IssueXI: pp. 10-14: Another Brick in the Wall

it is oftEn assumEd that thE pur-posE of Education is to lEarn.

Another popular justification is to pro-

vide practical skills for a person’s cho-sen career, and therefore it is consid-ered justifiable to coerce people into

VOX - The STudenT JOurnal Of POliTicS, ecOnOmicS and PhilOSOPhy iSSue Xi - SPring 2010

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AnothEr Brick in thE WAll

By Roy Moore

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schooling from early childhood. as many people fought hard for the right to education, particularly free educa-tion, there is an attachment to (and hope placed in) the school system. it seems, however, that what people learn sometimes goes beyond any stated curriculum or subject taught in school. the biggest and most last-ing lessons are those of discipline and control; normalised values which are suitable for later jobs. class reunions and experiments in which adults play the role of students again consistently lead to a regression displaying those well-learned lessons. if the particulars of science, maths and English have been forgotten, the lessons of punc-tuality, wearing the uniform, and other similar measures of conformity have not been. in this vein, sociologist au-drey devine-Eller of rutgers univer-sity described how the theory of the panopticon can be applied to educa-tion. originally Jeremy Bentham’s de-sign for a prison, the panopticon, has a guard tower with 360-degree vision in the middle of circular prison cells and works on the idea of each prison-er believing they are being surveyed at all times. devine-Eller notes that even in the architecture of the school there is a symbolic panopticon, seen both in the headmaster’s place at the cen-tre and in the manner in which all stu-dents must face the teacher. though co-operative learning and other such concepts involve the students group-

ing together, and have been shown to enhance learning, memory and similar skills, such methods make it harder to control students and their learning, perhaps explaining why these methods have not been adopted more. What has been standardised, however, are exams, values and judgements. it is the normalisation of such things which results in education looking more like a method of control and standardisa-tion of students, rather than as a genu-ine attempt to impart knowledge. audrey devine-Eller brings out these issues further, noting that “elementary school education coin-cides with a developmental stage at approximately 6-10 years when chil-dren learn the value of rules” (devine-Eller pp.3). Essentially this seems to show that “the skills students acquire through discipline in the school are central to becoming ‘productive’ par-ticipants in the labour force. modern workers must know the timetable, for instance, and their bodies must be trained to respect the 8-hour, 5-day workweek... [and they are rewarded or punished] according to the quality or level of their production.” (Ibid. pp. 9) this aspect of reward and punishment is crucial to understanding the aspects of control elicited at school. a person is only accepted within the classroom if they exhibit the behaviours demand-ed by the teacher, namely being “docile and respectful... [showing a] deference to authority” and similar passive char-acteristics. previously, more coercive

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elements such as corporal punishment were common, but as public opinion evolves, so do the practices of the school to some extent. therefore, the education sys-tem has a very influential element of control attached to it, existing as a tool of those running such institutions to propagate the values they desire. those children who submit, obey, or other-wise appear cooperative are rewarded with praise from the teacher, certifi-cates, qualifications, and being recog-nised as the ‘brightest’ students, they belong to the higher sets. those who rebel against the system itself usually belong to the lower sets, are identified as such, and are eventually classed as failures. Such a classification appeals directly to the self-esteem of the child in rewarding and punishing behaviour, not their ability, thus being methods of control rather than of learning. if children are a tabula rasa, such social inclusion, rewards from a perceived authority, and their status according to their performance at school appear not only normal, but desirable, despite the deeper appearance of control. in such a false consciousness, there is a gramscian style of mixing coercion and consent. control has extended to the school as an institution; indeed this deference to authority seems to be the most fundamental aspect taught, and the most remembered lesson (gramsci 1971). devine-Eller notes that with the standardisation of tests, classrooms

and teaching styles, it becomes easier to rank students, and thus easier to decide between potential applicants for jobs. if producing such workers is the pur-pose of education, then such measures of control and discipline make sense; but this does not sit well with the pro-claimed goals of education, and coerc-ing people to live through 16 years or more of such education suddenly ap-pears unjust. if education is to remain a moral institution then this should be recognised as a negative consequence. such methods of standardisation do not increase learning itself, but rather serve as a method “to make each stu-dent visible to power as the object of power” (ibid. pp.11).

