kimberlyraylbportfolio.files.wordpress.com€¦ · Web viewAntoine de Saint-Exupery. The purposes of education has varied widely through the course of American history yet arguably

Running Head: The Repurposing of Schools

Kim Rayl

Seattle Pacific University

American Education Past and Present: Winter 2014

Personal Exploration and Choice: The Repurposing of Schools

THE REPURPOSING OF SCHOOLS

Introduction

“All cultures educate- all cultures find ways to induct the young into society- but they do so in many different ways” (Fraser, 2010, p.1).

The purpose of education in the United States has been debated long before the

founding of this country. Centuries before Europeans set foot in the Americas, indigenous

cultures focused their education of children around the practical preparation for life

through rites of passage, the learning of practical and survival skills and eventual

integration into the adult world through apprenticeships (Frazer, 2010). In sharp contrast,

American education, founded upon Protestant European roots has from the earliest of

colonial times functioned in turns as a vehicle to assimilate, socialize, standardize and

more: in short, to institutionalize a national schema within the confines of the

schoolhouse walls. Yet, intertwined within this tangled web of historical, social and

political agendas is found the answer to the question what is the purpose of education?

The answer is altogether startlingly simple yet inexorably complex. When we wipe aside

the rhetoric and focus on what’s best for kids the short answer is, to borrow the sage

advice of John Dewey, to prepare students for life itself. Seems simple. Education in all

its permutations, philosophies and forms at its most basic is about preparation for life.

While few could argue to the contrary this inherent utility of education as

preparation for life, the what and how remain philosophical and policy issues open to

debate as much today as during Colonial times nearly four centuries ago. This paper will

explore the long answer to the purpose of education beginning with a glance back at the

historical assimilationist purposes of education and why reactions such as

multiculturalism and No Child Left Behind have largely missed the point. I will argue

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for a purposing of education as a vehicle for self-discovery that prepares students to make

informed, experience-based decisions to guide their life choices. Policy recommendations

are focused on an expanded secondary and post-secondary experience with an eye

towards an ideological shift that supports student exploration of guided and self-

determined experiences as preparation for life.

Historical Purposes of Education

“You shall, with all propenseness and diligence, endeavor the conversion of the natives to the knowledge and worship of the true God and their Redeemer, Christ Jesus, as the most pious and noble end of this plantation, which the better to effect you must procure from them some convenient number of their children to be brought up in your language and manners” (Virginia Council [London], 1636).

It is clear in this excerpt from Instructions to Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, Governor

of Virginia, 1636 that one of the original purposes of education was to control and

assimilate non-Protestant Europeans into a cultural and religious hegemony. America

began first as a handful of colonies that gradually contracted in numbers, ethnicities, and

religions, eventually swelling into a nation. Despite the steady march of immigrant

populations, a hegemonic identity rooted in early Protestantism coalesced into an

American nationalism, reinforced and maintained by public schools. Indeed, the common

school movement of the 1820-1860’s was born in part to institutionalize this hegemonic

identity beginning with compulsory attendance at primary school. According to Frazer

(2010) one of the purposes of the common school movement was “an assumption,

articulated by Mann in his Twelfth Report, that a generic Protestantism would serve the

needs of the nation well” (Mann, 1846). Fraser’s generalization is supported in American

Education: A History that discusses common schools as institutions largely created to

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support the assimilation of groups with different morality and values into the Protestant

Republican mainstream.

Though a gradual separation of church and state led to the eventual removal of

religious instruction from public school curriculum, cultural assimilation was, and some

multiculturalists such as James Banks would argue is still, a mainstay of American public

education. Asian and Mexican immigrants in California in the 1920’s, as well as Puerto

Rican children in New York City during the late 1950’s experienced the assimilationist

policies that attempted to deny ethnic minorities the right to retain their language and

culture though to varying degrees of success. Ironically, in a section of the 1919 report

issued by the state of California titled Japanese Home Influence Nullifies American

School Teachings speaks to the underlying fear that despite attendance at public schools,

children of Japanese ethnic origin even if born in the United States and pupils of public

schools would never be properly Americanized. Contemporary debates surrounding

bilingual education rage on with a wide range of services available for English Language

Learners (ELLs) ranging all-English instruction with either some or no ELL support to

ELLs in programs that make some use of their home language (Goldenberg, 2008). The

welcoming of “poor and huddled masses” is more myth, created from a nation-building

ideologue rather than based in any sort of popular sentiment.

