We are becoming products. Students
are being put on shelves with computers and calculators. It wasn’t always this
way-- over the last hundred years our country’s education system has grown out
of our fierce hold on capitalism and industrialization. The problem of our one-
track system, in which students are utilized for one aspect of their mind, is
slowly but surely being put in the spotlight. The issue is the ubiquitous
nature of our system. The philosophy of consumerism, of going to school with
the purpose of getting a good job, is so ingrained in everything we do that to
break away from the paradigm would be to ostracize yourself. Students should learn for the purpose of
learning, for their own betterment, not for some all-encompassing term like the
economy. Our education system, the product of industrialization, is annulling
creativity and commodifying students; this process of feeding the capitalist
beast is both debilitating to our students and our democracy as a whole.
True
knowledge can be defined as the set of complex and ever-changing relationships
one develops with the world around them; it is not as Paulo Freire satirically illustrates,
a process in which “students become receptacles” (Freire). Students should not
be filled with information and then asked to regurgitate it all for the purpose
of paying for the same thing in college. Today, there is no differentiation
between students--from the school’s point of view student are a bank slate, all
given the same information and all given the same test. That test then dictates
how they contribute to the economy and its never-ending growth. This is an
over-simplification of the way things work, but it sums up the general idea. Sir
Ken Robinson of the United Kingdom and an advocate for education reform words
it best by saying,
“We have to go from what is
essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is
based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a
model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize
that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it's an organic process.
And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a
farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.
(TED).
We cannot hope to
continue rewiring children to fit the needs of our market economy. What’s more,
our country will not sustain itself if this continues. Without the creative
thought or the diversity of talent, no community can flourish, much less a
country. Our education system needs to raise creative, unique individuals that
can act as mediums through which change will occur. Instead, America clings to
the old model of educational conformity in which students are fed to the angry
monster of the “economy” so our country can stay afloat for a few more years.
The fallacy of the education system is a microcosm of the larger issue in
America. But it is also the root of the issue because it is through this system
of conformist education that individuals with the same backwards mindset are
brought up. Rather than learning how to learn and gaining real life knowledge,
students are imbued with essentially useless information.
When the outline of our broken
system is made clear, it’s easy to see the effects it has and will have on our
society as a whole. The philosophies that make an ideal democracy great are in
direct opposition to our schooling. The values of a true democratic society
should be empathy, and self-critical thinking. We are undermining our democracy
by educating students for the economy rather than the society. This mindset
takes its toll everywhere in our country including North Carolina. The
governor, Patrick McCrory has recently announced his stance against holistic
education. On a radio show he brazenly took a stance on the issue saying “I just instructed my staff yesterday to go
ahead and develop legislation – which would change the basic formula in how
education money is given out to our universities and our community colleges…It's
not based on butts in seats but on how many of those butts can get jobs"
(McCory Interview) This is the most obvious as well as the most recent example
of the capitalistic approach to education. McCrory doesn’t want productive
well-rounded intelligent members of society he wants butts in chairs at jobs.
He even had the audacity to take another jab at liberal arts education by
saying "If you want to take gender studies that's fine, go to a private
school and take it, but I don't want to subsidize that if that's not going to
get someone a job" (McCrory Interview). The first thing that tips the
reader off was his critique of the liberal arts; McCrory himself attended a
liberal arts college. But to come out and say that Gender Studies as a class
isn’t useful is incredibly arrogant and ignorant. He is claiming that only
certain majors are useful to society. What’s more, McCrory is under the impression
that gender studies and other uniquely liberal arts majors won’t get anyone a
job. To assume that no one useful to the workforce majors in gender studies is
another gross generalization embraced by the Governor. He has no way of knowing
what the students of these majors will end up doing but still postulates that
they won’t be useful. However, McCrory is just the tip of the iceberg;
everywhere we see budgets slimming and cutbacks occurring for the type of
education that should be embraced. The market-based influence that swallows
every aspect of American life needs to be slowed, even stopped, for real
education to thrive on a public level. There are schools that educate
holistically and parents that choose to home school, but to make a
comprehensive and well-rounded education available for all would require
overhaul.
John Dewey in his book,
Democracy and Education, uses his
experience in the world of academia to show the common man how to go about
their schooling. Many of his ideas still resonate today as our system
flounders. He was one of the first to realize that students have been
objectified: “Too
rarely is the individual teacher so free from the dictation of authoritative
supervisor, textbook on methods, prescribed course of study, that he can let
his mind come to close quarters with the pupil’s mind and the subject matter”
(Dewey). What Dewey is getting it is that the relationship of the teacher and
student has been mutilated. Ideally, we
could revamp the American way of life to support an education that produces
democratic and open-minded citizens. Not democratic on the political spectrum,
rather democratic in the sense of being able to make smart decisions on
important issues and being well informed. In this way, America has long since
lost its ways of true democracy. The Utopian democracy is about looking out for
the oppressed and your fellow man, no looking out for number one as we do. But in a system such as ours, governed by
the capitalistic hegemony that has dominated America since the 1920s, such an
idea seems impossible.
There is hope, most students today have been
lucky enough to have at least one or two teachers who will engage their pupils
and form a relationship based on mutual open mindedness and respect. The hole
we must dig ourselves out of is deep, but until we rid ourselves of an
education system that commodifies students by killing their creative powers in
preparation to contribute to the all-important economy, then our country will
never truly thrive.
Works Cited
1.
McCrory,
Patrick. Interview by Bill Bennet. Www.newsobserver.com. N.p., 29 Jan.
2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2013<http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/01/29/2641893/mccrorys-call-to-revamp-higher.html>.
2.
TED:
Ideas worth Spreading.
Perf. Sir Ken Robinson. TED: Ideas worth Spreading. N.p., June 2006.
Web. 27 Feb. 2013.
3.
Freire,
Paulo. "Chapter 2." Pedagogy of the Oppressed. [New York]:
Herder and Herder, 1970. N. pag. Print.
4. Dewey,
John. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of
Education. New York: Macmillan, 1916. Print
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