On Fake Names, Patriarchy and Human Connection

1) Never trust a cop in a raincoat.
2) Beware of enthusiasm and of love, both are temporary and quick to sway.
3) If asked if you care about the world's problems, look deep into the eyes of he who asks, he will never ask you again.
4) Never give your real name.
5) If ever asked to look at yourself, don't look.
6) Never do anything the person standing in front of you can't understand.
7) Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.” - HST, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

A long time ago, I started giving male strangers I'll likely never see again a fake name. As a relatively small female adult, an extra layer of protection against a situation I can't entirely determine is safe or trustworthy seemed an OK justification to lie. Part of that urge is survival instinct, but another portion is sheer anxiety-produced paranoia. I know logically something is not bound to be a shitshow, but....what if it is? Studying history and interacting with people for 40 years, I'd venture to guess, the world does just be like that sometimes. Dinosaurs didn't think, "Hmm, this chomping and stomping is going to end in a sad, slow heat death sort of way," and look what happened to them. We can think like that, but collectively, seem to be having a difficult time with accepting that we're responsible for making the Earth into a basement metal show - hot, humid and highly volatile. 

So, partially out of paranoia, I lie to complete strangers about my name. My go-to name is fairly commonplace as a first name, nothing that raises an eyebrow as weird or overtly made up. My actual name however, does raise suspicion in people, which is why, especially when interacting with someone that may be intoxicated or a psychological unknown to me, the old standby is of use.

Most recently, I heard this name slip off my own tongue on a crowded train coming home from a concert. My male friend departed after the first stop and I was sitting alone surrounded by a group of mildly intoxicated dudes returning from the same event. I had no book, headphones or other barriers to ward off conversation, so I knew it was only a matter of time. My presence, sitting quietly, looking out a window, was too much for the man across the aisle to bear. As I was also masked, he had to know... why? My explanation of why I was in a mask of course opened the door to further conversation. Even though I did not use my real name, most everything I said in the conversation was largely true - I was married, had a daughter, taught high school history, was 40 years old, et al. My emotional responses remained real as well and perhaps were easier to call up since I was not "myself." Despite being a person who predicated the trust they set forth as acting "in good faith" in this conversation on a fake name, I was actually honest throughout. 

My takeaway from the event is threefold: first, it's not an exaggeration to say women face additional threats in this society by simply existing as woman. Living as a woman and female for a number of years, you're hit with the absurdity of the sexual dimorphism of our species - the cruel biological realities of being a female human make existence fraught with dangers that the roughly half of adults do not have to think about on a daily basis, or possibly ever. 

The second take-away is that a pseudonym provokes a degree of liberation. It's like wearing a Halloween costume, or more recent in everyone's mind, a mask over half your face. But, unlike pandemic masking, pseudonyms and Halloween costumes typically hinge on assuming a false identity as well. The playful aspect of willingly giving someone a name that you normally do not go by frees you from all of the responsibilities tied to your daily grind. 

Finally, despite the fact that the dude initiated a conversation with me on the grounds of mask-shaming, once I explained myself, his demeanor changed. His guardedness and need for vengeance, ready to be called a science-denier or anti-vaxxer, dropped as soon as there was no hostility in my voice. By responding to his query as though it were a question worthy of a response, made the situation bearable for the both of us. In the past, I have written quite a bit about the breakdown of communication due to the advent of social media and the anonymity associated with it. Face-to-face interactions are essential to the survival of our species. We are a social species who cannot bear the weight of constantly having to interpret the tone of someone's response from 140 characters before we formulate our reactions. So please, get out there, give someone a made up name and live. 

Musical Epilogue:

“Every New Discovery Is Just A Reminder…” “We're All Small And Stupid.”

 “If nothing matters, then all the pain and guilt you feel for making nothing of your life goes away – sucked into a bagel.” - Jobu Tupaki

*spoilers? maybe? not really...more thoughts generated by the movie*

Last night I saw Everything Everywhere All At Once, a movie that, on its surface, can be laughed through for the absurdity of the plot and cast of wacky characters in all of their multitudinous iterations. Yet, within the comedy, there's a poignant message about the lives we lead. Not only do we see through the eyes of the characters all the different possibilities for their being, strewn across the multiverse, but how their choices affect the lives of others as well.

