[Cross-posted from Technopaideia]
Instead, I'm intrigued by this idea that we academics (educators, teachers) are somehow "getting what we want in our children" and that "what we want" is that they think "the same" as we do. This is quite an interesting claim, to me. It seems to imply not only that "we" all think alike and that "we" all have the same desire to produce graduates who think in the same way as "we" do, but it also suggests that we're pretty successful in getting our graduates to think like us. And since we have "Hollywood, the media, and the Democrats" on our side, we don't even have to be especially effective at schooling the kids in the liberal ideology...we can rely on the culture at large to aid and abet our conspiracy.
Once you look around on the Internets, my Dad's notions here about a liberal conspiracy that includes the schools don't seem unusual. In fact, it seems to be a pretty common belief. Here are just a few examples I found in just a few minutes:
1. In an article about the political realities of climate change given the recent elections, it was stated that young people are more likely to believe in global warming than older people are. The article included this paragraph:
Watt's view that young people today have been "conditioned by textbooks and a generally liberal education process" is the core of what I'm addressing here. The implication, of course, is that this has gotten worse in recent years...thus explaining why young people today are more likely to believe a "liberal" point of view (their elders went to school before this bias took hold, perhaps?).
2. In an opinion piece in the Washington Times in April of this year, Deborah Simmons wrote:
Simmons goes on to talk about an interview she conducted with David Horowitz:
3. (Okay, I admit, this next one is a low-hanging fruit.) Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly wrote earlier this year on her Eagle Forum about the fight to revise the Texas state curriculum guidelines, titling her post "Texas Kicks Out Liberal Bias From Textbooks." The whole piece is really interesting to me, but I'll just include a few excerpts here:
Now that I think about it, Schlafly's editorial is worth quoting at some length:
4. Here's some excerpts from a blog produced by Intellectual Takeout (ITO), "a non-partisan, educational 501(c)(3) institution [whose] vision is to become a national leader in educating and mobilizing conservatives, libertarians, independents, and progressives [?!?] in order to play a pivotal role in expanding individual and economic freedoms while reducing the size and scope of government."
There are two sub-topics under Colleges of Education. One is about teacher certification, and the other is called "Education and Social Justice." This phrase "social justice," which seems on its face to be a nonpartisan ideal (who is against justice in society?), appears again and again in writings that claim an alleged left-wing bias in schools. (It's also become one of my Dad's favorite phrases when describing the conspiracy toward a New World Order that me, Obama, and our liberal friends are working toward.) The article in Intellectual Takeout explains the phrase's significance:
Notice the key phrase "critically examines..." On the very face of it, this seems to confirm ITO's view.
What's more, the National College of Education's conceptual framework includes the following:
The thing is, none of this suggests that what we want is to create teachers well-versed in what has been called "critical pedagogy." Rather, our goal is helping new teachers to understand the broader social forces that pertain to their work in classrooms with particular children, so that they can be more effective teachers. (Although, we must admit, colleges of education aren't necessarily doing a great job with this; see here for one take on how poor they are.) We faculty members also want our teacher-graduates to be true professionals who use their understanding of history, sociology, and cultural psychology to further the profession and increase the effectiveness of schools and of the American educational system in general. We most definitely don't believe that teachers should just teach academic skills and factual knowledge...we expect them to know and care about the larger context of schooling and about the daily lives of their students, now and in the future. Thinking critically about education means knowing that education requires more than just getting the kids to be effective in computation and decoding and memorization...and, more importantly, it means more than just teaching lower-income kids to follow orders and upper-income kids to be creative and problem-solve. (Which is what tends to happen in schools; see Anyon, 1980)
Certainly some of us do talk about critical pedagogy in some contexts. Personally, I don't think you can teach a course in the history and philosophy of education without some attention to thinkers who are considered left-wing. Some of us even assign readings, in some contexts, from Freire, Giroux, and Ayers (and...gasp!...even John Dewey!). But we also assign readings from John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Horace Mann, James Conant, and Diane Ravitch, the books of which do not appear on the list of the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries" (Dewey's Democracy and Education does, though.) John Locke's Two Treatises of Government even appears on the Ultimate List of Conservative Must-Read Books. He's no "critical pedagogue," as anyone who has compared his Some Thoughts Concerning Education to Rousseau's Emile (for example) can attest. Actually, I think most teachers of the history and philosophy of education in colleges of education are pretty balanced, overall, because...
...um...
...well, because in many of our courses (especially those in the Foundations of Education), we're trying to get our students to think. That's right: to think.
"But what does "to think" mean?" you ask. "What does having prospective teachers read left-wing ideologues like Freire or Dewey or Rousseau have to do with teaching them to think? Even presenting these thinkers as if they are worth reading is introducing a bias right there, is it not?"
