Peter E. Pflaum - Golden Globe - The Synergy Network
http://www.wiredbrain.net/  Pflaump@wiredbrain.com

TO: List

RE: Anti-intellectual tradition in American Education

In Education and the Cult of Efficiency, (Callahan, U. of Chicago
Press 1962) the point is made that High Schools were partly set
up to Americanize foreigners. They were modeled on the Factories
of the 1920 and 1930s, the building looked like factories. Bells,
piece work, the hidden curricula was to take orders, follow
directions and not ask questions. Teachers were foremen. 

Upper class education was modeled after the British Public
Schools and German Universities where the owners and managers
were trained. The idea of Teaching as a subversive activity is
that the "people" really should think for themselves. Dewey
naively assumes this in Democracy and Education. The fact is that
schools do not want and can not tolerate independent think by
either teachers or students. The separation of thinking (done by
managers, specialist, etc) and doing (the workers) dominates the
system. Top down and bureaucratic. The issue is power and control
and jobs and authority not education - just training. Education
liberates, training teaches skills and crafts. 

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