Education's EcologyWhy Teaching, Textbooks, Testing & Technology are Not Enough.Chapter II Don't let schooling interfere with your education. Mark Twain Schoolism & Schoolists Schoolism and Schoolists are emerging terms that cry out for definition and explanation. In this chapter we'll attempt to do that while treating both terms is a way unique from other uses. My intention is somewhat nefarious because, in my view, the terms are intended to be pejorative but with the value of poking into a system for education that has definitely seen much better days and is in somewhat urgent need of replacement. We'll be looking at myths and dogma that surround our very concepts of schools and schooling. We’ll will be directed toward a look at the history of education and how schools have been developed to meet social needs that by and large no longer exist in a world that faces far greater challenges than could have been foreseen as little as 30 years ago. Yet we have embedded and franchised schools with a plethora of social considerations that are monumental. These include social equity, critical race theory, poverty, technology leadership, and economic development as well as workforce development to mention a few. One place to start is the ancien regime of the trivium and quadrivium. We'll follow with a section on the enlightenment that was fostered by the technology of Gutenberg and the protest of Martin Luther and others who saw a new future for humans even while adhering to the authoritarian past. John Dewey and Horace Mann as well as James Bryant Conant saw an emerging America but from different perspectives while all were influenced by Eastern elite universities as the agriculture age gave way to industrialization of America. Today we are confronted by a system of schooling that is increasingly recognized as incompatible with much of contemporary American life. What I hope to tell you in this chapter is why I realized: that schools are deeply engaged with all but the commercial-industrial (including financial) sectors of society; that schools are a distinct system that is kept separated from other societal systems by a mindset that resembles any dogmatic social system; that the ideals and principles of education as a system of schooling cannot or will not respond to delicate and important social issues; that there are almost no people attached to education that have malicious motives; that there are negative forces unrecognized by the rank and file of educators; and it is possible to recognize and clearly label the roles of makers and shakers in education. I'll begin with the process of naming, which will open windows that will admit fresh air for education and, I believe, ultimately enable a new framework for education to emerge. As a new paradigm emerges, schools will begin to disappear and the process of disappearing will accelerate. Conspicuous drivers and stabilizers permeate education. Almost every institution of society is implicated in the processes that sustain the schooling model of education. The tip of the spear is administration at all levels from top to bottom. It is time to begin an in-depth study of all so-called leadership entries in colleges of education across America. Educational Leadership is a widely recognized specialty focused on preparation of principal's and superintendents of our school systems. These named leaders perpetuate our pervasive systems of schooling. For the most part, these leaders are individuals with credentials from advanced degree programs offering options for Masters and Doctoral degrees. A search of the ERICDatabase from the Institute for Education Science, will reveal a plethora of what these leaders are studying and writing. While it is possible to pursue degrees in educational leadership at many of the top American universities, there are now a host of doctorate level programs at former teacher's colleges (now “universities”) that aspire to some, often legitimate, training in research. Unfortunately this research is laden with a framework or paradigm that is based on schooling for education. School is clearly the dominant form of delivery of education. Accordingly, those we call schoolists could also be called educationists. However, not all schoolists are educationists, and we can certainly realize that not all educationsits are schoolists. I count myself as an educationist but exclude myself as an unabashed supporter of schools. While alternatives are evident to some observers, they represent a minuscule slice of the education pie. Home-based or family oriented education, mostly labeled homeschooling, dominates alternatives. An “Unschool” alternative is making inroads across the country following the successful demonstration by the Sudbury Valley operation in Massachusetts. Montessori and Waldorf are still called schools but depart from the traditional framework of public schools with significantly newer shapes to their philosophical undercarriages. One could and should entertain questions about why these philosophical differences have been so infrequently used in public school systems. The public schools are not the result of great philosophical breakthroughs, although the followers of John Dewey and perhaps also Horace Mann, are candidates for consideration of philosophical breakthroughs. While greatly appreciating some of the writing of Dewey, I won't attempt to climb aboard his wagon. It was important for the beginning of the twentieth century but cannot be usefully equated to the circumstances prevailing in contemporary America. That is not to say that everything he wrote should be dismissed. His emphasis on active engagement may actually be more relevant today, but, of course, in a hugely different context of a highly urbanized nation. Dewey, Mann and James Bryant Conant as well as the acolytes of Andrew Carnegie created a popular and penetrating interest politically and economically in public support for schools. The country was changing from an agrarian base to an industrial base. This change was not subtle or comfortable. Through the early 20th Century farming was being mechanized and the need for child labor was much less important than it had been. The one-room country schools still followed schedules dictated by agriculture as well as the ethnic islands scattered across rural America. Summer was too hot for sitting in a poorly ventilated school room and there was plenty of work to be done around the farmstead for both boys and girls. Planting and harvest time was unique to rural regions and when fields were dry enough, school was suspended to plant crops using