Tag: ssed 317

Oppression, Subversion & Silence – [SSED 317, Oct 14]

As a recent immigrant to British Columbia, I have less exposure to Canada-specific examples of institutionalized racism than typical Canadians; however, thanks to my Cherokee heritage, I’m especially sensitive to aboriginal concerns. This week’s workshop on ‘First Nations and the Social Studies Curriculum’ encompassed several assigned readings that augmented my understanding of the complexities surrounding this dark chapter in North American history. In particular, I found Jean Barman’s article, “Schooled for Inequality: The Education of British Columbia Aboriginal Children”, strikingly cogent. Arguing that ethnic and cultural inequalities were inherent and explicit within Canada’s residential schools, the author presents a damning critique of Canadian apathy. Disproportionate funding for residential and ‘normal’ schools insured that aboriginal students lacked appropriate learning materials, facilities, medical care or food (64). Aboriginal students spent significantly less time each day in the classroom than their Caucasian peers (60). Thus, after years of ‘studying’, aboriginal students left school without much practical understanding, hope, or realistic prospects for independence. Lacking adequate federal support, residential schools were playgrounds for proselytizers and ideologues. In contrast to the professionalism expected of teachers in ‘normal’ schools, teachers in residential schools were often zealous missionaries more interested in ‘saving souls’ than creating informed and independent citizens (63). Finally, a pervasive assumption of cross-cultural ‘sameness’ permeated residential schools and society at large (56). Rather than recognizing divergent aboriginal groups as culturally unique, they were typically pigeonholed and subjugated.

Barman’s arguments reflect a growing awareness of the racism and misanthropy that underpinned Canada’s historic relationship with its aboriginal population. The cross-generational malaise lingers, and is readily apparent in the low percentages of aboriginal graduates. The author makes no proscriptive declarations on what should be done to account for these travesties, but sometimes increasing awareness of problems and leaving the reader with a question is far preferable to having all the blanks filled in.

Socially, I don’t advocate reparations or perpetual servitude to an anachronistic guilt complex. Rather, I favor emancipation. I don’t think the modern idea of property is sustainable or rational, so I don’t think there’s any need for a redistribution of wealth and resources. Rather, I favor a complete dispersion of wealth. I don’t think much can be done to recover or reconcile what has been done. This isn’t a popular perspective in some quarters, but I tend to see it as bad karma. Many westerners misunderstand the concept of karma, so it may help to illustrate my point with a parable once told to me by my Sifu:

Two Buddhist monks were walking through a beautiful mountain valley when they came to a wide and quickly moving stream. While removing their sandals, the younger monk noticed a female standing at the edge of the stream, a few hundred meters up the riverbank. He alerted the older monk to the girl, who then got up and walked over to her. She told the monks that she wanted to get to the other side, but feared the current. With that, the older monk offered to carry the girl to the other side. Having accepted the monks offer, the three waded into the stream and crossed to the other side. Now safely on the other side, the girl thanked the monks and ran off into the forrest. The two monks resumed their journey through the valley, and didn’t stop for rest until nightfall. After building a fire and enjoying a modest meal, the younger monk asked the question he’d been burning to ask, “Master teaches us that we should never corrupt ourselves, but you have broken his teacher by touching a girl. Why?” The older monk serenely looked over at the younger monk and replied, “I put her down hours ago. Why do you still carry her?”

That’s karma. It’s a choice to be free in the moment, enslaved by the past or enchanted by the future. Canadians face a similar predicament today.

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For the workshop on ‘Social Class and Social Studies Curriculum’ we were given another hefty set of readings. Although a few of the assigned readings in this class have had some pragmatic value, I haven’t found any of the readings I’ve been assigned during this program especially enjoyable. Paul Orlowski’s “Social Class: The Forgotten Identity Marker in Social Studies Education”, however, stands as a notable exception.

Orlowski set out to gauge the state of class awareness as enacted through curricula in social studies classrooms in B.C. (29). The article is only one facet of a “much larger project [which] explores the ways in which political ideology has influenced discourses of race and class in both the formal curriculum and teacher attitudes in B.C. social studies education” (30). He conducted a comparative analysis of provincially-endorsed social studies curricula from 1941-1997 (32), and analyzed interviews with social studies department head teachers from 10 Vancouver secondary schools (36). Framing his analysis through the lenses of liberalism, socialism and conservativism, “ideologies that arose out of modernity” (31), Orlowski suggests that there has been a progressive reduction in attention to class consciousness within B.C.’s mandated curriculum.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once suggested that many of us are under the collective delusion that we are free, but Orlowski reminds us of Marx, who knew that “from a broader, historical perspective, the liberal idea of freedom is unattainable for most people within capitalism” (31). Wealth requires disparity and money = debt; therefore, liberal ideology is fundamentally misanthropic.

