Title: Catharsis in Education: Rationalizing and Reconciling
Abstract: William Pinar's text What is Curriculum Theory (Pinar, 2012) reaffirms the question of what role education play in a person's life. This would seem like an enduring and guiding topic of inquiry for a person working in teacher preparation at an institution of higher education. A growing and dominating focus on standardization, assessment, and accountability through accreditation consumes both attention and energy. Preparation of teacher candidates for a world of compliance overwhelms their preparation as agents of transformation. This externally mandated focus prevents the type of thought and dialogue that considers the should in education. Pinar captures the motivating premise of this inquiry when he writes: Driven by such self-enclosed rituals, educational institutions devolve into cram schools, no longer about the world but, instead, about themselves, about those tests, apparently technical but altogether ideological, as students learn to process information without raising questions about that information or the process. What knowledge is of most worth? Is replaced with what's your test score? Such a shift in the curricular question ends critical thinking in the name of economic productivity. (Pinar, 2012, p. 53) Considerations of what education do involves two phases: the critique of what could/should be; and, what Paulo Freire (Freire, 1997) called anticipatory utopian thought. This analysis provides a glimpse into both phases. Current education policies, both in P-12 education and with growing frequency in higher education, focus upon the commodity value of education and efficiency of schooling. Policies that seek to streamline instruction and curriculum through standards and assessment regimes that hold teachers and schools accountable are dominant (Darling-Hammond, 2006; Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012; Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012; Ladner & Myslinski, 2013; Levine, 2010; McDonald, Kazemi, & Schneider-Kavanagh, 2013; Wagner, 2008). Outcomes of this streamlined and accountable education are seen in the currency of test scores and school league tables (Parkison, 2009). These metrics are meant to provide consumers with all the information they require to make rational choices about what education to purchase (Apple, 2006; Parkison, 2009). This paradigm, a neoliberal framework that emphasizes college and career readiness as the mantra of purpose and that relies upon the law of the market to regulate educational institutions like any other gadget maker, neglects the primary stakeholders in education--the learners and their communities. Internal and external education stakeholders play politics with what is expected, often corrupting the potentially democratic process with force, funding, and other ideologically driven coercion. In many instances the outcome or standard is taken for granted because legislated or authorized in title and description. The contestability of the desired learning outcomes within democratic dialogue is co-opted by powerful stakeholders with either the political or economic power to determine policy. Understanding how these stakeholders are motivated and what positive antecedent (rational choice stimulus) lead to their cooptation of the process helps to identify fractures in the hegemonic neoliberal structure. Recognizing neoliberalism's dominance is not enough. It is critical that the gaps and collateral implications of the ideological system are exposed and examined. Opening the space for re-storying education presents a challenge. This critical analysis of the motivations and complex interconnection of policy is meant to open such a space. GUIDING CONCERN In the world of education, change and uncertainty, unpredictability and instability prevails (Apple, 2006; Ayers & Ayers, 2011; Costa, 2008; Glass, 2008; Wagner, 2008). There is an ever increasing need for capacities of self-organization and adaptability, yet education policies relentlessly pursue standardization, compliance, and accountability. …
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 2
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