Damned Out of Their Own Mouths
(posted by Kevin Carson)
Angelica already beat me to the scoop with the California homeschooling story. One thing I thought especially interesting about it was the judge’s own rationale, based on his understanding of the central purpose of public education.
“A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare,” the judge wrote, quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue.
He ain’t just whistling Dixie. In fact his remarks are actually quite tame compared to some of the early literature of the public educationist movement, which was pretty explicit on the role of the schools in getting everyone’s mind right. The schools were there to train their human raw material into becoming efficient components of the productive machinery, as well as loyal and obedient citizens. They were, above all, to be educated as suited their station in life: provided only with the conceptual and vocational skills necessary to their function in the productive machinery, while avoiding any over-education that would lead to discontent. “I’m so glad I’m a Beta. Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas.”
As I never tire of pointing out (some might say to the point of beating a dead horse), it’s probably not coincidental that the first statewide public school systems came about at the same time as factory employers needed workers who would show up on time, line up on command, cheerfully take orders from an authority figure behind a desk, and eat and piss at the sound of a bell.
From this perspective the school, organized on a factory model, was an ideal institution for reshaping a society largely of self-employed artisans and family farmers who were used to setting the pace of their own work and making their own decisions, and who viewed taking orders from a boss as unnatural and degrading.
This socialization aspect of schools took on added importance at the turn of the 20th century. First, the corporate elites who ran the country were terrified, during the depression of the 1890s, that the groundswell of mass radicalism in this country would shake their power to its foundations. The decade saw the Homestead and Pullman strikes, the rise of the Western Federation of Miners (future core of the Wobblies), Coxey’s Army marching on Washington, the eclipse of native individualist anarchism (radical enough in its own right) by the foreign communist anarchists of Chicago, and the People’s Party damn near taking the White House on a fusion ticket with the Democrats. At one point Jay Gould, speaking for the great plutocrats (who were in full-blown panic mode), threatened a “capital strike” and nationwide lockout if Bryan were elected.
It was around this time that the Little Red Schoolhouse version of American history came into full flower, with its reverence for the “Founding Fathers” as a pantheon of all-wise authority figures. The Pledge of Allegiance, the cult of Old Glory, and the religion of 100% Americanism all came into being at about this time (and were a radical departure from the authentic American tradition). In short, the economic and political elites of the country decided it was time for working people to “get their minds right.” And the public schools played a central role in this mission.
The pious version of American history taught in the state schools was a considerable departure from the authentic American tradition. The real Revolution, fought by a bunch of anti-authoritarian hell raisers, was more about overthrowing institutionalized authority here at home (especially that of the moneyed and landed interests) than about fighting a foreign enemy. So it’s hard to miss the irony of a new “received version” of American history that equated “Americanism” to “loyalty.” Voltairine De Cleyre contrasted the two in “Anarchism and American Traditions“:
American traditions, begotten of religious rebellion, small self-sustaining communities, isolated conditions, and hard pioneer life, grew during the colonization period of one hundred and seventy years from the settling of Jamestown to the outburst of the Revolution….
The revolution is the sudden and unified consciousness of these traditions, their loud assertion, the blow dealt by their indomitable will against the counter force of tyranny, which has never entirely recovered from the blow [she wrote this a long time ago--K.C.], but which from then till now has gone on remolding and regrappling the instruments of governmental power, that the Revolution sought to shape and hold as defenses of liberty….
To the average American of today, the Revolution means the series of battles fought by the patriot army with the armies of England. The millions of school children who attend our public schools are taught to draw maps of the siege of Boston and the siege of Yorktown, to know the general plan of the several campaigns, to quote the number of prisoners of war surrendered with Burgoyne; they are required to remember the date when Washington crossed the Delaware on the ice…; they know that the Declaration of Independence was signed on the Fourth of July, 1776, and the Treaty of Paris in 1783; and then they think they have learned the Revolution – blessed be George Washington! They have no idea why it should have been called a “revolution” instead of the “English War,” or any similar title: it’s the name of it, that’s all….
Such is the spirit of government-provided schools. Ask any child what he knows about Shays’ rebellion, and he will answer, “Oh, some of the farmers couldn’t pay their taxes, and Shays led a rebellion against the court-house at Worcester, so they could burn up the deeds; and when Washington heard of it he sent over an army quick and taught ’em a good lesson” – “And what was the result of it?” “The result? Why – why – the result was – Oh yes, I remember – the result was they saw the need of a strong federal government to collect the taxes and pay the debts.” Ask if he knows what was said on the other side of the story, ask if he knows that the men who had given their goods and their health and their strength for the freeing of the country now found themselves cast into prison for debt, sick, disabled, and poor, facing a new tyranny for the old; that their demand was that the land should become the free communal possession of those who wished to work it, not subject to tribute, and the child will answer “No.”
