Mortimer Smith and the Diminished Mind (book review)

One common retort to those who criticize the historical ascendancy and stranglehold of “progressivism” in education is to simply deny the charge. Diane Ravitch, for instance, met just this type of denial when she published Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reform. Critics, generally with an affinity for “progressive” pedagogy, told us that Ravitch’s history was hopelessly biased and a bunch of spin. Progressive ideals, they say, did not fail: they were never really tried.

It is too bad for these critics that books like The Diminished Mind by Mortimer Smith, were published. TDM was written in 1954 as a way to chronicle the educational landscape as it looked at the time. Smith’s verdict?

I do not think anyone will challenge the statement that pragmatism has become the official philosophy of the public education; there may be an occasional maverick scattered her and there but the great majority of the professors of education are committed to this philosophy and they transmit it to the future teachers and administrators whom they train to run the American public school system (Smith 1954, PG78-79).

By “pragmatism,” Smith is referring to “the pedagogical principles which formed the basis of what came to be known as progressive education and is now more commonly referred to as modern education.” (PG78)  The educational pragmatism Smith judged to be the dominant philosophic force in education (ushered in by Dewey; perverted by followers) included the idea that education is to center around the child’s immediate needs and should serve not to convey knowledge but to “reconstruct experience” (which, of course, Dewey was never really clear on what was meant). These ideas manifested themselves in various curricular theories, two of which Smith examines in some detail: education for life adjustment and education for social reconstruction.

Chapters II and III (Adjustment Replaces Education and Adjustment Replaces Education Continued) discuss and thoroughly document the rise of the “life adjustment” theory of curriculum through the public schools.

Murray Rothbard, Libertarianism, and Why Children Are Not Simply Houseguests

As a libertarian, it pains me to admit flaws with libertarianism as a philosophy. But one problem in libertarian theory I’ve become increasingly sensitive to is the problem of how children are handled in a libertarian society. I believe I know where the problem stems from, and also why certain existing arguments are flawed, but don’t have much idea on how to rectify these flaws without violating a certain amount of libertarian theory. Oh well. Here is my attempt, at least, to look at one of the more interesting arguments for how libertarian theory should treat kids: Murray Rothbard analogies parent/child relations to house-owner/houseguest relations.

Before getting into that, I want to briefly outline why I think libertarians have such a hard time with the “child problem.” Libertarians, I think, are good at dealing with two different ideas: people (in the sense of autonomous adults) and property. To put it bluntly, children are neither of these and are probably best seen as somewhere in between the two in resemblance. Children resemble, but are not, autonomous adults in certain ways: they are physically autonomous and their brains/minds are not linked to other brains/minds in that they can decide certain things for themselves.  But in other ways, children resemble, but are not, property: parents are legally responsible for taking care of children and children are in some sense ‘acquired’ by choice, children do not have a real choice in who their ‘owners’ are, etc.

But children are neither persons nor property. They are not quite autonomous persons because we – except some libertarians – recognize that children lack the mental ability to make certain decisions on their own or have the type of absolute freedom we grant to adults. Nor are they property because, morally, it strikes us as horrendous to think about parents being able to do anything they would like to their children. Unlike property, children have at least SOME freedoms.

Now, onto the Rothbardian argument, taken from an essay called “Kid Lib” (chapter 7 in the book Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature).

Review of Brighouse’s “On Education”

Below is a review I wrote for amazon.com on philosopher Harry Brighouse’s book On Education.

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As part of the “Thinking in Action” series, educational philosopher Harry Brighouse has written this brief, thoughtful book on education. Section 1 is devoted to the larger abstract question of why we educate. The second section is devoted to specific curricular questions like whether the state should make citizenship education compulsory or should allow religion in schools.

