In an Atlantic article yesterday, “The Urban-School Stigma,” education prof Jack Schneider (who has also written “America’s Not-So-Broken Education System”) lays out an argument for rethinking our beliefs about urban schools – in particular, he writes about the myths of using test scores as way of assessing school quality.
To give an under-nuanced summary (and I encourage you to read the full article), test scores tell us more about students’ parents socioeconomic status than they do teaching prowess. Moreover, a reliance on test scores for assessing “quality” glosses over many other important skills that students learn in school (such as social, collaborative and creative problem-solving skills).
While these are important points that need to be uplifted, the article is problematic. Schneider talks about white flight (without ever saying ‘white flight’!) as a result of bad impressions of urban schools which is a result of the bad ways we assess school quality.
Firstly, Schneider casually drops this line as a given: “one can hardly blame parents with resources for acting in the best interests of their children…” Actually, no. This might, in fact, be the crux of the problem. Assuming that all parents could and should ONLY act in the best interest of their ONLY their own kids flies in the face of the very mission of our most public of public institutions. Sure, we should look out for our ‘own,’ but when that is done on the backs of other people’s kids, maybe some accountability is necessary. Maybe those of us making those choices on the public dollar should bear some responsibility for the large-scale consequences.
Because while my kids attend public school, I have to also know that public school is for all kids. Because while I care about my kids’ educations, I also care about the interest of all children. Because I want my kids to get a good education in order to have a good life (whatever that means), I also know that my choices help to build the world in which my kids are going to be adults.
The fact that he treats this so casually, as kind of a throwaway obvious FACT, is of grave concern. The insidiousness of treating this as common sense both supports and excuses the work of those who are actively opportunity hoarding. There are all kinds of reasons that families make these choices and I am not here to *judge* your decision, but as a society, we have to own up to it. Further, it places all the onus on the schools to be ‘quality’ as if parents and students are not part of equation but are only, rather, clients (and there is a lot of research out there about the marketplace of education, etc). In this one sentence, Schneider is effectively excusing parents from the responsibility of public-making, from having to be citizens.
Then, Schneider writes that “middle and upper income parents,” “believing that they are fleeing bad schools, or securing spots in good ones, … have inadvertently exacerbated segregation.” Inadvertent? Really — oops? Like, it was a great, big accident?
History matters. The grueling history of racism in America is not merely a story of Charlottesville-esque torch-carrying. Though these are horrific, we cannot and should not ignore coded and/or less-media-sexy forms of racism. There are DIRECT correlations between testing and segregation and white flight and redlining and and and… And racism. **
We can also call into question the issue of white flight and talk a bit more about how many families are moving into the city, into diverse areas, doing all that gentrification. What about those folks? What about the fact that, as Nikole Hannah-Jones writes, “gentrification stops at the schoolhouse door”? Segregation is not simply an urban-suburban conversation.
And sometimes – often, even – segregation happens within a school. Think: special programs and tracking. There is much work to be done. It won’t happen overnight. It took us many millennia to dig this hole and we aren’t getting out of it easily. But if you ask me, our public schools are our best hope.
This critique is not to say that we should be mean and shame-y and self-righteous – but rather a call for greater honesty and bravery in how we talk about this issue. Race matters. Class matters. Citizenship and the common good matters. The “public” in public school matters.
Yes, as he says in closing, “parents and policymakers might do a great deal to reverse the intensifying segregation of American public education simply by educating themselves about what test scores do and don’t say about school quality… Questioning what they have long accepted, however, they might begin to create something different.” I would simply add that this is only part of the reality that we have to face – and maybe not even the biggest part.