Philosophically, the movie dealt with the tensions inherent in existentialism, a broad philosophical school, that can vacillate from the religiously-infused Kierkegaard to the absurdism of Camus to the positive nihilism of Nietzsche. All of the branches of existentialism share a core value of existence preceding essence. All existentialism without perspective veers dangerously into nihilism. 

What does that mean? In short, existentialist beliefs are borne out of the same desolate thought that there's no rational explanation for our existence. Our existence just is. Nothing truly matters because there is no higher power and we will all be dead one day. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, full stop. When we do not couple that belief system with a consistent perspective that we're doing all this living for something beyond just existing, then all that we can be is a temporary, swirling mass of atoms in a sea of interminable emptiness.

In the movie, Evelyn in our world lived to please her father - succumbing to the belief that his approval was all she needed to unlock her potential at a fulfilling life. When she explored other universes, she was able to see all of the different ways in which she could have achieved his approval besides running a successful coin laundromat. Interestingly, we never did see her in a scenario where she totally rejected her desire for his approval, because even in her current state, despite having disobeyed him, she was still seeking it after disobeying him earlier in life. The perspective she gained by the end of the film helped her to actualize her own desires for the life she was leading. She could move forward and actually allow herself to feel something. 

Her husband Waymond, throughout all the multiverses we saw, maintained his love for her and people in general, choosing to see the good. Despite the absurdity of life, divergent paths and unexpected occurrences, he was the one who was able to continue to see the good in Evelyn, to give her the benefit of the doubt. 

Finally, her daughter, Joy, represented someone who lacked the essence of her name. In one of the multiverses, Evelyn had pushed her too far and she was "broken" mentally. Yet her break provided clarity and insight into every iteration of her being(s). To avoid being confronted with all she could be but could not simultaneously achieve in one lifetime, she decided to create a void in which to escape. The void would give her peace of mind and eternal rest from the drama of reflective awareness, ending her existential crisis.

Ultimately, it is Evelyn who is able to reach out to Joy, but only after accepting her own faults as well as the unconditional love of her husband, as well as experiencing very real interactions through her other selves, selves that had completely different trajectories and outcomes far different from her own. 

The full weight of the philosophical implications of this film take time to sink in. I most definitely empathize with Joy's character in the ease of ending it all for the great quiet of nonexistence. But Camus already expounded that suicide or retreat doesn't eliminate the existential dilemma of life, it just sidesteps it. The only way through the pain of existence is to experience it, for within the slog of life, there are moments of joy, beauty and wonder; sometimes they come in the form of people, other times in artistic expressions, or even more simply reflected in nature or the stillness of a peaceful moment. 

Musical Epilogue from the absurdist masters, Faith No More: 

The Real Sisyphus

 If you ever want to meet the closest thing in this society to a Sisyphus, it's surely a history teacher. This could be an instructor for any age currently enrolled in school. To watch the inexorable march of time through terribly written essays and incorrectly labeled maps takes an incredible amount of patience and acceptance of humankind that never receives enough credit. History teachers are the bassists of the education field - integral, yet somehow relatively easy to step in front of for the spotlight. But we don't mind. 

I write this tongue-in-cheek, but at the same time, it is truly maddening to be a history teacher during times in which there is little regard for what has been tried and has failed in the past. It's no surprise anyone in positions of power try and suppress access to knowledge. Of course, this could and does include lawmakers, but also includes anyone who stands to profit from intentionally omitting vital information for consumers and the wider populace. Choices are already being made before we're even presented with a reason to make a choice. Fate is guided by a hand that is invisible in its occlusion behind the law. 

On another level, the experience of being a history teacher who not only covers factoids, but tries to create a broad tapestry for students to see how various aspects of human society work interdependently, has also opened up a chasm of understanding that points to the futility of it all. The same questions have been posited and worked through for millennia. For all of recorded history. And before that, if we could find proof. Since the artwork produced throughout has, in many ways, relayed certain universal constants across space and time. Despite any changes we make to the cultural and geographic environments, we still end up as a species in comically similar experiences with only stylistic changes.