The paradox of centuries of assimilationist policies designed to create a

homogenous Americanism is that largely, they haven’t worked. The United States

remains fundamentally a population of immigrants that move between and betwixt the

semi-permeable dominant hegemonic social and political sphere as it suits their needs,

though admittedly to differing degrees of success. It is important to note that minority

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groups have not sat idly by, content to be on the receiving end of an educational system

whose twin purpose was to assimilate and replicate an obedient workforce just educated

enough not to cause problems. While the Civil Rights Era of the 1950’s and 60’s and the

multicultural movement of the 1970’s in seeking to address equity issues caused the

enacting of legislation in the areas of desegregation, bilingual education, and Title IX

these movements have missed the larger point. Indeed, Sonia Nieto confirms that,

“Assuming multicultural education is ‘the answer’ to school failure is simplistic at best,

for it overlooks important social and educational issues that affect daily the lives of

students” (Nieto, 1992). Adding socio-economic disparities to the equity mix does little

to bolster the outcomes. Though I agree with the Nieto’s contention that a veritable host

of social problems impact children’s daily lives, calls for solving social problems through

the school curriculum is an alarming trend that largely has failed.

In reaction to what former President Ronald Regan coined the “egalitarian

excess” (Urban and Wagoner, 2014) of the 1960’s- 1970’s, the purpose of school took on

a decided social agenda in the 80’s and 90’s that we haven’t quite managed to shake. The

war on drugs, prayer in school, poverty, racial inequality, teen pregnancy, and gun

control are just a few of the public policy debates played out in the school curriculum at

one time or another by politicians and pundits eager to overlay their own agenda onto

schools. That education has been charged with mandates reaching far beyond the scope of

the purpose of education while being held hostage to immeasurable outcomes purported

to spell the cure-all for the ills of a society is an unconscionable abdication of social

responsibility.

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As some held fast to school-as-cure-all for the social degradation of American

society advocating for the expansion of extracurricular and enrichment programs, the

federal government sought the opposite end of the pendulum, seeking to reinvigorate the

curriculum through punitive accountability and standardization of the curriculum in the

pursuit of excellence. While aspects of the 2002 legislation No Child Left Behind

(NCLB) has opened the door to previously off-the-table issues such as school choice,

strict adherence to the often punishing outcomes of high-stakes testing and unfunded

mandates has left in its wake the detritus of failed schools and by association, failed

children. The critics of NCLB are many. Alfie Kohn’s voice has been particularly loud as

he speaks to “collateral damage of NCLB” in the 2004 article NCLB and the Effort to

Privatize Public Education: “…a shallower, back-to-basics curriculum; more

homogeneity; a retreat from innovations like multiage classrooms; more tracking and

retention and harsher discipline” (Kohn, 2004). Parallel movements such as late

philosopher Mortimer Adler’s Great Ideas that call for a narrowing of the curriculum to

include only the Great Books of the western world is equally distressing: returning to a

curriculum devoid of differing perspectives negates the rich intellectual and creative

contributions of peoples from around the world.

Yet, the historical purpose of education has not been limited to this recent push

for greater accountability through standardization: one of the major currents of education

has been economic. I do not argue that there isn’t inherent value in preparing students for

a working life; indeed, my policy proposals suggest just the opposite. However,

historically, the purpose of education has been to inculcate a large work force capable of

performing what is for the vast majority, a mindless drudgery of showing up at the same

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place day after day to perform essentially the same duties. Think about it. Most people if

asked what they would do if they won the lottery reply, “Quit my job”. Living life for the

weekend is not enough, given the choice. In the article Choosing Equality: The Case for

Democratic School, the authors debunk economics as a valid purpose of education:

“Myth Three is that national economic growth and individual mobility are contingent

upon establishing more rigorous standards of education competition…The employment

functions of schooling do not constitute a sufficient mechanism or rationale for

structuring educational goals” (Bastian et al., 1985). To be sure, it would be folly to

suggest that there aren’t segments of the population that don’t derive fulfillment and

satisfaction from their work, but I believe there are far too few in this enviable situation.

