Commentary: Socio-economic status, young language learning, and the weapon to change the world

Journal article

Traditional models of Education might see the process as being one of transference of knowledge. The student is the empty vessel and the educator's role is to fill up the student with knowledge - an idea which has held sway with some of history's greatest thinkers such as Locke and Aristotle (itwas Aristotle after all who first talked about the blank tablet, later described as the tabula rasa by Henry More in the 1600s). Clearly, this kind of education is important in that societies generally need our citizens to have basic knowledge of subjects such as literacy, maths and science. However, this traditional model presents a rather limited view of what education can be, and indeed many have argued that beyond the accumulation of knowledge, education is a powerful force for social change. Nelson Mandela, for example, is attributed as saying that “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.1 Clearly he believed that an important function of education was as a force for social change and indeed there are many examples of precisely how education has been a powerful positive influence. A brief view of the Global Partnership for Education website highlights a few examples (https://www. globalpartnership.org/education). Education is one of the most effective ways of reducing poverty, it can improve children's nutrition, reduce health risks, help bring about equity between boys and girls/men and women, and is one of the strongest drivers of economic progress and prosperity. It can also help individuals from different societies learn about the environment thus helping future generations to be better custodians of our planet than perhaps we have been. Importantly, education can also be an important precursor to peace and resolution of conflict. Confuscius said that “Education breeds confidence, confidence breeds hope, hope breeds peace”.

Authors: Murphy, V

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: System
• Volume: 73
• Pages: 89-93
• Publication date: 2018-02-15
• Acceptance date: 2018-02-07
• DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2018.02.001
• EISSN: 1879-3282
• ISSN: 0346-251X
• Language: English