VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy
Another Brick in the Wall
drawing by Christian Edler
By Roy Moore
I
t is often assumed that the purpose of education is to learn.
Another popular justification is to pro10
vide practical skills for a person’s chosen career, and therefore it is considered justifiable to coerce people into
Issue XI - Spring 2010
schooling from early childhood. As many people fought hard for the right to education, particularly free education, there is an attachment to (and hope placed in) the school system. It seems, however, that what people learn sometimes goes beyond any stated curriculum or subject taught in school. The biggest and most lasting lessons are those of discipline and control; normalised values which are suitable for later jobs. Class reunions and experiments in which adults play the role of students again consistently lead to a regression displaying those well-learned lessons. If the particulars of Science, Maths and English have been forgotten, the lessons of punctuality, wearing the uniform, and other similar measures of conformity have not been. In this vein, sociologist Audrey Devine-Eller of Rutgers University described how the theory of the panopticon can be applied to education. Originally Jeremy Bentham’s design for a prison, the panopticon, has a guard tower with 360-degree vision in the middle of circular prison cells and works on the idea of each prisoner believing they are being surveyed at all times. Devine-Eller notes that even in the architecture of the school there is a symbolic panopticon, seen both in the headmaster’s place at the centre and in the manner in which all students must face the teacher. Though co-operative learning and other such concepts involve the students group-
ing together, and have been shown to enhance learning, memory and similar skills, such methods make it harder to control students and their learning, perhaps explaining why these methods have not been adopted more. What has been standardised, however, are exams, values and judgements. It is the normalisation of such things which results in education looking more like a method of control and standardisation of students, rather than as a genuine attempt to impart knowledge. Audrey Devine-Eller brings out these issues further, noting that “elementary school education coincides with a developmental stage at approximately 6-10 years when children learn the value of rules” (DevineEller pp.3). Essentially this seems to show that “the skills students acquire through discipline in the school are central to becoming ‘productive’ participants in the labour force. Modern workers must know the timetable, for instance, and their bodies must be trained to respect the 8-hour, 5-day workweek... [and they are rewarded or punished] according to the quality or level of their production.” (Ibid. pp. 9) This aspect of reward and punishment is crucial to understanding the aspects of control elicited at school. A person is only accepted within the classroom if they exhibit the behaviours demanded by the teacher, namely being “docile and respectful... [showing a] deference to authority” and similar passive characteristics. Previously, more coercive 11
VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy
elements such as corporal punishment were common, but as public opinion evolves, so do the practices of the school to some extent. Therefore, the education system has a very influential element of control attached to it, existing as a tool of those running such institutions to propagate the values they desire. Those children who submit, obey, or otherwise appear cooperative are rewarded with praise from the teacher, certificates, qualifications, and being recognised as the ‘brightest’ students, they belong to the higher sets. Those who rebel against the system itself usually belong to the lower sets, are identified as such, and are eventually classed as failures. Such a classification appeals directly to the self-esteem of the child in rewarding and punishing behaviour, not their ability, thus being methods of control rather than of learning. If children are a tabula rasa, such social inclusion, rewards from a perceived authority, and their status according to their performance at school appear not only normal, but desirable, despite the deeper appearance of control. In such a false consciousness, there is a Gramscian style of mixing coercion and consent. Control has extended to the school as an institution; indeed this deference to authority seems to be the most fundamental aspect taught, and the most remembered lesson (Gramsci 1971). Devine-Eller notes that with the standardisation of tests, classrooms 12
and teaching styles, it becomes easier to rank students, and thus easier to decide between potential applicants for jobs. If producing such workers is the purpose of education, then such measures of control and discipline make sense; but this does not sit well with the proclaimed goals of education, and coercing people to live through 16 years or more of such education suddenly appears unjust. If education is to remain a moral institution then this should be recognised as a negative consequence. Such methods of standardisation do not increase learning itself, but rather serve as a method “to make each student visible to power as the object of power” (Ibid. pp.11).
