A Parallel To Brave New World

Sadly I forgot about the blog so I’m now doing it late.  In Sir Ken Robinson’s Changing Education Paradigms, he touches on a lot of points that Brave New World has.  On one of them he points out how adults and children have come to believe that they are not smart because they don’t match with societies claims as the standards of “smart”.  They thus feel out of place.  This happens in Brave New World.  Barnard is often singled out because he doesn’t look like an Alpha Plus.  Because he is so different, over time he has become more and more separated form society.  He began to think differently because he wasn’t accepted by society.  Barnard makes the comment, “the sight of her transfigured face was at once an accusation and an ironical reminder of his own separateness.” (Huxley 86)  Because he is not excepted by society he is singled out and is made to feel out of place and odd.  Both societies have forced their expectations on the people, when they don’t make the “grade” they are then left out and excluded.   Robinson compares schools to factory lines.  There is sector for each thing and the children get passed down the line from one thing to the next to “learn”.  This is very similar to Brave New World, where children are created in an assembly line and are moved from one area to the next as they get older,  “opening an isolated door he showed them racks upon racks of numbered test-tubes.” (Huxley 5)  In these racks are embryos, right from birth they are grouped in sections and move from one place to the next.  They are only seen as numbers, not real people.  Both societies have kids coming out in batches, there is no individuality.  Robinson say’s that through all this factory system that happens at the school, the children loose their divergent thinking skills.  Divergent thinking, for him, is seeing a lot of possibilities to one question.  Kids are taught to follow a certain way of thinking and problem solving.  By doing this, the school is punishing “wrong” ways of answering or seeing things.  The school verdicts what is right and what is considered wrong.  In Brave New World, they teach the children by repeating things to them in their sleep.  Over time they stop questioning things, they just repeat what they had heard from the recorder, even if they have no idea what it means.  Overall our school system is moving closer and closer to Brave New Worlds society.  The school has assumed the power to verdict how children should think and process things, similar to Brave New Worlds society.