RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 336 Education Vision and Our Current Crises
Episode 336 of RevolutionZ takes up issues of education as it is, as it should be, and how to go from the former to the latter. Trump, Vance, and their allies know that truth and critical thinking threaten their power. That's why they're launching unprecedented attacks on education—they want compliant, uncritical citizens who will accept authoritarianism without question.
Current education? Among other aults, our schools track students into predetermined social roles: roughly 2% owners, 20% coordinators (managers, professionals), and 80% workers. This is a deliberate system to prepare each group for their designated place in society's hierarchies.
The elite response to the Sixties? The Carnegie Commission concluded there was "too much education" in the 1960s? Students had been educated to expect dignity and agency. We widely rebelled when those expectations were crushed. The mainstream's solution? Reduce educational quality and access for most people while preserving elite pathways for the few—a trend Trump seeks to finalize.
But another educational world is possible. Schools could develop each person's full potential while fostering solidarity, equity, and self-management. This episode further explores these possibilities and proposes steps for both higher education and K-12 institutions such as to establish worker-student councils, create fair compensation systems, and transform curricula to empower all participants. Such changes would not only improve current conditions but build momentum toward fundamental transformation.
The battle for education is ultimately about what kind of humans—and what kind of society—we wish to become. Visit 4liberation.org to explore the 20 Theses for Liberation which this episode jumps off from. Don't we all need to join a movement to reclaim education as a liberating force in our struggle against fascism and for a just world. What educational future will you help create?
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 336th consecutive episode and this time, in context of the ongoing struggle to stop Trump and to move toward initiating a better world, I'd like to focus on issues of education and related vision and strategy for fundamental change. This focus is a bit more pressing than may at first be evident. Trump, vance Musk et al know that truth and critical thinking are their enemy. They don't want an informed citizenry, they abhor a critical thinking citizenry. Thus, they are assaulting education from the cradle to the grave. They want schools to deliver compliant and uncritical citizens, they would no doubt say patriotic citizens. So the question arises what should we want from schools? On May 1st 2023, which is to say about two years ago, various media outlets and organizations co-published an essay titled 20 Theses for Liberation. 30 progressive activists initially signed it, five international organizations initially hosted and advocated it, various other venues displayed it and its own page, which is still at forliberationorg. That's the number four, the digit four attached to the word liberation. Forliberationorg featured all that and additional information as well, and also provided a form for those who visited it and would like to indicate support, as another signer Hundreds did, so Maybe we should revisit this effort. So, okay, let's suppose you do revisit it and let's suppose you support the 20 Theses Project based on having a strong affinity with the 20 Theses for Liberation, including having your own additions and refinements. Honestly, I suspect that would be the case if you were to go to the site forliberationorg More.
Speaker 1:Let's suppose you are a teacher, say, or a parent or a student, and in any event you're concerned about protecting what education we now have and also interested in fighting for positive changes regarding educational policies and practices. How might you approach that topic? What kinds of program for educational change might you arrive at If you were to apply the 20 theses to educational concerns as but one area that you might choose to address? What would emerge? First, I think you might assess education in the society that we now have. Next, you might think about core elements of education vision or what you might want in a better future. Third, you might think about contingent issues due to your own particular locale, position and possibilities. Finally, you might think about education program for the present and how you might join with others to protect students and teachers who face current attack and to also fight effectively for your broader positive aims. So let's try to do all that, albeit briefly, in this single episode, and while having in the back of our minds as well that we could next apply the 20 Theses to health concerns or housing concerns, or transportation concerns, voting concerns, agricultural concerns or entertainment concerns, and so on, to arrive at broad understandings of what we now endure, of what we desire for the future and of how we might join with others to attain the latter regarding various aspects of life.
Speaker 1:So we know that part of education, whether today or tomorrow, is personal, it is individual. It is to convey knowledge and skills best oriented to each individual student. Graduates of educational preparation, after all, benefit from being who they desire to be. To think about education from this personal angle, you might examine the process of conveying information and skills and developing associated talents in each individual student, consistent with that student's particular capacities and aspirations. You might ask what is the best way for young men and women to learn, given what is available for them to learn, the students' and the abilities and tools of their teachers. But we also know that part of education, whether today or tomorrow, is also social. Graduates of educational preparation, after all, need to function within whatever context their society provides. To think about education from this angle, you might examine the process of conveying information and skills and developing talents from the point of view of society's needs. You might ask what is the best way for students to learn what they will need if they are to fit the roles their society makes available for them at work, in homes, in cultural communities and in politics.
