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

Examine the presentation of Education, chapters 1 to 4 in Hard clockby Charles fiendCharles Dickens wanted to attack the failings of educational activity and thewrong-headedness of the paramount philosophy in education. Hebelieved that many schools discouraged the development of thechildrens imaginations, training them as lowly parrots and smallcalculating machines (Dickens used this enounce in a lecture he gavein 1857). Nor did Dickens pass of the recently instituted teachertraining colleges. These had been set up in the 1840s, by and by theBritish government acknowledged the need to raise the standard ofeducation in schools. The first graduates of these training collegesbegan teaching in 1853, a category before the publication of Hard Times.MChoakumchild, the teacher in Gradgrinds school (which was a nonfee-paying school that catered to the lower classes), is Dickenss portrayal of one of these newly trained teachers.Many educators agreed through time-sharing Dickenss view of what werewrong with the schools. They believed there was too much tension 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 but Facts.Facts unaccompanied are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root expose constantlyything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals uponFacts nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is theprinciple on which I read up my own children, and this is theprinciple on which I bring up these children. Stick 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 cracked jingle, Twinkle,twinkle, little star how I wonder what you are No little Gradgrindhad ever known wonder on the subject, each little Gr adgrind having atfive years old dissected the Great Bear kindred a Professor Owen, anddriven Charless Wain like a locomotive engine-driver. No littleGradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that known cowwith the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who upset(a) 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 potato chip more about Gradgrinds viewson education and the way he raises his children.