Reblog

Shakesville: Educate the People - But Not So Much That Corporations Can't Still Exploit Them, Obviously

One of the topics at the Clinton Global Initiative Conference was on Education, specifically in relation to corporations.   Shakesville's creator and several other writers attended the Conference and this is one of their summaries on this topic.

"After more than an hour, I was left wondering: Who is education meant to benefit, and whose interests is educational reform meant to serve in this country? ... Strange how that works. One group—those making millions (billions? Bieberillions?) of dollars think education is important because at the end of the day, it benefits them. The other group—those slogging away, educating children, doing the so-called "dirty work" on the ground think education is important because it empowers the individual receiving the education to have some control over hir life's destiny. "

Unfortunately it's the model of children being future workers for corporations that dominates in many schools right now.  Jonathan Kozol's Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America discusses this at length, and provides many examples.  Many children, especially those in inner city, predominately POC, schools are taught to follow directions without question, recall, recitation.  They're not taught how to actually read and write and develop and explain their own thoughts.  They pick out vocabulary and understand it only in the exact was they were taught.  They summarize, but never critique.  So few students learn higher order thinking skills, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that pencil pushers and factory workers don't need to know how to critique and judge the worth of things.  They don't need the learning levels of Synthesis and Evaluations, in fact, it's easier for corporations if their workers don't have these skills.