The Presentation of Education in Hard Times by Charles Dickens Essay ex

Examine the presentation of Education, chapters 1 to 4 in Hard timeby Charles DickensCharles Dickens wanted to attack the failings of education and thewrong-headedness of the prevailing philosophy in education. Hebelieved that many schools discouraged the development of thechildrens imaginations, learning them as little parrots and smallcalculating machines (Dickens used this phrase in a lecture he gavein 1857). Nor did Dickens approve of the recently instituted instructor education colleges. These had been set up in the 1840s, after theBritish government acknowledged the need to raise the standard ofeducation in schools. The first graduates of these training collegesbegan teaching in 1853, a year earlier the publication of Hard Times.MChoakumchild, the teacher in Gradgrinds school (which was a nonfee-paying school that catered to the get off classes), is Dickenssportrait of one of these newly trained teachers.Many educators agreed through time-sharing Dickenss view of what were wrong with the schools. They believed there was in any case much emphasis oncramming the children full of facts and figures, and not enoughattention given to other aspects of their development, for example NOW,what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing entirely Facts.Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out ever soything else. You can whole form the minds of reasoning animals uponFacts nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is theprinciple on which I bring up my own children, and this is theprinciple on which I bring up these children. throw to Facts, sirDickens chooses to begin the novel in the classroom, which he depictsas a microcosm of the inhuman world ou... ...ein the moon it was up in the moon before it could speak distinctly.No little Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle,twinkle, little star how I appreciation what you are No little Gradgrindhad ever known wonder on the subject, each little Gradgrind having atfive years old dissected the Great Bear like a Professor Owen, anddriven Charless roller coaster like a locomotive engine-driver. No littleGradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cowwith the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat whokilled the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow whoswallowed Tom Thumb it had never heard of those celebrities, and hadonly been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous ruminating quadrupedwith several stomachs. This shows a bit more about Gradgrinds viewson education and the way he raises his children.