Sustainable means forever
The Drone in the Classroom
“At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.” (Neil Postman)1
I suppose that my first teaching position should have been the wake up call.
After all, there I was, a brand new shiny teacher, still wet behind the daybook, replacing a somewhat older teacher who was on a five month stress leave. But I didn’t see the signs, likely because Chase Secondary School at that time was a very well run community school, the students for the most part cared enough about education that they actually wanted to be there, and the remaining teachers hadn’t yet cycled through burnout.
Virtually all of the students were certain that education would somehow make a difference in their lives, and not just in the form of more money. And the teachers were fairly certain that they could contribute to that difference.
But that was then.
I haven’t been back there in twenty years, but I suspect that even Chase Secondary hasn’t entirely escaped the uncertainty and indifference permeating our public schools.
More and more, it seems as though the ideal of creating citizens who equally and actively contribute to a democratic society has degenerated into a two-tiered education system. Money and education generally beget money and education, so private schools and increasingly expensive universities help to perpetuate that division. As for all the rest - the great unwashed - the Fraser Institute and others would have us believe that the purpose of public education is to turn out worker drones in the service of the economy, who when not at work will fulfill their personal lifelong dream of being avaricious consumers. At this extreme, public schools may as well be replaced by education factories.
At the other extreme, we risk appending the word “mortis” to the phrase “academic rigor.” Academic elitism is well-entrenched in our university system, and is enhanced by the inbreeding created by the “publish or perish” imperative. Some of what currently happens in all parts of education is a reaction, or perhaps adaptation, to that elitism and rigor.
So, many secondary school students choose Communications, Applications of Mathematics, and a variety of other courses which constitute a path of least resistance toward graduation. The current provincial and local obsession with “productivity” in the form of increasing graduation rates only seems to be pushing more students in that direction. Any good education factory would also focus on quality control if it wished to remain in business, but that concept seems to be of secondary importance right now (okay, okay, pun intended).
If and when these particular students come to the college where I now teach, they are unprepared for even semi-serious academic study, almost invariably demonstrating approximately a grade ten level of skills in algebra, writing, and reading comprehension, and often angry or upset at their lack of preparation by so-called grade twelve English and mathematics courses.
And many don’t even have that level of skill, lacking even the basic academic skills to enter a trade apprenticeship. Despite the promises of public education in a democratic free enterprise society, illiteracy and innumeracy characterize a large portion of our society. Even more discouraging is the accompanying lack of critical thinking skills. Our citizens are ill-prepared in every way to analyze and process the information that bombards us almost constantly from one medium or another.
Donald Wood believes that we have moved from the Enlightenment to a post-intellectual era.2 Schools were once energized by community, citizenship, and that brave new world of the democratic experiment. But now we are overwhelmed by facts, yet lacking in knowledge and wisdom. Loss of analytic thinking, of the skills required for social criticism, and of perspective are accompanied by anomie, transitory relationships, and by a “dysfunctional citizenry” and dysfunctional social institutions.
Schools, like our society, are adrift with no clear vision of where we are going, and why. I agree with Neil Postman when he comments that we have lost our “narrative,”3 our powerful story that unifies and vitalizes us. Even the narrative of technology as saviour is failing us, as we become more and more painfully aware that technology creates more problems than solutions. Theodore Roszak comments that “educational problems are political and philosophical issues that will not yield to a technological fix.”4 With all the shiny toys in the classroom, we still continue to look for ways to motivate students, but motivation “must not be confused with a reason for being in a classroom.”5
Without that reason, we default to money as an extrinsic motivator, still flogging the narrative that believing in capitalism, a free market economy, and infinite growth are somehow altruistic and meaningful. According to Herman Daly, a former World Bank economist, we are at the climax state of uncontrolled capitalism: corporatism, near-monopolies, unregulated and conscienceless free trade, and further concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. Daly believes that this state is near to an implosion due to resource depletion, and due to a host of environmental pressures and potential catastrophes.6
Even old Adam Smith himself feared such an extreme outcome of unrestrained capitalism.7 His “invisible hand,” which was to promote the good of our community and our society, has morphed into an invisible backhand to the less fortunate of the world - too much laissez for a few, and not enough faire for the rest.