Conservatives, on the other hand, accept the inevitability of a hierarchical society “in which people [know] their place” (31). Essentially reactionary, conservatives typically prefer tradition over progress. John Lilly once suggested that all animals resist new information, and Thomas Kuhn’s most enduring contribution to his field may have been the idea that entrenched scientific paradigms can be notorious for embracing tradition and resisting progress. The conservative’s fear of uncertainty has correlates throughout the biosphere (and beyond?), but it is irrational, unsustainable and fundamentally misanthropic. Without progress, species stagnate. Once stagnant, ecosystems collapse. Since conservative ideology resists proactive engagement with novelty and progress, it stands in opposition to cosmologic principles. If the universe operated similar to conservative philosophy, nothing would exist.

The third ‘modern ideology’ was socialism. Orlowski suggests that socialism ‘spun-off’ from liberalism, and that the two are very similar – except in their differing interpretations of the ‘prime social unit’. Whereas liberalism emphasizes the individual as the core component of a healthy society, socialism prioritizes social class itself (31). Orlowski was less critical of socialism, but this may have been due to the over-representation of conservative and liberal ideologies. He paints the Canadian socialist movement favorably, and highlights its relevance in the implementation of federalized health care (32-33). Although Saskachewan’s experiment with socialism produced tangible benefits for the common good of all, popular sentiment still holds socialism in low esteem. Nonetheless, I tend to think historic examples of socialism poorly represented the potential of what a designed society could look like.

To his credit, the author was transparent in the methodology used to interpret and compile data from the interviews. His findings were disquieting. Although psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists recognize the relevance of class in the construction of individual identity, those interviewed disagree (37). Resorting to fanciful rationalizations, they deflected scrutiny of a class divide within Canada. Comparisons were made with poverty in developing countries in order to avoid the face of poverty here in Canada. Conservative and liberal ideologies co-mingled, and poor were characterized as ‘culturally deficient’, ‘genetically inferior’ and ‘psycho-socially weak’. Adding further injury to insult, these “lumpenproletariat” proliferate similarly destructive memes within their classrooms.

Throughout much of the article I found myself aghast but in complete agreement with Orlowski. His incisive discourse was a powerful indictment of the status quo within Canadian social studies. Since there was so much common-ground, I’d like to highlight a few passages that stood out:

”The elites have long recognized the potential of the school curriculum to be used as a hegemonic device” (32). Finally! This realization often gets subsumed by noise, but it’s an important consideration to bear in mind! There are nefarious factions of grotesquely wealthy elites clandestinely working to further their ends, and it’s a collective delusion that their interests coincide with ours. Social studies teachers need to not only be aware of this context, but they also need to be proactive in opposing oppressive forms of hegemony.

”By overstating the case for material consumption, the curriculum performs once again as a hegemonic device in that it normalizes a major aspect of capitalism, namely, the purchasing of wants and not just needs” (33). The intermingling of wants and needs is the raison détat of the public relations industry. Unfortunately, this is an area of history that far too few explore. During my undergraduate study I took a military history course that had a semester long research component followed by a defense before a panel of peers. I chose to examine MG McClure, the avowed ‘father’ of Psychological Operations (PSYOPs). I followed his career and traced the impacts of psychological theory, much of which was brought to the West following WWII by Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud. To that end, Adam Curtis’s documentary series “The Century of Self” bears special relevance:

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151[/googlevideo]

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud’s ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn’t need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today’s world. (link)

”Requiring some labour history in teacher education would clearly go a long way toward rectifying this situation” (44). I couldn’t agree more! Prior to moving to Canada my exposure to labour studies was very limited, but since UBC didn’t recognize all my transfer credits from Alabama I needed to complete a few tedious prerequisites: 3 credits of literature, 3 credits of geography, and 6 credits of upper-division Canadian history. Time was of the essence, so I enrolled in a 6 credit Canadian labour history course through Athabasca University. The course consisted of 6 essays of varying assigned lengths, and cumulatively I wrote more than 130 pages. In spite of the frustrations, I came out of that class with a strong appreciation for organized labour, and an informed opinion on the methods of capitalists. Orlowski’s advice – that social studies teacher candidates should be aware of the history of labour conflicts – seems noble and appropriate.

