Critical Theories in Education
From The Onion: Carolina Residents Confused, Terrified As Victorious Hurricane Players Riot In Streets
RALEIGH, NC—Only hours after the Carolina Hurricanes won the NHL Championship Monday night in a hard-fought Game 7 against the Edmonton Oilers, North Carolina Gov. Michael Easley mobilized the National Guard to contain over two dozen members of what he described as “some sort of depraved, violent, heretofore unheard-of gang calling themselves the Hurricanes.” …
… That seems to be the plan for education reform in the US these days.
The Arizona legislature has passed a bill that will require a 2 X 3 foot, made-in-America US flag in every public education classroom (preschool through university) in the state.
As the bill moved through the legislature amendments were added that also require legible copies of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Very patriotic on the part of Arizona legislators, don’t you think?
But the bill is an unfunded mandate. No money would be provided under the legislation and colleges are instructed to raise private funds to pay for the flags.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that a poll by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) shows “Americans are increasingly worried about the quality of elementary and secondary schools and students’ preparedness to compete in the global economy, and college faculty members are among the public-education system’s greatest critics.”
College professors tended to view the public schools more negatively than did Americans in general. Over all, 44 percent of Americans gave the nation’s schools a C grade, while 15 percent thought the schools deserved a D. But 49 percent of the professors gave the schools a C, and 23 percent gave them a D.
Similarly, only 11 percent of adults said they thought the schools had high expectations for students and significantly challenged them, but even fewer college professors (2 percent) thought students were significantly challenged.
The ETS poll concludes that there is widespread support for education reform.
There’s no doubt that public schools can and should be transformed, the big questions are who should the schools be accountable to and in what ways should they be transformed.
The “global competitveness” argument is corp-speak for making public schools serve the interests of big business as opposed to engaging students in developing meaningful understandings of their world.
The engine of NCLB-style reforms of public education in the US are standardized tests, so you draw you on conclusions about the relationship between the poll’s sponsor (one of the largest test-pushers in the world) and its findings.
On May 18 the Atlanta Braves announced they would be holding Christian “Faith Nights” at Turner Field this season.
Since that date:
After winning 14 straight Division pennants, there’s only one explanation for what’s happening to the Braves…it must be the curse of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent. His new book is The Conquest of the Middle East.
June 12, 2006
The Case of the Toronto 17: Has Racism Invaded Canada?
By ROBERT FISK
This has been a good week to be in Canada–or an awful week, depending on your point of view–to understand just how irretrievably biased and potentially racist the Canadian press has become. For, after the arrest of 17 Canadian Muslims on “terrorism” charges, the Toronto Globe and Mail and, to a slightly lesser extent, the National Post, have indulged in an orgy of finger-pointing that must reduce the chances of any fair trial and, at the same time, sow fear in the hearts of the country’s more than 700,000 Muslims. In fact, if I were a Canadian Muslim right now, I’d already be checking the airline timetables for a flight out of town. Or is that the purpose of this press campaign?
First, the charges. Even a lawyer for one of the accused has talked of a plot to storm the Parliament in Ottawa, hold MPs hostage and chop off the head of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Without challenging the “facts” or casting any doubt on their sources–primarily the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or Canada’s leak-dripping Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) — reporters have told their readers that the 17 were variously planning to blow up Parliament, CSIS’s headquarters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and sundry other targets. Every veiled and chadored Muslim woman relative of the accused has been photographed and their pictures printed, often on front pages. “Home-grown terrorists” has become theme of the month–even though the “terrorists” have yet to stand trial.
They were in receipt of “fertilizers”, we were told, which could be turned into explosives. When it emerged that Canadian police officers had already switched the “fertilizers” for a less harmful substance, nobody followed up the implications of this apparent “sting”. A Buffalo radio station down in the US even announced that the accused had actually received “explosives”. Bingo: Guilty before trial.
Of course, the Muslim-bashers have laced this nonsense with the usual pious concern for the rights of the accused. “Before I go on, one disclaimer,” purred the Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente. “Nothing has been proved and nobody should rush to judgment.” Which, needless to say, Wente then went on to do in the same paragraph. “The exposure of our very own home-grown terrorists, if that’s what the men aspired to be, was both predictably shocking and shockingly predictable.” And just in case we missed the point of this hypocrisy, Wente ended her column by announcing that “Canada is not exempt from home-grown terrorism”. Angry young men are the tinderbox and Islamism is the match.