** from a Nikole Hannah-Jones video (posting shortly!) “We started walking away from a firm belief in public schools right after Brown v. Board. That is when….so, in this country, and I talk about it in that piece, there was large support for public institutions among white Americans when there was legal segregation, where black Americans largely did not have access to those public institutions. Once you had Brown v. Board and then the 1964 Civil Rights Act, you start to see a very steep decline in public support among white Americans for public institutions, everything from hospitals to parks, to schools. And so, right after Brown, you had southern states that actually were willing to shut down public education in order to avoid a single black child from entering a school with a white child. And that’s where you start to see vouchers, the voucher movement, its forbearer is resistance to Brown, where states like Alabama, states like Virginia, other southern states, start to close down public schools and offer white parents tuition vouchers to pay for private schools. The “choice” movement, right, freedom of choice was an anti-integration program. The tests to get into schools that a lot progressive communities love now, right, to get into magnet schools, to get into your best schools, those are screened schools, those screens come out of resistance to Brown. So, I think we can see, you start to see, as soon as black children are starting to get access to white schools, is when you start to see white support for public schools decline.”
http://theatln.tc/2www9HF The Urban-School Stigma:Influenced by biases against urban education, parents are moving away from city schools and contributing to segregation in the process
Schooling should not be based on property values. Originally, local communities taxed their property to open a school for local children. Eventually, state legislatures got involved with state income taxes and other state revenue. Real state taxes as a basis for schooling are as out-of-date as the three month summer holiday.
State legislatures didn’t just get involved. They had to after right wing Prop 13 tax caps decimated local tax revenues and killed local funding mechanisms.
Hi Courtney. I love this. May I post it on PSconnectNow?
On Aug 26, 2017 5:32 PM, “IntegratedSchools.org” wrote:
> cemykytyn posted: ” In an Atlantic article yesterday, “The Urban-School > Stigma,” education prof Jack Schneider (who has also written “America’s > Not-So-Broken Education System”) lays out an argument for rethinking our > beliefs about urban schools – in particular, he writes a” >
sure, karen!
After reading the Mother Jones article in the Sept./Oct. issue, I wanted to respond. What you and your organization are doing is great and I applaud you. I hope the attention gives you a boost and helps you enlist more people. However, I have to ask how often you get discouraged and disappointed by the lackluster response or indifference you get from so many people. Does it ever feel as if you are fighting a losing battle? Do you foresee large numbers of families flocking to your cause at some point?
I hate to be skeptical. Ok, I’m cynical,. But I see your efforts as one of hundreds or even thousands of sincere but all-but futile attempts to find solutions and to improve schools, which you rightly point out determine in large part major trends and patterns in our society and culture. Donald Trump’s success is all the proof we need that kids are being poorly schooled on any number of fronts and in many areas. I believe in public schooling and have opposed privatization, charters, vouchers, and all of the insane testing and accountability schemes. Yet, I have to point out that compulsory attendance laws were never intended to provide or assure education or intellectual stimulation. Schools cannot educate. No institution or organization dealing with large groups of children can educate. Our traditional conceptions of education, knowledge, intellectual development are phenomenally outdated.
Here is my primary reason for writing: Any change that is effected, whether it be relative to the schooling process or social factors such as decreasing inequities, discrimination, racial strife and misunderstanding, etc., MUST always be superficial, limited, temporary, and highly conflicted under the current paradigm. That doesn’t mean you should give up or become defeatist, but it pays to be realistic and to use your energies and resources to maximum effect. Few people involved with schools have ever understood how much power and resistance to change is built-in to the “systems” which are the creation of state and local governments as a necessary response to the laws that compel attendance in classes.
I have written extensively for years on these topics. I need good people such as you to recognize what has been said many times in many ways by innumerable people more brilliant and insightful than me. I will attempt to copy here one of my more recent articles for your perusal. It is a bit lengthy and if this mailbox has a limited capacity, I will send it separately. I have a couple others that may or may not be more on point for your attention, but I believe this one might address your thinking most directly.
WHAT IS THE STATE’S ROLE IN EDUCATION?
When contemplating what the state’s role should be in education, several issues must be considered prior to getting into the specifics.
First, we need to distinguish between the state (small “s”, or the government generally, which may refer to the federal government, or some official entity within that larger national governmental organization, such as the Department of Education), and a particular state, which references a named state, such as the State of Pennsylvania (capital “S”), the state of my birth; New York, where I grew up, or Nevada, where I now reside.
This piece is concerned primarily with any and all of governments’ involvement with schooling, regardless of type or level. Public schools are clearly agents of government, whether it be within a small town, a large consolidated school district, a major city, or the federal government. We will refer to “the state” as any governmental entity and only make a distinction if relevant.
