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Marx is relevant to education today. The Marx Dr. Price sees offers something to those of us concerned about education in the rich countries of the industrialized world. Marx was a human and passionate thinker who tried to see our past and present more clearly in order to enable us to take conscious control of our future. Taking a conscious stand on the side of the exploited against the exploiters, they felt it necessary to understand that exploitative process in order that it could be abolished. Entering into the dreams of working people for a life of freedom and leisure, they argued that this could only come through an understanding of the nature of necessity and the nature of labour. This way of thinking implies a concept of education as process, in which learning is a central, if unexplored, part of Marx's enterprise.

Institutions, even those with such long and worthy histories as schools are human constructions, and ever-changing (as recent cuts and amalgamations have again demonstrated). It is a mistake to allow one's thinking to be conditioned by such institutions. By shifting the emphasis to learning, and learning in the widest social- political sense, other aspects of education fall into fresh, and Price argues, more illuminating places. We need to recognize what aspects of education are tied to specifically capitalist features of our societies and which offer hope for a better alternative. We need to grasp the interrelations of that complex of unintentional and intentional influences which cause us to believe and despair, to dream and hope. Defining education primarily as learning is a first step.

The work of Marx has implications for our understanding of education. Marx tried to share his vision of the future, including his term, communism. The choice of the term communism  was in part a declaration of a class stand, a stand on the side of the working class, and against many of the upper class, do-gooding ideas known in Marx's day as socialist. Marx condemned capitalism for its brutalizing effect on the workers whom he saw suffering terrible poverty.  He also praised it for having established, for the first time in history, a form of production capable of providing a rich life for all. In outlining his view of communism as 'the positive transcendence of private property' Marx argued it would be a complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e. human) being - a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. Need one stress that for Marx this meant mental and physical wealth?

In the contradictory world of today, with its rich and employed urged to enjoy the wealth of what is euphemistically and inaccurately called the 'consumer society', with many turning to ideas of conservation, 'green' and 'the alternative society', Marx's discussion takes on new significance. In education, there is such as push for social efficiency, to prepare students for the future in narrow areas of trade specialization. Marx and Engels describe a communist society:

nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning,fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

The emphasis is on each person as an individual, each capable of learning a variety of things to accomplish many things in life. Herein lies the implication for science education. This vision of the future poses questions for education, whether about the 'knowledge explosion' and problems of all-round development. Marx states: 'It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.'

What Dr. Price believes is absolutely central to education, is Marx's practical aim. This Marx expressed in various ways throughout his life, in words and deeds.

'The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.'

'It is not enough for thought to strive for realization, reality must itself strive towards thought'.

Knowledge is needed if change is to be effected, but knowledge without practical efforts to make changes remains ineffectual scholasticism. In the field of education our problem is more a lack of practice than of knowledge. It is the practice of education which needs both critical study and practice.

Marx had a vision of human potential combined with a method for interpreting our world in order to arrive at scientific knowledge necessary to achieve that potential. Emphasizing change as the norm and the nature of human beings and human society, Marx offered a vision of realizable freedom. Emphasizing that societies are deeply divided by class and class interest, Marx showed how ideas reflect these divisions, masking them and also revealing them. But he also argued that changing ideas alone changes nothing, that practice is required if practice is to change.