Hmmmm....soooo...let's see: having them read Locke or Jefferson isn't introducing bias? Or..are you saying...it's okay to introduce certain kinds of bias? Or are these thinkers not biased? Some of the other readings I assign my students are clearly biased toward the right: articles by people like William Bennett and Chester Finn, who are known Republicans...and such documents as "A Nation At Risk," a report issued while Reagan was president.) The goal is to help students to understand the wide range of perspectives on educational topics...not to indoctrinate them to think a particular way!
But as I'm writing this, I'm having an internal conversation that is flowing more rapidly than I'm able to write. I'm thinking about what I consider to be the purposes of education, of what it means to be educated...of what it means to be a thinker.
And yes, in my conception of an educated person is....a willingness to read the works of people across the political spectrum, and a willingness to think about the variety of perspectives that exist, and a willingness to accept that each of these perspectives offers something important philosophically, historically, and educationally...and that the only way a reader can understand a reading is to understand that any reading reflects the values, experiences, social positions, and...yes...biases of its author. This is what is meant by critical thinking: gaining the capacity to critique without merely condemning...to understand without condoning...to compare and contrast and contextualize while coming gradually to one's own conclusions...in short, to think for oneself.
"But wait! Then you do have a bias," you're thinking. "Your bias is that multiple perspectives need to be encountered, understood, digested, and then synthesized in the forming of one's own viewpoint. Your bias is that education is about teaching each person to think for him or herself...rather than to merely accept the values and perspectives of a particular group (their parents, their peers, their community, the government, those in business, multinational corporations). In other words, you are trying to indoctrinate teachers into the view that getting their students to think for themselves is a worthy goal!"
Um, yes: guilty as charged.
"So you would rather have a young person form their own political beliefs than just vote the way their parents want them to?" Yes.
"So you believe that all young people should be exposed to a variety of values, beliefs, and perspectives in school, and that they should be taught to evaluate these different perspectives critically rather than unquestioningly"? Yes.
"So you believe that there's no right or wrong...that everything is relative...that capitalism is not always great...that Communists shouldn't be ruthlessly investigated and "outed"...that students should understand why the Constitution prohibited the establishment of religion...that they should understand that the Constitution isn't perfect...that it allowed slavery to continue...and didn't let women or poor people vote.?" Well...maybe.
"So you admit a virulent left-wing bias?!?" Um...if by that you mean a set of values about what education consists of and how best to move young people towards a broader understanding of their world, ...then yes, I do.
"And you admit that your colleagues have the same beliefs about these things that you do?" Well, for the most part, yes...we pride ourselves in our commitments to democratic values, as shown in our Conceptual Framework.
"Okay, then: case closed."
Coda
The thing is, there are people in America who don't believe that it is a good thing for young people to learn, in schools, to think for themselves, especially when it comes to thinking about issues with political aspects. Fundamentalists, for example, don't want their children to learn, in school, about evolution, or about ongoing intellectual strife about the historical authenticity of the Bible, or about how to use a condom to prevent sexually-transmitted diseases. Fiscal conservatives don't want people developing their capacities to critique "trickle-down" economics, or their understanding of the ways that multinational corporations use the intricacies of American and international law to avoid responsibility for the larger environmental or health effects of their products. Racists don't want their children coming home from school and questioning the stereotypes that they hold about race; male chauvinists don't want their daughters to question their oppressive ideas and behaviors; meat eaters or farmers don't want their kids spouting data related to corporate farming or the true costs of eating meat. All of these groups want and expect their kids' public school to avoid getting into anything that might conflict with their "family values."
On the other hand, liberals also don't want their kids coming home and singing the praises of Reagan's foreign policy, or defending Joseph McCarthy, or using the Bible to justify discrimination against gays, or spouting anti-Muslim rhetoric related to 911. I mentioned above that principals want, primarily, to avoid upsetting parents to the point that complaints find their way to members of the school board. This is why principals, in general, want their teachers to avoid controversial topics. This is, in part, why the standardized testing regime finds such favor among school leaders: teachers who are concentrating on preparing their students to do well on multiple choice tests are unlikely to get parents upset about what's being foisted on their kids by their teachers.
And so, the trend in the schools...in my view...isn't toward student-centered teaching or critical pedagogy (or even social justice). The trend has been, especially since A Nation at Risk in 1983, but probably longer (back to the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which included not only more federal funding for math and science education but also a requirement that students benefiting from the loans it provided sign an affidavit disclaiming belief in the overthrow of the U.S. government). A Nation at Risk solidified the view that the primary purpose of American schools was to increase American economic competitiveness, and that the best way to do that was to increase academic expectations and standardized testing (so-called "accountability"). One way to look at this trend is to see it as a backlash to the so-called "liberal" bias of teachers, who, it is believed, not only waste their time indoctrinating students into their left-wing views, but also fail to develop their students basic skills. The view seems to be that "critical thinking" and "academic excellence" are somehow at odds, and that liberal teachers can't be trusted to strike (pun intended) the proper balance.
