Please! I love history; don’t make me teach it.

When I started teaching with YRDSB in 2000, my favourite course to teach is Grade 8 history.  I had just completed my honour’s Specialist History Degree at York university with a focus on European settler societies and their interactions with indigenous North American societies (though at the time we called them native/aboriginal).  I had also finished my first year teaching at Kashechewan Ontario, a First Nation near the coast of James Bay on the Albany River.  This gave me background, perspective and interest in the Grade 8 course.

During my First 3 years at Glen Shields Public school, I was lucky enough to teach Grade 8 history 3 times a year for the first 3 years.  Further, I was given a glorious 50 minutes 5 out of every 6 days on the rotation.  It was fantastic; I could teach historical skills, we could to inquiry and project based learning, we could debate, explore, grow, learn.  Though it was limited to 20 weeks of the school year (shared with geography).

With the end of first term this year (2019) I can honestly say, I currently HATE teaching history, especially Grade 8, and I never want to teach it again.

This year was the least rewarding for me.  I foolishly tried to teach historical skills, to have students think, discuss argue. In short, I foolishly tried to do a good job.  I remember panicking one morning as I realized how late in the year it was…I wrote down a list of topics yet to be covered; this did not help my panic.  I had as many topics/tasks left as I had periods…40 minute periods that included a transition in and getting ready for recess at the end.

40 minutes to cover the North West rebellion;

40 minutes to cover the number treaties;

40 minutes to cover the social changes of the industrial revolution;

I could do it if I rushed, lectured; pushed; punished…

I paused considering the kind of pedagogical sacrifices I was going to have to make; stealing myself.  Then I remembered….there were still new expectations to cover that were introduced as part of the Ministry’s response to the Truth and reconciliation commissions report.

To be clear, I am fully in favour of a new curriculum and I think the ones added to the grade 8 program specifically are important, rich, and tell the story of Canada in a way we all need to understand.  I could hardly wish for better to work with my students; however, there is simple too much content in the grade 8 history course to do a good job (or even an adequate job) and its heart breaking if you like history, believe in the power of education; and understand the social need to teach it well.

Here is an example of a new expectation:

B1.2 analyse some ways in which challenges affected First Nations, Métis, and Inuit individuals, families, and communities during this period, with specific reference to treaties, the Indian Act, the reserve system, and the residential school system (e.g., disruption of families, including loss of parental control and responsibility, as rights of Indigenous parents were disregarded when their children were removed and placed in residential schools; loss of knowledge of language and traditional culture; loss of traditional lands with increasing settlement by non-Indigenous Canadians; loss of decision-making power to federal Indian agents, including the denial of personal rights and freedom under the pass system) and how some of these challenges continue to affect Indigenous peoples today (e.g., with reference to ongoing issues around cultural assimilation and loss of identity; isolation from mainstream society and/or home communities; mental and physical health issues; the ongoing impact of the residential school system on the development of parenting skills and family/community bonding; the continuing need to the legacy of abuse from the residential school system; struggles for recognition of treaty rights; efforts to address sexism in the Indian Act)

What a great course that one expectation would be; I would so love to have the pleasure of teaching that course; however, to see it squashed into 10 minutes is soul crushing.  I have failed my students to teach them that adequately; I was set up to fail.

So that’s my experience with history: from 4000 minutes to 800; from a love of teaching history to a dread of teaching history.

I realize that integration into language class is one remedy…except, I  don’t teach all my history students language…..I don’t know what to do-how to teach history well and cover even a reasonable amount of what I’m asked to.  Hopefully, my students will forgive me.

Student Bloggers 2015 —

Some of my followers on twitter might have noticed that I’ve been a little noisier recently.  Not only am I tweeting more often, I am tweeting about a wider variety of topics.  It is only recently that I have begun to tweet about the multiverse, or concussions or the Qing Dynasty.  Those who have followed me for a while might have been expecting this-it’s March/April and that means its student blogging time.  Below is a list of student bloggers and their topics.  We are all hoping that people from beyond our classroom will engage us in public discourse.  Just by selecting 1 or 2 students, you can enrich the experience for all of them.  There are 3 ways you can help:

1) Follow a student below on twitter and engage them there.  Answer their questions, point them to resources, challenge their thinking, suggest others to follow that share their interest.  Show them the power of twitter beyond retweeting a request “to show the power of twitter” or “how far a tweet can go”

2) Read their blogs and leave a comment.  Answer their questions, challenge their thinking or assumptions, encourage or suggest further reading sources.