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Hodge & Podge – [SSED 317, Oct 7]

Returning to The New Teacher Book, this week’s readings highlighted some of the psycho-social difficulties implicit within classroom management. Contradicting the best intentions of many new teachers, students are presented as unreliable in their ability to treat others with respect. There is tacit acknowledgement that in order to provide a safe and engaging classroom/learning environment, rules and guidelines need to be implemented. Given that behavioral concerns are certain to affect our teaching, there was a decidedly pragmatic flavour to the readings. However, as has been noted by my classmates, there are significant differences in behavioral concerns within elementary and secondary classrooms (e.g., secondary teachers are unlikely to have the same problems as elementary teachers in their attempt to get the class to sit in a circle on the floor, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be problems (p. 115).). The text’s focus on behavior management in elementary classrooms – to the exclusion of secondary classrooms – doesn’t necessarily eliminate its relevance to secondary teachers, but elementary teachers will probably find more direct correspondence to their daily experience.

Dale Weiss’s essay, “Making Rules”, conveyed his attempts to revise his teaching style in order to improve students’ classroom experience. The author recounts a harrowing anecdotal narrative in which students were unable to self-organize in order to form a circle or stay on task (p. 115-116), which lead him to begin exploring communally-derived classroom guidelines. Suggesting that one can ‘learn from chaos’, Weiss attempts to demonstrate that behavioral challenges aren’t without pedagogical merit – with some creativity, they can often provide meaningful ‘teachable moments’ with lasting impact.

For Discordians, physicists and mathematicians, order and chaos have special primacy. Physicists and mathematicians remind us of the Laws of Thermodynamics, which govern the relationships between different forms of energy – especially heat. The Second Law of Thermodynamics postulates that “entropy in a closed system can only increase”, so entropy (i.e., unpredictability, chaos, randomness) is relative to order. To put it another way, as the amount of order in a system increases, the amount of entropy must also increase, and vice versa. This understanding also has a correlate in information theory, where information is seen as relative to its amount of predictability. As an event becomes more predictable, the amount of information it carries decreases. Unpredictable events, on the other hand, are characterized as ‘information dense’. Relating this to teaching, chaotic environments offer the greatest potential for creating new forms of order, while orderly environments offer the least potential for creating new forms of order. Discordians and Subgenii, of course, know this already.

Discordianism may be seen as a ‘joke disguised as a religion’ or a ‘religion disguised as a joke’. Their creation myth derives from the ancient Greeks, and their central goddess is Eris, who presides over discord and dissonance:

It seems that Zeus was preparing a wedding banquet for Peleus and Thetis and did not want to invite Eris because of Her reputation as a trouble maker.

This made Eris angry, and so She fashioned an apple of pure gold and inscribed upon it KALLISTI (“To The Prettiest One”) and on the day of the fete She rolled it into the banquet hall and then left to be alone and joyously partake of a hot dog.

Now, three of the invited goddesses, Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, each immediately claimed it to belong to herself because of the inscription. And they started fighting, and they started throwing punch all over the place and everything.

Finally Zeus calmed things down and declared that an arbitrator must be selected, which was a reasonable suggestion, and all agreed. He sent them to a shepherd of Troy, whose name was Paris because his mother had had a lot of gaul and had married a Frenchman; but each of the sneaky goddesses tried to outwit the others by going early and offering a bribe to Paris.

Athena offered him Heroic War Victories, Hera offered him Great Wealth, and Aphrodite offered him The Most Beautiful Woman on Earth. Being a healthy young Trojan lad, Paris promptly accepted Aphrodite’s bribe and she got the apple and he got screwed.

As she had promised, she maneuvered earthly happenings so that Paris could have Helen, then living with her husband Menelaus, King of Sparta. Anyway, everyone knows that the Trojan War followed when Sparta demanded their Queen back and that the Trojan War is said to be The First War among men.

And so we suffer because of The Original Snub. And so a Discordian is to partake of No Hot Dog Buns (“Principia Discordia”, p. 17).

Order and chaos are obviously central to Discordianism. Among their imaginative doctrines of ‘psycho-metaphysics’ is the ‘Eristic Principle’:

The Aneristic Principle is that of apparent order; the Eristic Principle is that of apparent disorder. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of pure chaos, which is a level deeper than is the level of distinction making.

[…]

We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The order is in the grid. That is the Aneristic Principle.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the Aneristic Illusion. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

Disorder is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like “relation”, no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is an “absence” of “female-ness”, or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the Eristic Principle.

The belief that “order is true” and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the Eristic Illusion.

The point is that (liitel-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Reality is the original Rorschach (“Principia Discordia”, p. 49-50).

