Society and Education

Society and Education

by Justin Felux

A few months ago I graduated from La Vernia High School in south Texas. I had a GPA of about 86, and despite that being a pretty decent score, it wasn’t enough to put me in the top 50% of the class. That can be attributed to the fact that I went to a school full of suburban overachievers though. Our class valedictorian was a friend of mine, and she would always tell me how great I could have done if only I applied myself, to which I would usually reply (only somewhat facetiously), “if I spent that much time applying myself to my schoolwork, I wouldn’t have had any time to learn anything.”

I’m sad to say that school was one of the most unfulfilling things I have ever experienced in my short life. The majority of my memories from school involve things like staring at the clock waiting for the bell to ring, sighing woefully as yet another worksheet is handed to me by the teacher (even though I usually had no intention of ever doing it), and daydreaming about the girl on the other side of the classroom. It seemed wrong to me that the educational process engendered such apathy in not just me, but many students. I was inspired to do a little reading on the subject of pedagogy and education’s role in society and how the other institutions of our society affect the educational ones. I came to some rather interesting conclusions.

Before we can talk about education, we must be clear what we mean by “education”. There are two general contemporary schools of thought with regard to this question. One has its roots in the thought of the Enlightenment, and is typically adhered to by those on the left. Bertrand Russell and John Dewey have written very eloquently and definitively on the subject, and represent this standpoint. As Russell put it, the goal of education is “to give a sense of the value of things other than domination, to help create wise citizens of a free community, to encourage a combination of citizenship with liberty, individual creativeness, which means that we regard a child as a gardener regards a young tree, as something with an intrinsic nature which will develop into an admirable form given proper soil and air and light.” The opposing school of thought which is more dominant in our modern society is often referred to as “effort theory”. It states basically that the purpose of education is to prepare a child for what he or she will encounter in the real world, and typically disregards the other school of thought as quixotic or unrealistic. I will henceforth refer to the former school of thought as “liberalists” and the latter “effort theorists”.

Effort theorists believe that the interest of a child is of peripheral significance with regard to education. Life, they say, is full of uninteresting things that will inevitably have to be done. Going out of your way to capture the interest of the child and helping to allow his or her individuality and creativity to flourish all the time is counterproductive. Everything it made into play or amusement, and this sort of pandering inevitably leads to self-indulgent children who have no sense of responsibility. Children must learn to deal with cold hard facts and perform tasks regardless of whether or not they find them to be interesting or fulfilling because that is what they will have to do in real life.

To this onslaught the liberalists retort that the theory of effort contradicts itself. It is psychologically impossible to do something without any interest. The effort theorists replace one interest for another. They put the impure interest of fear of punishment or hope of future reward in place of the pure interest of the material presented. When children are forced to do an activity under authoritarian duress, it results in narrow, bigoted person who is irresponsible, self-centered, and obstinate. Indeed, when a child is forced to submit to effort theory, he or she may very well do the task at hand, but afterwards will immediately direct his or her real energies towards that which is interesting. This has been evidenced by my personal experience. My high school peers would study the information that will appear on a test very hard, and memorize it, but once they see that they got a good grade, the information they learned flies out of their head in unison with a sigh of relief, just as educational liberalism would predict. Therefore the liberalist pedagogical model is better, because it utilizes this natural tendency to achieve the desired ends, rather than chopping off the top tier of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as effort theorists would have us do.

As an interesting side note, I’d like to point out that most advocates of effort theory are modern conservatives who claim classical liberals as their ideological godfathers. It seems to me that the ideas of most classical liberals are in fact precisely in line with those of the educational liberalists. To quote David Hume, “The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds”. Also take for example, this quote from the classical liberal, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and see how closely the ideas expressed relate to those I have described of the educational liberalist:

“Whatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter in to his very being, but remains alien to his true nature. He does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness. And if a man acts in a mechanical way, reacting to external demands or instruction, rather than in ways determined by his own interests, and energies, and power, we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is.”

Effort theorists claim that the purpose of education is to prepare a children for what they will encounter in the real world. My objections don’t lie in the idea that I don’t think that education should not prepare children for what they’ll see in the world. I think that it should. I think that effort theorists presuppose a certain kind of society. More precisely, they presuppose a particular kind of economic institution, namely capitalism. I think that this is the problem. As a side note however, I would like to point out that it is not my intention to make this seem like an overly Marxist critique. I realize that there are many other important institutions in society that can affect these matters. I think that in this case though, the economic apparatus is the most important one. Francis Bacon even went so far as to refer to preconceived ideas and biases based on social relations as “idols of the marketplace”. These idols need to be torn down if we are to examine the issue at hand.