The way government exercises control most commonly is through state regulation and in compliance with school attendance laws in the fifty states (capital “S”), as well as through the various associated regulations, statutes, and other formal mechanisms (i.e., guidelines, directives, or official government issued policies) within each state or locale. Local school boards create and apply policies which must be compatible with state and federal laws (and, permissible under the US Constitution.) As a matter of fact, many policies and practices, and compulsory attendance itself are demonstrably unconstitutional.
Regulation by the federal government affects all fifty states, mainly through the allocation of federal funds. If states or localities are in compliance, they receive assistance of various kinds. If they fail to comply, they risk sanctions or other punishment, most often via reduced funding. Taxpayers pay dearly for those schools and services, most often through local property taxes, with supplementary money coming from federal programs.
Lately, the Department of Education, which was established as a cabinet office in the federal government has generated much heat and controversy. This is due primarily to extremist “Libertarian” elements hostile to any governmental control, or because of their somewhat irrational but fierce opposition to the national establishment’s supremacy over state and local entities.
The Glorious Promise of a Free Public Education
Two parallel but largely incompatible ideas merged originally, which were badly mixed together almost immediately in the mid-19thcentury. The first is the idea that government should guarantee to all citizens a free public education. This wonderful innovation was to be accomplished by the establishment of schools using the resources and power of the government, which initially was mainly effected strictly at the local level.
No one can doubt that education is a crucially important goal for all citizens or that the national government and the various states should be instrumental in providing educational opportunities, or in establishing schools for those who can benefit. Children must be protected and given safe places to grow and develop when parents lack resources adequate to arrange private caregiving, socialization, and other learning opportunities.
Unfortunately, schools have been asked to perform impossible miracles from the beginning. Equally unfortunate is the ability of schools to use their influence and status through pernicious programming to persuade naïve children that they actually can work amazing miracles, and that when those miracles don’t happen, it is nearly always the student who is blamed.
The second concept proposed was the over-reaching and illogical extension of this free “educational” service to all through the passage of laws in the states requiring all children of specified ages to attend the schools that were to be established. That was our big, big mistake. It was the biggest bait and switch in history, in fact.
They promised training, disciplinary routines designed to prepare students for work and war, and cultural inculcation and conditioning. Instead, parents got rigid prison-like conditions for children and misguided attempts to shove academic and intellectual Pablum down the throats of children.
We have often heard about the “pressure cooker” environment of our public schools. That feature is neither imagined nor exaggerated. What is seldom recognized is that the often immense and destructive pressure comes, more than from anywhere else, directly from the official mandate to attend classes coming from anonymous authorities and the coercion associated with oppressive bureaucratic state authority being arbitrarily applied to parents, teachers, and students indiscriminately.
The US Constitution is silent on the question of education, although that didn’t stop the architects of compulsory attendance laws from behaving as if they could delineate specific parameters for education for everyone. They were able to impose their awful scheme on citizens, indiscriminately because children were seen as sub-human or as less than whole people.
The State’s Inherent Power and Authority
Government in a democratic country, or in one with a republican (small “r’) form of governance, is collective by nature. Certain organizations, entities, or governing structures (manned by specific people with specific roles) must be designated to implement the “will of the people”, using the power and authority assigned by government through established processes, defined according to a constitution or similar document. Controls and limitations, or “checks and balances” are in place to protect groups and individuals, especially minority populations.
However, those checks and balances are subject to occasional manipulation or avoidance. Subjectivity and self-interest cannot be totally eliminated. It was James Madison who said that, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” No advance directives are infallible when human beings are put in charge, of course.
In the case of schools, when attendance is mandated, the power and authority of the state are front and center. That authority can frequently loom as extremely intimidating. Any and all attempts to circumvent the inevitably unpleasant encroachments on individual autonomy or on needs MUST be quashed as soon as they come into conflict with the rules and order, as they surely will. The state cannot allow its preeminence to be challenged in any real way.
Therein lies the rub. Teachers, parents, and children have definite proclivities toward self-determination. Healthy growth and development, as well as education, absolutely require high levels of autonomy and uninhibited exploration, positive experience, initiative, quiet contemplation, physical movement and stimulation, along with ample personal expression. Case closed.
