Language allows us to distinguish between appearance and
reality, but it also allows some of us to persuade others that appearances are
realities.
--Mark Kingwell
 |
| I think you mean the other Marx, Humphrey. |
Humphrey overheard some such statements at his faculty meeting at the daycare. Readers will recall he does a little bit of teaching of other dogs.
The administration faculty were arguing about standardization versus
something called “academic freedom.” Humphrey had never heard such a term!
Academic – sure, he likes academic things. And freedom – who doesn’t like
freedom? Really, he thought to himself, freedom’s just another word for nothing
left to lose. Then he thought he should write that down, it might make a good
song lyric someday.
He listened and listened, head cocked. He came to understand
that some of the faculty believe that they should have the right to make
decisions about how to teach the puppies, what they will teach, and how they
will assess the young one. These faculty argued that ultimately, they
should be able to make some choices - and Humphrey, as a junior faculty member, agreed. After all, as John Dewey said way back in
1913, “Since freedom of mind and freedom of expression are the root of all
freedom, to deny freedom in education is a crime against democracy.”
Humphrey wondered if some of the people in the room actually
knew John Dewey – perhaps they were even there when he said that! But he was
far to engrossed in goings-on to ask.
He listened. “We need to make sure those pup have skills to
make it when they are in the real world.”
“They are not all pups. Don’t infantilize them – many are middle
aged, just new or returning to learning. They are adults, coming here with knowledge, education and skills.”
“What we do is rooted in ideology, and we don’t all
have to share the same ideological position.”
“Does anybody have any valium? Ativan?”
“What are you talking about, ideological? We’re not there as faculty to
spout politics. We are there to be neutral.”
“Neutral? Nothing is neutral. Education is political. Every
bit of it.”
Humphrey remembered what he learned about neutrality. For
one, it’s very alluring – seductive, even. It suggests you can avoid making
choices, stand above controversy. The notion that learning outcomes can and
should be predicted, and then measured, seems sensible, objective, natural and
practical. Gone is the reliance on the teacher’s value-laden, unreliable and
subjective assessments. Gone too, is the uncomfortable and inefficient
heterogeneity of classroom content, and the unpredictable and circumstantial
pedagogy. In truth, choices that involve values cannot be avoided in education.
For starters, values are inherent how subjects are grouped, which courses are
offered, which topics are included in those courses, and especially which are excluded.
Deciding what is “worth knowing” or “most important” are value-laden acts. How
could that be overlooked?
Not to mention that values and ideologies are conveyed with
the language the teachers use, how they construct their gender and covey (or
oppose) heteronormativity in their appearance, hair cuts, body language, and words.
Nothing neutral about it.
And yet, here they were arguing over neutrality, where it
cannot exist in this environment.
While nobody said it, Humphrey sensed that some of the
people there were implying that standards and standardization were neutral. And
therefore laudable.
Then, there’s the related issue of the purpose of
education – Humphrey was profoundly disappointed this didn’t come up. He
listened, and concluded that many of those present seemed not to question a
“transmission” model of education – that is to say, the faculty inculcate
the pups with “facts” about how to function in today’s system. That, the
proponents thought, was value-neutral, because it reflects their perceptions of
how things are. Others seemed to have latched on to a “transformative” model of
education – where the puppies learn to critically appraise systems, and to
work within imperfect systems do things better, differently, more equitably. Those,
Humphrey believed, were the two ideological positions the people held.
Humphrey also saw some of the faculty desperately
avoiding a colossal plunge into the Hegelian Abyss – that’s when there’s no
point to what is being done, but it must be done anyway, and the workers become
alienated.
This is the danger of bureaucratizing the role of the
faculty. Humphey is reminded of Samier’s work, calling attention to a history
of bureaucratic critique focused on the negative effects on individuals, rooted
in Weber’s characterization of a “lifeless machine” of “congealed spirit” and
for whom modern society is characterized by “disenchantment,” meaning the
retreat and displacement of ultimate values from public life, and a rationalization
of all intellectual, political, economic, social, and cultural activities.
There are all sorts of bureaucratic pathologies – and
Humphrey witnessed quite a few in action today.
Some produce a slavish and compulsive adherence to
regulations (for example, in human education, things like NCATE standards, Ministry of Training Colleges and
Universities indicators, and other bizarre forms of strategic-plan-related
empirical indicators), obsessive defense of physical space and personal status,
increasing distance from colleagues as a means of disguising anxiety about
processes outside the individual’s understanding or competence. ‘Predator
interests’ (Hood 1995: 95) intensify and feed off the spiralling distress, for
example, demanding or providing ever more detailed verbal and written accounts
of actions and outcomes.
Others, Samier reports, result in futile attempts at control
by heavy insistence on receiving proliferating information to no end, an
existentialist loss of any sense of public meaning, and a catastrophic
destruction of relationships with others. Some perversions of bureaucracy lead
to what Laswell calls ‘autocracy’: demonstrating
a preference for one way communication and an enjoyment of power and elaborate
status differentials.
It’s all really kind of depressing to see in action!
Perhaps, Humphrey thought to himself, he was aligning with the wrong Marx.
Harpo communicated joyfully with a horn, and didn’t obsess over standards,
indicators or strategic plans. Either way, Humphrey knows that someday, when he's a professor, he will have to assign marx/marks to students. Just a matter of deciding which is best.
Source cites in text: Samier, (2010). Alienation, Servility and Amorality:
Relating Gogol’s Portrayal of Bureaupathology to an Accountability Era.
Educational Management Administration Leadership, 38 (3), 360-373
