"What is the benefit for everyone?" For instance, is a rough question when in front of 30 children, half of whom would rather (and whose families would rather) be at home feeding something, weeding something, harvesting something, driving something. These students will most likely only come to 50% of classes anyway, and society dictates sympathy for them by giving them passing grades in everything regardless of attendance, work completed and behavior. I understand that there are similar, if not so blatant, concessions made in American schools. Idea being: Just get them out.
These are the kids I tend to spend my spare time on. Yes, the aces are joys to teach. Yes, it's amazing how that girl can memorize 40 lines of poetry. Yes, their behavior makes my life easier. (Though not, really, thanks to Moldovan Tattle Tale Traditions. The good kids turn into at least as big of noise makers as the bad kids thanks to the Stalin-esque finger pointing that happens every five minutes)
The kids that set off your Do Good senses and make you warm and gooey like granmama's cookies though, are the ones who cannot even read in their own language let alone the third foreign one you're teaching them. So, while my partner drills some new grammar or vocab I sit in the backs and sides of classes and teach basic reading skills. I often feel so good about doing so that the 20 minutes I spend haranguing the trouble maker a**holes seem almost worth it.
The added benefit of this, as exhibited by two or three boys in every class I teach, is that they are quieter thereafter. Not just while giving the one-on-one time, but for all the classes after. Especially when they eventually come to my after school art specials, and they learn how to sit still long enough to fold, yes, fold ON THEIR OWN a Japanese paper crane. To many, the anal retentive practice of origami is a distractive 30 seconds of bliss in a cubicled world. For people who have never heard "fine motor skills" let alone possess them... That's pretty spectacular.
You get the idea.
They behave better after giving them a little attention. Who knew. Unfortunately, this only works on kids in the 6th grade and lower. 6th grade and up... No amount of lovin is going to help.
There are also exceptions. The kids who are hard at heart naturally, and not just from their environment. These kids will not only not respond to love and caring, but will actually punish you for it, by becoming mocking of your education efforts and devotion to other students, or to them even, or they'll just point out you haven't plucked your eyebrows in awhile.
So, these are the kids where you have to wonder--is education beneficial? If you can force it down them like a chalice of molten gold, sure. Behavior goes up. In the long term, the education, the grammar and phonetics won't ever come in handy, but they will (in this the most perfect of all possible worlds) retain the semblance of respect and self control instilled in their agrarian little hearts.
Those kids who actually learn and apply the knowledge found in school will benefit in other ways, obviously. Better jobs etc.
But looking with a wider scope, why does education need to persist for even agrarian societies?
I have never heard it better voiced, and put into action than with one organization. At the risk of sounding like an advertisement, please check out One Laptop per Child:
because they are doing what organizations like the IMF and USAID and the World Bank are often unable to do: reach the people they want to foist money on.
Like PC, who I am sworn to advertise, they work at a base level of societies who WANT help. They don't work from high above societies who may not only NOT want help, but also not NEED the help.
Their other focus, again like PC, is not to give the kids stuff and let the kids turn them into sand shovels or something, but educate the children, the children's teachers and the children's families on what is going on. Then, the product given (in this case it's easy to guess: laptops) actually creates its own sustainability. The laptop educates the user on a range of topics. It give the child a chance to understand where he or she lives and his or her relation to the world. In a globalized world children will not survive without this kind of education.
Education is not just necessary for it's own sake--however much it will improve your enjoyment of the world. It is not just necessary for improved behavior. It not even just necessary to improve your chances at getting a job. It is necessary to be educated just to have an awareness of the world today.
Seven thousand years ago, you needed the education of an awareness of where tigers were. Two thousand years ago, you needed the education of an awareness where the Romans were. One thousand years ago, the Spanish Inquisition. One hundred, just where not to grow potatoes. Today you need an education and awareness of not only where terrorists and major governments and major corporations are moving and spending their money, but simply where and how you may be eaten by these things.
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