Teacher-proofing curricula reduce experienced teachers to semi-skilled low-paid workers

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 (#corroborates, 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 (#builds-on, via linked claim)

My commitment to engaged pedagogy is an expression of political activism. Given that our educational institutions are so deeply invested in a banking system, teachers are more rewarded when we do not teach against the grain. The choice to work against the grain, to challenge the status quo, often has negative consequences. And that is part of what makes that choice one that is not politically neutral. In colleges and universities, teaching is often the least valued of our many professional tasks. It saddens me that colleagues are often suspicious of teachers whom students long to study with. And there is a tendency to undermine the professorial commitment of engaged pedagogues by suggesting that what we do is not as rigorously academic as it should be. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 403 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Teacher deskilling under management pedagogies weakens education as a democratic force — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 196; Educational reform fails when it changes curricula rather than the social complex producing teachers — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 355; Academic institutions structurally reward conventional teaching and punish engaged pedagogy — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 403 (+3 more)

Related

• Teacher deskilling under management pedagogies weakens education as a democratic force (similarity 0.90)
• Educational reform fails when it changes curricula rather than the social complex producing teachers (similarity 0.87)
• ‘Teacher-proofing’ curricula deskill teachers into semi-skilled workers (similarity 0.83)
• Systemic dual-pressures drive the best liberatory teachers out of classrooms (similarity 0.80)
• Academic institutions structurally reward conventional teaching and punish engaged pedagogy (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Educational reform fails when it changes curricula rather than the social complex producing teachers #corroborates (0.82) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 355
• Academic institutions structurally reward conventional teaching and punish engaged pedagogy #corroborates (0.72) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 403
• Departmental overloading of popular professors covertly undermines engaged teaching #complicates (0.72) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 404