3) The easiest way to help is to retweet their tweets that I share.  You can at least do that…generate a little noise to help a student reach a larger or more receptive audience than I can.

Join in a discussion- teach and learn- the noise will only last a little while…ride it out.

Blog topics and URLS:

• Effects of Birth Order

Twitter: BirthOrderEfects

Blog: effectsofbirthorder1

• Coffee

Twitter: @cpthebean

Blog: coffeeadvocatecp.wordpress.com

• Fast food

Twitter: @Fast_FoodDude

Blog: fastfoodguy.wordpress.com

• Cloning

Twitter: @Cloning4321

Blog: cloning4321.wordpress.com

• Should animals be kept in Zoos?

Twitter: ZooAnimals123

Blog: zooanimals123.wordpress.com

• Gay marriage

twitter:@USAgaymarriage

blog: usagaymarriage.wordpress.com

• Drones

Twitter: C13Drones

Blog: EverythingDrones.wordpress.com

• Impact of Technology

Twitter: @ImpactofTech01

Blog: https://impactoftechonthesociety.wordpress.com/

• The Multiverse Theory

Twitter: @Multi_Verse19

Blog: www.ccpmnews.wordpress.com

• Bullying

Twitter: @endbullying02

Blog: endbullying4321.wordpress.com

• Concussions

Twitter: @future898

Blog: future898.wordpress.com

• Hypnosis

Twitter: @hypnobrain

Blog https://hypnobrain.wordpress.com/

• The Limits of Technology

Twitter: @tech_limits

Blog: https://techlimit.wordpress.com

• Conjoined Twins

blog: conjoinedtwins0.wordpress.com

twitter: @conjoinedtwins0

• suicide

 Twitter: @kyliekensit

Blog: kyliekensit.wordpress.com

• Twins

twitter: @Midenticaltwins

• Probability

Twitter: @mrbayesian

Blog: WordPress: jprobability.wordpress.com

• Qing Dynasty

twitter:@Qingynasty69

• Texting while Driving

Twitter: @textingwhiledr2

• Counterfeit Medicine

Twitter: @FakeMed

Blog: http://www.squidneyart.wordpress.com

• Bees

Twitter: _savethehoneyBEES_

• Perception

Twitter: @jyperceptionguy

• Systems of Government

Twitter:@julesrules

Blog: owenjulianowen.wordpress.com

Hopefully one or teo topics interest you.

Thanks!

Sometimes Our Professional Development is like Grade 8 History

Often in history class, students are asked to rank causes or results of an event in order of importance; this kind of laddering causes the students to engage the material and aids understanding, retention, and helps develop their critical reasoning skills.  Inevitability, when asked which is the most important reason or cause, the majority of answers posit why a particular reason is important, but rarely do they address why it is the most important?  Why is it more important that the other reasons.  This is a comparative question and much more complex; thus ignored!  We have a very similar tendency with pedagogical strategies.

Every workshop i have ever gone to or book on teaching I have ever read has done 1 of 2 things.  The work shop, like the grade 8 history student, explains all the advantages of their teaching strategy or outlook without ever arguing why it is better or advantageous over the approach that is currently being used.   Because no comparison is ever presented, teachers are rarely convinced by the presentation; however, they are typically instructed to adopt the new approach anyways.  Teacher’s don’t have to be convinced if they can be compelled…”progress” continues.

If this doesn’t happen, then the rare comparison is made; however, this is little better.  A strawman of the current approach is typically used and, as expected, easy to dismiss as ineffective, by the presenter.  Teachers, even if unconvinced, are given the vocabulary to pay lip service to a new approach, even if they remain unconvinced.