This is not just one person’s viewpoint or a theory that is in competition with other equally legitimate or comparable theories. The science is definitive and conclusive. State authority and education are incompatible, by definition. Should I put a gun to the reader’s head and order him or her to read this article, for example, might I expect a positive or a negative result?
Radical Differences
Another highly significant issue that must be mentioned here is the glaring distinction between schooling and education. This major distinction is not commonly recognized. Almost everyone mistakenly conflates the two. Rarely does anyone speak of one without making mention of the other, as if there were no difference between them. There are indeed radical differences. Some of us in the know say that the two are antithetical and in opposition to each other.
State attendance laws are based on the presumption that a state government has some degree of capability to provide educational opportunities to nearly all citizens through mandated schooling. Unfortunately, this is a facile myth and a false assumption.
No state (neither small “s”, nor capital “S”) can provide education or even educational opportunity on a mass scale to all children of certain ages. This naïve and Utopian belief stems from a completely erroneous conception of what education is, what it requires, and the capabilities of government. Likewise, no school can educate or provide significant educational opportunity. Schools are for fish.
As John Stuart Mill had already observed as early as 1859, (“On Liberty”), copied from Blake Boles Blog:
“A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another . . . An education established and controlled by the State should only exist, if it exist at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence.”
Governments can facilitate the educational experience in certain ways. That’s all they can do. But, in all honesty, should we want government becoming involved as “Big Brother” in molding character and deciding what people should (must) know, learn, and believe? Isn’t government expected to remain neutral on academic and political or philosophical topics?
Government is about governing. Government cannot be passive or patient. It doesn’t exist to perform feats of social engineering. It must have limitations, or it will quickly become an end unto itself and oppressive. Government’s role is not to instruct or monitor behavior, attitude, or academic rigor and discipline. Nor is its proper role ever the delineation and definition of education and knowledge.
Government, in a democracy must be concerned with big pictures and big tasks. It cannot be involved with the intricacies and particulars of educating every generation of children or with the sciences and philosophies of the domain. This is elemental and ordinary common sense. The separation of church and state is no more necessary than the separation of school and state.
Then, There is The All-Important Issue of Democracy
Jefferson spoke eloquently about the essential need for an educated populace. In order to maintain our system of government, of, by, and for the people, those people must be well informed; adequately discriminating; minimally intelligent, and knowledgeable (particularly with respect to history). A majority must be actively engaged with political processes, and optimistic, but not overly cynical or gullible.
Now, it immediately occurs to ask; how could children who are conscripted by government and categorically denied basic freedom, autonomy, respect, dignity, and agency for twelve years be expected to have the necessary skills and a mind-set to be minimally attuned to democracy and self-determination? One might draw an analogy to being asked to pilot a 747 and safely land at the age of eighteen, having never been near an aircraft.
Is it necessary to note here, that a high percentage of the graduates of our schools and the many drop-outs or expelled students lack most of the essential attributes so crucial to citizenship described above? As will Rogers liked to say, “The schools aren’t as good as they used to be, but they never were”.
Nowhere in the US Constitution does it say that children are not full citizens or not entitled to all the rights, privileges, and protections accruing to adults. This issue is discussed in much more detail elsewhere.
Suffice it to say here that the absence of maturity or knowledge and the characteristics that make children dependent on adults are in no way an excuse for subjecting them to virtual imprisonment against their will or to badgering, browbeating, constant intrusive advice and instruction (i.e., indoctrination and behavior modification), compliments of the state.
Discrimination, Pressure, Bullying, and Competition Are Baked into This Paternalistic Cake.
The legal obligation to attend and to obtain this splendid government service regardless of its demonstrated merit has, ostensibly, not been too much of a burden or inconvenience for affluent families or for those who are fully integrated into the community. Those lucky folks typically have the resources to prepare their children for regular attendance and for all the support and encouragement that accompanies participation in school instruction and activities.
Likewise, for their normal social involvements, which are more or less unavoidable in such a busy and demanding community organization (including familiarity with accepted or appropriate social habits, a certain type of dress, hygiene, attitude, etc.). While some children in well-to-do households resist the rigid rule following and some are beleaguered by “disabilities” or anxieties, they typically get a lot of outside help or are favored by staff.