So I think the whole question of whether schools and colleges have a "virulent left-wing bias" is clouded by another issue, which is whether schools and colleges should be trying to get their students to learn to think for themselves about larger social and political issues. As an avowed liberal, I am quite willing to accept that I have a "bias" towards students learning to think critically rather than just accepting the values or political views of their parents or communities. I believe that a democratic society (oh, sorry, a "constitutional republic") requires citizens with a capacity to think for themselves, and that schools in such a society have an obligation to develop that capacity...along with an ability to interpret data...conduct independent research...understand multiple perspectives...read between the lines...and suspend judgment. These outcomes don't seem to me to reflect a "left wing" bias...but if they result in our students being less likely to accept dogma (from left OR right), then I'm happy.
As for the "left wing" bias...it's a somewhat different charge. The suggestion is that because so many teachers are allegedly left of center (as many as 87% according to one study!), that they are "squelching" other points of view and unduly influencing their students. This is the charge that my Dad intended to make, and that most of the articles I quote above also make. This is the charge that Rush Limbaugh makes when he claims that "The public school system is a liberal project that is designed to create as many little liberals as possible." This is why Phyllis Schlafly calls it a "virulent" left-wing bias...to reflect the notion that teachers are trying to make as many "mini-me liberals" as they can. And us college of education faculty members? Not only producing mini-me liberals in our own students (eventual teachers)...but in the k-12 students they eventually teach. (It's like a Ponzi scheme...only more satisfying!)
Personally, I don't think that's what most liberal college professors and school teachers want. I don't think most of us want graduates who think the same as we do. As I've argued, we want graduates who do think for themselves, and to the extent that this undermines dogma, we're happy. But "mini-me's"? No. That's no only petty and unprofessional...it's against what we're explicitly trying to do.
And yet, the charge remains. When conservatives lose elections or feel that no one is listening to their point of view (as my Dad clearly felt in that Facebook discussion)...the charge is renewed. When conservatives win or they're talking among themselves, the charge is renewed and they pat themselves on the back for finding a way around the liberal teachers...and (allegedly) liberal media...and (allegedly) liberal government. Aren't those Tea Partiers smart?
Of course, I haven't even begun to touch on another related issue, whether education, in general, opens the mind...and people with open minds tend to be more liberal than those with closed minds. But that's a blog post for another day. Right now, I need to go back to finding ways to indoctrinate my students, in support of the Marxist-Fascist-Liberal New World Order.
And yes, that last sentence was meant facetiously. Have a good day!
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It's no secret that the people who control public schools are at war with our nation's history, culture and achievements. - Phyllis Schlafly
I’ve recently become interested [again] in the question of whether an allegedly liberal bias in educators and academics has had a large impact on American schools and…through them…on the beliefs of Americans at large.The question has come up most recently because of something my Dad wrote in a comment on a discussion I was having with a couple of my (professor) colleagues on Facebook. We were talking about the ways in which Kant's philosophy of education (especially his optimism about progress through education) reflected a modern viewpoint, and that that viewpoint had faded with the rise of post-modernism. A colleague asked me if I blamed "po-mo," and I said that I didn't, but instead blamed the reaction to po-mo, and then another asked if Kant could be called "pre-po-mo," or if that was reducible to "mo."
In any case, we were playing with some of the common tropes in academia. My Dad (with whom I've had a number of heated discussions about politics on Facebook and elsewhere), wrote:
NOW I know what we conservatives are up against. Thanks guys for enlightening me.
One of my colleagues asked him what he meant by that, and he wrote:
It's not just Big Government, Pubic programs and Tax and Spend that makes the liberal tic. That's just the symptoms. It goes to a deep seeded need to make mankind better and socially equal and they feel that they know better than the public in general what's best for them.Now, there's a lot in my Dad's comment that serves as food for thought. For example, I'm not sure why he believes that me and these particular colleagues think alike (I don't think we do think completely alike, although we are all education professors with a strong interest in furthering our own understanding of the history of ideas and culture in general, and we all know what "po-mo" refers to. Well, okay, I'll admit it, these two colleagues and I are all Democrats). For another, I don't know why we're more guilty of believing that what we know is the "only way" than any, say, group of Sarah Palin fans (of which my Dad is one). For a third, I don't really think that a deep-seated desire to make mankind better is the same as thinking we know better than the public in general what's good for them. (Although it's interesting to contemplate the obverse of this statement...do conservatives think they know better than the general public that has been allegedly brainwashed by liberals in the educational system? Maybe only when conservatives lose elections to liberals?!?...but I digress.) Those questions aren't what I'd like to address here.