Further, our public has been sold on the erroneous notion that the golden ticket to social

and economic equity can only be realized within the four walls of an institution for higher

education, ignoring the utility of alternative paths that lead to careers capable of

supporting a family without the burden of paying off four years of debt.

“By that part of our plan which prescribes the selection of the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the state of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use, if not sought for and cultivated” (Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1783).

Thomas Jefferson was one of the first to argue that the purpose of schooling be

framed within the penultimate measure of one’s intelligence: preparation for higher

education. Jefferson’s plan was to cull from the masses those few “geniuses” that would

be deemed worthy of advanced instruction. But those few worthy were deemed so

because they fit into a purely academic box. Absent was an acknowledgement that genius

is attainable by all students in their own way, requiring diligent cultivation and

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nourishment by teachers. Framing the only solution as four additional years of higher

education does little to address socio-economic and racial inequality; it is a knee-jerk

promise that reeks of duplicity. Schooling that seeks to create opportunity for social and

economic equity does not translate into providing the same outcome for all; it is a logical

fallacy to believe that sameness of content and end purpose equates to equality in

opportunity. Moving beyond the narrow confines of framing equity in these ways is a

step in the direction of keeping the most basic of Dewey’s philosophies at heart:

education should be about preparation for life itself.

The Purpose of Education Is Highly Personalized Preparation for Life

“Knowledge is no longer bullion from the mine, but is minted with a hall-mark of at least some numerical committee. Everything must count and so much, for herein lies its educational value. There is no more wild, free, vigorous growth of the forest, but everything is in pots of rows like a rococo garden. Intellectual pabulum has lost all gamey flavor and is stall-fed or canned…the pupil is in the age of spontaneous variation which at no period of life is so great. He does not want a standardized, overpeptonized mental diet. It palls on his appetite...” (G. Stanley Hall, 1904)

Education has been re-purposed through the years as the cure for social ills, as

racial and religious assimilator, as an economic barometer, and the golden ticket to equity

in opportunity. Despite these one-size-fits-all purposes, there remains vast portions of the

population that aren’t receiving an education that inspires the kind of self-discovery that

is the potential of all humans. These purposes are self-limiting through a dichotomous

framing of achievement: while minorities of varying ethnic, gender, religious and sexual

orientations are fighting for their specific rights, the marginalizing of the vast majority of

the population continues. While business leaders and politicians lament the decline of

America’s primacy as an economic powerhouse, schools pump-out more students lacking

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in the job-specific skills and dispositions crucial for success in the millennia generation.

While pundits argue over excellence vs. equity, students are dropping out of high schools

that are deemed irrelevant and unresponsive to their needs. All of these purposes are half-

truths yet even if put together, none of them make a whole. The purpose of education is

to acknowledge that each of us must pursue a life as unique as our genetic makeup and to

support the end goal of self-empowerment through choice. Dewey tells us that, “Only by

being true to the full growth of all the individuals who make it up, can society by any

chance be true to itself.” (Dewey, The School and Society, 1899). How can we support

our students in a way that is manageable for teachers on a day-to-day basis, yet supports

the type of self-exploration and experiences students need to realize their personal

potential, whatever that may be?

Despite my earlier argument that the purpose of schools should not be wholly

based in economics, the reality for the majority of students is that eventually they will be

expected to engage in an activity that provides them enough money to support themselves

and for most, eventually a family. However, schools need to value avenues to careers that

do not require a college degree. According to ACT, in 2013 only 36% of students

enrolled in a state college or university graduated in five years or less and only 58.5%

enrolled at a private college or university did. Alternative opportunities such as the trades

(electrician, plumber) are overlooked yet these represent powerful options for students.

Northwest Line, a joint apprenticeship training committee representing Washington,

Oregon and Idaho offers full-time apprenticeship program where individuals work

through a full-time seven-step training program that begins with a wage of $26,840 in

step one, culminating with a wage of $40,260 for step 7; this is 90% of a beginning

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Journeyman’s wage. Similar to an undergraduate college degree, most apprenticeship

programs take 3 ½ to 4 years to complete and participants receive college credit, medical

insurance and a living wage from their first day. Not a bad alternative. In a wired world

where technology is expanding at exponential rates, students that are looking for an

alternative path can find success in fields and industries that have not yet been imagined.