Speaker 1:This polarity between, on the one hand, fostering people's personal freedom and fulfillment and, on the other hand, shaping people to fit their society's agenda, is captured by the pedagogic revolutionary Paulo Freire when he wrote there is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with their reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. Freire was right about education today, but what about in a better future? Ideally, what society needs from each student would be what each student needs to fulfill their self. The roles that society offers would accord with each year's new entrance desires to become what they consider their most worthy, capable and fulfilled selves. In that case, a desirable society such as that sought by the 20 Theses, would need its members to have whatever skills, insights and aspirations they freely desire to have, and so that those would fit society's needs as well. A desirable society's roles would not place limits on individual fulfillment and development to distort it, but would foster individual fulfillment and development. In that case, education would seek to expand and fulfill each student's capacities in whatever directions each student were to choose. That would be what individuals desire and also be what a desirable future society's roles would need and seek. But as long as that coincidence of personal and social aims isn't present, education has to choose between, on the one hand, serving students' needs and developing their capacities and, on the other hand, implementing society's dictates.
Speaker 1:We can see one dimension of the above observations by noting that most readers of this article likely live in societies that have capitalist economies, including private ownership of productive assets, corporate divisions of labor, authoritarian decision-making and market allocation. And while this episode will focus mostly on the associated economic dimension of education, one could equally legitimately and informatively think about education by way of highlighting its sex, gender, kinship, race, ethnic, religious, political, ecological or other dimensions, or, in a more complete treatment than time permits here, by way of addressing all of these life dimensions interactively. At any rate, because of its particular economic institutions, we know that capitalism imposes on populations huge disparities in wealth and income. Within a capitalist economy, we call about two percent of the population capitalists, and they own most of society's productive property and accrue vast profits from it. Below the owners, we also see a class of lawyers, doctors, engineers, professors, accountants, managers and other empowered employees. We can tally to see that they comprise roughly 20% of the population. We can see that they largely monopolize empowering tasks and the daily levers of control over their own and over other people's economic lives. Though subordinate to owners above, we can see that these coordinators that's what I like to call them enjoy considerable personal and group influence over economic outcomes, affecting themselves and affecting those below. They earn high incomes, they enjoy high status. In contrast, we see that below this coordinator class, the bottom 80% of producers do largely rote and repetitive work. They take orders from those above. They receive low incomes. They barely influence economic outcomes. They have little status. They are the working class.
Speaker 1:We can also see, can't we, that the key institutions of capitalist economies impose this threefold class division. First, private ownership of productive property demarcates the dominant capitalist class from the rest. In turn, markets structurally impose on those owners a need to accumulate profits More. The corporate decision-making structure gives those owners ultimate power over how their property is used. Second, the low number of owners and the complexity of exercise and control over all economic life propels the creation of an intermediate coordinator class. The owners can't oversee their wide-reaching assets without assistance, so another feature of capitalism emerges Its corporate division of labor defines the coordinator class as those who monopolize empowering work and by that means dominate daily decision-making, albeit beholden to the owners above the requisites of legitimating control by managers and other coordinator class members. Ensures that this class monopolizes advanced training, skills and knowledge, as well as the confidence that accompanies these skills and knowledge, as well as the confidence that accompanies these. Third, all these capitalist features taken together ensure that the largest portion of citizens are left with little or no individual bargaining power. These disempowered workers do rote, tedious and overwhelmingly obedient jobs for low wages. Their acclimation centrally includes acclimating to taking orders and enduring boredom. Depending on the relative bargaining power of the three classes, capitalism's features vary in the suffering that they impose and the opportunities that they provide. But in every instance of capitalism, the broad scaffolding of the economy's defining institutions are as we indicated.
