HOW DYSFUNCTIONAL?

We have an election coming up.  Oh, you noticed.  Chances are, and I might be projecting here, you can’t wait for it to be over.  I am a political junkie and I want it to be over.  Somehow, this time around, we seem to be talking about something other than what we have grown accustomed to.

I, in this blog, called Donald Trump a “black swan.”  This was not, at the time, a derogatory term; it just referred to the fact that Trump and what he promised to represent was on no one’s radar.  He was an “unknown, unknown,” at least as a presidential candidate.

          But here we are with less than a month to go and the unfolding of events has become more and more bizarre.  At first, the bizarreness was amusing; not so much anymore.  Things have become ugly.  My personal exposure to this has been what I see on social media such as Facebook and television media.

I understand the level of “unfriending” is up significantly.  People can’t just disagree politically and leave it at that.  It has gotten to the point that one sees those with whom one disagrees as less likeable or even less human.  In my case, if I were to be of such a mind, that would include family members.  This can’t be healthy.

          And what happens after the election?  Does the bipolar nature of our politics become even more so?  Will it become even more impossible for us to congregate in order to hatch out public policy?  It seems that will happen.  To the extent it is already the case, one can determine that it is probably the chief reason the Trump phenomenon occurred in the first place.

          Our political parties, one in particular, has opted for the position that it will not compromise with the other.  Ironically, that particular party boasts that it defends the original intent of our founding fathers.  And yet central to the system our founding fathers left us is one that depends on congregating, collaborating, and compromising (the three c’s).  And it is that party, for political purposes, that has refused to even be seen as compromising, much less doing it.

          But this reflects these politicians’ political situations with their constituents.  Due to the Tea Party and others, any politician who appears soft on the issues these voters think are important is subject to being ousted by a primary challenger, one who promises he/she will not compromise.  The term, “primaried” has been coined to describe the process.  So they “cannot” compromise since their number one objective is to politically survive the next election.

          What is the result?  If one is talking about Congress being unable to arrive at policy decisions, the political system becomes dysfunctional.  By the way, such a reality is a policy in itself, one of inaction.  The problem is that that policy is not what is intended or satisfying anyone.

Early in this blog, I referenced the work of Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr.[1]  They introduced a theory that described the sort of actions a political system had to accomplish in order to remain healthy and even survive.  The theory is given the name, structural-functionalism, and the things that have to be done are known as functions.  One of the functions the theory identifies is rule making and another is interest aggregation.

          When Congress does not pass laws that are perceived as needed by the electorate – or worse, an issue is not addressed, e. g., job losses due to foreign competition or non-enforcement of trade agreements – the system is not fulfilling the rule making function.  And when a portion of the electorate refuses to compromise, the interest aggregation function is also short-changed.

Here are two basic functions not being fulfilled and, a la Almond and Powell, the system seems to be in serious trouble.  This, according to the theory, can eventually lead to the system collapsing and ceasing to exist.  We’re not there yet, but does the outlook indicate healthier times ahead?  I’m afraid not.  Whoever wins, his or her party, it seems, will have to win all organs of government – the presidency and both chambers of Congress – in order to get things done.

Is it time to give up on our founding fathers’ plan and shift to another one, perhaps a parliamentary system?  If so, I, for one, would be heartbroken.  The entire federalist model, one that grew through our colonial times and was refined through the centuries – is it finally at an end?  “Say it ain’t so.” 

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[1] Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr., Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach, (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1966).

A CHALLENGED SETTING

One area of concern relating to change is how national or local educational reform should be.  Since the 1980s, there has been a series of reports by various organizations.  The general gist of these reports has been to cast light on the deficiencies plaguing the nation’s schools.  A message many have taken from these revelations is that the way we are doing things in schools should change.  And one of those changes, perhaps, should be taking a more national approach to education.

What seems to be spurring these concerns are international testing results that continuously find American students not doing as well as students in other countries – countries that, by the way, generally have national educational systems with national curricula.

Of course in the US, we have over fifty educational systems, one for each state and then the territories and the District of Columbia.  The national government’s answer to this state of affairs is to have a core, national curriculum issued by the Federal Department of Education with states having the option to adopt it or ignore it.