Since pedagogies are never compared, they are never permanently dismissed; they are free to be repackaged and presented at a later date in the name of student improvement (or profit…or promotion).  Experienced teachers often complain about the cycles of change within the profession.  They argue that they have seen approaches before, come and go, only to return again.  The names change, the pedagogical approaches recycle.  Because we never argue comparatively, concepts in education are free to come back; all offer some advantages; all have some degree of success and research behind them.

This cycle produces some obvious negative consequences.  One of course is teacher’s buildup resentment to change in technique, but more importantly, our growth as a profession is hampered, and our ability to instruct students is stagnant.

About 7 years ago, our discussions in Ontario were around differentiation and teaching to student’s unique needs, styles, levels, etc.  Taking students as they are and working from there-we called it student centered.  It had a lot of advantages.  Then, within Student Centered Learning, a concept called Inquiry Based Learning began to be developed.  At first, it was a strategy to help deliver Student Centered Instruction-it was part of an overall strategy.  It had many advantages.  Over the last 5 years, our language has changed; Inquiry Based Instruction has taken over the discussion-it’s being presented as having many advantage; however, sadly, we haven’t convincingly argued why it is better than the more robust and divergent approach of Student Centered Learning.

I have argued in an earlier post (https://tuckerteacher.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/is-inquiry-based-learning-student-focused/) that inquiry can’t work for students like my son.  I have hinted that this will impair our ability to follow an integration mandate for special education students.  Even though my son may represent an extreme case, he represents the possibility that an Inquiry Instruction method might not work for all students.  We must ask, “who else wont it work for?” “how many?”  Not only will he, and very likely others, fail to achieve the curriculum in this model of instruction, it will make integration for him and his classmates unsuccessful.  It will keep him from his neurologically typical peers.

It is time for us to stop the cycle of education reform.  We must compare the relative advantages and disadvantages between pedagogical approaches.  We must answer which is a better system; is it better to have inquiry as a possible option or part of a Student Centered Approach, or is Inquiry so powerful, it should be adopted beyond all other approaches?  One day, we might go through the 182 teaching strategies found in the ministry document housed here: (http://faculty.nipissingu.ca/darleneb/Relevant_links_docs/telrsta2002.pdf) and order them by overall effectiveness.    Then we can end the “cycle of change” and start a “cycle of improving” in its place.

Student Twitter accounts and Blog addresses 2013

Here is the Blog and Twitter roll for this year.  I will be updating it as my students finish creating their blogs (They should all be done by Feb. 19^th).

Most of my students chose to use Twitter and blogging as part of their independent study unit.  These are my student’s Twitter accounts dedicated to their independent study topics.  They would appreciate a follow and a visit to their blogs (Some aren’t quite ready for visitors yet….).  Their handles indicate their topic; hopefully 1 or 2 of the topics interest you.  This is a good opportunity to demonstrate the value of twitter, instead of just re-tweeting requests to “see how far a tweet can go…”

Accounts:

This one is mine: Twitter: @ginrob_pt  Blog: tuckerteacher@wordpress.com

@end_pit_ban

@resource14

@Qbseparation   Blog: quebecisu.wordpress.com

@jexboi  Blog: Goodandbadofsocialnetworking.blogger.com

@childpageants  Blog: childpageants.wordpress.com

@KailynESP

@Michaelalogo  Blog:  mouseyhorse 

@Assisted5uicide    Blog: lalalittle45.wordpress.com

@canadianhealth0   Blog:http://impovinghealthcareincanada.wordpress.com

@Icensorship   Blog: http://internetcensorship89.wordpress.com

@populationcont3

@ Hey_Quarrymen   blog:  heyquarrymen64.blogspot.ca 

 

@H_Euthanasia   Blog: spoonwither.wordpress.com

@ ethanhoover@hotmail.ca

@cyberbullying12  

@TheNHLnation  Blog:http://thehistoryofhockey.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/hockey-blogg/

