I like Michael Walzer's reference to fourth and fifth and more ways in the recent issue of Dissent. There are more
ways to be in and to view the world than are often expressed in these discussions. The challenge is for everyone to
become more imaginative. Left wing ideologiues are often no more imaginative than their right wing antagonists.
Of course there are wonderful, courageous, and bright teachers and of course their are good schools and of course it
is easy to get on the bandwagon displacing uncertainties and discontents onto the education system when it is
really the turbulence within and among all the systems that "interdepend" with the schools that is the rub. And, it is
precisely in this environment that we can be challenged to rethink how schooling is arranged. Instead of railing
against the Right start considering new opportunities.
I don't have the answer, and there are multiple possibilities. The US body politic is learning to live with the
possibilities of global telecommunications (anathema to many, I realize) within the context of values or concepts
such as separation of church and state, belief in the appropriateness of distance between commerce and education
(linkages between them from several theoretical perspectives withstanding), and the habits of one public system,
to which David Tyack referred in his book "The One Best System." Why only one public system? What about
collaboratives, what about teachers as independent teams working with cohorts of 12 to 20 students for several
years off and on campus? Why schooling in a classroom? Why must teachers lose their seniority and retirement
vestments if they change districts? Wringing hands about fears of inequity does not cut it.
Fears of wasting minds (of teachers and students) should motivate us to at least see our ideologies for the
belief systems they are and begin to play outside the boxes.
And, let us not assume that all or even most new visions of schooling come from greedy capitalists
or right wing groupies.
Molly Freeman
Ken Goodman wrote:
> Sparks? This message is an example where contempt for teachers
> overwhelms reason. Schools and teachers are simply baby sitters?
>
> Molly Freeman wrote:
> >
> > Eugene and responsa:
> >
> > I can lurk no longer. Consider the following and note the source:
> >
> > "Piaget was skeptical of schooling's development-enhancing properties. He argued
> > that the asymmetrical power
> > relations of teacher and student created an imbalance because the pressure to
> > accommodate to teachers' views
> > far outweighed the pressure for assimilation of instruction to the child's
> > already existing schemas. The result
> > was learning of a superficial kind that was unlikely to create fundamental
> > cognitive change. He believed that
> > fundamental change was more likely to occur in informal actions where the
> > asymmetry of power relations was
> > reduced, allowing for a more equal balance between assimilation and
> > accommodation." p. 87, Michael Cole. 1996.
> > Cultural Psychology.
> >
> > Commitment to increasing options for the poor and not-so-poor does not have to
> > bind us to a "one system solution."
> Show me an example in history where there has been any attempt to
> provide education for the poor and not so poor without s well supported
> system of public education.
>
> > Is schooling as we have known it in these United States necessary for anything
> > but watching children while their
> > parents are at work? Isn't this the bottom line?
> How low can you get in this totally unsupported attack on everything
> that has been accomplished in 100 years of education in this country and
> the world?
>
> If we begin there, the field is
> > open to all sorts of alternatives beyond
> > the Fordist model that some of us seem so intent on preserving. The fervor for
> > preserving the public system as it is
> > now configured is very much akin to a "belief" system.Beginning by saying that public education is nothing results in this logic in saying that anything is better than nothing. Neither statement has any logi or basis.
> >
> > The public system has many teachers who have lost their own voice and who are
> > very averse to taking risks.
> And it has many teachers who have found their voices and are taking
> great risks- with the right raising the ante all the time.
>
> In this
> > way the public school system is not so different from the military.
> More blatant prejudice! Is Congress smuggling pet education projects
> into the budget? THere is no resemblance between education and the
> military.
>
> Accordingly,
> > these teachers (and sad to say the
> > bargaining agencies) are now regressive. Substitute "imaginative," "risk
> > taking," and "dedicated" for "entrepreneurial"
> > and you might envision some interesting options to the one public school system,
> > most current variations withstanding.
> >
> Critical theory suggest that we look for who would profit from proposals
> for reform. Privatizing education will profit business interests in two
> ways: They will make profits from private entrepreneurial schools and
> they will pay less taxes to support education thereby producing more
> docile and non-competitive unskilled workers.
>
> Ken Goodman
>
> > Awaiting sparks to fly.
> > M Freeman
>
> > Eugene Matusov wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Diane and everybody--
> > >
> > > I agree with Diane that the question of what are schools for and what is
> > > education for are very important questions and should be answered before
> > > public/private schools.
> > >
> > > On the side of history, I think we should be a bit more critical about
> > > celebrating compulsory mass education and eliminating illiteracy. I was
> > > lucky enough to be raised (in part) by my print-illiterate grandma to
> > > appreciate oral literacy (that I and generations after me are robbed from).
> > > Greek poet Homer was not able to read and write. I think it is not
> > > overgeneralization that mass print literacy killed mass oral literacy to
> > > very high extend. IMF schools are (deliberately) responsible for destroying
> > > many traditional societies. Also schooled print literacy is a very peculiar
> > > as we know...
> > >
> > > I do not believe that current schools (both public and private) are THE
> > > pathways to our society. But under current policies, it is very difficult
> > > to try anything else. However, current schools establish very good
> > > discipline regime of reproduction. David Tyack and Larry Cuban (1995, p.
> > > 85) point out, "The basic grammar of schooling... has remained remarkably
> > > stable over the decades." Majority schools (both public and private) are
> > > nothing more than prison of minimum security for kids (although it is
> > > getting more security every year specially for urban schools). Viva
> > > schools -- no more child labor but ass abuse! Cynically speaking we should
> > > combine together money for schools and for prisons in one budget.
> > >
> > > What do you think?
> > >
> > > Eugene
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Diane HODGES [mailto:dchodges@interchange.ubc.ca]
> > > > Sent: Thursday, May 13, 1999 11:48 PM
> > > > To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> > > > Subject: Re: Campaign Against Public Schools
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > At 8:04 5/14/99, MDLedoux who-is-at aol.com wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >If we are attempting to strengthen school culture and build upon
> > > > the cultural
> > > > >strengths of individuals, shouldn't there be support of attempts
> > > > at schooling
> > > > >that enhances these areas of learning?
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > what i am not hearing in this discussion are notions of
> > > > epistemology or the cultivation of critical social conscience or
> > > > any kind of "what is education for?" ideas beyond the
> > > >
> > > > acceptance of "school" as cultural - and "school" is certainly
> > > > the problematic manifestation of "education" - so what
> > > >
> > > > are other cultural manifestations of education and its relations
> > > > to knowledge and conscience? that is, if the issue is about "schools" as
> > > > failed institutions, then private/public domains are not
> > > >
> > > > the issue; but rather what is education for? is the question, isn't it?
> > > > diane
> > > >
> > > > """"""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""
> > > > When she walks,
> > > > the revolution's coming.
> > > > In her hips, there's revolution.
> > > > When she talks, I hear revolution.
> > > > In her kiss, I taste the revolution.
> > > > (poem by Kathleen Hanna: Riot Grrl)
> > > > ******************************************
> > > > diane celia hodges
> > > > university of british columbia
> > > > centre for the study of curriculum and knowledge
> > > > vancouver, british columbia, canada
> > > >
>
> --
> Kenneth S. Goodman, Professor, Language, Reading & Culture
> 504 College of Education, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
> fax 520 7456895 phone 520 6217868
>
> These are mean times- and in the mean time
> We need to Learn to Live Under Water