Jennifer Berkshire features an essay by a teacher who realizes that she was responsible for the appointment of Betsy DeVos. Why? She didn’t pay attention.
Read her story.
This is what she learned after a career of setbacks:
“Neoliberalism is an attractive ideology precisely because it meshes so nicely with our existing cultural norms and myths. We all want to be successful, and neoliberalism’s emphasis on quantification, organization, control, and discipline as a means of maximizing *performance* seems normal and reasonable rather than sinister. That’s why even students and teachers who are disenfranchised by a worldview that says competition is the defining characteristic of any relationship, scarcity the fundamental state of reality, and ownership and entrepreneurship the highest level of citizenship, still participate in it.
“A few weeks ago I accepted temporary employment as an on-site test proctor for state assessments for a virtual charter school, despite not agreeing in principle with charter schools, exam-based summative assessments, or online education. The position pays more than I usually earn as a substitute teacher and is much easier too. I’m also a participant in what researchers call *shadow education,* the supplementary instruction parents and adult students use to address the failings of the formal education system. I earn money as a tutor and academic success coach for high school, college, and graduate students. Shadow education is both a response to and result of the transfer of risk from society to individuals. It’s difficult to live within a system without adopting the culture of that system.
“But I am also working to be less complicit in the full-on assault upon public education. I try to remind myself and others that education is not a product. That understanding and expertise are knowable and observable conditions, but they don’t readily lend themselves to systematized mass production. That students, or rather, children, are not capital or resources for exploitation; neither are teachers, administrators or other school employees. That people have value because of their humanity, not just because of their predicted contribution to or detraction from economic growth. That learning has value apart from and above, say, achieving tests scores or getting a job. You should remind yourself of those truths, too, because the appointment of a philanthropist and political rainmaker to oversee public education will only heighten the consumerism and competition of the present policy-setting.
“I want public education to embody all the positive traits denoted by the words *public* and *education.* My first step to achieving that end was to examine myself. What do you want for public education? What are you going to do about it?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I don’t believe I am. In the mid 1970s, while I was in high school, I ended up living on what in those days was quaintly called a “commune.” There I learned the virtues of sharing and cooperation–which was enhanced by the fact that the farm on which I lived was an apiary. We oversaw 300 colonies of those arch-cooperators, honey bees. In retrospect, however, looking back on my life from my late fifties, I suppose I was born with Marxist tendencies.
So I certainly have never believed that “competition is the defining characteristic of any relationship….” In fact, that strikes me as a pretty grim and blinkered worldview.
But hey, if living in a “Mad Max” movie is your cup of tea, be my guest.
Diane So much can be said about Berkshire’s article. But just one thing: In an earlier set of posts, we discussed here the point that it’s not ALL about the institution of education or those in it, but rather the problems in education have solid roots that reach into the specifics of a community in which the institution lives, e.g., poverty, racism, crime. <–these cannot be kept out of the classroom on principle.
If so, lambasting teachers for “bad” student outcomes, in fact, is both naive (distressingly stupid) and dangerous (good teachers finally leave and we get a breakdown of the intimate relationship between democracy and education–manifest in DeVos’ zealotry, ALEC, vouchers, privateering of education and the political ignorance of our parents as they make “choices”).
A similarity exists, however, between the above relationship between (a) school and community and (b) teachers’ horizons of their own potential action as authentic teachers in a democracy and the real-political climate that they live in and that they are perfectly capable of critiquing–as is evident in Berkshire’s brief outtake.
I think Berkshire captures that larger relationship and the need for teachers to embrace their political being as a group in ways that I think have been neglected and even “steered” badly before. We have assumed for a very long time that everyone wants what’s best for ALL children and, further, knows just what that is. NADA on both counts. I believe that the reasons for trust are gone; and that in great part, from that assumption still flows a neglect of ourselves as political beings at the center of what’s left of our democratic culture.
“What do you want for public education? What are you going to do about it?” Indeed.