So, if all our powerful narratives are gone, if our current narratives are destructive, and if there is no one providing us with a new narrative, who and what will save us? At the very time when we need clear thinking, and when we need to develop a new vision and purpose for education and for society in general – at that exact time, sadly, the very skills and attitudes needed seem to be the ones in shortest supply.
It is crystal clear to me that one of the new narratives we need is really an ancient one: Mother Earth.8 In fact, this is likely the most important story of all, but also one that we seem to be doing our best not to hear.
Each species extinction silently diminishes us. Each oil spill or deliberate dumping of wastes and toxins is another unsensed violation of our spirit. Each crowded, noisy, polluted city shuts out the natural world in another affirmation that misery loves company. Each new highrise is a headstone for a sense of community with the natural world.
Without a healthy planet and a clear understanding that we are part of that natural world, just as it is a part of us, we are simply caricatures of living beings, and evidently dangerous ones at that.
Recreating that understanding would require a curriculum which blends traditional academic skills with arts and humanities, ecology, real-life experience in the natural world, and the understanding that “(w)e need to manage ourselves more than the planet, and our self-management should be (...) ‘more akin to child-proofing a day-care centre than to piloting spaceship earth.’”9
The characteristics essential for our very survival include critical thinking, humility, balance, respect for this planet and every living thing on it, and a host of other attitudes that are lost in our obsession with consumerism, materialism, big cities, and techno-toys.
Ensuring the survival of our species and learning to coexist with the other species on this planet seem to be appropriate issues for our education system – an appropriate reason to be in a classroom.
1. Postman, Neil “The End of Education.”
2. Wood, Donald “Post-Intellectualism and the Decline of Democracy.”
3. Postman, Neil ibid
4. Roszak, Theodore “The Cult of Information.”
5. Postman, Neil ibid
6. Daly, Herman “For the Common Good.” For the record, both Daly and Wood are firm believers in capitalism, but not in its current bastardized form.
7. Smith, Adam “The Wealth of Nations.”
8. As suggested by Daly.
9. David Orr, quoted in Daly, Herman “Beyond Growth.”
I suppose that my first teaching position should have been the wake up call.
After all, there I was, a brand new shiny teacher, still wet behind the daybook, replacing a somewhat older teacher who was on a five month stress leave. But I didn’t see the signs, likely because Chase Secondary School at that time was a very well run community school, the students for the most part cared enough about education that they actually wanted to be there, and the remaining teachers hadn’t yet cycled through burnout.
Virtually all of the students were certain that education would somehow make a difference in their lives, and not just in the form of more money. And the teachers were fairly certain that they could contribute to that difference.
But that was then.
I haven’t been back there in twenty years, but I suspect that even Chase Secondary hasn’t entirely escaped the uncertainty and indifference permeating our public schools.
More and more, it seems as though the ideal of creating citizens who equally and actively contribute to a democratic society has degenerated into a two-tiered education system. Money and education generally beget money and education, so private schools and increasingly expensive universities help to perpetuate that division. As for all the rest - the great unwashed - the Fraser Institute and others would have us believe that the purpose of public education is to turn out worker drones in the service of the economy, who when not at work will fulfill their personal lifelong dream of being avaricious consumers. At this extreme, public schools may as well be replaced by education factories.
At the other extreme, we risk appending the word “mortis” to the phrase “academic rigor.” Academic elitism is well-entrenched in our university system, and is enhanced by the inbreeding created by the “publish or perish” imperative. Some of what currently happens in all parts of education is a reaction, or perhaps adaptation, to that elitism and rigor.
So, many secondary school students choose Communications, Applications of Mathematics, and a variety of other courses which constitute a path of least resistance toward graduation. The current provincial and local obsession with “productivity” in the form of increasing graduation rates only seems to be pushing more students in that direction. Any good education factory would also focus on quality control if it wished to remain in business, but that concept seems to be of secondary importance right now (okay, okay, pun intended).
If and when these particular students come to the college where I now teach, they are unprepared for even semi-serious academic study, almost invariably demonstrating approximately a grade ten level of skills in algebra, writing, and reading comprehension, and often angry or upset at their lack of preparation by so-called grade twelve English and mathematics courses.