The country will probably have better luck than most at “putting out the fire”, she adds. But who, I wonder, is really lighting the match? For a very unpleasant–albeit initially innocuous–phrase has now found its way into the papers. The accused 17–and, indeed their families and sometimes the country’s entire Muslim community–are now referred to as “Canadian-born”. Well, yes, they are Canadian-born. But there’s a subtle difference between this and being described as a “Canadian”–as other citizens of this vast country are in every other context. And the implications are obvious; there are now two types of Canadian citizen: The Canadian-born variety (Muslims) and Canadians (the rest).
If this seems finicky, try the following sentence from the Globe and Mail’s front page on Tuesday, supposedly an eyewitness account of the police arrest operation: “Parked directly outside his … office was a large, gray, cube-shaped truck and, on the ground nearby, he recognized one of the two brown-skinned young men who had taken possession of the next door rented unit…” Come again? Brown-skinned? What in God’s name is this outrageous piece of racism doing on the front page of a major Canadian daily? What is “brown-skinned” supposed to mean–if it is not just a revolting attempt to isolate Muslims as the “other” in Canada’s highly multicultural society? I notice, for example, that when the paper obsequiously refers to Toronto’s police chief and his reportedly brilliant cops, he is not referred to as “white-skinned” (which he most assuredly is). Amid this swamp, Canada’s journalists are managing to soften the realities of their country’s new military involvement in Afghanistan.
More than 2,000 troops are deployed around Kandahar in active military operations against Taleban insurgents. They are taking the place of US troops, who will be transferred to fight even more Muslims insurgents in Iraq.
Canada is thus now involved in the Afghan war–those who doubt this should note the country has already shelled out $1.8bn in “defense spending” in Afghanistan and only $500m in “additional expenditures”, including humanitarian assistance and democratic renewal (sic)–and, by extension, in Iraq. In other words, Canada has gone to war in the Middle East.
None of this, according to the Canadian foreign minister, could be the cause of Muslim anger at home, although Jack Hooper–the CSIS chief who has a lot to learn about the Middle East but talks far too much–said a few days ago that “we had a high threat profile (in Canada) before Afghanistan. In any event, the presence of Canadians and Canadian forces there has elevated that threat somewhat.” I read all this on a flight from Calgary to Ottawa this week, sitting just a row behind Tim Goddard, his wife Sally and daughter Victoria, who were chatting gently and smiling bravely to the crew and fellow passengers. In the cargo hold of our aircraft lay the coffin of Goddard’s other daughter, Nichola, the first Canadian woman soldier to be killed in action in Afghanistan.
The next day, he scattered sand on Nichola’s coffin at Canada’s national military cemetery. A heartrending photograph of him appeared in the Post–but buried away on Page 6. And on the front page? A picture of British policemen standing outside the Bradford home of a Muslim “who may have links to Canada”.
Allegedly, of course.
Dear Friends,
The struggle for social justice, freedom, equality, reason, and democracy is incessant, even though sometimes it is hard to see. While the term “emerging fascism” probably describes much of the world, as long as work sucks people will fight back, because we must. What is fascism? For a quick analysis see this.
The Rouge Forum No Blood for Oil web page is updated.
Earlier in the week, we broke custom and sent out a mid-week notice regarding the uprisings in Oaxaca, much of it initiated by educators.
Narco news is carrying what little journalism is being done of this massive struggle. Here is a link, with photos.
Harry Cleaver at UTexas is carrying updates on the continuing struggle here.
In addition, students throughout Greece are seizing campuses in opposition to the moves to deepen the privatization of education there.
And students in what is becoming known as the “New SDS” are planning a mass mobilization against the Iraq war early this week in New York City.
The documentary, Sir! No Sir, is about the antiwar movement initiated by US soldiers in the Vietnam era, which paralyzed the military. Beginning July 15 the film will come out on DVD, and be offered free to active duty military personnel. Here is the link to the web page which describes when and where the important film is being shown.
And here’s a link to a review of Sir! No Sir.
With sadness, we recognize the closure of the Growing Children Elementary School in Oakland, a school led by our colleague Susan Harman, which was destroyed by the Superintendent who used the results of racist high stakes test scores as a weapon to eliminate joy and freedom in the struggle to gain and test knowledge.
It is trite, but true, to say they can close Growing Children, but they cannot shut down the battle for the truth, and they will not shut down Susan, her colleagues, and kids, either. Susan is an educator extraordinaire who will rise again, and put the empire at risk. And the children who have had even just a glimpse of what real learning can be like are unlikely to forget it.