Even this more modest level of nationalizing our educational effort has not been without controversy – one can hear the cries that Washington[1] is trying to interfere with a local matter.  It should be pointed out that education is not a delegated power of the central government and therefore, it is a reserved power of the states.  Yet given the degree to which the economy has globalized, there is a certain amount of pressure to nationalize the nation’s school system.

But this has not happened, and given the amount of antagonism any suggestion to nationalize engenders, this is not apt to happen soon.  It would call for a constitutional amendment and that is very difficult to accomplish.  Yet the problem remains.  American students still perform comparatively poorly. 

For quite a few postings, this writer has been reviewing a list of psychological and sociological issues that have an effect on education.  There are fields of study dedicated to these issues and, of course, these postings have been cursory at best.  This posting will be the last of such efforts.

It is dedicated to reviewing some of the general concerns these aforementioned national reports have brought forward as a way to familiarize the general reader as to what the major concerns facing our schools are.

This listing is highlighted by Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins,[2] whose work this blog has repeatedly relied on for much of the information it has brought forth regarding these related issues.  These general findings have been taken from a list of twelve reports; the two most widely noted are A Nation at Risk  and the No Child Left Behind Act.

Both of these reports were issued during conservative presidential administrations (the first, Reagan’s and the second was during George W. Bush’s time in office).  As such, they are both considered conservative documents.  Ironically, while both base their concerns on poor comparative results, they, especially the second, support local efforts and downplay the need to “nationalize” education. 

The second of these two reports is also noted for recommendations of choice and charter schools, suggestions that many see as efforts to dismantle the public school system.[3]  They also are seen as being directed against government efforts, such as in the case of public schools.  The ideological case is that private enterprise works best in providing any consumer service, and education is no exception.

Before beginning the list of issues, this writer wants to point out that he is not taking a position on any of these concerns.  He is just informing the reader that these particular issues are out there and are generating interest and advocacy either one way or the other.  If one were to attempt change in the nation’s schools, he/she would be well served to know what concerns are important to educators.

The first issue is that school curricula are drifting away from requirements that were stable fare some thirty or so years ago.  This writer sees this as evidence of what he has contended often in this blog: that over the last sixty years or so, the nation opted for the natural rights construct as its dominant view of governance and politics.

One can say a shift toward electives in schools is a way the individual can tailor his/her education to reflect personal preferences and life choices.  Instead of a core set of courses that was academic, such as foreign language, mathematics, science, English, and history, there is a slew of electives and remedial courses being offered, at least until recently. 

The experience of the writer is that while electives have been introduced, most school systems have retained four core course requirements for most years of study.  They include math, science, language arts, and social studies.  He prefers social studies to be listed first, but it usually isn’t.

Actually, in more recent years, in an attempt to address this softening, state policy has called for more testing.  Test preparation has become more prevalent and this has cut into the number of electives.  This has led to wide scale instructional plans that call for teachers teaching to the tests.  This has led to shallow, un-reflected content and teachers not being able to delve into meaningful lessons, especially on material not covered by the tests.

The second issue is grade inflation and less homework.  Grade inflation is the general trend toward handing out higher grades for proficiency levels that in the past earned lower grades.  It seems that every time a young person is mentioned in the media for doing something untoward, he/she is identified as an honor student.  The fact is that that designation is more readily handed out, at least compared to past years.

The third issue is the continued progression downward of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores up to the last reported scores in 2014.[4]  For example, the scores in verbal skills dropped about 40 points between 1963 and 1988 and 20 points in mathematics.

The fourth issue is the continuing poor performance of American students compared to students of other industrial countries.  For example, in the 1970s, they ranked last among these countries on nineteen academic tests.  The comparisons have not improved much in the ensuing years.

The fifth issue is that over 20 million Americans test to be functionally illiterate.

The sixth issue is that among the 17-year old population in the US, 13% tested illiterate and those percentages jump significantly for minority students.

The seventh issue is that between the Armed Forces and colleges and universities, millions of dollars are being spent each year to provide remedial courses in basic literacy and math courses.