Speaker 1:So we can now ask what implications does all this have for education? If an economy has roughly 2% of its members ruling through their ownership of property and roughly 18 20 percent administering the defining and defining outcomes due to monopolizing, empowering circumstances, and nearly 80 percent obeying due to doing only rote tasks, then, regardless of people's personal inclinations and desires, when each year's new recruits enter the economy, they must each be prepared to occupy a designated slot in one of these three classes. Recruits must be prepared to exercise assigned functions, pay attention to designated responsibilities and submissively accept their conditions. This is, at any rate, the existing society's ideal, not always smoothly attained but institutionally sought, for those who economically rule, for those who have great but less than ruling economic power and for those who obey economic dictates. I wish to at least note, lest I give a wrong impression regarding other core features of societies, that I am not suggesting that economics alone contours education. For example, in societies in which familial sexism, community racism and political authoritarianism bend us into hierarchies that intersect, mold and are molded by each other, as well as by the three-class economic system. Each year's new recruits entering society will need to have been schooled to occupy their designated sex, gender, race, ethnic and political, as well as class slots. Recruits must be prepared to exercise their assigned kinship, community and political, as well as economic, functions and responsibilities. They must expect to enjoy the advantages but also accept the limitations of their roles. This is true for those on top, for those who have intermediate but less than dominant power, and for those who will overwhelmingly endure from below gender, community and political as well as economic hierarchies. When ruptures in that societal plan occur, society involves conflict and can even fundamentally change.
Speaker 1:A useful word for all this educational and social preparation is tracking or, if you prefer, channeling. Each new generation is divided into segments and each segment is tracked or channeled to its appropriate destination. Thus, when we consider capitalist economics, we see that the educational system processes the incoming population so that about 80% lose their inclination to determine outcomes. Their confidence is severely limited. Their knowledge is kept minimal and narrow. The main skills they learn are to obey and to adore boredom. They expect to be instructed.
Speaker 1:As Bertrand Russell often joked, people are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education. Another 20% of the incoming population are tracked to expect to have a considerable, but not ultimate, say over their own and over other people's lives. They become confident and enjoy a monopoly on various skills and insights. The upper reaches of this privileged group, like the future owners above them, learn how to have dinner with one another and how to dress, talk and otherwise comport themselves in accord with their lofty status. Indeed, this occurs at such major societal finishing schools as Harvard and Oxford. The elites also become ignorant of and oblivious to, social desires that run contrary to their advantages and callings. They are bent by society's pliers to fit society's roles.
Speaker 1:When we also consider sex, gender, racial, ethnic and political dimensions, we see that education involves similar tracking for these domains, but now oriented to folks fitting society's sexist, racist and authoritarian roles, whether up top or down low, so they accept their attendant benefits, responsibilities and limitations. The point of all the above is, for example, if a society requires its population to have three broad patterns of economics, hopes, expectations and capacities, its educational system will be designed to provide precisely those outcomes. In that context, any effort to describe education as a system by means of which each individual maximally develops their potentials and pursues their interests will either be mere rhetoric or hamstrung by presuppositions that some people possess only highly circumscribed potentials and interests, which are therefore all they are welcome to pursue. Of course, whether as students or as teachers, people can try to attain better educational outcomes against society's role requirements. But to do so we must act against the logic of capitalism, sexism, racism and authoritarianism Regarding the largest part of the public. As the great satirist H L Mencken summarized quote the aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all. It is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.
Speaker 1:As just a bit of instructive real-world evidence for the perspective offered above, when the Carnegie Commission on Education considered the state of US education as part of a government effort to understand what quote went wrong in the 1960s, it decided that the problem was too much education. Perhaps that deserves repeating Too much education. The population the commission reported had been educated such that it came to expect that it would have significant say in society, an ample income, job fulfillment, dignity and respect. Upon entering society, however, most members of the population had their high expectations trashed. We had been lied to. In response, many of us rebelled in what was called the 60s. The solution, the way to avoid that happening again, the commission reported and that was its aim, of course was to reduce the tendency of education to induce high expectations in too large a proportion of the population. It was necessary to cut back higher education and to make lower education more road and mechanical, save for those few who were destined to rule or to abet rule, and who thus needed both the capacity but also the callousness toward others to do so. The result of this choice has been a steady, decades-long diminution in the quality and reach of education and its composition and sense of compassion in the US and elsewhere in the world.
