“I will tell you that the answers are not simple and will not arrive
quickly. Change starts with the children. However, it also has to do
with changing elements in society that have existed since the
beginning.”

This is a commonly heard perspective, and an argument for the schools taking an active role in changing society by the way they teach. 

I question whether the schools can or should be the agents of change, but I also recognize that schools may be the only place where a different idea of what the world can do is ever presented to some children. 

If the schools don’t do it, who will?  How can parents who are themselves trapped in the cycle ever realistically teach their children anything other than what they know?  How can the children learn anything other than what they see around them, in their friends and family.

Yet the schools are beholden to the government, which many would say has a vested interest in things NOT changing. If we say that the schools must educate for change, than what should they teach?  I have a department full of neo-marxists who have their ideas.  Should that be what is taught?  Or, as with KIPP and others like them, should the focus be on teaching the students the skill necessary to excel in the world as it is assuming that if they make it in this world they have a better chance of changing the world for their children? 

But if we do that, aren’t they just going to want to perpetuate the privilege they have gained for their children in this system?  Part of why the great revolution has never happened is because people are more afraid of the devil they don’t know than the devil they do.  I may think it’s unfair that Bill Gates makes orders of magnitude more than the person who cleans the bathroom near his office, but that person may be satisfied that they aren’t making what the migrant farm worker makes, and that person may be glad that they aren’t turning tricks.

I don’t know the answers to these questions.  What I do know is that it is more complicated than most people realize.  My father would have said that poor people don’t work hard enough, and even as a child I knew that wasn’t true.  But I worry about the idea of any type of governmentally funded organization, even one as generally benevolently intended as schools and teachers, trying to educate for change.  At best it will be change within limited parameters and at worst it will just be a different form of indoctrination.

Specifically he made the argument that he has no problem with safety nets for people who hit bad spots but that someone who makes bad choices should have to pay the consequences.  3 years ago I would have agreed enthusiastically.  However I have no spent 3 years in an ultra-liberal (bordering on socialist) education school, and while I generally still agree I am more aware of how the choices that he and I have (and know to make) are very different from the choices people of other backgrounds may have. 

This was driven home for me today through the Privilege Meme that is making the rounds of the academic blogosphere.  It consists of 34 items that you might have had growing up.  A couple are more age dependent (for example kids didn’t have TVs in their rooms when I was in school; heck we only got cable when I was in high school…) while others are more open to interpretation (does “lessons” mean private lessons or would group dance classes count?).

Still for all that, I marked nearly half of them.

1. Father went to
   college (yup)
   
2. Father finished college (got his BS in his late 30s)
   
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than
   your high school teachers (same)
   
7. Had more than 50 books in your
   childhood home (Encyclopedia Britannica and my books)
   
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home (I’m the only one that read)
9. Were read children’s books by a
   parent
   
10. Had lessons of any kind before you
    turned 18 (Dance classes, swimming lessons)
    
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 (see above)
    
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed
    positively (except women)
    
13. Had a credit card with your name on
    it before you turned 18 (not common in the early 80s)
    
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your
    college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp (girl scouts)
    
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying
    at hotels (we camped every summer)
    
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 (I was the oldest)
    
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them (worse, I got a hand-me-down from my younger brother who had gotten a junker for getting thrown of the BOCES bus.  I’d gotten a 10-speed for graduating in the top 10% of my class.  I’m still a little bitter over that one.)
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child (*snort* my parents have awful taste in art so it’s probably a good thing they never put any up.  Our walls were blank)
23. You and your family lived in a
    single-family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house
    or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child (also the only girl)
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18 
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course (I don’t remember hearing about these at the time)
28. Had your own TV in your room in
    high school (not common in the early 80s)
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college (nothing more than a savings bond)
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial
    airline before you turned 16 (yes, to DC as 12)
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up (I tried to take my mom as an adult; it didn’t go well; she thought 2 hours was sufficient for the Louvre…)
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family (what kid knows this?

Basically all the solid, middle class stuff.  None of the super-rich…  I don’t think this list is even close to complete, think it leaves some things out and has things in it that I’m not sure make sense

I guess the point here is that it’s easy to forget what growing up white and middle class teaches you about the opportunities that exist.  Even at 18 I had confidence and a better idea of the resources out there than Kim, who went to the same school but lived with her single mother in a trailer park.