One side of me knows this is the cyclical nature of things, that there's nothing sinister about it. The other side sees the continual patterns and becomes overwhelmed by how little we seem to learn that if this experience is only this cyclical live-born-die, then why aren't we working to make it the best for everyone? After all of the historical evidence, the literary output, artistic expressions, we still act untethered from that reality, as if whatever lay ahead has to be better, if only I can get there first. It's like if someone's going to get to heaven, nirvana, the afterlife and colonize it for themselves and their ilk. Monarch butterflies take generations within one year to reach their destination from Mexico to the mid-Atlantic region. Their genetic code works collectively for the benefit of the future, not to its detriment. Ours once did, but somewhere along the line, we also learned how to manipulate the perception of our own experiences. I'm not sure how we get back to that point of cooperation and trust - it will take generations. It would likely also take reclaiming our time and attention from technology and other traps of modern convenience. Using our hands, our minds and our hearts to connect not only with each other, but the material world around us, grounds us in what we experience on a daily basis.  

Take Out the Stories They've Put into Your Mind

“To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love." - Stephen Batchelor, Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist

Throughout the past month, covid numbers climbed again. Many I know began to retreat back into their cocoons. Fear set in. Again. Newspaper headlines reported the descent into another chaotic public health crisis coupled with a political crisis of a growing resistance movement by the many who refuse to accept that covid represents any sort of threat to their lives or those of their loved ones. 

As an uplifting backdrop to the daily fresh hell of American politics, I have been reading a book about grief and acceptance of loss. Despite not actively grieving anyone at the moment, I found the book particularly moving and an important glimpse into how Americans view death. The read fresh in my mind when my partner recently proclaimed that, "covid has stolen nearly two years of our lives at this point!" it unlocked the missing piece for me in all of this. The resistance and the covid-cautious are both grieving in some way, albeit very differently. Everyone has lost someone or something out of this pandemic. No one wanted this, clearly. But now that it is here, the only way out is through. Certain people have settled on through is to risk getting covid and hope that their own immune defenses will be enough. Yet, from a utilitarian standpoint, the best way through for the highest percentage of people (young to old, healthy to unwell, poor to rich) would be to increase the number of preventative measures like vaccinating, distancing, increasing overall health, etc. 

Americans will go to great lengths to avoid any sort of discomfort - mentally, emotionally, and physically. These measures against discomfort take many forms including believing in conspiracy theories, alternative timelines, and accepting millenarianism. The pandemic has gone through many stages at this point, and in its current evolution, there's still not a hint of acceptance coming through on any political front. For the more cautious, unending vigilance against viruses has literally put lives on hold in major ways, threatening to damage the socioemotional and intellectual development of everyone involved. On the other side, an assertion of individual freedoms over anything that impedes their lives in any way, big or small, has put countless innocents at risk of dying unnecessarily of covid. Both of these perspectives are just that -interpretations of reality.  Yet, "reality" aligns with the universe's moral stance, which is to say, there is not one. 

Speaking of discomfort, this semester I took Economics of Education, a course that I powered through to learn the secrets of another perspective on the world. I will never be an economist. It's a degree of empiricism that is akin to religious fanaticism in my mind. If answers are in the numbers, wouldn't we have been able to figure out how to solve the problem of unequal outcomes in school achievement by now? Maybe there are truly too many variables to study this definitively. As much as I felt like an outsider in the course and at times experienced imposter syndrome, I am glad I continued in the course. The class provided valuable information about how others who contribute to the field of education view the institutions and people within it. As the only active educator, I was a minority voice within the discussions at times because my experience had led me to different conclusions and desirous of different solutions than those being presented. Talking face to face with others made it possible to come to an understanding of where we could come together and what would require compromise to accomplish. The current political milieu, entrenched in faceless online interactions does not allow for such a vent. 

As someone whose entire occupation relies on in-person interactions, I spend a lot of time thinking about how our culture is evolving due to the prevalence of online interactions. About a month ago, I was sitting in the back of a public high school auditorium last period with my worst class academically. As they shifted in their seats, uncomfortable and done with the week, a guest speaker tried to engage them in meditation and mindfulness. Admittedly, my own mindfulness during this series of workshops had been absolutely abysmal - writing a paper, grading, checking email, et al. But I decided to model good behavior by at least trying to "turn on, tune in, drop out," too. Why should they be the only ones to sit uncomfortably until the last bell rang?

