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Fantasy Curriculum

  
  

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sdv (non-human)
15:12 / 26.10.05
In the present - 'curriculum' is not about just about school and children or indeed about learning, but also as my american friend suggested rather pointedly in the example cited earlier - still in operation even as you do your Phd, and beyond. In this post-disciplinary society education or more accurately training doesn't end.

Illiumatic, I think critiquing and resisting the present is rather more important than engaging in utopian discourses on what a good curriculum should be. The problem with utopian discourses is that actually existing human beings are never allowed into the utopia. They tend to be human-free zones.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
15:13 / 26.10.05
Deva - yes... he was
 
 
Mirror
15:30 / 26.10.05
I would argue that this process creates an alienation from the child's birthright, the joy of learning, crushes automny and curiousity, and takes away independence and self-reliance.

It's not by any means just the school system that does this, though. Parents play an arguably much more significant role in determining whether or not a child has a love of learning, and at least in the U.S. education is not a top priority for a lot of parents. Schools become like day care centers because that's how parents treat them.

With strong parental support, just about any educational system is probably fairly effective. While I don't have any data to back this up, I suspect that those parents who go out of their way to place their children into alternative learning systems are far more involved in the educational process than those who use the neighborhood school as a babysitter. It's then little wonder that these children show better progress.

I agree completely that natural curiosity has to be fostered, but I also believe that such curiosity needs to be channeled such that important subjects are not ignored. Literacy and scientific curiosity are easy things to get kids excited about because they're very concrete, but more abstract (but vital) areas of learning like numeracy are more difficult to encourage curiosity for. And yes, I believe that the education system has a responsibility that kids coming out of it be strongly numerate. The problem is, how do you get a child to be curious enough about factors to memorize his multiplication fact tables?

This is why I favor goal directed learning - if it's necessary to become numerate to achieve a concrete task with a rewarding outcome, it's much easier to make a case for that sort of learning to the child. Even in this case (and I'll probably get some heat for this) things like multiplication tables more or less have to be forced upon kids.

To get back to the topic summary, one question I haven't seen addressed is streaming based upon ability, which is something I see as highly desirable. As a personal anecdote, up until the time I was 9 I was in a gifted/fast track learning program. At that point, my family moved out of state due to a job relocation and no such similar program was available in the new school system. Being thrust back into a normal school was utter hell - even though I had excellent teachers, the idiots in the class who weren't interested in learning held everyone else back. Forcing a teacher to compensate with such a wide range of abilities means that none of the students are served well.
 
 
Mirror
15:35 / 26.10.05
sdv: These seem like reasonable questions to ask, but you don't elaborate upon why goal-directed learning is a bad thing. What answers have you presupposed to your questions?
 
 
sdv (non-human)
18:18 / 26.10.05
Mirror

err - true enough I think... Given that i tend towards the belief that education and learning should not be orientated towards immediate vocational goals, but rather towards longer term ones, it's obviously a difficult question to answer.

The analysis that I am starting from is that education systems are an aspect of the relatively recently established socio-technical systems of control. Which is to say that the way that they are being organised and endlessly reorganised is as part of a different system of domination. Most of the education texts that people have referred to in this thread appear to be based on an analysis of a now superceded disciplinary model that was designed to support a specific form of industrial capitalism.

The consequence of this is that it is clear that 'goal orientated' and vocational learning are the necessary educational aspects of the social change. (It's not hard to relate the privatization of the education system, schools today universities tomorrow, as part of the ongoing shift towards an entirely vocational and goal orientated system), designed to support the development of increasing numbers of immaterial workers. Workers who incidentally cannot expect long term career paths and who may mistakenly believe that consequently vocational learning is going to be more useful in the immediate term. It won't be, as the consumption of endless education and training is an aspect of the system whose importance should not be underestimated. (For capital education has the same value as any other consumptive object).

I can see the possibilty of further new forms of resistance and revolt in these changes - but that is a different question as the question that haunts me is == in whose interests is this educational process in ?

So does this brief outline answer the question of what the presuppositions are ?

So then some others - success in all the western educational is fundamentally weighted along class lines. That the current changes in the UK education system will maintain and possibly even make the situation worse, difficult as that is to believe. What is often identified as 'nice' educational practice is always founded on supporting middle class and upwards children.

But I don't think we should care about them - rather think of the children who inhabit a school that a friend of mine is a head teacher of --- 80%++ migrants, refugees, and the children of people who are without papers, oppressed at home and in the greater society. Goal orientated learning ? vocational ? When I test the notion against the actuality, what one sees is a discarded sub-proletarian group are are being discarded because they are surplus to current neo-liberal goals.