Capital can no longer solve the problems it creates, from its inability to leave Iraq (and inability to stay in Iraq) to its desperate need for cheap immigrant labor (and its need for those laborers to stay cheap, and get out of the USA when the work is done—and to never assume human form and ask for humane treatment). Everything already exists for everyone on earth to live a fairly good life, if we could just share. So, the task is at once a massive change of mind, and the action to make the change of mind a reality. Maybe one leaflet at a time…..with a nice smile
The Independent (London, UK) June 6 2006
Politics and principles: Marx: does he still matter?
In a letter to former Labour leader Michael Foot, written in 1982 and published yesterday, Tony Blair reveals that reading Karl Marx ‘irreversibly altered’ his outlook. He even agreed with Tony Benn that Labour’s right-wing was politically bankrupt. We asked nine commentators – including Mr Benn – whether Marxism still has anything to offer today
Published: 16 June 2006
Eric Hobsbawm Historian
I think there has been a substantial revival of interest in Marx in recent years, and this has been largely because what he said about the volatility and shape of capitalism was correct – even some business people now seem to recognise this. Marx is once again somebody that you can quote, and this in part is due to the end of the Cold War.
In terms of Marx’s legacy, as the Chinese are reported to have said following the French Revolution: “It’s too early to tell.” What we do know, though, is that Marx and his disciples were massively responsible for the shaping of the 20th century, for good or for bad, and Marx was an extraordinarily important thinker.
In this era of neo-liberal globalisation, Marxist thinking is still important in showing that while capitalism is enormously dynamic, that dynamism creates crises. We need to address these crises, not by free markets, but by controlling the system or changing it altogether. Whether or not that is possible in the short term is a different story.
Matthew d’Ancona Editor, ‘THE Spectator’
Marx is certainly relevant. As Francis Wheen’s very good biography shows, he was on to the idea of globalisation long before right-wing economists started writing about it. Beyond that, his way of thinking is still pervasive.
One of the fascinating things about the Labour Party is that there has been what you might call a Marx-size hole in it, a quest for a sense of destiny. Blair has tried to fill that: his critics would say with religion, his apologists would say with Europe. Blair is someone with a pretty strong sense of destiny, and he has tried to extend that to the Labour Party. He is no Marxist but in a funny way he has that sense of destiny Marx had.
Marx was wrong about lots of things, but he is still somebody you have to know about. He is one of a very small number of people – Marx, Freud and Darwin are, I suppose, the three big ones – who completely changed the way we see mankind.
Jack Straw Leader of The House of Commons
Karl Marx’s legacy – not just for the Labour Party but for intellectual development – is his development of Hegel’s more scientific approach to historical analysis and his elevation of the dialectical process. Both are, I think, enduring. Much of his analysis is accurate and his analytical tools are still respected by many historians.
His prescriptions were often widely off-beam, as we now know, and played down non-economic forces to a point where I think he made some grievous historical and political errors – for example, ignoring the role of nationalism and religion as political forces.
What we saw in 1989, with the collapse of theSoviet system, was that the Marxist-Leninist approach to running not only economies but also societies was unenduring. The point of Francis Fukuyama’s book The End of History was not that history had ended but that we had reached a point of ideological hegemony which I think we probably had. So Marxist Leninism is not relevant in that respect but the analysis is still worth having.
Hilary Wainwright Editor, ‘Red Pepper’
For all the abuses of his work, Marx’s view of society was far from being mechanical and determinist. His notion of people “making history but not in conditions of their own choosing” and his idea of “the social individual” points to that crucial balance between recognising the capacity of individuals to choose to transform rather than reproduce the social relations that depend on them and on the other hand the enduring nature of these social relations.
There is in Marx a powerfully grounded belief in human creativity combined with a strong belief in individual fufilment. It’s there in his theory of alienation: the way in which the capitalist labour market depends on workers’ alienation from their creative capacity. It’s there in his vision of socialism: not as a command economy but as the association of free producers. It is a cruel irony his name should have been used to justify authoritarianism and new, state, forms of alienation.
Tony Benn Labour Politician
It’s the teachers, including the prophets of ancient times, the founders of the great religions, along with Galileo, Darwin, and Karl Marx, who explain the world and our place in it.
I always think of Marx as the last of the Old Testament prophets who wrote a brilliant book about capitalism but also condemned it because of the oppression by one class of rich and powerful people.
Marx was no more responsible for a Stalinist tyranny than Jesus was for the Inquisition or the recent war of aggression waged by a Christian president and a Christian prime minister. Without the Marxist analysis, it is impossible to understand capitalism and globalisation, to reach a moral judgement, and it is even harder to explain the crude use of that power and the need for it to be held to account. There is nothing in the Marxist analysis to prevent us from thinking things out for ourselves and working to build a genuine democracy, where the polling station replaces the marketplace, and the ballot replaces the wallet as a source of political and economic power.
