The System Effect

The interesting thing to me about Ayn Rand - well, it's not her writing, her books are as fourth rate literarily as they are philosophically - is that she is perhaps the last Leninist quoted by any "mainstream" American political figure.

portrait of a young Leninist:
a 1925 Ayn Rand bookcover

Now Ayn Rand is, of course, no Marxist. Marxism being a rather "Catholic" utopian vision of the perfectability of all humanity (my translation). But Ayn Rand is a pure Leninist - "The principle of democratic centralism and autonomy for local Party organisations implies universal and full freedom to criticise, so long as this does not disturb the unity of a definite action; it rules out all criticism which disrupts or makes difficult the unity of an action decided on by the Party." (Lenin, V.I. (1905) Freedom to Criticise and Unity of Action, from Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1965, Moscow, Volume 10, pages 442-443. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/may/20c.htm  ). Leninism includes ideals of global revolution - which Ayn Rand also insists on - as well as a belief that one is not permitted to disrupt the "inevitable march of history" - and that basic framing, "the ends justify the means," which is the point of Ayn Rand's novels.

Just as, no matter how he might object to the label, Nathan Harden, author of that new right-wing porn best seller Sex and God at Yale (which I suspect all male Romney campaign staffers are reading on their private jets at night while their wives are at home banging the pool boys), is a "classic Yalie," as smug and superior and intolerant of the world as any sexually-active Ivy Leaguer in New Haven, Connecticut has ever been. In this - and not at all intellectually - does Harden reflect one of his claimed heroes, William F. Buckley, Jr.

"The hidden curriculum is the curriculum," my friend and mentor Lynn Fendler is fond of saying, and Rand, Harden, Buckley are all deep proof of this concept. Ayn Rand is a proud product of Petrograd State University in the early 1920s, one of the students there who most purely absorbed the Leninist theories flowing around here, no matter her reaction to whatever academic content was in play. She writes like those other boring Soviet polemicists of her time, she argues as they do, she is as one-sided as they are. 

She cannot really help it. The affect of the educational system which "created" her has had its expected effect. Compare Rand, for a moment, to John Reed, the oft-forgotten early developer of "New Journalism." Reed was the child of wealth, but in the America of his time, a kind of "wild west wealth." He was a "poor student" who, upon admission to Harvard in 1906, failed to become part of the club and football culture, and instead ran with a kind of "Cambridge underground" of swimmers, Lampoon writers, theatre majors, and socialists. "All this made no ostensible difference in the look of Harvard society, and probably the club-men and the athletes, who represented us to the world, never even heard of it. But it made me, and many others, realize that there was something going on in the dull outside world more thrilling than college activities, and turned our attention to the writings of men like H.G. Wells and Graham Wallas, wrenching us away from the Oscar Wildian dilettantism which had possessed undergraduate litterateurs for generations," he later wrote. (Hicks with Stuart, John Reed, pg. 33.)

Sergei Eisenstein (and Company), Oktyabr. - or - Ten Days that Shook the World, film 1927

Reed was a Marxist. A dedicated Marxist.  But Reed could never quite get to Leninism, no matter how hard he tried, and he tries very hard to convince both the reader and himself in his masterwork, Ten Days that Shook the World.

Reed tried very hard to be a Leninist, but remained more poet than committed revolutionary (Beatty, Warren. Reds, 1981)

John Reed remained the system outsider he was from the moment he entered school. The weird kid. The poet, the comedian, the one who never saw his name on an honor roll, and with the comply or defy choice schools offer their students, he defied, every bit as much as Rand, Buckley, and Harden complied. All, however, might be considered victims of their educations.

Rand and Buckley, Mitt Romney, and even - to an extent - Barack Obama, never acquired the empathy needed by real leaders who could understand and work for others. Reed, like Scott Fitzgerald who followed him from west of the Appalachians into struggles with the Ivy League, could never turn his skill as one of the greatest writers of his generation into a way to communicate successfully with, or negotiate successfully with, "power" - and so suffered all of his life.

