Education in Society – Page 3

Independance Day Musings: Democracy & Education

July 4, 2011 ianhokeLeave a comment

A large number of human relationships in any social group are still upon the machine-like plane. Individuals use one another so as to get desired results, without reference to the emotional and intellectual disposition and consent of those used. Such uses express physical superiority, or superiority of position, skill, technical ability, and command of tools, mechanical or fiscal. So far as the relations of parent and child, teacher and pupil, employer and employee, governor and governed, remain upon this level, they form no true social group, no matter how closely their respective activities touch one another. Giving and taking of orders modifies action and results, but does not of itself effect a sharing of purposes, a communication of interests.

Dewey, John (2009). Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education (Kindle Locations 157-161). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

On a beautiful day in Switzerland, July 4, 2011, I am reminded of the power of true, open democracy to shape people into a society. I am also reminded of something a consultant said to me once. She was from a private company in Florida hired to fix my school on the Navajo Nation which had been placed in the NCLB solitary confinement cell called “Restructuring.” We were learning structures for getting feedback from students and using this feedback not to influence instruction so much, but more to get kids to buy into certain structures being laid down from this corporate consultant. When someone asked what to do if the feedback didn’t support the prescribed structures, the consultant said: “Well, you can do a degree of facilimanipulation.” Facilitate to manipulate. Nifty.

This is the Fox News discussion model. Students in this chronically disfunctional school wouldn’t be given a voice democratically. Instead, I would stand before them, the Anglo Sage, and manipulate them with a guise of cheer and helpfulness to swallow whatever I was handing down from on high (which had been handed down to me from on higher). Beyond the historically appalling subtext, the text itself is terrible: facilimanipulate. This Frankenword has become an ironic joke between my wife and I, but I can understand it’s lazy appeal – trick the kids into thinking they count. Yikes. See quote above – no shared purposes or communicated interests in this essentially authoritarian model.

So, I consider today ways to continue making students real partners in the classroom, with agency in their learning process and experiences. I’m planning action research in a new course (for me) entitled “Digital Journalism.” Together, students and I will explore how best to learn through experience about doing journalism and publishing work in an online student newspaper. It’s very easy to give up the reigns in this course because I’m clearly not an expert journalist, so our shared purpose together will be learning the subject through actually doing it. I’m really excited because students shaping this course is meta-agency – students will help design the course in order to publish their work. Hard work, but good work, ahead. Maybe we’ll even form a mutually beneficial social group!

John Dewey had some great ideas 90 years ago and you can read them for free today! Happy Independence Day!

Truth & The Examined Life by Cornell West

April 7, 2011 ianhokeLeave a comment

The way to truth, sustaining the journey to truth – deducing from evidence, drawing reliable conclusions, surrendering one’s arrogance and pride – “ways of acknowledging our finitude and fallibility,” with Dr. Cornell West, Class of 1943 Professor at Princeton University, “a blues man in the life of the mind, I’m a jazz man in the world of ideas.” Dr. West blends philosophy with the “funk of life,” music, poetry, examination. Why do we read, write, view, struggle? To understand ourselves and the world! I love what he has to say about reading and intensity – “to throw [books] against the wall,” which happens, the overwhelming by truth and reality. Anyway – here is one of Earth’s smartest men talking honestly. Check it out – it’s seven minutes well spent.

http://www.twitvid.com/embed.php?guid=QLSRN&autoplay=0

On “Modern Status”

March 7, 2011 ianhokeLeave a comment

Living in a time when 20% of all American children live in poverty, David Brooks is on a search for Jane Austen’s America. Seriously. Brooks has his eyes on the ball in “Modern Status” when he notes that there is little difference between the mannerisms and noticeable intelligence of students from Arizona State versus Harvard, but he loses any sense of critical analysis when he notes that “employers aren’t looking for genius as much as energy and clubbability” without a hint of irony. Certainly, the club that Harvard students are game to join is that which “attribute(s) superior intellectual, moral and cultural qualities to people who can get into those places.”

Indeed.

Brooks goes on to observe that “The message, which one does detect on elite campuses, is that the actual academic content to be found in these places is secondary.” I looked around, but can’t find any numbers indicating how many freshmen admitted to Harvard went to test-drilling charter schools or failing schools where all arts, music, and extra curricular activities have been restricted or cut completely, but I bet 100% of those students haven’t spent much time on their sculling stroke. The message is academics first! and they don’t even cover academics. They cover testing, because if they don’t, teachers get fired. The problem, however, goes beyond vilified teachers and students who may not fit in easily to Harvard’s secret clubs.

This argument by Brooks is exactly why money has to be invested in all public schools, and why non “core” classes must be restored with vigor and respect: the culture that these kids lose when they spend all day on math multiple choice strategies goes beyond the critical thinking, beyond even the culture of not hating boring, awful school lessons, and right to class culture. Elites value those who know how to learn and how to live. Those who know pay attention to life beyond the walls of the school, and for the most vulnerable students, that world must be brought into the schools or they’ll miss it. Underpinning Brooks’s argument is a sad reality: modern status is the status quo, reinforced, and girded by taxpayer dollars flowing into banks and out of schools.