@ realMEDIAtoday 

@GlobalWarmingeE Blog: GlobalWarmingFactsE.blogspot.com

@MusicComparison   http://musiccomparison.wordpress.com/

@howthedinosdied  Blog: http://howthedinosaursdied.blogspot.ca/

@bunny_books  Blog: http://bannedbooks123.wordpress.com 

@pmabdixon  blog:http:http://wordpress.com/

@Child_LabourPS     Blog- childlabourisu1.wordpress.com

@GoodeHeighly   Blog- Heidi12315.wordpress.com

students creating their own extra-curricular

There’s a great episode of the Simpsons…sorry, let me start again:  ONE of the great episodes of the Simpsons has Lisa talking to Homer:

Lisa: Dad, do you know that the Chinese have the same word for “crisis” as they do for “opportunity?”

Homer: Yes! Cris-o-tunity!

Well, students are finding themselves in the middle of a crisis/opportunity this school year in Ontario.  With the cancellation or the eminent cancellation of extra-curricular activities, students are faced with a decision: whether to lament their fate and wallow in their misery, or whether they should develop their own extra-curricular without teacher involvement.

The students at my school have decided to go it alone.  They have begun to organise their own activities and organizations.  It’s a little messier, there’s been some mistakes, and there’s been some disagreements; however, they have still succeeded brilliantly.  They have made organic, democratic, and engaging opportunities for themselves and each other. 

Within days of the full realisation that clubs and teams are at least on hold, a couple of students organised a soccer league to operate at recess when there is already supervision.  They have organised the equipment, teams, a tournament structure, they have refs, and it seems to be going quite well.  It takes a little more time for them to organise at the start of each game as they are less use to submitting authority to each other, but once the game starts, it has been flawless. 

Another group tried to re-create the cross country team.  Unfortunately, school insurance issues and a desire to hold before and after school practises seems to have stalled this initiative.  When you’re learning, you won’t always be successful…unless learning is the goal of course.

The final student organization so far is the student council.  The grade eights came together and decided on the form of the council and hosted their own elections. Currently, they are organizing the Halloween dance.  Their arguments were messy but so very real and democratic…its been very interesting to watch…I wonder if, should the labour dispute be resolved and extra-curricular are restored by teachers, whether this group will want a teacher at that point.

They have become leaders…not just filling in the spaces that teachers created for them, but they have made the spaces themselves this time.  They have taken it all on, not just the little bits we typically leave them.

I wish I could say I was proud of them; however, I have had nothing to do with it and this seems patronizing to me….I can say that I am very impressed.

How to be critical; strategies and ideas to critically challenge information

 The definition of critical thinking is currently changing. Under the likes of Garfield Gini-Newman and the Critical Thinking Consortium, critical thinking is being redefined as a kind of criteria based thinking. I’m not overly concerned by such a revision; it happens in education all the time, and I find the skill they are advocating good as a teaching strategy and useful as a learning strategy. I think that to include their version of critical thinking in our practice is a useful and powerful tool; however, I consider it to be criteria based thinking or analytical thinking—of which critical thinking is a subset.

When it comes to critical thinking, I prefer the older definition(s): reductio ad absurdum; Occam’s razor; pointing out or challenging the weak points; looking for fallacy or other logical error; challenging the validity of the argument, or the soundness of the conclusion. I like the seemingly adversarial process that is the backbone of our legal system, academic process, the scientific method, and auto mechanics. Critical thinking is hard to do and isn’t popular (just ask Socrates) but is essential—I want my mechanic to look for weakness, to doubt, to check, test, and expose every assumption—I want my students to do that too.

In class, my students were recently presented with an engaging and persuasive presentation. We then deconstructed it looking for weaknesses and trying to generalize what we did into strategies. We also played Noreena Hertz presentation on “How to use Experts” from ted.com to help give us ideas of how to be critical or questioning. Below is the list of strategies that we came up and discussed in class. Its not a complete list; it doesn’t discuss fallacies or other strategies, but it does present some readily available ways to challenge presented information. We haven’t finished of course, and there are many possible strategies and tools that are missing (like logical fallacies) but it was a very good start.

