One of my students had ever complained about the system of competition given by the teacher in the classroom. The student gave me good criticism. The system of competition in the classroom has made him depressed. Cognitively, the student does have academic intelligence below average.
Many schools encourage their students to be the best among their peers. Schools have lost the role of educational institutions to educate children to have good character, but schools have educated children to become the achievers of achievement machines for schools.
That is one of the global education problems we face. Global education actually makes the children into an ego human figure. Noam Chomsky once criticized the current education system. He thought that education actually kill intelligence, moral sensitivity and happiness are the three main characteristics of humanity.
Let us restore education in a humanitarian context. Education is the backbone of a civilized society. In the democratic society, education plays an important role to create, spread, and maintain the democratic ideals. That is the main idea in Noam Chomsky’s philosophy of education. There is a deep connection between democratic principles on the one hand, and democratic education paradigm on the other hand. However, these ideal is threatened by authoritarian way of thinking that exist in totalitarian ideology and capitalistic way of thinking. These two ideologies repress human freedom, and destroy democratic culture which is the bed rock of democratic society. Chomsky offers us a knowledge concerning the way to redesign education in facing the challenges of democratic society.
We must realize that the current educational system is also influenced by the system of capitalism and (also) neoliberalism. In this understanding, all elements of life are measured solely by economic value. Money became a god, and all other values were marginalized. As a result, education destroys democratic culture that requires critical thinking and moral sensitivity of humanity, and becomes merely a devotee of market interests.
Education not only sees achievement as an ultimate goal for children. Education is a process that is done repeatedly to form human more humane, moral, and behave better. If these things are not achieved, then we as teachers have failed to perform our duties.[]