EDUCATION: CHICKEN OR EGG?

Okay, I’m back. Sorry for the delay. I probably could have kept posting here and there, but it’s been quite nice to take a break. Anyway, our show is open, and every single report I’ve heard is that it’s pretty great. More on that later, once I’m able to link to a review or two. For now, I am going to once again defend my radical views about public education.

My last post of any substance was commenting on a Z Magazine article about education that pretty much echoes a lot of my own personal views on the subject. That is, public education does more harm to our country than good. I pretty much expected my buddy Kevin, who is now a high school teacher himself, to post a reply on the Real Art comment board—this is a debate we’ve been having for a couple of years now. But he really went to town this time, and posted four comments in a row, and I feel like he raised some really good points. Furthermore, I got a couple of other comments that are also thought provoking enough to warrant a response. So here goes.

First off, a friend from the Theatre Department at LSU, Desiree, opens up the comment thread with this statement:

On the whole, yes, you're probably right. But there are exceptions. I have had more than one grade school teacher that encouraged her students to challenge her and each other. These teachers inspired and spurred me on to my greatest passions and pursuits.

I guess it goes to show you what education could be.

Quite right. There are literally thousands of individual exceptions to my notion that education, as an institution, is fatally flawed. Indeed, most people in the field tend to be idealists and truly believe that they are doing good work. Some of them are. Sadly, they are few and far between. It is my belief that such idealism ultimately takes a back seat to bureaucratic and institutional concerns. That is, day to day and moment to moment pressures coming down on teachers from administrators and parents, along with hierarchical organizational structures and large class sizes tend to overwhelm true educational concerns: for the vast majority of teachers, discipline and order become the primary concern. Learning, by default, becomes a secondary concern. Some teachers are able to withstand these pressures, by whatever means, and are able to get their students to actually think about themselves and the world. How these educators avoid insanity is beyond me. I tried for six years to swim upstream and nearly drowned. By the time I was in my final year, it had become completely clear to me that the institution was far more interested in paperwork and an orderly classroom than it was interested in expanding teenagers’ horizons. I hope my former students remember me in the way that Desiree remembers her teachers, but who can really know?

Well, there’s this comment left by my former student, Steve:

Hey Reeder,

I just wondered how your life is treating you. I hope everything is going well for you, and I agree with your ideas on school.

Your Friendly Newswriter,
Steven $$$$$.

PS. Just in case, I was in your intro to drama class at sterling a long time ago.

I am remembered, at least.

Anyway, on to Kevin’s comments:

So basically school shows students what the working world is like. You are either willing to do what you are told (in which case you will make a comfortable living without much thinking about...anything), you go against what is expected without thinking about the consequences (in which case you will not be able to accomplish anything that you want to), or, you pay attention to the system and figure out how to adhere to your beliefs without living an impoverished life.

Are you still proposing that it would be better if schools hid the reality of the work-place from the students so that the first time they experience it is after graduation?

I agree that school shows students what the working world is like. The problem is that, increasingly, the working world no longer provides the “comfortable living” to which Kevin refers. Perhaps thirty years ago, most Americans could expect some kind of real economic payoff for becoming the kind of drone that schools prefer, but not today. Of course, there are always exceptions, always true-to-life Horatio Alger stories. I’m talking about most people, however, and what most people should now expect is living paycheck to paycheck, without health insurance or retirement benefits, always one bad stroke of luck away from financial disaster. Schools are preparing children for lifelong struggle and servitude, and poverty in old age if they’re lucky enough to get there. Furthermore, the schools are laughingly ill prepared to equip students with the skills needed to make any real money in the free market economy: entrepreneurialism and investment are not required subjects.

If society trains its students to become drones and slaves, then that’s what society gets. I don’t so much suggest that schools hide the reality of the work-place, so much as train students to truly see reality. That is, to think for themselves. The contemporary American work-place clearly does not value individual thought.

More from Kevin:

Or are you an idealist that believes that the world will quickly change once these "reforms" are put in place? I see public school as a place where you learn how the world works. Yes, you get slapped down for going against the grain, but this is the same thing that happens to adults. School is where you decide that you would rather go with the flow and avoid conflict, but is also where you learn how to get your point across REGARDLESS of society's slapping down process.

