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Peggy C's avatar

This should be headlined in all the media, read by every voter, and discussed in every public forum possible. But is has to be spoken along with the massive pollution killing and sickening mush of the planet. We are the last farm left in our part of upstate NY that is not spewing poison on the land. We are surrounded by king corn being grown by big ag having taken over every family farm for miles around. This mean roundup, chemicals, poisons of all sorts being spread on the land then into the aquifers, streams and lakes to eventually make this area a "bulls eye" for cancers and autoimmune diseases. There is no such thing as protections against this despite what the GOP tells the public about the necessity of deregulation all our protections and sabotaging efforts to control overpopulation.

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Robert B. Elliott's avatar

It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve heard a dozen times here statements attributing the rise in right-wing ideology and authoritarian influence in the US to the ending of civics education in our schools, post Reagan. But, in an authoritarian milieu, nonwhite children merely get what white children get from that experience.

I refer to a paper from 1972 by Bruce Romanish, a prominent educator, reprinted in 1995: Authoritarianism and Education – a comparative approach, Miles Simpson. Sociometry, Vol. 35, No.2 (Mar., 1972) Amer Sociological Assn..

I’m copying excerpts from the Romanish article with some commentary for this audience and some from my unpublished book on authoritarianism. Quotation marks and bold print (as well as his more polished academic lingo) distinguish Professor Romanish’s remarks from mine. He strongly supports public schools.

I agree with the professor on most of his observations. I’m critical of his ability to blithely accept the pathetic chronic conditions which have brought us to where we are, however. Indeed, what has changed in these respects in 50 years?

First, here is what Romanish was saying in 1972 about the inadequacy of education for citizenship:

“Missing are ends which have democratic experiences at the center. There are occasional references to citizenship education along with the dispositions required of the good citizen. But this is a view of citizenship that is primarily passive and lacks an articulated concept of the active, participatory citizen and citizenry.”

In addition, the professor said:

“Overall, most students receive a steady diet of what can be described as a lifeless intellectual experience.”

He perceives the roles played by schools as “…making the future citizenry governable”, as opposed to making them capable of the complicated tasks associated with self-governance and participatory democracy.

He speaks about “order for order’s sake”, the “institutional norm of tranquility” and “subsidiary assumptions among which include learning as an essentially passive act, learning equates with knowledge acquisition and transfer, and sounds are disruptive to learning…”.

His stated purpose in the paper was to “…determine how groups arrive at authoritarian orientations and what role the school may play in that development.”

In reflecting on the rise of right-wing authoritarian extremism and fascism in Europe and the US early in the last century leading to the two world wars, he notes that “…it took the form of a slow accumulating avalanche that eventually overwhelmed any resistance or opposition.” Does this not happen in schools primarily because of authority dressed in sheep’s clothing?

He traces a primary route from both hard-nosed child rearing practices and the “educational system” to that devastating end point we would like to forget. We see an educational parallel to the slow accumulating avalanche of authoritarian orientations leading to world war.

He speaks about what one author termed a ‘poisonous pedagogy’ “whereby the child is silenced and taught obedience to authority by whatever means necessary.”

Where have we heard all that before? Yet, he proposes no effective means of preventing the “avalanche”. He has glossed over the realities to conclude that the fix is already in. The authority inherent in compulsory attendance is our friend. If only his ivory tower posturings were matched by his convictions! Focus on the next eloquent statement:

"A basic assumption in what follows is that if public schools are to be in some sense a life line for political democracy they should in turn exhibit characteristics and behaviors which point in that direction. Schools must go beyond platitudes about literacy and democracy by giving evidence they are conscious of the political implications of the way they are organized, the way power is exercised within schools, ways in which the young are classified, categorized, and controlled, etc. "

How true. Next: Romanish noticed that the “…constant danger in schools that authority will degenerate into authoritarianism because a good portion of those attracted to teaching and school administration consciously or (more commonly) unconsciously wish to exercise authority in order to satisfy some unfulfilled need within themselves”. This did not strike him as a reason to remove the coercion inherent in mandatory attendance itself.