And the eighth issue is that all these poor indicators cannot be attributed to short-changing the nation’s students in terms of expenditures.  Compared to other countries, the US has low student-teacher ratios and the per student expenditures are second only to Switzerland’s.  More money doesn’t seem to be the answer.

These then are the dominant issues that one must deal with or, at least, be aware of if one wants to delve into instituting change at the school site.  Much of what this writer has provided in this blog tends to point to a sense that what ails American schools is not subject to “silver bullet” solutions.  The sources of these and other problems are varied.

What is needed is a holistic approach that addresses many factors and that many of those factors are cultural in nature.  If that is true, reforming education will be a slow process.  But what this writer would suggest is that that process be done with a commitment for public education.

He fears that many of the proposed solutions have a hidden agenda.  He agrees with Diane Ravitch that the efforts seem to be geared toward undermining the viability of public schools and that, in the long term, will be a de-democratization of the nation’s schools and of its governance and politics.

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[1] Of course, our national capital was named for the “father” of our country and first president.  The way the city is disparaged, one wonders if the designation is an honor or not.

[2] Allan Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins, Curriculum:  Foundations, Principles, and Issues, (Boston, MA:  Allyn and Bacon, 2004).

[3] Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System:  How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, (New York, NY:  Basic Books, 2010).

[4] “Fast Facts,” National Center for Education Statistics, accessed October 11, 2016, https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=171 .

BOOM

How does an institution such as education that is conservative by nature survive, much less thrive, in a social reality noted for enormous change?  There is little evidence of it thriving today.  There are pockets of dynamic and interesting developments and innovations but, by all accounts, this common enough institution is suffering from a general lack of successes.

We all generally feel we know this place called school; it’s an institution we deal with for a number of years during our lives – as students and parents of students.  But how well do we know these places?    If you ask the typical person why we have schools, he/she would probably respond that schools are the places we learn things, where we acquire knowledge.

  Yet knowledge is not a stagnant entity; as a matter of fact, we are in the midst of an explosion of knowledge.  There are two areas of concern where this explosion is being palpably felt:  in the fields of technology and of social relations.

          The first of these fields is readily seen.  Warren L. Ziegler makes a few observations on the pace of technological change:  the language of mathematics has added more developments to its arsenal of expressions in the last hundred years than were developed in all of history before 1900; it is anticipated that about half of what we teach engineers today will be passé in ten years, and half of what we teach students today will be no longer truthful or otherwise useful by the time they are in their forties or fifties.[1]  That is a quick turn around and reflects how much new knowledge is being produced.

          Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins attribute a great deal of this explosion to something called “branching.”[2]  That is, specialties are being subdivided and creating areas of study at a greater pace, and within each subspecialty, there are very bright people advancing what is known in ever greater specificity. 

Of course, this causes certain concerns.  One, the more obvious is how do we as a society, generally, and education, more specifically, deal with this increase not only overall, but in such variety?  And two, how do we assist in informing people about developments across various fields?  How do scientists, engineers, and other experts keep up with developments in other branches, much less in other disciplines, that have bearing on their work or interests?  This is daunting in itself.

Now consider what that means to education that is charged with introducing people to those various fields.  One would think that central to such introductions is giving the neophyte a good sense in which direction a particular discipline is headed.  And yet with so much branching, is there a direction?

Curriculum workers, therefore, have the challenge to select meaningfully and viably the knowledge they will include in any given field and determine how they should organize that knowledge, both in what is new and what is not so new.  The disciplines are dynamic entities.

And yet, in the midst of all this change in the one basic “commodity” that education peddles, knowledge, how does it sustain essential areas of knowledge that education must not forget, especially public school education?  It has been argued in this blog – and it is still believed – that the primary responsibility of schools is to prepare young people to be good citizens.

Given that, how do schools maintain a focus on that charge?  Any change agent must hold on and honor that basic responsibility.  And it is in this more socially oriented realm that we are experiencing the second source of great change:  the social dimension and how schooling is expressed politically.

Schools are not the traditional comfort zones they used to be.  From dealing with diversity to the handling of “inconvenient truths” such as global warming and what we now know about race, the beginnings of life, what actually happened historically in our past, all of this is part of the “boom” in knowledge.