And many don’t even have that level of skill, lacking even the basic academic skills to enter a trade apprenticeship. Despite the promises of public education in a democratic free enterprise society, illiteracy and innumeracy characterize a large portion of our society. Even more discouraging is the accompanying lack of critical thinking skills. Our citizens are ill-prepared in every way to analyze and process the information that bombards us almost constantly from one medium or another.
Donald Wood believes that we have moved from the Enlightenment to a post-intellectual era.2 Schools were once energized by community, citizenship, and that brave new world of the democratic experiment. But now we are overwhelmed by facts, yet lacking in knowledge and wisdom. Loss of analytic thinking, of the skills required for social criticism, and of perspective are accompanied by anomie, transitory relationships, and by a “dysfunctional citizenry” and dysfunctional social institutions.
Schools, like our society, are adrift with no clear vision of where we are going, and why. I agree with Neil Postman when he comments that we have lost our “narrative,”3 our powerful story that unifies and vitalizes us. Even the narrative of technology as saviour is failing us, as we become more and more painfully aware that technology creates more problems than solutions. Theodore Roszak comments that “educational problems are political and philosophical issues that will not yield to a technological fix.”4 With all the shiny toys in the classroom, we still continue to look for ways to motivate students, but motivation “must not be confused with a reason for being in a classroom.”5
Without that reason, we default to money as an extrinsic motivator, still flogging the narrative that believing in capitalism, a free market economy, and infinite growth are somehow altruistic and meaningful. According to Herman Daly, a former World Bank economist, we are at the climax state of uncontrolled capitalism: corporatism, near-monopolies, unregulated and conscienceless free trade, and further concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. Daly believes that this state is near to an implosion due to resource depletion, and due to a host of environmental pressures and potential catastrophes.6
Even old Adam Smith himself feared such an extreme outcome of unrestrained capitalism.7 His “invisible hand,” which was to promote the good of our community and our society, has morphed into an invisible backhand to the less fortunate of the world - too much laissez for a few, and not enough faire for the rest.
So, if all our powerful narratives are gone, if our current narratives are destructive, and if there is no one providing us with a new narrative, who and what will save us? At the very time when we need clear thinking, and when we need to develop a new vision and purpose for education and for society in general – at that exact time, sadly, the very skills and attitudes needed seem to be the ones in shortest supply.
It is crystal clear to me that one of the new narratives we need is really an ancient one: Mother Earth.8 In fact, this is likely the most important story of all, but also one that we seem to be doing our best not to hear.
Each species extinction silently diminishes us. Each oil spill or deliberate dumping of wastes and toxins is another unsensed violation of our spirit. Each crowded, noisy, polluted city shuts out the natural world in another affirmation that misery loves company. Each new highrise is a headstone for a sense of community with the natural world.
Without a healthy planet and a clear understanding that we are part of that natural world, just as it is a part of us, we are simply caricatures of living beings, and evidently dangerous ones at that.
Recreating that understanding would require a curriculum which blends traditional academic skills with arts and humanities, ecology, real-life experience in the natural world, and the understanding that “(w)e need to manage ourselves more than the planet, and our self-management should be (...) ‘more akin to child-proofing a day-care centre than to piloting spaceship earth.’”9
The characteristics essential for our very survival include critical thinking, humility, balance, respect for this planet and every living thing on it, and a host of other attitudes that are lost in our obsession with consumerism, materialism, big cities, and techno-toys.
Ensuring the survival of our species and learning to coexist with the other species on this planet seem to be appropriate issues for our education system – an appropriate reason to be in a classroom.
1. Postman, Neil “The End of Education.”
2. Wood, Donald “Post-Intellectualism and the Decline of Democracy.”
3. Postman, Neil ibid
4. Roszak, Theodore “The Cult of Information.”
5. Postman, Neil ibid
6. Daly, Herman “For the Common Good.” For the record, both Daly and Wood are firm believers in capitalism, but not in its current bastardized form.
7. Smith, Adam “The Wealth of Nations.”
8. As suggested by Daly.
9. David Orr, quoted in Daly, Herman “Beyond Growth.”
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