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DEWEY UNDERSTAND EDUCATION?

the ideological biases surrounding the education issue and an alternative

by frank s. palmisano III

Recently in the media there has been a multitude of attention focused on the declining standards of education in the public spectrum. These reports openly condemn educational practices and offer as a buffer the promise of revisionary tactics with the purpose of taking existing standards and enhancing them. But this revisionist's dream is the equivalent of fixing a blown tire. Sooner or later, after plugging it many times over, you'll have to purchase a new one.

Furthermore, the culprits in this mess have been the educators themselves, a point that pseudo-political commentators such as G. Gordon Liddy have championed with sublime ignorance. Ideological considerations in the educational arena have been entirely ignored, as America wages a frontal assault on the pawns of the system: teachers and educators. The problem exists in that America has largely promoted what we will call academic education; i.e., the social sciences in the elementary, secondary, and college level educational systems. This promotion has been calculated on two fronts: both from the social reformers who assert that education has a civilizing tendency which, much to their chagrin, translates into intellectual oppression with its strict adherence to systems of methodologies. (Dewey, considered the champion of education systems would have turned over in his grave.) The other front deals specifically with the idea of social promotion. Granted by the capitalist bourgeoisie camp, this front creates the illusion that education enables a better standard of living, for it pays out on its returns and catapults individuals into higher tax brackets, a direct correlation with a person's worth in society.

Even when such an economic blossom cannot be achieved in the strictest sense, individuals are meagerly compensated with honorary titles, e.g., administrative assistant as opposed to secretary. Unfortunately, these problems are much more complex. Simply stated, formalized education offers neither of the two options which the educational gurus have tenaciously defended. In the first instance, the civilizing tendency of education is equally true of religious and cultural beliefs. Peaceable peoples are not created or monopolized by autocratic forms of government. There is great evidence that a high quality of civilized living exists in nation-states not yet tainted by the dogmatic trickery of Western civilization and their formula of 'education equals civility.' If we understand civilization to be concomitant with moral practices, then the evidence against education is more daunting.

Needless to say, there has never been in the history of the world any proof that education, unequivocally, produces a higher standard of civilized living. The idea that technological advancement equals civilization is as much a product of Western propaganda as is the belief that all men can reap the benefits of capitalism in equal proportion to their worth.

In the American system of social gospel and hard-line propaganda, education has been wedded with the concept of formalized education. This education takes as its sword and shield the social sciences and related business fields. What becomes surprising is the limited, almost non-existent, attention given to vocational training and education that represents the backbone of, to use a 'Marxism,' the proletariat. Here, the attention deficit is a matter of quality. Bare minimum salaries only help to widen the gap between social education and vocational training. This becomes a more practical problem, for it imposes cultural standards on the quality of work being done rather than the worth of the individual doing it. Worth must not be misunderstood as "right" in the sense of racial propaganda, but rather the worth of every individual to find dignity in his work-related field regardless of his educational background.

As an educator, I have seen the degradation of standards of excellence in public education, not as an unrelated phenomenon, but as a direct result of the general malaise created by American society. An educational system which must answer to the students is not an educational system when the challenges it presents are measured by student interest and involvement. But student involvement is not the essential problem here. Social educational efforts and mandatory attendance only compound the much larger, more engrossing problem. It is educational Puritanism at its best; no different from the religious Puritanism in which absences from church could result in severe repercussions.

Ever since education has become an apparatus of social controlling, the level of education has changed. Not to mention that students who would rather pursue other vocational fields are being forced into the melee of social sciences because of the promise of better tomorrows. Vocational training has been devalued, and academic education glorified. This is the work of the true educational elite. The word "privilege," which has taken on a pejorative character, must be termed on new grounds.

The sad fact of the matter is that this elitism is openly fostered in the public spectrum when public education becomes, as it has, an entitlement rather than a privilege. And we do not mean here a privilege based upon economic class-standing, but rather a privilege awarded to those achievers not only gifted in their field, who do not see it as a mere means to an end, but to those ambitious individuals who are willing to sanctify their academic successes with raw determination and internal fortitude: a virtue all but lost in the chaotic and unfocused classrooms across America. In this sense, when academic education is seen as a privilege, the chasm which has separated vocational and academic education will narrow, and the unspoken devaluing of unskilled labor disintegrate, as the distribution of individuals levels out and each sees his or her place not as a necessity contrived by specific class associations (e.g., a wealthy young man from an affluent family attends college because it's expected, or an indigent worker goes to the steel mill because this is expected) but as a reward for hard work and dedication.

With such an approach, students (I hesitate to call them that) who are locked within the public school arena will be encouraged to look in other directions. Those directions rather than being repressive imprecations of society-at-large will be glorified for what they are--essentials. Of course, wage labor should be increased drastically. But the gap only exists economically. The ideological gap is subtle and without basis in a society that believes in the rights of all men, the equalization of each. Once the ideological gap can be breached, it is the obligation of our American autocracy to dissolve the economic gap as well.

As a pragmatic example, the educational elite--which continues to dig its own grave--has realized that with a market flooded by recent graduates, new markets must be created to grapple with the new job demand. This is a different cognation of a Marxist reality because, for the first time in history, the surplus exists in people power rather than in material goods. This has created an undervaluing at the bottom--those jobs occupied by unskilled laborers. If we are to remove the shroud of elitism, which has blinded democratic virtue, we need to reinforce through incentive the importance of vocational training in unskilled labor management.

As mentioned before, the ideology of education and its function in society are important issues. Thus, the ideological necessity rests on a new interpretation of education in its two basic manifestations that I have previously stated. With the unprecedented rise in college enrollment, the graduate's ability to find a suitable job will correspond directly to the effort of Big Business ventures to create new markets. A harrowing task that will eventually see more and more college graduates working in 'unskilled labor roles'--the very thing their parents encouraged them to liberate themselves from in the first place. As a side note, we are in the process of witnessing a shortage of highly coveted blue- and white-collar jobs as markets become increasingly more competitive and more selective.

Technology remains the only salvific vehicle to remedy this situation. But in our highly technologized society the market will soon surpass the creation of new technologies, as skilled-labor camps increase their ideological stranglehold on college students across the land. As a result, the faith we have accorded to technology to create these markets and new employment opportunities will be our undoing.

One way to prevent the threat of massive unemployment is to start a war, which has always been an effective alternative to deter job shortages and unemployment. But, if our oil refineries are filled to overflowing, and our corporate presence in transnational markets becomes undisputed, then it might be said that postmodern breadlines are likely to form. And when they do, they will consist of accountants, computer specialists, and masses of college graduates fighting for the same morsel. Why? Because they've been deceived into believing this is the only morsel that exists, when a bread of dignified virtue rests in the factories and manual labor opportunities spotting our American landscape.