Some prevailing attitudes towards chaos, in light of my understanding of Universe, seem misguided. Rather than shunning chaos, I see it as worthy of embrace. Weiss, on the contrary, thinks that ‘students want structure’ (p. 118) – which he equates with rules and consequences. This seems unlikely to me. Although students (and citizens!) are typically dependent on external agents for normative standards, I tend to think that this furthers misanthropic agendas. We don’t need to be moving towards increased dependence on externally-derived standards; rather, I favor personal and social accountability. Whereas punishments and rewards appeal to extrinsic motivations, I see more value in intrinsic motivations. Extrinsic motivations resonate with the childish whims of the ego, but intrinsic motivations foster coherent psycho-personal growth and wisdom. This dichotomy represents a fundamental revaluation of responsible citizenship and pedagogy.

Kelley Salas’s essay on anger management in the classroom explored methods of integrating disruptive behaviors into the curriculum without marginalizing anyone. Strangely, her sensitivity to stereotyping behaviors seemed to ignore the foundations of those stereotypes. Suggesting that she “did not want [her] classroom to be a place where students or staff were allowed to reinforce stereotypes that link anger with boys and men, especially African-American boys and men” (p. 166), one might wonder if she bothered to do any research beforehand. Men are disproportionally prone to anger-management problems. Among other factors, hormones play a strong role in this condition. (see also: “Understanding the Cycle of Violence”) It would be dishonest to suggest that all men are angrier than women, but when looking at averages and psychological data, the trends are clear. Women, far from being pacific, are also prone to anger-management problems, but the manifestations are different. Men are more prone to externalize anger and women are more likely to internalize it or subvert it. I’m not “reinforcing stereotypes” by having some understanding of the prevalence of maladaptive behaviors. Ignoring the foundations behind stereotypes seems as intellectually irresponsible as ignoring the divergent experiences of various ethnic groups (i.e., ‘reverse racism’). In my opinion, the teacher – and students – would be better served by an honest discussion on anger-management, and this discussion should not exclude gender-specific distinctions.

“The Challenge of Classroom Discipline”, Bob Peterson’s essay on discipline and behavior management, offered a few helpful ideas for elementary teachers, but secondary teachers would probably find it less relevant. However, I was amused to find a synchronistic reference to Alfie Kohn (p. 174). Kohn has examined the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and suggests that intrinsic motivations are generally superior. Whereas extrinsic motivations foster egocentric behaviors, intrinsic motivations are said to engender a socially diffused ego. Students who are taught to favor extrinsic motivations (rewards & punishments) learn that in the absence of reward/punishment, there is no value in altruism. (see also: “Filling the Void”)

In conclusion, this week’s readings were less daunting than last week’s, but I was once again left wondering whether I’d learned anything. The New Teacher Book may be a fantastic resource for those who have never stepped in front of a classroom, but for those with more classroom experience, the value is largely limited to references for resources. All teachers will struggle with behavior management challenges. The New Teacher Book may give a few pointers on how to weather those storms, but there is no substitute for direct experience.

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Identity Through Inaccurate Fundamentalisms – [SSED 317, Sept 30]

For the two groups tasked with cobbling together research presentations (and wikis!) in a week, this week’s reading assignment was unsympathetic. In my opinion, this does not facilitate students’ production of superior work.

Workshop 1: Democracy, Citizenship, and Social Studies Curriculum

Alan Sears’s essay, “What Research Tells Us About Citizenship Education in English Canada”, examines disconnects between curricula and policy in Canadian education. Although there is a prevailing affinity for participatory citizenship, Sears suggests that in practice there is a preference for passive spectating (p. 121). Far from a provocative thesis, perhaps the real scandal is that society continues to prefer to remain willfully ignorant rather than face the reality that we’re seeing the successful implementation of forced schooling. It is no accident at all that schools indoctrinate students with bigotry and fundamentalisms. That is what they are designed to do.