It all boils down to an ideology. You guys will never see my arguments as having any worth to the discussions. I'm trying not to lower myself to name calling but you guys consider yourself to be the elite, the educated ones that knows best. You talk about what you've learned and read and have been lead to believe that there is no alternative to your philosophies in education and to life in general.
No, there is no sinister plot by the Liberal. You truly believe that what you know is the only way. On your side you have most of academics, Hollywood, the media and the Democrats. There's a new meaning, for me, about what a liberal education really is. With each generation of graduates, you're getting exactly what you want in our children. They will think the same as you do.
Instead, I'm intrigued by this idea that we academics (educators, teachers) are somehow "getting what we want in our children" and that "what we want" is that they think "the same" as we do. This is quite an interesting claim, to me. It seems to imply not only that "we" all think alike and that "we" all have the same desire to produce graduates who think in the same way as "we" do, but it also suggests that we're pretty successful in getting our graduates to think like us. And since we have "Hollywood, the media, and the Democrats" on our side, we don't even have to be especially effective at schooling the kids in the liberal ideology...we can rely on the culture at large to aid and abet our conspiracy.
Once you look around on the Internets, my Dad's notions here about a liberal conspiracy that includes the schools don't seem unusual. In fact, it seems to be a pretty common belief. Here are just a few examples I found in just a few minutes:
1. In an article about the political realities of climate change given the recent elections, it was stated that young people are more likely to believe in global warming than older people are. The article included this paragraph:
Anthony Watts, a prominent climate skeptic who runs the popular and controversial site “Watts Up With That,” blamed the “liberal” education system for the lack of young climate skeptics. “I suppose such a group would be unlikely because our children are conditioned by textbooks and a generally liberal education process to believe in the [man-made global warming] premise as factual and without question,” he said.The article went on to address the fact that the older people are, the less likely they are to believe in man-made climate change or in the need for drastic governmental efforts to avoid a catastrophe. It's interesting that one of the theories offered as to why people seem to change their minds about this as they get older is that they come to understand the economic costs of seriously addressing the issue, and are less willing to pay those costs. They're also supposedly less alarmist...probably having survived more "the sky is falling" situations in their lives...being a bit jaded, perhaps. But the fact that older people tend to understand the costs of addressing climate change doesn't--it seems to me--explain why they also don't think these efforts should be made...but I guess I underestimate the degree to which people vote their pocketbooks on things like this.
Watt's view that young people today have been "conditioned by textbooks and a generally liberal education process" is the core of what I'm addressing here. The implication, of course, is that this has gotten worse in recent years...thus explaining why young people today are more likely to believe a "liberal" point of view (their elders went to school before this bias took hold, perhaps?).
2. In an opinion piece in the Washington Times in April of this year, Deborah Simmons wrote:
Academia [is] leading young minds in a direction that [will] come to affect every aspect of American tradition and policy. Pity the enemies of liberalism and our children because, well, here we are. Same-sex marriage laws are sweeping the states. So-called medical marijuana laws are, too. The public option almost made it into the health care reform bill, and union demands mean weak-kneed politicians and lawmakers are turning their backs on fiscal conservatism in favor of continuing failed one-size-fits-all education policies. That's the short list.(Of course, this kind of talk (that our liberal education system is leading the American people to vote in certain ways is...well...only really salient after elections which result in the election of more liberal politicians. So, after the 2008 elections, the liberal bias of schools seemed particular strong. After the 2010 elections? Not so much.)
Simmons goes on to talk about an interview she conducted with David Horowitz:
Mr. Horowitz talked about how "deliberate liberal bias" has ruined America's schools. Teachers unions, he said, are the root of the problem. "They don't want another voice in the room," Mr. Horowitz said. "The teacher unions and the Democratic Party have a monopoly on the public school systems. ... Teachers get paid for showing up. No one in the world gets paid for showing up." And, he continued, "the kids fail and there's no incentive to teach." "Teachers," Mr. Horowitz said, "are overpaid and underworked, and protected ... by the Democratic Party," and unionized teachers will "fight with their last breath."Teacher bashing and complaining about the liberal bias in curriculum and content seem to go hand in hand. This begins to explain why many on the right prefer to have schools run by corporations...through charters...most of which aren't unionized. By reconfiguring schools so that teachers must teach instead of sitting around--the reasoning goes--the schools will be less likely to brainwash the kids...right? (I'm not sure I get this...the teachers don't work hard...so they effectively brainwash the kids? If they worked harder...they would brainwash less? Clearly, there's a view here of what the "real work" of teachers ought to be. More on this later. But first, let's go on.)
