America’s past, woeful in many respects, is being revised again by adults to suit the agenda of those who seek to promote a narrative that seeks to change the political/cultural narrative of US society and its history, and it is aimed at young students in particular.
by John Stanton
“Ask
students to read for more than a couple of sentences and many will protest that
they can’t do it. The most frequent complaint that teachers hear that it’s
boring. It is not so much the content of the written material that is at issues
here; it is the act of reading itself that is deemed to be boring. What we are
facing here is not just time-honored teenage torpor, but the mismatch between a
post-literate New Flesh that is too wired to concentrate and the confining
concentrational logics of decaying disciplinary systems. To be bored means
simply to be removed from the communicative sensation-stimulus matrix of
texting, You Tube and fast food; to be denied, for a moment, the constant flow
of sugary gratification on demand. Some students want Nietzsche in the same way
they want a hamburger; the fail to grasp—and the logic of the consumer system
encourages this misapprehension—the indigestibility, the difficult is
Nietzsche.” Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
I am a
substitute teacher (grades K-12) in a public school system located in Virginia,
a state on the eastern seaboard of the United States. For many years prior to
becoming a substitute teacher, I also taught at a private school in Virginia.
Tuition and fees at the private school are approximately $42,000 (USD), the
public schools are, of course, tuition free.
To be
sure, there are highly motivated students in both educational settings that
call into question Mark Fisher’s observation above. But in the main, both
organization’s struggle with figuring out if they are working with their
subjects as students or as consumers of services provided by teachers and
administrators.
From what
I have observed in the tiny microcosm in which I’ve worked, adults have not
figured out how to teach Generation Z. It is as if K-12 students
are; well, lab rats, in a messy experiment that reflects adult confusion about
how to facilitate learning in an era when all the “book learning” education
seeks to impart is largely available on the World Wide Web (WWW). Reality hits
video screens before adults can interpret it for their children; that is,
assuming the adults are up to the task. Twitter, a modern day ticker-tape,
dumbs down the American populace. Attention spans for students and adults are
measured in 10 minute increments, if that.
Teachers
are little more than circuits in America’s educational network and, as such,
transmit surface information to the students and little more. The kids know a
lot, for sure, but they, like the adults that school them and lead them, have
no intellectual depth, something required for critical thinking. It is fitting,
I suppose, that in these times when the United States is a polarized nation of
cynics who believe in nothing, it’s not surprising that its educators teach the
young to be cynics. But as Oscar Wilde noted through one of his
characters, a cynic is “one who knows the price of everything but the value of
nothing.”
And yet
the very adults (academics, corporate leaders, politicians) that created this
cynical, digitized short attention span world whine about students not being
able to read and write, think critically or master math. There is a reason for
that: They are not being taught effectively to do those things. All of which
reaffirms something I wrote in 2013: The
American Education System is creating Ignorant Adults.
The
leaders of Boeing and Lockheed Martin worry out loud about the absence of US
school aged students who can excel at science, technology, engineering and math
disciplines (STEM). But they have no problem funding initiatives for Chinese students
and aviation professionals in China.
Hocus
Pocus
Back in
the USA, school classrooms are a mishmash of technology, new wave/repackaged
learning techniques and revisionist history. Apple I-Pads and Smart Boards are
located in each classroom for student/teacher use. They are all connected to
software that provides music, cartoons and learning platforms like Canvas for most grade levels. The latest
teaching fads like Maker Learning with its “Digital Promise”
backed by Google and Pixar, among others, competes with concepts like the
Flipped Classroom, Blended Learning and other pedagogies that come in and out
of vogue. And yet, along side all the technology are crayons, magic markers,
pencils, paper and cardboard for writing and drawing.
It’s no
stretch to say that I-Phones, Android and other hand held devices may cause epigenetic changes. Students, teachers/coaches
and administrators are constantly staring head down at their
computing-communications devices. It is tough to get a face-to-face
conversation going with most anyone in these groups as their eyes and heads are
in the down position while sitting, walking or standing. Even if you are having
a meatspace meeting, participants will incessantly dart their eyes to the
handheld safely nearby the hand, in the hand, or on the lap (looking down
again).
America’s
past, woeful in many respects, is being revised again by adults to suit the
agenda of those who seek to promote a narrative that seeks to change the
political/cultural narrative of US society and its history, and it is aimed at
young students in particular. The New York Times (NYT) 1619 Project is an example of this.
According to the World Socialist Website, “The 1619
Project, launched by the Times in August, presents American history in a purely
racial lens and blames all white peoplefor the enslavement of 4 million black
people as chattel property. “
The NYT
has provided teaching materials that are being used by colleges, universities
and high schools across the United States. Who is willing or capable of
debating the claims of the New York Times; or should we say, who is willing to
be labeled a racist for disagreeing with The revisionist authors of the 1619 Project?
At the collegiate level, at least, there may be debate on the matter but at the
high school level, what teacher is going to argue against using 1619 teaching
materials. After all it is the New York Times.
What is
very troubling about the NYT revisionism is that it makes the preposterous
claim that racism is part of the DNA of all white people. The World Socialist
Website claims that: “This is dangerous politics, and very bad history…[it] mixes
anti-historical metaphors pertaining to biological determinism (that racism is
printed in a “national DNA”) and to religious obscurantism (that slavery is the
uniquely American “original sin”). But whether ordained by God or genetic code,
racism by whites against blacks serves, for the 1619 Project, as history’s deus ex machina. There is no
need to consider questions long placed at the center of historical inquiry:
cause and effect, contingency and conflict, human agency and change over time.
History is simply a morality tale written backwards from 2019.”
Sharpen
My Pencils, Fool!