I know one woman who hates kids. But she was and probably still is a grader for short answer responses on those horrid high stakes tests. This woman is a trust fund person. Her dead parents dole the money out, because she is horrid with money management. When I found out she was a temporary worker who graded Colorado’s high stakes short answer responses, I had to inform her that she is affecting the lives of children, teachers, the school district, and the state. She had NO CLUE. All she wanted was easy money; she has NEVER had a full time job. Go figure.
Another female I know who is an immigrant from Germany applied to be a substitute teacher. She also does not work full-time and complains about not having money. She told me that no school distict close to where she lives will hire her and she was appalled. I told her, “Teaching is NOT a hobby.” She voted for Trump. Given that she grew up right after post Hitler in Germany and moved here as an adult, I was appalled. But, I shut my mouth re: her vote for that awful DUMP. This woman complains all the time about public education in this country. She should move back to Germany. BTW, she has three children. Two are grown. She divorced her husband with whom she had her two no grown up kids. The third child she had because as she told me, “I had to have his child, because he was the most handsome man I ever DATED.” HUH? See? Crazy people are out there and they vote.
“No Clean Hands”
“How are you or I responsible for the appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education?. . . But you and I also helped DeVos get to her position. We’re implicated too,”
Excuuuuse effin me! You got a mouse in your pocket, Alicia? Fleas? Hell, you’re too lilly livered to even use your full name.
I’ve got “clean hands”, just washed the dishes and attempted to cleanse my mind of the nonsense of that article that should be titled “Projection by Alicia”.
Hey, Alicia, when your in a hole, quit digging!
My exact sentiments to Alicia as well, Duane.
But I think she refers to the general, probable institutionalization of America’s not being politically literate. I would think it stands to reason that the typical individualistic American (you are probably not in that pool) has been too asleep at the wheel, driving low cost fuel cars, shopping at the mall, and watching too many sitcoms on TV to realize how the devils in Washington have been shaping the culture and power structure.
About that, Alicia is right. One of my colleagues once told me that his NBC colleague who teaches ESL thought that Arnie Duncan was an executive at Nickelodeon. I am saying that with a straight but frustrated face.
BTW, congratulations on your recognition in Australia! You are going to get onto the map, I have not doubt!
Thanks for the kind words, NW!!
Got to read her article . I glanced it and thought much the same . Call it Trump overload, But from my glance I asked myself . She participated wholly and now has questions.. Guess I should not have watched “Blood On the Mountain ” the other day , because I had the same questions about those workers for Massey Coal.
I told Alicia she should not beat herself up for having taken 25 yrs (measuring from starting college in the ’90’s) to glean the big picture of neoliberalism as it was developing. And participating as an Engl major making a living where she could– tho, predictably, some of those employers were using her as cannon fodder for anti-Engl-teacher agendas– makes her neither a contributor nor a victim. And hardly responsible for BDeVos appt as Secy of Ed.
One must live & work in the world of our times. It is naive & puerile to think that by opting out of one’s field [nu!: suggested in that comment thread by no other than TeachingEconomist]– to do what? Code the next CBE program? Work the counter at Starbucks?– one somehow ‘protests’ the political reality in a meaningful way.
bethree5 It’s probably a good time to shine a little light on university education programs and curricula?
also? But speaking from my own experience and study background in education, I think the teaching profession has been involved in a kind of collective political amnesia for a very long time.
CBKing: I am not sure I understand you. How should uni ed programs/ curricula respond to the neoliberalism/ privatization agenda? Perhaps you mean to focus on the ed major– say a BA in ELA ed (tho Alicia could have been an Eng Lit BA w/a masters or cert in ed). Do elaborate, & I’m listening open-mindedly.
As to the teaching profession being involved in collective political amnesia for a long time, I am all ears. When it comes to uni curriculum, I cannot imagine how the Eng major, e.g., could or should transform itself to conform to a political agenda. But when it comes to teachers as a political force, I am with you. To me, this means first & foremost, a viable union presence. If teachers’ unions, e.g., actually wield dollar clout w/n the Dem party, they have not in recent memory been exercising that clout to support public education… is that what you mean?
bethree5 Too much to develop here with any depth; so with that in mind, and to the broader content in your note, you say: “When it comes to uni curriculum, I cannot imagine how the Eng major, e.g., could or should transform itself to conform to a political agenda.”