Sears suggests that Canadian and American students have distinctive tendencies. In comparison with American society, Canadians are presented as more conservative and favoring a more passive role of citizenship. Canadians also suffer from identity crisis, and have diverse attitudes towards the relationship between citizens and the state (p. 121). My curiosity was piqued by his mention of a “persistent identity crisis”, as I’ve noticed this tendency among Canadians as well. Over the course of my global travels, I’ve met quite a few ex-pat Canadians, and many of them seem dedicated in their attempts to occupy stereotypes. Since I was born in the US I may have a degree of cultural bias, but my wife has also bemoaned the shallow anti-culture of Canada. Almost without fail, everywhere we traveled there would be a Canadian with an embroidered Canadian flag on an oversized backpack; but we didn’t notice this tendency among travelers from other countries. When meeting these “patriots”, my wife (who is Canadian, btw) would often inquire about the context of the flag. She wanted to know why they chose to advocate for Canada, why they were “proud to be Canadian”, and what they thought made Canada unique. Our experimental protocols were obviously not sufficient to presume an unnecessary degree of certainty, but there were clear similarities among responses. These “patriotic” ex-pats were apparently very proud to be Canadian, but for the most part that simply meant “not American”. When asked what they thought made Canada great, many responded with banal platitudes or ignorant stereotypes. Simply summarized, Canada is great because it isn’t America. These “patriots” were almost culturally identical to most Americans, but they somehow didn’t catch the irony. Besides, the whole idea of having pride for the place you were born – simply because you were born there – strikes me as absurd. I don’t think there’s any reasonable justification for taking pride in nationality. I can’t be proud to be American because I didn’t have anything to do with making America what it is today, and I certainly wasn’t consulted before being born there. Likewise, my ancestors lived and died in and out of America, but they didn’t make it what it is today. There are many Americans who naively take pride in their nationality, but I would argue this results from an egocentric misunderstanding of pride steeped in arrogance. If Canadians suffer from a “persistent identity crisis”, I would argue they aren’t alone. If students declare their pride as Canadians and feel fortunate they live in Canada, chances seem likely that this arises due to successful indoctrination of preferred social mores (p. 124). Personally, I don’t see the ubiquity of brainwashed citizens who are oblivious to their own history as “heartening”. For example, I’m frequently dumbfounded when Canadians (especially Vancouverites!) get on a soap box for “environmental responsibility”. Although it won’t make the evening news, Victoria has no sewage treatment facilities. Waste passes directly into the bay and ocean. How much sewage do you think Vancouver Island has produced over the past century? Is that something to take pride in? (For further reading, see Mel Hurtig’s “The Truth About Canada: Some Truly Appalling Things All Canadians Should Know About Our Country”).

UBC’s Teacher Ed. program places an emphasis on collaborative and cooperative techniques for learning, but Sears states the obvious by suggesting that “many new teachers faced with the ‘reality shock’ of the classroom retreat from the progressive methods they became committed to in university to very conservative and custodial ones” (p. 124). How often do children swear to themselves they won’t revisit their parents’ vices when they have children, only to fall into familiar patterns of authority they once viewed as tyrannical when they have children of their own? Sometimes the apple falls far from the tree, but often it doesn’t. In the case of pedagogy, new teachers often suffer from an excess of optimism and become stymied within institutionalized apathy. Moreover, behavior management problems can easily undercut the teacher’s noble attentions. Teachers that resort to “traditional civics” style curricula don’t do so to satisfy their inner-most longings; they do it because they feel it’s easier to implement than cooperative alternatives. I feel confident that if UBC began tracking PDP graduates after certification, many of the teacher candidates now endorsing collaborative methods would be practicing something quite different in their classrooms.

In Sears’s discussion on what is being taught in Canadian Social Studies classrooms, he highlights the sparsity of research available as well as the dominant tendency to avoid controversial issues and debate (p. 123). Recognizing this as ineffective, he suggests that “a contemporary issues/inquiry-based approach to social education fosters the development of democratic skills and attitudes” (p. 124). This resonated very strongly with me, and correlates with a significant criticism I have with UBC’s PDP program. If “contemporary issues” are so relevant to effective Social Studies instruction, why is it that we haven’t discussed any current issues in any of our classes? There’s been time taken out of class to discuss frivolous issues like hockey, but not a single one of my classes has had a discussion on the bases and implications of the economic collapse of ’08. Apparently it’s not worthy of discussion if our neighbor to the South suffers from a bloodless coup. Not a single one of my classes has discussed the US under martial law. Not a single one of my classes has discussed the misrepresentation of the Russia/Georgia conflict by the mainstream media. I could probably go on for some time, but my point has been made: there is inherent hypocrisy in saying Social Studies teachers should engage “contemporary issues” while failing to provide examples. We may discuss pervasive contentious issues like social justice, gender or culture, but we should not be skipping over what’s happening right now.

In conclusion, Sears’s essay calls for additional research into Canadian classrooms, and I couldn’t agree more. Noting the lack of replication among studies, Sears suggests that more effort needs to be given to verifying tentative conclusions reached by other researchers (p. 126), but he somehow ignores the fact that every classroom is different. No two classes are the same and no two lessons are the same. The same teacher in the same room, given different students, will convey different information. Teachers are unique individuals that defy empirical evaluation. It seems irresponsibile to place an inordinate amount of confidence in generalizing their methods or results. Nonetheless, if our aim is create environments that enable each student to excel to the best of their abilities, additional research would potentially help teachers revise their methods.