"[My brother is] a really, really smart guy, and where I was always great at memorizing facts and applying rules, he was always able to look more deeply into subject matter and understand it in a different way.  But schools wanted people like me and not people like my brother, who has dyslexia, ADHD and other learning difficulties, and who was called by one horrible teacher "stupid" in front of an entire class filled with his peers.  And who still believes that teacher." - Rachel Ash on Google+

The System Effect

Teachers need to be better, sometimes much better, at what they do. I understand this, I have said this. But when the Carnegie Corporation of New York says, "that quality teachers have a greater influence on pupil achievement than any other school-based factor," they are so completely wrong it is embarrassing to hear them say it. Because the Carnegie Corporation - largely responsible for at least the secondary education system we struggle with today - never bothered to include as a variable the system of school itself.

The Carnegie Corporation - education research which hurts American children for more than 100 years (?)

School is an environment - a built environment, a social environment, an authoritarian environment, a temporal environment - and like all living things, humans respond to all the clues and components in their environment.

I might focus on teacher education (for example), because it does not matter how 'progressively' we speak at the Michigan State University College of Education, as long as our undergraduate teachers-to-be go through prescribed class hours in a prescribed and divided curriculum while sitting in chairs in classrooms and getting graded - traditionally - on both their work and their attendance, we are reinforcing the system we claim to be overturning. "Let's all sit down for the lecture on differentiation," as we say.

Nor, no matter how brilliant our conversations in PhD seminars, will we not create change-agent leaders unless we stop making the doctorate a program of prescribed hoop jumpings. Successful hoop jumpers are far too likely to become hoop setting leaders. Students taught "the old way" tend to reproduce that - or to flee the profession. Comply or Defy. (Pink, Daniel)

None of this is said to let individual educators off-the-hook - I believe in the moral responsibility of all of us to subvert the system in any way that we can - but I also know that real change requires system change. The "Prussian Model" plus the factory system of treating human children as industrial parts - championed by the Carnegie Foundation at the turn of the last century - are the dominant influences on every child entering an institution of American education today. The biggest influence? Of course it is home socio-economics. But the reason that remains the biggest influence is that every systemic part of our education system was designed from the start, and remains designed to, exacerbate those home differences and reward wealthy parents, instead of creating equitable opportunity.

Yes, everything. Age-based grades. Grade-level content. Grade-level "standards." "Common Core" curricula. Classroom shape. The early focus on symbolic languages. Classroom chairs. Standardized testing. The school clock and calendar. Homework. Many "behavior standards." The division of secondary content. The way we pay, or don't pay, attention to students. Our view of attention... All of it is designed to control who wins and who loses in a way which will protect, not reduce, the class divide in the United States (and in England, and elsewhere).

And if we want to change that, it is a political question. And if, as I believe, education is the most important thing a society does, then this is the political question.

So we need to ask the questions, every day, and of every leader. Really? as Yong Zhao recently asked, will the Common Core increase equity? What, exactly, is the point of "value added" assessment - other than to emphasize the "defective" nature of many incoming students? When we say "high standards," whose "standards" are these? When we insist on grade-level curriculum, or grade level content, who are we rewarding, and who are we hurting? When we insist on multiple years of algebra - or anything in particular - for secondary graduation, who are we turning into losers? When we create arbitrary behavioral standards - from insisting that children sit in horrible chairs to banning mobile phones - who gets the win?

The system affect is very difficult to escape from, as Ayn Rand and John Reed indicate. And the the system effect will stay with our children for their lifetimes. Change seems almost impossible.. but if we are responsible adults, change must occur as rapidly as possible.

- Ira Socol

Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw knew both Ireland and England, and knew colonialism when he saw it. He also understood the concept of the "West Brit."

Pygmalion, 1938 film, Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller

Wendy Hiller is brilliant in the 1938 film of Shaw's Pygmalion when she realizes exactly how she has been played by Higgins and the British establishment.

"Am I free?" she asks.

When you have traded who you are for entrée into another culture, are you ever able to be free again?

So what is a "West Brit" and what's the connection? A "West Brit" - especially, say, 1880-1930 or so - was an Irish Catholic who worked really hard to sound, act, and appear "English," as a way of climbing the ladder of Dublin society or careers in Dublin tightly tied to the British Empire. It was (is) a derogatory term, essentially the same as when one African-American might accuse another of "acting white."

