It's grading time at the University where I am finishing my PhD in the Social Foundations of Education.
One of my take home exam questions is "In less than two pages, explain your biggest frustration with public education today."
I thought I'd share the response from one of my students. Should this make it to the rec. list, I'll let her know.
I am disturbed.
I guess I am wondering at what point I will be able to transmit the incredible education and enlightenment I have received at the University of ____and ______ University into some kind of action. What good is knowledge unless you act upon it? A friend once told me that not knowing something is ignorance, which in and of itself is not an evil thing. You just didn't know. Having the knowledge and not acting upon/changing your viewpoint/etc, however, is stupidity. And stupidity is an evil. It is intentionally going against what you know to be true----and I'll add that stupidity includes inaction, as well as actively going against what you know to be true.
So I am disturbed. I feel in myself an unwillingness, a reluctance to act upon what I know. I am still the passive recipient of knowledge...the philosopher who sits in the leather armchair (with a pipe, of course) or the social scientist working in library, pouring over books (we call those armchair anthropologists), who so eloquently and profoundly expound on the roots of "x" evil or psychopathology....or poor achievement in schools, but don't even work in the field or--great graciousness--do anything constructive with their knowledge (scholarly articles are constructive, though, right?)
Giroux calls for us to be critical, active political & pedagogical agents in the schools. Meier calls for us to refuse to be the victims, for victims--by definition--are disempowered; victims will never act because they are stuck in fear or complacency or ignorance (or emotional trauma too severe to overcome at the moment...but that situation is not really relevant to my rant at this point). If, as educators, we are subject to the "system," the "man," or whatever phrase you'd like to use to identify that large opposable digit pressed on all of our heads, and do not feel like we can overcome or change that digit, then we are victims.
I am the teacher in the lounge complaining loudly about the state of affairs in our school/system/county/country...only to cheer when the students bring their standardized test scores up. I am disturbed....but probably not even as profoundly as I should be.
How does one shift into walking the walk that they are talking...how does one completely retrain themselves (I'm breathing a tiny sigh of relief at this point at being able to pass off some of the blame of the fact that I am a receptacle of knowledge onto the public school system) to be active, critically thinking participants in this democracy? Hah. How do I learn to be truly reproductive and generative...to the point that I care more about helping people than I do about holding a bunch of abstract (though very, very cool--remember "if p, then q?" in Critical Thinking 101, no less! ) knowledge?
What would you tell her? How does one shift into walking the walk that they are talking? And, Kossers, if more teachers walked into classrooms with these huge questions in their minds/hearts, would American democracy be where it is today: a nice story?
It is my contention that if we don't have critical and engaged teachers, we will never have critical and engaged citizens and democracy will be a sham. Teachers might ask students.
1. Why would terrorists want to attack us?"
2. Why are oil companies making record profits?
3. Why are South American countries defending their natural resources?
4. Why did we go to war in Iraq?
5. Why are gearing up for war in Iran?
6. Why are so many children left behind?
7. What can we do about it?
Where are these questions being asked? Here and here alone? Why not in our classrooms?