There that seems clearer...
 
 
Mirror
19:25 / 26.10.05
sdv:

I think that I see the problem here. When I talk about goal-oriented learning, I am NOT talking specifically about vocational education oriented toward the current marketplace. I am instead talking about a need for an educational system that puts learning into a context (and in pursuit of a goal) that is relevant from the perspective of the students.

Now, this isn't the same as saying that I think that children, especially younger children, should have primacy in the process of deciding what these goals should be, although obviously goals that they believe are relevant or interesting will be better motivators.

What I'm talking about is things like high-school science teachers focusing an entire year's education around something like building an autonomous vehicle to compete in the DARPA Grand Challenge, or social studies classes working toward improving disaster relief, or economics classes havin long-range projects that actually involve running some sort of business. Such efforts require the students to learn broad cross-disciplinary skills for success. In some cases, these could even be ongoing efforts that develop with the kids across several years of schooling.

The important thing I'm suggesting is that education needs to have a context and needs to be rewarding in more material ways than the current system. After all, which would be more rewarding: studying African culture in fourth grade, or taking part in an organizational effort to install a well in an impoverished African village?

There are plenty of great projects that need to be done, and plenty of valuable information kids can learn by doing them. Let's put their energy to good use in a systematic fashion across the educational system, instead of the arbitrary and ad-hoc way that projects like those I describe are currently done.
 
 
illmatic
08:43 / 27.10.05
The problem with utopian discourses is that actually existing human beings are never allowed into the utopia. They tend to be human-free zones.

sdv: I have to say I found the above statement really bloody irritating. Did you read what I wrote? While I agree with you that that critquing and resisting what is in front of our faces is important, I reject the characterisation of what I said as a utopian pipe dream. There are are 18 different schools mentioned in the book I linked to above, the Summerhill school in Leiston has been going since the 1930's, there are a growing number of Steiner and Montessori schools in this country, and home education is booming - in what sense is this utopian? Alternatives to conventional education are a real world trend.

Similarly, all the writers I mentioned were writing about real people, in the real world, in a way that's a lot more accessbile than fucking Deleuze and Guattari. I'm sure the subjects of the fomer books would love to be told they're all "human free zones".
 
 
illmatic
08:50 / 27.10.05
Some linkage to a number of articles on free education. Of course, they're a bit utopian so you probably shouldn't bother to read them.
 
 
illmatic
09:24 / 27.10.05
Hey Matt

I've heard the argument that libertarian education is a bit of an indulgence for very involved parents before, and there is some merit in it. However, I could point you to a several chapters in the book I mentioned where the schools covered are dealing with very angry and frustrated children - there's one mentioned in Germany which deals with children in the state care/borstal system (may have the details a little wrong but the gist is the same) and another in India which deals with children in extreme poverty - which proves there are instances of "free education" functioning well in difficult circumstances, without parental support adn indulgence. I see no real reason why children from all backgrounds wouldn't respond to this methods. For an example a bit closer to home, I don't know if you caught any of the recent Channel 4 programme "The Unteachables" - I only caught the first episode but the award-winning teacher involved was using textbook methods from these approaches to get the kids on board and involved. As I said before I don't think these approaches are universial paneca, all I'm saying is that I consider them worth looking at, and frequently far better than our current approach.

I believe that the education system has a responsibility that kids coming out of it be strongly numerate. The problem is, how do you get a child to be curious enough about factors to memorize his multiplication fact tables?

Well, our current education system completely failed me then, didn't it, and many others I know, since I left school utterly mathsphobic. Now, this might sound a bit strange but I sincerly believe that when a child/young adult perceives the need for a particluar skill or body of knowledge, they will put in the hours of work necessary to gain the desired result. THe literature I mentioned contains loads of examples of children/young adults coming up against university entrance requirements and working like demons to gain the necesary qualifications.

I've an interviw with actor Orson Bean who used to be involved in the running of a free schools in New York. He mentions that some of the kids, who arrived at the school would teach themselves how to read, outside of the classroom, once they perceived how interesting He said they almost seemed to soak it up by osmosis which was a bit of a blow for the teachers egos. I'm not advoactaing that one "leaves it all to chance" in this manner, you provide the classes/opportunities, but say, worying if a child can pass his Maths SATS or not by the age of 11 is absurd in my view. He'll catch up when he percieves the need.