The fact is that if I were magically dropped on a corner, filthy and without a penny to my name, knowing no one, I could get myself out of it.  Without a mental illness in the picture I would clean myself off, pick myself up and start over.  It would be difficult, unpleasant and painful, but I have lists of things in my head that I would/could do if necessary; places to look for help, resources that I know are out there.  I think in many ways that is what is meant by social capital; its knowing the expected behaviors and knowing about what is out there so that, when necessary, you have the resources. 

Yet I am also aware that there are people out there who don’t know these things.  Who don’t know how to behave, don’t speak well enough to impress a potential employer, don’t realize what possibilities exist.  They may not be physically disabled or mentally ill, but they could well be socially deficient/crippled.  What then is society’s responsibility to them?

Here I find myself partway back with Husband; Society’s responsibility is to help them learn what they need to get out of the situation, but not to support them while they wallow in it.  However I think that making a program available isn’t the same as making sure that the people who need said program are aware of it.  Perhaps the reason so many sink into eternally living on government assistance of one type or the other is that we don’t provide them with both the knowledge needed to get out of their situation and the incentive (in the form of an end-date) to make the necessary changes. 

KIPP charter schools actually address this.  They are schools specifically for low income struggling students.  They are hard, with high drop-out rates.  But the poor inner city (generally minority) kids who emerge from them have not only the academic skills but also the social capital to succeed within our current social order.  They are drilled the virtues of punctuality, politeness, proper english, honesty, and all the other things that employers and colleges expect.  Some in my department say that this just perpetuates the hegemonic culture, and it does, but it also explains that culture to those who don’t have the right kind of home/family situation for it to be explained there.  Those students then do better, both there and later in life.  By replicating certain aspects of privilege (access to books and the internet) and explicitly teaching social capital, these students escape the cycle of poverty and despair that they were in danger of falling into. 

That, to me, is the type of program we need to be fighting for.  Let the adults change the culture if they don’t like it, but give kids the tools to excel within it.  That means an approximation of the key aspects of privilege and the social capital to succeed in society the way it is now.

(sorry; that rambled a little….)

In reading and talking to postmodernists I am seeing two distinct arguments:

1. Epistemological: There is no such thing as objective truth; the very concept of truth is outdated and counterproductive.
2. Ideological: Because there is no truth, all perspectives or opinions have equal weight.  The corrolary to this in most cases is that any argument based on a truth claim is de facto oppressive to all other claims and, by extension, the groups that make them.

I can mostly buy the first part.  I say mostly only because I do believe that there are some basic truths in the natural world.  For example, I believe that it is objectively true that if I step in front of an oncoming bus within a certain distance (ie too short for it to stop) and stand there, I will get hit by said bus.  I’m pretty sure every postmodernist has some beliefs of this nature, otherwise they would have all stepped in front of buses by now and I wouldn’t have to think about this kind of thing. 

When it comes to human beings in response to one another and things that don’t involve the laws of physics, I do believe there is more room for subjectivity.  We all agree that Bhutto was shot and died yesterdays, but interpretation of that event and reaction to it are different depending on a persons perspective, history, current context, beliefs and values. 

I do NOT believe the search for truth or at least accuracy is counterproductive, but I also don’t think that it is sufficient.

Having said all that, my disagreement is with part 2 of the definition.  I do not believe that all perspectives or opinions have equal weight and I doubt most postmodernists do either. 

I agree that many voices have been completely silenced using objective truth as a gag, but that doesn’t mean that all of those voices had equally important things to say.  A good example of this is religion.

Most postmodernists would say that all religions deserve equal respect and acknowledgment; that each has something useful to say and should be heard.  Yet most would also scoff at a Pastafarian wanting their voice heard on equal footing as a Muslim.  Is FSM a “real” (i.e. true) religion?  Who gets to decide?  And if we can never decide (see point 1) than how can you justify including one church and not everything else that calls itself a church? 

Most people would say that there are “real” religions (say, Judiasm) and “made up” religions (say, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster).  Yet where does Scientology fall into that?  Is it a real religion because it has rich followers?  Lots of followers?  It certainly isn’t old.  Is it based on the intention of the creator?  Do we KNOW that L. Ron Hubbard didn’t mean Scientology as either a huge joke or a money-making machine?

The idea that if we accept one we must accept all as valid is where I start to have real problems.  Those problems are compounded with the general contention that any attempt to put forth any form of truth is not just incorrect but also oppressive.  That’s a HUGE step as far as I’m concerned.  Maybe this is my libertarian ideology coming through but I see no conflict between saying “There is no God” and “but you can believe in him if you want to”.  My atheism doesn’t oppress anyone else and, for that matter, my Mother’s Catholicism stopped oppressing me when I moved out of the house and stopped going to church.  The overwhelming Christianity of this country doesn’t stop me from practicing my atheism; am I oppressed anyway?

