Education

Democracy is a way of personal life controlled not merely by faith in human nature in general but by faith in the capacity of human beings for intelligent judgment and action if proper conditions are furnished. I have been accused more than once and from opposed quarters of an undue, a utopian, faith in the possibilities of intelligence and in education as a correlate of intelligence. At all events, I did not invent this faith. I acquired it from my surroundings as far as those surroundings were animated by the democratic spirit. For what is the faith of democracy in the role of consultation, of conference, of persuasion, of discussion, in formation of public opinion, which in the long run is self-corrective, except faith in the capacity of the intelligence of the common man to respond with commonsense to the free play of facts and ideas which are secured by effective guarantees of free inquiry, free assembly and free communication? I am willing to leave to upholders of totalitarian states of the right and the left the view that faith in the capacities of intelligence is utopia. For the faith is so deeply embedded in the methods which are intrinsic to democracy that when a professed democrat denies the faith he convicts himself of treachery to his profession.

When I think of the conditions under which men and women are living in many foreign countries today, fear of espionage, with danger hanging over the meeting of friends for friendly conversation in private gatherings, I am inclined to believe that the heart and final guarantee of democracy is in free gatherings of neighbors on the street corner to discuss back and forth what is read in uncensored news of the day, and in gatherings of friends in the living rooms of houses and apartments to converse freely with one another. Intolerance, abuse, calling of names because of differences of opinion about religion or politics or business, as well as because of differences of race, color, wealth or degree of culture are treason to the democratic way of life. For everything which bars freedom and fullness of communication sets up barriers that divide human beings into sets and cliques, into antagonistic sects and factions, and thereby undermines the democratic way of life. Merely legal guarantees of the civil liberties of free belief, free expression, free assembly are of little avail if in daily life freedom of communication, the give and take of ideas, facts, experiences, is choked by mutual suspicion, by abuse, by fear and hatred. These things destroy the essential condition of the democratic way of living even more effectually than open coercion which- as the example of totalitarian states proves-is effective only when it succeeds in breeding hate, suspicion, intolerance in the minds of individual human beings.

In a recent study, I interviewed 12 teachers, primarily in rural towns in the Northeast, about how they deal with problems that arise in the classroom every day. They discussed how they came up with responses based on best practices they had learned in school from resources such as books and videos. They also spoke of techniques they learned in professional development workshops.

Of the nine who worked in public schools or publicly funded child care centers, however, all but one of the teachers were influenced by pressure to follow a curriculum to fidelity. This pressure came from administrators in the form of threats of punishments and even job loss, as well as from colleagues who questioned when they taught a curriculum differently. 

[…]

The term “fidelity” comes from the sciences and refers to the precise execution of a protocol in an experiment to ensure results are reliable. However, a classroom is not a lab, and students are not experiments.

As a result, teachers and teacher educators have long decried fidelity and the impact it has on them and their students.

One participant in my study, a fourth grade public school teacher, described an oppressive environment at her school: “They were really driving the curriculum down our throats. We need to meet this at this date. And everyone should be at this lesson at this date.”

This counteracted what she was taught in college – every student is different, and every classroom is different. Not all teachers will be on the same lesson on the same day.

What we can see from this example of Nazi Germany, and from studying other instances of fascist movements around the world, is that there are five major themes of fascist education:

1. National greatness
2. National purity
3. National innocence
4. Strict gender roles
5. Vilification of the left

These themes are essentially different ways that fascist movements stoke grievances among the dominant group they serve in order to further their aims. In the process, they are careful to eliminate any contradiction of their narrative. This would include, for example, any scholarly research revealing flaws in national myths, any form of education that clearly reveals national guilt, any suggestion that diversity and plurality might be beneficial to society, or that more equitable gender relations might be beneficial, or that the political left is significantly less of a threat than they imagine.

