Introduction concluding post

What are the aims of education? Who should have authority to set the curriculum and how should we resolve curricular disputes? Big questions all, questions we’ll ponder all semester, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly.

We expressed a diversity of interesting views about them this week. On the question of aims, different folks expressed strong allegiance to just about every one of the major curricular ideologies (Scholar Academic, Social Efficiency, Social Justice, and Learner Centered).

Our classmate Chad Roundtree, an urban educator, argues that, “…the best method to determine curriculum or evaluate curriculum materials in [urban or underserved] schools is premised on its value in reconstructing the reality of student’s lives. I believe schooling or curriculum design birthed from conservative ideals will fail to address the very inequalities that created the challenges my students will face in our society and they will be deprived of the opportunity to acquire a pragmatic foundation with practical skills to become empowered to change their realities (Schiro, 2008).  Learning the accumulated knowledge of our culture or learning how to become functioning members of our society will certainly be effective with some groups of students, but from my experience, my students have become most invested and committed to their education when it granted the opportunity to create a more just society…I believe the only purpose of an education is to enhance the well-being of our children so that they may increase the vitality of our democratic society.”

Lisa Engelsman, on the other hand maintains that, “Children of all backgrounds should be given the opportunity to learn about the world around them and how to become an active participant in their society.  Taken together these two ideologies, scholar academic and social efficiency, ideally should be applied to create a school environment where knowledge and skills are taught to all children in such a way that upon graduation they have acquired what is needed to be critical thinkers and participants in society.  They should have the skills needed to either go to work or pursue higher education.”

Other folks declined to be pinned down, some on principled grounds. Emily DuLaney, for instance, argues that, “While these [ideologies] are powerful and carry lots of push they are not always in the student’s best interests. For example, how can we provide a well-rounded education when we focus solely on one policy or curriculum ideal or philosophy to the exclusion of all others? By adhering to one ideology we limit ourselves greatly as educators.”

Who is right here? Or is there even a disagreement? Maybe not. Arguably of the utmost importance to each of Chad, Lisa, and Emily is doing whatever will ensure the future well-being of their students. If there’s any disagreement, it seems to be in the method, and here it may be that the disagreement turns entirely on what’s most strategic given the different circumstances they and their students face. Chad suggests as much when he says that, “Learning the accumulated knowledge of our culture or learning how to become functioning members of our society will certainly be effective with some groups of students, but from my experience, my students have become most invested and committed to their education when it granted the opportunity to create a more just society…” But then again, if the students in Emily’s and Lisa’s classrooms are not educated to the problems that face Chad’s students, can Chad’s students ever hope to occupy that more just, democratic society?

If our collective comments on the curriculum ideologies were marked by personal clarity and conviction, many comments on how to resolve curricular controversies— such as those involved in the case of Mozert versus Hawkins—were equally marked by tentativeness and uncertainty. Toni Thompson touches perhaps on one source of this tension when she writes: 

“Education should not serve the purpose of teaching students what to think, but rather its goal should be to teach students how to think and to have the confidence to do so! It is absurd to not allow parents to object to such teaching that violated the values they teach at home.”

Many of us shared Toni's sentiment that educators should teach how and not what to think. But the next statement? That's where things get difficult. Few are willing to forgo the idea that exposing children to new and potentially foreign and different ideas is a crucial component of teaching them how to think. But as the case of the Mozert parents shows, unwillingness to do so is not entirely neutral and conveys its own 'what' message. Maura Foley registers this tension when she writes:

“Though I will not always agree with the decisions these groups make, it would be wrong of me to push my cultural background and beliefs on other communities as my job is not to teach students what I believe but to give them the tools and knowledge to make their own decisions. As I shape my general music curriculum, I try to mold the program to the cultural reality of my community while at the same time working to stretch the limits in order to expose my students to new ideas and ways of thinking. However one could argue that by doing that I’m imposing a belief that the study of ideas different from one’s own is vital...”

And so I would argue. When it comes to setting important curricular priorities, such as whether or not to confront our students with foreign cultural or religious perspectives, we can be faced with genuine disagreement and a genuine dilemma. In such cases, there may be no solution that can work to satisfy the perspective of all parties. In such cases, the problem becomes not how to satisfy everyone, but how best to justify the choices we make. Whose perspectives most merit our respect? Whose demands can we safely set to one side and why? Note by the way that we do not slip through the horns of such dilemmas by doing nothing or remaining silent on them. Our inaction and silence themselves can educate. What justifies our doing so?  

At this level of questioning, the relevance of philosophy and curricular theorizing is hopefully clear. Insofar as some will want to criticize the curricular choices we make, we need to call on theory and philosophy to justify ourselves. To do that, we have to think hard about where we stand on complicated issues at the intersection of ethics, politics, and education. Doug Schraufnagle wrestles with some of these questions when he argues that, “So long as we continue to convince people that individual rights are supreme and the government’s job is to enforce them, how will we learn to live together in a society? The case of Mozert v. Hawkins County Public Schools provides us with a powerful example of such a contradiction (albeit a productive one). When we consider the individual rights of the parents who feel constrained by multicultural views of plurality, which voices do we listen to? Recognize that we are confined here by the ideological discourse of liberalism. If individual rights are the most important measure, then we are striving to be universally individual in a society which is inherently social. Is that a paradox, or just a contradiction?”

Good question, Doug. We’ll get deeper into it and questions like it ahead.