Why Have School?

Why Have School?

Go to a part of the world where there is no school, or where part of the population (women, usually) are forbidden from learning and you might get a different answer.

I know as well as anyone here that our schools are screwed up in a lot of ways, that they are to some degree indoctrination and babysitting  factories. My dad was a teacher too, so I am aware not just of the pressures kids are under, but also teachers. He had a student stand up in his class one day and say "you can't fail me because my parents will just go to the principal and make you pass me".

When our kids first went in I considered it an open question whether we would keep them in, or try to home school. From what I have seen so far, I am pleased with our school, and I feel pretty fortunate that they are in a relatively good one. For one thing the school seems to do as much to promote social skills as it does teaching subjects - things like pairing older kids as mentors for younger kids, teaching values of respect for one another, and looking out for kids who are displaying anger, frustration, and other danger signs.

It's not perfect, and I know all schools are not like that, but I think it is good start, and it is better than having some of those kids who are having problems isolated with just their family.

(edit)

just found this:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/09/07/statscan-.html 

 @ milo204

Agreed. I think a big part of the problem is that the situation can be radically different from division to division, school to school, and even class to class.

Believe me I am aware of the problem, because I went into this experience as a sceptic, and I am still prepared to pull my kids if they run into situations like some I have heard and seen. We have certainly run into some social and political differences, but frankly I think some of that is healthy.

So far as what goes on between the teachers, our children, and us though, I have no complaints. Quite the opposite, actually. I find the teachers we have had have made an effort to keep us involved in their education and let our children go in the directions they want.

If we want to talk about indoctrination, my grandmother had to go down to the school to stop them from forcing my father to write with his right hand. When I was in elementary school we had to line up and march into class, and they weren't shy about giving a stick across the knuckles, right in class.

School politics is local politics, and a lot of change means not just going to the Ministry of Education, but being prepared to let parents, teachers, principals, and the school board know how you feel (even though I know there are plenty of brick walls to run into there).

Education in modern society is like so many things - a potentially useful thing that the capitalists (NWO-neocons-wouldbe kings call em what you will) have taken over and twisted to their own ends, taking the good true education functions, such as reading and writing and some basic science knowledge, history etc, and woven it into a framework in which such useful education becomes secondary to the primary function - turning out passive citizen-consumer-workers who are used to taking orders from someone in authority and don't ask any hard questions, and do not have any knowledge of a small handful of very important things. Which is why the analogy of capitalism as a cancer on our society is so apt- that's exactly what it is, in so many ways - you could say the same about 'our' governments, which have been surreptitiously taken over and turned against us. If anyone talking here hasn't read a book by a guy called John Taylor Gatto called The Underground History of American Education -  they might find it interesting. It's free online - http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm .

Bold added. I disagree, siamdave. Nothing was taken over, nothing was twisted. Those values have always been the role of public education.

In the Ontario context, as in my links above, both the purpose and the meaning of schooling children and young people was clear from the outset. The ideal that we may have about the value of public education is that, an ideal. It's never been practiced.

And history? Really? What did all of us who went through the Canadian public school system learn about Canada's history? Pack of lies, that's what we learned.

Society needs to reproduce itself, and to teach the value of an inequitable society to the new generations. The education system plays that role just fine.

siamdave, I think we're agreeing. Sorry to have framed my response in a disagreeing tone.

- a random act of civility on babble! - very nice, and thank you, insofar as an apology was hardly necessary, but it was big of you to do it - that is one of the things that makes actual democratic discussion work. No problem, by the way, I have been known to be a bit chippy myself. sans later apology too.

The public school system is designed to seperate the cream, "the cream will rise to the top". The public school system has some benefits but yet it has the ability to stifle creativity in many individuals.  People are not all the same in the way that they learn, but the school system is designed to mass produce a certain outcome. If you don't fit the mold you will have problems and you will learn something about yourself that no one should,  "your not good enough". 

The public school system is all about preparing people for the work world and thats where it falls short. The education system should be modified to instruct things like problem solving skills, but  that would go against the grain of what the business world would require. Too many people thinking about fixing things would become a thorn in the side of those who wish to manage.

You cite two different problems there. One is peer pressure: the demand of kids that other kids be just like them - or else. The other is the demand by 'authority' - by which i assume you mean teachers and principals - to do what the kids is told - or else. I don't suppose those are similar demands, or similarly motivated. So the kid being subjected to those demands must be pulled in opposite directions. Unenviable.

Anti-bullying efforts by administration have not been notably successful, as far as i know. And bullying is only the most obvious, not the most effective or pervasive, form of peer pressure. What do you propose to do about it that would work better? That would allow the non-conformist student greater freedom and security?

As for authority, you might find that a lot of teachers don't feel they have enough. They can reward a compliant student with high marks and peraise, but how, exactly, can they punish a student for refusing to do the assigned task? Low marks and censure - but the kid who doesn't care about his work doesn't care about that, either. Teachers have no other recourse. They can neither disciple nor throw a disruptive student out of the classroom.