I am an idealist, which I must admit, but I’m not so foolish as to believe that the status quo would “quickly” change simply because of reforming only one sector of society. Indeed, the wealthy elites who control society would not give up power without a major fight. Of course, such a fight is unlikely if most people have been conditioned to do as they are told and to let others think for them.

I understand Kevin’s point here, that all the emphasis on discipline and order trains people to deal with a working world that thrives on such ideas. It simply seems to me that the working world has become so bleak, so utterly without hope, that there is no longer any substance to such an argument. I’m reminded of cattle being force-fed until they are slaughtered and eaten by people rich enough to afford steak.

Still more from Kevin:

Public schools mirror the communities that they exist in, due to the fact that they are controlled by extremely localized districts. Therefore there is no overall mandate stating how ALL students will be socialized by schooling. This evil socialization that you speak of exists in the communities that control each school and actually starts at the dinner table, church, and jobsite; not in the classroom. The classroom is perhaps the first place that young people have the chance to see a varying viewpoint (as mentioned by Desiree above).

Ah, but Kevin forgets the central point of my argument: the indoctrinating of children into the culture of obedience and authority comes not from any conscious decision on the part of individual administrators or school board members, but from an overall national consensus that schools should be organized in the way that they are. That is, the problem is with the institution itself. I’ve written about this at length previously (see link above), but I’ll try to summarize. The school hierarchy – principal, assistant principals, department chairmen, teachers, students – was, quite literally, borrowed from the 19th century Prussian public school model, which was consciously militaristic in nature—this model strongly emulates military structure. That’s all been forgotten now, but the structure remains and it has a huge impact on how schools function; discipline and order are embedded as major priorities within that structure. Everybody simply accepts it because they cannot or don’t want to consider alternatives. Other factors outside of local control compound the problem. For instance, funding limitations tend to make class sizes large, which magnifies the effect of class disruptions and ups the amount of paperwork and bureaucracy with which teachers must contend. Learning, as an end, must necessarily become a secondary concern. Order triumphs. This pattern is repeated in varying degrees throughout the entire country.

And Kevin’s final comment:

Schools are definitely used as a means of passing on and enforcing norms, but it is naive to think that you can somehow change education before changing the culture that runs the schools. If the schools were changed first, they would turn out students that had no idea of how to move about in the world, much less how to undermine or change it.

That first sentence is actually a really good point. It is very unlikely that the schools will change unless society changes as well. Of course, one could say much the same thing about the environment or wealth disparity: does that mean I shouldn’t criticize the schools yet? Should I wait until we approach utopia before I start to vent to the few people who read my blog? Well, no. I see injustice and have to speak out, even if nobody hears or cares. Perhaps these ideas, which are by no means unique to me, might catch on, might become a new meme, which could serve as a catalyst for the social change of which Kevin speaks.

On the other hand, Kevin’s statement makes me wonder what came first: authoritarian society or authoritarian schools. This isn’t a silly question. Turn of the century education reformer Horace Mann sold the Prussian school model to the captains of industry as exactly what they needed for the creation of a large docile workforce for their factories. Once upon a time in this nation, people didn’t value doing what they were told—see Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States for an exhaustive list of examples. It is only under corporate capitalism that Americans are expected not to think too much about their own interests, to trust that their superiors know what’s best. Agrarian America was quite different. There’s certainly a strong argument one could make that the schools played a key role in making society the way it is now. Maybe changing the schools would change society.

As for the second sentence of Kevin’s last comment, I offer that it is naïve to think that the schools do anything at all to equip students to undermine or change society. Indeed, Kevin’s “[moving] about in the world” is really all about working at Wal-Mart for seven bucks an hour without benefits. What kind of life is that?

I give the last word to my buddy Matt, who commented:

I think what Kevin's trying to say is "Schools don't indoctrinate People. People indoctrinate People."

But, because this is my blog, I’ll change Matt’s last word to the second to last word, and give myself the last-word privilege:

...well, for that matter, guns don't kill people, either...

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