1. Blinded by Rainbows:
From Praxis of Professionals to Practice of
Technicians
Or How to Reclaim Parrhesia, Praxis, and Democratic
Ideals in Education
University of New Brunswick
Malcolm Mulligan
6 April 2016
Course: ED 6131 - Instructor: Dr. Pam Whitty
Background Picture credit: https://www.pinterest.com/motherstation/rainbows/
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2. Blinded by Rainbows: From Praxis of Professionals to Practice of Technicians or How to Reclaim Parrhesia, Praxis,
and Democratic Ideals in Education
Outline
Introduction
Education and Society
• The role of discourse
• Disrupting discourse
• Parrhesia
Purpose of education
Conclusion
Questions
References
Melting rainbow picture retrieved from http://www.tuxpaint.org/gallery/?cur_pict=442/
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3. Introduction
Liberal Democracy
Representative character
In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of
ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved
from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
- Alexis de Tocqueville circa 1840.
Blinded by Rainbows: From Praxis of Professionals to Practice of Technicians or How to Reclaim Parrhesia, Praxis,
and Democratic Ideals in Education
4. 4
Culture and Society
Function of culture
Education’s changing role
• Settler purpose of
• Current role
(neoliberal …)
Democracy & education
Blinded by Rainbows: From Praxis of Professionals to Practice of Technicians or How to Reclaim Parrhesia, Praxis, and
Democratic Ideals in Education
One of the functions of culture is to provide a highly
selective screen between man and the outside world. In
its many forms, culture therefore designates what we
pay attention to and what we ignore (T.E. Hall quoted in Sabin
& Ahern 2002: 11).
the “old idea of education was to free from the cave; today it means to equip them to be
successful in the cave.” …Today “education is only a means to most members in our society, a
means, therefore to be got as cheaply and quickly as possible” -- George Grant – 1955.
“Democracy is not simply about people wanting to improve their lives; it is more
importantly about their willingness to struggle to protect their right to self-determination
and self-government in the interest of the common good” -- Giroux, Gounari & Macedo 2015
5. 5
Education and Society
The Role of Discourse
• Definition
• Veracity of discourse
• Pledge of Allegiance
Blinded by Rainbows: From Praxis of Professionals to Practice of Technicians or How to Reclaim Parrhesia, Praxis,
and Democratic Ideals in Education
“Forward and backward, not up and down”
“Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly
danger of taking educated people seriously.”
― G.K. Chesterton .
Noam Chomsky, called “deep indoctrination, which is a form of truth like a
“theological truth” or a fundamentalist belief; it is sacred and cannot be
questioned.
“Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught
how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?”
― Peter Hitchens
6. 6
Blinded by Rainbows: From Praxis of Professionals to Practice of Technicians or How to Reclaim Parrhesia, Praxis, and
Democratic Ideals in Education
Education and Society
Disrupting Discourse
• Need to disrupt
• Rodney King
…any program for change will have to be founded
upon the recognition that the vulnerability of any
institution rests with its inability to critically examine
the goals and values by which it defines itself (Giroux,
1976: 21).
the current educational system does not educate
students sufficiently to enable them to “unveil the
ideology that puts blinders on [them]” (Macedo, 1994).
7. 7
Blinded by Rainbows: From Praxis of Professionals to Practice of Technicians or How to Reclaim Parrhesia, Praxis,
and Democratic Ideals in Education
Education and Society continued
Parrhesia
• Definition
• Changing character
• Inclusion/Exclusion
Only those who have power… can define what is correct and incorrect. Only those
who have power can decide what constitutes intellectualism. … [and the]
requirements [needed to become intellectual]. The intellectual activity of those
without power is always characterized as nonintellectual” – Paulo Freire 1994.
“In America the majority raises
formidable barriers around liberty of
opinion; within these barriers an
author may write what he pleases,
but woe to him if he goes beyond
them”. – Alexis de Tocqueville
8. 8
Blinded by Rainbows: From Praxis of Professionals to Practice of Technicians or How to Reclaim Parrhesia, Praxis,
and Democratic Ideals in Education
Purpose of Education
Competing visions
“Education is about opening doors, minds, and possibilities. School is
about sorting, punishing, grading, ranking, and certifying” (Ayers, 1998: 55) .
“The fundamental message of the teacher, after all, is that people can
change their lives [and] you must change the world” (Ayers, 1998: 57).
