[MD] 42

[ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR]

[DMB]
As I read this, proper education is of no importance unless you're interested in maintaining civilization. The academy, or rather the church of reason, supposedly says that civilization "is best served not by mules by free men" (free people) and it supposedly offers education as "the means to this freedom". And what does it mean to NOT be a mule? What does it mean to be free, to liberated by this education?

[Arlo]
This is a good point, but I think it reflects two purposes, which Paulo Freire describes in Pedagogy of the Oppressed as "Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world." For Freire, "maintaining civilization" would be the normalizing, conforming, assimilation of social-historical-cultural structures. The second purpose, reflected by your use of "free" and "liberated" is more concerned with enabling agency (overcoming oppression). I don't necessarily think these two purposes are antagonistic, but I do think they are not synonymous terms. We have an imbalance where are favoring the genetic transmission of structure, but doing so uncritically and and uncreatively. 

[DMB]
Same as it ever was, I think we need throw out the money lenders. I mean, the church of reason has become corrupt in the same sort of way. For the most part, people think of higher education levels as the means to a higher income.

[Arlo]
Right, and this reflects one of the most central crises in the education discourse. "Why?". If you asked a dozen people what the purpose of education (public, k-12 or univerity), most would either have no answer, or would respond economically. Education (as we've come to see it) serves to provide labor, skilled or otherwise. That which cannot be monified slowly becomes unimportant and eventually frivolous. The larger metaphor of "capital" has subsumed education, we see it as an "investment", we demand that it "pays off". The "Church of Reason" becomes a Church of Career. Philosophy, which should be the starting point to all education, becomes a quaint elective often lost in a "jobs curriculum".

Without trying to evoke the 'commie' spectre of European education, I think a strong argument could made that, along with Pirsig's abolishing grades, we abolish tuition. If the goal is 'maintain civilization' and critical, creative thinking, then this should an endeavor supported by society as a whole; from 'public' all the way through post-secondary doctoral work.

At the same time, we need to (as a culture) articulate exactly what we want formal, public schooling to provide; an informed citizenry, a labor population, creative thinkers, and then work backwards into curriculum, assessment and pedagogy. We have to know what it is we want to do, before we can talk about good ways of doing it.

[DMB]
... it's tragically narrow-minded and short-sighted and if everyone thought like that the whole freakin' deal would crap out in a hurry. In fact, that might be what's already happening. Or maybe that's just how stupid it is in America. Sigh.

[Arlo]
Yeah, I'd say its what's already happening in America. In large part, its the inevitable trajectory of a capital system; economic value becomes the basis of all value, whether this is a direct skill-to-employment relationship, or the derivative education as social-symbolic capital, the underlying economic metaphor is firmly entrenched.