This will be the first in a series of posts on coercive schooling. I believe coercive schools should be abandoned. The primary reason for this is that it is immoral to force people, including children, to learn something they do not want to learn. Additionally, the coercive nature of schooling negatively affects students’ education. In this essay, I will discuss the problem of how schools practice cargo cult learning.

The current education system imitates learning activities in form without substance. This is the essence of the critique of cargo culting. Richard Feynman used the term to criticize what he called “cargo-cult science.” It is a valuable critique and one that applies to the current schooling system.

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1. What is Cargo Culting?

Definition: The term “cargo cult” originates from the behaviors and rituals observed among indigenous Melanesian communities in the Pacific during and after World War II. During the war, the Allies established military bases on various Pacific islands. They constructed airstrips, set up supply depots, and introduced modern goods and technologies to the indigenous populations. The locals observed planes delivering these goods, which they called cargo. When the war ended and the Allies left, the indigenous people tried to bring the cargo back by replicating the activities they had seen the soldiers perform. The islanders constructed makeshift airstrips, control towers, and even imitation planes and radios out of local materials. This term has since been adopted as a form of critique when people imitate the form of something without its substance. For instance, rigorously conducting science with statistical tests, experiments, and peer review, but studying something like “happiness,” for which there is no known way of measuring other than asking people, “Are you happy?” This would be like studying whether someone is infected with COVID-19 by asking them, “Are you infected with COVID-19?” instead of performing a PCR test. Even though the form of a scientific study is there, the substance is not. Therefore, the results tell us nothing. David Deutsch discusses this in “The Beginning of Infinity” and refers to it as “explanationless science.”

2. Cargo-culting in schools

Outside school, learning is driven by the need to solve specific problems. Someone might want to understand how their new phone works, so they read an instruction manual. They don’t want to understand everything about their phone; they just want to understand enough to solve their problem. Maybe it’s as simple as “Where is the damn power button?” Or maybe it’s more like, “This phone is cool; what are some of its features?” No two people will have the same purpose when they pick up the instruction manual, and so they will read it in individual ways. Hence, they will each learn slightly different things.

In school, the primary purpose of reading and learning is to pass exams, not to solve real-life problems. Even if the problems are similar to those mentioned above, like “How do we find the on/off button?” or “How do we set up the Wi-Fi?”, they are decided by the curriculum, not the learners. Because of this, the problems won’t be connected to the individual’s unique circumstances, and most students will not care about them. Each student then faces the new problem of “What do I need to learn to pass the test?” Learning becomes completely different; it is not meant to improve anyone’s situation. It imitates what you would do outside of school: reading an instruction manual, figuring out how various parts of the phone work, but without the substance of having a problem you want to solve. That is typical of a cargo-cult situation.

3. Going further

In the next posts in this series, I will look at some problems that arise because of this cargo-cult phenomenon. They are;

1. Emphasizing memorization, which turns into essentialism.
2. Regurgitation over problem-solving.
3. One solution fits all, standardizing the infinite differences of people.

Until then, if you are anything like me and have been through ordinary schooling, it’s a good idea to stop and think to yourself: Am I reading this book to understand the world more, or am I highlighting passages to ensure I get the “right” message from the book? (i.e., the one that might end up on the exam) Books are written for the reader. If they don’t seem interesting or captivating, put them down and do something else. Nobody will reward you for having read the book. All the rewards of learning are reaped when you understand something new, solve a problem, and thereby improve your own experience. So if you have read this essay until the end, despite not enjoying it, stop reading before it is too late!

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