My approach would be if kids don't pick up these skills, you learn it when you're on the job, as and when you need it, much the same as you or I do now. And can I just ask, how much do you use your GCSE maths these days - beyond basic addition and subtraction and times tables, I have no use in my life for any of the maths they tried to cram into me - which is not to say I think it worthless, or can't see how it might be useful or fascinating but really, how often do you use 90% of the maths you were taught beyond the age of 10?
 
 
sdv (non-human)
10:30 / 27.10.05
Illumatic,

I'm glad to see that you are irritated, though you cannot intimidate me by doing so, which is plainly your desire.

I did read what you said, but you are not understanding the issue here. It is not the case that the proliferation of educational models - public schools, home education, state education etc is going to create anything close to the educational vision that you have. Instead it is already creating new and equally terrible heirarchies to those that the disciplinary model created. In this I suspect that Deleuze - whose model I'm working with here, underestimates the effects of the turn towards control.

I am interested to see that there exist '18 schools', out of the tens of thousands of schools and other educational institutions which constitute valid alternative educational models. That you believe this consitutes a non-utopian thought which is applicable to the tens of thousands of schools and universities in the west is interesting but obviously mistaken. It's utopian not just because it is not applicable to the actuality of modern education, but also because it ignores the actuality of real human lives and the decisions that parents are being expected to make for their children - forced choices. (The increasing tendency of middle-class parents to make education based consumptive choices is evidence of this...)

(The missed opportunity of closing down all the public and alternative schools between 1945 and 1950 is deeply regretted... I would have happily sacrificed 1018 Summerhills to destroy all the public schools and maintain a universal education system...)
 
 
sdv (non-human)
10:53 / 27.10.05
Matt

As I said before I'm most concerned with the actuality of the current situation rather than imagining what a perfect curriculum might be. The only statement I've made on this thread on what a fantasy curriculum should contain was that it should be designed to 'train them to think'. Beyond that nothing, i have no problem with 'goal orientated learning' as you describe it in principle, why should I ? The issue I'm interested in is whether the synergy I'm seeing between your version of 'goal orientated' is different and oppositional to the 'goal orientated education' which is being produced across western educational systems. I don't think it is, i suspect that they are just two sides of the same entity. Which is to say that the 'practice' of goal orientated learning has the same meaning whichever kind you are engaged in.

You example is worthy - but it has shades of schools supporting what they used to refer to as 'black babies' - which I'm sure is not your intention...
 
 
Charlus
11:43 / 27.10.05
I would like to say that values insofar as discipline, self control and hardwork are established, but these are the role of the parent(s) however if they aren't going to teach them, who is?
Horseriding -I went horesriding for the first time in my life about a month ago, and I have sworn to myself that if I have children they will all learn horseriding. This is because of learning trust, discipline and listening to the horses needs and to your own needs. This may seem rather far fetched to compare this method to people. But if it is taught at such a young age, then it stays with them for life.

In high school, the visual arts curriculm which in Australia, is doing bugger all but establishing the countries lack of talent in Western art, should be replaced with Philosophy -the oldest of the arts. From this can minds be shaped to develop their own talents and understanding of art and of themselves, as well as other humanities.
University is the place to further develop talent(s), to finally develop a deep understanding of oneself, which ultimately leads to an understanding of others.

The system in place now breeds immaturity. (in Australia anyway)

Would anyone agree or disagree?


Regards
 
 
Cat Chant
10:15 / 08.11.05
deva i did suggest that schools should be storehouses for society values but i also added that schools should equip children with the capacity and enthusiasm to question their place in that society, so i don't think i was suggesting just maintenance of the status quo.

Astrojax - I didn't mean to suggest that you were, sorry. I was interested in your phrasing precisely because it seemed to me to make visible this difficult question of the relationship between teaching children the skills they need to function in a culture and teaching them the skills they need to resist or question the values of their culture. Both are necessary, and the question of whether both are possible, and what the relation between those two sides of 'education', in this or any other (utopian or not) system has been pretty well addressed here.

I'm going to go in a different direction, now the first bit of activity in this thread has died down a bit, and take a run at one of the questions I asked in the abstract:

What knowledges and skills should be available to young people (and does this question have anything to do with 'school')?

Thinking about the skills and knowledges that I would have most liked to have acquired earlier in my life (certainly by my mid/late teens), as well as the ones I did acquire and was grateful for, I usually come up with a fantasy curriculum a bit like this:

Languages
Should start being taught as early as possible. Ideally children should learn two or three, including one with a different alphabet and/or a non-Indo-European root: a modern foreign language (eg French, German); one of the non-English languages commonly spoken in their area or their nearest large town (eg Urdu, Yoruba); and Chinese or Japanese (for the non-Indo-European). I think being able to think in different languages is the best and most concrete possible demonstration that languages and cultures are limited, not universal; that there are other ways of thinking/dividing up the world than the one you're most at home in.