Teachers have little power to shape society, the curriculua they are
required to teach are prepared by the “dominant classes” -- Freire in
Grollios 2015
“”Critical literacy is the first step on the way to social and political
reconstruction” (Giroux, 1987: 24).
9. 9
Blinded by Rainbows: From Praxis of Professionals to Practice of Technicians or How to Reclaim Parrhesia, Praxis,
and Democratic Ideals in Education
Conclusion
Remove structures that disallow:
Fostering critical consciousness
Fostering democratic classrooms
Do not go into default living
Educate not school
Change the world
Disrupt Discourse
Build a new model “Human activity consists of action and reflection: it is praxis; it is
transformation of the world” (Freire, 1970, p. 125).
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new
model that makes the existing model obsolete” (Buckminster Fuller quoted in Novak, 2009: 56).
Freedom is about being conscious, about making a
conscious decision about how to think and what to
pay attention to … You get to decide what has
meaning and what doesn’t . … The alternative is
unconsciousness, the default setting, the “rat race” –
the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost
some infinite thing. (Wallace, 2008: 8-11).
It is worth the struggle because: “In a democracy, life is geared toward and powered by a
particularly precious and fragile ideal: every human being is of finite and incalculable value” (Ayers,
2011: 20).
“These are human inventions (organizational structures), not
arrangements by divine decree” (Starratt in Davies p. 78).
11. Authors
Aronowitz, S. (May 06, 2004). Against Schooling: Education and Social Class. Social Text, 22, 2, 13-35.
Ayers, W. (2011). Trudge toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in Education.
Philosophical Studies In Education, 4217-24.
Bartolome, L. (1994). Beyond the Methods Fetish: Toward a Humanizing Pedagogy. Harvard Educational
Review, 64(2), 173-194
Eisner, E.W. (2001). What Does it Mean to Say a School is Doing Well? Phi Delta Kappan, 82(5), 367-372
Evans, B., & Giroux, H. A. (January 01, 2015). Intolerable Violence. Symploke, 23, 1, 201-223.
Freire, P. (1985). Reading the World and Reading the Word: An Interview with Paolo Freire. Language Arts.
62(1), 15-21.
Freire, P. (1970/2012). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (trans. Myra Bergman Ramos). New York: Bloomsbury.
Giroux, H.A. (2009). Education and the Crisis of Youth: Schooling and the Promise of Democracy. The
Educational Forum, 73, 8-18.
Giroux, H. A. ( 2010). Lessons to be learned from Paulo Freire as education is being taken over by the mega
rich. Truthout. Retrieved from
http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/93016:lessons-to-be-learned-from-paulo-freire-as-
education-is-being-taken-over-by-the-mega-rich
Giroux, H. A. (September 01, 2015). Public intellectuals, academic violence and the threat of political purity.
Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy, 156, 89-97. 11
12. References continued -- Authors
Macedo, D. (1994). Literacies of Power: What Americans are not Allowed to Know.Westview Press: Boulder.
MacNaughton, G. (2005). Introduction Beyond Quality Towards ActivismDoing Foucault in Early Childhood
Studies: Applying poststructural ideas. Routledge. P. 1-18.
Mayo, P. (2003). A Rationale for a Transformative Approach to Education. Journal of Transformative
Education 1(1), 38-57.
Sabin, C., & Ahern, T. C. (2002). Instructional design and culturally diverse learners. Proceedings - Frontiers in
Education Conference, 3.
Sauter, T., Kendall, G., (2011). Parrhesia and Democracy: Truth-Telling, Wikileaks and the Arab Spring" Social
Alternatives 30(3), pp. 10-14.
Sloan, W. (2012). What is the purpose of education. Education Update, 54(7). ASCD: Alexandria. Retrieved
from http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/jul12/vol54/num07/What-Is-the-
Purpose-of-Education%C2%A2.aspx
Wallace, D.F. (2008, Sepember 19). David Foster Wallace on Life and Work. The Wall Street Journal.
Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122178211966454607
Weissbourd, R., Anderson, T. (2016). Do we value caring? Educational Leadership.73(6), 54-58.