Those students who wish to do well, then, must conform; As such, each student “can see their position in the hierarchy at a glance, without a teacher-judge to place them in that rank. The operation of power thus becomes ever more invisible and efficient; it appears to individuals that they place themselves in the hierarchy”, and most importantly, then, “individuals to some extent also remediate themselves” if they do not rank highly (Ibid. pp.13-14). On the scale of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, such self-identification and self-realisation is the highest of psychological needs a person has, and so it is no surprise that so many believe themselves to be more
Issue XI - Spring 2010
intelligent based on the results of such exams (Maslow 1943). Those students who wish to do well, then, must conform; believing that to attain success, to find a good job, or whatever their goal, they must conform to the examination procedure. Such rankings appear to show the extent to which a person has conformed rather than the innate intelligence of the student. That so many people who are considered so important, such as Albert Einstein, rejected standardised education as stifling creativity attests to the conclusion that exams do not show a level of learning, intelligence or creativity, which are perhaps the more ideal and abstract goals of education, but rather how obedient and suitable for particular jobs a certain person is - a goal preferable to those with power in the struggle between capital and labour. There are, however, those who rebel against the system. Many of those are deemed as failures and as such achieve little influence with which to effect change. But before giving up on students who may be bright but disobedient, there are plenty of methods to remediate the student: “[the] bad behaviour of the student is a legitimate reason for the questioning of the parents and of the neighbours, thus extending the school’s power of surveillance far outside the school” (Ibid. pp.11). They will thus be rewarded for their ability but disciplined for their
behaviour. The standardisation of norms is consolidated and the eventual chastisement of the pupil serves as a deterrent for others, whether it is in reduced grades, demoted sets or (most extremely) expulsion - all meaThe Club of PEP Journal sures affecting the very psychology of the child. With the school, friends and parents pressuring each child to conform, it comes as little surprise that few people effectively rebel against this system and that few challenges against it exist. In the centralisation of policymaking, government has standardised not only classrooms and exams, but the students and their judgements and values too. One piece of work receives an ‘A’ if that person deems it worthy, and the standardisation of exams, grades, and therefore the ranking of students, has “thus extended the reach of power into the minute place of individuals’ lives that law left untouched, by making everything – or almost everything – punishable.” (Ibid. pp.12) Those who do criticise such standardisation often do so from a highly creative form; films, art, and particularly music do so regularly. However, when you analyse the purpose of anything from its design, daily activity and results (for education this being the architecture, tests and standardised rankings of students) it becomes clear what the real motives are. The dull repetition and learning from rote appear more as an end than as a 13
VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy
method of learning. The rise of Fordian systems of manufacture coinciding with the universality and standardisation of education perhaps inevitably evolves into schools training workers rather than students. Although there are many more effective techniques of learning, including creative methods of visualisation, and peg or loci systems of memory, such creativity and effectiveness is ignored in favour of methods which get a person used to dull, repetitive tasks, which they are really being trained for. Of course education is useful for many people, and there are plenty of people worldwide who walk miles to school every day and feel privileged to do so because of the poverty of their situation. Such qualifications do improve the lives of many, and seeing this first hand in the Philippines and Kenya it becomes obvious that education is a real way of improving the lives of many people. The problem is that the poverty exists not because of the ignorance of the people, but the bad governance of current and past leaders, including, and perhaps most importantly, former European or American colonial and postcolonial masters. Education provided by such powers will not bring about improvement for everyone, as that is not their motive. If we agree that school should ideally be geared towards producing creativity and knowledge, rather than people trained for specific jobs, then it is possible, if not necessary, to improve 14
the education system. As a tool of government, education is incredibly powerful in shaping judgements and values, while leaving the decision-makers invisible. With more power to teachers and students, reducing government to its proper place of funder and investor, it will become possible for education to stimulate creative discourse and progress. Perhaps this is necessary to solve many of the current problems caused by the hierarchically compliant system in which we find ourselves. Bibliography: Audrey Devine-Eller 2004 Applying Foucault to Education, available at: http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~auderey/Apply ing%20Foucault%20to%20Education.pdf, last accessed 04:06 6/1/2010 Antonio Gramsci Prison Notebooks copyright Geoffrey Nowell Smith and Quintin Hoare 1971 A.H. Maslow, A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50(4) (1943):370-96.
_____________________________ Roy Moore is a third year undergraduate student reading PPE at the University of York