First, it’s been recently bantered around (again) that immigrants know more about our government and Constitution than most Americans do. Why is that?
But teaching to understanding the roots of a person’s and culture’s political foundation (in our case, in the U.S.), IS and IS NOT teaching to a “political agenda.” It IS because it’s teaching students to become politically astute, historically aware, and self-aware. In that sense, a political education should show the great difference between democracies (and nuances about it) and other forms of government. They throw people in jail in some cultures for doing just that. If WE cannot do that by mandate, then we are not really living in a democracy. And if we are snookered into NOT doing it, then our bad, like the article says.
It’s NOT a political agenda because it’s not about teaching to one doctrine (or now, one person) and nothing else. Rather, it’s about showing the whole picture, leaving nothing out, and leaving the political positions people end up taking to themselves. It’s the basic assumption underlying the freedom of speech (etc.) in the First Amendment. If everyone can speak, write, gather, read and listen, then the truth will eventually will-out.
From my understanding of what’s been going on in higher ed for a very long time, there has been a sustained effort to marginalize or even quash history courses (directly related to the above teaching), philosophy and political philosophy, world religions (of some sort) all of which can be double-dipped for English courses; and basically what was once considered “core” courses for the majors (though many still maintain their quality). For post-grad teacher programs, an omission of such “core” material leaves the teacher politically naive and hobbled–unable to even TRY to bring threads of political awareness (not propaganda or proselyting) to their students.
Then you say: “As to the teaching profession being involved in collective political amnesia for a long time, I am all ears. Several reasons for that, I think. One reason: the massive differentiation of material over the last three centuries. With more and more differentiation, less and less attention is paid to the foundation courses–especially if no one understands why they are important (lost to consciousness). Another reason: the conflict between administrations and field-subject autonomy of professionals in the fields who are also professional teachers. If an administration is dealing with parents and funders in a general cultural malaise where everyone is on the capitalist-only get-a-job train, who are they going to listen to, even IF they DO understand the import of those core courses for the student’s well-being? And in my experience, many don’t.
Another reason: there are some who understand exactly what it means to politically educate the poor–and they don’t like it one bit, and have the money to create and sustain such teacher amnesia. (Ask Paulo Freire about that situation.) They keep teachers on the defensive and thinking they have no professional cred, and teachers live in the false assumption that EVERYONE wants what is best for the children. In other words, they take the double-speak as if it were not: double-speak. Again, NADA. But we’ve talked about that here before. there’s much more to it. but that’s a start?
bethree5 Below is FYI and, oddly, came to my “desk” after I wrote my other note to you. It’s a review in Teachers College Record of a book about “agnotology” or ignorance making. Below are some parts of the review, then the link.
ALL QUOTED MATERIAL BELOW
Title: Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-Making in America and Abroad Author(s): A.J. Agnulo Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore
Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-Making in America and Abroad
reviewed by Craig A. Cunningham — May 22, 2017
“Agnotology” is not a word that I had encountered prior to reading this expansive and provocative work. Coined in the 19th century as “agnoiology” by James Frederick Ferrier and revived in the 21st century by Robert Proctor, agnotology designates the systematic study of ignorance: its breadth and depth in populations, its origins and effects, and its conscious reproduction and dissolution. Agnotology also encompasses the methodologies used for studying ignorance: not only to understand its etiology and transmission, but also to harness proven methods of ignorance-making to preserve political or economic interests.
A.D. Angulo has personally spearheaded the application of agnotology to the history of education, and assembled for this book a diverse and skillful group of historians . . . the cases of slavery, sex, sexuality, evolution, and the environment, as well as how myth-making and ignorance-making go hand in hand around issues of class, identity, religion and history. It also discusses the global relationship between nationalism and ignorance, with instances . . .
