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THE
PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION
OR
An
Alien Perspective That Once Was Native
SABAHATTíN
SAKMAN, MBA
Developer
of Computer Software, Essayist on Culture and Politics
AND
GÜLDAL
M. SAKMAN, PhD
Adjunct Professor of Industrial Engineering at Polytechnic University
of New York
"All
who have meditated on the art of governing mankind, have been convinced that
the fate of empires depends on the education of youth."
-ARISTOTLE
"If
a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects that never was and never
will be."
-THOMAS
JEFFERSON
PREFACE
Like many other people, we have been appalled by the low quality of
American Education since we came to this country as well-educated immigrants
from Turkey in 1979. As parents, we observed how poorly our first set of children
were educated from kindergarten through high school. As scholars, we have
been monitoring the state of education, and have been perplexed by how deep
the deterioration of education has been allowed to go by all parties involved
-parents, educators, school boards, etc.
It
was not that indicators of the problem were not detected: library shelves
overflowed with new books dedicated to chronicling them. A government commission,
charged to assess the state of American Education, had declared their verdict
bluntly, in 1983, in the title of their report: A Nation at Risk. It was not that nobody
cared to propose solutions: from philosophers, educators to politicians, thousands
of interested people put forth, legislated, decreed, implemented "solutions."
Nothing seems to change; the downward trend of educational performance persists.
When
the analysis of a problem is devoted to so much energy, when proposals for
its solution fill thick volumes, and when almost every conceivable proposal
is tried out with almost no concern for cost, and yet the problem persists,
one must come to the conclusion that the problem-solvers are not employing
right methods. Right methods are the outgrowth of principles, and principles
are derived from the very nature of things in a system. Today, most educational
methods are wrong because they are arrived at arbitrarily -i.e, they have
little or no relevance to the nature of components in education. Wrong methods,
being unnatural to the nature of things, never lead to desired objectives.
Why do those involved in the problems of education today keep using wrong
methods? Why don't they analyze the nature of things and find right methods?
Because, due to the philosophy they subscribe to, they deny the necessity
of understanding the permanent nature of things they deal with. They think
they can find right methods only by "experience," by trial-and-error. What
are the essential "things" in a system of education?
The principal component
of a system of education is man, with all his mental and corporeal
powers; and he, for his survival, needs knowledge that can be acquired only through
mental processes; and these two components -man and knowledge- must be united
by a method. A true understanding
of the nature of man and knowledge leads to true principles governing their
natural behavior, and true principles lead to true methods of effecting certain
results.
Today's
vacuum of true educational principles is filled with false principles in the
form of whims of educators, politicians, parents, and sometimes even of charlatans.
The removal of this vacuum and putting forth true principles and methods of
education is what we will mainly endeavor in this work.
Our
interest in education is both intellectual and personal. Personally, we have
been educationally victimized through our older children who have been through
kindergarten to 12th grade education; also, we are deeply concerned
about the education of our two younger ones who are of elementary school age.
Intellectually, we observe the cultural bankruptcy around us, and see the
lack of proper education as the root cause of this state. Therefore, we have
undertaken in this treatise the following tasks:
1.
Investigating the root causes of American Education's decline,
2.
Uncovering the fallacies of present American educational thought,
children's
minds, and
4.
Proposing a correct theory of education that can be used in a school system
which would raise children to be human beings as whole as the Founding Fathers.
The
educational theory we will be proposing is nothing new. It was used by most
good schools of Europe and America before a new philosophy of education -"progressive"-
took hold in this country and elsewhere in the twentieth century. We have
endeavored to unearth the foundations of this classical theory, and will present
them in the form that will follow.
It
must be noted that our task was facilitated by the fact that we were educated
under a system of education whose underlying theory differed little from the
one we will present; modern American influence had not yet corrupted Turkish
education of our youth.
We
feel that a paradox in our position will make this work more interesting to
the American reader. We are two individuals who are at once American and un-American,
who are not likely to be found in any American intellectual circle. We are
Americans in the sense that we cherish the founding principles of America
and love this country with a great passion. We are un-Americans in the sense
that, although we live here as citizens involved deeply in the industry and
education of this country, we have culturally very little in common with our
American contemporaries. There are two related reasons for that: a) having
grown up elsewhere, we were not tainted by the decay of the American culture
during the past several decades, and b) we were spared from the complete irrationality
of American Education during that period. However, we were educated correctly
under a philosophy of education that was also dominant in America during the
later part of the past century. That philosophy of education was in agreement
with the best of European educational thoughts since Aristotle. We have thoroughly
studied it in view of present problems of education, and hope to bring its
still-valid voice. And, like two time-travelers, we will carry out this task
of invoking these timeless principles not only as researchers but also as
people who have personally experienced them as both students and teachers.
The
system of education we will be proposing here was used in every legendary
school of the past -if not with all the components implemented in a certain
school, with all its essentials. These essentials are
still relevant because they are based on universals of human nature, not on
time-dependent features of culture. A school functioning under such
a system will be an institution capable of producing likes of individuals
who created the once highest form of civilization called America.
A
word needs to be said perhaps concerning the use of words "he" and "man" with
indeterminate gender. No neglect or insult is intended: firstly, one of us
is female, and, secondly, we believe that, whatever difference there may be
in their social dispositions, general mental constitution of female is not
different from that of male as far as the work of educator is concerned. The
grammatical canon requiring the use of masculine form where both sexes are
concerned has been adhered to, at once out of respect to the traditions of
the better times of English language and for the sake of economy and convenience
of expression.
In
the preparation of the work, no attempt has been made to be merely original.
The subject has developed itself in its present form through years of research,
reflection, and teaching experience. The description of principles, methods
and historical facts have been taken from various sources, and, in most cases,
the language has been followed exactly. Nothing, however, has been taken from
others and used without digestion. All the facts and principles found in this
work, wherever they may come from, have been fused into a common whole. This
whole -this collecting and uniting of the scattered fragments of thought concerning
education- this system, is what
we ask credit for, if credit be deemed our due. Also, while we admit that
the principles and methods we will be putting forth were first discovered
by the great educators of past centuries, we are, however, very proud of the
fact that we are unearthing these gems of human mind at a time they are almost
totally forgotten and yet desperately needed.
Sabahattin
and Güldal M. Sakman
New
York,1995