AGAINST NEOLIBERAL IDOLATRY IN EDUCATION
By Institute of Theology and Politics[This article published in 2006 is translated from the German on the Internet, www.intpol.de.]
For 1 ½ decades, we in the Munster Institute for Theology and Politics circle have critically reflected on the role of religious instruction in a neoliberal education landscape from a liberation theological and liberation-pedagogical perspective. We have not abandoned our visions of a new person and a new earth.
During this time, we were witnesses of seemingly relentless “reform” “advances “of debt – and education policy in the suction of neoliberal ideas. The visionary concepts of alternative models accompanied burgeoning hopes for social change were no longer dismissed as “old school” in the 1970s. “School of the future” was the motto for making schools fit, for preparing and orienting children and youths mentally for a thoroughly capitalized society and working world.
The holy trinity of neoliberal educational policy is competence – resilience and inclusion. - seemingly progressive, modern and more just than in the past. Unnoticed by the public, our educational system is reduced to selection. This criticism was also true in the past. The difference in our opinion is that this selection has induced market-conforming subjects to orient all their knowledge, abilities and desires at usability in a motley competitive world of goods.
We try to show radical alternatives by going to the roots – fueled and “instructed” by Biblical-Judaic inspirations, Paulo Freires’ liberation pedagogy and the sharp Foucaultian idea on the “micro-physics” of power in schools. In a messianic-restricted way, we dream that Jewish-Christian religious instruction can be a salutary interruption and promote learning emancipative hope in a 200-year old capitalism with its increasingly subtle grasp on the heads and hearts of students. Being a different person in a different culture and in a different world is our telos and vision.
Theses on the Current Situation in the Classroom
In the ITP religious teachers circle, we try to characterize the subject, our student, in theses on the neoliberal education project. We will be able to read and develop “antidotes” when we first understand the goals activating students. The following theses should stimulate discussion and deeper thinking.
Who really opposes us in the school? – The neoliberal subject: empty, meaningless and shallow without a point of view and without a framework (2015):
Learning in neoliberalism is characterized by the ambivalence of terms. Students are personally responsible for the learning process. This means on one hand independence and on the other being radically thrown or dependent on oneself.
Every failure and every success is transferred to individuals and individualized. This means teachers are “like tailors” since they are only accompaniments and coaches. In this way, no deeply moral category is introduced through the backdoor. You are responsible! There is no system, no social responsibility and no social action. The political dimension is wiped out…
The students are in a laboratory and do not have the possibility of seeing through the instructions. In other words, who guides the process and who sets the framework? Recognizing this is also not desired.
Force is applied in the sense that students are not aware how rule over them is exercised. In the past, the teacher with the cane was visible in the background. In contrast, students in neoliberalism today master problems with the action-modules of the system. They internalize this system and model their conduct on this system. A silent agreement with the whole reality surrounding them is desired. The seeming openness, transparency and plurality prevent seeing the impermeability and limitations.
Prohibitions are not necessary anymore because the persons themselves are on a leash of the structures of the system. Instead, they sign contracts.
A lack of alternatives to the social order is manifest in the sense that students must solve the respective problems with their pre-given frameworks… The system as a whole disappears and is not named.
What is not learned in the school is mastering situations! An individualizing access to the situation is connected with that. Successful situation mastery has a Darwinian feature: self-assertion.
What is not learned in the school? Organization and organizing (or an organization competence) that could be directed against the neoliberal regime), despite all claims of personal responsibility and self-organization. The counter-model is called “teamwork” and devours everything that a critical perspective on knowledge and action could open up in relation to the whole.
The goal is to be an entrepreneur of oneself and no longer a worker or employee. The neoliberal type tries to do justice to a double message: Be disciplined! And enjoy. This can only happen when the entrepreneur is empty, meaningless and hollow, without a standpoint and without a framework.
.