Over the last
few months, this blog has reviewed and compared the content of two mental
constructs: the natural rights construct
and the critical theory construct. These
views and their points of disagreement constitute what professional academics
in the field of curriculum studies debate.
Actually, academics generally ascribe to the critical theory side
of the debate and, on the other side, there are few academics, the educational
establishment of administrators and officials as well as administrators within
school districts.
Perhaps, in this blog, the language used to describe critical
theory was a bit more positive than the language used to describe natural
rights. The reader should remember that
this construct has been readily dismissed by the great majority of Americans,
irrespective of Bernie Sanders’ popularity during the 2016 election cycle. It was determined, therefore, that a positive
tone be taken in describing and explaining its tenets. The reader, though, should not be misled;
this writer is quite critical of critical theory.
A short anecdote gets at the very heart of what he sees as lacking
with Marxian based models. This anecdote
refers to a situation that existed within the writer’s family. Two of his family members lived in a
condominium in Miami. He would visit
often and was well acquainted with the inner workings of the household.
One of his relatives, a leftist thinking person, spouted often
about the imminent demise of capitalism.
He is a patriotic person and does not promote violent overthrow of the
system or anything close to that. But he
did see current political and economic conditions as fundamentally bankrupt and
headed for inevitable doom. He is a
bright enough fellow, college educated, and has had his share of tough times.
The apartment was not extravagant although the monthly maintenance
fees were a bit high due to a swimming pool located within the complex. These fees included the shared water costs of
the entire complex. There were no
individual meters to measure water consumption, so everyone shared equally in
paying the water bill for the building.
The apartment these relatives lived in had two bathrooms, one
being part of the master suite. A
significant leak developed in the bathtub of the master bathroom, resulting in
quite a few gallons of water being wasted per day. When asked whether anything had been done
about the leak, the reply was always no.
This was the case for months. It
wasn't until the leak escalated and flooded the apartment that the issue was
fixed. And this writer said to his
leftist relative, “That's why socialism won't work.”
It doesn't work because it lacks assigning personal responsibility
for the upkeep, maintenance, and/or economic development of assets. When something becomes everyone's
responsibility, it becomes no one's responsibility. Personal accountability is essential in any
realistic model of the human condition.
Paying the costs, be they labor, money, or the care needed to account
for the wear and tear of something held dear, is hard to bear.
With this backdrop, what are the problems with critical
theory? What is not the problem is the
sincerity of those advocating this view, but it otherwise has serious
problems. To begin with, generations of
Americans have overwhelmingly rejected socialist thinking with some exceptions
(e. g., Social Security). There is
evidence that there is something to respecting the wisdom of so many.[1]
Yes, a lot of that indifference, if not out and out disregard, has
been fueled by a well-orchestrated propaganda effort by the business community
aimed at anything approaching socialist policies. While our nation has implemented socialist
type programs, the nation can be viewed as right of center along the political spectrum
and, as such, tends to reject socialist approaches to problems.
Throughout most of its history, the existence of a viable middle
class has given most Americans a vested interest in the existing system. Yet, the almost total rejection of this construct
as it applies to civics and curricular issues, in general, should say something
about how, to most Americans, the theory lacks any sense. As one of its chief advocates writes about
the effect of critical pedagogy, “it has never been a major theme in social
education.”[2]
While all this is seen to be true, one can still garner from
critical theorists and pedagogues’ insights into the oppressive conditions from
which the disadvantaged suffer. This is
no small contribution. But in terms of
providing a guiding view for how schools should practically go about educating
our youth, this construct is a non-starter.
Among its problems is a lack of a singular message. Critical pedagogy, for example, has a loose
and, to some degree, contradictory foundation.
While the approach is influenced by the Marxian discourse of class
struggle, its post structural/postmodern roots theoretically attack such
mega-theories as Marxism.
Cleo H. Cherryholmes
writes:
Critical pedagogy is a
vague and ambiguous term. … [C]ritical pedagogy has referred to curriculum
theory's “reconceptualist” movement …
This movement has never been unified and continues to defy easy
description.[3]
With such a diverse foundation, advocates have found it impossible
to zero in on concrete curricular and instructional strategies. They are, for the most part, constrained to
making opaque theoretical arguments or reporting how prevailing conditions
warrant our ire at the oppressive conditions that exist.
In terms of making their case about the oppressive conditions they
perceive, they pursue several approaches.
For example, they might limit themselves to reciting statistics and
descriptive accounts which document the mal-distribution of economic values in
our society. These accounts are analyzed
according to race, gender, ethnicity, age and other categories, proving that
certain groups are marginalized; these groups are castigated, in prevailing
discourses, as “others.”[4]
This critique could also add other issues. For example, this approach to civics tends to
be a single-issue approach and disregards other areas of concern such as the
degradation of the environment. Another
shortcoming is this approach’s disregard for the attempts that the American nation
has made to meet the needs of both the laboring class and the disadvantaged. One can argue that America is still a place
where someone with modest beginnings can make something of him/herself.
This latter point reflects problems with how exploitation is
defined by critical theorists. Perhaps a
better definition, other than what is offered by Galtung (in the previous
posting), is as follows: an oppressive
society is one in which acts denying reasonable liberty or equality occur and
the victimized party(ies) have no political, legal, economic or other means,
short of violence, to effectively fight against the offensive condition(s). While this has been the case against certain
groups in the past, it is not the US today.
A lot more can be said about both critical theory and natural
rights construct. Hopefully, the reader
can gather the essence of what divides these educators. But beyond that, the above reviews attempt to
highlight what each of these constructs lacks in fulfilling its function to
guide civics educators on what should be included in terms of governmental and
political content. The lack is so
pronounced that another way or view should be considered. This blog is dedicated to another view.
[1] James
Surowiecki, The Wisdom of
Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than
the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economics. Societies, and
Nations (New York, NY: Doubleday,
2004).
[2] Cleo H. Cherryholmes, “Critical
Pedagogy and Social Education,” Handbook
on Teaching Social Issues: NCSS Bulletin
93, eds. Ronald W. Evans and David Warren Saxe (Washington, DC: National Council of the Social Studies,
1996), 75-80, 75.
[3] Ibid., 75.
[4] Donna M. Gollnick and Phillip C.
Chinn, Multicultural Education in a
Pluralistic Society (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, 1998) AND Michael
Apple, Cultural Politics and Education
(New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 1996).