Brighouse’s central premise is that the primary reason to educate is to provide students with the tools they need to flourish. In order to flourish, one needs to be (relatively) autonomous in ability to think and decide one’s courses of action. Thus, a primary goal of schooling should be to equip students with the skills and knowledge they will need to be autonomous, including exposure to ways of life different than their own. Brighouse uses this idea to justify state intervention in compelling parents not to send children to overly sectarian schools. We owe it to future adults to give them those skills that will allow them to be autonomous, and allowing them to be educated in insular schools, where only one way of life is talked about, threatens that future autonomy.

I have to pause on this point because while I can see its merit, I can also see that it ignores the already-existing autonomy of parents to educate their children (whom they are legally responsible for) the way they choose. Brighouse’s suggestion that we disallow parents to send children to insular schools (in the name of future autonomy) can only be done by violating the already-existing autonomy of parents. It also sees the state’s vision for children as more important than parents’ vision. I think the issue is simply more nuanced than Brighouse’s argument suggests.

Brighouse is also very vocal in insisting that, while it is legitimate to prepare students to be workers by teaching them labor skills, this should not be the primary motive for education. Further, Brighouse warns against educating kids to fit the economy (“We need more scientists, so let’s have more science classes.”), and would rather teach kids a broad variety of employment skills so that they can be autonomous and choose their own employment path. Historically, policy makers have often let economic demands influence curricular decisions, but as Brighouse rightly points out (a) steering students towards certain careers takes away their autonomy, and (b) we simply cannot know what careers will be in demand or necessary in the future. Thus, it is better to give students a broad exposure to different career paths and teach them skills they can apply to many different careers.

Is Democracy Really What We Want?

Here is an article detailing an upcoming court case seeking to overturn a prohibition on gay marriage in California. There is a serious problem I have with this case, even though I am a very fervent supporter of gays’ and lesbians’ right to marry. This paragraph illustrates the problem:

The case will decide a challenge to California’s gay marriage ban that was approved by voters in 2008, and the ruling will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. (My italics)

The problem is not that there is a challenge being brought over whether gays can be denied marriage rights. The problem is that we are asking a state court to set aside a democratic ruling about a state issue. And deeper still, I think that such an action helps illustrate what I think is the American public’s tenuous relationship with democracy. We tend to extol it as the most just way of government, want more of it when it isn’t being allowed to operate, but then try and trump it when it gives us results we don’t like.

I remember very well the protests when the election of 200o was effectively decided by the Supreme Court (whether justly or unjustly): “More democracy!” was a commonly heard cry. And in many political tracts, the  word “democratic” is often used as an adjective synonymous with “just,” “good,” and “egalitarian.” But here we are in a bizarre predicament: scenes like the one in California are forcing us to face up to the idea that democratically chosen policies do not always lead to egalitarian and just results. As our founders feared, sometimes democracy really does mean the right of some to vote against others.

Whose Incentive? Which Motivation?

Economics is premised on a tautology – a helpful one, but a tautology nonetheless. People are motivated by incentives. What is an incentive? Anything that motivates. How do we explain why Susie did x, y, z, or anything else? She must have had incentives. What are they? Could be anything that motivates her. See, a tautology.

Recently, Daniel Pink has written a book called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us to discuss exactly that: what are the best incentives to action? Geared primarily towards the business world, Pink uses several studies to show that the best incentives are autonomy, mastery, and doing better by ourselves and the world.

As many of the amazon reviewers who gave Drive a low review mention, though, this conclusion is based on only a few very artificial studies. The motivational picture may well be more complicated, and maybe even more when we talk about school rather than business and children rather than adults.

Pink suggests that we went through several stages of motivation through human history. Motivation 1.0 was when motivation to work was based on basic human survival. Motivation 2.0 was the “carrot and stick approach” of rewarding externally by material goods, money, etc. Pink suggests that we are now entering motivation 3.0, where we need to realize that workers are best motivated by intrinsic rewards: the pleasure of doing the job well, the pleasure of being autonomous, and the pleasure of mastering things.

