I have spent a number of hours writing my last four blog
entries about education, a subject which I readily and repeatedly admit I have
little more than the usual rudimentary experience (I went to school and sent
children to school). I substitute taught nearly 50 years ago and can barely
remember the experience. I have currently embarked on a limited teaching
venture in a local charter school which was more informed by my preconceived
notions of education than instructive in how the system works. Therefore and in a word everything I wrote
about education is dogma – it is true because “they said it.”[1]
So why did I choose to believe the particular “theys” that I cite in these blog
entries? In this exercise of self-reflection I will in no particular order sum
up a few (probably a minority) reasons why my argument took the particular
shape that it did.
Ms. Ruby Payne was the first “they” whose argument I
bought. The book was recommended to me
by a retired police officer who runs a homeless shelter for women and uses the
book as part of his efforts to get these women out of poverty so I had an
advocate for the ideas who I respected and who was effectively applying the
principles. However, the ideas themselves made sense to me because the internal
arguments were logical, the examples (presumably from real life) were
compelling, but probably most importantly they fit with how I see the world
work. I believe success depends on organization and perseverance and much of
the non-material poverty that holds people back according to Ms. Payne results
from a deficit of these resources.
I believe James Heckman when he sites non-cognitive learning
as crucial because, when a Nobel Prize winner talks (on NPR), I listen. I am
impressed with academic credentials. The argument itself must make sense to me
but if it comes from someone like this I am likely to not only listen but also
believe. Similarly, teaching emotional intelligence comes from the Yale program
dedicated to that pursuit led by Marc Brackett who I heard speak. I am very likely to believe those sorts of
credentials.
I cite the Kipp Schools and use their statistics to support
their success. This is less than ideal if one is looking for disinterested
information sources. I do feel that if these statistics weren’t accurate they
would be questioned by other sources.
Public school teachers who commented on the Kipp results did not
question there accuracy but brought up the fact that charter schools can
self-select students.
Among the reasons I chose these sources for my story on
education is that I respect the referring source, I respect the academic
credentials of the source, and probably most importantly their data supports a
story I can create that fits with my emotional predispositions. As mentioned elsewhere, it is our emotional
predispositions that for the most part drive the “they” we listen to.[2]
For this particular subject the motivating principle is
equality of opportunity and the moral emotional predisposition is
fairness. I don’t think this is so
important to me because of an altruistic nature. Equality of opportunity is not merely the
founding principle of democracy it defines democracy. That is, the less
equality of opportunity the less democracy we have.
Democracy is the foundational belief on which the health and
wellbeing of my relations and myself depends.
Therefore, anything that diminishes equality of opportunity weakens my
fundamental wellbeing. I defend equality of opportunity as a matter of
survival.
My position, I am sure, would stand in stark contrast to a
libertarian who would see longer public school time as little more than a
socialist plot promulgated by eastern intellectual elites to indoctrinate our
children. He would site other sources or
create a completely different argument for how our children should be raised.
I have taken a stand on public education. I readily
acknowledge but make no apologies for the fact that it is wholly based on
dogma. This is the level at which we all conduct our public discourse and
participate in our democracy. A newsfeed (from a particular source) by a
particular person (friend or foe) feeds into the story we already have about
how we should look at this particular subject. Our knowledge is incomplete and
our perspective is by definition subjective.
The take home lesson is this. If we are going to close the
divide of mistrust and polarization that is so badly hurting this country we
need to go into any conversation with an understanding and acknowledgement of
our predispositions; we need to get a sense of the subjective perspective of
the people we engage; and we need look for common ground and points of on which
we can compromise.
[1]
http://geoffhberg.blogspot.com/2017/01/
[2]
http://geoffhberg.blogspot.com/2017/02/font-face-font-family-font-face-font.html
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