Alexei Sayle Comedian and Writer
I think that the Marxist historical analysis is an accurate account of how society has developed. Although perhaps a little wide of the mark, it is definitely still relevant. When Marx spoke about the differences in society being based on economic structure he definitely had a point.
Marxism should be seen as a tool and therefore a method of analysing society and that can be relevant today. You can certainly be right-wing and still be a Marxist.
It is a historical analysis of the class struggles and a prediction of the way our society would be, and it isn’t wrong. Yes, it is a complex set of ideas, but it makes sense.
Norman Tebbit Former Conservative Party Chairman
I read bits of Marx, though in a way when I grew up what seemed more relevant was Mein Kampf. I read that because I wanted to know about the bugger who was dropping bombs on me. I don’t think Marx is relevant, except to show up the folly of people who believe in what is now shown to be an absolute failure of a political system. Blair is right that it purports to be a total system. You can be a Conservative without being a capitalist, you can be Labour without being a socialist, but if you buy Marx, you have to buy the lot. It’s like a religion in that respect, and very harmful. So, for once, Tony’s right.
Anthony Seldon Headmaster, Wellington College
I think that Marx’s way of analysing society is of course relevant today because you simply cannot understand how societies have formed today without seeing the remnants of Marxism. It has been hugely influential across the world.
Marx definitely got some things wrong because his theory was, sadly, overly idealistic about working-class unity. Nevertheless, you can certainly still see elements of truth in what he said – workers are stronger when they stand together.
Marxism hasn’t itself been a negative influence. It is often the way that followers have chosen to interpret Marxism that has led to things like police states and concentration camps. Marx would have been horrified in the same way that Jesus would have been by the way people have interpreted him.
I find Marxism a lot less odious as an idea than capitalist policies. The idea of people living in a just society with no warfare is an inspiring vision, although hopelessly naïve.
Bob Crow General Secretary, RMT
It was entertaining to hear that Tony Blair’s youthful outlook was “irreversibly altered” by reading Marx. Of course, he doesn’t say in which direction his outlook was altered, but his actions during the past decade give us a clue. Today it is far easier to win the ear of Downing Street if you represent the class of capitalists, as Marx would have put it, rather than working people.
Of course, it may be that Blair has had a memory lapse and just needs a refresher. No need to wade through all of Das Kapital – just a quick read of the little pamphlet Wages, Price and Profit, which lays bare the mechanism by which bosses extract surplus value from the labour of working people. It should be in the pocket of every trade unionist.
In it, Marx demolishes the idea that wage rises cause inflation and that it is futile for workers to fight for higher pay.
Marx’s great achievement was understanding capitalism, and in understanding it he came to the conclusion that it could and must be replaced with something better.
As long as there are capitalists Marx will remain relevant.
Simon Black provides “A Socialist Guide to the World Cup” at Rabble.ca.
Whether you’re cheering on the boys from Brazil or avoiding the television at all costs, keep an eye on the political dynamics of this year’s World Cup. …
Following a rant by the The Detroit News about the “bias” of the new social studies curriculum in Michigan, the state superintendent of education pulled the plug on it, citing ommissions of 9/11 and Watergate.
The Detroit News reports that Superintendent Michael P. Flanagan said there was a “biased flavor” in some of the curriculum examples proposed in the document, adding that he could see how it might look like an “indoctrination piece.”
Revised documents will likely not be submitted to the state board in time for fall, said Martin Ackley, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Education.
Perhaps the revised document will follow SC’s lead and allow for off-campus Bible education.
TRADE UNION STRATEGIES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY:
AN INTERNATIONAL DISCUSSION
In the age of globalization, outsourcing and the ‘race for the bottom’ what strategies make sense for unions? How can falling union density in the private sector be reversed? What is social unionism and how can both public and private sector workers build alliances with their communities? How should unions relate to ‘progressive’ governments?
These questions and many more will be tackled by an outstanding international panel:
Willy Madisha President, Congress of South African Trade Unions
Cristina ErcoliWomen’s Secretary of CTERATeachers union in Argentina
George HeymanPresident, British Columbia Government and Service Employees’ Union
Moderator, David Chudnovsky, MLA Vancouver-Kensington, former president BCTF
When? Saturday, June 24, 7 PM
Where? 550 W 6th Avenue, Vancouver (BCTF Building)
Sponsored by Vancouver and District Labour Council and British Columbia Teachers’ Federation
Contacts: Mabel Elmore (604-254-0703), Larry Kuehn (604-871-2255)