses knowledge that lies dormant in the individual. It is the task of the tutor to elicit that knowledge from within the individual.
Without actually naming, the article stresses the weakness in the modern education system where students are treated merely as “sausage casings” into which the education is simply being dumped. Due to this, the students do not develop or polish their inner capabilities and talent which is present in them. There is innate knowledge in everyone, whether it is a “slave boy” from Socrates’ dialogue “Mone” or a normal college-going student. The focus and motive of education should be to expose this innate knowledge and bring it to the fore.
The author has truly stated that the students must be treated like “oysters” with the “pearls” of knowledge within them, rather than “sausages”.
I truly agree with the author and applaud the subtle yet strong criticism of the present-day education system. Children and students are today burdened with books and materials which involve rote learning and blind reproduction in the form of tests and examinations. As a result of this, the innate knowledge of the students is not elicited and they function as mere dummies. This method of learning and reproduction does not serve to hone the natural critical skills of students like analysis and evaluation and ends up sealing the minds of the students rather than opening them up.