Workshop 2: Race and Social Studies Curriculum

George Dei’s essay, “‘We Cannot Be Color-Blind’ Race, Antiracism, and the Subversion of Dominant Thinking” stood out as a potentially incisive examination of attitudes towards race in Canadian classrooms. As a [caucasian] native of southern Mississippi, I have a unique background when it comes to racial relations. African Americans suffer under egregious oppression in my region, and have fared even worse throughout history. Having lived throughout the Deep South, traveled throughout the US and around the globe, I no longer maintain the racist ideologies that dominate the region. In common with Dei, I have found that “color is not the problem; it is the interpretation that we put on color that makes the problem” (p. 26).

There are far more countries on my list of places I want to visit than there are on my list of places I have visited. However, I’ve had the fortune of traveling throughout America, East and South Asia, North Africa and West Europe. During these explorations I have repeatedly witnessed deeply entrenched racist tendencies. In South Mississippi I may have ‘enjoyed’ the ‘benefits’ of my race, but that certainly wasn’t the case elsewhere. While living in Asia, I was regularly disadvantaged because of my race. Racist attitudes are far from uncommon in Asia, and many of my experiences would compare admirably with those of oppressed minorities elsewhere. Gangs of children throwing rocks chased my wife and I out of parks. Taxi drivers pulled over to the curb only to speed off when they noticed I’m white. Children innocently referred to me as “ghost monster”, grandmothers would cross to the other side of the street rather than walk past me, and people would wait for the next elevator rather than get in with a caucasian. I’ve no doubt that there were other mitigating circumstances that contributed to these experiences, but the effect is the same: oppressive racism. In Africa I experienced another type of racism – since I was caucasian everyone thought I must be rich! There are many other anecdotes that I could cite to illustrate my intimacy with racism, but they’d probably fall on deaf ears. For the most part, racism is something that needs to be experienced before it can be understood. In Canada, where the ruling majority is caucasian, there is little opportunity for whites to feel the oppression of minorities.

Dei suggests that “the propensity to blame the victim is generally unquestioned” (p. 27). This strongly corresponds with the views of Malcolm X, who said, “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” Western culture demonizes racial minorities through an insidious process of misinformation, but this doesn’t happen by accident.

Associating racialization with biological determinism, Dei argues against popular views of “human nature” (p. 27). Further corroboration for Dei’s criticism can be found in transpersonal psychology, which suggests that there is no such thing as human nature; there is only human behavior. Many pundits love to argue that ‘human nature’ makes us greedy, ignorant and arrogant, but I think they misunderstand the distinction between correlation and causation. The author suggests that people think a “[minority] group [can be] possessed of certain biological traits that lead to the nurturing of suicide bombers” (p. 28); but what does this really say aside from, “Many people are incredibly stupid”? The path to becoming a “suicide bomber” has a lot to do with culture, history and economics, but nothing to do with “human nature”. There is a correlation between ethnicity and behavior, but ethnicity does not cause behavior.

One minor point of contention arose when Dei wrote, “One can only point to the so-called enlightened European scholars’ attempts to deny Egyptian and Nubian influence on European history or Western (Greek) civilization” (p. 29). Although it would be irresponsible of me to ignore the prevailing chauvinisms of “enlightened European scholars”, I’d also be remiss for ignoring the impact of occultism. Athanasius Kircher, for example, was one of the earliest advocates of the interrelation between Egyptian and European occultism. In Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition Francis Yates convincingly argued in favor of the occult roots of the Renaissance. Giordano Bruno challenged the assumptions of the “enlightened European scholars” and got himself burned alive. Indeed, the entire basis of the Renaissance rests on the shoulders of Hermes Trismegistus, a mythic archetypal magician who lived in Egyptian antiquity. When Medici was funding the translation of newly rediscovered papyri, the works of Plato took a backseat to Hermes Trismegistus. Although many “enlightened European scholars” may have been remiss to note these developments, a neutral scholar cannot.

