When I was teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in education, I tried to push my students to consider the assumptions that underlie almost everything we do in schools. I was usually met with glassy eyed stares or vacant nods, typical strategies of the school game. What I was really hoping for was some fire, some reaction to the way they had been treated throughout school. But, sometimes, students just got angry at me for disturbing the strategies they had found as a way to survive and find some sense of comfort. I suppose for some ignorance is bliss.
However, I am concerned with the messages we communicate to children in the name of education. These messages are known as the hidden and null curriculums. The things we do or don’t do. But, these “things” are embedded with certain assumptions. And, as educators, we should know what these assumptions are. Here is a small list of some “things” that are typical of schooling. What are the assumptions? What do these “things” communicate?
- Bells
- Walking in lines
- Hall passes
- Homework
- Worksheets
- Gold stars
- Class periods
- Subjects
- Tests
- Report cards
- Objectives
We don’t often think of what meanings lie beneath the surface of these things, but each one of these “things” communicate a variety of assumptions to students (and teachers… and parents).
At one point, when I was teaching a multi-graded 4, 5, 6 class, on the first day of the year the bell rang for lunch. I walked over to the door and the kids sat there looking at me quizzically. After a long pause, they asked, “do you want us to get in a line?”
I asked, “can we get to the cafeteria without getting in a line?”
They said, “yes.” And, off we went, and successfully, I might add.
For years, these children had been socialized into a regimented approach getting around in school. Are such approaches necessary. I don’t think so. They teach children to follow orders, but they don’t teach children how to negotiate, solve problems, consider the needs of others, or how to become independent.
Dig into some other aspects of this or other assumptions and add your comments below.
We are witnessing the consequences of this kind of schooling. Are we brave enough to change the US public educational system without an “evidence base” that proves there is a better way? Do we know what a better outcome looks like? There’s a lot to muse about here.
Some of my thoughts are on Musings from Liza Loop (http://loopcntr.net/wordpress/), Open Educative Systems (https://openeducativesystems.wordpress.com) and Open Portal Network (https://openportal.network).
Liza — Thanks for your comment.
The question, I think, isn’t so much as to whether we’re brave enough, which I don’t think we are, but rather whether it’s possible at all. We can’t tweak the system…. it just resets. That’s the nature of complex systems. And, big changes in one system (i.e., education) can’t occur without addressing changes in all of the intertwined and interdependent systems (i.e., economy, society, individual worldviews and ways of thinking, politics, etc.). Education is just a manifest of the interplay between all of the systems.
In terms of “proven” and “evidence based” are two loaded terms/phrases. Nothing can be “proven.” This is a long-standing characteristic of the nature of science. Science can only disprove. So, that is an underlying faulty assumption that permeates all of our society. And, it continues to be perpetuated. The notion of evidence is another problem. When “evidence based” is used it is always associated with the old and now increasingly antiquated positivistic, mechanistic, and reductionistic approaches to science. These “big 3” paradigms made huge strides to establishing “modern” societies and technology, but, at the same time, has led us to the precipice of collapse. Such paradigms did not address the nature and dynamics of complex living systems. “Evidence” was on in the numbers, was objective (an impossibility), and absolutely true. None of these things are applicable to living systems. So, we apply now defunct and even dangerous concepts to evaluating evidence. There is actually a huge amount of data to support alternative approaches to education and beyond. But, it is not “valued” by the positivists, mechanists. reductionists.
So, given societies’ stuckness, the only real possibility for a better education lies with parents, individual (very brave) teachers, and sometimes with individual schools that are willing to take a leap, as well as off-shoot (private and charter) schools, which is most unfortunate. Any kind of change, can’t happen in any of the ways we are comfortable with, can’t happen within the current institutional structures. But, we can keep critiquing the problems with the current situations. Maybe dissatisfaction will lead to some sort of cascading sets of changes.