WHO GETS TO ADVANCE?

How do Americans view equality?  This question was previously addressed in this blog.  It expressed the opinion that in the history of the US, there have been five different views or orientations relating to equality.  The five are:  genetic elitism, earned elitism, equal condition, regulated condition, and equal result.  This posting takes a closer look at earned elitism.

          Here is what this blog reported earlier on this orientation:

Unfortunately, for the sake of democracy, the ideal of elitism, perhaps under a different guise, was not seen to be so disagreeable …  The orientation that was most prominently supported was earned elitism.   This orientation promotes what Thomas Jefferson called a natural aristocracy and [had] a lot of scholarly support, either as a good way to run a society or as a condition that is simply inevitable.  This is not to say that that support [was] free from challenge. 

People who espouse earned elitism believe that individuals who enjoy superior human assets (generally talents or skills deemed beneficial) do so because of their efforts and hard work.  Some are naturally disposed to exert the necessary effort to become more talented and those talents should be allowed and encouraged to emerge.  If this takes place, they will naturally be recognized by their fellow citizens.  Their superiority generally entitles them to above normal consideration in society in the form of status, wealth, material possessions, etc. This might and usually does, if allowed to materialize, include political privileges. This general entitlement is not based on those “gifted” purchasing the advantages, but instead owed them because of their superior, acknowledged position in society.  The central belief of this orientation is that societies are run by the elites, and that's simply the way things are.[1]

Mentioned in this quote is Thomas Jefferson.  In a previous posting, cited evidence, to support that this was Jefferson’s view, is the compilation of letters Jefferson and John Adams maintained during their lives.[2] 

          This blog has also argued that a number of the nation’s founding fathers supported public schools.  Schooling at the time of the founding was a hodgepodge of various efforts, but there was no public-school system.  It is safe to say, most Americans received little to no formal education.  But, among the founding fathers, various arguments were advanced for the establishment of public schooling.  One of these founders was Jefferson.

          Here, this writer wants to share another source – that of an expert – regarding Jefferson’s ideas on education – a topic highly related to the elitism-equality issue.  One would be justified to see Jefferson’s concern as not a total commitment to advancing equality – perhaps it is a highly reserved or limited view of equality.  Garry Wills, in his book regarding Jefferson’s thinking and motivations in writing the Declaration of Independence as he did, shares Jefferson’s view on public education.  This view adds a bit of substance to this founder’s earned elitism beliefs.

          Here is Wills’ account of Jefferson’s educational ideas:

It is often remarked that Jefferson advocated universal education.  But the characteristic touch in his proposal was the use of a mathematical progression of students through a sieve of equal units.  He wanted the State of Virginia to “lay off every county into small districts of five or six miles square, called hundreds” … Each “hundred” was to offer every child a three-year course of publicly supported education in reading, writing, and arithmetic.  From each hundred the one best student still needing public support was to advance to a grammar school (one for every five hundreds) to learn Greek, Latin, geography, and higher mathematics.  After one or two years in grammar school, the “best genius” in each class was to be granted a further education of six years “and the residue dismissed.”  The crop of the children has now been reduced to “twenty of the best geniuses raked from the rubbish annually.”  At the end of six years, this class was to be halved again, only its top part going on to college.  The system, he claimed, had the merit of “turning out ten annually of superior genius” and another ten, of the second rank, who would not go to college but receive a good education nonetheless.  Meanwhile, the “rubbish” would at least have been introduced to reading and writing.[3]

Understandably, Wills proceeds to critique this plan. 

If instituted, it would introduce a tremendously competitive system and, with “representative” advancement, the inevitable denial of students, who do better in one district than others from other districts, not being chosen for advancement.  This and other possibilities – and wrong-headed assumptions about the nature of learning – would lead to serious unfairness.

          But the overall concern here is that such an educational plan would bring to light the beliefs of an earned elitism orientation.  As reported earlier, they are:

1.     Some people develop highly sophisticated talents and society should hold these people up to higher standards than the rest.  At best this takes on a paternalistic sense of obligation to those not so advantaged.

2.     Those in society who show higher levels of developed talent should be considered exceptional and given more privileges in employment, material rewards, respect, and political position.

3.     When considering which people will advance in the workplace, the number one element to look for is those who have worked hard to develop exceptional talents.

4.     Those who have sacrificed to become geniuses or otherwise talented people should not be judged by the same ethical standards as the rest … they operate under a different morality.  For example, society should expect more meaningful contributions from these citizens and, if not attained, that failure should be judged a moral shortcoming.  On the other hand, minor infractions of moral codes, those particularly associated with personal habits and social interactions, should be considered less seriously than would be the case in dealing with others.

5.     People who have not worked hard to develop their abilities should be discouraged from having or even seeking influence.[4]

For all of their shortcomings, one can see these beliefs under-girding Jefferson’s educational plan.

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[1] “A Qualified Belief in Inequality,” January 29, 2016, accessed May 3, 2018, http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-qualified-belief-in-inequality.html.

[2] Lester J. Cappon (editor), The Adams-Jefferson Letters:  The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (Chapel Hill, NC:  The University of North Carolina Press, 1959).  Specifically look at letter from Jefferson to Adams, October 28, 1813, pages 387-392.

[3] Garry Wills, Inventing America:  Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (New York, NY:  Vintage Books, 1978/2018), 147.  (emphasis in original)

[4] “A Qualified Belief in Inequality,” January 29, 2016.