What would be your alternative to 'ridiculous' tasks? What would work better than reward and punishment to enhance student performance? Or is poor performance a good thing? In which case, how do you tell whether they've learned the subject? Should they learn the subject at all? If not, where should kids be all day instead of school?

It's a complicated problem, isn't it?

 - on Green Island, we have different ways of doing most things, including education - for those with a rainy day and looking for something better - Green Island Chap 22 The Hunter River School http://www.rudemacedon.ca/greenisland/ex/gw22a.html

ElizaQ,

Do you know the rules governing a teacher's use of authority? It's mostly paperwork. You can't touch them, can't yell at them, can't ridicule them, can't make them stand in the corner, can't even suspend them without a formal trial. Kids over 6 are not a bit intimidated by teachers. Kids over 13 often threaten teachers with physical violence. Depending on the school district - different threats apply in upscale schools ("My father will sue your ass...!") While the peer pressure is completely outside of the administration's - and adult society's - control, unregulated; can use all forms of intimidation, force and humiliation learned from popular entertainment.

Also, different outcomes are desired by the adult hierarchy (order, neatness, high SAT scores) and the peer community (gang and/or ethnic unity, or just some kind of fashion instituted by un-grown-up adults outside the education system: entertainers, usually). While adult society is certainly responsible for both the culture and the methods teenagers take on as their own, adults have little or no control over how these things manifest in the school setting.

And, of course, none of that begins to answer the question: What do you suggest as an alternative?

Yes, of course. Humans come into the world with nothing - no knowledge, no skills, no power, no physical capability, even to survive. So, of course they depend on adults, are house-trained and socialized by adults; eventually emulate adults. That's biology.  When societies are stable, it all works pretty well - a bit of rebellion here, some allowances there, some established mechanism for coping with intra- and inter-generational friction.

Right at this moment in our history, we have a problem of changing direction. The system we've been supporting the last half dozen generations is failing: no longer serving the needs of the population. One symptom of system failure is increased internal conflict; a struggle among various factions for supremacy. Unfortunately, another symptom of the system going bad (before its failure became evident) was an increasing acceptance - indeed, social approval for - adults who refused to grow up. Like pop stars and sport stars and tv stars: people who are unaccountably rewarded for playing. (There is a whole dynamic behind that, how cultures in decline invest more and more in mass entertainment, but never mind for the moment.) Those immature adults become very accessible, very attractive role models for the young.  Another symptom is decreasiong self-control and increasing emotionalism - which leads to violence - throughout society, and is especially seductive for young males. (Which is its purpose, and that's another factor in the breaking down of the social order.)

Anyway, you see what i'm driving at. Society is a complicated organism, in which parents, teachers and students are all parts, none with any real power to change the course of the society's history. Not by themselves. 

If we could figure out where we want society to go, instead of where it's going now, (which is to hell in a handcart.... imo)  then we could aim the various components of the educational process in that direction. And "we" could do that, because parents and teachers, schol trustees and administrators are all capable of cummunicating, and i think all - okay, most - do have the children's welfare at heart.

When?

I mean, before you can participate in a democratic process, don't you need to know what democracy is? So, at what age, and by what method, do we teach this?

We could mash this thread up with the "Asians/University" thread for a win:  pay the lazy, party-hearty Canadian students to study.

Rich Gibson,

John Taylor Gatto,

Bowles and Gintis,

Paulo Friere,

Howard Gardner,

the BCTF website,

there are plenty of resources for lefties to look at educational issues.

The political right NOWADAYS is mostly focused on cutting funding to education, privatizing it, testing students to the point that they're driven out of schools, attacking teachers and their unions, carrying out the Shock Doctrine - such as in New Orleans after the hurricane - with such terrible consequences, assisting corporations in their colonization of classrooms, decreasing public space in general, and so on.

When the Nazis established a puppet regime in France in World War II, almost the first thing this regime did was to attack French teachers. "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose". Hatred of educators has always been a hallmark of the political right. This applies particularly to hatred of educators that put the interests of children first.

And most do.

It was only really with the humiliation of watching Soviet spacecraft and cosmonauts blasting off into space ahead of them that the USA put so much attention into scientific education for the cold war purposes that that education was put to.

The grim reality of a pillaged educational system, as in the USA, is the awful future that awaits our own educational systems here in Canada if we don't fight back and defend this ... one of our most sacred of all democratic institutions.

Oh darn, another thread I missed earlier but I can't help but comment as I have mentioned before on Babble my opinion is the whole school system needs to be bombed and started over again.