While ignorance is to some extent a native attribute of persons in that we are born not knowing much explicitly, it is also passively learned, continuously and unconsciously, through our heritage, culture, and our very language, thus becoming habitual and pernicious. Ignorance is actually a necessary feature of human consciousness, since we cannot possibly learn or remember everything, even that which we personally experience. Cultures emphasize some knowledge while occluding other knowledge. . . . Consider for a moment how words such as . . . “freedom” can contribute to acceptance of profound and growing economic inequality.
Perhaps most importantly, ignorance is also actively produced by those interested in maintaining or achieving certain political or economic goals, often aided and abetted through larger social constructions. . . . slave owners worked through both legal and extralegal channels to prevent slaves from learning how to read, for fear that literacy would enable radicalization and insurrection, emboldening those who argued for intellectual equality among the races. Capitalism itself is reliant on advertising, which is a form of propaganda explicitly designed to hide some truths and overemphasize others. The tobacco industry, . . . worked for decades to disseminate a view that smoking was either harmless or even health-producing. The methods employed by the tobacco industry are currently being used by the fossil fuels industry to reduce acceptance of science related to global warming and climate change.
But the production of ignorance is often not so obviously motivated by self-interest. The American media tried to serve the “public interest” (p. 37) through suppressing discussion of sexually-transmitted diseases, discussed in the chapter on sex and sexuality . . . Progressive education, eulogized by some as providing children with the opportunity to form their own personal knowledge through hands-on experiences and critical dialogue, often produces ignorance through a process described in the chapter on economic class by Daniel Perlstein as “unlearning by doing” (p. 135). The explicit promulgation of what might be called “alternative facts” through school textbooks, described in a chapter on faith and religion by Adam Laats and later in a chapter by Lisa Pine, can be seen from one perspective as blatantly disingenuous or even evil, while from another it can be understood as a vigorous defense of one set of religious or nationalistic beliefs over another. All textbooks are selective, choosing what to include, exclude, dismiss, or elaborate; whether they involve censorship is often a matter of judgment.
Situations that are complex in themselves or in how they are perceived are especially ripe for the promulgation of ignorance in a population, where the demand for simplification, undeniable certainty, or false optimism drown out the voices seeking nuance, subtlety, or the precision demanded by science. It can also be argued that scientific types often obfuscate reality by dismissing or ignoring the perspectives of those with more passionate or values-oriented views. This may be one source of the contemporary revolt against “elites” in some political contexts in America and abroad.
Miseducation will be especially useful to advanced graduate students and researchers seeking to understand these specific situations, or to gain a broader understanding of the methods and findings of agnotology. . . . . Agnotology provides a language and framework with which these issues can be discussed in foundations of education classes, specifically to augment discussions of the importance of critical thinking, critical literacies, and the common good. Through a better understanding of ignorance, teacher candidates and in-service teachers can more consciously reflect on their own educations, and perhaps shield their students from some of the most pernicious examples of state-sponsored ignorance-making.
My only criticism of this book is that, while it mentions “critical thinking” numerous times, there is no discussion of the school’s role in developing critical consciousness through critical pedagogy such as that advocated by Paolo Freire or Joel Spring. Even the chapter on class, which highlights the ways that some progressive schools “served to discourage students’ engagement with their most pressing political and economic questions,” and which emphasizes the “need to imagine democratic communities,” and encourage students’ thinking about the “complexities of class” (p. 136-37), stops short of offering specific pedagogical or curricular approaches. But rather than a limitation, this lacuna exemplifies the book’s generativity. On the whole, it is a masterful book that will help to define a subfield in the history of education and will also influence scholars who study educational law, policy, economics, psychology, and philosophy for years to come.