When examining the form and effects of funding cutbacks on educational programs, Dei states that “repeated cutbacks in education to frontline services–such as school community advisors; equity departments; and programs like ESL, African heritage, and adult education–all serve to disadvantage learners” (p. 34). One might wonder if there has been any comparable reduction in funding for sports. There is certainly value in sports, but when universities favor athletes over philosophers and poets, how does this help society? For example, many Canadians have an amazing fondness for hockey. Why? For the majority of them, hockey seems to be a spectator activity (wasn’t the spectator-approach to democracy criticized elsewhere?). This reminds me of Noam Chosmky:

In fact, I have the habit when I’m driving of turning on these radio call-in programs, and it’s striking when you hear the ones about sports. They have these groups of sports reporters, or some kind of experts on a panel, and people call in and have discussions with them. First of all, the audience obviously is devoting an enormous amount of time to it all. But the more striking fact is, the callers have a tremendous amount of expertise, they have detailed knowledge of all kinds of things, they carry on these extremely complex discussions…

…And when you look at the structure of them, they seem like a kind of mathematics. It’s as though people want to work out mathematical problems, and it they don’t have calculus and arithmetic, they work them out with other structures…And what all these things look like is that people just want to use their intelligence somehow…

Well, in our society we have things that you might use your intelligence on, like politics, but people really can’t get involved in them in a very serious way — so what they do is put their minds to other things, such as sports. You’re trained to be obedient; you don’t have an interesting job; there’s no work around for you that’s creative; in the cultural environment you’re a passive observer of usually pretty tawdry stuff…So what’s left?

…And I suppose that’s also one of the basic functions it serves society in general: it occupies the populations, and it keeps them from trying to get involved with things that really matter. In fact, I presume that’s part of the reason why spectator sports are supported to the degree they are by the dominant institutions. (link)

To conclude, I found Dei’s discussion on racism and antiracism riddled with assumptions and generalizations. In my opinion, the underlying link between racism and bigotry is epistemic and arises due to flawed fundamentalisms. When people begin thinking in fundamentalisms, honesty and accuracy are lost. One relatively practical ‘fix’ for this condition is the implementation of general semantics – especially E-Prime. If there was a cultural emphasis on accurate semantics, many of these antagonistic fundamentalisms would be mitigated.

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Filling the Void – [SSED 317, Sept 23]

The UBC Bookstore finally got around to re-stocking copies of The New Teacher Book, so at long last, I had the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. By and large, most of the comments seem to be supportive of the text, but popularity is a tenuous beast. Nonetheless, I found the first two sub-chapters immensely helpful, and I’ve no doubt several of those titles will be snug in a bookshelf in my home library within the next few years. Their list didn’t presume to be all-encompassing, but I thought I might supplement it a bit with a few resource references of my own. First, I’ll touch on a few pedagogically-relevant authors, but I’ll also have a few Social Studies/History-relevant too.

Alfie Kohn: (Wiki Ed)

Kohn’s work has had a profound impact on my attitudes towards pedagogy (and parenting). He’s somewhat of a prolific author, but I’d recommend some over others. These are my favorites (so far):

  • No Contest: The Case Against Competition – This book made Kohn famous, and rightfully so, in my opinion. It is supremely relevant to educators to be informed on the impacts of competition, and to begin thinking of creative ways to replace it with cooperation. If teachers allow a competitive environment to flourish in their classrooms, we all suffer.
  • What Does it Mean to Be Well Educated? – And More Essays on Standards, Grading, and Other Follies – This is a compact but incisive exploration of the “real goals” of schooling. He suggests that we generally ignore the “real goals” of schooling in favor of “misguided models of learning and motivation.” It’s very approachable and discusses a very relevant question. He certainly changed my views on what I think it means to be “well educated”.
  • Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes – This provocative text explores the effects of managing children with a ”Do this and you’ll get that.” attitude. He argues that people “do inferior work when they are enticed with money, grades, or other incentives” and that “the more we use artificial inducements to motivate people, the more they lose interest in what we’re bribing them to do.”
  • Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason – In 2006 Kohn won a gold medal from the National Parenting Publications Awards for this book. I’ve seen to it that all our friends with children have a copy; I must’ve bought seven or eight copies by now. Anyone who regularly engages children and adolescents could benefit from reading this book.
  • What to Look for in a Classroom, The Schools Our Children Deserve – Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards”, and The Homework Myth are also worth a gander.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRE2gqjQx5Q[/youtube]
Kohn on punishment

If that piques your interest, you might also see Kohn on positive reinforcement.

John Taylor Gatto: (Wiki)

John Taylor Gatto is an American retired school teacher of 29 years and 8 months and author of several books on education. He is an activist critical of compulsory schooling and of what he characterizes as the hegemonic nature of discourse on education and the education professions.

