Comments on: School Attitudes

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 07:37:38 +0000

The degree of authoritarianism contradicts the modern propaganda idea that society is free and equal- it is thus clear hypocrisy on society’s part.

There is a case for what you’re saying, and a case for attempting to move towards genuine equality (as the current situation leaves the alternative of leaving people deluded or them realising and despairing over their absence of hopes in life). There is also a case for keeping the current competition, though acknowledging the near-inevitability of outcome- the prospect of status mobility encourages people to do better than they otherwise would.

By: Jenni

Jenni — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:39:43 +0000

If you are developing the view that modern schooling is about making people ready for the workforce then you must pick up a copy of John Gatto’s An Underground History of American Education. It is about a tad bit more than just accepting hierarchy and domination, but you are on the right path. Gatto’s book will lead you to a wealth of resources where you can read the education pioneers for yourself.

By: Overcoming Bias : School Isn’t About Learning

Overcoming Bias : School Isn’t About Learning — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:33:03 +0000

[...] for whom it doesn’t work. School isn’t about learning “material”, school is about learning to accept workplace domination and ranking, tolerate long hours of doing boring stuff [...]

By: James

James — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 21:22:01 +0000

“Stratification: Students from different class backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and genders are overwhelmingly exposed to different environments and social relationships and thus are tracked and prepared for different positions in the hierarchy. The different experiences and successes lead each student to see her place as appropriate.”
Is this saying that school enforces the segregation of groups by race and gender, or saying the opposite that individuals of different backgrounds will be put into a single hierarchy unrelated to background?
It is hard to believe the former, that mandatory public school supports segregation by background more than the alternatives.

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 07:46:38 +0000

Thom Blake, you have missed my point. I’m not arguing about what the school’s goal is, I’m arguing about what they manage to achieve, or not. School’s goal may indeed be to get students to get comfortable accepting domination from whoever the authority happens to be in the future, but what I am arguing is that schools don’t achieve that goal, if indeed they do have it.

If the people who were authorities in the US Federal government of the 1940s really thought that “Everything your boss says is right”, then how come they weren’t all segregationists after Woodrow Wilson’s time? If the people who were authorities in the US Southern States in the 1950s and 1960s were conditioned to believe that “Everything your boss says is right”, why weren’t they following the instructions of the US Federal government? If gays and lesbians were conditioned to believe that everything the authorities say is right, why did they start questioning the medical profession’s beliefs about homosexuality?

By: anon

anon — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:45:39 +0000

This theory is bogus. East Asian countries do not have the “disparate impact” problem (because East Asians all look alike anyway), and if anything, they care more about schooling, not less.

By: Thom Blake

Thom Blake — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:25:51 +0000

>The simple explanation to me is that schools don’t manage to get students to accept the beliefs, values and forms of behaviour on the basis of authority, even if that’s what schools are intended to do.

Tracy W, I don’t think that was the point. It’s not that school has the goal of indoctrinating the students into believing what the current authority wants them to believe. Rather, the goal is to get students to get comfortable accepting domination from whoever the authority happens to be in the future. In the school, that is demonstrated by “Everything the teacher says is right”; in business, that translates to “Everything your boss says is right”.

By: William H. Stoddard

William H. Stoddard — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:14:11 +0000

Edgar Friedenberg’s Coming of Age in America, published back in the Kennedy era, I believe, makes some similar points.

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 07:30:12 +0000

Konkvistador – thanks for clarifying what you were meaning. In the case of the authorities like the Federal Government supporting desegregation in the 1940s – authorities are made up of people. And those people were once children, who mostly went to school.

If schools were churning out people who had learnt to defer to authority, why would their old students when they became authorities themselves have adopted ideas like “segregation is bad”, that differed from previous generations? The simple explanation to me is that schools don’t manage to get students to accept the beliefs, values and forms of behaviour on the basis of authority, even if that’s what schools are intended to do.

I agree that authorities are never in complete agreement about their interests.

By: Indy

Indy — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:20:13 +0000

Isn’t this what Huxley was writing about the Brave-New-World society – where everyone is conditioned from birth to happily accept their proper place, role, pattern of behavior and life-cycles in the grand scheme of the perfectly organized society?

Query: Is this truly such a bad thing? Are we doing too much too well, or too little too poorly?