Now, let’s talk about school and kids. I think it goes without saying (even though I will say it) that the best moments of student performance happen when we have tapped into a student’s intrinsic motivations as defined above. Students do best what they derive satisfaction from doing. But here is the problem: there are many situations in school where students have to do what they do not like doing. It is an unavoidable part of the school day (wrongly lamented by progressive types who would rather see kids only do what they want to do). It can be assumed that most often, workers work in fields that they at least semi-enjoy (of course this is not always the case, but it is likely the majority). Kids, on the other hand, are compelled by the state and their parents to take biology, algebra, and civics. Thus, kids will very probably experience more situations where intrinsic motivation may either be hard to come by or impossible. (Some educationists suggest that intrinsic motivation is always possible and maybe it is if one has unlimited time to try and find it. Teachers, of course, are constrained by time and class size, so it may not always be feasible to help students find intrinsic motivation.)

Somewhere Between Fatalism and Optimism: The tragedy in education of not knowing the future

There are two attitudes one can take when a child is not learning at the level we expect: fatalism and optimism. The fatalistic attitude is that which leads us toward giving up and changing direction; perhaps the child is not learning the material because she is not suited for it. The optimistic attitude is that which leads us towards redoubling our efforts; perhaps she is not learning because we are not teaching it correctly, intensely, or thoroughly.

Both attitudes have positives and negatives. If the child is not learning the material because she really is not capable, fatalism may save time and the potentially bad experience of trying to force the proverbial square peg into the round hole by forcing ill-suited information into an unwilling and unable participant. But fatalism is a bad thing if it means that we give up on a child too soon who could have learned if we had persisted.

Conversely, optimism has its benefits and drawbacks. Optimism, by definition, means persistence out of desire for a good outcome. Optimism leads to good results when it leads us not to give up on a child too soon. Of course, the hoped-for scenario of where the child gets the information by our sheer persistence does not always come to pass, in which case we see the downside of optimism: the risk of forcing students to do more than they may be able to do for the sake of hope for a better result.

The reason I point out these good and bad points is that the dilemma teachers often face ove which attitude to adopt is made (dare I say) impossible by our inability to know the future. Asking a teacher whether a child is capable of learning x or not – asking them to adopt a optimistic or fatalistic attitude – is asking them to know what the child is in fact capable of, which entails knowing the future. This is because knowing what a child’s potential is is premised on the idea of knowing what the child would be able to do if educated in the right way, which entails knowing what can’t be known in advance. The best we can do when contemplating a child’s potential is to give our best educated guess, which often isn’t really that educated at all.

To elaborate further on the difficulty of gaguing a student’s capability, I want to point out how essentially unfalsifiable estimates are. Let’s suppose that we believe that Johny is capable of learning Algebra and despite our efforts, he does not show evidence of learning it. Well, we can explain this in two ways: we can suggest that maybe Johny is not equipped to learn algebra, or that we have simply not done everything necessary to teach it to him.

The Child and the Subject: a dichotomy based on a linguistic slip

Teach the child rather than a subject.

This and similar utterances are often uttered to suggest that teachers should be responsive to children rather than teaching a subject without regard to children. John Dewey even wrote a book about this dichotomy called The Child and the Curriculum, where he purports to do away with the dichotomy.

Unfortunately, Dewey did not do away with the dichotomy, as evidenced by the persistence of the phrase: teach the child rather than a subject. After Dewey, the debate over whether we should teach to the child’s interest or to the subject’s requirements rages on.

It occurs to me, though, that perhaps this saying – and the idea of a dichotomy between teaching children and teaching curricula – is based on a linguistic and conceptual error. To put it bluntly, instead of saying that we should teach the child rather than the subject, why wouldn’t we teach the child the subject? Answer: because for some reason we are (wrongly) using “child” and “subjeject” as subjects, rather than a subject and an object.

If I offered the sentence “Give that person than book,” the subject of the sentence is “person” and the object is “book.” The same goes for the sentence “teach that child that subject.” The subject of the sentence is “child” and the object is “subject.” We could, of course, say “teach the child rather than the subject,” but that would be as linguistic an error as saying “Give the person, not the book.”

