Higher Education & The Book of Love

What does it mean to be human?

I cannot help but suspect that at one time in the history of thinking that people believed that it meant that we were spiritual and that we could make choices and were capable of aspiring to higher ideals... like maybe loyalty or maybe faith... or maybe even love.

But now we told by people who think they know, that we vary from amoeba only in the complexity of our makeup and not in what we essentially are. They would have us think, as Dysart said, that we are forever bound up in certain genetic reins - that we are merely products of the way things are and not free - not free to be the people who make them that way.

They would have us see ourselves as products so that we could believe that we were something to be made - something to be used and then something to be disposed of. Used in their wars - used for their gains and then set aside when we get in their way. Well, who are they? They are the few who sit at the top of the heap - dung heap though it is - and who say it is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven. Well, I do not know that we can have a Heaven here on earth, but I am sure we need not have a Hell either.

What does it mean to be human?

I cannot help but believe that it means we are spiritual - that we are responsible and that we are free - that we are responsible to be free.

When I was back in high school
They said boy try and make some sense
Grow up and be a consumer
And not a dissident
Don't worry about the system
Just watch out for yourself
It sounded just like the wisdom
That comes straight out of Hell
They said shut up don't make no ripples
Shut up don't raise no stink
I heard so much of their dribble
It's a wonder I can think

Don't give me that
I want the truth
Don't say for fact
What is only point of view
Don't give me that
I've had enough
We best get back to what was written
In the Book of love

When I went to college
They said boy get this straight
You're just a tailless monkey
Your a hairless ape
We're on a scary evolutionary stairway
Who knows where
Trust in higher education
To get us all there
There ain't no values no morals
No rights and no wrongs
Never knowing where we're going
Well it's hard to go wrong

When I came to my senses
At the foot of the cross
I saw the wisdom that comes
From the fear of God
How it is pure it loves Peace
It's full of mercy and good fruit
It had the power to free me
The power of the truth
Like a setting of silver
On an apple of gold
Is a word aptly spoken
Is the truth clearly told

Now give me that
Cause that's the truth
It's bigger than fact
It's broader than your point of of view
Now give me that
Can't get enough
When we get back to what was written
In the Book of Love

-Rich Mullins

School & Society: Ch. 15 Study Questions

1. In this chapter Davis and McCaul are cited as saying that the solutions to successfully educating low-income and minority youth are not beyond our professional expertise but beyond our social and political commitment. Given your knowledge, derived from this text and elsewhere, of how to educate economically disadvantaged youth, do you believe that Davis and McCaul are correct in their assessment? Explain.

Education has no doubt become a whipping boy for society's ills. In this Davis and McCaul are correct: the problem is much deeper and more diversified. However, Davis and McCaul are yet convinced of the viability of redeeming the system as such: no one seems willing to consider the impossibility of the institution.

So I would agree that the issue is wider than education, but maintain that education still has issues, which won't be resolved satisfactorily within an institutional context. This is something of a stalemate for a society that is used to government handling the responsibilities of life.

2. This chapter argues, roughly, that teachers cannot be expected to change the political and economic structure of society, but they can be expected to change the life chances of their students. Do you fully agree with this view? Defend your position with evidence from the text and from your own experience.

Teachers may well change the political and economic structure of society; it would be better to say they are not responsible for changing it. Similarly, they may be expected to improve the life chances of their students, without idealizing these chances. Some responsibility, of course, must in the end lie with society as a whole and with the student as an individual. Teachers are not gods.

At present, it seems the best teachers can do is be as human as possible in an inhuman institution, and to press for all the freedoms they can get. They can work to maintain a vital connection with the world and with their students, and pursue the contrapositive of Meier's chilling concept of "passion-impairment."

For teachers to be successful in their responsibility, they must have the requisite authority. Administrators must trust to the power of freedom to motivate, rather than the grim grip of control to squeeze out grotesque globs of "results."

3. Deborah Meier writes early in her article that "we expect would-be teachers to overcome such [habitual] views and then act on the basis of their new wisdom." What in this text or in your college education has potential for developing in you new skills, understanding, or dispositions to act in ways other than what the habits of schooling have taught you about being a teacher? If you can identify such an influence, explain what difference it might make to how you teach, and why. If you cannot identify anything, explain whether you think the habits of a schooling you have learned are adequate to the challenges of teaching today and why.

Teachers must be learners. Not in the past tense, but emphatically in the present. We are losing our grip on the power of example and are "turning leaders into celebrities" instead of participants.

Anyone who aspires to teach must cultivate a contagious enthusiasm for learning in general and their specific subject in particular. The engagement with the subject should be so total that there is no time to directly scrutinize the learning methods involved. These methods will snap into place on their own easily enough.

I quote from William Zinsser, a phenomenal educator in his own right: "There was no mistaking the men and women I wanted to have along on the ride. They all had the rare gift of enthusiasm. Again and again I was struck by the exuberance that these [teachers] brought to what they were [teaching]. Whatever the [teacher] and whatever the subject ... the common thread is a sense of high enjoyment, zest, and wonder. Perhaps, both in learning to [teach] and [teaching] to learn, they are the only ingredients that really matter."