First don't measure student performance.  Just teach or provide opportunity to learn.  If the child is not learning then it should be examined why.   You don't have to measure on a scale to see how much percentage a child has learned to know if there is a problem.  Look at it, is it the subject, is it the teacher, the home environment, the peers, the way it is being taught.  Are there behaviour issues that need to be addressed before a child is taught the skill or skills (trying to teach a child that says no is like trying to feed an anorexic person - they want that control you can't make me learn, you can't make me eat).  Then come up with a solution.

Second relax the damn standards.  Kids have to go into grade one reading or else they flunk term one (oh sorry, it is a progress report for term one now, likely because the standards are so high they didn't want to give grades for the first term).  My mother was a primary teacher.  I learned to read at 3, my brother was 7.  Some kids just aren't ready at a certain stage.  If they are ready then teach or expose, if they are not have realistic expectations of when they should be doing something before deciding it is a problem.

How do you know if kids have learned?  Because they can do, they can apply their knowledge.  You don't need to grade or measure or pick out specific tasks that a child does when they are 7 and can pick up a book and read it.  Look they can read.  Prior to the final act when kids struggle you know it, you can see it when they are trying to do something and just can't.  When they are ready to learn something and it just isn't coming to them.  They get frustrated, upset, they keep trying and it's not working.  Any subject can be brought forth in something of interest.  Someone really likes Italy.  So plan a trip.  Have them read about places to visit (reading, history), figure out a timetable to visit places (time, measurement, distance).  Figure out what they need that will be different (social studies).  The list can go on.  After they have learned about Italy sit and talk with them, ask them about the different aspects and how they came to their conclusions.  You will see relatively quickly what they understood and what they didn't.  Even better go on the trip with them.  If there are parts they don't want to do or parts that are not enjoyable either change it to make it enjoyable figure out why and you will see where they are stuck.

When someone is stuck it is not a bad thing, as the school system likes to point out with it's grades and pass fail system.  When someone is stuck it is an opportunity to problem solve, for the teacher, the parent and the child to figure out what to do next.

The last statement is about "enhanced" performance.  Why is what is good enough for the kid not good enough.  Why do we have to make them better?  Some years I learned absolutely nothing.  Other years I learned 2-3 years worth of stuff.  Such is the ebb and flow of life.  My child right now is 6 months old.  He is not crawling, he is not rolling over, he hates tummy time.  He sits okay but not as well as other babies and up until two weeks ago could have cared less about toys though other babies his age were playing with toys ages ago.  I do not care, I am not worried.  Even though these are the building blocks of all learning and everything he will learn is going to be based on what he picks up in the next 2-3 years I don't care.  He is walking like a 10-12 month old right now (ie hanging onto people), he is extremely social and can communicate better than a lot of 2 year olds.  I am not overjoyed at his enhanced learning in these areas just as I am not concerned about the areas he is behind in.  He is learning at his own level.  He is happy, he is smart and he is showing no signs of frustration, anger or upset in the learning process.  I am fairly well versed in development (as teachers should be) so if there is a serious problem I would spot it or if there were issues that he was experiencing I would spot it.  I work with kids with special needs and I hear time and time again, I just knew that something was wrong.  I just knew in my gut.  People have got to learn to trust not only their gut when they know something is wrong but their gut when they know something is right.  So many parents are so worried about if there kid is measuring up, if they are as good or better than other people's kids.  They lose focus on if their kid is okay because they are so focused on if their kid is another kids okay.  Why is there such an emphasis on getting better, being better.  Oh yeah because people have been indoctrinated into thinking that people are only valuable when they do better than what they have done before or others have done.  And they are only valuable when they do good on one scale that all kids are compared with when there should be a hundred scales or a thousand.  Or none at all.

People lose the forest through the trees.  These things that the kids are learning are not tasks in and of themselves, they are building blocks of much larger tasks.  Instead of teaching a task and being so focused on learning the task in one specific way the focus should be on the entire task.  How is this student going to get to the larger task.  I don't care if a child learns to read with phonics, with site words, with animated alphabet.  It is the reading that is the final task.  People get caught up with, well he can't sound out a word.  Well he can sight read 1,000 words maybe he doesn't need to sound them out anymore because he can take words he knows and just put them together.  Oh but we would like him to sound out words.  Focus on the goal and realize that the smaller tasks may help lead them to the larger goal or they may not.

Kids learn, just expose them to the information and they naturally learn but people think kids have to be tested to make sure they are learning the right things in the right way in the right order in a right amount of time.  All beliefs passed to us through the school system.

According to Mel Hurtig's 1990s book, Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids, there are reasons why kids from better off families have a head start on reading and writing and overall development by as early as kindergarten. Their parents are able to afford to surround them with stimulating environments and provide them with learning experiences most kids in poor families tend not to have. It could be the difference between having access to reading and writing materials, or visiting an outdoor gardens or a zoo. For some kids their first real learning experiences don't begin until kindergarten instead of pre-school or a family vacation or whatever. It's all about life chances as Marx described and as Malcolm Gladwell tells people today.

