Feb 23 2011: In the U.S., the motivation for legislating mandatory education was not entirely altruistic. John Taylor Gatto's book, THE UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION, presents very convincing evidence that many of the 'founding fathers' of public education were bigoted phrenologists whose goals were to maintain and exacerbate a rigid, class-based consumer culture. Carnegie, who spent his own money funding the establishment of so-called "public education," believed a primary role of public schools was to separate the children of the poor & immigrant populations from their parents. For him & other privileged white men, these children had to be FORCED to go to school because they were too ignorant to know what was best for them. The poor were poor because they were immoral - and public education would show them the error of their ways and the benefits of obedience to consumerism.
Public schools were obedience factories: take this class, move when this bell rings, do as you're told, stop talking, be quiet, do your homework, do this because I know it's best for you...
The problem today is that this corruption within the foundations of the public school system has never been rooted out. It is now systemic and there is no antidote. For the most part, public schools are still obedience factories. They exist primarily to provide industry with acquiescent laborers who do not question or challenge the status quo, automatons who believe what they are told and obey. They only thing we have changed is that there is no longer any industry.
There is no positive value in organized schooling - unless, as you suggest in your own answer, students and families become invested in organizing their own learning. Until then, the state will always have ulterior motivations for requiring mandatory indoctrination. The modern world calls for independent thinkers who know no "box," much more than think outside it. The only solution is to abandon the system.
Feb 23 2011: Young males (and females) may be impressionable, but what Novogratz is suggesting is that when they are also hungry and undereducated and hopeless, they can be manipulated easily. I work with teenagers every day: many of them think, evaluate, and question the messages they get from their parents, their teachers, TV, films, commercials and the Internet. But many others do not. Being impressionable is not necessarily a problem. Combine impressionable with hopeless with uneducated and we get National Socialism, brownshirts, Khmer Rouge and the killing fields. Novogratz (I think) is suggesting that young males need to be introduced to alternative ideas about what it means to be "a man." She is suggesting that we need to listen to young men, try to understand the problems they see affecting them, and then help them to help themselves.
Feb 23 2011: It is dangerous, but it is the only response that will eventually end the harm. I do not belong to a Christian church, but Christ's message to "love one's enemy" was his most revolutionary idea, and one I try to live every day. (I've met many people who call themselves Christian and rationalize this central tenet of Christ's teachings.) But what if we had included in our reaction to 9/11 a humanitarian outreach to those who believe the West is Satan? What if, in addition to our just efforts to defend ourselves against attack, we had put as much effort into understanding the sources of our attackers' hate for us? We would likely have created at least as many allies among the Muslim populace as our bombs and guns and tanks have created more enemies.
It is absolutely risky to respond with love to hate. The greater the hate, the greater the risk. But what other response offers a better solution to hate?
Feb 23 2011: I have been teaching for 20 years. During that time, I have had many students who deny science. For years, I tried to help them see science as a tool, not an end in itself. A carpenter would not deny a hammer. A writer would not deny a pen. This worked for some students. Other students continued to reject science.
Then I tried to present students with the history of the development of science. I offered them two "paths" in this history: 1) pantheism and creation myths as an early attempt at a kind of science and 2) the development of prehistoric to more modern tools for agriculture and warfare. In juxtaposition, these two "events" demonstrate how ravenous humans are to understand our world. But the development of modern tools from prehistoric ones shows that we base our understanding on trial-and-error and observation of results. Pantheism and creation myths demonstrate our narrative ability to create a "truth" from unreliable observable information: the earth is flat. the sun is all-powerful, the night sky is dotted with tiny holes through which light passes. When the observable information becomes more reliable, we no longer see the sun as a mighty deity or the earth as flat. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, but in fact come from the same source: human curiosity. This helped some students to become more comfortable with science. Other students just shrugged their shoulders and said, "No way. Can't be."
Recently, I've started keeping files of hard data that clearly indicate the overwhelming likelihood of evolution and the age of the earth. These 2 scientific theories are among the most "denied" by students I've met. When I ask students to look through the data, some of them begin to question their ideas. Others just shrug and say, "I don't care. The scientists must have made mistakes."
I'll keep on trying, though. When I don't want to anymore, I'll quit.
Feb 23 2011: Scientific research is not always done or funded by people with a vested interest in a particular result. I agree that when it is, it undermines the search to 'reduce uncertainties about truth.' However, many scientific studies are conducted under the best possible conditions by researchers and funding sources that want to find reliable results. The experiments are often reviewed by unbiased peers. These studies are reproduced by independent scientists to provide more data to either confirm or deny the original results. (Even the studies done by tobacco companies to 'prove' that cigarettes are not unhealthy, for example, are a part of the scientific process, however, because peer review & independent studies clearly show the flaws in their method.)
People who insist on denying science can not be fully educated because science is a part of the world and 'educated' means (at least in part) knowing about the world.
I have had students who absolutely deny that humans and apes evolved from common ancestors. I have had students absolutely refuse to accept that the Earth is 4 to 5 billion years old. I present these students with the data that overwhelmingly support these claims. Some of them begin to ask questions. Others just shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't care. It can't be true."