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References continued - Images
Fluid rainbows picture retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/motherstation/rainbows/
Melting rainbow picture retrieved from http://www.tuxpaint.org/gallery/?cur_pict=442
Psycadelic rainbow retrieved from http://bcmummy.deviantart.com/art/Pretty-Pretty-Rainbows-258870989
Fractural rainbow retrieved from https://eyesofodysseus.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/amazing-rainbow-fractal-art/
Tumblr rainbow retrieved from http://dirrtyremixes.tumblr.com/
Conformity Hazard retrieved from: https://spykeyone.wordpress.com/category/education-conformity/
Conformity & Freedom retrieved from: http://villagegreen.vg/2014/04/
Liberal democracy retrieved from: http://theaimn.com/the-slide-away-from-democracy/liberal-democracy/
Anotherbrick1 retrieved from: http://alexmorellon.deviantart.com/art/Another-Brick-in-the-Wall-297412444
Western culture retrieved from: http://www.deviantart.com/morelikethis/245334381
Ideology1 retrieved from: http://quotesgram.com/ideological-quotes/
Morpheus retrieved from: https://memegenerator.net/instance/24317028
Discourse1 retrieved from: http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2012/10/bruno-how-much-polarization-is-
online-only.html#.VwPXfcv2bIU
Nelson Mandella retrieved from: http://www.retsontedheke.com/
Nietzsche retrieved from: https://www.pinterest.com/brookebycofski/nietzsche/
MartinLutherKing retrieved from: http://www.ushstudent.com/blog/the-purpose-of-education/
Purpose –Fulbright retrieved from: http://learing2teachinthisdigitalage.blogspot.ca/2016/01/test-are-not-only-way-to-assess-student.html
Neoliberalism retrieved from: http://slideplayer.com/slide/2736884/
Wall-clones retrieved from: http://myslenkyocemkoli.blogspot.ca/2013_05_01_archive.html
Purpose retrieved from: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/593224
Truth (matrix) retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek890s3qg04
Neo-The truth retrieved from: http://carolineletkeman.org/writings/matrix/
Freedom starts retrieved from: https://dalitfreedom.ca/
Bertrand Russell quote retrieved from: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/387952
YouTube link 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE7PKRjrid4
YouTube link 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ntb2WebR2g
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References
Quotations
Ayers, W. (January 01, 1998). Teaching as an Ethical Enterprise. Educational Forum Indiana-,
63, 1, 52-57.
Egley, R. (2003). Invitational leadership: Does it make a difference? Journal of Invitational
Theory and Practice, 9, 57-70.
Novak, J. (2009). Invitational Leadership in B. Davies (Ed.), B. (2009). The Essentials od
school leadership 2nd edition (p. 53-73). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Starratt, R. (2005). Responsible Leadership. The Educational Forum, 69, 124-133.
Stovall, D., & Ayers, W. (January 01, 2005). The School A Community Built. Educational
Leadership, 62, 6, 34-37.
Tocqueville, A. (n.d.). In Brainy Quote online. Retrieved from
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/alexis_de_tocqueville.html
Wallace, D.F. (2008, Sepember 19). David Foster Wallace on Life and Work. The Wall Street
Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122178211966454607
Editor's Notes
Introduction:
Liberal democracy
Representative character
The definition of liberal democracy is a representative democracy concerned with the protection of individual rights. It is important to distinguish this form of democracy from the direct form. Representative democracy means that citizens choose representatives to do the work of governing. This creates a filter between the individual and the citizen in that the civic responsibilities of the citizen are relegated to the governing representative. How, you might ask has this got anything to do with education? In answer, I would suggest that the political structure of a country will inevitably recreate itself in the structures of all organizations and even the mores of the people. If one considers the state of political activism in the country, even during times of great political unrest, there are a relatively small number of people who engage in the activism. It would appear that many of us do not place caring for others highly in our civil priority list .
Because our society is a representative democracy and has been for several generations, I would argue that the majority of the population does not feel empowered to engage in political activism. Similarly, our educational structures are representative structures where few people have any real input into the direction and purpose of education and our students are not exposed to the democratic structures and habits necessary to engage in political activism. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about how the representative character of America was already taking form in 1840:
In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
Opinions that are supplied and recommended by the governing representatives seem to be the norm in liberalism. Furthermore, discovering what philosophy or association of theories that informs policy is not a straightforward process. Perhaps the more important question would be who decides which theories are to be used for what purpose and for the benefit of whom?