Anyhow, if you grow up in a capitalist society, you can expect to encounter a very strong division of labor later on in life. The majority of the population will be performing rote, menial, unfulfilling tasks as the whole of their job responsibilities. As economist Michael Albert puts it, “[capitalism] often needs compliance, passivity, and a willingness to obey orders and endure boredom. Thus capitalism violates education for human fulfillment and development, and capitalist schools dumb most people down.” Interestingly enough, Adam Smith, considered to be the “father of capitalism”, had similar things to say about the division of labor. He states:

“The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible to become for a human creature to become.”

Since it is my contention that the division of labor is the reason for the nature effort theory in education, I guess we can essentially say that modern conservatives have a theory of education which has the aim of making children “as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.”

Now I don’t mean to suggest that there is a vast conspiracy among capitalists to turn the majority of the population in to docile tools of production. For the most part, I think their attitudes can be attributed to a lack of enthusiasm for progressivism, and a tendency to be lazy and accept the current order of things as the best that society is capable of. However, I think there is to a certain degree a conscious effort towards dumbing-down among those in power. For example, during the 1960s, education was revolutionized along with many other aspects of our culture. Many leftist currents and ways of thinking permeated our social institutions, including those of education.

This frightened those in power who would prefer to keep the traditional order. One of the most shocking evidences of this is a Trilateral Commission report entitled The Crisis of Democracy that was partially authored by Samuel Huntington, former chairman of the Department of Government at Harvard, and a government adviser. Noam Chomsky describes the origins of the Trilateral Commission: “The Trilateral Commission was founded at the initiative of David Rockefeller in 1973. Its members are drawn from the three components of the world of capitalist democracy: the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. Among them are the heads of major corporations and banks, partners in corporate law firms, Senators, Professors of international affairs”.

The Crisis of Democracy was intended to be an internal document of the Trilateral Commission, so it gives one a unique insight into what the powerful people of the world are really thinking. Since it wasn’t meant to be viewed by the public, it isn’t watered down with the usual feigned sympathy for the masses and rhetoric. The report asserts that the 1960s resulted in an “excess of democracy” that interfered with the “governability of democracy” and that “The effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some individuals and groups.” Also, another unfortunate outcome of the 1960s is the fact that:

“The essence of the democratic surge of the 1960s was a general challenge to existing systems of authority. In one form or another this challenge manifested itself in the families, the universities, the business, public associations, politics, the government … and the military services. People no longer felt the same obligation to obey those whom they had previously considered superior to themselves in age, rank, status, expertise, character, or talents.”

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a good thing to me. It is clear though that the powerful people in today’s society have a vested interest in engendering effort theory in our educational system. It is useful in ensure that the vast majority of the population does not enter in to economic life with unreasonable expectations about the level of income and fulfillment they can expect from their jobs.

I don’t see how anyone cannot regard this as anything other than a repugnant idea. I believe that we should always be looking forward–always trying to better ourselves. A theory of education is inevitably a theory for what one believes society itself should be like. Call me quixotic, but I am with John Dewey when he says that society should consist of “free human beings associated with one another on terms of equality.” Clearly, effort theory is contrary to this aim and should be purged from our educational institutions. Education will be a key factor in social change. In fact I hope to one day make education my career. I will not pretend like I know precisely what kind of an educational theory would be best for the ideal society, but when dwelling on questions like this, one cannot help but to recall the poignant words of George W. Bush: “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?” A question to which I think the answer is a resounding, “No, they is not.”

A wonderful piece, Justin Felix.
The problem with ‘allowing’ widespread self-expression is that the tasks required to support society’s material needs are not fuliflled. Articles like this always provoke me into considering Nietzsche’s master-slave dichotomy which allows progress and excellence and also maintains the maintenance of a society’s material needs, without undermining the ‘meritocracy’.
You stated that the division of labour was the reason for the nature effort theory of education. Though my own personal interpretation of liberal philosophy emphasises the need for self-improvement, I have often felt that any way of living should be considered acceptable. A man who is a ‘docile tool of production’ should be seen by the state/society, in a moral sense, as perfectly acceptable in his choice of lifestyle. I have long felt that those in vocational education, are just as likely to be filling their ‘niche’ (according to physiology and emotional disposition) as any Joycean genuis ubermensch is. This is what I understand by the ‘equality’ you mention. The phrase, ‘equality of opportunity’ is bandied around by liberals on a regular basis, and is often seen by most pragmatic governments, as the most suitable, acceptable and efficient aim or principle to lead education policy. However, for each member of society to truly find their ‘niche’, it is necessary for any onlooker of society, be it the state, to view education and the every man’s will to power, or journey towards ‘perfection’ (see ‘A Perfect World’ - Philosophy) not primarily as a matter of pedagogy, but a matter of morality. The ambitious and curious man’s enemy, is his society’s normative code. Or in simpler terms, any act that inhibits him from becoming the person he wants to be, or reaching the perfection (in the quixotic and psychological sense) that he is capable of. (He/she/it, konechna) An immoral being precisely that, a moral act, anything else.

