[MD] Barfuesserkirche (ZMM & Dewey)

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Craig]
These are all important questions whether the school is public or private.

[Arlo]
You bet they are. We hear a lot of complaining about "the schools", but 
most of the so-called "solutions" offered on the national stage lack a 
foundational philosophy beginning with the two questions, (1) what is the 
purpose of education, and (2) is it valuable for the public to fund it.

I've tried to offer several upper-level responses. Several to the first 
include job skills, informed citizenry (necessary for a democracy), 
advancement of intellectual patterns, and cultural assimilation and value 
transmission. Does the MOQ have anything to say to any of these? As for the 
second, I've made the argument before that, like public roads, education 
should be funded by the public, and not something left only to those who 
can pay (or whose quality of education or access to resources are 
determined by their wealth). I've argued, however, for choice, rejecting 
the idea of a monolithic approach (which, by the way, serves best the same 
assimilative force Platt champions against diversity). To this end, I find 
the Danish model quite interesting, and quite in line with how I read the MOQ.

Consider that Platt on one hand favors "letting the market decide" 
everything from (I suspect) who gets educated to what they learn. Yet on 
the other hand favors mandatory English and standards, and I would likely 
guess he sides at least partially with Hirsch's decree of cultural literacy 
(which is an outgrowth of Adler's "Great Books" crusade), all of which are 
only possible by appealing to monolithic, imposed curriculae. I'd argue, 
for example, that the public schools in border-regions that offer classes 
in Spanish, and no mandatory English, are exactly responding to "the 
market". If I, as a Spanish speaker, do not want my kids to speak English, 
isn't that my "right"? If you tell me "I know what's best for your kid, and 
they need English to get a good job", how is that any different than 
Platt's demonic "educator class" of arrogant, presumptuous pinheads who 
think THEY know what's best for MY kid?

A further question of interest is this, should someone be able to "opt out" 
of education? Besides the funding discussion, what about the notion of 
"compulsory"? Should parents not only have the option to home-school, but 
also have the option to "no-school"? Why? Why not?

And finally, I'd come back to the emphasis that the root cause of 
educational decline is in its commodification. In The Academy, for example, 
the emphasis is on "minimum intellectual production for maximum social 
capital". (I try to avoid the artificial division between "higher" and 
"K-12" schools. When I refer to "The Academy", I nearly always consider it 
to be one giant continuum.). Fordist modes of production have infested 
education philosophy (or at least implementation) since the early part of 
the century. Education is compartmentalized, and kids are placed on a 
virtual "conveyor belt", where they are expected to move along in 
conformity and equal pace, with "misfits" being left behind or seen as 
"inferior". In my hometown middle school, as early as 5th grade(!) students 
are broken into four sections, with the "1" kids receiving better, more 
thorough, challenging education, and the "4" kids receiving mostly the 
skills required to "color within the lines". By the time everyone 
graduates, they get the same diploma, but the "1" kids are much more 
prepared for not only jobs and college but life, while the "4" kids 
immediately don their fry-cook caps and Wal-Mart smocks. Does this mean 
there are no differences in skill? Of course not. But maybe not all those 
kids should be written off so early. (This also reflects the artificial 
(and condescending) "blue collar/white collar" distinction in the country).

Parental involvement. Community involvement. The ideas expressed by David 
Granger about Dewey, Addams, Horton and the DFS, emphasize the recognition 
that community involvement, tending to a healthy and strong social 
structure, are an important part of our activity, without which we fall 
into "atomistic individualism", our lives defined exclusively by economic 
factors. There is no doubt in my mind, as an "educator", that the solution 
to schooling failures is community and parental involvement. Not just 
"meeting with the teacher to talk about my kids' grade", but sharing 
expertise, volunteering in the classrooms, mentoring and apprenticeshipping 
(to coin a new word). But this all derives from the idea that individual 
freedom is not the result of building walls around "me", but collective 
activity that empowers the individual to act.

Agency, I'd argue, is the combination of the "will to act" with the 
"ability to act". One has to be aware of the possibilities to act, and then 
possess the power to do so. Education serves the former, collective 
activity nurtures the latter. We got to the moon because we acted 
collectively, and in so doing empowered an individual to step on a world 
that is not our own. This is what is meant by Granger when he writes "[the 
Highlander school] attempted to educate people away from an individualistic 
mindset-another part of the myth of American exceptionality-and towards the 
freedom that only becomes possible with cooperation and collective action."

Anyway, yes, these are important questions.