Policies That Support Preparation for Work and Self-Actualization

“If we were to conceive our educational end and aim in a less exclusive way, if we were to introduce into educational processes the activities which appeal to those whose dominant interest is to do and to make, we should find the hold of the school upon its member to be more vital, more prolonged, containing more of culture” (John Dewey, The School and Society, 1899).

An awareness of choice is what students need. In order to make informed

decisions that empower student to lead lives of personal self-actualization within

an existence that extends beyond living for the weekend, they need guidance,

experience and a purpose. In an educational system that functions with the best

intentions for all students this portion of a student’s education experience would

come in the form of a caring individual with a responsibility that extends beyond

the constricted title of “College Counselor”. Simply by adhering to a title that

presupposes college as the panacea of student achievement sends a strong “less

than” message to students for whom college attendance is not a good fit or simply

not part of their life plan. Why not repurpose the college counselor as a “Life

Counselor” or a “Life Mentor” as the first policy change? It may be a small point,

but I would argue a significant indicator of the purpose of education; that one’s

inherent worth and intellectual ability is not tied-up in attainment of a university

degree, that there is a wide swath of options and opportunities that speak to each

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individual’s personal life path, and that personal fulfillment is a life-long

endeavor.

I envision the Life Mentor as the leader of a team of educators that are

dedicated to working with students as mentors and guides: as the bridge between

adolescence and early adulthood. These teams of caring adults would take a

holistic approach to preparing students for independence by engaging students in

exploring their adult world through life and work experiences in the local

community.

To support this expanded role of Life Counselor’s the school day would be

lengthened to include life and career-related experiences beginning in Grade 8. If

the purpose of education is to shift from a one-size-fit all factory model to

education as the gateway to personal fulfillment and transformation, then all

students need opportunities to explore the world around them regardless of their

socio-economic background. In Grade 8, students would engage in life

exploration through planned encounters and interactions with the local

community. When students entered high school, choice in these encounters would

gradually be introduced with grade 10 students largely taking over responsibility

for facilitating their personal life experiences. In Grades 11 and 12, a shift would

occur where students would transition to career-related experiences, again under

the guidance of their Life Mentor. By the end of their Grade 12 year, students

would be ready to put together a proposal for a yearlong mentorship program with

a local community partner.

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This one-year expansion of high school would achieve the twin purposes

of providing a personally enriching life and career experience for all students

regardless of their socioeconomic and ethnic background while avoiding the

legendary malaise and stress associated with “Senioritis”. In an article by Harvard

titled Time Out or Burn Out for the Next Generation the case for altering what we

expect of students their final year in high school is clear. According to this article,

experiences vary widely from student to student but for all, is an experience that

creates dissonance:

“While some students try to get by with as little work as possible, others find it the most stressful year of their lives, with more demanding courses, more leadership responsibilities in their extracurricular activities, and the added burden of applying to college and taking the requisite college entrance tests”.

During this year, students would build upon the previous five years of life and

career experience to engage in a full-time career-related mentorship program.

Student performance would be monitored through a partnership with the school-

based Life Mentor, the community Career Mentor and the student themself. This

final high school experience would represent both a culmination and a guided

point of departure to the next phase of structured life exploration.

Following graduation from an expanded high school experience, my next

policy recommendation would be to establish a mandatory community service-

oriented gap-year for all students. Unlike nations that require students to engage

in military service at a certain age, ranging from one year of service in Italy to

three years in Egypt (CIA Factbook) this policy recommendation would provide

young people a year-long guided experience engaging with the larger society in

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service-oriented capacity as they gradually ease into independence as a young

adult. Students would have choices around how their year was spent, including

whether they continued to live at home or in service-provided housing, whether

they served in their community or left for a different part of the country and the

type of volunteering they engaged in. The purpose of this year would be to

provide young people a rite of passage signaling their transition to adulthood. At

the completion of this final life experience year, students would be ready to make

informed choices as to the trajectory of their life path; beginning an

apprenticeship program in one of the trades, taking over the family business,

travel, additional volunteer work, and yes, even college for some.