Also missing below, was our attempt to take Noreena Hertz’s advice and pre-arm ourselves with predetermined questions that can challenge an expert even in fields where we might know little (like our doctor, teacher, or mechanic); hopefully, one of my students will add such a list in the comments.

Our handout:

How to be Critical:

Described in class were several related strategies to help guide your critical analysis when confronted by new information/presentations/articles/experts/life. As Noreena Hertz indicates, the best way is not to surrender your capacity to think; don’t surrender your obligation to figure out and understand; don’t surrender uncertainty for the allure of false certainty. As Voltaire might say, “be the Good Brahman not the Old Woman.” Basically, it requires work on your part.

Strategies:

1. Apply what you know: While it is desirable to be open to new information, that does not mean we should ignore what we already know/think. We should use it to weigh new information and ideas. How do they stack up to what we already know? Which is more reliable? Should I reject what I already believed, should I reject what I am being presented, or should I combine the 2 perspectives into a more robust understanding?

2. Analyze dichotomies: When presented with a black and white picture or a dichotomous analysis (you’re either with us or against us), challenge it! It is usually used as a simplification and you might understand it differently. Is there another way to characterize the disagreement or schema?

3. Fact check: When you are given factual information, it can be falsified or verified. Check the Net; check another expert or article or presentation; ask other people like parents or teachers; dig deep! You might find that people misrepresent facts; you might find that “facts” are often conclusions—there might be other ways to conclude that disagree with the source you are analyzing.

4. Use analytic tools: When confronted with information in fields you don’t know much about, apply universal tools. Data management skills help. Remember the bell curve—valid data (good source, valid test, well plotted) always produces a bell curve. Look for the standard deviation—how correlated is the data? Are they talking about a correlation or causality? Do they confuse the 2? Do they use an anecdote or analogy instead of data?

5. Explore other possibilities: What did they do? What else could they have done? Why didn’t they?

6. When given an invitation to think, do it! When a presentation offers you a rhetorical question, take them up on it. Take the opportunity to think! What are they saying-how else might you answer that question besides the way they want you to?

7. Be willing to take them on: Take the time to pause and consider. Without this, you won’t be able to apply the strategies. Make them explain; make them take the time to answer your questions: push them to be clearer. Be willing to come back with more questions later.

8. Be ready! Have a ready bank of questions that you can ask in a variety of situations to use when they are needed:

 

technology can no longer be ignored; sharpen your pencil!

There’s a lot of talk out there on the Twitterverse, and other digital places, to the effect that teachers have to use technology.  This statement is either painfully obvious or a complete hyperbole.  If the term “technology” is being used appropriately, then the  statement is painfully obvious; chairs, lighting, the alphabet, clothes, and deodorant at all technologies that a teacher really needs to use in the course of a school day.

I think, however, people are generally referring to digital technology and some web 2.0 / SM tools. This of course is a complete hyperbole.  This position is supported by such   statements as: teachers can no longer afford to ignore tech (sic); or it’s insane to 
ignore tech (sic); or teacher’s who are uncomfortable with tech (sic) are doing such a disservice to their students that they should retire or be forced out of the profession (this one’s paraphrased).  These statements are fairly common on such micro-blogging sites like Twitter. To these statements and others like them, I’d like to say in very general terms, “calm down, relax, and be reasonable.”

Calm down: I really like digital technology and SM but it’s still not everyone’s focus.  20% of Canadians don’t even have internet connection, Twitter is used by just 3% of the world’s population and a mere 50,000 individuals account for 50 % of the traffic (that’s ¼ of 1 percent of Twitter users).  How many of your personal followers are no longer active?  How many Twitter users have rejected Twitter?  It’s great, but digital technology is still a minority experience.  Let’s not invalidate so many people’s lives by pretending we have all marched to an omega point of technology and social experience.