Education has a long history of being the means to inculcating cultural traditions and values in a population (History of Education, n.d.). In the early days of the ‘settled’ North America, education was the responsibility of the family, although the Catholic Church played a large role in educating with a purpose of inculcating Christian values and assimilating the First Nations peoples. After the British conquest, the British used education as an “opportunity to promote a cultural identification with Protestantism, the English language, and British customs” the school system was designed to solve societal problems “ranging from crime to poverty and from idleness to vagrancy” (Op. cit.). Here we can see law makers creating policy to solve problems of society as representatives of the people they are ‘helping’.
How has society arrived at a point where “students seem to be valued more as consumers…than they do as potential critical citizens” (Giroux, 2009:9). In America this can probably be traced to Benjamin Franklin’s redefinition of virtue, where instead of virtue being defined as a good that one ought to aspire to for the intrinsic value of being a good person and citizen it became a method to improve oneself for extrinsic rewards. This, I think, is the beginning of the movement toward the free market liberalism that defines our continent. George Grant (2002) spoke about the change in education in November of 1955 at a speech to a group of Nova Scotia teachers when he said that “education today exists to make one an economic success…” (p. 184). He went on to say that the “old idea of education was to free from the cave; today it means to equip them to be successful in the cave” (p. 184). Grant also stated the reason the teaching profession is not valued: “education is only a means to most members in our society, a means, therefore to be got as cheaply and quickly as possible” . If education is a means to an intrinsic end, then the “teacher’s job according to most parents is to give students strategies to integrate into society” (p. 186).
Education and society.
The role of discourse.
Discourse can be defined as a systematic way of thinking and writing about a topic; it involves a “shared language, … shared concepts for understanding it and shared methods for examining it…[and this system] frames how we think, feel, understand, and practice in specific areas of our lives” (MacNaughton, 2005).
Exemplifying both the veracity of discourse is a story told by Donaldo Macedo about a young twelve year old student in Boston who refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance because it was “a hypocritical exhortation to patriotism in that there is not ‘liberty and justice for all’ In the story, the student explains that there is vast inequality, but the administrators and teachers were so indoctrinated by the dominant discourse that they failed to see the truth in the student’s argument. This is a situation that Noam Chomsky, called “deep indoctrination, which is a form of truth like a “theological truth” or a fundamentalist belief; it is sacred and cannot be questioned. Indeed, it is only because of intervention from the American Civil Liberties Union that the student was spared disciplinary action.
The question, however, is how does one who has a fundamentalist view of their discourse come to be able to question it? How could the administrator and teacher in the example above overcome their deep indoctrination and be able question their way of understanding the world and be open enough to see other ways of knowing and understanding the world?
Disrupting Discourse:
Disrupting discourse will not be an easy task. Exemplified above is but one small view of how difficult it will be to change the dominant discourses that inform the educational landscape. Many of the discourses are seen as fundamental and unquestioned. If we choose another example, that of Canadian history and start asking questions like, whose version of history are we learning and teaching? What would happen if we told the story of Canadian history from the First Nations perspective? What would happen if our schools started teaching that our ancestors were racists, murderers, and thieves? What if instead of burying the other truths we exposed and taught them?
the starting point will need to be the education of both the teachers and the students. – to be able to question doctrine and look for alternate stories and ways of knowing MacNaughton (2005) provides some excellent questions for beginning this process:
Journeys to Activism (p. 41)
What are the main ideas within the approach [discourse]? What is the right/true way to understand and practice your work? What are the origins of these understandings and practices? What authority do these understanding and practices have? Who will sanction you if you don’t conform to these understandings and practices? How much do your understanding … rely on … [discourses]? To what extent do your understandings [of the topic] rely on [discourses]?
These questions will be helpful in discovering what Macedo (1994) calls the pedagogy of lies. Macedo (1994) stated that the current educational system does not educate students sufficiently to enable them to “unveil the ideology that puts blinders on [them]” (p. 12). He cites the example of the Rodney King case, where jurors were unable to see the beating as savage because they had been unable to “deconstruct race, ethics, and ideology – issues that schools neglect to take on seriously” (p. 12). Macedo (1994) goes on to say that these issues are not taught in teacher education courses and that their omission is ideological and forms the basis for what he calls “the ideology of big lies” (p. 12). This ideology is reinforced complicitly by all who refuse to confront the issues through the dominant discourse and the system that “rewards them for reproducing and not questioning dominant mechanisms designed to produce power asymmetries along the lines of race, gender, class, culture, and ethnicity (p.12).
He reminds us of Adolf Hitler’s “call against independent thought and critical thinking. “… what good fortune for those in power that people do not think” (p. 36).
