Ed School Cults
There was this tune about 20 years
ago. Went something like this…
Tum tee tum
Tum tuh tum
tuh tum.
Love that muddy water,
Yeah,
Tum tum
Tum tuh tum
tee tum, etc. and so forth.
Pretty loathsome, I think you’ll
agree. The tune was about the
The movers and shakers (not sure
what that means but probably something) were always working on one or another
scheme to clean up the Charles. And then an idea! “Hey, instead of
cleaning the basin, we should stop sewers from emptying trash into the Charles UPstream.
And they did. Now the Charles
is clean. But the tune remains as heinous and as disturbing as ever.
Likewise, we’ll NEVER get
flapdoodle out of the schools, and give kids a serious education, until we stop
its production—in schools of education.
Examples of flapdoodle (and egregious
piffle)….
The idiotic “philosophy” that “all
knowledge is a construction.”
[Unfortunately, these pretentious wingbags—constructivists—can’t
define knowledge, and so their argument is like a sock that’s lost its zip,
vim, and reason for living. Saggy.]
The demented
“curricula”--whole language, learning styles, fuzziest math.
[Untested. Turn kids into morons. But appeal to perfessers who think that
education should be more like group therapy than mastery of knowledge systems.]
Politically correct (and
nauseating) “celebrations” of “diverse cultures”—which means sampling food and
festivals, but not examining “practices” such as oppression of women and
genital mutilation of little girls. Ed schools figure you have to draw
the line somewhere. How can American kids be citizens of the world if
they are (Heavens above!) judgmental?
Now, I’ve got more sins to answer
for than…well…someone with a lot of sins to answer for, but I figure that
whatever makes little girls scream and maims them for life is probably
bad. However, I’m not a “social studies methods” perfesser,
and so I’m not hip to postmodernist relativity.
President Bush and others in his
cabinet (Rod Paige) are working hard to get ed schools
to change. So are some states.
I’ll tell you why.
The problem with ed
schools is not just that ed students spend time in "math methods"
classes gluing mung beans on popsickle
sticks, when they should be learning the logic of instructional design.
Or that ed
students in "literacy" courses develop deranged "personal
literacy philosophies" ("Learning to read is as natural as learning
to speak.") when they ought to be learning exactly how to teach reading.
Or that ed students in social
studies methods courses chant mindless slogans about how “America is a deeply
racist society” and how “Progress has been built on the backs of the working
classes,” when they ought to be learning the difference between reality and
rhetoric and about the origins and nurturing of the rare social arrangements
(democracy) in which freedom is possible.
This unfiltered bilge (above) is standard fare in ed
schools, but it’s not the heart of the infection. What makes ed schools so bizarre, so much like the lyrics to Lucy in
the Sky with Diamonds ("newspaper taxis"? I don't get it.), and so enervating (if you have a brain), is that many
ed schools are organized as cults, and appear to serve the same functions as
other sorts of cults.
(1) Personal identity as a member
of a group.
“I teach whole language. I’m speccchial.”
[Actually, you're just nuts.]
(2) A readily understandable way of
making sense of a complex world (dogma).
[Chant the slogans. Don’t think.]
(3) A cohesive social group that
provides security in an environment perceived as threatening.
[“We know we’re good. We just have to gather the data to prove it!”
That’s what I call good science!]
Features of ed
schools as cults include the following.
Yestere'en I made the claim (in a delightfully
sarcastic way) that many ed schools are organized as cults and as such resist
change by the usual means--criticism, monetary incentive, begging.
Here are some cultish features of ed schools.
1.
Organizational Autism
Schools of education are generally not connected to other (and serious)
academic departments, such as economics or biology. This means that
the ed school belief system (a shared delusion of flatulent offerings such as
“There are no truths,” “Knowledge is a social construction,” “External
authority inhibits personality development”) is unchallenged by disciplines whose
members are obliged to support knowledge claims with data collected and
interpreted according to rules of logic.
When ed
schools have connections across the campus, it’s with departments and faculty
who share the ed school delusion and the collective intellectual derangement
that produces it; e.g., postmodern literary critics in English
departments.
What a horrifying
combination! English perfessers so flagrantly
incompetent they can’t write a coherent sentence work with ed
perfessers who consider themselves “stewards of
But this goes over big among the
university administration.
“Wow, they must be really
smart! I have NO idea what they’re talking about.”
And their “joint courses” (called
“collaborations”) are as loony as “new pants day” at the local home for the
semi-witted.
2.
Cultivation of groupmind. “Baaaa”
or “Moooo” as the case may be.
As with other cults, ed schools work towards unity of belief. How?
Ed schools have to have a shared mission—always something simultaneously inane
and ironic.
“Hey, what’s our mission?
We gotta have a mission.”
“A mission. A mission.
A mission.” [The Chorus]
“I got it! ‘The mission of
the
“That’s good! I like that.”
“A mission. A mission.
A mission. [The Chorus again.]
Hiring faculty who already
subscribe to the dominant beliefs—who will fit in.