March 17th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Kind of shocking that the judge would be so forthright about government education’s real purposes. I’d say that quote ought to get around as far and wide as possible, but, thanks in large part to government schooling, I’m not sure how much good it would do.
Richard Mitchell talks about the founding tenets of state miseducation in his book ‘The Graves of Academe’: http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/graves-of-academe/04.htm
March 17th, 2008 at 3:35 am
I do wish the left would start questioning state education more. Today any attempt to free education from the state is seen as a ploy of the right to enforce social barriers and keep the poor poor, or to teach religious intolerance and indoctrinate their children, which must be balanced by the ‘fair’ view of the state.
UK Liberals (who tend to have a lot of time for JS Mill, too much sometimes) choose to ignore his warning about state education being a tool for state indoctrination of children.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:28 am
I don’t think it is necessarily true that the Left is so sympathetic to public schooling, at least not the left that I am familiar with. Most of the hard left basically sees schooling in a way not dissimilar than “vulgar” libertarians (Kevin’s terminology keeps seeping into my analysis!)—it’s the state imposing its will upon the ignorant masses—although the end goal is often viewed differently. Marxists see it as a method for producing “good workers” for capitalist elites—I suspect vulgar libertarians see it as some sort of creeping socialism.
I work in education (not that this makes me the expert) but I tend to have a more complex perspective on the whole thing. I see public schooling, as with many public institutions and programs, as contested space. There are many competing visions as to what public schools are supposed to do—which is basically the problem. You have the vision articulated by the judge above—inculcate patriotic citizens; the economic determinist model—produce disciplined workers; but there is a third rail which is rarely discussed—historically working people have viewed public education as a “leveller”—a means to reduce class (and race) iniquity based on the enlightened notion that an educated citizenry is an effective tool against tyranny. This is a public good, and yes rich folks, you need to pony up–even though it is not in your interest to do so.
Although the triumph of the common schooling movement is often viewed as the heroic crusade of Horace Mann, it ignores the role of working folks and freed slaves to create these institutions and the continued contestation that took place in the 20th century over the means, ends, and access to public schooling. Therefore, I am reluctant to simply lump public schools into the “capitalist-state directed indoctrination” camp and then jettison them.
Unfortunately, and all too often, criticisms of public education aren’t motivating by any real attempt to solve the problem and are “ploys” to undermine the notion of common schooling and, most importantly, the levelling effect. To give an example—the type of which we are all familiar. One of the constant criticisms of public schools is that they don’t provide sufficient discipline (not that they provide too much “state directed” discipline, but *too little*). I know a lot of folk who pull their kids out of public schools, not because of the curriculum, lack of activities, or quality of teachers, but because they don’t want their kids mixing with the “riff-raff.” Then, they place them in private schools (sometimes religious based, but not always) where the kids wear uniforms and march in formation and become “educated” on how to sit still and recite various prayers on cue—talk about a factory education. They are willing to accept an inferior education (in terms of class choices and activities), in exchange for a “well-behaved” kid. That is their right, but I don’t see how that gets us anywhere.
I have even had people tell me that they put their kids in a private school so they wouldn’t be exposed to “racism”—of course the school they put their kids into was all white, and the school they pulled them out of was integrated—go figure. By this logic, the best way to escape racism is by joining the Klan. The whole “standards debate” also flows from this twisted logic. Although schools are supposed to be teaching “facts” which will create a patriotic citizenry—apparently public schools aren’t very good at it and we know this because public school kids do poorly on standardized tests—they don’t jump through the hoop when the trainer says “jump.”
I am not trying to say that all forms of alternative education are bad, nor am I trying to say that many criticisms of public schools aren’t on the mark, but the debate seems to flow from a number of false premises and false dichotomies—the disconnect starting with the competing visions of what education is supposed to do and whether one actually believes that “schooling for all” is a good idea.
Sorry for the long post.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
David,
Thanks for the Mitchell link. I enjoyed reading those two books of his you mailed.
Tristan and Goffchile,
My impression is that there’s quite a bit of critical opposition on the genuine Left. The main uncritical support comes from vanilla-flavored liberals. Generally if you check out local homeschooling (and barter economy, organic gardening, etc., etc.) networks, they include both right-wing fundy types and left-wing hippie types. The Crunchy Cons are a good example of the overlap.
Thanks for the perspective, Goffchile. Just from an outsider’s perspective, I would guess that the “third rail” position you mention has had by far the hardest time when it comes to actual control of what’s going on inside the educational system, and that the education schools and school administrations tend to be dominated by those who see the schools’ purpose as accommodating students to the needs of economic and political power. The community activists who see the schools as *theirs*, and the teachers who are allied with them, are for the most part swimming upstream against their own administrations. Just an outsider’s guess.