Shaw's Pygmalion is a close look at this phenomena. Is the culture of Henry Higgins really so superior to that in which Eliza Doolittle has been raised? Is it about the language, or, as Eliza points out, is it about dignity - that Colonel Pickering treats her as a human from start to finish, while Higgins only sees her as worthy when "his creation" - the Greek Myth underlying the story - has been fully formed?

Is it "OK" to speak and act, to think and be, Irish? Or, in order to succeed in the rough world of 19th and 20th Century capitalism, must we all learn to mimic those in London's "City."

Who's culture is OK?

When I was a kid, a pro basketball star named Rick Barry, who played for the San Francisco Warriors and shots fouls "like a girl" but with incredible accuracy, had signed a contract to 'jump' to the Oakland Oaks of the American Basketball Association. But before he could legally do so, the Oaks had moved to Washington DC, and then, were on their way to Virginia. Barry, who liked San Francisco Bay, and was willing to go the nation's capital, was however, drawing his line in the sand along the north bank of the Potomac. "My son Scooter is supposed to go to nursery school this year. I hate to think of the complications that'll cause in Virginia," Barry told Sports Illustrated. "I don't want him to go down there to school and learn to speak with a Southern accent. He'll come home from school saying, 'Hi yall, Daad.' I sure don't want that."

The end result of that statement was Barry being traded to "my team," beginning the short but wonderful history of the New York Nets,1 which is why I remember this so clearly. But the key question here is, "was Rick Barry right?"

See, I can use the United States Department of Education's NAEP results to "prove" that if a student has a southern accent, they are both more likely to be "below basic" on school skills, especially reading, and less likely to be "advanced." In fact, I can "prove" that the heavier the southern accent, the poorer the performance on standardized tests in general. These are "statistical facts."

So let us look at the Common Core argument, or that advanced by the "Acting White" theorists like Stuart Buck. According to them, the solution to this disparity - why would Alabama kids perform below Ohio kids? - can't be because of school spending or teacher unionization or economic success over the past decade, right? - would be to wipe out the Southern Accent in schools and to make sure that no one in the South criticized kids for "Acting Northern."

And if we could go one better, get those Alabama kids talking like Massachusetts kids, along with swapping grits for Maine oysters, we'd really leave no child behind. So our "Common Core" might be best be described as "Talk like a Kennedy."

See, "Black English" and "Spanglish" are really no further - linguistically - from "The Queen's English" than the American Southern Accent is, or the thick New England Accent is, our culture has simply decided that certain variations are OK because they embrace the power structure, and certain are not because they represent threats to the power structure. Just as, in the United Kingdom, it is fine if you have an Edinburgh Accent, not fine if you sound like you are from Liverpool. Fine if you are clearly from Devonshire, not fine if you are clearly from Glasgow. None of this is about competency or fluency or understandability, rather, it is completely, and only, about power.2

Ethnics emerge dressed as Americans after being "dunked" in The Melting Pot
at a graduation from The Ford Motor Company's "English School."

Conversion

None of this is new. "Established in 1914, the Ford English School taught the company’s immigrant workers more than just how to speak English. It taught them about American culture and history and instilled the importance of such virtues as thriftiness, cleanliness, good manners, and timeliness." There has always been a tension in the United States between the expressed ideal of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society - you know, that brilliant combination of ethnicities in any World War II film - and the reality on the political ground, which is that "our leadership" would find things "much easier" if we were all "white, protestant, straight, northern Europeans."

Actually not.

They don't want that. If everyone were "the same" the "leadership class" would not know at-a-glance who belonged and who did not. So, what they want is for everyone "else" to waste enormous effort trying to be like them, while they race comfortably ahead. Remember, if we run back through the past 400 years, the number of national leaders of the United States and United Kingdom (combined) who have been - simply - Catholic - totals one. One. And, to put it in history book terms, "He served as President of the United States for a thousand days before he was shot and replaced by a Protestant." The US Republican Party has never even nominated a Catholic (or an African-American, or any other non-white Protestant) for President. These things, just aren't done. Tony Blair could only convert to Catholicism after he stepped down as Prime Minister of the UK. And what, a quarter of Americans are so distraught by having an African-American as their leader that they spin fairy tales about his birth.

This is not about language, or behavior, or communication, or shared culture, it is about power and the preservation of power.