Although there is scant empirical research examining bullying by professional educators, anecdotal evidence abounds. Teachers who bully students often have a reputation within the school system. Colleagues who are bystanders often are aware of problematic conduct, but little is known about exactly what these bystanders observe, how often they observe it, how the school administrators respond, or how bullying behaviors by teachers affect school climate.

With the assistance of Teaching Tolerance, we at Northern Michigan University conducted an online survey of 1,067 educators during July 2017. To our knowledge, this is the first significant survey of its kind.

[…]

The survey data do not offer a full understanding of the process of “target selection” by teachers. The data suggest, however, that students who pose behavioral challenges, lack motivation or possess immutable characteristics that are not valued by the school are more likely to be targets of bullying. One respondent stated that the teacher bullies at their private, religious, suburban high school “want to maintain control of the classroom, but do not know how with challenging students, esp[ecially] those who are not high achievers in this age of high stakes tests that teachers get judged on.”

Teachers who bully can justify to themselves and to others that their conduct is appropriate because, after all, the student needed to be “disciplined” or “motivated” to perform. In fact, offending teachers may claim they are obligated to use aggressive tactics with “difficult” students. A teacher who works at a public urban elementary school explained, “I think they are scared of being seen as less powerful or authoritarian, and so they overreact to minor infractions.”

Trump sees the accreditation process as his “secret weapon” in his war on universities. In the USA, states have varying control of education, and universities have enjoyed a lot of autonomy. The practice of accreditation involves a “non-governmental, peer evaluation of educational institutions and programmes”.

However, eligibility for federal aid, grants, student loans and other funds that universities depend on is contingent on accreditation. And while the government does not control the process of accreditation itself, the Department of Education has the power to “recognise” accreditors, or withdraw this recognition.

With the new Republican Congress behind him, Trump wants to empower new accreditors with ideological standards such as “defending the American tradition and western civilisation, protecting free speech, eliminating wasteful administrative positions that drive up costs incredibly, [and] removing all Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucrats”.

Incoming Vice President JD Vance once proclaimed that “professors are the enemy”. This year, Vance introduced The Encampments or Endowments Bill in the US Senate which, if passed, would punish “campus disorder” by making federal funding contingent on universities removing campus protest encampments. Efforts to introduce what Pen America has called “educational gag orders” – laws, policies and bills that restrict teaching and training on certain topics such as racism, gender and American history – in colleges and universities are also “likely to disproportionately affect the free speech rights of students, educators, and trainers who are women, people of color, and LGBTQ+.” 

Some high-octane anger fuel in this excellent piece:

COVID patients began raising the alarm that they weren't getting better, scientists are still racing to unravel the mystery of why a significant minority of people develop debilitating chronic symptoms while others seem to recover just fine. But if the plight of adults with long COVID remains poorly understood, the millions of children who have it worldwide are practically invisible, their suffering — and the formative years they're losing to this disease — obscured by the myths that COVID is "harmless" for kids and the pandemic is "over".

In Australia, the lack of awareness is biting in shocking ways. Too many children with long COVID are being dismissed by doctors who say there's nothing they can do to help — or worse, that their pain and fatigue is "all in their head". They're being pushed out of school by teachers who don't understand why they can't come to class or run around with their peers. Their parents have been gaslighted and blamed, too, not just by medical professionals but their closest friends and family. And experts are concerned that all this ignorance and apathy — and the unwillingness of governments to do more to curb COVID transmission — is exposing a generation of children to the same chronic illness and disability, with potentially devastating consequences.

Key Takeaway #1
Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting.
I could not believe how tired I was after the first day. I literally sat down the entire day, except for walking to and from classes. We forget as teachers, because we are on our feet a lot – in front of the board, pacing as we speak, circling around the room to check on student work, sitting, standing, kneeling down to chat with a student as she works through a difficult problem…we move a lot.
But students move almost never. And never is exhausting.

