It's a Bad, Bad, Bad World
Sunday, June 17, 2007
In the May 28, 2007, Washington Post, staff
writer Jay Mathews opens his article "Core Classes Not Enough, Report
Warns," with a standard lament about the
wussiness of American education: "It's no secret to
most high school students that taking the required
courses, getting good grades and receiving a diploma
don't take much work." And later in the same article
he writes, "Many students pick up diplomas having
taken ... 'concepts of physics' rather than a physics
course with labs and tough exams." (The "Report" that
does the "warning" comes, not surprisingly, from
testing mega-corporation ACT, Inc., which claims to
be a not-for-profit organization, but it will be
happy to sell each prospective test-taker a "Prep
Guide" for $25.00)
What is it that's so attractive to the Republican right about getting "tough" with our children?
It comes down to a world view: the world is a mean place, it says, full of competitors and predators. (By the way, this view is much older than the 9/11 attacks, so it can't be blamed on a temporary world situation. It's endemic.) In order to survive, you have to be tough--do a lot of work, take tough exams, pass do-or-die high-stakes tests at every available opportunity. Eat or be eaten, no middle ground.
There are two ironies I see here. First, there is a certain amount of competition (in the Darwinian sense) and predation in the world. No one would deny that. Yet, there is a good deal of altruism, cooperation, and (dare I say it?) love in the world too. To the world of the high-stakes testings and the NCLB, this latter fact must be ignored. In fact, if the world not not such a mean place after all, the intent of high-stakes tests is to make it a mean world. Let me say that again, the intent of NCLB-type testing is to make the world a meaner place than it already is. In places where there is (or at least should be) no competition, no predation (such as, oh, say, first grade), the NCLB introduces it. Stories of first-graders throwing up out of nervousness over their make-or-break tests make me sick. To the proponents of the NCLB, it is a means of toughening up the students. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Get mean and nasty or die, weed out the weakest. School as war; first grade as Camp Lejeune.
Even more ironic is the model this is all based on: Darwinisn. Now I'm sure that not all the supporters of the NCLB are also supporters of Intelligent Design and anti-evolution and natural selection, but I'd guess there is a large overlap between the two. Yet the NCLB testing program is pure natural selection, educational Darwinism. We are in competition, so goes the reasoning, and either we are stronger than the [fill in the enemy du jour] or we will not survive. Even loonier is the fact that this kind of Darwinism subscribed to by the Right is a misunderstanding of Darwin anyway. It's best characterized as survival of the fittest culture. There is no survival of the fittest culture in Darwin, only survival of the fittest genes.
Tough exams do not make for better education, only a Hobbesian "solitary, poor, nasty, [and] brutish" life for Americans.
What is it that's so attractive to the Republican right about getting "tough" with our children?
It comes down to a world view: the world is a mean place, it says, full of competitors and predators. (By the way, this view is much older than the 9/11 attacks, so it can't be blamed on a temporary world situation. It's endemic.) In order to survive, you have to be tough--do a lot of work, take tough exams, pass do-or-die high-stakes tests at every available opportunity. Eat or be eaten, no middle ground.
There are two ironies I see here. First, there is a certain amount of competition (in the Darwinian sense) and predation in the world. No one would deny that. Yet, there is a good deal of altruism, cooperation, and (dare I say it?) love in the world too. To the world of the high-stakes testings and the NCLB, this latter fact must be ignored. In fact, if the world not not such a mean place after all, the intent of high-stakes tests is to make it a mean world. Let me say that again, the intent of NCLB-type testing is to make the world a meaner place than it already is. In places where there is (or at least should be) no competition, no predation (such as, oh, say, first grade), the NCLB introduces it. Stories of first-graders throwing up out of nervousness over their make-or-break tests make me sick. To the proponents of the NCLB, it is a means of toughening up the students. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Get mean and nasty or die, weed out the weakest. School as war; first grade as Camp Lejeune.
Even more ironic is the model this is all based on: Darwinisn. Now I'm sure that not all the supporters of the NCLB are also supporters of Intelligent Design and anti-evolution and natural selection, but I'd guess there is a large overlap between the two. Yet the NCLB testing program is pure natural selection, educational Darwinism. We are in competition, so goes the reasoning, and either we are stronger than the [fill in the enemy du jour] or we will not survive. Even loonier is the fact that this kind of Darwinism subscribed to by the Right is a misunderstanding of Darwin anyway. It's best characterized as survival of the fittest culture. There is no survival of the fittest culture in Darwin, only survival of the fittest genes.
Tough exams do not make for better education, only a Hobbesian "solitary, poor, nasty, [and] brutish" life for Americans.
|