I began by watchfully observing my students; a movie blasted through the partitioned wall in a drama class. The dialogue caught my attention as something I had seen before -  A Vietnam-era movie? Full Metal Jacket? Maybe. But then, after waking a kid up, the "Flight of the Valkyries" kicked in, and I knew it - Apocalypse Now! Oh, I thought, this is an interesting juxtaposition. Choppers flying overhead, machinegun fire, and a will to be fully present; it took strength to not laugh out loud at that moment. The presenter seemed not to notice, neither did the kids.  Despite their collective disinterest in the program, some of the students were paying close attention and all of them at least had a break from the norm of the hyper-scheduled school day. 

This tableau so concisely symbolizes the experience of working in a public school - the dysfunction is real, and yet largely, the kids are alright. For those concerned about the wellness of students after two years of interruptions, the truth is, there are issues academically, behaviorally, and emotionally. Parents and politicos should realize that those problems may have been exacerbated by school being interrupted, but they were already manifesting long before that. Problems may be coming to a head because there's a support staff at school to adequately deal with it. Many students, like many adults, want to return to whatever their normal was before. Constantly harping on the learning losses and emotional depravity of covid-learning plants thoughts in students' minds that there IS something wrong. 

Anxiety often proves to be unproductive. Rather, present students with tools and coping mechanisms, meet students where they are academically and model good behavior. Education institutions have been providing these services for generations. We have to trust that with the right support, public institutions can survive the most difficult times as those in which we live. For those who find it more appropriate to tear down public faith in these institutions, the question becomes just how cynical are you about the state of society? Public schools persisted through prior pandemics, world wars, doomsday countdowns, natural disasters, and perpetual budget cuts. The difference now is that maintaining the health of schools and similar organizations relies on everyone pitching in. In an era of every man for himself, that's a hard sell. The scarcity mindset is not objective reality - it's another lens that's employed to control people through fear. 

Basic human interactions are often awkward and uncomfortable, they require give and take. We're all grieving for the loss of our normal lives, but we're so focused on the loss, we're also forgetting we're still living despite all of that grieving. The best way forward is through, no matter how uncomfortable. 

How can American educators regain a status in the professional class?

    In the past twenty years, the United States and Finland’s public education systems developed along completely different trajectories; while the formidable superpower repeatedly tests in the middle of the pack on international assessments, the relatively small Scandinavian country has become a powerhouse and a model for the world. American attempts at increasing accountability for individual educators stagnate growth and stunt progress whereas Finland’s model of shared responsibility promotes teacher autonomy and creativity as well as measurable success for students.  What can the United States learn from an international model of excellence like Finland? How can American educators regain a status in the professional class on par with other white collar professionals like lawyers and doctors? 

American teachers increasingly found themselves drawn into the political sphere this year during an already trying experience of teaching during the pandemic. From the initial lockdown through the one year point in the pandemic, public opinion on teachers has gone through a kaleidoscope of changes. Despite the variable view of teachers in society’s eye, educators as a workforce have largely adapted to teaching in this new environment of virtual, hybrid and socially distanced classrooms. For many teachers, being publicly vilified and used as political pawns seem de rigeur at this point. Regardless, the included stressor of a worldwide crisis has only added to the amount of pressure on America’s teachers to perform herculean tasks that are far beyond their pay grade. Thus, more teachers are reporting burnout and contemplating leaving the profession entirely than ever before.