Practical skills
My mum always told me that 'if you can read, you can cook' and it wasn't until I left home that I realized that that was a lie: you learn to cook not abstractly but through practice, through hands-on experience of this particular oven and those particular pans and what happens if you beat the eggs too little or too much. So. More lessons on cookery, sewing, plug-wiring, shelf-putting-up: skills for independent living, so that you get to know how to use tools safely and how scared to be of what. (I hired a sander once which had a leaflet with it about how it would probably blow up and kill me if I did this or that wrong: it would be nice to know whether that was just covering their backs, or whether I really did need to be as timid/cautious with it as I was.)

On the other hand, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I have two A-Levels in Maths and really no physical/vocational training at all, so I'd probably find it more sympatico to work out mathematically whether shelves will be safe for X kg of books if I fix Y number of brackets with rawlplug Z. Other people would probably rather get a rough idea of the principles and then get a feel for what works and what doesn't by doing it.

Literary/cultural studies
Like someone said up-thread, people need to have the skills to read the media critically and analytically.

There's more (including maths and science and something like a 'history of thought', as well as some sort of fact-based 'world history' so people have some idea about what happened when and where), but I have to go now, sorry...
 
 
Axolotl
11:49 / 08.11.05
I totally agree with you with regards to the practical skills. Despite doing 5 years of Design & Technology (which constituted woodwork, metalwork, textiles & cookery) I left school with little practical cookery experience, unable to sew a button or darn a sock or re-wire a plug or put up shelves. These skills are vital for living far more so than some vague awareness of how to design a product or any of the other things I was taught. I realsie this is a bit anecdotal, but it is a curious omission.
I'm interested in why these practical skills aren't taught. Is it due to the increased de-valuation of practical skills in today's society? The decline of a manufacturing base in the UK?
 
 
Lurid Archive
18:05 / 08.11.05
Literary/cultural studies
Like someone said up-thread, people need to have the skills to read the media critically and analytically.

My initial reaction to this is....that it isn't at all clear to me that literary and cultural studies provide the only way, or even a particularly effective way, for most people to approach the media. Though I'll concede I may be arguing from ignorance. Care to expand, Deva?
 
 
sdv (non-human)
19:59 / 08.11.05
lurid

Could you clarify your last comment on media ?

thanks
 
 
astrojax69
20:14 / 08.11.05
On the other hand, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I have two A-Levels in Maths and really no physical/vocational training at all, so I'd probably find it more sympatico to work out mathematically whether shelves will be safe for X kg of books if I fix Y number of brackets with rawlplug Z. Other people would probably rather get a rough idea of the principles and then get a feel for what works and what doesn't by doing it.


this is a critical point, deva. there are many ways to skin a cat (not forgetting, of course, that no room is too small to swing a cat). on another perspective on this, i recall an i/v with the head of ibm australia some years ago who, in a computer journal (or something similar, mebbe an IT section of the paper) when asked which courses an 'ideal applicant' should contemplate [expecting, no doubt, an answer along the lines of 'this or that info tech course at such and such an institution] replied, 'a philosophy honours student who can play chess'

the point of this is that the act of learning, per se, is the critical step, from which the student can then apply the skills of learning to any number of other practices. i agree somewhat with your assessment of your mother's wisdom on reading/cooking (as a bit of a gourmand meself), but her point was that from the skills of learning to read you should be able to translate this into some form of learning to cook, by following some simple steps/suggestions. of course, cooking well is a different matter altogether!


the other matter in this whole discussion is that each individual is born with innately different levels of abiity and different responses to the myriad possibile ways of dispersing wisdom through education (tactile, kinesthetic, aural, etc) some people are just better at learning, some are better at doing, some are just not much chop at anything at all! and vive l'difference, i say... (as you might tell, i never learnt much french)

so your last in the thread summary, yes, i strongly believe that streaming on ability should occur - just that no-one should assume that because a seven year old is streamed ahead of its classmates that by the age of ten, fifteen, whatever, that it shall necessarily be 'ahead'. we also all mature at different rates, and this is the bane of an education system based on age groups.
 
 
Malarki
20:32 / 08.11.05
Oh, this is an interesting looking thread and I've not time/energy (sickly) at present to read the whole thing but hope to return.