[…]

Key Takeaway #2
High School students are sitting passively and listening during approximately 90% of their classes. […]

I asked my tenth-grade host, Cindy, if she felt like she made important contributions to class or if, when she was absent, the class missed out on the benefit of her knowledge or contributions, and she laughed and said no.
I was struck by this takeaway in particular because it made me realize how little autonomy students have, how little of their learning they are directing or choosing. I felt especially bad about opportunities I had missed in the past in this regard.

[…]

Key takeaway #3
You feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long.
I lost count of how many times we were told be quiet and pay attention. It’s normal to do so – teachers have a set amount of time and we need to use it wisely. But in shadowing, throughout the day, you start to feel sorry for the students who are told over and over again to pay attention because you understand part of what they are reacting to is sitting and listening all day. […] They have had enough.

In Australia, we do much the same by putting a cost premium on dangerous knowledge.

Florida’s public universities are purging the list of general education courses they will offer next year to fall in line with a state law pushed for by Gov. Ron DeSantis targeting “woke ideologies” in higher education.

These decisions, in many cases being driven by the university system’s Board of Governors, have the potential to affect faculty and thousands of students across the state. Hundreds of courses are slated to become electives after previously counting toward graduation requirements, which university professors and free speech advocates fear is just the first step toward those classes disappearing entirely.

The state’s involvement in a curriculum process — which has historically been left to universities — is riling academics and students who oppose how officials are using new authority to weed out courses like Anthropology of Race & Ethnicity, Sociology of Gender, and Women in Literature.

“This sort of state overreach could spell disaster for student and faculty retention, and the academic standing of Florida institutions,” said Katie Blankenship, who leads a state office for free speech advocacy group PEN America.

Yet the Board of Governors maintains that the state is merely carrying out the intent of the GOP-dominated Legislature, which in 2023 called for a wholesale review of general education offerings to ensure the courses stray from teaching “identity politics” and avoid “unproven, speculative, or exploratory” content.

When I read an essay with a rubric attached, I read with an evaluative mind, looking for where the student had succeeded and or not. But when I read an essay without a rubric attached, I read with curiosity about what the student had to say. I engaged more with the ideas in the essay, and my comments reflected that. Some of my feedback was evaluative, but it was more with the goal of helping students find their best ideas and express them more powerfully.

Ditching my rubrics freed me up to make the kind of comments that could most help my students. I could make observations that had no judgment attached. I could tell the student where I cheered for them and where I was puzzled. I could appreciate specific parts of an essay without worrying how it connected or didn’t connect with the rubric. I could notice what was unique about that student’s writing or make connections to the student’s previous work. I could offer ideas for how the student could expand or pose questions to get them thinking more. I could ask students to respond back to me on a particular issue, thereby starting a dialogue. I could tell my students how I personally connected with what they wrote, which built their trust in me. Most important of all, I could show through my feedback that my students’ ideas were heard — that I cared about what they had to say. I could give my students a reader — not a judge, not a critic, but a reader.

I eventually came to understand that not all alternative assessments are authentic.  My growing doubts about rubrics in particular were prompted by the assumptions on which this technique rested and also the criteria by which they (and assessment itself) were typically judged.  These doubts were stoked not only by murmurs of dissent I heard from thoughtful educators but by the case made for this technique by its enthusiastic proponents.  For example, I read in one article that “rubrics make assessing student work quick and efficient, and they help teachers to justify to parents and others the grades that they assign to students.” To which the only appropriate response is: Uh-oh.

First of all, something that’s commended to teachers as a handy strategy of self-justification during parent conferences (“Look at all these 3’s, Mrs. Grommet!  How could I have given Zach anything but a B?”) doesn’t seem particularly promising for inviting teachers to improve their practices, let alone rethink their premises.

Second, I’d been looking for an alternative to grades because research shows three reliable effects when students are graded:  They tend to think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in the learning itself. The ultimate goal of authentic assessment must be the elimination of grades. But rubrics actually help to legitimate grades by offering a new way to derive them.  They do nothing to address the terrible reality of students who have been led to focus on getting A’s rather than on making sense of ideas.