3. (Okay, I admit, this next one is a low-hanging fruit.) Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly wrote earlier this year on her Eagle Forum about the fight to revise the Texas state curriculum guidelines, titling her post "Texas Kicks Out Liberal Bias From Textbooks." The whole piece is really interesting to me, but I'll just include a few excerpts here:
For years, liberals have imposed their revisionist history on our nation's public school students, expunging important facts and historic figures while loading the textbooks with liberal propaganda, distortions and cliches. It's easy to get a quick lesson in the virulent leftwing bias by checking the index and noting how textbooks treat President Ronald Reagan and Senator Joseph McCarthy.... [The link doesn't exactly prove that textbooks treat Reagan badly...but does cite one book that gave the credit for ending the Cold War to Gorbachev and not Reagan...one book...clearly virulent. And the alleged expert who was cited about this...a not-so-liberal professor at the University of Dayton who blogs about "the liars in the government-controlled media." The government controls the media? But I thought it was the liberals who controlled the media...and that conservatives can't succeed in academia... But let's go on...]
In most states, the liberal education establishment enjoys total control over the state's board of education, department of education, and curriculum committees. Texas is different; the Texas State Board of Education is elected, and the people (even including parents!) have a voice. ...(Parents actually have a lot of control over schools...everywhere...as anyone who has spent any time at all in school board meetings know. Principals, in fact, have as their primary job keeping the parents from getting so upset about things at school that they begin to call school board members...who control the principal's jobs. In fact, one could say that increased parental control over schools has had a considerably stifling effect on teachers in the past few decades. But that doesn't fit into the "liberal bias" storyline...and it's another story for another time.)
Now that I think about it, Schlafly's editorial is worth quoting at some length:
After a public outcry, the [Texas State Board of Education (SBOE)] responded with common-sense improvements. Thomas Edison, the world's greatest inventor, will be again included in the narrative of American History.[Huh? What's this got to do with liberals and conservatives?]
Schoolchildren will no longer be misled into believing that capitalism and the free market are dirty words and that America has an unjust economic system. Instead, they will learn how the free-enterprise system gave our nation and the world so much that is good for so many people.
Liberals don't like the concept of American Exceptionalism. The liberals want to teach what's wrong with America (masquerading under the code word "social justice" [on which, more below]) instead of what's right and successful. The SBOE voted to include describing how American Exceptionalism is based on values that are unique and different from those of other nations. [Don't all nations think they're "unique" and "different"? What's exceptional about the American beliefs in their own exceptionalism?]
The SBOE specified that teaching about the Bill of Rights should include a reference to the right to keep and bear arms. Some school curricula pretend the Second Amendment doesn't exist. [From the linked source: "Let me say point blank that one of the objectives of this [federal] curriculum is to eliminate the Second Amendment." There's an interesting side story here about this so-called "federal curriculum," but again, for another time.]
Texas curriculum standards will henceforth accurately describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic" rather than as a democracy. [Yes, not a democracy, really. Something to get my preservice teachers to think more about!] The secularists tried to remove reference to the religious basis for the founding of America, but that was voted down. The Texas Board rejected the anti-Christian crowd's proposal to eliminate the use of B.C. and A.D. for historic dates, as in Before Christ and Anno Domini, and replace them with B.C.E., as in Before the Common Era, and C.E.
The deceptive claim that the United States was founded on a "separation of church and state" gets the ax, and rightfully so. In fact, most of the original thirteen colonies were founded as Christian communities with much overlap between church and state.
History textbooks that deal with Joseph McCarthy will now be required to explain "how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of Communist infiltration in U.S. government." The Venona papers are authentic transcripts of some 3,000 messages between the Soviet Union and its secret agents in the United States.And, finally:
It's no secret that the people who control public schools are at war with our nation's history, culture and achievements. Since taxpayers foot the bill, it is long overdue for a state board of education to correct many textbooks myths and lies about our magnificent national heritage and achievements.(Whew! "At war with our nation's achievements"! Damn, those "people who control public schools" must be a virulent, biased, even nefarious bunch! Who are those people, again?) But let's go on:
4. Here's some excerpts from a blog produced by Intellectual Takeout (ITO), "a non-partisan, educational 501(c)(3) institution [whose] vision is to become a national leader in educating and mobilizing conservatives, libertarians, independents, and progressives [?!?] in order to play a pivotal role in expanding individual and economic freedoms while reducing the size and scope of government."
According to many studies [not cited; see below], bias in academia more often than not is liberal bias. Many professors and students admit to possessing liberal ideologies or Democratic voting tendencies. It is natural and right for liberal students and professors to freely express their liberal philosophies, but is it right for liberal professors to continually advance their ideas in the classroom while squelching all other opinions? No.
