Dear All,
Picking up where Tom left off, and in conjunction with Nick's comments,
I'd like to wade in with what I see as a crucial area.
I spent many torturous months this year researching and writing my
thesis. The thesis aimed to identify whether the impact of educational
reform in England during the period of 1979-2005 could be part of the
explanation for a notable gap between action and rhetoric on
sustainability goals. Furthermore, it aimed to posit a hypothesis that,
not only have the reforms contributed to unsustainability, they have
also left significant numbers of school-leavers and graduates without
the appropriate cognitive skills, normative values, social goals and
philosophical understanding to translate increasing environmental
awareness into the necessary individual and social action.
The hypothesis used a novel employment of the concepts of
path-dependency and normative values to demonstrate how the market-led
reforms could be continually culturally legitimised, and how those
reforms left a lasting impression upon individuals and society. The
thesis demonstrated the importance of education as a tool for achieving
national goals and creating structural relations and value-sets in society.
My main findings were in summary:
*
Education has become a market with increasing corporate
involvement at all levels. Its main purpose is to improve the
economic performance of England.
*
The government has been steadily moving from provider to
commissioner of education and public services which reduces
democratic control and promotes a view that private-sector values
are the most desirable for all forms of life.
*
Knowledge is a key component of the English educational system,
but is subject to utilitarian market values. Knowledge and
policy-formation is under control from dominant power relations
and discourses which favour business interests.
*
Key skills of literacy and numeracy are another key component, but
cognitive and philosophical skills which aid individual learning
have not been considered key. The ability to follow instructions
has been prized more than creativity or the ability to understand
and contextualise information.
*
The successive reforms have reduced the autonomy of teachers to
anonymous Fordist-workers, and reduced the critical autonomy of
students creating a cultural legitimation of the hegemonic
economic discourse.
*
Market values have resulted in a culture of short-term targets,
limited and discrete curricular goal-orientation, accountability
through testing and intense competition. As a result social goals
and skills have been diminished at a normative level along with
long term and holistic thinking.
*
The system has resulted in inequality and promotes a physically
and socially unsustainable model rather than an egalitarian
localised comprehensive system.
*
Environmental knowledge has been taught within a science framework
that is based upon a humanist utilitarian view of nature which
forgoes the social construction of the environment.
*
A narrowly defined concept of meritocracy threatens to leave a
more permanent class system disengaging people from society.
*
The expansion of higher education has led to increasing strains
upon the objectivity of institutions as corporate funds are sought
and rising fees favour the middle- and upper-classes, again
resulting in social inequality.
A couple of excerpts:
The graduates of the English educational system in the last thirty years
have been systematically imbued with utilitarian free-market views that
work on commodification and individualism. Success has been marketed as
getting high-grades, meeting targets and achieving high wages, to
elevate ourselves above our peers, often marked by material benefits.
As such we look for short-term ways to improve our lot, where basic
knowledge or 'key skills' are more important that understanding and
critical autonomy. Britain is now neo-Fordist: the assembly lines have
moved to the office in the KBE. The loss of social goals, critical
autonomy and reflexive views of knowledge and learning, and indeed wider
ranges of what constitutes a 'successful' person, has left a large part
of the population unable to link environmental and sustainability
knowledge to their own actions and to power relations. Key generations
of English citizens are task-oriented, but not challenging of
orthodoxies or concerned with placing the problems discussed here into
an holistic understanding which identifies root causes of problems, not
just dealing with symptoms. Empathy is lost through the ascendency of
individualism, and natural and social goals have reduced intrinsic value
rendering real sustainable changes impossible.
The challenges of sustainability and climate change are ones that
relate to the fundamental modes of human behaviour, and as such, with
education clearly being the social tool for creating societal structure,
values and norms, we must re-examine the fundamentals of society, with
education being at the top of the list. We are approaching a critical
point in tackling environmental degradation which requires long-term,
equitable and holistic approaches based upon genuine sustainability
criteria. These concepts sit uneasily alongside the current
socio-economic and political systems in the majority of nations.
Contemporary economic growth depends on high levels of consumption and a
willingness and desire for more that is not, and should never be, sated.
