More recently - about a year ago, my eldest daughter was about to enter primary school. The school asked the parents what their expectations are of the school. I couldn't think of a better request (prayer?) than "just do no harm."
I don't know much about the young of reptiles, insects and lower animals. Cubs of mammals seem universally curious. Cubs of humans seem - in addition to curiosity - to have great creativity, a brilliant ability to understand new things in ways that surprise the all-knowing grown-ups, and no self-image issues. That is, until they go to school. By the time they graduate, most of them seem sullen, reactive rather than creative, well trained in keeping their heads down and not attracting attention, not terribly curious about learning new things.
At some later point, the lucky ones regain some of their childhood openness.
It is difficult to do no harm in this context, and I have many more questions than answers:
How do you introduce regulation, which is necessary when teaching a large group, without disrupting the free flow of curiosity? It is difficult to teach a class of dozens of students, when one keeps asking questions that are outside the planned flow of the lesson.
We would like the students to develop self-discipline - an important prerequisite for many types of achievement and growth. But how do we promote self-discipline without harming spontaneity?
National education systems have a strong element of testing and grading. As soon as we introduce that element, it tends to become the main goal. "Will this be on the test?" is a common question (48,300 hits on google as of this moment). This is a horrible question. It denotes the unimportant status of learning. All that's important is what the student feels accountable for. The common testing method, where the relevant material and the exact timing of the test is well known in advance, encourages a very specialized type of studying: There is no point in studying what's not on the test; There is no point in reading a whole book if I can read a summary just before the test; There is no point in looking for the relevance of the presented materials to the student's own life - the student's life is not on the test. The whole experience of studying is pushed towards a status of a closed environment, relevant only to itself and to those who may look at the test scores. So, how do we test - which is considered important - without the test itself becoming the be all and end all of schooling?
Some material and activities in school can be expected to be considered an unpleasant burden to some students. In a well thought-out schooling system, there would be different subjects to be taught and different activities to practice. Until we realize Utopian schooling, not all of these subjects will be interesting to all students. Such situations can relate to the regulation and self-discipline issues mentioned above. But more directly, this situation creates a connection between studying, learning and unpleasantness. How do we avoid that? How can we make everything interesting? Alternatively, how can we convey the idea that doing something for a worthy cause, even if it is uninteresting in itself, is worthy of positive emotional involvement? How can we show that the cause is worthy - beyond the whip of the impending test?
In a mass education scenario, the lesson goes at a certain pace, but not all students tend to advance at the same speed. At any given lesson, for some students the pace is too slow and boring, while for others it is too fast and frustrating. How do we keep curiosity and self image unharmed in the presence of boredom and/or frustration? Alternatively, how do we let every student advance in their own pace when we have 40 students in a class? Or even just 20? Any number larger than 1?
We can probably think of more inherent problems in mass education, that harm all who enters. But those listed above are enough. The conclusion is that in general, children going under the education establishment as students - will be harmed. Unsettling; Unnerving; Contemptible, and a whole lot of other words.
Let's put this unpleasant issue aside for a moment, and get back to wrap it up soon. How about "Primum non nocere" in its native context - that of physicians? Going to a physician is usually not a pleasant experience. Being prodded or pricked, or even sawn or partly poisoned, is not much fun. It can be considered as being harmed. But we still go to the physician, in order to keep or improve our health - deriving much more benefit than harm. Actually, a physician not willing to do any harm, is not likely to be able to do much good. So we don't take "First, do no harm" literally. We allow some harm, as long as the benefit is clearly more significant, and as long as we are convinced that there is no reasonable way to receive the benefit without that harm. We do not tolerate unnecessary harm.
The same goes for education. "First, do no harm" is tragically Utopian. "First, do no unnecessary harm" is a worthy goal.
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