The early "Progressive Educators" had a "Hidden Agenda": they hope to make education the vehicle of a peaceful transition to socialism. This daydream lives on in the fantasy of those whothink that if a college education indoctrinated students in "critical thinking" that mystic power would be expressed in adherence to 'progressive' causes. Of course it is more often expressed in cynicism towards the arguments of leftists.
Incidentally¸ schools have always (fortunately) been messy, even incompetent: Compare the old remark that Czarism was Autocracy modified by incompetence. As a result of this messiness or incompetence, they often 'produced' citizens on whom the process indoctrination had failed to do its work. Recognition of this messiness is key to a serious _defense_ of U.S. schools. Despite being structured to create tame, dutiful citizens and workers they have offered a good deal of room for a scattering of students and teachers to arrive at what we might call a Working-Class Consciousness. The current 'educational' policies of the Bush/Obama administration are aimed primarily at correcting this partial failure of schooling in America over the past century.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of shag carpet bomb Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 6:28 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] School Debate: Central Focus
I didn't understand the ref to anti-intellectualism. How does it play out in the attack on schools? The typical conservative anti-intellectualism, making fun of the educated kind of thing? Is there an example of it, a particular writer maybe?
Related to Woj's point about gender & teaching, I thought about that as an issue, and also the public function of it. Would love to see if there's a book out there on the topic.
Schools of education have always been seen as rather secondary, sneered at, historically.. My hometown had a normal school, later converted to a state college specializing in education. They were built mainly for the instruction of women to enter teaching, which was always seen as something one did temporarily until marriage. It was treated as a form of babysitting (working class mothers worked until their kids reached school age, then they dropped out of the labor face once kids were school/work age). The big push behind public education in the late 1800s didn't get much traction until two forces got involved: unions (to keep workers out of the labor force) and industry (who wanted to spread the cost of training their workforce across the public). (Forgotten the historian of all this, Apple was his name? )
You could see this in the historical records of a company called Solvay Process, near where I used to live. They recruited immigrants from Poland, Greece, Italy (northern, hence the rumor that everyone ate cats) and, IIRC, had people speaking 17 different languages. When I was doing research in their archives, the company had not just a company store but a daycare center, small school for English, civics (cleanliness), eating, workforce instruction. Everything had to be translated into 17 different languages so workers could sign something that basically said, "you understand that working here can kill you."
Anyway, the company records also contained discussions of their entrance into the political arena, to unload some of the costs of running all those social services. This is old news to everyone here, but that schools are factories of instruction
At 11:42 AM 2/15/2012, Wojtek S wrote:
>Doug: "Also, none of the progressive education types I've interviewed
>on the radio, and I've interviewed many of the luminaries, want to
>talk about how American anti-intellectualism figures into the
>problem."
>
>[WS:] This is my impression too. Based on my experience, many of
>these progressive & liberal types with whom I rub elbows around here
>do not want to acknowledge the deeply embedded anti-intellectualism,
>it seems to offend their populist sensibilities ("the people" can do
>no wrong). Blaming schools and teachers seems like an acceptable
>cope-out to them - it is the school's fault, not the people's and
>their anti-intellectualism. On the rare occasions when I point this
>out, those progressive and liberal types get really defensive and
>upset, which tells me that it hits the weak spot. And many of them
>support the charter school approach too.
>
>Wojtek
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