Totally disgusting Snert.  What is with these snipes at the poor?  Chris Spence has a decent idea, why don't you critique that?

I'll go, but not before taking a quick moment to clarify:  my comment about "lazy" students had NOTHING to do with the poor, and everything to do with the overall tone of the thread I referenced, in which posters were suggesting that non-Asian students just needed to pull themselves by their bootstraps.  I'd clarify with regard to making fun of racism too, but I honestly have no idea where that's even coming from.

School...feh!

I suffered through K to 8 showing up most days to recieve an absolutely substandard education from a bunch of singularly unpleasant nuns and their badly underpaid and bitter minions.  That's where I learned to despise school.  In high school I was in 9 twice and 10 three times without ever actually passing grade 10.  By the end I was truely phobic and rarely showed up.

Got a high school equivelency in a one semester course at a community college, which qualified me for university, where I eventually graduated with reasonably respectable marks, thus demonstrating IMHO that high school was a complete waste of time.  For me education was always a pretty autodidactic process, totally unrelated to school.

I'm glad to see that you did not let school get in the way of your education oldgoat.

One of the greatest challenges of the school system is that students have very unequal educations during the first five years of their lives. The starting line is certainly staggered.

Absentia, who was speaking of abolishing public education and providing an alternative? I certainly wasn't.

I didn't mean to imply that you had.

Refuge said blow it up and start over - which has some merit, imo. And the thread title suggests something very like. But no practical alternative has been brought forward.

If we want to get into misnomers and paradoxes, I would say that a formula for free thinking is as good a contradiction in terms as there is. And it is doubly-contradictory because it assumes there is one way of learning.

There are alternative methods out there, and alternative-thinkers within the system, so I don't think it is a matter of re-inventing the whole thing . Neither do I expect though, that a person is going to learn to really think in school, and speaking personally, I probably learned more from school through its bad examples than from its good examples, which is itself a good form of education (it is certainly more memorable).

Frankly, I'd be satisfied if schools were successful in providing everyone with basic literacy and other subjects, and keeping an eye on people's social skills, and possibly having the resources on hand for those who want to do more (although we do have libraries and other places for that).

@ N. Beltov

My point was that there are progressive alternatives and ideas out there, so it is not as if we need to reinvent something new.

I understand what you are saying, and agree with part of it. But it has nothing to do with what I was talking about - except that I think there are limits to what can be provided in a school environment.

I am not sure why you implied that I might be referring to religious schools, but you are quite mistaken.

(edit)

To be clear, when I mentioned social skills I was talking about an initiative in our kids' school to promote respect and self-esteem, and deal with sexism, racism, homophobia, bullying, and other forms of violent and negative behaviour. When I was in grade school the main social skills we were taught was to line up and march into class, and that we would be struck if we didn't follow orders.

A generation before, my dad would have been forced to write with his right hand if my grandmother had not stepped in.

It is far from perfect, but I think some improvement has been made.

Actually I wasn't unhappy at all N. Beltov, and that is not properly any concern of yours, nor is it relevant to this conversation. I don't speculate on whether you have had enough coffee to drink this morning, so perhaps we should just stay on topic.

The point I was making is that school in the past was definitely a bit more authoritarian and backed up with physical force than things are today. Yes, if my grandmother had not stepped in the teacher would have done her best to beat left-handedness out of my father. And I think that although the system we have is far form perfect it has improved.

And regarding an overhaul of the whole system, I think it is more important that students leave with the ability to read and do math (something school SHOULD be able to accomplish but is not) than trying to force upon them the ability to think. That second goal is something a lot of students will get, and which some teachers do inspire. And personally, I would like for schools to foster free thought as much as possible. But you're never going to be able to enshrine it as part of the curriculum, and it doesn't do much good when the whole system is falling apart so badly that kids are leaving school unable to write.

Well clearly you can think for yourself N. Beltov, but I have to wonder how much you use your reading and comprehension skills, because that fiery condemnation and stirring call to duty had nothing whatsoever to do with anything I wrote. In fact, you are accusing me of the exact opposite of what I said.

Read my second-last sentence in #51.

Like I said, people should learn to think for themselves, and I think it would be good for schools to make that possible as much as they can. But critical thinking is certainly not something that can be forced or taught out of a book; it is something most of us have to learn from experience, and some people are most comfortable doing what they are told and NOT learning that part of education.

My point is that school is not designed to be the best place to learn free thinking - at least not as part of the standard curriculum. Plenty of it happens subversively, fortunately, and I don't think that is going to change much. But trying to standardize it isn't something that I would think would be too successful. You are always going to wind up having someone's spin on what "free thought" is.

And the fact is that the more basic job that is not being done - specifically reading and basic comprehension - is probably the most important cornerstone of free thought. If you don't have the words, how far can you get?

