In Disciplined Minds, Jeff Schmidt presents a concept called "assignable curiosity". It means that authorities can tell people what to be curious about, e.g. telling a scientist what topics to research or not. Their curiosity follows assignments instead of being natural. People paying for creative, intellectual work (governments, corporations) often want it to serve them and be directed at the topics of their choice, rather than being freely-directed truth-seeking inquiry. They want the intellectuals who work for them to somewhat be rational, curious, questioning people and somewhat be biased, obedient people. Schmidt writes:
I argue that the hidden root of much career dissatisfaction is the professionals lack of control over the “political” component of his or her creative work. Explaining this component is a major focus of this book. Today’s disillusioned professionals entered their fields expecting to do work that would “make a difference” in the world and add meaning to their lives. In this book I show that, in fact, professional education and employment push people to accept a role in which they do not make a significant difference, a politically subordinate role. I describe how the intellectual boot camp known as graduate or professional school, with its cold-blooded expulsions and creeping indoctrination, systematically grinds down the student’s spirit and ultimately produces obedient thinkers—highly educated employees who do their assigned work without questioning its goals. I call upon students and professionals to engage in just such questioning, not only for their own happiness, but for society’s sake as well.
Assignable curiosity reminded me of something I've observed with video games: many players feel good and validated when succeeding at easy games. Game designers can be unquestioned authorities, similar to exam designers. Players usually don't set their own goals or keep in mind that most games are intentionally designed for players to win without getting frustrated. One thing that made exam and game design decisions more visible to me was ambiguous test questions, which led to me mentally modeling exam makers in order to guess what they meant. I've also done hobby game design where I can edit the numbers at will for how much damage a boss does.
Here are other quotes related to assignable curiosity:
Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography by Karl Popper (1976):
I dreamt of one day founding a school in which young people could learn without boredom, and would be stimulated to pose problems and discuss them; a school in which no unwanted answers to unasked questions would have to be listened to; in which one did not study for the sake of passing examinations.
Popper also wrote about how educators (or experiences or observations) cannot pour knowledge into the minds of students, like water into a bucket. He argued that people actively create their own knowledge, rather than passively receiving it (Objective Knowledge, ch. 2 and appendix 1).
How Children Fail by John Holt (1964):
Schools give every encouragement to producers, the kids whose idea is to get "right answers" by any and all means.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, (1970 for English):
Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat.
The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners, and Literature by William Godwin (1797), essay IX, Of the Communication of Knowledge:
Liberty is one of the most desirable of all sublunary advantages. I would willingly therefore communicate knowledge, without infringing, or with as little as possible violence to, the volition and individual judgment of the person to be instructed.
Again; I desire to excite a given individual to the acquisition of knowledge. The only possible method in which I can excite a sensitive being to the performance of a voluntary action, is by the exhibition of motive.
Motives are of two sorts, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motives are those which arise from the inherent nature of the thing recommended. Extrinsic motives are those which have no constant and unalterable connection with the thing recommended, but are combined with it by accident, or at the pleasure of some individual.
Thus, I may recommend some species of knowledge by a display of the advantages which will necessarily attend upon its acquisition, or flow from its possession. Or, on the other hand, I may recommend it despotically, by allurements or menaces, by shewing that the pursuit of it will be attended with my approbation, and that the neglect of it will be regarded by me with displeasure.
School exams, with negative consequences for poor grades, are an example of extrinsic motivation, which Godwin would call despotic. And he applied these ideas to parenting practices outside of schools. Godwin was also one of the first anarchists, his wife was one of the first feminists, and his daughter is famous for writing Frankenstein.
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto (1991):
Schools were designed by Horace Mann and by Sears and Harper of the University of Chicago and by Thorndyke of Columbia Teachers College and by some other men to be instruments for the scientific management of a mass population. Schools are intended to produce, through the application of formulas, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled.
My largest hesitation with this sort of claim is how much it focuses blame on school. In Disciplined Minds, Schmidt says government and industry are flawed too. I think parenting practices are also flawed. I see broad cultural problems. I do find it plausible that some elites had bad intentions when setting up the modern school system, as they certainly did with American Indian residential schools.
Bound To Be Free: home-based education as a positive alternative to paying the hidden costs of 'free' education by Jan Fortune-Wood (2001) advocates non-coercive parenting and education. Chapter 2 argues that tax-funded schools have "a specific agenda of conformity" and serve the interests of governments. No amount of funding will ever make them as good as education that "children initiate and control". The homogeneity and compulsion of school is incompatible with children following their own curiosity.
Guessing the Teacher's Password by Eliezer Yudkowsky (2007 essay) contrasts trying to learn about reality with trying to guess what answer a teacher wants.
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