And this could prove to be the most challenging aspect of schools as a change target for change agents.  It is in this political environment that he/she will attempt to introduce even newer ideas, goals, functions, and processes.  And yet, given the paucity of successes alluded to above, can we afford not to attempt change?  Given the effort here, one can surmise that the answer being proposed is no.  Hopefully, the reader agrees.

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[1] Warren L. Ziegler, Social and Technological Developments, rev. ed., (Syracuse, NY:  Syracuse University Press, 1981).

[2] Allan Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins, Curriculum:  Foundations, Principles, and Issues, (Boston, MA:  Allyn and Bacon, 2004).

P S

Would you judge a person by the size of his/her pancreas?  Silly question?  Then why do so many of us judge others by the color of their skin – just as silly.  If you were to determine what the size of each person’s pancreas was and then categorize them according to size, say three sized categories – small, medium, and large – and then correlate the sizes to other factors such as crime figures, attendance in college, Nobel prizes, etc., for each correlation one of the sized categories would correlate the highest and one would be the lowest.

Is there a cause and effect relationship among those correlations or are they just happenstance occurrences?  Most of us would say they are happenstance.  But suppose for some weird reason(s), people began believing that there was a cause and effect relationship and began treating the negatively or positively affected group in some unusual way. Would that treatment enhance the belief or assuage it?  It would probably enhance it.

So the belief is not one based on biological factors – the genetic factor(s) that cause people to have the size pancreas they have – but the social construct (the shared, made up belief) that says pancreas size (PS) leads to the behaviors one sees and with which one must deal.

          Yes, all of this is silly.  But it reflects a serious problem.  For example, the most glaring example is the historical treatment of African-Americans.  That treatment has led to the conditions that exist today, not the biological factors that cause the different shades of skin color we see.  Here, there is a people who were taken against their will from their homes and enslaved.  Then there were generations upon generations of people enslaved and deemed to be inferior in every way possible.

Upon liberation from slavery, they were subjected to horrendous social conditions and messages that continued the negative stereotypes.  And yet those people today can claim, beyond all the negative treatment, advancement.  Most African-Americans live middle class lives, just like the rest of us.  This is due to their diligence, hard work, and continued hope that things would/will get better.

          One such person made it to the highest office in the land.  But this negative social construct persists and among some, the effects can still be seen in promoting the counterproductive behaviors – on both sides of the racial divide – that further the negativity.  In a shorthand way, this brief piece is an attempt to describe what is meant by saying that race is a social construct, a social construct educators have the responsibility to set straight.

AGAIN

“Making America great again” is a slogan that has been bandied about during this political year – it’s a rallying call for one of the major candidates.  The key term, I believe, is “again.”  Now innocently, one can say that the reference could mean that what is sought is the return to the industrial past that marked the economy in the pre-seventies years.  Since about the 1970s, the economy has shifted from a more industrial base to a more service base. 

Industrial facilities used to provide employment to many lower educated, mostly male workers.  Industrial corporations, in search of cheaper labor, have moved many of their production facilities abroad.  This includes opening factories in Mexico and in Asian countries. Of course, the result is that many of the former areas where such jobs were plentiful are now areas of abandoned factories and there are many displaced workers.

So “again” could refer to reversing this trend by some policy or other that either punishes these corporations for moving or provides rewards if they return.  I would guess that such policy or policies would rely heavily on some taxing scheme such as tariffs or exit taxes (one can question the constitutionality of this) or maybe the imposition of some regulation scheme – the details are skimpy.

Finally, there are currency manipulation policies – an option employed extensively by the Chinese – that if implemented here, would encourage more sales of American made products.  But with all the complaining, the US is still a leading industrial power – accounting for about 17% of the world’s production (China, number one, is about 22%).[1]

          Or “again” could be less economic and more social.  Given the added rhetoric of walls and the general antagonistic talk about criminal immigrants and the like, one cannot help thinking the reference is more an anti-diversity message.  In one ad, the idea is that everything we value is under attack.  And here, I suppose, the overall image that is being created could be a “let’s get back to the 1950s,” to a time when only one type of folk was in charge.