I can’t recommend Gatto strongly enough. Whereas Kohn’s work has great relevance to parents, teachers and administrators (ignoring the pundits), Gatto’s work has relevance to anyone who is a product of a North American public education.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26DvPQ7EIQ4[/youtube]
John Taylor Gatto – “Classrooms of the Heart” (1991)

  • Dumbing Us Down – The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling – This is a concise yet devastating attack on the institution of modern compulsory schooling. It was built around his essay “I Quit, I Think”:

    Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents. The whole blueprint of school procedure is Egyptian, not Greek or Roman. It grows from the theological idea that human value is a scarce thing, represented symbolically by the narrow peak of a pyramid.

    That idea passed into American history through the Puritans. It found its “scientific” presentation in the bell curve, along which talent supposedly apportions itself by some Iron Law of Biology. It’s a religious notion, School is its church. I offer rituals to keep heresy at bay. I provide documentation to justify the heavenly pyramid.

    Socrates foresaw if teaching became a formal profession, something like this would happen. Professional interest is served by making what is easy to do seem hard; by subordinating the laity to the priesthood. School is too vital a jobs-project, contract giver and protector of the social order to allow itself to be “re-formed.” It has political allies to guard its marches, that’s why reforms come and go without changing much. Even reformers can’t imagine school much different.

    David learns to read at age four; Rachel, at age nine: In normal development, when both are 13, you can’t tell which one learned first—the five-year spread means nothing at all. But in school I label Rachel “learning disabled” and slow David down a bit, too. For a paycheck, I adjust David to depend on me to tell him when to go and stop. He won’t outgrow that dependency. I identify Rachel as discount merchandise, “special education” fodder. She’ll be locked in her place forever.

    In 30 years of teaching kids rich and poor I almost never met a learning disabled child; hardly ever met a gifted and talented one either. Like all school categories, these are sacred myths, created by human imagination. They derive from questionable values we never examine because they preserve the temple of schooling.

    That’s the secret behind short-answer tests, bells, uniform time blocks, age grading, standardization, and all the rest of the school religion punishing our nation. There isn’t a right way to become educated; there are as many ways as fingerprints. We don’t need state-certified teachers to make education happen—that probably guarantees it won’t.

    How much more evidence is necessary? Good schools don’t need more money or a longer year; they need real free-market choices, variety that speaks to every need and runs risks. We don’t need a national curriculum or national testing either. Both initiatives arise from ignorance of how people learn or deliberate indifference to it. I can’t teach this way any longer. If you hear of a job where I don’t have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. Come fall I’ll be looking for work.

  • The Underground History of American Education – This is a stupendous resource with monumental breadth. It’s mostly available free online, here. It’s a common assumption that schools “fail”, and the solution to this is often “more funding”. Gatto shows with crystal clarity that we aren’t looking at a failed educational system; we’re confronting a thoroughly insidious hegemony intent on universalizing stupidity. IMO, this is an absolute must read.

If you’re curious about the general context:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uexMYBkfCic[/youtube]
History of Compulsory Schooling

And now for a few relevant to Social Studies/History:

  • The Paradigm Conspiracy: Why Our Social Systems Violate Human Potential — And How We Can Change Them, Breton & Largent
  • Toxic Sludge is Good for You!: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry and/or Trust Us, We’re Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future, Stauber and Rampton
  • The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States, Paul Avrich [This is published by AK Press, which has a terrific catalogue of titles, and an affordable monthly bookclub too.]

Edging into chapter 2, “Curriculum is Everything that Happens” and “How am I Going to Do This” were somewhat less helpful. There weren’t any major points of contention, but there wasn’t anything ‘new’ added to the dialectec either (aside from the references). The advice they give seemed reasonable enough. I especially appreciate the attention to union activism, which I think is tragically deficient in most instances. If we allow ‘curriculum’ to entail “everything that happens”, it seems like the usefulness of the term is suspect. If curricula are “everything that happens”, are they engaged in the curricula while peeing on each other in the bathroom? What about while they’re out back, smoking reefer? Or when they’re planning out how they’re going to cheat on your test? I don’t think we do ourselves any favors by being unnecessarily nebulous in our semantics. There may be derivative effects, but I see the curriculum as the corpus of study as designed by a pedagog for the purpose of instructing pupils. There’s value (and harm!) in specificity.

In regards to eeking out with your sanity, the authors and editors provide the reader with good suggestions. Other teachers in your social circle will help you through dark times. In my case, I’ve got a mutual support network a priori, as my wife is also a Social Studies teacher. That puts us in competition for jobs, but the benefits of our cooperation are of inestimable value.

Tobey

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