This posting was advertised as being another look at critical
theory – that’s what I indicated in the last posting. And that’s true and not so true. This posting is more about why education is
not so susceptible to change. In a previous
posting, the fact that education, by its very nature, is a conservative
institution was brought up. That is
true, but there are other factors at work.
This posting will comment on the
following: the nature of the argument by
those who are demanding not only change, not only transformational change, but
revolutionary change (this is the critical theory part); the inability to
convert knowledge about learning into effective instructional planning and the
organic nature of schools – which is related to the idea of education being a conservative
institution.
When one looks
at the field of education, one could ask: is there any portion of that professional
population seeking change? Yes, there
is. And that is our friends, those
arguing for the critical theory perspective.
I will not again go over their basic argument, but I will comment on
their style. They want a total overturn
of society, a socialist revolution, albeit peaceful, that will, in their
estimation, institute an egalitarian result.
And what, in their eyes, is the role
of education? The role is to spearhead
such a development by leading the effort to change how people see the economic
and political structures, processes, and functionality of how the society is
run. Their rhetoric is dynamic – see the
effect Bernie Sanders had in the 2016 presidential race – but it reflects an
agenda devoid of practical strategies, at least in education.
Part of the message is that education
has to dismiss this business of a competitive format, mentioned in the last
posting, that is geared toward the individual ambitions of students and their
parents. These pedagogues believe that working
against the common good is this assumption that everyone being exclusively
concerned with number one is promoting the common good. Of course, that is a central tenet of
capitalism.
Instead, they argue that everyone
striving to land on top leads to only a few being on top and that, in turn,
causes the conditions that lead to eventual economic collapse. This blog is in agreement with this portion
of their argument, but it falls short of buying into the critical rhetoric. For one thing, this writer has cautioned
against arguments that promote radical solutions.
It has been
pointed out that this type of “I’m totally right” and “you’re totally wrong”
lends itself to an either/or form of thinking and argumentation. We humans tend to think that way. Unfortunately, or fortunately, reality is not
so simple. Most of reality consists of
matters of degree. Most of one’s
understandings, therefore, in order to be effective, need to be nuanced.
But that clashes against one’s
intuitive sense and when it comes to thinking, most people tend to rely on the
effortless – lazy – option of relying on their intuition.[1]
Reporting on all
of this, Allan Ornstein and Francis Hunkins make a pitch for reflective
approaches that can find the right balance between striving to fulfill a
student’s dreams and a way to impart in that student his/her legitimate
responsibilities and duties to the entire community and nation. Hopefully, the reader of this blog judges the
efforts expressed in its postings attempting to do what Ornstein and Hunkins
suggests.
In terms of
instruction, little has changed in approximately fifty or sixty years and this
is in no way reflects efforts to implement change. In that interim, psychologists, for example,
have developed powerful insights into how the mind acquires knowledge. Among their efforts has been the
psychological approach known as constructivism.
A few postings ago, I provided a
description of this approach. Here, let
me quote Ornstein and Hunkins with this short descriptive passage: “Meaning is imposed on the world by those who
reflect, those who think about the world.
Meaning does not exist in the world independent of us. It is we who structure the world, as we
construct reality so as to comprehend it.”[2] Intuitively, this approach to learning is
quite different from receiving established knowledge and “banking” the information
in one’s memory. It seems to lend itself
to instruction that has students go about reflectively entertaining information
and constructing its meaning and importance.
This is done against the existing
understandings a student brings to the learning episode. In other words, learning “should” be open
ended in which materials are presented to students; they think about them and
formulate conclusions on what the material is about and its importance.
Yet, despite
this promising turn, teachers go on engaging in direct instruction, the type
that simply presents material for student consumption. Again, is this a matter of an either/or
choice or is it a matter of finding a way to incorporate what seems so
promising but, to date, has not been converted into newer teaching strategies,
at least not widespread teaching strategies?
I am not going to propose a solution,
but I will suggest something my experience tells me is true. The basic goal should not be a particular
teaching style or instructional approach, but should be for students to reflect
on what it is they are to learn. Without
reflection, there is no true learning; that is, he/she needs to think about
what is being taught and how that reflection happens can take on many different
forms.
Further, teaching is a personal
matter. The idea that one can change how
a teacher feels comfortable in front of a class is a misplaced idea. What would help is a principal hiring those
teachers who agree with a certain style so that the students of a school are
exposed to consistency. This very notion
deserves more space and explanation than what I am providing here.
But to provide principals that
ability would require drastic changes in how school districts are run – perhaps
efforts along those lines could prove advantageous. Short of that, teachers who use direct
instruction should be encouraged to broaden their aims and be trained in
incremental change.
That would call on teachers to bring
in materials that express diverse opinions a bit, in small doses. They can gear their direct instruction to
point out how any knowledge has been the product of practitioners arguing over
what is best, be it literature, sciences, mathematics, technology, and the
rest. Perhaps their direct instruction,
while introducing their students to such a fact, can further encourage them to
engage in those discussions as observers or participants.
And the last
area of obstruction to change is the very human quality that schools
possess. They are compilations of humans
in differing roles, backgrounds, personal challenges, ambitions and hopes. That grouping inherits the traditions that
schools have formulated through the years.
The place, that is, has its own culture with its own established values,
mores, norms, and ways of doing things.
As such, it is inherently resistant to change.
And so it should be, for only through
these qualities does the place exhibit its integrity and its reason for
being. It is just a condition of
organizational life that proposed change has to deal with these factors. It is the position of this blog that such an
environment is best served with a federalist disposition among its members. If so, those entities that make up its people
could elevate it from an organization to an association – a federated whole.
Those are the
conditions that lead to things remaining as they are; at least, a portion of
the things obstructing efforts at change.
The sociological stew of education can be so conceptualized. In writing this, it is not to state that that’s
all there is. There are the issues of
diversity, race, class, gender, and sexual orientation still to review. Schools are complex places.
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