References
Proctor, R.N. & L. Schiebinger, eds. (2008). Agnotology: the making and unmaking of ignorance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Cite This Article as: Teachers College Record, Date Published: May 22, 2017
http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 21984, Date Accessed: 6/28/2017 6:48:00 AM
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=21984
Neo-liberalism is bizarre and against working class people and their children. Until wealth redistribution occurs – perhaps in an amalgam of conservatism and true liberalism styles – nothing will work for Americans. Not the extremism of the GOP and not the corrupted plutocracy the DNC has become.
Lambaste Alicia or not, too many people have not been paying attention, which has brought them DeVos, but also Reagan, Trump, the Clinton Foundation, Bill Gates . . . . The list is long.
At least Alicia has the maturity to do some introspection and aknowledge her long term screw-ups. I have to give her that much.
“A few weeks ago I accepted temporary employment as an on-site test proctor for state assessments for a virtual charter school, despite not agreeing in principle with charter schools, exam-based summative assessments, or online education. The position pays more than I usually earn as a substitute teacher and is much easier too. I’m also a participant in what researchers call shadow education, the supplementary instruction parents and adult students use to address the failings of the formal education system. I earn money as a tutor and academic success coach for high school, college, and graduate students. Shadow education is both a response to and result of the transfer of risk from society to individuals. It’s difficult to live within a system without adopting the culture of that system.”
Apparently her intellectual awakening has not yet transitioned into concrete actions. For at each stage she made decisions to participate and is still participating in what she acknowledge is a neo liberal assault.
.
Joel Herman It’s a form of systematic, institutional blackmail using one’s job security to intimidate those who work out of their voices. This is why collective group action, informed by clearly stated motives, goals and a long-term vision, is so important. And it’s why “the government” at every level must remain unfettered by the destructive forces of faction. But individual understanding funneled into group action is where the power is in a democracy.
Catherine Blanche King
In principal I do agree with you . At some point individual responsibility
has to enter into the picture. That blackmail has always existed . No clearer an example than a worker who chooses to cross a picket line . Those other workers faced the same blackmail . The same economic pressures and family obligations ,. That worker made conscious decisions to do what he knew was not right . The thing is chances are the economic pressures on him were not even as great as those that chose “collective group action”
A dynamic that was very apparent on the National political level last November. One has to chose to be a deplorable and the overwhelming majority of those who did were not under “institutional blackmail ” , they tended to be economically better off .
The”informed” part is problematic as well . Those that should be informed are not . As I had two Indivisible activists tell me that debt service was an astounding 25% of national spending. The reality is 6% . Those two numbers are worlds apart in terms of policy implications . Which leads me to question how is information or disinformation is disseminated to the “collective ” and how they then form their beliefs.
Joel Herman,
You quoted the woman as saying that her virtual charter position is much “easier than substituting.
As you probably well know, the truth is that great teaching may be made more efficient in instructional delivery, but it is never nor should be “easy”. It is challenging because students are diverse and complex. Anyone looking for something easy or any system where teaching is an “easy” job is disingenuous who would be seeking a false system with little to no merit.
Teaching is hard work, and it requires a great deal of intellectual nuances when getting to know students and accommodating their learning styles and needs.
Catherine Blanche King,
All your posts on this thread are SO rich and wise. Thank you! Well put in each one. Same goes for Joel Herman.
Norwegian Filmmaker
Exactly the point that struck me in that excerpt I pulled out . We both are non teachers here . So we are a bit disadvantaged when it comes to understanding the specific challenges faced by those in the profession. However there are somethings that are Universal . A truly progressive world view requires one to consider that personal sacrifice may be required for the greater benefit of all.
I was the first to correct those Teachers on this blog who feel entitled to their standard of living provided by their !Collective Bargaining Agent ! . Yet were upset that the NEA/AFT was now organizing charter teachers.
The inverse of that is at some point those that enable the neo liberal assault on students teachers and society have to decide, which side they are on and refuse to enable it with their labor .
Oh, I hear this: I have been trying to understand and communicate about what our district has been doing to teachers for over fifteen years, and yet I continually find myself talking only to the few….and the changing few at that. Many frustrated teachers/parents/students only stay in the game so long as the fight is momentarily theirs — they do not try to get a look at the larger picture or stay in the fight to protect any overall larger principle.