Speaker 1:Trump's goal is not just chaos or cruelty, but to finalize that trend. So what is our alternative? Will society's hierarchies always largely crowd out education that seeks to develop each student's potentials and sympathies in accord with his or her personal aspirations? Will gains for students only arrive as a result of struggles against restrictive, systemic dictates? Will gains that dissidents win be periodically obliterated by persistent economic, gender, cultural and political pressures.
Speaker 1:If we look at education from the angle of the person to be educated, we may differ over issues of exact methodology, since it is unlikely there is one best, universally optimal approach. I suspect, however, that we would agree on broad aims. For example, worthy education should assist students to discover, explore and fulfill their capacities and potentials and potentials, while it simultaneously enhances their confidence and expands their ability to think, reason, evaluate and empathize in the ways needed to function effectively among socially aware and caring adults. Other people might formulate a mandate for worthy education somewhat differently than that, but one thing is quite clear For this type of education to happen, society must need this type of incoming adult. It must not want, for example, workers, women, minorities or citizens who are obedient and passive. It must not need elite owners or coordinators, men, whites or political elites who are callous and commanding.
Speaker 1:Worthy education would not need or want to bend and mutilate people to abide or to impose oppressive structures. Worthy education would seek to facilitate people becoming their fullest best selves, who worthy society would then welcome and further fulfill. In other words, to be compatible with education conceived from the angle of the student, a society needs to seek from each participant the fullest utilization of their capacities and inclinations, in whatever degrees and patterns the participant desires, whatever those capacities, inclinations and desires may turn out to be. Let me repeat, To be compatible with education conceived from the angle of the student, a society needs to seek from each participant the fullest utilization of their capacities and inclinations, in whatever degrees and patterns the participant desires, whatever those capacities, inclinations and desires may turn out to be. This observation pushes us to ask what kind of society would do this, because only our attaining that type of society will allow welcome and support or having liberatory education. Consider the economic dimension of the question.
Speaker 1:In current class-divided society, roughly 80% of us are presently taught in schools to endure boredom and take orders, because that's what capitalism needs from its working class. We watch the clock, hoping the school day will end, we get punished for disobedience, working together is deemed cheating. Another 20% or thereabouts, are made ambitious for themselves as well as callous to the conditions of those below and ignorant about their own callousness, because this is what capitalism needs from its coordinator class. And then, at the very top, roughly 2% are made at least willing to be cruel and self-seeking, as those traits are essential to ownership. Similarly, for other dimensions in current sexist, racist, authoritarian society, women and men, members of different races, religions, ethnicities, etc. And political authorities and their subordinates all come through education prepared for their elevated or subordinate lot in life. Of course, all this isn't perfectly cut and dried. It is, however, the overall average picture.
Speaker 1:So, while it is true that in any society, education will need to fit well with society's broad defining institutions, in a society with a desirable worthy economy, for example, that society will want everyone to be as capable, creative, productive and empathetic as we can be while pursuing all other ends as we choose, society will in that case want us to each participate as full and equal citizens. But what will constitute a desirable worthy economy? Or, you might ask, extending the scope of this discussion, a desirable worthy kinship, culture or polity? Some seek a solidarity economy, others a diversity economy, some an equity economy and others a self-managing economy. Each of these would require classlessness In these respects. Such a worthy economy's educational system will be based on a need to generate solidarity, diversity, equity and self-management. To generate solidarity, diversity, equity and self-management, as well as rich and diverse capacities for comprehension and creativity. Everyone in such an economy would benefit from every worker and consumer being confident and well-educated and to such an economy, renovated kinship, community and policy would, or, vice versa, add to renovated kinship, community or polity a renovated economy and you have a new type society that needs a new type education.