Macedo (1994) argues that the pedagogy of lies “transfigures reality” (p. 37) through lies and myths.
Discourses have power; where a dominant discourse is concerned, there is money and status. If one wants to pursue research within an accepted discourse one will have an easier time than if one is attacking a dominant discourse. What is needed is a network of critical thinkers who will continue to pursue research and practice in an effort to inform critical thought on discourses and practice.
Change will not occur if one acts alone,
The critically knowing educating communities that MacNaughton is calling for need to include educational researchers. In support of this idea, Giroux (2009) stated that academics need to become more political in their roles and that their proper role is to “publicly raise embarrassing questions” (p. 16).
there needs to be action. As Freire (1970) wrote, dialogue without action is mere verbalism. MacNaughton (2005) suggests that transformative learning occurs when we “trouble our truths without new ones to replace them” (p. 203).
Mayo’s (2003) ingredients to a transformative approach to educational reform:
Critique the current educational system
Include a means of analysis
Include a form of dialectic engagement
Include an analysis of how the new proposed educational system is different from the current system and ramifications of the approach
Include a language of possibility to allow for agency. The educator must be able to act as an agent for social transformation. (p. 44)
This process may be helpful in creating the structures necessary for change to occur.
Slide 6 - Disrupting Discourse:
Disrupting discourse will not be an easy task. Exemplified above is but one small view of how difficult it will be to change the dominant discourses that inform the educational landscape. Many of the discourses are seen as fundamental and unquestioned. If we choose another example, that of Canadian history and start asking questions like, whose version of history are we learning and teaching? What would happen if we told the story of Canadian history from the First Nations perspective? What would happen if our schools started teaching that our ancestors were racists, murderers, and thieves? What if instead of burying the other truths we exposed and taught them?
the starting point will need to be the education of both the teachers and the students. – to be able to question doctrine and look for alternate stories and ways of knowing MacNaughton (2005) provides some excellent questions for beginning this process:
Journeys to Activism (p. 41)
What are the main ideas within the approach [discourse]? What is the right/true way to understand and practice your work? What are the origins of these understandings and practices? What authority do these understanding and practices have? Who will sanction you if you don’t conform to these understandings and practices? How much do your understanding … rely on … [discourses]? To what extent do your understandings [of the topic] rely on [discourses]?
These questions will be helpful in discovering what Macedo (1994) calls the pedagogy of lies. Macedo (1994) stated that the current educational system does not educate students sufficiently to enable them to “unveil the ideology that puts blinders on [them]” (p. 12). He cites the example of the Rodney King case, where jurors were unable to see the beating as savage because they had been unable to “deconstruct race, ethics, and ideology – issues that schools neglect to take on seriously” (p. 12). Macedo (1994) goes on to say that these issues are not taught in teacher education courses and that their omission is ideological and forms the basis for what he calls “the ideology of big lies” (p. 12). This ideology is reinforced complicitly by all who refuse to confront the issues through the dominant discourse and the system that “rewards them for reproducing and not questioning dominant mechanisms designed to produce power asymmetries along the lines of race, gender, class, culture, and ethnicity
He reminds us of Adolf Hitler’s “call against independent thought and critical thinking. “… what good fortune for those in power that people do not think”
Macedo (1994) argues that the pedagogy of lies “transfigures reality” (p. 37) through lies and myths.
Discourses have power; where a dominant discourse is concerned, there is money and status. If one wants to pursue research within an accepted discourse one will have an easier time than if one is attacking a dominant discourse. What is needed is a network of critical thinkers who will continue to pursue research and practice in an effort to inform critical thought on discourses and practice.
The critically knowing educating communities that MacNaughton is calling for need to include educational researchers. In support of this idea, Giroux (2009) stated that academics need to become more political in their roles and that their proper role is to “publicly raise embarrassing questions” (p. 16).
there needs to be action. As Freire (1970) wrote, dialogue without action is mere verbalism.
Mayo’s (2003) ingredients to a transformative approach to educational reform:
Critique the current educational system
Include a means of analysis
Include a form of dialectic engagement
Include an analysis of how the new proposed educational system is different from the current system and ramifications of the approach
Include a language of possibility to allow for agency. The educator must be able to act as an agent for social transformation. (p. 44)
This process may be helpful in creating the structures necessary for change to occur.
Parrhesia
Parrhesia can be defined as “the practice of ‘free speech’ to generate alternate truths that are generally ‘denied official status’” (McNay in MacNaughton, 2005: 44).