I’m not sure this anti-diversity theme is the message, but who is to say?  Definitely not the campaign, where such details seem to be beyond their purview.  Then again, this can all be rhetoric with little intent to follow through.  But is it?

          What one can say is that the issue of diversity is real and it affects many of our institutions, including education.  It’s the type of issue that directly relates to civics education and also an issue that would affect any attempt to transform education or any part of it – it’s that pervasive.

          I have recently pointed out that many of the concerns related to curricular change revolve around arguments that take on an either/or form.  Diversity is no exception.  There is the approach that talks of diversity in terms of assimilation – the melting pot notion that the history of America has seen a steady stream of immigrants, mostly from European countries.  By the time their children or grandchildren (at the latest) come of age, they have converted themselves from whatever the previous nationality or ethnicity was to being “Americans;” that is, a white citizen occupying a middle class or working class position (perhaps holding one of those industrial jobs mentioned above) and enjoying a relatively safe and prosperous existence.  All is well or so the image is portrayed.

          But all of this assumes certain social realities.  For one, it assumes a particular family and all of its members are willing to meld.  And readers of this blog well know that under the regime of natural rights thinking, we are all told and encouraged to be our own selves and that includes what life style we choose to follow. 

One “good” thing about the natural rights perspective is that it broke the chains of cultural homogeny.  You want to be Hispanic, then be Hispanic.  You want to be black, then be black.  You want to be Asian (such as Chinese), then be Chinese, and so on.  These choices reflect rights and those rights only call on the individual to respect others exercising the same right and proclivity.

          Now multiply that with other preferences of choice such as sexual or gender orientation or the various forms of family structures.  The nation’s institutional, social assumptions and arrangements are in serious upheaval and this is disturbing to many more traditional folks.  A political upstart can capitalize on such disorientation especially if that message is coupled with “solutions” for the loss of industrial jobs and promising a return, again, to the more comfortable, the more knowable.

So, if there is an either/or element to all of this, it is that the nation has to decide which way to go.  Will it be, at least, tolerant of diversity (if not embracing of it) or will it attempt to turn back the clock to a previous time – to go back again to a more homogeneous time, a simpler time?  This writer believes this is impossible, no matter how certain segments of the population wish it to be.

The next several postings will assume the answer is that we as a nation want to proceed to a more accepting and diverse future, to be more inclusive; that choice, while challenging, is more in line with our espoused values of openness and inclusiveness. 

Yes, we do have the authority to guard our borders, but there is so much hypocrisy regarding how we have enforced immigration laws that it is difficult to be too high and mighty about the illegals who are here. 

After all, here was a cheap labor supply willing to do work that Americans are not willing to do.  The results have been higher profits for businesses, such as farms and hotels, and a way to keep prices for food and hotel rooms low.  In addition, by keeping them illegal, they are much less likely to complain about anything.

How should we look at this issue of diversity?  Elsewhere, I suggest something called “centered pluralism,” where we as a nation accept the principle that all Americans agree on certain values such as tolerance of diverse lifestyles and beyond that, let people be themselves.[2]  That doesn’t mean certain values can’t be encouraged such as equality and responsible liberty, but people are allowed to be themselves.

Even at that level of agreement, it will probably call on certain perspectives to be drastically changed; intolerance or undemocratic values being the norm in many areas of the world are often brought over by immigrants from those areas.  And then, we have enough homegrown intolerance and undemocratic values right here. 

So, the challenge will be meaningful, but diversity provides many advantages to a people and we have already been able to cash in on many of them.  The following postings will be about change and how change should account for and even promote diversity.

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[1] Marc Levinson, “U.S. Manufacturing in International Perspective,” Congressional Research Service, April 26, 2016, accessed September 30, 2016, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf .

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “A Case for Centered Pluralism,” Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue 5, no. 1 (2003):  71-82. 

NOT SO FAST

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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[1] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast, and Slow, (New York, NY:  Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011).

[2] Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins, Curriculum:  Foundations, Principles, and Issues, (Boston, MA:  Allyn and Bacon, 2004), p. 117.