 

While conditions within American public schools have been exacerbated by the

coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions, there is an underlying ideological malady that predates

interruptions by any literal disease. The ideological shift from responsibility toward “accountability” in public education has been one of the hallmark symptoms of the disease

plaguing public education, (ESEA, Statement of Purpose, Sec. 1001). While the two terms are

related and often used interchangeably, accountability puts the onus on individuals and their

actions, oftentimes measured by output. Since the introduction of No Child Left Behind legislation in 2002, or its successor, Every Student Succeeds, educators have been

evaluated based on their students’ performances on high-stakes state exams, such as the PARCC,

district-wide initiatives like benchmark exams, or even individual coursework through SGOs

(student grown objectives).  Much like other public policy initiatives, the way of

approaching public education has been dominated by neoliberal, “third way” socioeconomic

theory, “The social theory of the Third Way argued for integrative thinking—linking the best of government leadership with innovative markets in educational change. In practice,

though, many Third Way policies have drifted from the Way's original ideals—alienating

students, corrupting classrooms, manipulating educators, and deceiving the public,”

(Hargreaves & Hurley, 21).

As educational theorists Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Hurley note, while the third way can offer

objective numbers that can be compared across school districts, there has been an overemphasis

on those raw scores rather than considering the human aspect of the teaching profession. 

The obsession with accountability has roots much deeper than the influence of corporate paradigms within education. A misapplication of the Protestant work ethic is at the root of this pathology. Elements of the Calvinist strain of Protestantism at the foundation of Anglo-American colonization remain a cornerstone for defining “core American values.” The thrifty and hardworking Puritans are but one group in a long line of stoic endurers of difficult times in the American mythos - from homesteading pioneers to the Depression era savers to pandemic bread makers and DIY-ers; there have always been survivors and thrivers. This persistence through obstacles, while originally attributed to God’s saving grace, has been secularized into part of the American character. 

This perseverance has been co-opted by corporate America into another selling point for potential employees. Marketability of one’s self now must include some sort of grit, “x” factor, or charisma that remains difficult to define or quantify. What is it that makes one employee thrive but another wilt? Those who cannot keep up may be provided with constructive criticism or a corrective action plan, but the onus of success remains on the individual and not the institution. The lie perpetuated here is that those “graced” with grit will perform well, despite any hardships. 

The concept of accountability under the guise of “grit” even swept through schools as a way to market personal accountability to individual students. Valorizing this nebulous but clearly individual trait turns education into a competitive exhibition of academic success earned through grit - and measured through gains on quantitative assessments - which in turn allows access to highly-rated colleges and highly-paid careers. Life within and beyond the classroom is reduced to the pursuit of the “score.” Such practices prime students for their future as obedient players in systems that continue to “grade” them throughout their lives - from their school to  employment careers. Accountability provides employers with a mode to quantitatively measure job performance without explicitly saying so. 

Accountability (and measures of it) is a tool. The emphasis on accountability as the bellwether of health of an institution like public education is problematic, however. Schools do not exist in a vacuum and while an individual teacher or district can be measured through evaluative standards on how well they perform, there are multiple variables that remain outside their control, despite their potential impact on the outcome, (for example, socioeconomic status of students in a class or district). Accountability as a measure stems from the corporatization of the public sector in the US. Both major American political parties embraced neoliberalism in their own ways in the wake of the Cold War, but always with an end goal toward protecting profit margins. As noted by education researcher Marianne Larsen, “...the imperatives of global capital have imposed neo-liberal economic discipline on all levels of government...characterized by managerialism, these policies entail the introduction of business values and practices in the public sector,” (Larsen, 293). 

While teacher quality can and should be assessed, what would be the most effective and

productive way to do so, and would that make a difference in professional satisfaction and for

student achievement as well?  On an international level, the evaluative model for teacher

professionalism and expertise varies from nation-state to nation-state; international comparisons

have shown that the more high-stakes and punitive teacher evaluations are, the more likely they

are to provoke counterproductive distress within the evaluee, “Like other fields of study, education has been influenced by market-driven global forces, and stakeholders with administrative powers started questioning whether their investment, financial or otherwise, was getting its worth…accountability-based teacher evaluation models, despite their popularity nowadays, are more likely to ‘increase stress, anxiety, fear, and mistrust amongst teachers and limit growth, flexibility and creativity’ (Larsen, 292) and that teachers are oftentimes struggling with trying to meet the requirements defined by various stakeholders.” (Tarhan, 37).