From a scan, glad Foucault's been mentioned. Personal interest here as I live with a primary school teacher and so have discussed some of the stuff about power and education as a form of social (self) control with her and other teachers, although they generally have enough to struggle with just keeping up with the latest government edicts to think much about these things. I also work with young people and so see alot of the government rhetoric about education in practice, which is mostly about filling industries skills shortages (Connexions has been mainly about filling the IT skills gap, or so I have been reliably informed), and how it fails to follow through in terms of support for young people in terms of their basic needs in order to complete the education they're supposed to aspire to.

Personally, I've always loved education for its own sake and have more bits of paper than one could reasonablly want to shake sticks at but not necessarily the institutions designed to deliver it. The present system is about supplying a compliant workforce for business, at least for the majority. My ideal, without as I said reading others comments in full and without a little more thought in my slightly illness addled brian, would be a system more akin to Plato's Academy or Aristotle's Lyceum as I understand them, which is to say based on the nurturing of critical thinking rather than filling minds with any particular knowledge. This is what you might call a philosophy based education, which as academically a philosopher I would be bias towards wouldn't I? I believe, can't remember where exactly I got this from, but until relatively (pre-industrial revolution?) recently all education and knowledge where defined as branches of philosophy (ie science was natural philosophy) and that the academic division that we are now familiar with only arose in the 19th century. I suppose this was connected to the rise in the need for a skilled work-force, and a clerical middle class, and so mass education. What I think my point is then, is that education is now almost entirely about skilling a work force and not about people capable of independent critical thinking evidenced by the shrinking and in some cases abolition of philosophy departments around the country.

One last point before I go and lie down, isn't it interesting that a government that talks about citizenship fails to teach children about their rights as children or future rights as adults? An example from my work is the number of young people who walk in thinking, or have been told by their parents, that they will automatically get a council flat but equally don't realise that they might have a right to an assessment of their priority need for accommodation by any local authority if they should believe that they may be homeless and vulnerable (but not an asylum seeker contrary to tabloid myths) and that the LA has a duty to place them in temporary accommodation should they have no where else that is safe for them to stay while they complete their assessment, all enforcable in court. Much more useful knowledge for kids in inner city sink estates than trigonometry.
 
 
Lurid Archive
07:10 / 09.11.05
Could you clarify your last comment on media ? - sdv

Does it actually need clarification? Hmmm, ok.

I'm asking for a justification that literary and cultural studies are prerequisites to "read[ing] the media critically and analytically". I'm not sure how Deva will respond, so I thought that I'd leave it at that but maybe I'll make a few more comments. One might argue that this is the business of cultural and media studies, hence one follows naturally from the other. But, partly, I'm never clear who and what cultural and literary studies is supposed to encompass.

A quick look at wikipedia more or less confirms what I thought and seems to me to consist of a variety of thinkers, with some broad political allegiance, some of whom have come in for (what seems to me) rather strong criticism from their peers (Butler and Derrida spring to mind). A key question for me is then whether cultural and literary studies include the kind of work going on at Media Lens and FAIR? Or is that not counted as analysis? (This is not a rhetorical question.) What about Chomsky and Herman's Manufacturing Consent?

For that matter, what about the Media Research Centre? Can analysis of the media be carried out from the right?

What I'm asking is whether analysis and criticism are being imagined as belonging to a particular and definite strand of thought to the exclusion of other ways of thinking. In much the same way that one might question the statement that all children need to study logical positivism, on the grounds that we all need to know about meaning.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
09:07 / 09.11.05
But, partly, I'm never clear who and what cultural and literary studies is supposed to encompass.

Cultural studies is the (critical) study of culture, as the name suggests. Literary studies is the (critical) study of literature, as the name suggests. The fact that these terms have become associated with particular schools of thought or approaches or more specific areas of study, and in the case of "cultural studies" have then been appropriated as pejorative terms, is an unfortunate one but it need not be a distraction. So yes, you could look at Chomsky's work on the media in cultural studies, you could look at Media Lens.
 
 
Cat Chant
09:52 / 09.11.05
I'll get back to you in more detail later, Lurid, but a quick peek round the MediaLens site and associated links reveals that one of its main contributors, David Miller, is a professor of sociology who has published an edited collection of essays on media/cultural studies, including essays by some of the scholars I used to teach to the Cultural Studies undergraduates at Leeds: a glance at some of his references and some of the debates he's published on his website shows that he's part of the same critical/academic community as the big-name scholars usually associated with cultural and literary theory. So I don't see a dichotomy between the cultural/literary theory canon and MediaLens (which is being written by people who have studied the cultural/literary theory canon). As for the Media Resource Centre - on a quick scan, it has no theoretical dimension, unless it's true that it can "scientifically" prove liberal bias (on my understanding of the scientific method, this is nonsensical, but I may be wrong), and thus doesn't really form a body of ideas/skills which can be taught.