Compared to What?: An argument for a conservative approach

Recently, I watched an interesting youtube video of economist Thomas Sowell giving a talk about public schools. In response to a question about what to do over the idea that standardized testing may not be objective and may be biased, Sowell said this:

Compared to what? … That’s the question economists always ask: “Compared to what?”… Nothing is easier than to prove that something human has imperfections. I’m amazed at how many people devote themselves to that task.

This very simple statement – it almost seems like common sense! – is quite hard  for many to grasp. Whether the issue is standardized testing (whether to do away with it), or any other percieved injustice of society, many people’s reaction is to point out the flaw and use this as prima facie evidence that the system giving rise to it must be fised, abolished, or reconstructed.

Sowell’s point – one I share – is that pointing out a flaw in a thing is not the only step necessary toward arguing against the thing. The next ste – one not often taken up – is to argue that a concrete proposal for a solution will be better than and have fewer flaws than the system trying to be replaced.

Liberalism is Not Neutral or All-Inclusive: So What?

In political theory, a big deal is often made about critizing liberalism (small “l”) for not being the neutral, value-free, set up it allegedly pretends to be. Liberalism, of course, is the idea of a society set up so that the government refrains from the business of telling us how to live and leaves people free to pursue goals as they wish, short of harming others. Critics point out that liberalism still is not value neutral: it constrains certain things from being done (certain anti-liberal practices like refusing to send a child to school) and debate to be conducted in a certain way (in a secular way that leaves personal religious views at the door).

But here is a question: so what? What if liberalism draws lines that will inevitably restrict some from acting in ways they wish? Show me a social vision that doesn’t. (This, of course, is never done because it can’t be done. The only social vision without rules is anarchism which, as anarchists tell us, is not a system but the antithesis of one.)

Michael Sandel and Stanley Fish, two thinkers with little in common, have both seperately argued this criticism against liberalism: it pretends to be a value-free system whereby individuals can pursue their own visions but, at some point, it has to take a stand. As it is a vision of justice, it must take a stand and by taking a stand it must presuppose that certain values are superior to others. (What about the people that DON’T want to be left alone by the government? Supposing that non-interference is the highest good is to choose one good above all others.)

But the obvious retort to this is one seldom heard, and that is to affirm what is at issue.

The Dragon’s Den and the Reciprosity of Capitalism

Last night, my wife and I watched the BBC program The Dragon’s Den, where five venture capitalists listen to various pitches from struggling entrepreneurs, deciding whether to give them money in return for a stake in the business. Today, I read Marx’s The Communist Manifesto. Coincidence? Yes. Is there a connection? Yes! The former helps to prove the latter wrong by showing that, contra Marx’s assertions, capitalism functions reciprocally for mutual benefit rather than in a master/slave relationship.

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx writes of the proletariat (the working class) as if they were slaves to the bourgeoisie (capitalists):

Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.

…and again…

And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

Marxism sees employer/employee relations – and all other capitalist dealings – as a one way master/slave relationship; “I will pay you what I want and you will work for me regardless of whether you want to.”

The irony is that supporters of capitalism recognize that this is not at all the truth. In fact, defenders of capitalism (rightly) note that capitalism is the one and only economic system where employers may not enslave employees; in fact this is so by definition. A slave, to be a slave, is enslaved involuntarily. Her wishes are not taken into account, she is treated only as a means, and has no say in her fate. Capitalism, though, puts emphasis on contract; an employer cannot force unwilling participants into its employ, and employees are free to leave a job if they can find something better. The entire relationship is quite voluntary on both sides.

The further irony is that the same cannot be said about communism. Marx has it backwards: communism is the type of social structure that takes away choice from members by telling them that they will make what the government says they will make, will work where the government says they will work, etc.

How does this come back to BBC’s Dragon’s Den?