In addition, to reach these levels of ever increasing services and
consumption, dedicated and flexible skills are needed to ensure an
expanding and more productive workforce (population) is present to carry
out this work.
Sustainability requires strong collaboration with community based
ideals and solutions. This is clearly incompatible with the evolution of
the English education system that has evolved from the evocative speech
of Callaghan back in 1976. and all the subsequent reforms of the New
Right and New Labour. Another impact upon behaviour and norms generated
by the resulting marketisation of education, is the indoctrination of
marketisation traits in the broader population at large. An uncritical
acceptance of marketisation leads to a loss of democratic control from
governments to corporations. The level of democracy then depends on what
information the market operates on, and what are externalities for it.
Many of the aspects of life and society that sustainability cherishes
may possess little incentive for capital investment or monetary value,
rendering them unheeded by markets. At the heart of markets is the
desire to make profit. Increasingly, profit is assessed on a short-term
basis in accordance with the demands of shareholders. What generates
profit, particularly in the short term, does not correlate automatically
with what is good for society. Therefore, a radical overhaul of
power-relations and governance is needed if any sustainability reforms,
especially educational, are to come to light.
Sustainability clearly requires holistic thinking and integrated
approaches to policy and planning. In educational terms, environmental
education and sustainability cannot be taught as a subject. It cannot
role out along linear, positivist lines. It must be integrated across
all of education and be more process, and philosophical, in its basis,
than knowledge based. What is science other than a social act of
discovery, a form of rigorous inquisition? Science has been placed at
the forefront of the National Curriculum in the UK, but it has been
reduced to principally a form of Knowledge transfer served to arm young
people with the knowledge to allow the nation's economy to expand. The
primary skill learned, is that of so-called 'parrot-fashion' learning.
Regurgitation of spoon-fed 'facts'. Our economic modus operandi is
soaked in marketisation, and, with it, specialisation.
For me, education is both a tool for, and a mirror of the, surrounding
IPE and domestic ideologies, but there is a path-dependency, albeit a
remediable one, in the evolution of these processes. We need to harness
education and integrate it into environmental planing and for the sake
of democracy and society too, utilising the fact that education can
teach people preferable normative values, social goals (as opposed to
simply atomised competitive traits), and importantly the ability to
learn and challenge. Sustainability will always be changing, even if one
can somehow define it. It's a dynamic and reflexive process that
projects forwards, so it is informed by knwoledge, but built on skills,
norms and cognitive abilities.
Those of you who teach will know what I mean by people passing exams to
get grades, not to get understanding. In such a system, what good does
it do to introduce a class on sustainability?
I hope this adds to the debate, and if anyone is interested in the full
thesis, I am more than happy to send it to them rather than have it rot
away on my hard-drive.
Best wishes
Jonathan
Barker, Tom wrote:
> That argument is not valid. Thatcher, however misdirected she was, was
> not a dictator. She was out within weeks of revealing the solidity of
> her anti-Europe position. Since then, the Tory membership have come
> out on her side to a rather significant extent, so the official
> position has changed, but it could change back at any time. Any
> sustainable future must involve the democratic process, surely. Even
> the limited democracy that we have is better than relying on the whims
> of a 'benign dictator'. We need to move forwards, not backwards.
>
> Did you notice the call from the government this week for greater
> coordination between universities and industry, in order to ensure
> that students emerged from their degrees as fully formed industry
> fodder Even Nick's "damagingly irrational prescription" is better
> than that. Long gone are the days when universities were about
> learning and scholarship. Blair saw to it that universities left
> behind notions of increasing general levels of education and
> understanding. There is little hope that way except in the teachings
> of the few individual staff who are somewhat enlightened (and
> increasingly frustrated), but at least it is in the right direction.
>
> tom
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Discussion list for the Crisis Forum
> [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brian Orr
> [[log in to unmask]]
> *Sent:* 08 November 2009 18:35
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: Recent Royal Society of Edinburgh climate change event
>
> Dear Nick,
>
> We still have quite a lot of work to do to close the gap between us, I
> suspect.
>
> Enlightened dictators sound pretty good to me - Castro seemed quite a
> long way from a disaster to me - but who will replace the good one
> once he/she has died?