4. Meier claims that "teachers must lead the way toward their own liberation." What does she mean by this, and is this a realistic aspiration for educational change in this country? Explain your answer.

Meier is simply saying that teachers must step up to the plate and accept their responsibility. In return, they should be granted greater autonomy, and begin to figure a decisive part in teaching curriculum, teaching methodology, and the teaching environment. This is a realistic aspriation for educational change insofar as it decentralizes the workings of the institution and dismantles ineffective bureaucratic control.

5. Meier describes "four freedoms" that are characteristic of her schools. Since it is not perfectly clear what these four freedoms are, try to identify them. Second, assume for the purposes of this question that each of these freedoms is not equally important. Given that assumption, which of them is most important for educational success, and which is least important? Explain.

The four freedoms are namely 1) Freedom to reinvent the model, 2) Freedom of participation, for both teachers and students, 3) Freedom to select a sympathetic staff, and 4) Freedom to organize and restructure curriculum content and teaching methods at will.

I hold the second freedom to be the most fundamental, as it will tend to force the others. Though all of the others are valuable, and I part with each only reluctantly, I would feel that #4 is the least important, because it is easier to get sympathetic teachers to "work around" deficient curriculum and teaching methods than it is to get unsympathetic teachers to use the proper methods and curriculum correctly.

6. Soon after describing the four freedoms, Meier identifies five qualities she looks for in prospective teachers. Which among these qualities is your greatest strength, and which is your greatest weakness? Assuming that Meier is correct in naming these as important qualities for the teacher, what might you do to strengthen the relative weakness you have identified?

I believe I am reasonably strong on points 1, 3, 4, and 5, and especially 4, to the exclusion of point 2, which is my main weakness. I am working to remedy this by engaging more with other people and developing the deliberate habit of listening, working off the fundamental premise that every person has intrinsic value that is all too often grossly underestimated.

7. In the last one-third of the article, Meier identifies five principles underlying the success of Central Park East Schools. Putting aside the first one (that people learn best when they feel physically and psychically safe,) which of the remaining four seems to you to be most necessary for successful schooling? What concrete steps could you take to implement this principle in your own teaching?

I think the fifth principle is the most valuable, as it emphasizes a strong sense of community, which can overcome great odds. This can be encouraged with collaborative assignments, the free exchange of ideas within the classroom, indeed, anything to provide more human contact, with the ensuing larger-than-life sense of possibility.

School & Society: Ch. 14 Study Questions

1. In one of the primary readings for this chapter, Walter Karp writes, "What the public schools practice with remorseless proficiency . . . is the prevention of citizenship and the stifling of self-government." How adequately does he support this claim in the article? Give examples of evidence and arguments he marshals to support his view, and identify from your own knowledge any evidence and arguments he omits which might strengthen or weaken his case.

I'm more and more impressed by how thoroughly homeschooling answers the conundrums of public education. Schools cannot teach self-government, even if they wanted to, because of their structural composition. After all, they are teaching children, and children require direction and a firm hand. This control, while necessary, is fundamentally incapable of creating a sense of self-government. This can only be done naturally and efficiently in the intimate context of home.

To substantiate his claim, Karp cites several operational habits the institution has fallen into or adopted that are demonstrably hostile to critical thinking. Some of these include dogmatic content and testing, large classroom size, and "tracking."

2. Karp says that schools provide a system of unfairness, inequality, and privilege not by accident but by intent. Relying on your knowledge of current and past school reform as well as on Karp's arguments, to what extent do you agree with him? Defend your view.

I'm not as sure that it's deliberate intent as much as it is the inevitable demands of the institutional model. I'm sure many believe in the ideals espoused by Jefferson, Karp, Gatto, et al, but they are simply not feasible to implement within the institutional structure.

3. Karp attacks the first wave of school reform reports as "merely sanctioning the prevailing corruption, which consists precisely in the reduction of citizens to credulous workers." To what degree do you see the second wave of reform - which emphasizes restructuring of curriculum, decision making, and teacher education - achieving different outcomes? Use evidence and arguments from this chapter to defend you view.

Hodgkinson's illustration of the leaky house applies well here: "[We could compare] the school reform movement to a house in which the owners try to stop deterioration by fixing the wiring, the floors, the windows, and everything except the cause of the deterioration - namely, a leaky roof." While I do not know what Hodgkinson considers to be the leaky roof, I would maintain that it is the institutional model, which is deteriorating in turn because of the prevailing social atmosphere of apathy and irresponsibility.

4. Today's college students, for the most part, attended the nation's schools during the contemporary school reform movement. To what degree has your education been influence by such school reform? Explain.

My education was influenced only insofar as trends in curriculum and changing social norms were catalyzed by the contemporary school reform movement. I had not opportunity to directly experience and evaluate the effect of these reforms at the classroom level.