A problem arises when one considers what conditions within a capitalist society have allowed it to progress, in science and in culture (ads apart!). Those conditions are, the free-flow of information, and intellectual competition. The latter demands inequality, and one man’s postering above his inferior as its vehicle to promote innovation, progress and art… Even the great Oscar Wilde admitted in letters to his dear ‘Bosie’ that ‘my pose of arrogance, is not the stylistic symbol of my aesthetic philosophy, but actually a constant outward reminder of my genius spewed out to hoi polloi with the satisfaction of the very action itself’.
There are two ways of looking at individuals’ within society. There is the positive way, as with JF’s piece on the theory of education, or Wilde’s ‘soul of man under socialism’, where abolishing private property has the effect of ‘freeing man from the sordid neccesity of living for others’ and allowing him to realise his true perfection, to do as Jesus recommended, to ‘Know Thyself’. In a ‘replace’ tricolon, Wilde even follows ‘replacing Capitalism with Socialism’ with ‘co-operation with competition’. How odd that seems! Then there is the negative way, as with Hegel or even Francis Fukuyama, who both looked at mans’ ‘struggle for recognition’ as the source of all conflict. What this dividing line seems to highlight, is that when one speaks of education, and a difference between an effort theory and a more liberal theory, the line being crossed is actually that between the individual and the society. With individuals’ under authoritarian duress or individuals’ free to pursue ‘themselves’, freedom guarenteed in a society with a ‘living standard’ will inevitably see many people ‘set’, fall into the safe trap of mechano-life and self-apathy, something that should be and is, in the eyes of the state or otherwise, perfectly acceptable.[/i]

An excellent essay (though I’d think about dropping the stuff on the tri-collateral commision). I loved:

What you call ‘effort learning’, I would call the rote memorization technique, and, yes, I prefer Dewey’s liberal theory of education. However, I think it’s a false dichotomy between ‘facts’ and ‘creativity’ that drives much of the current debate on education. Somewhere along the line, educators, politicians, parents, and above all students seem to have forgotten that education should be about creating, motivating a love of learning for it’s own sake – this is what makes people creative, this is what makes people more valuable to society. Facts can’t do this for, as you correctly point out, students become excellent test takers but they don’t learn anything. Focusing on creativity doesn’t do any better if students aren’t at the same time understanding that creativity is only possible against a backdrop tradition. You really can’t create something from nothing. :smiley: The result from both policies is ironically the same, silence.

I sometimes like to express it this way: there is no such thing as education, there is really no such thing as teaching, there is only learning. A teacher insomuch as he or she is a teacher must have a passion for learning and for the subject at hand for without that, how does one motivate someone to do something you yourself don’t want to do?

I agree entirely with your main point Brad. Can you clarify the point you made below? What do you mean by a ‘backdrop tradition’?

ps- Apologies for my previous post. Having just re-read it, I recommend passing it by.

I just meant that in any particular subject or field, there is a history of people pursuing that subject. An emphasis on self-creativty or self-expression ignores models for ourselves in an attempt to get something for nothing. In mathematics, the point is to learn the formula and to plug it in to a problem rather than focusing on the historical development of mathematics and trying to understand why these men (mostly men) pursued mathematics with such passion. It’s ahistorical, repetitive, and misses the whole point, I think, of seeing the beauty in mathematics.

In literature, while it is historical, there’s also an emphasis on personal interpretation, on writing the critical essay, rather than on understanding why other people find literature fascinating. What is it about literature that is interesting is such a given in high school English classes that we forget there is a reason we teach these specific books and not others.

Two points:

  1. Instead of seeing teachers as givers of knowledge, we should see them as salesman, attempting to attract new students to their perspective fields. Most students, I suspect, are bored because the teacher either says or assumes, “You need to know this,” but the question, “Why?” is never answered. A truly liberal education would also teach the passion of these subjects for their own sake, a truly liberal education would answer that ‘why’ with the excitement and thrill of experiencing this aspect of humanity.

  2. We should also be teaching what we don’t know so that students can see themselves as possible contributors to the tradition, not simply absorbers and not simply self-developers in a vacuum.

My opinions are pretty strong here for obvious reasons. I’m a teacher. :laughing:

Brad