Balderdashing Education Bashing

When Calvin Coolidge said "The business of America is business," he and very few if any others knew just how deep this sentiment would sink into the American consciousness. Now it seems apparent that the way business thinks has muscled every other kind of thought process out of the American mind. The unfortunate result is that if no business solution exists to an American ailment, it festers into an incurable American disease.

Two kinds of thinking dominate the business mind. One comes from the paradigm of manufacturing; the other from the paradigm of marketing. Both have been used as the basis of education bashing.

If looked at in terms of the manufacturing paradigm, education is likened to the assembly of parts into a product. And the paradigm decrees that if the worker assembles the parts correctly, a good product is produced. If the product produced turns out not to be good, the conclusion drawn is that the worker did not assemble the parts correctly.

The paradigm, of course, is very problematical. It overlooks questions of design and materials among other things. Nevertheless, the paradigm is pervasive. And it is the foundation of some education bashing.

The educated student is likened to a product, subject matter is likened to its parts, and the teacher is likened to the worker. When the student turns out to be uneducated, the conclusion is that the fault lies with either the subject matter or the teacher. So we are subjected to interminable curriculum debates, reform, and teacher bashing.

If looked at in terms of the marketing paradigm, education is likened to selling. The idea is that if teachers packaged the material in attractive ways, the student would buy it.

This paradigm too is problematical. It overlooks the fact that just because a product is bought has no bearing on whether the buyer uses it at all or to its best advantage. Nevertheless the paradigm persists, and when it turns out that the student is unable to use the product or use it well, the conclusion drawn is that the way the product is packaged must be faulty, and since the teacher is the packager, the ultimate responsibility for the failure is, yes, the teacher’s! So we debate teaching methods and tools. We hear things like, "Make learning fun," "Turn the classroom into a game room," "What we need is more toys in classrooms," the toy of fashion being the computer. And we bash the teacher again for not being an entertainer, forgetting that if teachers were entertainers, they wouldn't be in classrooms.

But education fits neither of these paradigms. The educated student is not a product assembled by teachers, and learning is not a game. Furthermore, both of these scenarios overlook things that should be blatantly obvious.

The first of these is that educated people have existed in all the eras of recorded history. People acquired educations long before the school and the classroom were invented, people acquired educations long before anyone even thought of things called teaching methods, so the methods, the schools, and the classrooms cannot be sufficient conditions for the education of students.

The second should be even more obvious. Almost every teacher teaches a group of students called a class simultaneously. Every student in the class is exposed to the same material presented in the same way. Some of these students learn a lot, most learn some, and some only a little. How can this be if the teacher and the material are at fault?

During my many years as a university professor, friends often asked for the names of good colleges to send their children to. My answer always baffled them. Although there are various way of "rating" colleges—the number of professors with terminal degrees, the number who publish, the number of Nobel Prize recipients, the size of libraries, etc.—I know of none that measures the amount of learning acquired by graduating students. So I used to say "If your child is a good student, he or she can get a good education at any accredited college, and if your child is not a good student, he or she will not get a good education at any college."

The point is that, and it should be obvious, education has very little to do with the teacher or the teaching and almost everything to do with the student. Yes, of course, an exceptional teacher can produce exceptional results in some students. And yes, facilities, books, and equipment do have some bearing. But neither of these affect all students. Even exceptional teachers find it necessary to fail some students, and everyone who attends schools that have the best facilities and equipment doesn't graduate either.

So the real question ought to be how do we rear good students? The other questions are really irrelevant, for no matter how they are answered, unless we can find the answer to the first question, the result will be the same, the debate will go on, and teachers and teaching will continue to be bashed.

The ultimate truth is that a social institution can be no better than the society that supports it, and unfortunately American society is not and has never been intellectual. Intellect and scholarship have never been esteemed. Too many parents don't or can't read. Too many homes lack educational resources. Books, magazines, and journals, especially good ones, are lacking in too many homes. Television is pervasive and from the point of view of intellect, is almost universally bad. It deserves its nickname, "boobtube." Intellect and scholarship are not the "business of business" and therefore not the "business of America." And I might add neither is education.

What do children see when they notice what American society does esteem? Entertainment, sports, and marketing. Therein lies the fame, the honor, and the rewards of being an American.

So what do our children want to be? Actors, rock stars, football players, salespeople, and in some cases, simple criminals, and none of these requires great intellect or a broad education.

Until this cultural attachment changes, America will have a problem with its educational system. So unless you're more optimistic than I, the teachers of America should acclimate themselves to teacher bashing just as they have acclimated themselves to low pay and low esteem, for good students cannot be reared en masse in a culture with these ideals.

What makes comparisons of the American educational system to the educational systems of other countries so insidious is that this aspect of a supporting culture is always overlooked. Students in those countries learn more than American students merely because those cultures rear better students, not because of better teaching, better teaching methods, or better equipment. And as long as we continue to believe that teachers and teaching are to blame, our students will not only learn less, but as time goes on, learn less and less.

©2009 John Kozy

About the Author

Retired professor of philosophy and logic who blogs on social, political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years working as a writer for various private companies. He’s an active blogger. His pieces can be found on http://www.jkozy.com/.

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