I guess I'm a bit taken aback at the idea that there somewhere exists a more useful body of thought on critical and analytical approaches to popular culture and the media than, well, cultural studies (which is an open designation for work on critical and analytical approaches to popular culture and the media). But I'll try and give you a more concrete account (later on today) of what sorts of skills I think are useful for cultural/media analysis and critique, and how they are embodied in the cultural/literary theory canon (insofar as there is such a thing).
 
 
Cat Chant
09:59 / 09.11.05
Sorry, just to add one thing - I think there's a tension between this:

I'm never clear who and what cultural and literary studies is supposed to encompass.

and this:

whether analysis and criticism are being imagined as belonging to a particular and definite strand of thought to the exclusion of other ways of thinking.

By which I mean that on the one hand, you seem to be saying that cultural/literary studies are too open (where do they end? do they potentially include everything?) and on the other, too closed (are they excluding other ways of thinking)?

The answer is yes, to an extent, of course cultural studies/literary studies excludes some ways of thinking. It's a body of thought which has evolved over the past hundred or so years (going back to Marx and Freud, for the sake of argument) and which continues to evolve, in the same way as other ways of thinking. Philosophy excludes poetry, science excludes magic, cultural studies excludes... logical positivism, possibly. Biological determinism. Social Darwinism (though Darwin and genetics are becoming more and more important to cultural studies, actually). But that's how all disciplines define themselves as coherent and useful bodies of thought.
 
 
Lurid Archive
11:31 / 09.11.05
By which I mean that on the one hand, you seem to be saying that cultural/literary studies are too open (where do they end? do they potentially include everything?) and on the other, too closed (are they excluding other ways of thinking)?

In part I am asking questions rather than making definitive statements (I guess that isn't coming across). But I suppose I am also wary of conflating the general with the specific, as a cover for ideology. As a for instance, one could argue that students need to know about how economies function in the world and should therefore study economics. And if someone were to suggest that, I'd be curious to know what "economics" actually meant and included. For instance, it *can* mean a particular set of applications of linear maths to support laissez faire type conclusions...and this has come in from a good deal of criticism from the post autistics and the non-linear physicists, for example. Or it could be meant to encompass all these different points of view. But in either case, the thing needs explanation and justification, no?
 
 
Cat Chant
11:46 / 09.11.05
I suppose I am also wary of conflating the general with the specific, as a cover for ideology

Absolutely. Sorry if I came over as defensive, it's a good question and a challenging one, and I do hope to address the specifics of your question later, as well as some general questions about standardized curricula that it suggests to me.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:58 / 13.11.05
That you believe this consitutes a non-utopian thought which is applicable to the tens of thousands of schools and universities in the west is interesting but obviously mistaken.

I'm curious about the "obviously" here. It has already been established that the idea that free schooling is utopian because it does not exist is mistaken. It is then demonstrated that the idea that free schooling is utopian because it can only be applied to wealthy and well-adjusted Westerners is also mistaken. So, why is it utopian now? It appears to be because it is not applicable to every school or university in the West. However, we are not being given a reason why this should be obvious - one might even say that the adverb "obviously" here is an attempt to intimidate.

So, where's the obvious? Illmatic has provided examples of free schooling being applied to children from both socially and financially deprived backgrounds.

Now, sdv may be arguing that this will not happen because it is not in the interests of society for it to happen, but that's a bit of a different issue. sdv certainly is arguing that education should be universal - so what's the case against applying a free educational model universally? Class sizes? Illmatic - you've read more about the free educational model, it seems, than anybody else on the thread. How many pupils might one find in a class? How would one deal with, for example, a polyglot educational environment like Tower Hamlets?
 
 
illmatic
08:04 / 14.11.05
This is a very interesting issue for me, if one I find frustrating to discuss. This kind of discussion does bring out "conservative" tendencies in otherwise "progressive" (for want of a better word) people. That isn't intended as an insult to anyone, btw, it's just one of those weird subjects to argue about where people automatically tend to defend the status quo. Perhaps this shows how out of sync we are with childrens needs? Perhaps this is because most of the people I find myself arguing with about this topic have a relatively positive experience of the education system?