a lot of hand labor. When plants matured for harvest, schools were closed to provide needed labor. The growing industrial centers of America and Europe also required a workforce but its cycles were different. Mechanical skills were prized and farm kids often came to the city with a penchant for mechanical things if not the precise skill set needed. At least the kids of the farms were well oriented to the routines of physical labor. Dewey recognized the changes afoot in America and began to build schools to adapt to change. These changes impacted education profoundly. The result has been described as an industrialization of schools. These industrialized schools became a model and method or mechanism for shifting of critical social functions to schools. The result was a new paradigm of schooling for education. The result of the shift was a profound development across multiple levels of a social movement that I prefer to call schoolism. Centering education on and in schools has a long history. The assumption is that it is OK to take a group of children of a suitable age and readiness and put them into a situation where they are introduced to basic foundations for getting along in a world that currently seems to exist and is imagined to exist at some future, but vaguely defined, point in time. In other words adults determine what is “good” for the future of children. This is, of course, a role, but not an exclusive role, for parents, custodians or guardians of children. Those who give birth to a child are widely regarded as the “owners” of the child, conferring on parents what is essentially property rights; my child. Preparing a child for the future becomes mixed with many elements that sully the interests of the child in favor of elements that are mostly not in the child's immediate interest. For instance, a parent may believe that religious indoctrination (instruction?) is in the child's best interest. This may be advanced for the parent by a religious leader, who invokes metaphysical nonsense persuasively and encourages the parent to provide direct support at home for the creed, preaching and tenets of the church. The church's interest comes before the child's interest. Similarly, a child may be used for labor in and around the homestead. This may be accompanied by abusive enforcement that is pronounced confidently to be good for the child. Religious leaders in a community may have considerable suasion with parents. The religious leaders are most typically, but not always, deeply steeped (indoctrinated, educated?) in the major practices and traditions of a particular religion; following the teaching of elders and immersed in personal interpretations of the accepted written religious documents as well as the predominant stories supporting the views of a church, synagogue or mosque. The leaders take on a role in community development that is consistent with the current religious values. When the number of children exceeds capacity for personalized teaching, the leader may form a set of rules to advance instruction. This may be as simple as a set time for religious observances such as prayer or meditation to as complex as a weekly schedule of attendance, perhaps even mandatory and enforced through corporeal punishments. The model of religious instruction influenced a growing sentiment that, particularly in America with prohibition by the Constitution of promoting any religious preference, the public should stand in for religion and religious leadership. But the basic notion of The School, was well planted by religious leaders and followed by the public. Establish a suitable place or location for instruction and bring to the community a person trained at a higher level to “teach” or guide the children toward the important foundations of reading, writing and arithmetic. Readiness for building these foundational skills was agreed to occur around age six and a child of suitable age was admitted to the first grade of the school. Now before going forward it may be time to make something clear. I am not about to blame religion or homeschooling (for religious purposes) for the current condition of our systems of schools in education. I am not a religious person; in fact I am highly skeptical of almost all religious practices and dogma. However, it is important to me and I hope to readers to emphasize that there are important religious influences on the history of education and that those influences are embedded in where we are today, which is actually a system that due to our Constitutional First Amendment, eschews a role for religious instruction in publicly supported schools. Religion has been wiped out of our schooling systems in the United States and I hope it will remain that way. Religious dogma has no place in a system that calls itself education. In the final chapters of the book, I talk about the futures for education and I will return to a theme that I consider very important; namely the matter of human spirituality, which I firmly believe is not inherently religious or even important for religion. But, I'll leave the reader to mull on that while I continue with the theme of this chapter, which is the role of schoolism and schoolists. SCHOOLISM, like every other “ism” is ideological. It takes its place alongside of socialism, capitalism, communism and, perhaps most appropriately – booster-ism. There is a broad swath that believes deeply in schools and that schools are the only “right” path toward education. What is done in schools is education. What can follow from this is that what takes place outside of schools is not education. A person has to attend school to be or become educated. Schoolism is supported by schoolists. A schoolist is a person who deeply believes in the idealistic view of schoolism. The schoolist is a supporter of a dogma regarding schools in society; any part and all of society. It is a reflexive stance and is assumed without question. Like every dogma, the paradigm of school is accepted without question. School is the place for education and attending school is essential for education. Schoolists are pervasive across society. Almost no one questions schools as instruments for education. Schoolists certainly include those credentialed as educational leaders. The principals and superintendents, the presidents of universities, the boards or directors or trustees who are credentialed by virtue of election, or by appointment by an elected official of a governmental body. The vested interests of these schoolists should not require much elaboration. However, I'll provide a few thoughts to simulate yours. The