Surviving Capitalism (Not) : What Might Critical Thinking Standards Look Like and How Might We Link Them to Accountability

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

What Might Critical Thinking Standards Look Like and How Might We Link Them to Accountability

Click here to access article by Dr Danny Weil posted on The Most Revolutionary Act.

...Dr Weil describes the alternative – namely critical thinking standards – to neo-liberal education standards. This post summarizes a discussion that is robust in the academic literature but totally absent from the corporate media.

It sometimes appears to me that Weil does not understand that societies are systems made up of consonant inter-dependent subsystems. I've taken the time to peruse some of the earlier segments of the longer essay at its original posting on the Daily Censored, and I've found observations of his that indicate that he knows that the current conservative pedagogy is designed for a capitalist society, where one dominant class exploits others for its wealth and power. Here are some examples:

...radical pedagogy and progressive post-modern educational theory, hereinafter referred to as post-formalism (Kincheloe, 1999), argues that tests and testing do far more than simply seek to measure academic performance or basic skills. From a post-formalist [radical pedagogy] point of view, standards and assessment as put forth by both economic and cultural conservatives, give a false illusion—an ideological myth of meritocracy and objectivity that really operates deceitfully as technologies of power and control (Foucault, 1977) [my emphasis]
...they [neoliberal teaching standards] serve as a straightjacket that binds both the heart and mind, for they impose teaching as an act of functional, instrumental control — of technological device—not of compassion, caring, and love. Standards become a means of covertly managing people and knowledge for private ends. [my emphasis] .
Once again, this specifically means that we as educators must come to understand that the debate regarding assessment and standards as it is defined in popular media is mythological, jingoistic, propagandistic, and disingenuous; that it does little to foster a healthy critical discourse regarding student achievement—that it is political.
Post-formalism [radical pedagogy] alleges that rationalistic universal standards are really socio-historical constructs, and at this juncture, peculiar constructs allied to the needs of a particular socio-economic system—post-modern capitalism.

So, it seems that he recognizes that teaching philosophies are social system dependent, yet he seems to suggest that educators can insert radical pedagogy into a capitalist system! What I think is far more realistic is that we must overthrow the capitalist system and then, and only then, will it be possible to establish a humanistic, radical pedagogy.