Firstly, I'd like to address the idea that "free schooling" is inherently utopian. If we take Summerhill, and Summerhill only, as our model, then yes, I can see the point SDV is making. As much as it might be desirable, we're not going to scrap the current educational system and replace it overnight with something so at variance with the demands of industrial capitalism. However, in the broader sense, what one might call the "summerhillian model" has been hugely influential in teaching over the last 30-40 years - I'm going to do a bit of slight of hand here with educational jargon and for "summerhillian" I'd like to substitute the "humanistic model" which, anybody who knows anything about education will realise, has been hugely influential over the last 30-40 years (the humanistic model - or models (plural), strictly speaking - is that which regard a child's emotional needs and happiness as a key component in successful learning). Now, humanistic thinking in education isn't the same as a Summerhill on every corner, but they are very, very much on the same spectrum, and the humanistic model is still taught as a key compnent of PGCE's in this country - I should know, I did one last year. Yes, that's correct I'm a teacher (which is why I find SDV's statement that I'm "utopian" incredibly irritating - this type of thinking has affected my career choice, it affects the way I approach my work on a day to day basis, I can it's effects in the work of colleagues and can see the effects on policy and learning in the institutions I work in. Utopian? I don't think so).

Haus: re. class sizes (back in the "pure" Summerhillian/free school model - in the reading I've done, there's no standardised type of school, every institution tends to evolve differently. I imagine that the logistics of class sizes etc would start to play a role if these types of schools began to become more widespread. As to how to deal with a polyglot environment like Tower Hamlets, I must confess my ignorance at present - possibly by trying to accomodate and accept the child's mother tounge and culture, and involve this in the educational process in some way. Will checkteh texts and get back to you. (Incidentally, the type of educational exclusion and difficulties faced by children of different ethnicities is given as a reason for the popularity of homeschooling amongst Afro-American families in the states - a growing trend).

I'd just like to address this point: It appears to be [utopian] because it is not applicable to every school or university in the West - sdv's logic here seems to be that therefore anything other than the status quo is undesirable. In the book I cited above (I hope this thread inspires at least one person to check it out), an appendix lists free schools all over the world. There aren't many in the UK - but in the Netherlands, there are apparently "too many to list". I'd argue that this is somethign worth aspiring to.
 
 
illmatic
09:14 / 14.11.05
This article might provide a useful riposte to those who argue that "free education" is only for the well-adjusted and comfortably off. It's a lot briefer than I would like, but interesting nonetheless.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
12:07 / 14.11.05
Haus/Illmatic

"sdv certainly is arguing that education should be universal - so what's the case against applying a free educational model universally?"

(universally is such a worrying word....)

Just to clarify my position --- I am not arguing that challenging the 'status quo is undesirable', what I have been arguing is that: it is important to recognize that the shift from an educational system constructed to support a disciplinary society to one constructed to support a control society - needs to be recognized and where possible taken into account. (industrial to post-industrial if you prefer). Without thinking in these terms you really can't make the assumption that 'challenging the status quo' is necessarily a radical act.

I believe that I said earlier that free schools began as a critique of disciplinary educational practice. Now however we should probably consider that free schools are as much a part of the control society changes as is the constant assessment and testing that takes place in mainsteam western educational practice. If a school is structured to be part of the society and deliver a person into higher education - then we already know that it is constructed along smilar lines.. (is it possible for a young person of under 25 to go to university in the UK without qualifications ? )

So then my use of the word 'obviously' - The problem with utopian solutions are that they never address the actuality of the human beings that are to be saved by the solution. So for example: to assume that a school with 80% refugees and migrant children of 5-6 different cultural and ethnic groups could be restructured along free school lines, when niether the children nor the parents are in a position to communicate with teachers or controlling bodies.. either way nobody can be allowed to impose a utopian solution onto the people concerned. So the question that haunts me about this is can a free school model be imposed on people who have just arrived from what are almost pre-industrial and even perhaps pre-disciplinary societies...

Really as far as I can tell this is not a question about 'free' as against the current 'dominant model' - but about how these two supposedly opposing models both appear to support the hetergenous nature of the control society.

consequently then I really do not believe it is not about the children at all.
 
 
illmatic
14:02 / 14.11.05
free schools began as a critique of disciplinary educational practice

Agreed.

however we should probably consider that free schools are as much a part of the control society changes as is the constant assessment and testing that takes place in mainsteam western educational practice

Can you offer any evidence to support this? From reading about them, it’s obvious to me they offer a radically different model – it knocks away the automatic assumed authority which large sections of our society rest on, for one.

problem with utopian solutions are that they never address the actuality of the human beings that are to be saved by the solution

You said something like this upthread, and – again – it’s an unproved assertion that is actually ignoring the evidence that I’ve been quoting, and linking to, throughout the thread. How is the “actuality of human beings” ignored in the schools I’ve mentioned? How is it ignored in the info about the school I’ve linked to directly above your last bloody post. The pupils affected range from relatively small numbers at the “pure” Summerhill end of spectrum to a huge, unquantifable number, if we look at the broad end, humanistic practise in education. I went into the sector I work in specifically so I wouldn’t end up having authoritarian conflicts with kids all the time, and would have more space to negotiate. I would be first to admit that the institutions I teach in aren’t ideal, and I don’t/cannot give expression to the more radical end of these ideas in the situations I work with, but everyday I see more and more evidence that the basic ideas underlying free education are correct - that coercive teaching doesn’t work. How then, have I ignored the actuality of the kids I teach?

