Dickens & education in Hard Times Essay

In Hard times we see two versions of the world of reading. The first view is that of Thomas Gradgrinds and his model school. A send out where facts are valued and imagination is regarded as unimportant. This is the functional view. The second view is contrasted with the utilitarian view and is that of Mr Slearys circus. This is a place with much knowledge valuing both imagination and education. A place without the wealth of the Gradgrinds but much in humanity. This is the fanciful world. I think Dickens is telling us that there are many different ways of bringing up and educating children.It is about getting the right balance between education and imagination. For example Sissy was brought up by her father and didnt go to school but was quite well educated as she used to read to him, but her father let her use her imagination as she read the wrong books from Gradgrinds point of view. Which were about Fairies and the Hunchback and the Genies. But when she went to Gradgrinds hous e to live there she was chuck out off from having an imagination, as so was struggling to learn facts. The reader knows this as Sissy says, I am O so stupid when really she isnt stupid at all, it is just that she has been forced to be brought up the utilitarian way, which is the wrong way for her, as she is used to having a balance between education and imagination but Gradgrind hasnt allowed it. She became low spirited, but no wiser. This is because she has an emotional memory and so she cant learn the facts because she is being taught with a utilitarian view and so she cant attach a feeling to what she is being taught. This is how Dickens implies that different people learn different ways and at different rates.For Gradgrind it could be argued that it was the right way for him as he was educated by his father the utilitarian way. He became a model pupil and possess a school. The reader knows that he was a model pupil as Dickens tells us five young Gradgrinds were models eve ryone. And They had been lectured at from their tenderest years. And in Gradgrinds eye this had worked so He intended every child to be a model. But what Gradgrind doesnt realise is that all children are different and contend to be brought up different ways, which is what Dickens is suggesting to the reader.