ElizaQ

Yes, I hear you. And I presumed we were talking more about political and social awareness rather than basic analysis, though of course one follows on the other.

As you say, the degree to which it is really taught comes down to the teacher. I was lucky enough to have one or two good ones.

And really it only takes one to make the difference.

perhaps you should read more of Paulo Freire, 6079_Smith. Critical thinking is the heart of his teaching methodologies. And he had better results, using his approach, that the orthodox "reading and writing and rithmatic" crowd had with theirs. Seems to me you're just regurgitating some old, worn out, false dichotomies.

Some links worth investigating include ...

Paulo Freire (1921-1997)

BC Teacher's Federation on Social Justice

Marxism and Education

The Little Education Report

The one above is Canadian. Rich Gibson is an American with some good links, like ...

Rich Gibson's Rouge Forum

Rich Gibson - Education for a Democratic Society

and, of course

OUR SCHOOLS, OUR SELVES associated with Rabble. ca supporter, founder ... the CCPA. Hoo-rah!

You mean like this?

Perhaps the criticism many are expressing here of the current political indoctrination of students is not so much a criticism of indoctrination, per se, but that students aren't getting the right kind of indoctrination.

Very Freirian. Or Marxian. Or both.

Freire also empowered his students or empowered them to empower themselves. It was reading and writing with a purpose. And that purpose was to change their world for the better, to become truly subjects in their own lives. This was the radical part. There were plenty of literacy projects in Brazil at the time - but Friere's success scared the Generals.

It's been a pleasure reading your analysis N.Beltov.  Thanks for sharing.  I hadn't heard of Freire before.

for RP and others who may be interested in reading more about Freire ...

Biographical Information and general comments.

Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was a Brazilian educator and founder of critical pedagogy. Freire could be described as being both a Christian and a socialist and saw no contradiction between these views.

Godonoo: Paulo Freire's philosophical stance is made up of a configuration of existential thought (i.e. humans in the process of building), phenomenological thought (humans building their consciousness as intentionality), Marxist thought (humans living in the drama of the economic conditioning of the infrastructure and the ideological conditioning of the superstructure) and Hegelian philosophy (i.e. every human, as self-consciousness, is part of the common experience, until s/he raises him/herself towards Science, through dialectics, so that what is "in itself" comes to be "in itself and for itself").

Godonoo: Freire's thinking flows from his life experiences and it is a synthesis of many strains of thought which do indeed lead him to the conclusion that education must lead to political liberation.

"In terms of actual pedagogy, Freire is best-known for his attack on what he called the "banking" concept of education, in which the student was viewed as an empty account to be filled by the teacher. He notes that, "it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads men and women to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power" (Freire, 1970, p. 77) " (Wikipedia entry)

Secondly, Freire wrote about the necessity of a deep reciprocity characterizing the teacher-student relationship. ""Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously students and teachers" (Freire, 1970, p. 72). Freire wants us to think in terms of teacher-student and student-teacher - that is, a teacher who learns and a learner who teaches - as the basic roles of classroom participation. " (Wikipedia entry) The educator must be humble enough to be inclined to relearn that which they think they already know through interaction with the learner.

Godonoo: Paulo remains a father of philosophy, whose reflections assist scholars in explaining the process of humanization which educators confront on a daily basis. Paulo Freire did this by encouraging scholars to reflect on our ontological vocation as subjects in the process of humanization. Freire reminds us of the presence of ideology in all thought and thus, the need to expose these ideologies in out, educational enterprises.

Some concepts from Freire:

Godonoo: Above all, the emphasis that Freire places on dialogue as an essential tool in his methodology and as a criterion for assessing the oppression or openness within a given political structure is evidence of the extent to which Freire esteemed inter-subjectivity.

Godonoo: The term conscientization and the attention that Freire pays to human states of consciousness have often exposed him to the charge of idealist, a dreamer who seeks to change social reality by a simple change of human consciousness. It is fair to say that reflection upon one's consciousness and group consciousness is an essential feature in Freire's thought and methodology.

Godonoo: It Is significant to stress that Freire's constant probing of human consciousness and appearances led to the discovery all over the globe of the social conditioning of consciousness and the power of thinking subjects to act on their own behalf.

From Godonoo, passim. Reflection on his experiences and education , on every job he undertook, was always linked to action and characterized Freire's entire adult life. We could say that the emphasis on reflection in the learning to become teachers is a Freirean idea. In this case the action is to become good teachers. Freire was already a good teacher. Etc.

"... the only way to ensure that you are truly free to think for yourself is to practice intellectual self-defence. The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire called this conscientização, which he defined as "learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality." "The Importance of Intellectual Self-Defence", Clay McLeod, p. 15, Social Justice Newsletter, BCTF, Winter 2009.