Speaker 1:Under current society, talk of desirable pedagogy means pedagogy that is consistent with the desire to reproduce the society's hierarchies. To reproduce the society's hierarchies. In that case desirable pedagogy is more about control and tracking than it is about edification and fulfillment. Pedagogy in current society could try to seek education and fulfillment, but that would contradict the basic needs of the current economy, kinship, culture and polity, because it would seek to establish outcomes inconsistent with current private ownership, remuneration for property and power, corporate divisions of labor markets, gender hierarchy, sexual norms, racial relations and political structures In current society. To get desirable education one must overcome undesirable sexist, racist, authoritarian and classist pressures. That is what we are seeing now from Trump Recognition that fascism needs fascist upbringing and schooling which he is trying to impose. Consider the classist pressures against seeking desirable pedagogy Not as most important, but simply as indicative of the sorts of needed changes In current economies. Good personal education is something we have to win and then perpetually defend because the underlying institutions of society are at odds with it. Good personal education in a classless economy is instead part and parcel of the logic of that system's collective economic and social life.
Speaker 1:Do these observations have implications for the actual structure and procedures of schooling and education that are implicit in the structures of a liberated economy and, for that matter, implicit in the structures of liberated kinship, culture and polity? Surely the answer is yes, not least, but also not confined to the fact that, of course, educational institutions would themselves be self-managing, would interface with participatory planning and would incorporate a classless division of labor. Put differently, there would not be some staff of schools and universities who only teach, others who only administer and still others who only clean up. But the specific features of changes in how we teach, learn and share will no doubt emerge only from the actual experience of teaching, learning and sharing in a new society and will no doubt also have a myriad of shapes and forms. Maybe occasionally the familiar memorization approach to learning will make some sense, but likely much more often an approach that emphasizes doing and interacting with those who can already do, where students learn from each other and from mentors, will make more sense. Likely, lectures will still play a role and certainly reading and collective projects will play an enlarged role. Perhaps some kind of evaluative grading will be sensible. Without doubt, however, there will be standards.
Speaker 1:If we consider economics, kinship, community and politics, a good economy would certainly not have people who are poorly equipped to undertake tasks they wind up doing, whether it be to fly passenger planes, compose music, build houses, drive trucks or conduct cancer research, or whether it be to parent, engage with different cultural communities or participate in lawmaking and collective political projects and much more, of course. How much education will people get? How many years? What will be the balance between generalist preparation to be a full citizen and specialized training in a field of major pursuit or in broader life requirements? To what degree will resources go to raising the comprehension and capacity of less able students as compared to advancing more able students pursuing cutting-edge intellectual insights? To what degree will resources go to expand people's comprehension and capacities as compared to advance other social ends? These choices, and countless others, are not a matter of a priori determination. They are what free people, in context of free institutions, will decide for themselves in a better future.
Speaker 1:The point here is that, save for a minority and in various respects even for them, current society annihilates aspirations for worthy education. In contrast, a desirable society would actualize the educational aspirations of all its members. It would simultaneously seek to prepare each new generation for roles that exist in society and also for their own personal development and fulfillment as they desire it. Precisely because the former requires and aids the latter and the latter requires and aids the former, curricula would be chosen, adapted and evolve in accord. So too for methods of interaction. All involved would, as with all sides of life, participate in a self-managing manner, but that's in a better future.
Speaker 1:From our current positions and circumstances in current society, how can teachers, students and others in education institutions and citizens at? In other words, what now? What might sensibly occur to win educational gains today that would lead toward a better tomorrow, and how might such steps occur? Consider pre-college, public school education or a college campus. What might people do to improve education today and to simultaneously move toward the kind of liberated education noted above for tomorrow? For every educational venue, there are some educators, some others who work to make the venue viable, many others who participate to learn, as well as the surrounding population.
Speaker 1:Given the above observations about education now and in a better future, what demands or campaigns might activists today usefully pursue? Consider a college. What are some kinds of change won by? What kinds of movements that might not only improve current relations and outcomes but also foster desires and organizations eager and prepared to win yet more? Of course, what makes sense at any one campus will depend greatly on conditions and available means there. What to demand for any campus is contextual and contingent, but we know that young faculty and graduate students are currently organizing around the country for better conditions and wages.