Parrhesia is about freedom. In ancient Greece, it was a duty of the speaker to bring these other ‘truths’ to the attention of the senate, but it carried certain risks (Sauter & Kendall, 2011). Parrhesia, then, was the form of truth telling that was required in order to see the discourses and regimes of truth that were operating and dominant and to assist others in seeing other ways of knowing and operating. Parrhesia’s form was changed so that it was only possible to be spoken by a certain class of people, thus marginalizing the majority from the practice of democracy. “It could be argued that this is the state today, that the regimes of truth are structured thus that the majority do not have a voice in pressing for change” (Mulligan, 2016c: 1).
Dominant educational discourse and ideology has its detractors but there is difficulty for them to be heard. Parrhesia is generally allowed only from the recognized participants of the discourse. As mentioned earlier, there are great commercial interests in the dominant discourses and to disrupt them is to do so with great risk. Researching outside of and against the dominant discourses will have great difficulty in finding funding, maintaining employment, getting published, and being received as a scholar. Paulo Freire in a conversation with Macedo (1994) said that: Only those who have power… can define what is correct and incorrect. Only those who have power can decide what constitutes intellectualism. … [and the] requirements [needed to become intellectual]. The intellectual activity of those without power is always characterized as nonintellectual” (p. 102-3).
Before you can criticize the discourse, you must first become an accepted member of the intelligentsia that promotes the discourse. This presents a real problem in making progress because by the time one becomes a respected member of the discourse the likelihood of being brainwashed, inculcated, or ‘deeply indoctrinated’ is quite high and therefore the likelihood that one will sink their own ship is unlikely.
Purpose of education.
What is the purpose of public education? Eleanor Roosevelt defined education’s purpose when she wrote a 1930 article, "Good Citizenship: The Purpose of Education,“. Martin Luther King Jr. defined the purpose of education as a need to build character with intelligence and critical thinking skills: The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. …
Sloan (2012), however, states that the purpose of education has changed over time to suit the needs of the population. Democratic structures allow (and require) that change is possible in the structures and purposes of education, however, given the eroding state of our democratic structures, few people engage in the political activism necessary to make change in educational policy.
Education’s purpose cannot be to create good civic citizens. It would not be fair to ask educators to be solely responsible for this. Grollios (2015) stated that Freire “supported the view that education was not the fundamental institution that shaped society” (p. 6). Indeed, teachers have little power to shape society, the curricula they are required to teach are prepared by the “dominant classes” (Op. cit. p. 6). Grollios (2015) goes on to say that:
The neoconservative-neoliberal dogmas have redefined the role of educators as contributing to the smooth functioning of an education in which the logic of commodification and social Darwinism prevail (Op. cit. p. 8).
Education cannot be about creating society, but it must be recognized that it plays a part. Ann Berthoff said “education is indispensible to political action because of the role it plays in the development of critical consciousness” (Berthoff 1987: xv). But in a society where the structures of public politics has eroded to the point where few people are interested in engaging in political dialogue, reflection and action then the representatives will make the decisions based upon advice from commercial interests. In our North American society where the primary job of government is to make laws, then the lawyers will decide what becomes of society, and that is what has happened. In our liberal democratic tradition we have delivered civic rights to the back seat of individual rights; we have allowed corporations to become citizens thereby hijacking the public good for the private rights and freedoms of corporations to decide what freedoms need to be protected.
Giroux and others have argued that we need public spaces for this political activity and that the public intellectuals need to start taking issue with the political decisions and offer suggestions for the public to read, discuss and take action (Aronowitz 2004; Giroux 2006; 2009; 2010; Giroux et al. 2015).
In these challenging neoliberal times, it is difficult to imagine that students are receiving training to become citizens. Indeed, many students endure schooling at the cost of education. When teachers and school systems are pressured to provide numerical proof that their students are learning, and the educational service organizations are selling their products as a means to compile the data and provide methods for the teaching of the targets, the classroom can seem more of a service industry than a place to earn an education (Mulligan 2016b). Education needs to teach students how to become critical thinking individuals and engage in the democratic struggles of civic life in a vibrant democracy. “Critical literacy is the first step on the way to social and political reconstruction” (Giroux 1987: 24).