Conclusion

“Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered. It is something molded”. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The purposes of education has varied widely through the course of

American history yet arguably all have one defining characteristic in common;

they have each in their own way failed to a degree. Calls for a return to excellence

through reliance on the rigid and passive receiving of a narrowly defined body of

knowledge, or focusing on solving wider social issues of equity within the context

of a school miss the beauty of what education could and should be. Clearly there

would be very real issues around funding my policy changes; detailing the how

and the how much of funding is beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice to say

these policy recommendations represent a fundamental repurposing of schools,

one that would require a concurrent restructuring of school funding, staffing, the

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role of unions and programming that would reverberate far into the local

community and all the way to the federal level.

But these are adult issues and our students are not adults, not yet. Students

also are not passive receptacles devoid of the desire to chart their own dreams.

Students, when motivated through relevant, authentic and engaging experiences

that matter and have an element of choice, are willing to take-on significant

challenges; they simply need the support and commitment of adults. This vision

of repurposing schools transcends what has proven to be partial solutions to issues

around social, economic and political equity and calls for high-stakes testing and

standardization. When education is refocused on what is best for each individual

student not because of their skin color or eligibility for free lunch but simply

because this is our purpose, differences in class and race and opportunity begin to

lose their impact; there’s no holding someone back that is empowered and knows

where they’re going. That’s something money can’t buy.

Ah, but the money issue. How will we possible pay for all of this? I don’t

know. However, there’s a saying in business: “If a problem can be solved with

money, than it’s not really a problem”. Can we afford to re-purpose our schools

one more time, but this time in radically different ways that may just turn the

world of education (and perhaps our society) somewhat upside down? Perhaps the

more salient question is, can we afford not to?

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References

ACT. College Retention and Graduation Rates from 2000 through 2013. Retrieved from http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/reports/graduation.html

Bastian, A. et al. (1985). Choosing equality: The case for democratic schooling. In J. Fraser (Ed), The School in the United States: A Documentary History (Second Ed.). (pp.350-354). New York: McGraw-Hill.

CIA World Fact Book. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2024.html

Dewey, J. The school and society. In Fraser, J. (Ed), The School in the United States: A Documentary History. (pp.233-241). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Ellis, Blake. (2013, December 5). Average Student Loan Debt: $29,400. CNN. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/04/pf/college/student-loan-debt/.

Goldenberg C. (2008). Teaching English Language Learners: what the research does – and does not – say. American Educator, 32(2), 8-23, 42-44. Retrieved from: http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/summer2008/goldenberg.pdf

Hall, S. G. (1904). Adolescence. In Fraser, J. (Ed), The School in the United States: A Documentary History. (pp.153-156). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Jefferson, T. (1783). Notes on the state of Virginia. In Fraser, J. (Ed), The School in the United States: A Documentary History. (pp.23-25). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Kohn, A. (2004). NCLB and the effort to privatize public education. In Fraser, J. (Ed), The School in the United States: A Documentary History. (pp.380-384). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Mann, H. (1846 and 1848). Tenth and twelfth annual reports to the Massachusetts board of education. In Fraser, J. (Ed), The School in the United States: A Documentary History. (pp.49-57). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Nieto, S. (1992). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education. In Fraser, J. (Ed), The School in the United States: A Documentary History. (pp.354-358). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Northwest Line: Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee. Retrieved from http://www.nwlinejatc.com/templates/template4/?page=48.

Stephens. W. D. (1919-1920). The Asian experience in California. In Fraser, J. (Ed), The School in the United States: A Documentary History. (pp.195-203). New York: McGraw-Hill.

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Urban, W. J., and Wagoner Jr., J.L. (2014) American Education: A History (Fifth Ed.). New York: Rutledge.

Virginia Council [London]. (1636). Instructions to Sir Thomas Gates, knight, Governor of Virginia. In Fraser, J. (Ed), The School in the United States: A Documentary History. (p. 4). New York: McGraw-Hill.

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kimberlyraylbportfolio.files.wordpress.com€¦ · Web viewAntoine de Saint-Exupery. The purposes of education has varied widely through the course of American history yet arguably