Neutrality...yeah right!

The false god of neutrality is yet another effect of modern capitalism! Neutrality represents an attack on classical liberalism and the idea that each of us is a searching, self-perfecting being. Capitalism would like us to believe that in some Hegelian way we've reached the ideal state (economically, politically, and ideologically). Even if Fukuyama thought that the capitalist state wasn't perfect and that plenty about capitalism isn't fair (think CB and Sonia), he did believe it is the best system available to humans. So if we teach neutrality it must be based on the idea that we cannot transcend the current economic system. Neutrality can now be centered on a capitalistic system. All value follows from there.

So neutrality is therefore neither possible nor desirable. If we teach neutrality we teach moral apathy and this is something capitalism demands of its teachers. It is parallel to the intolerance taught by religions. So to me, the best place to start getting rid of our world's three-headed monster (hierarchy, capitalism and religion) is none other than school themselves.

I remind my colleagues on a daily basis that schools are supposed to be those places where nothing is sacred...that place is church. I remind them that inside the halls of education everything must be treated in revolutionary terms. We must seek to transcend our current understanding. We must seek to move beyond what we treat as common sense. We must assume we are unfinished. We must look, prod, pull, smash, tear and deconstruct everything. This includes our language, our ideas, our ethics, our science, etc.

We cannot allow the moral police to enter our sphere (though they are ever prevalent and vigilant) anymore than they already have, unless they are willing to be adult about their positions and subject them to ruthless critique. If they continue to isolate themselves from analysis, they must be ignored. School boards are chalk full of the conservative religious types and they need to go away...and since this isn't happening, they must be ignored!!! Their values have place in churches, not schools. Leave the sacred (superstition) to the church or private religious schools! They have nothing to offer schools but a case study in superstition, intolerance and imposed ignorance. More importantly, teachers must be willing to be fired defending the cause of critical, revolutionary education.

Neutrality is even a claim of our media. Everywhere neutrality is claimed despite the self-deception that it is impossible and assumes certain values. These values are themselves debatable in how they are applied versus how they are abstractly discussed. That is why any knucklehead can go to their local high school and watch a couple of young debaters in a Lincoln-Douglas debate use the same exact value to dispute each others positions on complicated social, political and economic issue.

So a teacher naively hoping to be neutral could say: "using the value of 'justice' one of you defend the death penalty and the other oppose it." We now see that defining 'justice' then becomes the location of the debate. What is the neutral position in this highly debated issue like the death penalty or abortion? Does one exist? One could perhaps offer nuance to one of these issues, but it doesn't make them neutral. So how can a neutral position exist in the academic realm on issues concerning social or political relations?

Is the social studies teacher capable of neutrally recapitulating history? Not if he or she is ethical they aren't.

Can the English teacher be neutral when discussing Anne Frank's Diary or To Kill a Mockingbird?

Is the Spanish teacher neutral who takes students to Nicaragua and chooses not to ignore that the U.S. was condemned by the International Court for terrorism?

How can an ecology teacher be neutral or value-free when teaching about the environment today?

Back Door Capitalism

Capitalism is such an insidious bacteria, it seems to find any and every crack to seep its way into public space. Education is no exception. Smaller Learning Community grants are given to public schools across the U.S. The grants promise schools to answer the problem of students slipping through cracks when isolated within anonymous, large school populations by creating "smaller learning communities." What progressive couldn't get on board with that, right? As one of the SLC Grant Coordinators I was excited by the possibilities of this grant to address prejudice, violence, isolation, suicide, etc. In fact, I'm still somewhat positive that these things can be accomplished, but not by outside private entities whose primary motivation is ultimately profit!

Many of the private consultants that attend the SLC Grant conferences (like the one I attended in Florida this weekend) are armed with canned answers, books, workshops, private consultations, PowerPoints, handouts, brochures, etc. Perhaps, not too surprising, they were also once educators themselves. (Warning: the following is one big tongue in cheek!). Now, however, they have found more "profitable" ways to help educate our children. Their ways are always "more efficient," "more logical," and always "common sense." They're above the fray and have broken free from the fetters of bureaucratic public education to discover more streamline models that are obviously much more sensible and realistic approaches to education.

In reality, these former educators couldn't handle the growing list of duties and unrealistic demands placed on teachers, nor the never-ending prescriptive policies (such as NCLB) that go unfunded. So they quite their jobs to get rich saving education. Shouldn't these former educators be admired for recognizing the limits of public education and seeking to solve problems with efficient, steam-line private monies. After all, the free market will redress any level of corruption and profiteering, right? Or should they be recognized as opportunistic vultures whose most intelligent assessments were acknowledging that they'd never get ahead on the front lines of education? Did they figure out that instead they'd be smarter to exploit a very vulnerable and desperate institution? (A vulnerability and desperation that are predicated on under-funding, and the cultural devaluing of education as a social priority).

(A quick pre-emptive for Wiser) The amount of work a teacher does is utterly under-appreciated! Enough said!

What I observed this past week was nothing short of criminal. Former educators costing our school district more than $12,000 to fly a delegation of eight educators (principal, counselors and teachers) to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. We dutifully helped our flailing economy (and capitalism's inside group) by paying for flights, meals, hotels, transportation, and then the big whammy: a conference of private entities shilling their less-than-professional books, tapes, DVDs, overheads, and flimsy science that would rescue our sorry schools. Interestingly, the money came from our SLC grant. Our grant is a $5 million grant (spread among several high schools in the area) that our government feels can best be spent on contracting with outside private companies. Ahhh, the perfect asymmetrical relationship contracting the public to the private (stage one in which Milton Friedman gets his oats!); just as the private companies likes it: no accountability, no audits, no transparency.

In reality, this kind of profit looping is all too common in the modern capitalist system. Can the Patriots be stopped? Can criminal profiteering? The Revolution Will Not Be Funded!