The ones who shrug sometimes terrify me. How many people who decide to walk into a supermarket parking lot and start shooting people use the scientific method to help them make this decision? I am not claiming that every person who denies science becomes a sociopath. I am suggesting that one can not base one's actions on irrational thought if one truly understands the scientific process.
Students who resist new understandings can not be fully educated. To be a student means to ask questions, to be open to new interpretations and to test preconceived notions.
Dec 18 2010: The difference between the kind of stndrdzd testing that Laufenberg (and I) experience in the U.S. and those in other countries is subtle and complex. Schools are concentrated microcosms of the cultures in which they exist. In cultures where learning is valued for the sake of learning (in addition to other values) then the tests those cultures develop will measure to varying degrees of accuracy how those students learned FROM those values. The U.S. has never had a strong tradition of love of learning for learning's sake, and in recent years, any sort of tradition like that has weakened inexorably. However, schools like Laufenberg's are springing up. The question we must start discussing is, "Why is there ANY resistance to what she and her colleagues are doing?" I do not assume to know the answers to that question, but 25 years in a variety of school environments in the US suggest some to me.
Feb 21 2010: Schwartz is saying that young people need more examples of strong moral character, not that schools should be teaching ethics and morality. In fact, he said we should NOT teach more ethics courses! Parents can only teach their children morality if they already know it. The janitors Schwartz talks about are probably teaching it to their kids. I am trying to teach it to my kids. "What is really wrong in America today...?" Do we REALLY value practical wisdom the way Schwartz is suggesting? Can schools ever really TEACH the "subjects" you suggest without revealing the power of the virtues Schwartz is talking about? Bernie Madoff learned reading, writing, economics, history and government.
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A comment on Conversation: What is the true value (if any) of organized schooling?
Public schools were obedience factories: take this class, move when this bell rings, do as you're told, stop talking, be quiet, do your homework, do this because I know it's best for you...
The problem today is that this corruption within the foundations of the public school system has never been rooted out. It is now systemic and there is no antidote. For the most part, public schools are still obedience factories. They exist primarily to provide industry with acquiescent laborers who do not question or challenge the status quo, automatons who believe what they are told and obey. They only thing we have changed is that there is no longer any industry.
There is no positive value in organized schooling - unless, as you suggest in your own answer, students and families become invested in organizing their own learning. Until then, the state will always have ulterior motivations for requiring mandatory indoctrination. The modern world calls for independent thinkers who know no "box," much more than think outside it. The only solution is to abandon the system.
A reply on Talk: Jacqueline Novogratz: Inspiring a life of immersion
A reply on Talk: Jacqueline Novogratz: Inspiring a life of immersion
It is absolutely risky to respond with love to hate. The greater the hate, the greater the risk. But what other response offers a better solution to hate?
A comment on Conversation: Can people who deny science be educated? How?
Then I tried to present students with the history of the development of science. I offered them two "paths" in this history: 1) pantheism and creation myths as an early attempt at a kind of science and 2) the development of prehistoric to more modern tools for agriculture and warfare. In juxtaposition, these two "events" demonstrate how ravenous humans are to understand our world. But the development of modern tools from prehistoric ones shows that we base our understanding on trial-and-error and observation of results. Pantheism and creation myths demonstrate our narrative ability to create a "truth" from unreliable observable information: the earth is flat. the sun is all-powerful, the night sky is dotted with tiny holes through which light passes. When the observable information becomes more reliable, we no longer see the sun as a mighty deity or the earth as flat. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, but in fact come from the same source: human curiosity. This helped some students to become more comfortable with science. Other students just shrugged their shoulders and said, "No way. Can't be."
Recently, I've started keeping files of hard data that clearly indicate the overwhelming likelihood of evolution and the age of the earth. These 2 scientific theories are among the most "denied" by students I've met. When I ask students to look through the data, some of them begin to question their ideas. Others just shrug and say, "I don't care. The scientists must have made mistakes."
I'll keep on trying, though. When I don't want to anymore, I'll quit.
A reply on Conversation: Can people who deny science be educated? How?
People who insist on denying science can not be fully educated because science is a part of the world and 'educated' means (at least in part) knowing about the world.
I have had students who absolutely deny that humans and apes evolved from common ancestors. I have had students absolutely refuse to accept that the Earth is 4 to 5 billion years old. I present these students with the data that overwhelmingly support these claims. Some of them begin to ask questions. Others just shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't care. It can't be true."
The ones who shrug sometimes terrify me. How many people who decide to walk into a supermarket parking lot and start shooting people use the scientific method to help them make this decision? I am not claiming that every person who denies science becomes a sociopath. I am suggesting that one can not base one's actions on irrational thought if one truly understands the scientific process.
Students who resist new understandings can not be fully educated. To be a student means to ask questions, to be open to new interpretations and to test preconceived notions.
A reply on Talk: Diana Laufenberg: How to learn? From mistakes
A reply on Talk: Barry Schwartz: Our loss of wisdom