Yes, there are many historical examples of “the truth” being used in an oppressive manner, but the implication that the purpose was oppression rankles me.  Human motivation is complex and we rarely do something for only one reason.  The “fact” that women are “less intelligent” than men was long used to keep women in the home and out of the work force, but the reason for that effort wasn’t exclusively to keep women from financial independence.  There were many other reasons; biological (physical strength differences, ability to nurse a baby), genetic (nurturing instinct), societal (education not provided to women, traditional roles), the nature of work (farming vs. manufacturing vs. information).  These reasons all played a roll in the emergence of that “oppression” and as they changed so did the situation.

I’m not trying to say that there aren’t oppressed groups.  There certainly are, with that oppression being more or less severe, rising or falling over time, and being maintained by a variety of mechanisms.

But one shouldn’t attribute malice to something better explained by ignorance or insensitivity.   The movement from “X happens” to “X happens and it is oppression” (a value judgment) to me is too large to justify in any universal way.

I welcome comments on my thinking here; I’m not as versed in either philosophy or history as I feel I need to be to properly argue this, but I do feel as though my thinking is starting to crystallize on the issue and would appreciate feedback on how I am expressing it.

It’s jargon, meant to exclude people rather than clearly communicate.  At best it is some form of academic shorthand, but it makes even otherwise intelligent people feel unnecessarily disconnected from the discussion. 

What’s wrong with “call into question”?  “propose as a problem”?  “complicate”? “make problematic”?  heck, even “discuss”.  Our language is quite rich enough; we don’t need to go around making up new words to express ideas for which there are already perfectly acceptable words and phrases.

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(No answers; just some navel gazing for a Friday morning…)

My original assigned adviser is a tenured full prof who is nearing retirement.  He has spent many of the last few years in very much an activist scholar role; he still does research but he has a point he is trying to make with it.  He makes a point of being out in the public eye on several issues that he cares about.  He chooses his projects to prove what he wants to say and does things like press releases and under 2-week papers refuting conservative think tank publications in the areas he cares about.  (I am unclear about whether he would refute liberal think tank publications, since there really aren’t any.)  One of the most illustrious profs in our college has the same view.  He’s been on the TV News calling our state superintendent of schools a liar.  They have a group of senior scholars (many big names) that meets yearly to talk about how to make a difference in policy, not just talk about it. 

I’m not entirely sure what I think about this type of thing.  I am currently letting the aforementioned adviser drift out of my program in part because his idea of what my comprehensive exams should be is centered around this idea of the public academic; it isn’t about knowing the background of the field or the current events, but also about expressing a blatantly political opinion on the topic.  He would argue that studying policy requires us to take a stand. 

Now, I am well aware of the fact that we all have biases that impact our work.  My libertarian leanings are what got me interested in school choice.  My atheism drives me toward an interest in the role religion is playing in public schools.  But neither of these interests are in an activist way; I’m not, for example, trying to say that religion should have no roles in schools.  I don’t know clearly what role it plays now and whether that is good, harmful, or something in between.  My instinct says that it is a bad thing (religion discourages critical thinking), but that the issue is confounded by interactions with other things.  But if I were to find something different I could accept that I was wrong about that and move on.  And in neither case do I intend to “take up arms” and try to change the world.  If someone else wants to take my research and do that, great, but not me.

More importantly, I don’t see the role of a scholar as being compatible with that of an activist.  Activists, even think thanks that claim to do real research, start from a conclusion and then find evidence to support it.  A scholar starts from a question and then follows the evidence where it leads.  Sometimes that isn’t where they thought it would lead and that may require digging deeper to understand what happened.  (After all, the scientific process generally starts with a hypothesis that you then test.)

Then the question to me shifts to the difference between an activist scholar and a public academic.  My original adviser is an activist scholar.  He has causes he is fighting for and against.  But is that different from a public academic?  Is a public academic just a more mild version wherein the public activities are less confrontational but still partisan?  My mentor turns down news interviews but has testified on research issues before both the legislature and state board.  Is he a public academic? 

But is this all just naive on my part?  Research can be twisted and it is inevitable that, if I study anything contemporary, someone somewhere will take mine and use it to prove something I disagree with.  Is being a public academic more about being aware of these happenings and responding?