MOSTLY, STEADY AS IT GOES

This blog has presented a somewhat contradictory message.  On the one hand, it has reported that education is a conservative institution and yet it has also reported that one of its core subjects, social studies (particularly civics education) went through a transformational change in the late forties/early fifties.  That is, it shifted from a curriculum led by traditional federalism to one guided by the natural rights construct.

This had, in my estimation, profound effects on how our schools taught government and politics.  It changed from one that emphasized the problems we faced as a democracy to a much more structural-functional approach.  The concern became to teach students the overall structure of government as an institution, created to meet and solve or ameliorate those desires expressed by citizens.  That expression is funneled through institutionalized competitive processes using established means and structures – interest groups, lobbyists, political parties. 

While this is transformational, this blog has deemed the change as unwelcome.  Why?  Because certain consequences have been derived and they are seen as not good.  One, the change has taken out a lot of the government being “of and by the people” and has left only the “for the people” attribute in place.  In other words, the change has helped institutionalize a segregated cleavage between the citizen and its government. 

Two, it has encouraged a systems view of government which seriously encourages an objectified perspective of government and politics.  Or stated another way, it has taken a lot of the humanness out of the study of politics.  Politics in this form becomes reductionist and forces become factors or variables as when measuring voting and non-voting, legitimacy or lack of legitimacy, surpluses or deficits; that is, things that can be measured, not understood and appreciated.

And three, in doing so, value questions are short-changed.  Despite several attempts at introducing values education into the study of civics, they have not been successful.  The reason is that they, in an attempt to be value neutral, have not been totally truthful in containing political biases.  As such, those who have implemented such efforts, mostly unintentionally, have engaged in subtle political messaging. 

This is unavoidable, but the proper thing to do is be forthright and provide a thoughtful rationale for what is being presented.  For these and other reasons, the change of the last fifty to sixty years needs another transformation.  This blog is dedicated to proposing and justifying such a change.  To be blunt, it is the position of this blog that American schools should adopt a liberated federalist approach to the study of civics and government.

          But in this, the change described in civics education and social studies is the exception – at least that I am aware of – and the rest of education is pretty much unchanged.  Oh, as compared to about a century or so ago, chalk boards were introduced to be later changed to white boards and to computer imagery being able to be projected for the class to see.  Computers have made a difference; hopefully, teachers are more apt to assign inquiry styled lessons since students have a virtual library at their fingertips.  But as for basic lesson structure and attitudes and norms, schools are the same.

          Of course, the nation’s project at desegregating schools has been an enormous effort.  In some cases, desegregation has led to integration, but given the racial tensions that have boiled over this summer, not enough.  But our efforts continue and our efforts have resulted in many more African-Americans filling prominent positions in our economy – things do seem to be getting better.

          Beyond these areas, Americans seem satisfied with their schools; at least, there is no concerted effort to change them.  Oh, they wish the schools were more successful in teaching, but they seem very pleased that schools mirror their biases in terms of profound value orientations.  And again, this blog has reported what they are.  Along with the above change in civics, a natural rights bias has Americans augmenting their belief in an ideology of growth, achievement, success, and individualism.[1]

          These general aims translate into more specific goals:  individual accomplishment, competition, and coming out on top.  Some – I would say most – Americans see this as advancing the interests not only of the individual student, but also of the community and nation.  This is the assumption derived from Adam Smith economics. 

History has not, in the overall, disproved such a notion; these capitalist values have proven very successful in leading to untold riches.  But the riches have been punctuated by dire economic collapses – see:  2008 collapse or the Great Depression of the 1930s.  On the other hand, even in times of success, there is the social consequence in which certain unsavory qualities seem to emerge.

Currently, and this blog has documented, high levels of narcissism, selfishness, incivility, and even criminality seem to characterize American social order.  One can attribute these qualities to these very biases American education promotes; it at least can be said to enable them.  My next posting will review – again – the main answer that the educational establishment has offered as an alternative, critical theory.

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[1] Allan Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins, Curriculum:  Foundations, Principles, and Issues, (Boston, MA:  Allyn and Bacon, 2004).