Negative Values of the Capitalist Education System¶
Discipline
o Schools and universities often act like a funnel or a pipe: a collection of students might start out as a wide diversity of behaviors, perspectives, and goals, the system of institutionalized education quickly punishes those who don’t fit within a narrow band of what is considered “acceptable”.
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o This discipline isn’t just enforced with rules, it’s moralistic: If you’re a good student, we’re told, you’ll be a good person. A good student follows whatever work schedule is given to them, he (and the idea of a good student is definitely gendered as male!) is happy to study whatever subject a teacher deems is important, he produces a good quality academic product.
• Authority
o Related to the process of disciplining students, we have the bizarre power dynamics of the typical classroom. The teacher stands as both the epistemic and moral authority in the room. He knows absolutely what students need to know and how they should behave.
o A student’s job is to learn, remember, and reproduce the knowledge which the teacher (and the greater academic establishment) has given them. There is no acknowledgement that students might bring their own knowledge or perspective to the classroom which should be respected.
• Meritocracy
o The romance of education we discussed last session is closely tied in with the idea that students are made worthy by their struggle against other students. Those who aren’t capable of “beating the competition” (or not willing to fight) are not deserving of respect or opportunities.
o This competition at the microlevel of the classroom is also reflective of capitalist competition at the macrolevel of the economy. Those who succeed as students are preparing to compete in the marketplace.
• Colonialism
o The epistemic authority of the teacher in the classroom is reflected in the authority of Western science over any other way of knowing the world.
Positive Values¶
Alongside all these negative values, a number of points were raised about the positive values that the educational system promotes. Some – like how public schools provide free childcare and sometimes food for poor students – were acknowledged as places where civil society has perhaps failed to step up for people. Other aspects of education were seen as more straightforwardly positive, however. For example, mandatory education in a country can provide a shared experience for millions of children, regardless of class. If this is handled in an egalitarian way, it could encourage solidarity on a massive scale.
Before we finished the first half, I brought up a distinction Eli Meyerhoff makes in his book (attached), between “study” and “education”. “Study” is just the general word for people learning about the world, whereas “education” is the particular Western system we have today, with grades, fixed curricula, authoritarian teachers, etc. etc. Many people pointed out that education in this sense is just a very small part of the learning we do in our lives. We mostly learn informally from sharing experience with our friends. One of us pointed out that she learned most practical skills (like changing a tire, repairing household problems, etc.) from her family and working class community.
The second half of our discussion was unfortunately a little more rushed, but we tried to do a bit of brainstorming about what values a utopian education system should embody. Some ideas that came up included the need for a more energetic experience, with physical movement and some embodied learning. We spoke about how education should raise consciousness, and alert students to the pressing issues of the day, like climate change, and help them prepare to fight against them. Another theme that was widely discussed was the need to help students learn about themselves and their identities. An education should address the whole student, including their emotional lives, spiritual reflection, and physical health.
Take care :)¶
We ended the session by trying to think of concrete actions we could take in our daily lives to work towards a better future. The major theme here was to help the people in our lives to wake up about what the reality of the education system is. We all have friends, or cousins, or partners, who have fallen into thinking that their academic performance reflects their worth as a person. Above all, we need to stick up for each other, and remind everyone we can that this system is outside of them, and freedom starts by taking care of ourselves and each other.
