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Hammering Education
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Hammering Education: Time to Turn the Paige
by R.W. Burniske
"To the man with a hammer," the old saw claims, "everything looks like a nail."
This aphorism applies not only to carpentry, but, as the Bush administration demonstrates, also foreign policy, civil rights, the environment and, yes, even education. While hammering their way into pre-emptive attacks on Iraqi citizens and American civil liberties, the president and his cabinet members have employed rhetoric that betrays a militant attitude towards anyone who opposes them.
One of the more stunning examples of this came not from the usual suspects - Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft -- but from Rod Paige, the Secretary of Education. At an assembly of state governors earlier this year, Paige thought it clever to call the National Education Association a “terrorist organization.” Why did the secretary make such a thoughtless, incendiary remark? Perhaps because the NEA has the temerity to ask difficult questions, and demand satisfying answers, rather than embrace the dull platitudes of politicians.
NEA President Reg Weaver, who has called for Secretary Paige's resignation, delivered an inspirational speech for The Paul Chung Memorial Lecture in Honolulu on July 15th, raising one of the most important questions that we can ask of our educational system today: "Is America Preparing Its Students for a Competitive Global Environment?" The question speaks not only to our schools and teachers, but to our country as a whole, which has suffered from incompetent leadership since the 2000 presidential elections.
Since his arrival in Washington, Secretary Paige has revealed a patronizing attitude toward educators and a reactionary vision for education. Like his boss, he believes the best education is that which gives the most tests. Their supposed panacea for what ails the public educational system, the No Child Left Behind program, essentially turns schools into test-taking assembly lines that emphasize products at the expense of process.
This is logical, of course, if you want to train children to become automatons who follow orders without questioning authority. Emphasizing test-taking skills and the “product” of good grades is an effective way of ensuring that students -- and their teachers -- shut up, do the work, and take care of “the business” of education. If anyone should question this 19th century pedagogy? Simply brand them a “terrorist” and swing a hammer at them.
To think of children as “products” merely perpetuates an impoverished approach to teaching and learning, one that encourages students to focus upon selfish, grade-grubbing concerns. Why bother with the “process” of inquiry, though, when that might yield “terrorists” who question future presidents? Why allow teachers to experiment with their pedagogy or curricula, when that might lead to the “terrorism” of new ideas that challenge the three R’s of compulsive test taking: Reading, (W)Riting and Regurgitating.
In November we will have an opportunity to change the leadership of this country. It’s important to realize that the 2004 elections will have profound impact upon not only our nation’s foreign policies, but also its educational system and the way in which we prepare our children to participate in a global community. As an educator, I would appreciate it if the presidential candidates, and their nominees for Secretary of Education, would take the following, multiple-choice quiz on the relationship between education and democracy.
1. What’s the best way to teach students to think for themselves?
a) by giving them multiple choice tests
b) by reducing education to a series of standardized exams
c) by neglecting the professional development of their teachers
d) by encouraging inquiry and dialogue in our schools
2. How do students, and their parents, discover the truth?
a) by taking multiple choice tests
b) by believing whatever their elected officials tell them
c) by applauding a State of the Union address
d) by asking questions and analyzing information
3. What makes a democracy flourish?
a) multiple choice tests
b) embedded journalists
c) classified information
d) open-ended inquiry and dialogue
4. What’s the best way to model civil, democratic discourse?
a) by writing clear instructions on multiple choice tests
b) by calling people with dissenting viewpoints “terrorists”
c) by hurling expletives at political opponents on the Senate floor
d) by encouraging inquiry and thoughtful dialogue
What are the correct answers to these questions? That depends on who controls the answer sheet, doesn’t it? Personally, I would give candidates for the office of President and Secretary of Education an “A” if they selected "d" for each question, then wrote a thoughtful commentary to explain why they chose those answers.
I believe it’s time we turned this Paige on education, and empowered people with a more enlightened, democratic approach to it. We can begin by questioning this administration’s tendency to swing hammers first -- and call people names thereafter.
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R.W. Burniske, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Hawaii, is co-author of Breaking Down the Digital Walls: Learning to Teach in a Post-Modem World.
July 16, 2004
