You describe my experience as a student - I was very sensitive to being manipulated, at home and at school. I became a teacher in the hope of approaching education differently. Strangely, I have experienced even *more* hierarchy as an adult teaching in the public school system - and this after an early career in journalism, followed by years of teaching independently before entering the system. In a five-year span, I have been infantilized and bullied in ways I never anticipated. I have witnessed degradation of academic content, conduct expectations and critical thinking. Ironically, the DEI policies professed by some of the administrators I've encountered seem to have ushered in a different kind of hierarchy where dissent is not tolerated and "consequence" is a dirty word, at least for students. Personally, I think we are witnessing the collapse of public education in the space of a single generation. At one time, I would have said, like many still do, that "smaller classes" are the answer. But the same powers that used to say we couldn't afford smaller classes, are the powers now fixating on DEI. They're the same powers that will say a more decentralized, small-batch education system could be efficiently run by AI. We are already being encouraged to use Chat GPT for lesson-planning and correspondence. The prospect of machines teaching - in effect, programming - humans causes me a great deal of concern. The program is only as reliable as the programmer(s), and it's hard to believe anyone in the tech industry isn't already steeped in hierarchy. So the "business model" of education continues. The medium is the message. Your message, on the other hand, dovetails very neatly with the suggestion that authoritarian parenting in Germany helped give rise to fascism: https://www.jstor.org/stable/350737
We have fashioned ourselves yet another Dark Age. Hopefully, our collaborative instincts will kick in before we self-annihilate. Please keep up your important work.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It's so tricky right? Because on the one hand I am in support of public education, and in support of diversity and equity in public education. And, I do find that most people within the public ed system aren't willing to critique the way power is mis-used within it. I appreciate you mentioning how adults also suffer from the hierarchical nature of schooling. It's hard to know where to go from here!
This brings back memories of what it was like to be in Catholic school my whole childhood, K-12. Maybe I was one of the luckier ones that didn’t fall in line, and came out of it realizing that it wasn’t me that was wrong, but actually the structure/hierarchy/dynamics of the school itself. The rules that were enforced were absurd, like the dress code for instance. If you had rivets (you’ll probably have to google what that is) on your pants, it was an automatic detention. Even if they were on khaki pants, they were considered jeans and jeans were forbidden. End up with a handful of those and you were suspended. For rivets. Where is the life lesson here? Where in the wide world did we reflect on our dress code regulations and think, “thank you!!” Control, control, control.
There were outliers, teachers who really tried to connect with us and give us more autonomy and respect, but not many. I was scared and hyper-vigilant for most of those years until I completely rebelled. But even then, I was scared too.
My home was far more laid back than school, and maybe that’s why I could see the hypocrisy more clearly. I’m still unpacking how psychologically harmful my specific schools were. I have countless stories.
This was also decades ago. I have no experience myself with public school, but I wonder if people who did go would say they think their kids today have more or less autonomy.
Fran I resonate with so much of this. I believe in public school, but not in authoritarian public school. I believe in disrupting hierarchies between adults and children, and don't know how one can disrupt them effectively in a system build on oppressive white supremacist hierarchy (and patriarchy and ableism and and and)
I honestly don't know if our public institutions built on industrialized models of education will ever actually be able to give our kids the *embodied experience* of having their dignity and autonomy and respect cared for and protected because they are inherently built to serve the current system. And what our kids internalize within those oppressive systems becomes their primary lens on how they walk through the world, which is so not okay and totally tracks with our current political climate.
At the same time, it is incredibly hard for most working class folks who demand two earning incomes to find alternatives to what's offered in public school. Who gets to be free? Which kids get to have a liberation-based childhood? And how do we make the alternatives that you and I live and breathe with our kids accessible to everyone? Do we build parallel free schooling models aligned with our values? What would that take?
So glad to be in this conversation together. Thanks for your words!
You said it exactly - which kids get to be free? It shouldn't be a privilege but it is. Here's the thing though: if the political will was there, an overhaul of the public school system into something more democratic could be possible. It would actually probably be less costly in the long-term. But the thing is the research on how children learn and thrive just isn't of interest to politicians because we're too busy worrying about whether our children are competitive globally, and whether we are hitting targets and looking at children as economic units rather than people. It feels kind of hopeless on the public education front. And, I also know private options will only have so much impact and will perhaps cause even more disparity. So tough.
