Education Without Meaning

Shapiro's "Clinton and Education:  Policies Without Meaning", is about very misguided (good?) intentions.  Last week we read pieces by Finn and Kozol, who described the dangers of tracking, scripted curricula and pre-packaged lessons; before that, Bartolome and her commentary on the pitfalls of focusing on methods; and before that Delpit and johnson, who introduced us to privilege and power in society and in the classroom.  It seems to me that the common thread here is that (especially with regard to the underprivileged, non-scwaamp ers), the education system as a whole stifles creativity, suffocates critical thinking and problem solving, and prevents social mobility while preparing students to be tax-paying robots.  Shapiro writes about Clintons approach on page 46, "the most alarming feature of your approach to education is the greatly increased emphasis on the notion that public education exists to service the needs of corporate America, that education is preeminently about preparing kids for the job market."

Shapiro writes, further down on page 46, "(education) is about creating and nurturing the individual's capabilities to live critically aware, humanly sensitive, and socially responsible lives. "  And in case you think his views have changed, this is a snippit from a 2011 article titled "Educating for Peace", based on his book Educating Youth for a World Beyond Violence: Pedagogy for Peace :

"Despite our deep hopes, the Obama administration has continued on the same path for schools: one that emphasizes more testing and more competition, values only a narrow range of knowledge types, envisages teaching as mainly preparation for work and meeting corporate needs, and forgets education’s responsibility for nurturing the deeply thoughtful, spiritually sensitive, and morally concerned citizens of our future world." 

*remind me in class to tell you about a conversation I had with a superindendent regarding this issue.  I don't feel comfortable writing it in a public blog.  It really emphasizes the fact that teachers need to be "rebels".  from Rachel's Bartolome blog:

"We are suppose to teach children, ALL children. But how when the stakes are against them and the people in charge set up a system that will ensure that these students remain where they are. As teachers we will have to take over our own classrooms for these students. Is there any other way but to be a rebel?

So our job becomes a balancing act:  prepare the students for standardized tests, which will allow us to keep our jobs and look good in the newspapers, while secretly incorporating the responsiblity, morality, and relevant connections to real life that our students need. 

Segue into my election topic:  environmental stewardship.
Links:  Arctic Wildlife Refuge: Why Trash an American Treasure for a Tiny Percentage of Our Oil Needs?
and
Why Drilling in Alaska's ANWR Is a Bad Idea

My reason for choosing this topic is two-fold:  1.  there is evidence that drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge will not yield much oil:  ANWR is estimated to have 10,000 million barrels of oil--the US uses 21 million barrels per day (this would service 58 million of the 240,000,000 cars in the US (with 15 gallon gas tanks)), for 13.5 years.  The problem is, the oil pipeline --the Trans Alaska Pipeline--can only transport just over 2.1 million barrels per day.  Incidentally, this wouldn't even happen for ten years--2023-- (it would take this long for any actual oil production to occur).  And it would not make much of a difference at the pump (90% of the profit would go to the state of Alaska, leaving a  difference of mere pennies/ gallon for the rest of the country).  2.  that being said, the bigger issue --for me at least-- is that this land was set aside to be preserved for future generations.  We have a responsibility to protect some places on Earth... "wilderness" defined in the Wilderness Act (1964): “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”
my old buddy Carl Sagan said it well:  please enjoy Reflections on a Mote of Dust.

I think Shapiro would enjoy Sagan.  From the bottom of page 53 to the top of 54 he writes about his view of discipline, "discipline means acting in ways that are mindful of the needs and rights of others.  It arises from social standards and moral behavior that resist the disregard for human life shown on our streets, just as it opposes wasteful and unrestrained consumerism and the irresponsible destruction of the Earth and its resources.  Inculcating this sort of discipline requires teaching methods that contest the indifference, callousness, and self-indulgence of our individual and collective behaviors, conveying the importance of acting with regard to limits and with respect for human life (indeed, of all life)."

GK