There are many educational institutions around the world named after Freire: at UCLA, in South Africa, Spain, Malta, Finland and, of course, in Brasil. He has been compared to the Argentinian revolutionary and doctor Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Poems were written in Freire's honour. Prosper Godonoo in a Tribute to Freire's influence on African scholars quotes the following:

Ode to Paulo Freire "This Path Less Trod"

Let it be known
That here walked a man.
Steady in gait
The world his zone.

Clear of purpose,
He trod through the fire
Gathering wisdom,
Disdaining the mire.

Let it be known
That here passed a man
Riding the storm,
Bolts in his hands;

Slaying the myths,
Laying low the veil,
Exhorting the truth,
Unhinging the nail.

Let it be known
That here came a man With
shield and sword,
Cutting through stone.

Our knight came with light,
Showing ways less hard, He
stayed the course through On
this path less trod.

General Comments:

1. We live in a society in which it is controversial to be an advocate for social justice. When we think about it, this is actually quite strange. "It may seem ironic that one has to advocate for social justice, but one cannot assume that an idea or cause will be embraced because it is just, fair, or compassionate. We as a society often put self-interest and personal gain ahead of compassion and the communal good." (Teaching for Social Justice, p. 5)
2. Freire addressed this problem head on. It was his belief that education is not neutral. "It either served to help children conform to society's norms and culture or it could "become the 'practice of freedom', the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in and transform their world." (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) " quoted in handout "Using the BCTF social justice lens to focus our work" .
3. It ought to be said, and said very clearly, that it is probably easy for a teacher to imagine that they are applying Freire's ideas when, in fact, the opposite is the case. Related to this is the mistaken idea that Freire's ideas can be reduced to methodologies that can be applied in some routine or automatic way in the classroom.

Freire's influence on current curriculum:

student involvement in the creation of their own curriculum. Freire's teachers enter into a dialogue with their students, find out what is important to them, and facilitate discussion and learning. " Friere's teachers are mirrors who reflect the students' reality rather than pedagogues who impose their own, often meaningless or irrelevant, reality on the students." Sluyter, p. 20
A Freirian-inspired video curriculum for at-risk high-school students. Describes a three-year pilot project, in a high school on a Navajo reservation, using a video curriculum based on the philosophy of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. Discusses the philosophy, development, and implementation of this curriculum. See references Squires & Inlander.

Quotations:

"Silence is the prime indicator of oppression." quoted in Teaching for Social Justice, p. 5

"Each day be open to the world, be ready to think; each day be ready not to accept what is said just because it is said, be predisposed to reread what is read; each day investigate, question, and doubt"
(Politics, p. 181).

For Freire, it was essential "to read the world before reading the word". "The question for me was how to put these two kinds of 'readings' together... Why am I hungry today? Because I don't have food. Why don't I have food? Because I don't have a job. Why can't I find a job?... Each question proposes another, and in providing different kinds of answers (the learner) begins to unveil the raison d'etre for certain kinds of phenomena." (Otchet)

"There is no text without context," he insisted repeatedly. Using "generator words" which express the learners' "actual language, their anxieties, fears, demands and dreams", Freire rooted reading in daily life, critically discussing the meaning of a word before analyzing it as a "graphic symbol". (Otchet)

Thanks N.Beltov.  Very inspiring.  I need to read that over a few more times.

Yes, a doctine of empowerment versus a doctrine of passivity, for example. It's more than ideas but also what is done with those ideas. And it is also about "whose" ideas.

If a person only understands banking concepts of education then all this may sound very alien. Freire is now very mainstream, in fact, since the technology available to young people makes the monopoly of knowledge by teachers highly doubtful. The radical and democratic heart of Freire is something that many are uncomfortable with; the idea of empowering illiterate people fills many, and not just Brazilian generals, with fear and concern. 

Too bad.

Literacy Foundations in BC, for example, can be found here. See also the pdf directly.

skhoolz=failz

emergent self learning=WIN

Its time to destroy the prussian model folks, its on borrowed time, also see this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk60sYrU2RU

PS Beltov you forgot Illich, the original deschooler

The link doesn't work for me. 

Also why are you assuming that I'm in the rabbit hole or is 'you' a general you and about generalized people in rabbit holes and not directed specifically at me.  Not annoyed or anything, just curious as to where the assumption comes from.   I find the authority comment interesting as well.  What's to say that I'm not actually one of the 'authority' figures that's been asked to come in and help change and develop some ways of actually changing the ways and whats of how education happens in the school.  :)   Part of that process though is getting an understanding of what is already expected to be taught (curriculum) and what and how it's already being taught without falling into a trap of just assuming it's this way or that way already and pushing forward with something not based in reality. 

Thanks Unionist.  I should have realized it just needed the 'l'.  