If one follows Jennifer’s argument, anyone who ever worked in a public, private, or charter school where testing and assessment took place is responsible for DeVos. I don’t buy that argument, nor should anyone else.
To be fair, it’s not Jennifer’s argument. It’s a guest post by a teacher who goes only by “Alicia”. I don’t know to what extent Jennifer endorses Alicia’s argument, but I guess the fact that she guest posted it without disclaimer it indicates at least some agreement.
Thanks, dienne77. To be fair I should have said “Alicia’s argument.”
If you want to assign blame to someone for where we are in education, blame Milton Friedman and all those that follow his free market drivel. Blame the politicians like Bill Clinton. He signed the law for all those tax credits that incentivize the destruction of public education. You can also assign some blame to the complicit unions that joined the “get along gang” with the “reformers.” As for individual teachers trying to get by in the world and make a living, I find it hard to hold them responsible for a creature like DeVos.
I am not feeling her pain.
Abigail Shure I think perhaps, in many cases, there’s a real sin of omission involved. I would say also the “sin” rests in good part in the movement of unions–though I don’t claim to know much of that history–but it would be the first place I would look for a lapse of the potential power and vision it would take to have avoided our present situation, not to mention curriculum development for over 60 years both at college and in the K-12 that we teach. I doubt it’s about placing blame. My take on it is that It’s more about filling in the gaps that will help us know what we CAN do with what we have now, and in the future.
My union is up to its neck in corporate reform complicity. I was fortunate to be educated at home and at school to think for myself. There is no replacement for reading a wide variety of opposing viewpoints. As an adult, I assume full responsibility for my own political awareness.
Abigail Shure I think that’s pretty much what the article was saying. But in a democracy, though the power is located in individuals, as Tocqueville knew, that power is consolidated in groups; and that puts the omission for larger movements squarely on the shoulders of unions and, perhaps, school boards. And that’s probably why there has been such a push to either own and steer, or eliminate both–the centralization of political power.
Political awareness goes from the knowing the issues in very legislative district we live in, to the final voting for senators and the president. When the DNC overlooked the African American and white working class vote, and pinned their unsuccessful run on millennials, we ended up with the current president. Then comes the DeVos appointment. Being complicit might mean voting for the current president, or being totally unaware of the importance of being educated about all the candidates and therefore not doing SOMETHING to influence others to vote for progressive candidates. Taking a job that provides easier money than getting certified and working in some capacity in a public school system may be complicit, but then blaming the rest of us on the appointment of DeVos doesn’t make sense, and we shouldn’t fall for it. Evidently no one has.
ireneat1900 If you think it’s about blaming, I think it’s a severe misreading of the article. If you are saying that there are multiple causes, and this is one large one, then I think you would be right.
ireneat1900
“When the DNC overlooked the African American and white working class vote, and pinned their unsuccessful run on millennials, we ended up with the current president.”
I think that is a complete misread of what the DNC did. . They assumed that they were going to get the African American vote . The Hispanic vote, the women’s (the identity politics vote ) by default . They spent a whole summer and fall going after WHITE REPUBLICAN WOMEN , who could not possibly vote for a revolting pig like Trump.
DUH!!!!!!
Millennial’s who like the White/ Minority working class are more likely to be struggling in this economy ,were completely dismissed . As they have been by Democrats since Bill Clinton . At some point they are going to vote for Trump or more likely stay home.
The DNC or the political class of the democratic party identify with the class of voters they associate with in their professional and private lives. That is far more likely to be highly successful professionals, entrepreneurs and investors . People who donate to their campaigns , attend the same country clubs and send their children to the same elite private schools or very high preforming Public Schools.
Blaming oneself is what the Reformers (and other screwups) want.
They want everyone else to take the blame for their own misdeads.
Teachers are not to blame for DeVos.
People like George Bush and Barack Obama and Arne Duncan are.
They paved the way.