FOUR DIMENSIONS

This posting continues this blog’s review of a National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication, identified here as the C3 Framework.[1]  That publication is the result of social studies educators developing standards that can be utilized with the Common Core standards.  In turn, the Common Core Standards project is one in which the US Department of Education is attempting to upgrade the educational efforts of America’s schools.

Specifically, the social studies standards are to be suggested to state education officials as content components to the English/Language Arts standards – a “backdoor” entry for social studies influence to be felt through the Common Core venue.  The reader is invited to look at the last three posting for a description of this effort.

          This posting will look at the structural format this NCSS publication employs.  Actually, the structure is quite elaborate and a bit extensive for a thorough review here.  Suffice it to point out that the structure is mostly organized around a set of dimensions.  These dimensions are treated as extension of an overall organizing concept: “Inquiry Arc.”  As stated in an earlier posting, social studies educators have opted to focus on an instructional approach – one that is seen as antagonistic to the instructional approach most social studies teachers utilize.

          Since the sixties – more formally – and earlier, reformers of this subject area have riled against the didactic approaches those teachers use.  That would be mostly lecturing and perhaps using demonstrations.  Instead, these reformers argued that social studies teachers should have students engage in active research over “tantalizing” questions.  An example question, lifted from the C3 Framework, is: “Was the American Revolution a revolution?”  That is, was the American War for Independence a real transformative event or merely a shift in who had political power?

          With such a question, students in some form will hypothesize, gather information, test any hypotheses, form a conclusion, and apply the conclusion.  At least that was the process promoted initially by the New Social Studies during the sixties and seventies.  Since then, there have been other instructional models along these lines, but the general thrust has been this active research role for students to analyze the content they are studying.

          This writer is partial to this general approach, but he believes it is not for everyone.  He has known successful teachers that simply do not feel comfortable with using inquiry style instruction.  Yet, and this is seen as essential to successful teaching, these teachers have been able to get their students to reflect on the material these teachers present them. 

That is, they did not rely on students merely memorizing the material but thinking about it.  That could include analyzing, questioning, evaluating, etc.  Students do this on their own but are motivated to do so by the way these teachers present the content.  They were able to tantalize their students by their presentations.

But the NCSS publication is committed to “insisting” inquiry be “the way” by which to teach social studies.  That policy decision addresses the sequence of social studies subjects; how about the scope of those subjects?  That is, what should the content of social studies be?  In terms of this publication, scope cannot escape the Inquiry Arc. 

Here is how the C3 Framework couches the content:  “The Inquiry Arc highlights the structure of and rationale for the organization of the Framework’s four Dimensions. The Arc focuses on the nature of inquiry in general and the pursuit of knowledge through questions in particular.”[2]  The content concerns – as indirectly as the publication presents them – is through these Four Dimensions.

The four dimensions are:  1) Developing questions and planning inquiries; 2) Applying disciplinary tools and concepts; 3) Evaluating sources and using evidence; and 4) Communicating conclusions and taking action.  One can readily discern the “Inquiry Arc” having its influence throughout the substantive content of these standards.  The bias is clearly favoring the sequence, as opposed to the scope, of social studies.

The one dimension that attempts to address content most directly is dimension #2:  applying disciplinary tools and concepts.  The subjects or disciplines highlighted in this document are civics (interestingly listed first), economics, geography, and history (interestingly listed last).  There is also material (appendixes) addressing other social studies subjects:  psychology, sociology, and anthropology.[3]  But in terms of the first four subjects – civics, economics, geography, and history – the introduction of their treatment is telling.

That is, under a section of the publication which begins with an inquiry:  “What does liberty look like?:  Compelling questions through disciplinary lenses,” the judgement here is the developers betray their central view of governance and politics.  That view is the natural rights construct.  Hence, it is not critical theory and it is not – more importantly to this blog – federation theory.

More specifically, here are the identified, overall “compelling questions” the publication cites:  in terms of civics the compelling question is “what is the line between liberty and responsibility?”  In terms of economics it is “does more liberty mean more prosperity?”  In terms of geography it is “how does liberty change from place to place?” And in terms of history it is “when did Americans gain their liberty?”

Not to claim the following is the ideal set of questions, they can be considered if federation theory was the main guide in determining content.  They are:  for civics, what is the line between duties and obligations and those of liberty?; for economics, can prosperity be attained without duties and responsibilities being met?; for geography, “do duties and responsibilities vary from place to place?; and for history, how has American sense of duties and responsibilities evolved during the years of its existence? 

These latter set of questions project a whole different tone to the effort.  In terms of the hypothesis this review of the publication has been applying – that the effort falls safely within the guidance of the natural rights perspective – the evidence is it is holding up.  That means that to this point of the review, the publication content indicates that, one, it does not rely on a substantive sense of what the common good is (or good citizenship in a substantive way) and, two, relies on instructional concerns as opposed to content concerns.

This review of the NCSS publication will not, in the future, be in consecutive postings.  This writer will visit this topic from time to time in the future.  A motivator to revisit this topic will be if the writer comes across material that counters the indicated hypothesis or if parts of the publication indicates useful instructional or substantive ideas that would assist civics instruction.

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[1] National Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and Civic Life (Washington, D. C.:  NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.

[2] Ibid., 12.

[3] As stated earlier in this review – several postings ago – it is done in real time.  The writer has not read those appendixes yet.