If we were working on it I would agree with you however I deal with the school system on a regular basis and they are not interested in change, not even on a small level.  I have had to fight to get even a teacher to send home the work that will be done the next day in class so that one of the kids that I work with who can learn with his tutor but can't follow the same lesson when it is taught to a group.  This would enable him to be able to learn what the other kids will learn the next day in the group, because he has been pre taught the lesson, he would start to understand how to listen in a group and then allows him to follow up with the worksheets the teacher hands out instead of being pulled away from the class to be taught again.  They finally agreed after two years two months ago and since then we received 3 sheets.

I see a definite lack of wanting to change and this is with a teacher who is great, she is enthusiastic, cares about the kids and is very experienced at teaching the masses so her kids get good grades.  Yet she can't get the support to be able to do the right thing for the one kid.

I do not want to make it private.  Just the opposite.  Some good quality private schools such as Waldorf have systems which work for every child, world wide.  Even in South Africa during the aparteid when white children and children of colour went to the same school and currently is in Israel with a similar situation.  This should be available to every child publicly funded. 

This is my problem.  Kids think, they may not learn to read, or write or do math but they do think in ANY situation and how they think is influenced by their surroundings, which for more than half of their waking hours at this point is school.  If school just taught reading and math, then I wouldn't care.  It is what they teach beyond that that is the reason I think that the school system should be bombed (and yes I did mean that metaphorically) and replaced with another system that "thinks" better.  The school system itself thinks like this - it is good to test well and bad to test poorly.  You are a good and worthwhile person in the eyes of the authority figures if you can report well back what has been reported to you and what they want to hear.  If you are good at social skills that is noted but not important A's in a classroom are much more important.  You don't have time to learn individualized things about a topic because there are 30 children who need to pick up A,B,C so you have to do extra work on top of A,B and C to be able to learn what is of interest outside of that.  These are just a few things and if you think I am talking about the student I am not, I am talking about the teacher (if you read it as the student please go back and read it as the teacher is a good and worthwhile person if etc).  This is the system and the reason that the above statements read the same for the teachers and the students is because these things are the system that they are exposed to and everyone starts to think like the system.

Ever hear the saying any man can be a father it takes a Dad to bring up a child.  Any school can teach reading and math, it takes a real education system to be a community to a child (and teachers etc).

You say some children are more comfortable doing what they are told but unless you see the alternative you are speaking only of children in the current system, go to an alternate system and see what their students who like doing what the are told are doing and thinking.  I agree with you that schools are not designed to be the best place to teach free thinking but that doesn't mean they themselves can't be an environment to foster free thinking by being free thinking themselves.  Imagine if teachers were in an environment where they were allowed to think freely and teach in a way that made sense to them (both in methodology and things like class sizes), being able to read and write would very easily follow and if it wasn't working for a kid it would be easily adapted to that child when you brought in the proper resources.

If you think a child's ability to think critically is enshrined in the literacy program I beg you to look at what is actually being promoted.  The system itself wants teachers to be able to grade such papers, true critical thinking would be pass/fail (either they did the work or they did not or if they are looking at a thesis, everything revolved around the thesis or it did not) not well this idea is better than that idea that is put across when grading is involved.  It is much easier to site and answer questions on mainstream ideas because they fit into a typical framework but if you are thinking outside the box your grade will be lower because you aren't following the grading syllabus.

Critical thinking is also hampered by introducing concepts to early promoting propaganda.  My mother was so angry they made canadian explorers  part of the province wide ciriculumn in grade one.  She said what am I going to do, say this is Jaques Cartier, he came and slaughtered the FN.  If you have thought these explorers were cool people from grade one when you get to be of the age you can understand what truly happened you will already have been indoctrinated and critical thinking will be harder.  Same goes for media.

I don't know if critical thinking skills are best taught by the school but I do know that exposing a child to a school system that is critically thinking itself rather than the one right now (that is not critically thinking/ free thinking) is more important than directly teaching it. 

In a social context (as opposed to the context of the natural sciences), determining what is "truth" is inherently a political question.

My points came about due to Sven @ #63 using Maysie's post @ #9 and taking it out of context to dispute that we're taught lies about history.  You can call that subjective all you want.  I ain't having no truck with it.

- a bit of both, I guess...

