PREMIUM: Fake Education

Too much of what is done in schools is just for show

I think one of the biggest problems in schools is that many of the things teachers do are fake. Too much of what happens in education is done for show, and either isn’t worth doing, or isn’t really being done properly. My working definition of “fake education” is:

Any activity done in schools that is primarily carried out to create the appearance of having done it, rather than to achieve the benefits of actually doing it.

These are cases where what happens in theory differs from what happens in practice. The activity is performative, but this is not acknowledged.¹ This kind of gap is fairly common, and teachers are the first to complain that they have to do things that serve little purpose other than to please inspectors, managers, or parents. I would extend this to activities that could, and probably should, serve a legitimate purpose, but are done with the performance in mind, rather than this purpose.