Speaker 1:What might be added? How about getting a growing role in decision making to move toward making each whole campus self-managed by all its participants support staff, faculty, grad students and students? How about a say over curriculum and teaching methods to ensure that all who participate wind up sufficiently empowered, knowledgeable, skilled and compassionate to partake effectively of their rightful share of immediate decision-making and, when they pursue roles in society, to have attitudes and capacities to function well and cooperatively there as well? How about establishment of worker student councils via which all participants in educational institutions can exercise influence and through which all their aims can be sought? How about changes in roles and responsibilities that move toward a new, universally empowering division of labor, so that all decisions are well informed? How about an approach to wages that moves toward fair compensation and responsibility for all participants, based on effort and sacrifice expended, not on bargaining power or even output. How about new or refined allocation of tasks and responsibilities and of content of daily life arrangements and of curriculum, plus means of pedagogy sought by the work or student councils to counter existing racist, sexist and classist behavior patterns and assumptions? And what about the relation of the campus to the surrounding community and society? What might be added in that regard? Again, context and means will inform detailed program, but the aid will presumably be for a college or university to be a good citizen regarding the impact of its use of land and resources on surrounding communities and regarding appropriate use of its athletic, cultural, scientific and educational assets, including their use by neighbors when not used by those indirectly involved.
Speaker 1:Consider next, a public primary or secondary school.
Speaker 1:What are some kinds of change won by? What kinds of movements that might not only improve their current relations and outcomes but also foster desires and organizations eager and prepared to win yet more? In many respects, this is not only the same question as for a higher education institution. It will also be essentially the same answers, though again, details will differ at different schools and have different assets and conditions. We know that many teachers and students are currently organizing widely for better conditions and wages. What might be added?
Speaker 1:How about refinements in decision-making to move toward making each whole school self-managed by all its participants, its support staff, teachers, students and students' parents?
Speaker 1:How about a say over curriculum and teaching methods to ensure that all who participate wind up sufficiently empowered, knowledgeable, skilled and compassionate to partake effectively of their rightful share of decision-making and, when they pursue roles in society, to have attitudes and capacities to operate well and cooperatively there as well?
Speaker 1:How about establishment of worker-student councils via which all involved can exercise influence and through which all these aims can be sought? How about changes in roles and responsibilities that move toward a new, universally empowering division of labor, so that all decisions are well informed? How about an approach to wages that moves toward equity for all workers, based on effort and sacrifice expended, not based on bargaining power or even output? How about new or refined allocation of tasks and responsibilities and of content of daily life arrangements, as well as of curriculum and pedagogy, to counter existing racist, sexist and classist behavior patterns and assumptions? And what about the relation of the public school to the surrounding community and society? What might be added in that regard. Context and means will again determine detailed program, but the aid will presumably be for a primary or secondary school to be a good citizen regarding its use of land and resources affecting the surrounding community, for appropriate use of its athletic, cultural, scientific and educational assets, including their use by neighbors when not used by those directly involved. For example, how about using the school at night for neighborhood education, entertainment, celebration meetings, etc. Entertainment, celebration meetings, etc. The idea in all the above-mentioned cases is for the relevant participants to create organizational means, confidence and desires to move their respective educational institutions' structure, decision-making, distribution of benefits and responsibilities, curriculum and pedagogy toward preferred educational attainments, while also recognizing the need for broader societal change. In accord, the 20 Theses for Liberation. Back where I started this episode I hope you will agree if you give it a look at forliberationorg, that is the Arabic number four on the single digit with the word liberation can provide a worthy basis for education-related movements to orient themselves in light of education as it is and toward education as it ought to be, while simultaneously aiding and seeking aid from others doing likewise in other domains of life, and all the more so as you and others refine, advance and share its ideas. To those ends, please visit forliberationorg. Yes, the twenty. Theses have lain fallow for a time since first being posted, but perhaps your visit will spur them back into lively pursuit and perhaps they will then strike a chord and agenda some unity among the literally countless folks now aroused to stand against Trump and for a better world, I should say. I sometimes wonder if episodes trying to cover as much ground as this one tries for work. As people rush hither and yon, do you have time to focus, even to listen and perhaps re-listen? Mostly, do you have time and disposition not only to listen and evaluate but then to converse, debate and otherwise to enlarge upon or reject or pursue points raised or other points that you arrive at? I really don't know, I really wonder. And that said, this is Michael Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z.