I think politicians on the right are worried about gutting public schools, and politicians on the left are worried about preserving them. But neither party is particularly trying to reimagine what is happening within schools pedagogically.
Yes! I’ve worked for a long time on incremental change in unchanging systems, then decided my energy was better spent supporting and amplifying those imagining alternatives. The part I most internally struggle with is who is left suffering within those systems while folks imagine alternatives. And for that I’m very thankful for the educators attempting to change it from within
Absolutely. It's natural to fall in line instead of rebel when the school system sets the tone and well-meaning parents follow suit. I wish liberal-leaning parent's could realize how much power they have to break that automatic, oppressive chain reaction. Just the way right-wing parents rally collectively to ban books and bathroom choice, etc. It's as if liberal parenting means you follow the rules and be "good" and just do what the teacher says to do so that you can get good grades and go to college, ad nauseam.
yes totally. We could have a much stronger movement to change the school system if liberals would actually recognise that there was so much wrong with it!!
So very true. Having been raised in authoritarianism in the home and the church, now I know why evangelical Christians are so focused on obedience: so everyone will fall in line and vote the way they want them to, not protest when there is injustice. If the leaders are doing it, it must be right…right? That is how I thought for so long, and any time I questioned things, it fell on deaf ears. “This is the decision. Deal with it.”
It’s amazing how focused they were on getting to this moment in history. To give them credit, they think very long term and are willing to sacrifice and bide their time. Now if only the left - or somebody? - would adopt the same long term thinking. And make schools democratic institutions while they’re at it.
yes precisely! we should be doing the exact opposite that the right when it comes to schools.. instead, like someone commented also, we're just sort of standing by what already is and defending it in the face of its very obvious failure. we don't seem to be able to think long-term, to agree on the bigger picture in order to make radical change.. ugh, it's so frustrating!
I don't have the batteries at the moment to elaborate on my thoughts here Fran but yes, I couldn't agree more with what you are saying. Thanks for putting these words out there, they are so important.
You describe my experience as a student - I was very sensitive to being manipulated, at home and at school. I became a teacher in the hope of approaching education differently. Strangely, I have experienced even *more* hierarchy as an adult teaching in the public school system - and this after an early career in journalism, followed by years of teaching independently before entering the system. In a five-year span, I have been infantilized and bullied in ways I never anticipated. I have witnessed degradation of academic content, conduct expectations and critical thinking. Ironically, the DEI policies professed by some of the administrators I've encountered seem to have ushered in a different kind of hierarchy where dissent is not tolerated and "consequence" is a dirty word, at least for students. Personally, I think we are witnessing the collapse of public education in the space of a single generation. At one time, I would have said, like many still do, that "smaller classes" are the answer. But the same powers that used to say we couldn't afford smaller classes, are the powers now fixating on DEI. They're the same powers that will say a more decentralized, small-batch education system could be efficiently run by AI. We are already being encouraged to use Chat GPT for lesson-planning and correspondence. The prospect of machines teaching - in effect, programming - humans causes me a great deal of concern. The program is only as reliable as the programmer(s), and it's hard to believe anyone in the tech industry isn't already steeped in hierarchy. So the "business model" of education continues. The medium is the message. Your message, on the other hand, dovetails very neatly with the suggestion that authoritarian parenting in Germany helped give rise to fascism: https://www.jstor.org/stable/350737
We have fashioned ourselves yet another Dark Age. Hopefully, our collaborative instincts will kick in before we self-annihilate. Please keep up your important work.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It's so tricky right? Because on the one hand I am in support of public education, and in support of diversity and equity in public education. And, I do find that most people within the public ed system aren't willing to critique the way power is mis-used within it. I appreciate you mentioning how adults also suffer from the hierarchical nature of schooling. It's hard to know where to go from here!
This brings back memories of what it was like to be in Catholic school my whole childhood, K-12. Maybe I was one of the luckier ones that didn’t fall in line, and came out of it realizing that it wasn’t me that was wrong, but actually the structure/hierarchy/dynamics of the school itself. The rules that were enforced were absurd, like the dress code for instance. If you had rivets (you’ll probably have to google what that is) on your pants, it was an automatic detention. Even if they were on khaki pants, they were considered jeans and jeans were forbidden. End up with a handful of those and you were suspended. For rivets. Where is the life lesson here? Where in the wide world did we reflect on our dress code regulations and think, “thank you!!” Control, control, control.