For those many other families who lack the necessary resources for a comfortable degree of engagement however, compulsory attendance on the states’ terms often leads to a constant struggle and can become a major source of stress for dozens of reasons.
Some of these families have not become well-adapted to the predominant culture; some parents are overwhelmed because of excessive work demands and schedules or financial and other pressures, and some have members with psychological or other issues which keep them or their children from a high level of school or community engagement or involvement. Also, many simply do not share in the confidence felt by others in the ability of schools to serve (or “save”) their children.
If school is indubitably so much of a wonderful benefit, it might make some sense to think that forcing attendance would justify some level of inconvenience, sacrifice, or extra effort. Yet, there seems to be an inherent contradiction in this tired, coercive strategy. The record established by our schools has been beyond dismal as reflected in interminable statistics, reports, books, articles, blogs, and sentiments expressed by alienated students.
Failure, Frustration, and Futility
Free schooling for all is designed to be the means for lifting disadvantaged children and their families up and out of their unfortunate plight and perpetuating our democracy. Nevertheless, making that marvelous benefit a matter of law and indiscriminately expecting all children of all ages and descriptions to fully love and appreciate the cookie-cutter “services”, is a bit unrealistic (note a tone of cynicism here).
Expectations are often not met. By allowing people hired or appointed under state auspices to set the parameters for those expectations is asking for endless troubles and tribulations, especially for certain vulnerable children, numbering in the millions nationwide. As one could have predicted, the deficits and problems of poor people are greatly exacerbated under coercive strategies and laws (Tolstoy did indeed predict this in his 1862 “Essays on Education”).
Would subsidies solve this problem? How much should be allotted and to whom? Where would the money come from? What about students who continue to simply balk at being imposed upon to listen to lectures or to apply themselves in activities which they don’t find particularly stimulating or engaging? The fault lies not in our stars but in our dysfunctional laws and bureaucracies.
It’s always possible to exclude/expel students who fail to cooperate or who can’t succeed for whatever reason. But then, that defeats the purpose and makes the attendance requirement somewhat of a joke, does it not? As it turns out, drop-outs are frequently the cream of the crop. An article entitled, “The Best and Brightest Delinquents”, by Judy Folkenberg, Psychology Today, Sept. 1984 explores this aspect.
Traditionally, schools have claimed to be the primary, if not the sole means to educational excellence. However, many students have had good reason to doubt that supposed truism. The reports of failure, frustration, and futility have in fact been ubiquitous.
Tension, Anxiety, and Conflict are Baked-in, as Well
Education was NOT the stated goal when compulsory attendance laws were enacted. However, expectations quickly morphed from social engineering goals to educational and knowledge transfer goals by well-meaning people. The logical consequence is lots of idealistic teachers with extraordinary ideas and great optimism, matched by similar numbers of drones and incompetent and controlling sadists, trying to mold stubbornly independent children who are in far too many cases destined to disappoint and ultimately fail, either academically and intellectually, or behaviorally, or in all respects.
The schools and their staffs have been expected to perform improbable wonders from the start. This is a sure formula for disaster. Schools could easily, under the right circumstances, become hospitable and pleasant places for children. Yet, they rarely are, and then, only to the extent that they are enabled in ignoring or circumventing the authoritarian bureaucracy (which inevitably follows directly and inescapably from the attendance requirement).
The insensitive, unresponsive, mechanistic bureaucracy grinds on mercilessly, chewing up and spitting out its unwitting victims. It is a Frankenstein monster that derives its life, strength, and persistence from just one thing. That one thing is the omnipresent and supposedly omniscient law that creates the authoritarian structure, which mandates the organization that is a school, which is where bureaucracy originates and thrives.
Ponder This
The state can do or provide certain things, which may be valuable as goals and services and may relate in various ways peripheral to education. It can deliver on socialization and enculturation services, which are two essential elements of one’s education, among many. It can provide training, academic and otherwise; indoctrination as prescribed by parents, and supervision (babysitting or behavioral control and monitoring). It could also provide extra-curricular play and sports, mental or psychological health training and care, musical training, dietary, and other social or cultural activities and services, although budget cuts and academic priorities have increasingly eliminated or prohibited delivery of many of those essential benefits in all but the most affluent districts or communities.
