There is a wonderful cartoon that has one character saying, “Benjamin Disraeli said ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics’” to which another character responds, “Nine out of ten Americans say it was Mark Twain who said it”! We even get lies about lies and who said them!
And there are many lies floating around. In history, we recall the Trojan Horse which appeared on the outside to be a gracious gift from the Greeks to their enemies, but turned out to be far from it. In more recent times, many American presidents have been found to be guilty of gross lies, ranging from the lie by Nixon about the burglary at Watergate to the denial of Clinton about extra-marital relationships. Then there are all sorts of conspiracy theories (perhaps that should be added to the list of the three types of lies), from the moon landing being a fake to all sorts of lies about Covid-19. In the painting world, there have been plenty of forgeries exposed over the years, each one a lie. We could go on!
And go on, we shall! In education, we might argue that there are many lies. Those statistics mentioned above certainly highlight that — academic or sporting results do not ever tell the full story and often are used as lies to cover up failures in other (often more important) areas. One lie is that we tell our youngsters that “qualifications will get you a job”. No, they do not! They do not necessarily make children fit for life. They may just show that someone has studied, memorised, regurgitated various facts without any real understanding. Qualifications to a large extent are lies.
It is a lie that is thrown around that the world owes people a job; no, no-one owes us a job, even with those damned statistics tucked under our belt. It is a lie when we tell our children that they must work hard to get a job as that implies that their existence is only about work and indeed their value is only dependent on what work they may find. Many have worked hard with no job now.
It should not be construed as a lie to say that a missing ingredient in a recipe can make all the difference (it is acknowledged, of course, that some less important ingredients may not make a huge difference — but that is a statistic, and we have been reminded what statistics are!). Often in lies we find there is a missing ingredient, something that has been deliberately ignored or mistakenly believed. So, what the F is missing?
That is very much the case in those claims about the lies surrounding education. What the arguments, claims, lies about education fail to see is that failure is a positive learning tool. What is ignored, when talking of education, is the fitness that people have, in terms of their character, for any particular job – not their qualifications. What people choose not to accept is that fruitfulness is more important than flaunting qualifications, that what people do with what they learn and how they use it for the benefit of others is far more significant. They miss the point that children need to be fulfilled in what they do, not be filled fully with facts. So, again, what the F is missing?
Indeed, we should go further in our thinking about lies for it has been said by Christ (and there has been no doubt there, no need for statistics) that “The truth will set you free” — truth, not lies, is essential if we are to bring our children the freedom that they seek. Much of our education does little to bring freedom to them; it seems too often to shackle them, to conform to certain thinking, to imprison them into chosen careers. As we have often noted, education is about empowerment not achievement, about enlightenment not alignment, about enrichment not advancement, about endowment not appointment, about excitement not amazement. That is the truth.
The observant may have already noted that what a lie lacks, in each of these cases, is the letter F — fitness, fruitfulness, fulfilment, freedom. And when we put the F into Lie, what do we get? Life. Education is about life, not about the lies we continue to present to them. Our responsibility is to help our children find life and have it in all its fullness.
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George Washington is supposed famously to have said to his father, “I cannot tell a lie”; neither can we. The lie is missing the F. Education must bring life. Ten out of ten people need to know that.