There were outliers, teachers who really tried to connect with us and give us more autonomy and respect, but not many. I was scared and hyper-vigilant for most of those years until I completely rebelled. But even then, I was scared too.
My home was far more laid back than school, and maybe that’s why I could see the hypocrisy more clearly. I’m still unpacking how psychologically harmful my specific schools were. I have countless stories.
This was also decades ago. I have no experience myself with public school, but I wonder if people who did go would say they think their kids today have more or less autonomy.
Fran I resonate with so much of this. I believe in public school, but not in authoritarian public school. I believe in disrupting hierarchies between adults and children, and don't know how one can disrupt them effectively in a system build on oppressive white supremacist hierarchy (and patriarchy and ableism and and and)
I honestly don't know if our public institutions built on industrialized models of education will ever actually be able to give our kids the *embodied experience* of having their dignity and autonomy and respect cared for and protected because they are inherently built to serve the current system. And what our kids internalize within those oppressive systems becomes their primary lens on how they walk through the world, which is so not okay and totally tracks with our current political climate.
At the same time, it is incredibly hard for most working class folks who demand two earning incomes to find alternatives to what's offered in public school. Who gets to be free? Which kids get to have a liberation-based childhood? And how do we make the alternatives that you and I live and breathe with our kids accessible to everyone? Do we build parallel free schooling models aligned with our values? What would that take?
So glad to be in this conversation together. Thanks for your words!
You said it exactly - which kids get to be free? It shouldn't be a privilege but it is. Here's the thing though: if the political will was there, an overhaul of the public school system into something more democratic could be possible. It would actually probably be less costly in the long-term. But the thing is the research on how children learn and thrive just isn't of interest to politicians because we're too busy worrying about whether our children are competitive globally, and whether we are hitting targets and looking at children as economic units rather than people. It feels kind of hopeless on the public education front. And, I also know private options will only have so much impact and will perhaps cause even more disparity. So tough.
I think politicians on the right are worried about gutting public schools, and politicians on the left are worried about preserving them. But neither party is particularly trying to reimagine what is happening within schools pedagogically.
yep - and while i'd rather be preserving than gutting, i wish there were a third option where we entirely overhaul the system.
Yes! I’ve worked for a long time on incremental change in unchanging systems, then decided my energy was better spent supporting and amplifying those imagining alternatives. The part I most internally struggle with is who is left suffering within those systems while folks imagine alternatives. And for that I’m very thankful for the educators attempting to change it from within
I love this so much. Thank you for your writing on this!
thanks for reading!!
Absolutely. It's natural to fall in line instead of rebel when the school system sets the tone and well-meaning parents follow suit. I wish liberal-leaning parent's could realize how much power they have to break that automatic, oppressive chain reaction. Just the way right-wing parents rally collectively to ban books and bathroom choice, etc. It's as if liberal parenting means you follow the rules and be "good" and just do what the teacher says to do so that you can get good grades and go to college, ad nauseam.
yes totally. We could have a much stronger movement to change the school system if liberals would actually recognise that there was so much wrong with it!!
So very true. Having been raised in authoritarianism in the home and the church, now I know why evangelical Christians are so focused on obedience: so everyone will fall in line and vote the way they want them to, not protest when there is injustice. If the leaders are doing it, it must be right…right? That is how I thought for so long, and any time I questioned things, it fell on deaf ears. “This is the decision. Deal with it.”
It’s amazing how focused they were on getting to this moment in history. To give them credit, they think very long term and are willing to sacrifice and bide their time. Now if only the left - or somebody? - would adopt the same long term thinking. And make schools democratic institutions while they’re at it.
yes precisely! we should be doing the exact opposite that the right when it comes to schools.. instead, like someone commented also, we're just sort of standing by what already is and defending it in the face of its very obvious failure. we don't seem to be able to think long-term, to agree on the bigger picture in order to make radical change.. ugh, it's so frustrating!
I don't have the batteries at the moment to elaborate on my thoughts here Fran but yes, I couldn't agree more with what you are saying. Thanks for putting these words out there, they are so important.
I hear you on batteries!! Thank you for reading. This is so important in my opinion!