All of the benefits and services listed above do typically make meaningful contributions to education, for better or for worse. Governments can and do spend enormous amounts of money on school facilities, personnel, and materials. Allocations are almost never enough and there are always lapses and unresolved problems and legions of young people who fall by the wayside in some way. However, it is absurd to believe that a state of either description can educate its citizens! At the risk of being tiresome; that is a Utopian dream if ever there were one.
But; What is Education Anyway, Pray Tell?
We should define what we mean by education. That brings us to a difficult place, however. One person’s definition of education is good for that one person and that one person only. I can’t define it for you, nor you for me.
Education is a highly individual, personal, and private matter. Education is ineffable. That is; it is life experience and exposure, which depend on perception and sensation. It is past and present physical and mental capacities; memory and awareness; emotional development and status, and a variety of other things (which are all to some extent modified or affected by individual genetic endowments). Cognition below the level of consciousness involving imagery and “feeling” or visceral sensation is proving to be much more significant in learning and education than cognition involving simple language utilized and observed in a linear conscious mode.
“…a single nerve cell may receive information from a thousand or more other neurons, each of which was impacted by a hundred or a thousand inputs.” (Pg. 268).
“The brain certainly offers plenty of opportunity for generation of nonlinear, chaotic behavior.” (Pg. 268).
“…the very definition of chaotic behavior suggests that it would operate outside of human consciousness and memory.” (Pg. 269).
“…the neurological machinery for processing cultural information is the same as that used to process information about the physical environment.” (Pg. 266).
“It is now clear that human behavior is best explained by a combination of the biological and environmental positions, with genes and previous experience contributing roughly equally to the variability we observe in the way humans behave.” (Pg. 265).
The above quotes are all from the book, “Are We Hardwired?; The Role of Genes in Human Behavior”, by Wm. R. Clark and Michael Grunstein, Oxford Univ. Press, N.Y., 2000.
The processes of education, edification, and enlightenment are not easily analyzed or assessed and do not lend themselves to prediction, measurement, or classification. They have a continuity and a degree of permanence. However, the continuity is mostly internal and inaccessible to outside observation. They include basic skills and knowledge. But, your basics are not my basics.
On page 267, Clark and Grunstein write about “…the nonlinear multiplication of the possibilities…”. The youngest child in school already has a cognitive process that is highly idiosyncratic and not at all amenable to pre-programming and mass curricular planning. The child is not on a path; he or she is following along many pathways and encountering wildly diverse thoughts, insights, and questions which are necessarily a mystery to curriculum planners.
The “state”, or any given state, is by definition operating programs and services for sizable groups of citizens in a school. Schools are there for all students. Private tutoring is not typically an option, except in very unusual circumstances or when unpaid volunteers can be found.
Therefore, a state or any entity under state auspices is not in a position to deliver narrowly targeted and tailored, idiosyncratic, personally relevant, or comprehensive education to particular students, and certainly not to all students of all descriptions.
In addition, schools are ordinarily prohibited by constitutional imperatives from any sort of discrimination. They have an affirmative obligation to serve all children equally under laws that establish the schools and supervise their operation and maintenance.
Focusing on certain categories or on certain children or giving the sort of intensive attention or instruction, which authentic education absolutely requires would deny equal opportunity to others and is thereby forbidden (given budgets that are not unlimited). Teachers are not super-human and critical thinking is not a product of adult genius.
Therefore, education in a school context must be an incidental by-product or a secondary benefit for certain students at certain times. Education as an individual attribute and as the sum total of one’s experience, knowledge acquisition (formal and informal), memory, and integrated understanding, cannot be sliced and diced for forced feeding. One cannot pinpoint its occurrence or verify that it has or has not happened at any specific moment.
If education happens in a school, it is because of exceptional circumstances, extraordinary teachers, highly motivated and engaged students, and it occurs exclusively as part of the individual student’s holistic and flowing or continuous experience and involvement.