Awarding tenure
not on the basis of improving student achievement, but on the basis of
conformity to the dogma.
Periodic ritual
celebrations (e.g., conferences) where The Mission Statement (as a banner or
poster) is displayed and/or read and/or discussed. These ritual affirmations bind
members to the icon and to each other.
3.
The typical ed school belief system is a shallow, nonlogical canon consisting of repeated empty phrases whose
concepts have virtually no empirical referents. (In other words,
gas.) Examples include
“Instruction should be developmentally appropriate.”
[The essence of daffy.]
“Correcting errors hurts children’s
self-esteem.”
[But being illiterate doesn’t?]
“Teachers should be guides on the
side, not sages on the stage.”
[No sane explanation is ever—or ever could be—given for this slab of egregious
piffle. But note the function: If teachers can’t teach, they can’t
be blamed, because they aren’t SUPPOSED to IMPART knowledge. They are supposed
to be like camp counselors who make everyone feel accepted.]
These beliefs are easy to
understand; they conjure up simple imagery. They are easy to recite
and communicate. This adds the strength and security of infallibility to
the collective credo and makes it possible for members to see themselves as
“reflective scholars guided by rich theory.” When in fact
they border on insanity.
4.
The ed cult uses signs of recognition, loyalty tests,
and curses—in the form of shibboleths, such as “Do you believe in best
practices?” or “Do you use authentic assessments?” and “She advocates direct
instruction! Can you believe it?!”
These enable members of the dominant progressivist
belief system to share and affirm their common bias, and to place invidious
social distance between themselves and persons whose beliefs and activities are
threatening; e.g., persons (heretics) who believe that the job of teacher is to
ensure that students master classical knowledge systems such as mathematics,
history, and literature, and who know how to think.
5.
The ed school cult is impervious to possibly
threatening information and beliefs.
This is accomplished in the following ways.
a. Selective disattention.
“We see only what we believe.”
Constructivism dominates the ed school cult.
This epistemology asserts that all truths are relative to situations and
reflect the interests of believers. However, as with other cults, ed schools do not see their own as merely one belief system,
but as THE correct belief system. All others are, for the ed school cult, fatally flawed—not developmentally
appropriate, not child-centered, not democratic—and therefore not
tolerated. However, by excluding its own constructivist doctrine from
critical analysis, the ed school cult is able to
disguise what is obviously rigid orthodoxy behind high sounding words and
phrases—in a manner identical to other sorts of cults.
b. Not basing
verification on the necessity of falsifying the null hypothesis.
Instead, verification of a proposition or speculation or “innovative practice”
generally consists merely of gathering information or “expert” testimonials
that support it. Since supporting information can always be found,
no proposition, speculation, or “innovative practice” ever needs to be
rejected.
For example, instead of testing the
null hypothesis that a Professional Development System has no significant beneficial
effect on public schools, PDS administrators merely collect information that
supports their PDS; e.g., anecdotes on how PDS teachers have become more
“reflective.”
c. Claiming
that quantitative data and experimental methods are contrary to humanistic
values (“Persons are more than numbers.”) or are essentially invalid (“You can
do anything with numbers.” “Experiments are not natural.”)-- and
therefore should be rejected out of hand. In this way, a century of
experimental research on learning and instruction, and large longitudinal
studies (e.g., Project
Follow Through) can be ignored entirely, without producing a sense of irony
when the word “scholarship” is used to describe ed
school activities.
This imperviousness helps to
sustain the essential ed school belief
system—constructivism/progressivism—that is at least 80 years old.
6.
Socialization of new members (ed students) is easily
understood as indoctrination.
Undergraduates seldom take courses in logic and research methods, and rarely
examine literature reviews on what they are taught. For, skill at
identifying logical fallacies (overgeneralization, equivocation, ad hominem) and access to scientific research would make it easy
for ed students to challenge the ed school belief
system.
Courses and overall curricula
present one point of view. When Direct Instruction or more traditional
(research based) instruction is presented, it is generally for purposes of demonization—drawing and affirming the lines between the
in-group and out-groups.
“Direct Instruction is only for
disadvantaged children.” [The word “racism” is used too often, but this
is one time that it fits.]
As in other cult groups, the
natives in ed school are obliged to examine their
beliefs, reveal deviance, and expiate wrong thinking (heresies). In some
cults, this takes the form of public confession. In some ed schools, it takes the form of “reflective
journals.” This also operates outside of ed
schools, when state departments of public instruction require initially
licensed teachers to include “reflective pieces” graded according to
educationally correct “rubrics.”
7.
Messianism.
As with other cults, ed schools have
messianic visions that include the hysterical assertions that they champion
children’s rights and welfare (at the same time pushing destructive fads), are
adversaries of social injustice (which their destructive pedagogies foster),
and seek to deliver public school children and ed students from the “oppressive
authority” or tyranny of “external forms of authority” (except of course ed
school doctrine).
This analysis offers no hope for
changing ed schools. Indeed, it suggests that it
may be wiser to find alternatives. See www.abcte.org