I have
often winced at some of the practices I observed in classrooms. On a typical
day as a substitute, I arrive at a school, pick up instructions left by the
teacher who is absent (or has a meeting), and head to the classroom. Substitute
teachers, or Subs, are a lower class of species, members of the gig economy,
and treated as such by the “real” teachers and students. I remember one teacher
I subbed for was headed off to a meeting and as she left said, “Sharpen my
pencils for me.” I dutifully did. A majority of the teachers and administrators
don’t ask for your name, you’re just known as “The Sub.”
Once
students complete their work (if they even choose to do it), which for most
does not take much class time, they are free to play video games, stick ear
buds in and listen to music or hang out with friends via the handheld device.
One of the popular video games with male 6th to 12th graders is Krunker, a first person shooter game. Is
US society really that concerned about active shooters in schools?
The State
and corporations can be found in some form in the public school system. One
elementary school has Lockheed Martin as a sponsor of a science program. In
another elementary school, a class is learning about Virginia’s geography: The
students print and video work product will ultimately be used by a tourism
association in the State.
In both
institutions learning is calibrated to the SAT, ACT and various Advanced
Placement tests. Student test scores serve as one metric for teacher
performance reviews along with standards set by school boards, the State, or
independent audits in the private school case.
Students
are not required to stand or even pay attention to the United States Pledge of
Allegiance that is carried via intercom into the classrooms each morning. Some
schools don’t even bother with it. Yet, during sporting events like American
contact football, students/athletes and fans are required, or let’s say by the
pressure of custom are compelled, to stand for the playing of the United
States’ National Anthem. American flags are stitched into football jerseys and
prior to games one football player is selected to run the American flag onto
the field amidst the adrenaline fueled shouts and growls of fellow teammates
following close behind. A color
guard from a high
school’s junior reserve officer training corps (JROTC) sometimes is present. They present
in strict marching formation the American flag along with the flags of the US
Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.
To stand
and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in a classroom takes one minute. To be
upright for the National Anthem takes, perhaps, five minutes. The school band
normally plays the latter and on occasion high school Madrigals
will sing the National Anthem.
Yes, the
militarization of US society and the deification of military personnel, even if
they are accountants in uniform working at the Pentagon, is something to be
concerned about. But saying the Pledge, and standing for the National Anthem,
should be a requirement for students. There has to be some measure or display
of loyalty to one’s country and the young must learn that. Still many want to wipe away any sense of citizenship,
patriotism. Well, they are doing a fine job of that.
Mind
the Inmates!
Students
at both institutions are the beneficiaries of some serious force protection
measures normally associated with protecting military personnel stationed at
installations around the globe. The public schools in which I worked have armed
police officers on site with a phalanx of civilian security/disciplinarians
roaming the halls. Security cameras are everywhere indoors (hallways) and
outside (entry and exit) recording movements. Public school buses are also
outfitted with cameras and tracking systems.
The
private school where I was once employed uses a less blunt force approach
opting for a more subtle presence: security personnel are a bit less obvious
and do not carry firearms. The school does employ a corporate style full-time
director of security and safety with some serious emergency management
credentials.
It is the
same security scene at public and private schools across the United States
which raises an interesting question: Are students really captive minds in
minimum security enclosures subjected daily to social, emotional learning
techniques or socialization/habilitation for entry into society? Or are they
“free” learners allowed to be creative and explore beyond the confines of the
pedagogy that seeks to “standardize” them.
No
Student Untracked
There is
a functioning big data brother at work tracking students as they make their way
through K-12 known as the Common Core of Data (CCD). CCD is described by Marc Gardner in a presentation
for the US National Center for Education Statistics
(NCES)as “the annual collection of the universe of United States public
elementary, secondary education agencies and schools. Data include enrollment
by grade, race/ethnicity and sex, special education, english learners, school
lunch programs, teachers, dropouts and completers.” The CCD also gathers
information from state justice, health and labor departments. The NCES also
collects data from private schools.
It
doesn’t end there. Colleges and universities are tracking high school seniors
as they begin their searches for schools they’d like to attend. The Washington Post recently reported that many colleges and
universities have hired data capture firms to track prospective students as
they explore websites. “Records and interviews show that colleges are building
vast repositories of data on prospective students — scanning test scores, zip
codes, high school transcripts, academic interests, web browsing histories,
ethnic backgrounds and household incomes…”
The owner
of Canvas, referenced above, is Instructure.
Their mission, according to their investor website is to “grow [the young] from the
first day of school to the last day of work [retirement].” One of the capabilities
that Instructure provides its clients is Canvas Folio Management. According to the investor webpage, it
“delivers an institutional homepage and deep, real-time analytics on student
engagement, skills and competencies, network connections, and interactions
across various cohorts. Allows institutions to generate custom reports tied
directly to student success initiatives and export accreditation-ready reports
on learning outcomes at the student, cohort, course, program, or institutional
level.”
Ah, yes,
the thrill of being hunted for a life time by big data brother. Anyway, there
is no escape.
Don’t
try this in a Classroom
“Learning
is an active process, not simply a matter of banking information in a recipient
passive mind. Teaching therefore has to be a transactional process rather than
just the transmission of information. The transactional aspect is essential to
enabling students to challenge their situations in life, which they must learn
to do if they are to play their parts as active citizens of a better
world…teaching must be approached as an intellectually disruptive and
subversive activity if it is to instill inquiry skills in learners and
encourage them to think for themselves rather than mindlessly accept received
ideas. We believe it is more important in the digital age than ever before.”
(Ingenious: The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation by Peter Gluckman
and Mark Hanson, Harvard, 2019)
John
Stanton can be reached at jstantonarchangel@gmail.com.
The article title is courtesy of Oscar Wilde. See inline link, paragraph 5 for
more.
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