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Well, contrary to intentions, I ended up writing an independent essay as my first “education post,” instead of writing the easier post I had seen as a nice “warm-up” to the subject. But I still want to note a few responses to this Atlantic interview with Cathy N. Davidson. I realize that “Fisking” seems to be looked down on as a bit of a cheap tactic, these days, and fairly so. I acknowledge that, but I still want to pull out a few of Davidson’s remarks; on the whole she has a lot of thoughtful and nuanced comments, and indeed my responses are not even entirely critical ones. So:

All the methods of assessment we use for “quality” are actually metrics for standardization analogous to the punch clock, not about interactive, synthetic, and analytical thinking and problem solving. You cannot reform the content or the method of teaching without radically changing the terms of assessment. That means ending the end-of-grade tests required by No Child Left Behind. It means going beyond so many of the quite simplistic quantitative measures that ostensibly test learning but really test the ability to take tests.

I’ll get this one out of the way first because it’s my most visceral reaction. Kill standardized tests? No no no no no no no no no no, noooooooooo, that’s what I excelled at most in school, nooooooooooooooooooooooooo unfair unfair unfair aaaaaaah!! Okay, had to get that off my chest. Thank you. Having done so, I admit that 1) I’ve graduated, 2) I was good at more than just standardized tests, and 3) fact is, per my own experience the systems of measurement and assessment used throughout the education system are all in all more than a bit misleading when it comes to learning skills which will be actually useful outside of school, so in a way I have as much reason as anyone to cheer her argument, here.

Games are integral in human society, from ancient times to the present. Games are based on strategy and on challenge. If you do well at a game, your reward isn’t “recess” or a “time out”; it’s a greater challenge. When you beat a tough opponent, you seek out a tougher one. That is learning.

Standardized testing seems to fit this description perfectly, though; the big problem I see with std. testing is that it was a game. In fairness, she does qualify her objections to testing methods (again, nuance, how refreshing):

I am not against testing — I am against using such a crude form of testing, one that is such a disincentive to deep interactive learning, as our national standard. That’s demoralizing to teachers, parents, school administrators, and, mostly, to kids. In so many ways, our educational system is an assembly line churning out kids like Model Ts.

I do have to admit that, as nice as this sounds, I’m a skeptic of these sorts of comments for various reasons. First of all, there are 300 million Americans and nearly seven billion humans, and we are simply not all unique and beautiful snowflakes; it’s going to be difficult to resist the pressure for assembly-line mass-production, on which much of our material progress rests and which, indeed, many have argued is just what higher education needs more of to restore value-per-cost. Second, assembly-line standardization is quite possibly what many people want from education, a point that Davidson approaches many times without actually confronting…

I don’t think we do a very good job educating teachers to understand that they have inherited an education system mostly designed to prepare students for a focused, task-specific form of attention demanded by the late-19th-century assembly line and then, later, by the similarly hierarchical and regulated corporation.

Is the latter going away, then? If so it’s news to me. This is another reason why I’m ever-skeptical of these sorts of new-education reform notions: futurists and reformers and even various corporate bosses talk about the need for workers with more flexibility, inventiveness, critical thinking, etc., but I just don’t see this demand matched in actual working conditions to any significant extent. The stultifying, pigeon-holing, conformist “hierarchical and regulated corporation” of Dilbert, et al. shows no sign of going away, so what point getting all excited about the “need” to foster more creative and free-thinking workers?

The school bell was the symbol of public education that developed in the 19th century because teaching all humans how to arrive at a school/workplace on time, how to complete a task or “subject” in a designated amount of time, how to work on a test or a project in a specific amount of time was a new way of calculating human productivity. Teachers ought to think about how much of their system has been designed to prepare students for the punch-clock world, and reevaluate their goals and routines in light of the world kids will enter:  an interactive, globalized, and contributory world.

In addition to the previous objections, I would also like to point out some flaws in this popular notion that “old-fashioned” schools are optimized for an assembly-line factory drone world; this is a poorly-grounded concept and frankly I’m surprised to find Davidson perpetuating it so unabashedly. Schools are organized systems set up to achieve goals, that’s why they have schedules and rules and quantifiable analytics, not because these things were imported as a package from Bismarck’s Prussia in order to stamp our own populace into similar orderly regimentation. Get a fucking grip. There’s plenty of scope for reform, but it’s not realistic to talk as though the school of the future will be some sort of casual, anarchic 1960s “be-in.” Think a little; Davidson herself emphasizes that in her view, in-person, group-based learning will remain essential. How the fuck does she expect that to work without some sort of agreed-upon location, planned schedule and rules for how everyone gets along? Duh.

In the years ahead, we will need knowledgeable activists to fight to protect our labor laws in a new economy and to protect our personal and civil rights [as well as] intellectual property lawyers to sort out the complex IP issues of our age, ideally not just reforming but reconceptualizing outdated and stifling copyright and patent laws.

This is probably the most interesting point for discussion in the entire interview, because it it illustrates even more-plainly than the hierarchical workforce how school “reform” is not simply a matter of “old” vs “new.” There’s very-active contemporary political controversy involved, as well. I personally support all of the goals which Davidson lists as areas of future “need” from workers, but our views are far from universally-shared. I think it’s safe to say that there are powerful and well-entrenched lobbies in favor of maintaining “outdated and stifling copyright and patent laws” throughout much of the world. And, at least here in America, the idea that we’ll need more activists fighting to enforce labor laws and civil rights plainly runs contrary to the views of large and vociferous reactionary campaigns to restrict just such things.

The fact is that education is one of those things like “freedom,” or “meritocracy,” which which a large section of America loves to shout about but doesn’t actually demonstrate any real support for in practice. In fact the policies of reactionary America frequently undermine such ideals rather than boost them. I’m not entirely sure why; I feel that if confronted with a direct here-and-now choice even most affluent reactionaries would prefer living within a society of general prosperity to a mostly-poor society with a tiny rich elite, even if they were part of that elite. But perhaps I’m overestimating ignorance and underestimating nakedly-malicious selfishness. Either way the result is still a movement against sharing opportunity or reward, and this definitely includes education.

The issues involved in problems of education are many and complicated, certainly, as noted in my earlier post; it’s by no means just “bad Republicans trying to sell off the school system” any more than it’s “bad Democrat teacher unions obstructing reform.” If either of these scenarios does hint at a real obstacle to better education, though… there’s more than ample evidence for the former.

Would-be reformers will assume everyone to be in support of their idea of “providing a better education” at their peril.