Education in a real sense necessarily always answers specific, individual questions and needs, which are largely unpredictable and which are the consequence of highly unique perceptual interpretations and cognitive processes. These arise at different times or stages; are often not articulable without intimate knowledge of the individual student, and sometimes require complex or carefully thought-out responses and interactions.
Emotions are never absent either, and their presence can only be ignored at the risk of completely misconstruing what one’s education is now and will become later. Powerful feelings determine how knowledge is imprinted on the mind/brain and how it is seen and recalled.
In other words, education is NOT something that can be delivered according to some plan or schedule by any institution, organization, academy, or benefactor. It MUST be accrued as a consequence of voluntary activity and pursuits. It must be continuously custom-made, principally by the individual striving to realize private initiative, according to changing parameters, while being human, and while experiencing internal and external changes (preferably solo much of the time).
The Nature of Knowledge
Knowledge is not and never has been ‘cut and dried’. Knowledge is not unchanging or identifiable as one thing only or a singular perception or definition or concept. Knowledge and authority are like oil and water; they do not mix.
Physics, history, language, chemistry, biology, and even math are all more indeterminate than educators and officials would like to believe. Subjectivity is more the rule than the exception. Any suggestion of permanence or of the transmissibility of knowledge from teacher to student or from one or another form of media to a student, especially through “mass production” necessarily engenders mass confusion and mistake. From the “ABCs” to the “Big Bang”, to string theory and multiple dimensions and universes, reality depends to some extent upon who the “experts” are and whom one chooses to believe (or to believe in).
There would be chaos if we didn’t accept certain facts and observations as scientifically valid and as true and reliable. Authority, in the sense of an individual or group that has established a record of verification and validation is clearly necessary to living in an organized and predictable world. Still, it is extremely dangerous to institutionalize the official assignment of expertise and intellectual authority by the government (state).
It must be said here that knowledge is embodied. In other words, it exists solely in the body/mind of a living and breathing human being. Knowledge does not reside in books or other media. Information, symbols, language and such are not knowledge and cannot be absorbed and integrated by students through ordinary expository teaching methods. We’ve had it all wrong for three hundred years! (See “Philosophy in the Flesh”, by Lakoff and Johnson, 1999). School reform is not able to change this anachronistic paradigm in the least.
SUMMARY
In any organization or institution in which there is a hierarchy, a pecking order, or a top-down authority structure, there will be politics and competition. There will be arbitrary decision making and impositions, which in many instances are experienced by some as oppression or as tedious trivia. There will be winners and losers. There will be an overwhelming need for accountability, measurement, the assignment of responsibility (blame for failure, misconduct, wasted effort, etc.) and the paternalistic impulse to control, manage, and direct on the part of some. A school is no place for any of these things.
How does the state or a state protect and serve children when it usurps parental rights and obligations in a heavy-handed manner, presuming itself to have some special dispensation and capability to determine what those children should learn or not learn? How does it assure even a minimal level of education, when education has no levels and is not measurable, and when it is preoccupied with maintaining quiet and obedience in classrooms crowded with disengaged, bored, and distracted children designed by nature to be highly active and interactive?
How does the state convey meaningful messages of freedom, liberty, and the essence of constitutional order, when it is the very agency for the imposition of control, conditioning, and conformity? How does it effectively discourage bullying and discriminatory habits, when it is the biggest bully on the planet?
Clark and Grunstein, quoted above, state in a section entitled, “The Biological Basis of Freedom”, the following:
“…individual responsibility has no meaning in the absence of unimpeded choice.” (Pg. 265).
Governments at all levels should do what government does best and only that. Yes, government should oversee schooling. It should be aware of practices and problems. It should provide financial support and work to distribute funds appropriately, according to demographic data and needs, with fairness and discretion. It should take action when necessary to eliminate discrimination or injustices or abuses. It should do everything possible to provide and monitor services with regard to social issues and needs, particularly where poverty disadvantages children. However, none of that requires or justifies coercive laws or attendance requirements.
END OF ARTICLE
Please provide feedback with your impressions or questions. I filed with the State of Nevada to establish a non-profit last year, however I was unable to complete the process because of a shortage of financial resources and the loss of my one helper. I plan to restart in the near future if all goes according to plan.
Robert B. (Barry) Elliott 702-466-9856