You seemed to be talking, here and earlier, about the way we are supposed to believe things work in our society - everybody doing their best, for the best good of all, etc. The high school civics course stuff. I am one of those who do not believe this idealistic type scenario - I think it is a bill of goods, actually, as we are being controlled by a wealthy elite for *their* good, not 'ours' - the struggle for some kind of real democracy was making good headway until the 60s or thereabouts, but since the neocons got serious about taking over in the 70s, we've been pushed to the edge and aren't far from going over. They can't talk about this openly, of course, so the lies about what they are doing must be maintained. Countless individuals are, of course, doing their best - but the system is designed to divert all efforts into something harmless to the neocon control of everything. The *real* point of school is not to create intelligent, aware, engaged citizens, as they tell you, that's about the last thing wouldbe feudalist lords really want, it is quite the reverse - to create citizens who can't actually think that well at all, who are quite used to the idea of going somewhere every day and doing what they are told without asking questions, who believe and obey the 'authorities' without asking any hard questions, etc. Children are taught that the way to get approval from the teacher is to do as they are told, without asking (unsolicited) questions - you have that attitude well-instilled in you during 10-15 of your most formative years, when the 'blank slate' of the new human brain is getting programmed, and it gets pretty hard to break away and actually start thinking for yourself and questioning the 'assumed' values you have absorbed during these years when you get out of school on your own. There are always exceptions, of course, and always will be, but the rulers can deal with a few misfits as long as most people are properly accepting of the way things are and do as they are expected. The discussion is long and full of caveats, of course, and many teachers are certainly good people doing their best to teach with no idea that they are part of the indoctrination of children, which is why I suggested the book, where I get into these things in some detail.

- I guess the kind of thing you were talking about is the kind of thing I expect a consultant of some sort would be asked to do, after which s/he reports back to those who hired him/her and they decide what they're going to do. I would also think that if you were one of the education-related 'authority figures', you would not need to get a first hand look at what is expected to be taught, you should know that kind of thing already ...  I always stand to be corrected, of course, no offense intended.

At the risk of being accused of 'spamming' again, I have written a book called Green Island in which I offer a fictional version of the way I think a true 'social democratic' kind of society would be organised - the main chapter where I get into some detail on education is here - Hunter River School http://www.rudemacedon.ca/greenisland/ex/gw22a.html .

absolutely agree!!!

We can't

No it isn't

No it isn't

Don't teach kids to read, teach them to question what they read

I suppose I'm being picky here ... but there's more to the late George Carlin than that and I think you know it. His genius, like the genius of many before him, was also in telling the uncomfortable truth while making the audience laugh. Shakespeare had his fools say the wisest things. Great comics like Carlin are what I'm tempted to call "masters of contradiction". Anyway, if Carlin was a teacher then he would have been a Frierian (Paulo Friere) ... of that I have no doubt. And he would have been a great teacher.

@ SJ

Or you could take exactly the opposite interpretation from that - school is a perfect place for kids to learn about oppression because it has so much power over them. 

Or more accurately - HAD. In that respect, I might say  kids aren't getting quite as good an education nowadays (at least not in our kids' school) because there is virtually none of the humiliation, intimidation, discrimination and violence nowadays that I saw on a regular basis as a kid. 

Did I enjoy it, and would I want any other child to go through it? Absolutely not, but it was an important education. 

I recognize all the dynamics you are talking about (who doesn't?) but it is far from the most important factor. Schools aren't the same from division to division or even from classroom to classroom. What you describe sounds a lot like a PInk Floyd album I heard once, but not so much like what I see in our school. 

In fact, I'd say it is far more of a problem that some administrators don't keep enough impartial order, and instead let themselves be swayed by parents who happen to get in their faces the most. Kids are not stupid, and they realize that schools only have so much power over them, and that in many cases they are going to get passed through the system no matter what they do or do not do.

And also, contrary to the notion of school as all-controlling, in reality it is a system stretched to the breaking point by underfunding, yet dealing with more students who are ESL and special needs (a very GOOD thing, but one which should be given the proper resources). About a quarter of the instructors  in our school on any given day are volunteers like myself. If there was a secret meeting to train us in how to brainwash and manipulate I must have missed the memo. 

We put our kids into the system with the understanding that we might take them out at any time. Frankly, I am keeping a much closer eye on the possibility of bullying from other students than I am on evil teachers. I am not saying bad teachers don't exist, because I know they do, but the reality is not quite as you describe it.

Hmm...

Well never mind that even in my day, we had no problem going beyond the set curriculum, even in subjects like history and literature. 

And never mind that any students who want to think for themselves (and believe it or not there are teachers who provide that inspiration) are free to go to the library or go online and take charge of their own education.

I am afraid I don't understanding what problem you have with learning reading and writing, mathematics, science, and even the rudiments of critical thinking.

Because if homeschooling is just as bad I assume it's not the requirement of keeping set hours and a certain order that you find most offensive.

And sorry, but to say that you don't like a curriculum simply  because it is set by the government is not reason enough. 

Frankly, I am glad my kids get the chance to socialize with other people who don't have the same values and approach to things as we have at home. Even more than the curriculum and the regimen, it is the best preparation I can think of for life in the real world.

The cloistered one.

I'm not saying that I don't think school should be as supportive and progressive as possible, but there is also value in being exposed to people who have different ideas, and different ways of doing things, since that is a challenge that most of us will have to learn how to deal with sooner or later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=BFa&list=FLaPBuZZTrmsCeq5_X3sNmFA&lf=plcp 

Changing Education Paradigms - Ken Robinson 

one of my many favs