PUBLIC EDUCATION: AN ASTUTE OBSERVATION

The very cool Rob Salkowitz, who's into comics, science fiction, and left-wing politics, and who recently linked to Real Art, which provided me with more than a few hits, makes a rather astute observation about public education on his blog, Emphasis Added:

Finally, I think the whole debate over education is clouded by our expectations of outcomes. In a democracy, the role of public education is to socialize kids into becoming good citizens. In a capitalist economy, it's to instill skills and habits of discipline into the next generation of workers. For religions, it's to inculcate theology and maintain the community of believers. For parents, school gets kids out of the house and keeps them off the street during the day. For most kids, it's primarily social, a means to meet the expectations of adults, and, to the occasional freakish mutant misfit, a source of intellectual interest and stimulation.

Meeting all those expectations is a huge burden to place on any system, and it's just possible that the system we need may cost a little bit more than we think it does.

Click here for the rest.

As longtime Real Art readers know, my view on schooling, briefly, is that while public education outwardly seems to be about learning, moment to moment classroom and institutional routines stress discipline and order so intensely that American schools are ultimately about indoctrinating children into the culture of obedience and authority. Everything else is incidental, and, consequently, ineffective on the whole.

Schools do, indeed, socialize children into the American political system, but do so very badly: only half the population votes; most people are woefully uninformed about current events; civic responsibilities, such as jury duty, are gleefully shunned. Schools do, indeed, provide a docile class of workers who understand and accept discipline, but most of them leave the public education system with virtually no skills marketable within the neo-liberal economy. Religion has been making some progress, especially in the realm of sex education, but the truth is that most kids have sex before they turn eighteen--"abstinence based" sex ed typically ends up discouraging teens from using condoms, and perilously at risk of contracting STDs.

I have to admit that the schools do a pretty good job of getting kids out of the house, that is, babysitting them, and keeping them off the streets, that is, incarcerating them. But then, this simply reinforces my understanding of public education's real purpose, obedience and authority. The schools also provide a social experience for kids, but, sadly, it is one of elitism and hierarchy, based on age, popularity, and physical beauty, dexterity, and strength--this, too, serves to indoctrinate children into the culture of obedience and authority.

I must also admit that schools do, indeed, sometimes serve as a source of intellectual stimulation to "the occasional freakish mutant," and Salkowitz provides the key to how some kids, against all odds, end up actually getting some learning out of the institution known as "public education." Earlier in the post he jokingly writes:

Consequently, my solution to the education problem is for parents to raise smarter kids. That way, whatever obstacles the system puts in their path, they will be able to succeed by taking an interest in the world around them, reading for pleasure, doing creative projects in their spare time, and developing their talents with whatever tools are available to them.

Indeed, this is how kids from upper class communities tend to get better educations than kids in working class and poverty stricken communities: individual family cultures mandate learning. That is, families that value learning instill in their children the desire to learn; such children essentially take advantage of what limited opportunities are offered by public education to essentially teach themselves.

The big question is how do we teach children who are not already predestined to achieve educational success? An even bigger question is why don't people realize that public education, at it's most basic structural level, has absolutely no chance of accomplishing that?

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