As many of the pieces in this section suggest, universities are the breeding grounds for a variety of ideas and thought processes. Students who attend American colleges and universities should be able to gain a well-rounded view of their country, its founding principles, and the ideas – from all points on the political spectrum – that continue to shape and mold its future. Unfortunately, today’s colleges have drifted away from these ideals and become bastions of liberal thought and activism.I dug a little deeper into Intellectual Takeout, which organizes their "information similarly to most university course offerings," by topics. I was curious that one of the topics under "Education" was "Colleges of Education." "Hmmm....I thought...this should be interesting..." And so it is.
There are two sub-topics under Colleges of Education. One is about teacher certification, and the other is called "Education and Social Justice." This phrase "social justice," which seems on its face to be a nonpartisan ideal (who is against justice in society?), appears again and again in writings that claim an alleged left-wing bias in schools. (It's also become one of my Dad's favorite phrases when describing the conspiracy toward a New World Order that me, Obama, and our liberal friends are working toward.) The article in Intellectual Takeout explains the phrase's significance:
As has been mentioned numerous times before, the American education system has undergone major changes in the past fifty years as the principles of teacher-directed education have gradually given way to student-centered learning philosophies. [The history of progressive education is certainly an interesting one...but this quick summary seems a bit...simplistic to me. Anyway....] Although seemingly recent, the changes that have occurred in the classroom were actually initiated many years before in the classrooms of education schools. [Okay...progressive educational ideas certainly achieved a sort of critical mass...say...in the 1940s. So this makes a bit of sense.] The training that occurs in these education schools has a great influence on the social, cultural, and intellectual path that a nation will choose, and due to this fact, it is important to understand what exactly our nation’s education schools are instilling in the minds of our future teachers. The “latest and greatest” education philosophy that education schools are pushing is the central focus of this library section: social justice education.This is truly interesting. Now comes a bit of a doozy:
Social justice education is also commonly referred to as “critical pedagogy.” [Oh boy!] Although its ambiguous titles suggest virtuous American ideals such as truth and justice, its core principles revolve around a pervasive Marxist ideology. Championed by men such as Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and William Ayers, critical pedagogy seeks to turn students into activists with an anti-capitalist mindset. Education schools are increasingly promoting this idea among their students by encouraging them to reject their “privileged” status, recognize their own racial biases, and focus on the “oppressed” facets of society. Today’s elementary and secondary classrooms are beginning to reflect these ideologies. As a result, American schools are slowly moving away from their old purpose of instilling academic skills and factual knowledge in children and toward a lopsided political indoctrination.Wow! This is beginning to get a little personal. I work in a college of education. One of my occasional duties is to teach courses in the history and philosophy of American education...to preservice teachers (those who are just getting their teaching credentials). The course that I most often teach in that area is called "Social Justice Perspectives on the History and Philosophy of American Education." (Yes, it is!) Here's the catalog description:
| FND 510: Social Justice Perspectives on the History and Philosophy of American Education (for M.A.T. students) | |
This course critically examines the social, cultural, political, and economic forces, and the philosophies of education that have influenced policy, laws, school structure, and practices throughout the history of American education. Issues addressed include ability and disability, race, ethnicity, gender, and class. Students lay the foundation for the development of a personal philosophy of education and reflectively examine issues of education from legal and social justice perspectives. This course includes a field project requiring at least 15 hours of work outside of class. 3 semester hours
What's more, the National College of Education's conceptual framework includes the following:
I think this is what we faculty members in the National College of Education at National-Louis University mean by "social justice." Social justice, to me, and to my colleagues, means working for a society that is democratic...where every child has access to a quality education. This means paying attention to the social, political, and economic conditions that affect the quality of schools and that impact the experience that children have in school. It involves attention to what has come to be known as "culturally-relevant" pedagogy...which suggests that teachers must be sensitive to the values, traditions, and perspectives of the families that children come from, and the effects that prior experiences have on their experiences in school. (Click here for more on this approach.)NCE Faculty and candidates use scholarly habits of mind and methods of inquiry in order to affect P-12 student learning by:
- Envisioning, articulating, and modeling democratic and progressive education
- ...
- ...