I certainly wish them well, though. For the past severalyears, the school administration in Fayetteville, Ark. has been closing down old neighborhood elementary schools for which the local communities felt a great deal of affection, in order to open up new ones on the west edge of town near real estate huckster Jim Lindsey’s new subdivisions. The last proposed shutdown was cancelled after the word got around that people were planning to start automatically voting down all millage increases if any more schools closed.
The new debate is over whether to rebuild the old, centrally located high school on the same site, or to replace it with a new school out on (guess where?) the western edge of town. For a while, the local community of “aginners” and “troublemakers” (mostly aging hippies who settled here over thirty years ago) had a third option, of doing minimal remodelling to the old school and leaving it the same size, and building a second one, in order to have two human scale schools closer to the populations being served. Of course this third option pretty much disappeared, and (predictably) the school administration seems likely to go through the motions of pretending to listen to public input to make up its mind before it goes through what it indended all along: to build the new, big school on the edge of town. Although the stuffed suits strenuously deny it, the decision to have one big school instead of two smaller ones reflects mainly a desire to keep the school’s AAAA athletic status.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
The judge’s rationale is indeed scary. I happen to think that public education has its place, but not the place the judge wants to give to it. I was glad to read your comments against over-reverence for the Founding Fathers. I’ve often felt that “constitutionalist” right-libertarians’ reverence–sometimes it feels like worship–for the founding generation is not only disingenuous but also counter-productive to the promotion of libertarian ideals. (In politics, I have in mind Ron Paul etc.; in academia, Randy Barnett.) Disingenuous because they don’t respect the founding generation as the founding generation, but rather respect them for their libertarian ideals. Counter-productive because we’d be better off arguing for libertarian ideals not for reverence for people that espoused them.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Quoting Kevin–”The community activists who see the schools as *theirs*, and the teachers who are allied with them, are for the most part swimming upstream against their own administrations.”
Probably true–and it gets into lots of issues about city politics, class and community, issues of race, ethnicity and religion. One of the problems of public schools is that they are asked to do *a lot* with an incredibly diverse group of children. The frustrations that many people feel are quite understandable, but what I fear is an erosion of the values of social solidarity– that the notion of children getting a good education is a good thing, even if they aren’t my kids, is being replaced with a mentality of “make sure my kid gets a good education and to hell with everyone else.”
I do agree that making schools bigger and bigger is not the best answer, although it is often the most financially efficient answer–which gets into lots of issues about the inadequacies of school funding and the problematic debate about the social cost/benefit of public education. If more people viewed public education as community space, rather than a pay for service diploma mill, the debate over public education would be very different.
I honestly have not had too much direct experience with homeschooling. From what I have seen, the outcomes are mixed. I don’t think it should be outlawed, but I am not sure if it is the answer either. And I personally don’t think that charter schools and vouchers are much more than an attempt to restructure our school system to fit the post-industrial job market–but under the banner of “school choice”–I chose to send my kid to a good school and you chose to send yours to prison.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Homeschooling is a good solution to the education problem for many families. The most frequent (sensible) criticism is that parents may not be versed in the whole range of necessary school subjects. However, critics forget that homeschoolers generally co-op and share knowledge (as well as making use of professional curriculum and online and mail programs).
I think the homeschooling movement of today is well in line with traditional working-class self-help and mutual aid ideas.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I have even had people tell me that they put their kids in a private school so they wouldn’t be exposed to “racism”—of course the school they put their kids into was all white, and the school they pulled them out of was integrated—go figure.
Don’t be so dismissive, they have a point. Sports teams and the military are examples of institutions that have done a fairly good job of breaking down racial barriers between people (because it is necessary to perform well), public schools are notorious for their separate lunch-tables and inter-racial fights.
March 18th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Pluralism and diversity is at odds with the very notion of “common” schooling. There is potentially as many notions of what a good education is as there are individuals, and compulsory state schooling is a way of squashing free thought and free association, if not by design then as an inadvertent byproduct.
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
Just another data point that says that the modern Left has nothing in common with its historical roots. The Left known to the French Revolution was in favor of radical change, but the Modern Left is committed to deepening the status quo. The entrenched Teachers Unions are firmly committed to supporting the entire power structure personified in the Democratic Party, and to the public education system which not only supports them but perpetuates the status quo. They are, in other words, the True Conservatives.
Unfortunately, there is something to the stereotype of home-schoolers as people who want to maintain the right to teach snake-handling. They aren’t the majority, but they don’t help.