"As long as acquiring knowledge is the educational goal of schools, educational opportunities will be limited, as they are now, to affluent families"
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Glasser warns that when schools define their mission as the transmission of knowledge, they privilege students who already possess the advantages that make acquisition easier. Treating learning as the accumulation of facts and testable information rewards those with quiet places to study, educated caregivers, tutors, stable housing, and rich extracurricular exposure. It also aligns with standardized testing and competitive grading that sort rather than nurture. In such a system, opportunity follows money: affluent families can buy time, attention, and cultural capital that translate directly into higher scores, advanced placements, and elite credentials. The goal appears neutral, but the mechanisms by which knowledge is measured amplify preexisting inequalities.
As a psychiatrist and founder of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy, Glasser argued that schooling should satisfy basic psychological needs for belonging, competence, freedom, and fun. He criticized classrooms organized around lectures, worksheets, and external rewards as both ineffective and unjust. When the purpose shifts from acquiring knowledge to producing quality work, solving meaningful problems, and demonstrating competence, schools can build the conditions for equity within the school day rather than outsourcing them to families. Performance tasks, cooperative learning, and mastery-based assessment invite every student into success through practice, feedback, and relationships, not just prior advantage. Instead of ranking students against one another, teachers would partner with them to improve their work, making progress visible and attainable for those who cannot buy extra help.
Glasser wrote during an era of rising standardized testing and credentialism, but his critique anticipates current debates about project-based learning, career and technical education, and mastery transcripts. The point is not to abandon knowledge but to refuse to treat it as a commodity dispensed and hoarded. When schools focus on doing, creating, and improving, they redistribute opportunity by embedding support, time, and meaningful goals into everyday instruction, reducing the degree to which a child’s zip code determines how far they can go.
As a psychiatrist and founder of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy, Glasser argued that schooling should satisfy basic psychological needs for belonging, competence, freedom, and fun. He criticized classrooms organized around lectures, worksheets, and external rewards as both ineffective and unjust. When the purpose shifts from acquiring knowledge to producing quality work, solving meaningful problems, and demonstrating competence, schools can build the conditions for equity within the school day rather than outsourcing them to families. Performance tasks, cooperative learning, and mastery-based assessment invite every student into success through practice, feedback, and relationships, not just prior advantage. Instead of ranking students against one another, teachers would partner with them to improve their work, making progress visible and attainable for those who cannot buy extra help.
Glasser wrote during an era of rising standardized testing and credentialism, but his critique anticipates current debates about project-based learning, career and technical education, and mastery transcripts. The point is not to abandon knowledge but to refuse to treat it as a commodity dispensed and hoarded. When schools focus on doing, creating, and improving, they redistribute opportunity by embedding support, time, and meaningful goals into everyday instruction, reducing the degree to which a child’s zip code determines how far they can go.
Quote Details
| Topic | Knowledge |
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