- Advocating for democratic values, equity, access and resources to assure educational success for all
The thing is, none of this suggests that what we want is to create teachers well-versed in what has been called "critical pedagogy." Rather, our goal is helping new teachers to understand the broader social forces that pertain to their work in classrooms with particular children, so that they can be more effective teachers. (Although, we must admit, colleges of education aren't necessarily doing a great job with this; see here for one take on how poor they are.) We faculty members also want our teacher-graduates to be true professionals who use their understanding of history, sociology, and cultural psychology to further the profession and increase the effectiveness of schools and of the American educational system in general. We most definitely don't believe that teachers should just teach academic skills and factual knowledge...we expect them to know and care about the larger context of schooling and about the daily lives of their students, now and in the future. Thinking critically about education means knowing that education requires more than just getting the kids to be effective in computation and decoding and memorization...and, more importantly, it means more than just teaching lower-income kids to follow orders and upper-income kids to be creative and problem-solve. (Which is what tends to happen in schools; see Anyon, 1980)
Certainly some of us do talk about critical pedagogy in some contexts. Personally, I don't think you can teach a course in the history and philosophy of education without some attention to thinkers who are considered left-wing. Some of us even assign readings, in some contexts, from Freire, Giroux, and Ayers (and...gasp!...even John Dewey!). But we also assign readings from John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Horace Mann, James Conant, and Diane Ravitch, the books of which do not appear on the list of the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries" (Dewey's Democracy and Education does, though.) John Locke's Two Treatises of Government even appears on the Ultimate List of Conservative Must-Read Books. He's no "critical pedagogue," as anyone who has compared his Some Thoughts Concerning Education to Rousseau's Emile (for example) can attest. Actually, I think most teachers of the history and philosophy of education in colleges of education are pretty balanced, overall, because...
...um...
...well, because in many of our courses (especially those in the Foundations of Education), we're trying to get our students to think. That's right: to think.
"But what does "to think" mean?" you ask. "What does having prospective teachers read left-wing ideologues like Freire or Dewey or Rousseau have to do with teaching them to think? Even presenting these thinkers as if they are worth reading is introducing a bias right there, is it not?"
Hmmmm....soooo...let's see: having them read Locke or Jefferson isn't introducing bias? Or..are you saying...it's okay to introduce certain kinds of bias? Or are these thinkers not biased? Some of the other readings I assign my students are clearly biased toward the right: articles by people like William Bennett and Chester Finn, who are known Republicans...and such documents as "A Nation At Risk," a report issued while Reagan was president.) The goal is to help students to understand the wide range of perspectives on educational topics...not to indoctrinate them to think a particular way!
But as I'm writing this, I'm having an internal conversation that is flowing more rapidly than I'm able to write. I'm thinking about what I consider to be the purposes of education, of what it means to be educated...of what it means to be a thinker.
And yes, in my conception of an educated person is....a willingness to read the works of people across the political spectrum, and a willingness to think about the variety of perspectives that exist, and a willingness to accept that each of these perspectives offers something important philosophically, historically, and educationally...and that the only way a reader can understand a reading is to understand that any reading reflects the values, experiences, social positions, and...yes...biases of its author. This is what is meant by critical thinking: gaining the capacity to critique without merely condemning...to understand without condoning...to compare and contrast and contextualize while coming gradually to one's own conclusions...in short, to think for oneself.
Critical thinking, in its broadest sense has been described as "purposeful reflective judgment concerning what to believe or what to do." (source)
"But wait! Then you do have a bias," you're thinking. "Your bias is that multiple perspectives need to be encountered, understood, digested, and then synthesized in the forming of one's own viewpoint. Your bias is that education is about teaching each person to think for him or herself...rather than to merely accept the values and perspectives of a particular group (their parents, their peers, their community, the government, those in business, multinational corporations). In other words, you are trying to indoctrinate teachers into the view that getting their students to think for themselves is a worthy goal!"
Um, yes: guilty as charged.
"So you would rather have a young person form their own political beliefs than just vote the way their parents want them to?" Yes.
"So you believe that all young people should be exposed to a variety of values, beliefs, and perspectives in school, and that they should be taught to evaluate these different perspectives critically rather than unquestioningly"? Yes.
"So you believe that there's no right or wrong...that everything is relative...that capitalism is not always great...that Communists shouldn't be ruthlessly investigated and "outed"...that students should understand why the Constitution prohibited the establishment of religion...that they should understand that the Constitution isn't perfect...that it allowed slavery to continue...and didn't let women or poor people vote.?" Well...maybe.
"So you admit a virulent left-wing bias?!?" Um...if by that you mean a set of values about what education consists of and how best to move young people towards a broader understanding of their world, ...then yes, I do.
"And you admit that your colleagues have the same beliefs about these things that you do?" Well, for the most part, yes...we pride ourselves in our commitments to democratic values, as shown in our Conceptual Framework.
"Okay, then: case closed."
Coda
As the above demonstrates, I believe that there is a "liberal" bias in education...if by "liberal" we understand it in the same way that the word is used in the phrase "liberal education." Those of us who work in colleges of education do, for the most part, believe that teaching young people to think for themselves...indeed, to think critically about things...is at least as important as getting them to do their times tables quickly.What is Liberal Education?
