Thousands of teachers traveled across the country to protest in front of the White House on Saturday. … Their message boiled down to one point, which was summed up by the sound check before the first speaker took the stage: Tap. Tap. “No testing, no testing, 1-2-3.” … Under that “failing” label, Romero’s school has cut back time for physical education and recess, and she has been required to use a new reading curriculum, she said. The regimen “stifles imagination,” she said. (
So why do we tolerate dictator levels of teacher autonomy?In Western society, we have implicit assumptions on fundamentals of individual and group behavior, and the management of the social heirarchy. One of those assumptions is that someone, or more likely, some group, is to be deemed the expert on all substative social, political, technical and scientific issues. Know-it-all Western civilization has experts on everything. Expertism is deterministic. With the implicit assumption that someone knows best on almost everything, the social order is structured to arbitrate who the experts will be, and depending on how unlikely that expertise actually is, by more and more elaborate and arbitary means, until expertise can be named, by pointing to those at the top of the social heirarchy, or sub-hierarchy, as the case may be. Most striking about the West is that expertise does not mean 'high skill level', rather it means 'high social status'. For a supposedly scientific society, this is extraordinary.
For schools, teachers are defined as the experts, not just on learning but to some extent on child social and cognitive development in general. The question then is, if not teachers then who? Answering 'no one', is not a valid position, culturally speaking. Once again, to relate this to one of my pet ideas - determinicity drives out quality. That is one reason, btw, that process oriented firms function poorly, because the rigidity of process makes internal demand patterns deterministic. The same is true for compulsory education. Compulsory anything is necessarily low quality. I challenge anyone to name a single example that contradicts that assertion.
Foseti would say that's the inevitable outcome when you can't fire employees, they become their own bosses.
I recall reading once (I think at the blog formerly known as Austrian Economists) that universities are like the worker-owned co-ops of old Yugoslavian market socialism. Which at least had a market the different organizations could compete in.
the purveyors of certain sacred values in a society are not meant to be questioned. doctors, teachers, etc. lawyers used to fit this bill but made a laughingstock of themselves.
I absolutely hated elementary school, for exactly this reason...
No. Why?
Did you GO to school? It's obvious.
He gave some of his view on the purpose of school here.
drewfus, do you have a blog?
Minicrit, http://www.johntaylorgatto....
This post doesn't make much sense.
Schools are designed to, and do, stifle student imaginations.When? How? What? Could you provide a bit more of an explanation?
So why do we tolerate dictator levels of teacher autonomy?In Western society, we have implicit assumptions on fundamentals of individual and group behavior, and the management of the social heirarchy. One of those assumptions is that someone, or more likely, some group, is to be deemed the expert on all substative social, political, technical and scientific issues. Know-it-all Western civilization has experts on everything. Expertism is deterministic. With the implicit assumption that someone knows best on almost everything, the social order is structured to arbitrate who the experts will be, and depending on how unlikely that expertise actually is, by more and more elaborate and arbitary means, until expertise can be named, by pointing to those at the top of the social heirarchy, or sub-hierarchy, as the case may be. Most striking about the West is that expertise does not mean 'high skill level', rather it means 'high social status'. For a supposedly scientific society, this is extraordinary.
For schools, teachers are defined as the experts, not just on learning but to some extent on child social and cognitive development in general. The question then is, if not teachers then who? Answering 'no one', is not a valid position, culturally speaking. Once again, to relate this to one of my pet ideas - determinicity drives out quality. That is one reason, btw, that process oriented firms function poorly, because the rigidity of process makes internal demand patterns deterministic. The same is true for compulsory education. Compulsory anything is necessarily low quality. I challenge anyone to name a single example that contradicts that assertion.
Foseti would say that's the inevitable outcome when you can't fire employees, they become their own bosses.
I recall reading once (I think at the blog formerly known as Austrian Economists) that universities are like the worker-owned co-ops of old Yugoslavian market socialism. Which at least had a market the different organizations could compete in.
the purveyors of certain sacred values in a society are not meant to be questioned. doctors, teachers, etc. lawyers used to fit this bill but made a laughingstock of themselves.