Onto this:

to assume that a school with 80% refugees and migrant children of 5-6 different cultural and ethnic groups could be restructured along free school lines

I think this could be immensely problematic, which is why I’m not arguing in any way for thoughtless, standardised solutions.

But this…

when niether the children nor the parents are in a position to communicate with teachers or controlling bodies..

Any kind of free school – if we’re back talking about the “pure” end of the spectrum - has inherent as part of it’s ethos, open communication between the parties involved, particularly between children and teachers. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a free school. I really don’t see what you’re arguing here.

So the question that haunts me about this is can a free school model be imposed on people who have just arrived from what are almost pre-industrial and even perhaps pre-disciplinary societies...

Again – again – in the book I’ve mentioned, there are examples of free schools in non-Western settings. India and Africa. I don’t think being from a non-Western background mitigates against this type of education working.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
14:28 / 14.11.05
excellent thread - btw

lots of respectful disagreement =)

my two bits:

wrt the commentary on teaching critical analysis of the media... literary studies...

I think that if you teach a person that their native tongue (or first language) is as much open to change and play and experimentation - double-meanings, word play, poetic license, and so on - as physical education, then they will learn the fluidity of meaning, and contextual component of the words themselves...

and if we look at our language critically, it can then be focused on different media (how do TV advertisers use language? vs televised fiction? vs evangelists? vs conversational vampires? etc...

seems that a "language arts" (as the class is called in some schools in Canada) class/curriculum would help to provide students with generalised skills in using their native/first language. If you are strong with English, no one can use it against you ("you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists.")

provided the students in question care in the least about learning this particular subject...

wrt to homeschool - a close friend of mine was taught through home school (most home schooling is done by church groups in Canada - but I think other groups are starting up as well).

a trend of which to beware in home schooled children: they tend to do well in the same subjects in which their parents do well.

ta
tenix
 
 
Saturn's nod
13:28 / 12.03.06
Only those things that help train them to think. Anything else will not ultimately help them in the increasingly liquid control society....

But there are a few things in consensus reality which are really not mutable, and they are increasingly important: our planet is finite in many resources, and at present the dominant human society seems unable to seriously take that into account.

I would like school curriculum to include serious gardening for food and other crops. I'd base the curriculum in ecological thinking and fit the other stuff in around it. (%Close the universities! Make them all work on farms!%)

In specifics: I would like the school building to be designed, or at least seriously converted to a zero-emissions basis (see Zeri as an example for more information) and for the children to be involved in management of e.g. fresh water - "living machines" for water treatment, water catchment systems etc. Also, composting - such a vital and deightful skill - and energy efficiency, insulation, heating, lighting etc. Physics (heat etc), chemistry (including chemical fates in environmental systems), biology (observations of organisms) , economics (inputs/outputs, why don't we grow x in this country) can all grow out of the necessities of running such a system.

If the UK is going to transition successfully towards an energy-poor society (I realise that many people don't want to go this way at all!) then the whole housing stock will need to have what amounts to a permaculture retrofit, so let's start by training the children how to, then they can teach the rest of us.

All students need to be encouraged to take part in gardening. Addressing the problems of pests, diseases, food production and storage, care for soil as a living organism, would be really good for educating everyone in the basic realities of life on a finite planet. Even schools in densely built-up areas can garden in containers, roofspaces, local parks etc.

Gardening for food teaches us about the realities of life on a planet. It's a good model for any business enterprise.

(In fact, one of my aims in life is that most of our local parks and common grounds start metamorphosing into food forests, with naturalised nut & fruit trees, perennial food plants etc. But that's something for another thread, let me see if I can get a Creation post together for people here on the board to help sharpen up my thinking about it.)
 
 
Saturn's nod
20:40 / 12.03.06
Ooh, just like this, which is the Edible Schoolyard project. One particular school has tried out setting up a school kitchen garden and integrating the ecological foundations into the school's other lessons. They have full time garden and kitchen workers, and suggestions about how to set up your own school kitchen garden.

I like that this shows how very possible it would be to make the kind of changes I would like to see.
 
  

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