Relax: it still remains to be seen if this is a digital revolution we are experiencing.  We might be in a revolution, but we might not. If most if your public discourse is in digital mediums it is hard to maintain perspective.  Will it be adopted by the majority? Right now, voices ringing with the need for digital technology are still a minority; is 
this a  revolution or is it the Bay of Pigs.  How big is this movement? Is it growing faster then the resistance to it?  Is it unreasonable to suggest even the possibility that society might actually reject SM? No one thought that Rome would fall either.  It remains to be 
seen whether SM will be evaluated as a liberator or conqueror.  At what point will digital tech fall; when will the next revolution start and what will replace the current technological environment?

Be reasonable: there is plenty of good, useful, necessary learning to do outside of SM.  We used to suggest that there was room for diverse techniques – in teaching and learning.  Some educators might actually choose to reject SM for valid reasons; is there no room for professional judgement here?

There is lots of great stuff you can do with digital technology in the classroom; however, you need to stop justifying yourself at the expense of others.  Your hyperbole doesn’t help
your position.  Whenever one side doesn’t allow for legitimate opposition to even exist there is a problem.

I use digital technologies in my class quite extensively, though not as extensively as some.  I think that teachers should explore the possibilities and decide how best to use them (even if that is be not using them).  I don’t care what people’s decisions are – use it or don’t, its up to you, after you have informed yourself.  I don’t want to ne at a point where we tell each other what must be done; how to do it; and pretend there is no other way to be a good teacher.

Organizing schools by ability instead of age is harmful to children

Another argument swirling around these days is that it is a disservice to children to educate them in “batches.” Meaning, people argue that we shouldn’t group them in grades by age, but we should focus on their abilities. There are some strong arguments in favour of this and I invite people to detail them below; perhaps you will persuade me. Currently, however, I think the idea is flawed and harmful to children.

I think it is beneficial and appropriate to group children by age in school. Schools serve as their primary vehicle to socialize and be socialized. They should primarily be part of a peer group at more or less the same stage of development (not necessarily ability). They learn about friendships and other relationships at school as much as they do about the curriculum. I think the development of these skills will be hampered if we are constantly re-ordering them as their skill sets grow at different rates. I also thing it creates other problems like: should an advanced 5 year old be partners with a 13 year old who is struggling especially in such things as health class or gym?

This brings me to my second point: consider those children who are struggling. People tend to focus on children who are being held back and who’s skills are more advanced in the argument for ordering be ability; however, we should be equally cognizant of the struggling student. By organizing them by level s/he is de facto failing. S/he sees his/her age cohort, his/her peers, continue to advance and drift away while s/he struggles with younger and younger students. This reality must be considered because implicit into the argument of arranging by ability is that students will grow at different rates (some slower), if not, then organization by age would be adequate. We stopped failing students because we started to value the whole child; we started to realize the damage we were doing to an individual by holding them back. The proposal of organizing by abilities seems to be a step backwards in this regards 

Finally, and the part of it that bothers me the most: By focusing on ability rather then by social peer group, age, or the whole child, we are visiting on our children a harmful practice that we usually reserve for adults. Students become their ability. This is analogous to adults being evaluated/ranked by their job. We measure the worth of a child by their ability, not human dignity, or peer group, or stage of life. The pressure to excel, to out preform, to rank each other by their relative success in school is visiting the worse elements of the ‘rat race’ on the most fragile members of our society. This really upsets me: I would much rather people see my son as a 6 year old and not as a good reader who needs to be moved up and challenged and who needs to struggle (“don’t worry, you’ll make lots of 11 and 12 year old friends in your new class”). I especially want people to see my autistic 3 year old as a child who should socialize with other children and not as a struggling reader who needs to be left behind the more advanced and promising students…doesn’t every parent?

 

Grade 8 history reports: public education was not made to serve industry

 Making its rounds in the blogsphere and the twitterverse, at least in the regions associated with education, is the mistaken notion that public education/our current education system was created by the industrial revolution to serve the needs of industry. This is not the case; the industrial revolution and early industrial period preferred unskilled and cheap labour; industry preferred people with no marketable skills or options. Child labour was very common; for some jobs, employers actually preferred children.

In order to can an accurate understanding of this period, I suggest reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair published in 1906 or the transcripts of the Royal Commission on the Relationship between Labour and Capital presented in 1889 but detailing interviews from throughout the 1880’s. Both present a picture of ubiquitous abuse of unskilled labour by industry.