Yet, the problem may not be with accountability itself, but the cultural climate surrounding accountability; what foundational ideologies surround accountability in the US versus Finland?  While their research focuses on accountability for students, the differing sociopolitical context in the US and Finland frames the usage and interpretation of accountability as a tool. Furthermore, the researchers illuminate the stark contrast between the Finnish teacher training programs and associated professional evaluative systems, which are standardized across a handful of universities, all with the same objectives to meet the national requirements for professionalism, with the American accreditation programs, which not only vary from state to state, but may vary from district to district within a state.

          

Reflecting on Weariness

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor Frankl

Two weeks ago, on a remote day of instruction thanks to a true winter snowstorm, the likes of which the area has not seen in years, I finally felt "over" the pandemic. Logging into class that morning, I relayed this sentiment to my students, who were as war-weary themselves. Some of them nodded in agreement, while others stared straight ahead into their cameras. It's not that I hadn't felt "over it" prior to that day, but those moments had been more tied up in fear, anguish, disgust or generally overridden by another, stronger emotion. Etymologically, weariness draws meaning from physical exhaustion, obviously, but shares deeper roots with notions of wandering and intoxication. When I reflect on how the past year has felt "weary," at times, it has encompassed those alternate meanings as well. It's been like walking through a dream in some moments, and in others, as though Kafka himself handed me some real wicked shit to try and now we're both suffering a bad, paranoid trip.

Our school demands that we consider the curriculum in light of the stressors of the outside world and that we maintain a degree of normalcy for the kids' sake while leaving their mental health to appropriately-designated professionals like counselors and social workers. While I do not think I should be personally counseling students, taking a moment to relate to them as people is something that reaffirms that we are all going through something and it is OK to be tired or frustrated. Normalizing mental weariness and stressors is a frightening prospect for many educational professionals and others in positions of authority (including politicians) because it tends to be associated with weakness and uncertainty in American culture. For many students however, their feelings ARE very certain to them. To not acknowledge said feelings and to power through the pandemic as though we will all come through on the other side of this as though nothing disrupted our pre-pandemic flow for a year plus is delusional and destructive to each of our selves. 

Within the same time frame of coming to terms with taedium vitae, I recently stopped blow drying and straightening my hair. While it may seem like an odd thing to pivot toward discussing in this post, it marked a milestone of acceptance of my self. From teenage years on, I have tried to change the texture of my hair. Not really having any luck in the long run, I at least succeeded to mask nature through sheer determination and a colossal waste of my own time. No one had ever specifically told me wavy hair was undesirable, but it was never shown to be desirable either, which left me to draw my own conclusions. While some white lady finally embracing her natural hair texture isn't revolutionary, it does raise the question of the degree of pervasiveness beauty standards and norms have in our wider culture. More broadly, embracing the natural within myself has been a way to escape the existential weariness associated with cultural conformity that extends far beyond the past year. America's obsession with getting back on the road to normalcy in the post-pandemic world has gone through many iterations in the past year - from virtue-signaling to a particular base, to publicly flouting basic hygienic and safety precautions, and extending to an extreme and abject rejection of reality (eg; the rise of conspiratorial theories, the failed Capitol insurrection, et al).

However, the post-pandemic world is not here yet, and to pretend that going back to business-as-usual is necessary now is misguided and dangerous. To stave off more weariness for the future generations, now should be the time to take stock in whether business-as-usual is even worth going back to. The obstinate American idealism that preceded so many national disasters, like the entirety of the 1920s, for example, points to the idea that American rhetoric has continually been incapable of acceptance of reality. There's a degree of insanity to American (or any nation's version of) exceptionalism that prevents the cultural messaging from attending to the suffering and subsequent healing at the time of a crisis. It takes a pragmatic mind to address issues in the now rather than looking toward a way to reverse course and recreate a simpler past or to barrel through toward a better future. The biggest concern I have moving through this entire year of quarantining is that many Americans will come out having learned little to nothing about themselves and our society. Reflecting on the present would go a long way toward understanding how best to provide support for all members of our society to stave off suffering for future generations coming of age in the post-pandemic world. That would start with being truer to ourselves. 

‘There is a still deeper source of activist faith and activist nihilism in a profound taedium vitae, in a malaise in historical existence, in a deep-seated spiritual impotence of meeting life on its own terms, and consequently in a will to escape from the burden of existence into a paradise.