superintend of a school system in a major city will command a considerable range of power and influence in the super-community of any city, large or small. She or he is paid very well, typically a nice multiple of others in the system, especially but not exclusively, principals, teachers and staff of schools within the larger system. The superintendent is sought out for memberships in civic organizations and is frequently asked to speak or report to the community on the status of district schools as well as the status of education broadly conceived. The superintendent is supported by staff and line officers in the school district organization. Accordingly s/he is charged with responsibility for uses (and avoiding abuses) of physical and financial resources that may range up into $billions. And, interestingly, in another part of the spectrum, schoolists are also those who attend schools and even thrive in the school environments; good environments to be sure but also school environments that may be considered bad or poorly developed but attended because they meet human needs at the most basic levels of providing water, food, shelter and safety. Take away any or all of these necessities of life and attendance will quickly fade for everyone. Think about the roles of schools in many impoverished regions whether local or global, and schools are sources of these basics. Even the most affluent parents will send a child to a boarding school to assure safety, shelter and nutrition that is dependable and regular. And is believed to be better for the child than what could be provided in the castle (I mean, of course, to say home). Between Superintendents and Students the array of schoolssts can include principals, teachers and various teacher supervisors, coaches, mental health specialists, nurses, police officers (School Resource Officers or SROs), cooks, janitors, bus drivers, and many others. All have a keen interest in schools and schooling for reasons that range from the simple status of a job to a deep and abiding commitment to the welfare of youth that are served by the school. In a point of fact, these are, by and large, people who deeply believe that the school is the most, or at least one of the most, important institutions in the community and in all of society for that matter. They would find it, almost or actually, impossible to imagine society without schools. Schools are important in society and it is welcome for society to include a vast array of supporters. It is the sheer vastness of this support that assures a base of funding that includes local gifting and taxes, state appropriations, and a massive department of the federal government. Philanthropy distributes vast sums of money to schools and the universities and colleges that are committed to support for the workforce broadly, but also needed to sustain schooling. Schools are fodder for media of communication. Stories about schools and schooling are attractive to the members of the schoolist class, which is huge and inclusive. Journalists with the education beat follow what happens and is happening in schools locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Their narratives can be critical in p;positive and negative ways that check on the mistakes and excesses as well as making the case for meeting school needs more broadly. Journalists are both critics and advocates. Why not? They have all, with few exceptions, benefited by their experiences with schools and generally want those benefits extended across all of society. The funding of schools is so vast that it attracts another category of schoolists; vendors of products and services that serve school needs; or at least perceived needs of schools. These needs are fostered by advocates for schools at all levels of the hierarchy of schoolists. Children want and need lunch, teachers need textbooks, parents need communication of what is happening in the school of most interest and in the district that runs their school, bus manufacturers keep the Yellow Buses running daily with safety and some comfort, publishers and printers practice their craft through a throng of writers, reviewers and vendors of books and other material for instruction, and on and on to include all of the commercial interests I have missed. Lately, of course, vendors of technology in all of its guises have emerged with a strong financial interest in providing equipment and services (including software) for schools. Technology is a massive driver in education and the legacy of the traditional structure of schools is a deep part of every business plan of every firm that considers schools to be their customers. They market their wares to schoolists top to bottom and bottom to top. Little is excluded that may make a difference in their bottom line and it is always well to remember that it is their bottom line that is paramount; education is only a route for revenue enhancements. You can look objectively at these vendors by asking, who is their customer? In the ecosystem of schools, schoolists and the paradigm of schoolism that is a powerful but crazy complex question. Technology is important for education. In my estimation digital technology is important as a vehicle to take education into a new era. It will, in my estimation, leave schooling behind as a paradigm and enable a new paradigm to emerge that will make the very concept of schooling, schoolism and schoolists obsolete. I would encourage any reader to contemplate the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) as a change agent. The complexity of education is so immense that no teacher, let alone others among schoolists, will be able to fathom what will or what should happen as education moves forward, as it inevitably will. The social construction of education is a continuum that digital technology will shift. There may be useful conversation about what the design of education should be in a digital age. This likely means a very different role for those schoolists who are called instructional designers. Their context will shift from the classroom to society writ large. Chapter III will look at our Social Contract. Sources and Recommended Reading Collins, Allan & Richard Halverson. Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution & Schooling in America. Dewey, John. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. Dewey, John. The School and Society and The Child and the Curriculum. Goodlad, John I. ed. 1987. The Ecology of School Renewal. Reigleuth, Charles & Jennifer Karnopp. Reinventing Schools: It's Time to Break the Mold.
Uploaded 29 March 2020 |