as such, each student “can see their position in the hierarchy at a glance, without a teacher-judge to place them in that rank. the operation of power thus becomes ever more invisible and efficient; it appears to individuals that they place themselves in the hierar-chy”, and most importantly, then, “in-dividuals to some extent also remedi-ate themselves” if they do not rank highly (ibid. pp.13-14). on the scale of maslow’s hierarchy of needs, such self-identification and self-realisation is the highest of psychological needs a person has, and so it is no surprise that so many believe themselves to be more

Those students who wish to do well, then, must conform;


intelligent based on the results of such exams (Maslow 1943). those students who wish to do well, then, must conform; believing that to attain success, to find a good job, or whatever their goal, they must conform to the examination procedure. such rankings appear to show the ex-tent to which a person has conformed rather than the innate intelligence of the student. that so many people who are considered so important, such as albert Einstein, rejected standardised education as stifling creativity attests to the conclusion that exams do not show a level of learning, intelligence or creativity, which are perhaps the more ideal and abstract goals of education, but rather how obedient and suitable for particular jobs a certain person is - a goal preferable to those with power in the struggle between capital and la-bour. there are, however, those who rebel against the system. many of those are deemed as failures and as such achieve little influence with which to effect change. But before giving up on students who may be bright but dis-obedient, there are plenty of methods to remediate the student: “[the] bad behaviour of the student is a legiti-mate reason for the questioning of the parents and of the neighbours, thus extending the school’s power of sur-veillance far outside the school” (ibid. pp.11). they will thus be rewarded for their ability but disciplined for their

behaviour. the standardisation of norms is consolidated and the even-tual chastisement of the pupil serves as a deterrent for others, whether it is in reduced grades, demoted sets or (most extremely) expulsion - all mea-sures affecting the very psychology of the child. With the school, friends and parents pressuring each child to con-form, it comes as little surprise that few people effectively rebel against this system and that few challenges against it exist. in the centralisation of policy-making, government has standardised not only classrooms and exams, but the students and their judgements and values too. one piece of work receives an ‘a’ if that person deems it worthy, and the standardisation of exams, grades, and therefore the ranking of students, has “thus extended the reach of power into the minute place of in-dividuals’ lives that law left untouched, by making everything – or almost ev-erything – punishable.” (ibid. pp.12) those who do criticise such standardisation often do so from a highly creative form; films, art, and particularly music do so regularly. however, when you analyse the pur-pose of anything from its design, daily activity and results (for education this being the architecture, tests and stan-dardised rankings of students) it be-comes clear what the real motives are. the dull repetition and learning from rote appear more as an end than as a

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method of learning. the rise of ford-ian systems of manufacture coinciding with the universality and standardisation of education perhaps inevitably evolves into schools training workers rather than students. although there are many more effective techniques of learning, including creative methods of visualisa-tion, and peg or loci systems of mem-ory, such creativity and effectiveness is ignored in favour of methods which get a person used to dull, repetitive tasks, which they are really being trained for. of course education is useful for many people, and there are plenty of people worldwide who walk miles to school every day and feel privileged to do so because of the poverty of their situation. Such qualifications do im-prove the lives of many, and seeing this first hand in the Philippines and Kenya it becomes obvious that education is a real way of improving the lives of many people. the problem is that the poverty exists not because of the ignorance of the people, but the bad governance of current and past leaders, including, and perhaps most importantly, former Eu-ropean or american colonial and post-colonial masters. Education provided by such powers will not bring about im-provement for everyone, as that is not their motive. if we agree that school should ideally be geared towards producing creativity and knowledge, rather than people trained for specific jobs, then it is possible, if not necessary, to improve

the education system. as a tool of gov-ernment, education is incredibly power-ful in shaping judgements and values, while leaving the decision-makers invis-ible. With more power to teachers and students, reducing government to its proper place of funder and investor, it will become possible for education to stimulate creative discourse and prog-ress. perhaps this is necessary to solve many of the current problems caused by the hierarchically compliant system in which we find ourselves.

Bibliography:

audrey devine-Eller 2004 applying foucault to Education, available at: http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~auderey/Applying%20foucault%20to%20Education.pdf, last accessed 04:06 6/1/2010

antonio gramsci prison notebooks copyright geoffrey nowell smith and quintin hoare 1971

a.h. maslow, a theory of human motivation, Psychological Review 50(4) (1943):370-96.

_____________________________Roy Moore is a third year undergraduate stu-dent reading PPE at the University of York

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IssueXI: pp. 10-14: Another Brick in the Wall