Liberal Education is an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. It provides students with broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g. science, culture, and society) as well as in-depth study in a specific area of interest. A liberal education helps students develop a sense of social responsibility, as well as strong and transferable intellectual and practical skills such as communication, analytical and problem-solving skills, and a demonstrated ability to apply knowledge and skills in real-world settings. (American Association of Colleges and Universities, 2010)
The thing is, there are people in America who don't believe that it is a good thing for young people to learn, in schools, to think for themselves, especially when it comes to thinking about issues with political aspects. Fundamentalists, for example, don't want their children to learn, in school, about evolution, or about ongoing intellectual strife about the historical authenticity of the Bible, or about how to use a condom to prevent sexually-transmitted diseases. Fiscal conservatives don't want people developing their capacities to critique "trickle-down" economics, or their understanding of the ways that multinational corporations use the intricacies of American and international law to avoid responsibility for the larger environmental or health effects of their products. Racists don't want their children coming home from school and questioning the stereotypes that they hold about race; male chauvinists don't want their daughters to question their oppressive ideas and behaviors; meat eaters or farmers don't want their kids spouting data related to corporate farming or the true costs of eating meat. All of these groups want and expect their kids' public school to avoid getting into anything that might conflict with their "family values."
On the other hand, liberals also don't want their kids coming home and singing the praises of Reagan's foreign policy, or defending Joseph McCarthy, or using the Bible to justify discrimination against gays, or spouting anti-Muslim rhetoric related to 911. I mentioned above that principals want, primarily, to avoid upsetting parents to the point that complaints find their way to members of the school board. This is why principals, in general, want their teachers to avoid controversial topics. This is, in part, why the standardized testing regime finds such favor among school leaders: teachers who are concentrating on preparing their students to do well on multiple choice tests are unlikely to get parents upset about what's being foisted on their kids by their teachers.
And so, the trend in the schools...in my view...isn't toward student-centered teaching or critical pedagogy (or even social justice). The trend has been, especially since A Nation at Risk in 1983, but probably longer (back to the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which included not only more federal funding for math and science education but also a requirement that students benefiting from the loans it provided sign an affidavit disclaiming belief in the overthrow of the U.S. government). A Nation at Risk solidified the view that the primary purpose of American schools was to increase American economic competitiveness, and that the best way to do that was to increase academic expectations and standardized testing (so-called "accountability"). One way to look at this trend is to see it as a backlash to the so-called "liberal" bias of teachers, who, it is believed, not only waste their time indoctrinating students into their left-wing views, but also fail to develop their students basic skills. The view seems to be that "critical thinking" and "academic excellence" are somehow at odds, and that liberal teachers can't be trusted to strike (pun intended) the proper balance.
So I think the whole question of whether schools and colleges have a "virulent left-wing bias" is clouded by another issue, which is whether schools and colleges should be trying to get their students to learn to think for themselves about larger social and political issues. As an avowed liberal, I am quite willing to accept that I have a "bias" towards students learning to think critically rather than just accepting the values or political views of their parents or communities. I believe that a democratic society (oh, sorry, a "constitutional republic") requires citizens with a capacity to think for themselves, and that schools in such a society have an obligation to develop that capacity...along with an ability to interpret data...conduct independent research...understand multiple perspectives...read between the lines...and suspend judgment. These outcomes don't seem to me to reflect a "left wing" bias...but if they result in our students being less likely to accept dogma (from left OR right), then I'm happy.
As for the "left wing" bias...it's a somewhat different charge. The suggestion is that because so many teachers are allegedly left of center (as many as 87% according to one study!), that they are "squelching" other points of view and unduly influencing their students. This is the charge that my Dad intended to make, and that most of the articles I quote above also make. This is the charge that Rush Limbaugh makes when he claims that "The public school system is a liberal project that is designed to create as many little liberals as possible." This is why Phyllis Schlafly calls it a "virulent" left-wing bias...to reflect the notion that teachers are trying to make as many "mini-me liberals" as they can. And us college of education faculty members? Not only producing mini-me liberals in our own students (eventual teachers)...but in the k-12 students they eventually teach. (It's like a Ponzi scheme...only more satisfying!)
Personally, I don't think that's what most liberal college professors and school teachers want. I don't think most of us want graduates who think the same as we do. As I've argued, we want graduates who do think for themselves, and to the extent that this undermines dogma, we're happy. But "mini-me's"? No. That's no only petty and unprofessional...it's against what we're explicitly trying to do.
And yet, the charge remains. When conservatives lose elections or feel that no one is listening to their point of view (as my Dad clearly felt in that Facebook discussion)...the charge is renewed. When conservatives win or they're talking among themselves, the charge is renewed and they pat themselves on the back for finding a way around the liberal teachers...and (allegedly) liberal media...and (allegedly) liberal government. Aren't those Tea Partiers smart?
Of course, I haven't even begun to touch on another related issue, whether education, in general, opens the mind...and people with open minds tend to be more liberal than those with closed minds. But that's a blog post for another day. Right now, I need to go back to finding ways to indoctrinate my students, in support of the Marxist-Fascist-Liberal New World Order.
And yes, that last sentence was meant facetiously. Have a good day!
