I am sincerely interested in seeing this situation change for the better.
I would like to see reform in the educational system framed as a political movement, one that does not simply change the people at the top, but one that shatters the hierarchy and replaces it with a new principle of social coordination.
This political movement requires “emergence,” where change is initiated from below, not handed down from above.
For the act of teaching and learning to change at both an institutional level and an active, social level, teachers need to join together and form a unified vision of working conditions and compensation.
Many public schools in the U.S. are dumping grounds. Students are literally run through out-dated and unnecessarily fictive curricula.
Learning should be social. It should be interactive. It should be more than technical; it should focus on student identity-building, problem solving, truth seeking, and community building.
The call for autonomy of public education is a political act of secession from a government that has clearly failed in its task of defending the real interests of the community in terms of public education.
The principal victims of the present educational system are, by definition, outside the system because they have been eliminated from it.
Autonomy is not an end in itself. Autonomy allows schools to switch their class allegiance and reduce the social distance that separates it from society at large.
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I have borrowed heavily from Feenberg’s Questioning Technology for these notes.
I am deeply interested in seeing public education reformed for the better. I am not interested with coming up with the answers. I am however keenly interested in setting the stage for those most directly impacted can.
Educational reform should begin at the community level, with teachers, parents, and students sorting through the variety of issues and concerns that impact them most. Once these are clearly articulated and agreed upon, then the sticky part of dealing with bureaucracies and governmental agencies must come into play. It is here that I am woefully ignorant. But that’s okay. I like to quote Feenberg at this point where he intones: “no revolutionary movement sets out from a coherent plan.” Or as my doctoral advisor would say, “it’s kind of like building an airplane while you’re in mid-flight.” I recognize I have a ways to go in forming my thinking here but I have time. I am finding Dave Pollard’s articles to be particularly helpful.
So what is government’s role in this process? Or can this revolution separate itself from the hand that currently feeds it?
Milton Friedman offers a classic economist perspective wherein
“In such a free private enterprise exchange economy, government's primary role is to preserve the rules of the game by enforcing contracts, preventing coercion, and keeping markets free. “
Friedman recognizes the role of the family and the economic productivity that education clearly supports and affords. I need to spend more time analyzing Friedman’s argument before I go any further on my own. Feenberg’s revolutionary perspectives stem from his analysis of the student uprisings in Paris in the late 1960s. Ultimately, the students were able to get a discussion started and foster the notion of rethinking the role of education in their society.
Could the same happen here in the U.S.? Is the U.S. too large and disparate to create a unified vision of how to improve public education? Wholesale national change is most likely unrealistic. However, a large pack of hungry dogs can bring down an elephant.
Keywords: autonomy, community, economics, educational reform, emergence, manifesto, public education, self-coordination, social reform, truth
Comments
Most educational reformers, including teachers, are like pigeons in a Skinner box, punching the same buttons that rang the bell and dispensed largesses.
As far as emergence, it is happening, globally, but particularly in the United States. The rise of the for profit universities, the rise of home schools, charter schools and expansion of both religious and secular private schools indicates that alternatives are arising. The rise of open access, blogs, wikipedia and derivatives have freed knowledge from the academic "guilds" just as surely as the printing press liberated knowledge from the Church. All that is left, basically, is certification- and that may fail in the end.
What may happen, in the US, in particular, is an increase in the "digital or knowledge" divide as those with access to capital will choose to take their children out of the public education path, not only K-12 but K-16. the move in some areas to vouchers and now the general acceptance of these points in this direction as do the other paths described above.
Emergence is here both in praxis, with alternative paths, and in content, particularly in the social studies and humanities arenas. Cultural Studies sees the hand writing on the wall if one looks at the results of the last MLA convention. And even the economists have realized that their neo-classical models are sending scholars elsewhere.
thoughts?
dr. tom p. abeles, editor
On the Horizon
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/oth.htm
tabeles@gmail.com
I think you have a point about taking education out of the hands of government. My thoughts on this are that families need to be responsible for educating their children (maybe not directly, as in home schooling, but in making the arrangements for their children's education). My reasoning is that a lot of people simply send their kids off to the public school and there their responsibility ends. By taking the responsibility, the hope is that the parents would become more involved in their children's educations.
Now I understand there are a lot of down-sides to this. We've had socialized education for decades, we can't just take it away. There are a lot of parents who spend all their time and effort trying to make ends meet. They have neither time nor funds to put toward the process, and those children would be at a disadvantage (but, my thought is that most of them are anyway). There are no easy answers to this.
I've been tossing this around in my mind for some time, but obviously have a lot to study and learn before I can really put together some coherent ideas on the subject.
Thank you for your comments.
Tom, if I am reading you correctly, educational reform is similar in many ways to religious reform. I like the angle that you take and I believe that your analysis demonstrates your clear understanding of the issues. Given your chronographic perspective, what might it take to unhinge current systemic practice? Will social softwares afford us the opportunity to organize an affront to the crisis? Do we need a clear-thinking, charismatic leader to articulate the problems? Are the masses ready to take responsibility?
Sally, Stephen Downes suggests that I am off target in my beliefs that educational stakeholders need to define their objectives, that "The whole concept of emergence requires that invividuals form autonomous visions and goals." (Things that make you go hmmm....)
I agree, there are no easy answers, but I think those of us interested in the problems need to see if we can clearly articulate the issues and turn them over for others to digest and re-vision. At the risk of sounding hackneyed, Rome wasn't built in a day, but I would like to see this issue of educational reform take a front seat (perhaps the driver's seat) on the national stage. I think the time is getting closer. But we need to be offering a means for making change happen (not just repeating the problems). The answers from academia cannot be perscriptive. Perhaps a framework is needed, one that allows people to enter the debate, one where all sides can be heard.
Then there's the issue of autonomy. Real change will need to take place from the places most affected, e.g., schools and school districts.
I feel I am just beginning to come to grips with all of the variables here however I have much to learn.
Your thoughts?
Regards, Chris