Educational reform fails when it changes curricula rather than the social complex producing teachers

Evidence

This degeneration is even clearer in the secondary school, in the literature and philosophy syllabus. Previously, the pupils at least acquired a certain “baggage” or “equipment” (according to taste) of concrete facts. Now that the teacher must be specifically a philosopher and aesthete, the pupil does not bother with concrete facts and fills his head with formulae and words which usually mean nothing to him, and which are forgotten at once. … The problem was not one of model curricula but of men, and not just of the men who are actually teachers themselves but of the entire social complex which they express. In reality a mediocre teacher may manage to see to it that his pupils become more informed , although he will not succeed in making them better educated; he can devote a scrupulous and bureaucratic conscientiousness to the mechanical part of teaching—and the pupil, if he has an active intelligence, will give an order of his own, with the aid of his social background, to the “baggage” he accumulates. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 355

Previously, the pupils at least acquired a certain “baggage” or “equipment” (according to taste) of concrete facts. Now that the teacher must be specifically a philosopher and aesthete, the pupil does not bother with concrete facts and fills his head with formulae and words which usually mean nothing to him, and which are forgotten at once. It was right to struggle against the old school, but reforming it was not so simple as it seemed. The problem was not one of model curricula but of men, and not just of the men who are actually teachers themselves but of the entire social complex which they express. In reality a mediocre teacher may manage to see to it that his pupils become more informed , although he will not succeed in making them better educated; he can devote a scrupulous and bureaucratic conscientiousness to the mechanical part of teaching—and the pupil, if he has an active intelligence, will give an order of his own, with the aid of his social background, to the “baggage” he accumulates. With the new curricula, which coincide with a general lowering of the level of the teaching profession, there will no longer be any “baggage” to put in order. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 355

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s own concept of hegemony elsewhere in these notebooks — the ‘social complex’ that teachers express is the organic intellectual apparatus of a cultural bloc. — connects to: Teacher-proofing curricula reduce experienced teachers to semi-skilled low-paid workers; Teacher deskilling under management pedagogies weakens education as a democratic force — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 196; Accountability metrics operate as cultural conquest replacing teachers’ inner value systems. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 676 (+4 more)
• DEFINE: The ‘baggage’ of concrete facts — dates and definitions — is what survives even mediocre teaching, because it is testable and orderable by the pupil’s own intelligence.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 355