Education as transformation versus transmission

The implications of critical social theory in regards to the definition of quality education are essential to the definition of quality education in and of itself. Quality is a difficult word to define and I look toward American philosopher Robert Pirsig to help me address it before entering into the discussion of what quality education would look like. In Pirsig’s own struggle to define the word quality, he suffered a mental breakdown, was institutionalized and received shock therapy. In the post-treatment life, his philosophy grappled with the dialectical struggle between the classical and romantic views of the world - the classical, or rational view, that had him seek an objective truth to define quality, and the romantic view that focused on whether or not said quality was experienced by the subject, Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. ... The Quality which creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the creation of all things. For Pirsig, ultimately, he sees this tension as being the everything behind quality of x. Similarly, quality education would have to find that synthesis between the practical and transformative aspects of public education in the US today in light of the structural realities of said institution.
Quality education, through the lens of critical theory, would have to address the agency of the learner within the institution, as well as the institution itself. Philosophers such as Paolo Freire and John Dewey directly address the role of the individual learner within the classroom as being an active participant in their own development. A democratic classroom would engage students as agents of their own and not as vessels to be filled with knowledge. Theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault and Freire again all also address the structure of the institutions that for so long have perpetuated the continuation of an entrenched hegemony. A critical theorist viewing education would also need to consider the role of the teacher as well. The authority figure in the classroom, the teacher is an important figure for their ability to either continue to prop up a system or to work as an agent of change herself. Zeus Leonardo touches on the transformative role of the teacher when discussing Freire; he posits the teacher as an intellectual and a cultural worker. If the teacher is a believer in the perpetuance of a particular orthodoxy, such as American exceptionalism, their role may be limited to a transmitter of education, expecting students to be passive observers within their own educational experiences. However, if a teacher is well-versed in critical theory, their ultimate goal would be to allow students to engage directly in their own experience, which would also include examining information presented through a more critical lens. This may lead students to reject what is presented to them. The goal of the educator in this instance would be to provide students with the tools to ensure that they can unpack any information presented to them in a constructive way; to transform and utilize their education to suit their own ends, and with hope, to make the world better for others beyond themselves.
Teaching in a modern setting has made it evident that students have a lot of experience with knowledge transmission. They’re used to being seen as “empty vessels” ready to be filled up and in some respects, do not like the internal tension of not knowing something. Teachers may derisively call this having to spoon feed students what they need to know. If we could stop as educators and unpack that statement, we can see that perhaps we’re the misguided ones. How do we say what they need to know? To students, the quality education may be vastly different from what the institution or even society has laid out as essential. As a classroom teacher, I have to find ways to engage students with materials that may ultimately come to broaden their understanding of the world either now or in the future. As a Dewey disciple for many years, a practical approach to teaching has yielded results and shaped my practice. The Global Citizenship course I teach (and also designed) is labeled a practical arts class in the school coursebook. One of the units we venture into is budgeting, and along with it college and/or job exploration. While the students are only freshmen, their initial forays into the world beyond high school is eye-opening for them. We begin budgeting with little to no guidance from me (on purpose). As the students build their dream life on Zillow and write out their monthly expenses, I can see their anxiety levels rise and their questions end up flooding me until we have to stop so I can address their concerns. While completing this assignment, we have also held many discussions about what they value in life. I find that many students want to go to college because their parents want them to or because it’s expected by society (and our school, which puts great emphasis on a 4 year college experience). When I ask them to explain what their own interests are, they sometimes have either a completely different conception of what success looks like and/or are at a loss to tell me. It has made me wonder what we, as a society, are instilling in our students and for what purpose? To have them be successful or to have them join us all in an unsustainable experiment that ends with the destruction of the planet. The knowledge that they gain from even researching for a few class periods on their own is transformative for them. When we move into building resumes and holding mock interviews, I say very little about their job choices. There is no judgment by me that their desire to be a barber is any less valuable to society than someone else’s desire to be a neurosurgeon. Theoretically speaking, this is reflective of a critical theory approach because the idea that success looks a certain way is not only a fallacy, but continues to set students up for failure. It perpetuates a system that forces many Americans to live on the edge financially while yearning for something more fulfilling spiritually.