>
> But more seriously, maybe as few as 10% of the population, if
> sufficiently determined, could turn the rest of the sheep around with
> little problem. But certainly we don't need a majority. What
> percentage of all the people who could vote, voted for our last
> elected dictator, Mrs Thatcher?
>
> Brian
>
> On 8 Nov 2009, at 16:08, Nicholas Maxwell wrote:
>
>> Dear Brian,
>>
>> Perhaps I didn't express myself very clearly. What
>> I intended to say is that we cannot rely on enlightened dictators to
>> solve our problems for us. We have to do it. A majority of people
>> need to understand what our problems are, and what we need to do
>> about them (including of course what to do about failings of
>> democratic systems). That in turn requires that our institutions of
>> learning are rationally devoted to that end. Judged from that
>> standpoint, universities are at present a disaster. All of us
>> associated in any with universities or education ought to be
>> doing all that we can to bring about an intellectual and
>> institutional revolution so that the basic task becomes, not to
>> acquire and apply knowledge, but rather to help people tackle
>> cooperatively those problems of living we need to solve to make
>> progress towards as good a world as possible.
>>
>> Nick
>> www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk <http://www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk>
>>
>> On 8 Nov 2009, at 14:34, Brian Orr wrote:
>>
>>> Nick,
>>>
>>> I agree very much with your general thrust below. Where I
>>> disagree is where you say :-
>>>
>>>> "Our only hope of tackling our problems in more intelligent,
>>>> humane and effective ways than we do at present is to tackle
>>>> them democratically."
>>>
>>> Our democracies are now a busted flush because they are in the
>>> hands of the 'enemy' who now offer the lobotomised public very
>>> little real choice.
>>>
>>> Until we have a sufficient majority of 'educated' people we will
>>> not be able to wrest control of the process. But getting to that
>>> majority is going to take much time as will the process of
>>> wresting control and then employing that control.
>>>
>>> The Trade Union movement some 100??? years ago began the process
>>> of making workers aware of the reasons behind their impoverished
>>> existence. This can't be a bad model.
>>>
>>> But there's nothing like getting your hands dirty to drive
>>> lessons home. We need colleges and universities that combine
>>> teaching why we have come to the very sorry impasse we're in -
>>> and at the same time teaching those who have the inclination
>>> about the practicalities of living lightly.
>>>
>>> This latter is of fundamental importance because it is one of
>>> the few practical things we can do in the face of the threat of
>>> modern civilisation crashing down around our ears.
>>>
>>> Brian Orr
>>>
>>> On 8 Nov 2009, at 13:11, Nicholas Maxwell wrote:
>>>
>>>> Our fundamental failure is our failure to create institutions
>>>> of learning rationally designed and devoted to helping us solve
>>>> our problems of living, including our global problems - thus
>>>> helping humanity make progress towards as good a world as
>>>> possible. What we have had, instead, is universities devoted
>>>> to the idea that, first, knowledge is to be acquired and then,
>>>> second, it is to be applied to help solve social problems.
>>>> This is a damagingly irrational prescription. We need to
>>>> appreciate that all our current global problems have been made
>>>> possible by modern science and technological know-how
>>>> (dissociated from a more fundamental rational quest for
>>>> wisdom). We urgently need to transform our universities so
>>>> that they give intellectual priority to (a) articulating (and
>>>> improving the articulation of) our problems of living, and (b)
>>>> proposing and critically assessing possible solutions -
>>>> possible actions, policies, political programmes, economic
>>>> enterprises and structures, philosophies of life. The pursuit
>>>> of knowledge and technological know-how would emerge out of,
>>>> and feed back into, the central task of helping people come to
>>>> understand what our problems are, and what we need to do about
>>>> them.
>>>>
>>>> Our only hope of tackling our problems in more intelligent,
>>>> humane and effective ways than we do at present is to tackle
>>>> them democratically. This in turn requires that a majority of
>>>> people have a good understanding of what our problems are, and
>>>> what we need to do about them. And this in turn requires that
>>>> we have institutions of learning rationally devoted to helping
>>>> people come to such an understanding, by means of discussion
>>>> and debate. It is this that is horribly lacking in our world
>>>> today: see http://www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk/Essays.htm .
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes,
>>>>
>>>> Nick Maxwell
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
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