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🪵 The Threshold

Education suffers a crisis worsened by progressives disregarding teaching

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tagsja-picks, causal_relationships, singleton, xref, contrarian_or_surprising, category/causal-relationships
aliases@hooks_teaching_1994, loc. 73

4 min read

Education suffers a crisis worsened by progressives disregarding teaching

Evidence

When I first entered the multicultural, multiethnic classroom setting I was unprepared. I did not know how to cope effectively with so much “difference.” Despite progressive politics, and my deep engagement with the feminist movement, I had never before been compelled to work within a truly diverse setting and I lacked the necessary skills. This is the case with most educators. It is difficult for many educators in the United States to conceptualize how the classroom will look when they are confronted with the demographics which indicate that “whiteness” may cease to be the norm ethnicity in classroom settings on all levels. Hence, educators are poorly prepared when we actually con front diversity. This is why so many of us stubbornly cling to old patterns. As I worked to create teaching strategies that would make a space for multicultural learning, I found it necessary to recognize what I have called in other writing on pedagogy different “cultural codes.” To teach effectively a diverse student body, I have to learn these codes. And so do students. This act alone transforms the classroom. The sharing of ideas and information does not always progress as quickly as it may in more homogeneous settings. Often, professors and students have to learn to accept different ways of knowing, new epistemologies, in the multicultural setting. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 89 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

But now that teaching is itself being pressed into becoming a service industry (delivering measurable outputs in the form of exam results) and teachers are required to be both child minders and entertainers, those working in the education system who still want to induce students into the complicated enjoyments that can be derived from going beyond the pleasure principle, from encountering something difficult, something that runs counter to one’s received assumptions, find themselves in an embattled minority. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1217 (#expands, via linked claim)

The deskilling of teachers and the emphasis placed on instrumental rationality pose a serious threat to education as democratizing force, the advancement of critical and analytical thinking, and the development of critical inquiry and engaged citizenship. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 196 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: Progressive beliefs do not translate into new teaching practices without a fierce will. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 268; Teacher deskilling under management pedagogies weakens education as a democratic force — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 196; Failed progressive initiatives swing working-class hopes toward traditionalist education policies — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1127 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

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