Moving on, Romanish says:

“Freedom in a democracy does not accompany the birth process. It is an acquired status not easily achieved. If the schools do not give evidence that they are consciously and actively engaged on behalf of the kind of education required for active democratic citizenship, then by definition they are contributing to its demise. People who are kept in a state of infantile dependence, in which all major decisions are taken for them, fail to develop the strength of personality that would enable them to exercise freedom if they were offered.”

Despite that sobering and beautifully phrased appraisal, Romanish accepts nevertheless that some kinds or degrees of authority (and infantile dependency) in schools is legitimate. Only when abused (typically by authoritarian individuals with inordinate power who got their “education” in this same hierarchical environment) is it harmful and a serious problem. I think of it as akin to placing an alligator in the classroom.

Getting back to authoritarianism in schools, he says:

“…scant attention has been paid to the school's role as a shaper of patterns of belief, conduct, and ways of thinking in relationship to authoritarianism.”

In the same vein, comparing the lack of efforts to counteract authoritarian tendencies and proclivities in our schools to those of the Allies who strove to address those issues in Germany after WWII, he says:

“Since it was clear the Allies believed that school organization and structure are directly related to social aspirations for democracy, one must wonder why so little attention has been devoted to the same ends in the U.S. Even the current wave of reform which seeks school "restructuring" and employs concepts such as 'site-based management' does so with rhetoric that rarely gestures in the direction of the democratic.”

We cannot say it too many times. Laws which compel attendance in school or anywhere else for twelve years are antithetical to democracy and freedom on their face. Romanish has put his finger on the culprit and properly named it. Yet he fails to connect it with the causal circumstance which not only invites, but actually requires, that harmful agent he identified.

Later he complains that “Students must absorb the curriculum which is presented in an almost fixed and final form.” He uses the terms “homogenized” and “pasteurized” in referring to curricular content.

Elsewhere he says, “Authoritarians equate freedom with chaos.”

We hear reassuring echoes of Holt, Postman, Goodman, and many others.

Next:

“Authoritarianism favors absolute obedience and stands against individual freedom. It has been described as the most conspicuous political fact of modern times and survives politically with the helpful assistance of parallel and auxiliary structures designed to propagandize the citizenry. This implies an overt structure dedicated to the task of shaping the thoughts and beliefs of a populace. Yet an overarching structure implies the creation of an official means of inculcating a people whereas one can point to a host of authoritarian agencies in place prior to the crowning of any authoritarian political system. In other words a chicken/egg dilemma does not appear to exist. Authoritarian political systems do not create oppressive settings out of whole cloth but instead rise in the context of authoritarian seedbeds sown by various social and cultural institutions and practices.”

Cut to the chase. Authoritarian seedbeds. A 900-page book of rules. Romanish argues that there are indeed clear and evident dangers from authority in schools. Still, he needs to believe that authority can be limited and kept under control in this through some unidentified mechanism or that its arbitrary nature can be changed somehow.

And:

“If schools exhibit democratic characteristics, that may reflect democratic features of the larger social order or the schools are making a contribution to society's movement in that direction. Conversely, an authoritarian experience in school life suggests either a broader cultural authoritarianism or reveals an institution contributing to the future advance of authoritarianism. It is possible for schools to reflect political values incongruent with the larger social order but the symbiotic nature of schools and society make it unlikely.”

In that vein he also refers to consent produced through intentional subterfuge echoing Chomsky:

“Modern authoritarianism does not necessarily seek to reduce individuals to mere passive subjects but tends rather to seek politicization on behalf of a specific ideology. This makes it possible for individuals to have political convictions of sorts so long as they correspond to official ideology and are in keeping with what they have been expected to believe. In this way a cognitive style can be associated with authoritarianism, namely, a close-minded cognitive functioning. This is explained in part by the fact that agencies of power sustain control by eliciting consent more than by means of repression.”

Is it paranoid or conspiratorial to suspect that “common core” and “mind-control” or behavioral modification are linked?

Schools that are not dysfunctional or inimial to democracy do not attract severe criticism or privatizers.

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