How to speak and how to drink tea

There are many odd parts to the "Common Core" idea, it isn't just content that is being standardized, but delivery. The Onion, as expected, has it right, '“Before these standards, there was too much pressure in doing my job. Having to figure out what I needed to teach and how to teach it all by myself; it’s way too much to expect. I’m much more relaxed now by just sticking to the standards.'

'“I just turned to the section on ‘Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas’ to see if there was something I hadn’t considered and there it was! Item #5 said to ‘Add audio recordings and visual displays to presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.’ Eureka! I hadn’t thought of that one before, so I checked out a record player and film strip projector from our building audio-visual room and presented a film strip on Hairless Mammals of North America that very day!"'

Gentleman's Agreement, 1947, do we really have to let Jews into our country clubs?

Those advocating the "Common Core" are fascinated with standardizing large parts of instruction - the "Core Knowledge" folks carry this to extremes, listing acceptable poets and when they can be read. But this comes out of world view crafted in post-World War II America, with only white people on the television (saying stuff like "soda pop"), only white people in the schools attended by people like E.D. Hirsch, Jr., and the biggest social issue on the agenda being, in the wake of the Nazi slaughter, would we really have to let Jewish people into our country clubs?

But the basic idea is that we must teach all of our children to be exactly like "us." This would (a) make people like E.D. Hirsch, Jr. more comfortable - he would not be faced with having to learn other cultures or behaviors, and (b) as a bonus, the children of the rich and powerful can trod softly ahead of the pack while poor kids sit in KIPP Academies and Common Core schools spending years learning how to behave, speak, and learn, correctly. A win-win, as they might say.

Odd cultures

We all need to learn to look the same and drink tea correctly.

Years ago, I attended a wedding in Yarmouthport, Massachusetts. It was a very old friend of mine - an Irish-Quebecois Catholic - marrying a man of New England nobility. His entire family came dressed essentially identically. It was summer, and every male had a blue blazer and white pants, most with - I'm not making this up - straw boaters for hats. The women all looked like Daisy from The Great Gatsby - clothes-wise at least. They drank tea from cups with their pinkies extended, they held their wine glasses "just so," they used words we did not understand and gave us funny looks when we didn't understand...

Honestly, they looked ridiculous. It couldn't have been more bizarre to us New Yorkers (who I'm sure looked like the barbarian hordes to the hosts) if we had stumbled into a full hip-hop wedding with everybody sagging. I mean, is there a difference? Or is it simply that one group owns 50% of the money in the US and the other doesn't?

You know, there's a reason great universities crave diversity in their student bodies (and I will exclude Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania from that group because those three Ivy League schools are homogeneous social class finishing schools3): It is because, education, like societies, work best - makes the greatest strides - when there is neither "Common Core Knowledge" nor "Common Culture."

It is exactly the clash of cultures, of language, of knowledge - the synthesis of thesis and antithesis - which produces breakthroughs in learning, invention, culture, and understanding. Michigan State University - as an example - seeks out students from just about every nation on earth.4 Not because they are the same - because they have the same Core Knowledge and the same understanding of the classroom culture - but specifically because they do not. As at every great university it is that "coming together" which builds an atmosphere of creation.

That is what makes London and New York, Paris and Berlin, Chicago and Los Angeles great cities - not homogeneity, not any "Core Knowledge," not any standard behavior - but the richness of the often uncomfortable clash of cultures.

We don't need E.D. Hirsch, Jr, Bill Gates, and Arne Duncan making Eliza Doolittle's out of us. We don't need to be sculpted by Pygmalions from any era. We need to be who we are and we need the equal opportunity to turn ourselves into the best that we can be.

And there's my rant for the Fourth of July... the freedom to be who we are.

- Ira Socol

1 - My junior high era basketball buddies did want me to grow much taller and get a hook shot so I could be more like "my namesake," the Virginia Squires Ira Harge, though I'm not sure now why we we liked the guy.
2 - Fabulous archive of accents http://web.ku.edu/~idea/dialectmap.htm  
3 - If you need to go an Ivy League school, do yourself a favor and stick with those in New York and Rhode Island. 
4 - "While 89% of students come from all 83 counties in the State of Michigan, also represented are all 50 states in the U.S. and about 130 other countries"