It was in reaction to this reality that worker’s movements included in their demands free compulsory education for children. This had 3 benefits for workers and children at the expense of industry: 1) With less labour available, wages generally increase; 2) Children of working class families were cared for during the day; and 3) Educated individuals would grow up to be harder to victimize and generally have more options as they entered the work force.

It was the possibility of freeing people from poverty and abuse that drove the creation of our free, mandatory education system in Canada. It was this realization; this empowerment and betterment, that sustained this institution over the last 100 years or so. It is a promise and reality that still serves as a people today. Industry would prefer uneducated workers and consumers: they are easier to sell to, exploit, and control. Consider reading a book like Fast Food Nation to see a current trend of hiring and abusing people; then you can decide whether it is education that is leading them there.

People who link free, public education to the requirements of industry are wrong. The historical record is clear on the insistence of working class families for it, for their benefit, and the record is equally clear about the resistance of the industrial elite and the costs associated with it.

The idea that public education serves the needs of industry and is therefore outdated and bad for people, cannot properly be used as an argument for education reform as it is unfounded.

Is teaching a subversive activity? Yes, beautifully subversive.

A friend recently tweeted “is teaching necessarily a subversive activity?” @stephen_hurley. I took it as a personal challenge even though it was directed generally (I do that sometimes). But I haven’t had the time to work out my response. I’ll try that now….

If one interprets his tweet, obviously inspired by Niel Postman, to mean: does teaching suppress individuality and subvert it so it can be replaced by a construct forged by society / for society. Does it in affect break us down and make us conform to societal norms. To a certain degree it does and must; however, this is desirable up to a point.

To say education subverts, in this sense, is a pessimistic and hyperbolic way to describe it (rather, it is hopefully pessimistic and hyperbolic – I can imagine some education systems that do it to such a degree that they justifiably deserve the comment) at least in the Canadian context. We might call it socializing, civilizing, empowering, or humanizing. The words we use frame a context; they can be positive or negative – joyfully married vs. uncomfortable by themselves, well dressed vs. a stiff, casual and comfortable vs. a slob. Does education cause conformity – yes…should it? Again the answer is, “Yes”

Education is our primary socializing and acculturating platform. It is through teaching/education/learning that children learn to suppress some of their instincts and develop their intellect and abilities to function within a society. While we might not be as described at the beginning of Leviathan or in the Lord of the Flies, we can hardly hold, that if we are just left alone to develop as we see fit, to be indulged and encourage our individuality without restraint, that we will all become beautiful, self-realized artists and poets – if only schools don’t get in our way. Through schools, students learn the unnatural discipline of culture and of participating in a society in appropriate, even beautiful, ways. This replaces some of their natural inclinations; this subverts their individuality; and this is a good thing. When have we ever used a blanket statement to say culture is a bad thing? Culture is one of our greatest inventions and it unifies us in beautiful, pragmatic ways; however, it is hardly our instinctual understanding of the world and our natural predisposition. Culture and socialization must be acquired – it must be taught. This comes at the expense of some of our individuality.

Another way to interpret this tweet/quote is: does teaching plant the seed of resistance to authority, whether it be political, commercial or social? Does it subvert authority? Well, hopefully it gives the tools to resist abuse of authority. Skills like critical thinking, empathy, courage, social responsibility – the hallmarks of our culture should be the hallmarks of our education system. They protect us from excesses in power as much as unify us in culture. An educated literate population is harder to suppress. A critical culture is harder to commercially exploit (e.g. advertising). An empathic population is harder to bully and less likely to succumb to the authority of peer pressure. In this case, education is a subversive activity; it subverts not the individual, but authority. This is desirable because it serves as a mechanism to protect personal autonomy not replace it.

Education in one sense is subversive to the individual but is desirable to a certain point. When within that range, another term, with a positive connotation is more appropriate. In the other sense, let subversion rein; let us become empathic, critical, educated individuals ready to resist exploitation from any source.