If students had a real opportunity to discuss changes to their learning environments, clubs, and organizations with the school leadership then real democratic praxis would reinforce the idea that engagement in community action and leadership is worthwhile and productive. Instead, students are sent to the factory to become ’civilized’ and ready to become pseudo-citizens; ready to work, form families, and vote when told to vote, but totally unprepared to critically question, debate, and engage leaders (news reporting agencies, government agencies etc.) in reasoned argument of facts and opinions. How is it that democracy has become synonymous with capitalism and economy; that as Giroux (2009) stated, students are seen as commodities rather than thinking beings; or as Freire (1970) wrote, objects instead of subjects. And the larger question of how do we fix this problem looms.
Peter Levine (2016) stated that students need to be given opportunities to deliberate, collaborate, and reflect upon asking the question to students “what should we do” (italics in original. p. 31) with regards to a community problem. When students are faced with a problem and given the opportunity to discuss possible solutions, then the opportunity to carry out their solution and reflect on their efforts not only do the students learn about community action, but they learn about democracy by doing democracy. Students have to speak about their ideas, listen to others with respect and tolerance, and then negotiate the best possible solution, usually a compromise, and then they have to reflect on the experience.
Conclusion
If education is about helping students learn about freedom and providing them with the tools to be able to think critically so that our students are not operating in an “unconscious, … [or] default setting” (Wallace 2008: 11) and fostering the “development of a critical consciousness that will look at the world as something to be transformed”, (Giroux, 1976: 23) then we need to be able to release teachers from the structures that make them mere technicians who follow the dominant discourse and administer tests and record data (Arnowitz, 2004; Eisner 2001; Bartolome, 1994).
What would teaching look like if the teacher’s role was to create a sense of wonder and hope for the future and to be able to be empowered to pursue it?
Ayers (2011) suggests we need schools to prepare students to transform society, that “as democrats we must take responsibility for change we cannot wait for others to make change because it may not happen” (p.17). We must educate our students and ourselves to the fact that we are the minority and that the media is paid to “distract us from reality” (p. 18) that the dominant discourses in our society are easy to follow and difficult to resist.
David Foster Wallace speaks to the difficulty of paying attention to the reality of life and not falling into the ‘default setting’ of unconsciousness:
Freedom is about being conscious, about making a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to … to not slip into a “natural default-setting of certainty of knowing the world through your own self-centered lens. If you have really learned how to think, how to pay attention… then you get to decide how to experience things, and see anything as meaningful or even sacred. You get to decide what has meaning and what doesn’t . … Don’t be an unconscious thinker – The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them … every day. That is real freedom …The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the “rat race” – the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing. (Wallace, 2008: 8-11).
Wallace is asking that we do the hard work of paying attention to reality. Ayers would agree because the democratic principle that “every cook can govern” (p. 19) requires that all citizens receive an education that enables them to participate. In an earlier article, Ayers (1998) wrote about the difference between education and schooling where:
Education is about opening doors, minds, and possibilities. School is about sorting, punishing, grading, ranking, and certifying. Education is unconditional; it asks nothing in return. School demands obedience and conformity as a precondition to attendance. Education is surprising, unruly, and disorderly, while the first and fundamental law of school is to follow orders (p. 55).
We need to move away from these structures and make education more relevant and constructive. Ayers goes on to say that “The fundamental message of the teacher, after all, is that people can change their lives [and] you must change the world” (p. 57).
In order to change the world, students need to be able to think critically, listen to other ideas (or truths), be able to consider the ideas of others in a respectful and tolerant manner, hold discussions, and reflect on them and then act on their decisions. “Human activity consists of action and reflection: it is praxis; it is transformation of the world”
But this holds for educators and public intellectuals as well; we must do the hard work of disrupting the dominant discourses, creating communities of critically knowing educators, developing theory, encouraging democratic and constructivist classroom approaches, and making the work public and accessible for more involved dialogues with all stakeholders and we must build a new model of education because as Bukminster Fuller said: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete”.
But most of all we must not lose hope that change will occur – because it is worth the struggle: “In a democracy, life is geared toward and powered by a particularly precious and fragile ideal: every human being is of finite and incalculable value” (Ayers, 2011: 20).
Post script.
The title, Blinded by Rainbows, was taken from a Rolling Stones song written by Mick Jagger and recorded on the Voodoo Lounge album. The song is about the ‘troubles’ in northern Ireland and about how people on both sides of the issue are willing to act without regard to the consequences to ‘others’. I thought the reference was appropriate for a discussion of ideology and dominant discourses.
