The neoliberalism and the school…

[Updated later during the day and February 23]. From the article "Världen över trampar nyliberalismen med stora fötter över skolan. En skarp varning för följderna utfärdas i en internationell antologi" or ”The World Over the Neoliberalism is Treading With Big Feet Over the School. A Sharp Warning for the Consequences Issued In An International Anthology” on the anthology Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers and their unions" (Palgrave MacMillan) see page 84 in the Pedagogical Magazine no 1/2009.

In this anthology you can read what happens in the education sector when the neoliberal transformation is put into practice globally. The first part of the book gives an introduction to the neoliberal attack.

“The authors think that this attack is part of a political project with three aims, developed since the beginning of 1980.

Those are

(1) Transferring wealth upwards in the social hierarchy through creating new steering mechanisms – the rich shall become even richer.

(2) Remaking national school systems so that the production of workers for the market’s needs becomes the chief goal – educate for work and not [seeing school and education] as a human right.

(3) Breaking down the public sector’s sole right in the education sector for to create extended possibilities for private profit interests – making education a part of the market via what is called free choices.”

Concepts like charter schools, city academies, and language schools are used as descriptions for what we in Sweden call free schools, a concept that rhetorically has a positive ring and therefore fits into the neoliberal ambiguousness the reviewer writes.

The Bush regime in USA used the so called Texas-miracle in its campaign for the new conservative school politics passing under the name No Child Left Behind. You spontaneously come to think of the Swedish minister of education’s way of characterizing the Swedish school from what he calls scientific truths. I would want to blog about this later.

According to the review there is a mobilization over the whole world against those neoliberal currents in the school.

“In the book it is pointed out how important it is that the mobilization continues and becomes extended internationally.”

At the same time as the book was published the website “Teachersolidarity.com - the Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers and their Unions: Stories for Resistance” was created.

I searched on earlier postings with the label rethinking schools and found this about the school ni USA apropos the presumed lousy school in the USA according to Alan Greenspan, who accused it for being the reason for the immensely increased gaps in incomes between CEO s and workers.

Addition after lunch: Apropos our leading school politicians who are honoring knowledge: the chief editor for the Pedagogical Magazine wrote in his last leader about an investigation on a new teacher’s education in Sweden he had just read, by a Sigbrit Franke.

He started his reading with wondering what attitude Franke would adopt towards…

“…the nonchalant, yes, sometimes almost contemptuous, attitude her political employer has shown towards education-scientific research (it had been interesting to see the reactions if for instance Maud Olofsson or Göran Hägglund expressed themselves in a similar manner in their respective areas of responsibility in the government).”

The chief editor thinks Franke’s ambition has been high; wanting to present a suggestion that is “long term durable” and “that isn’t marked by the current prevailing winds in societal and pedagogical debate”.

“That’s not a bad ambition considering that it is exactly those ‘prevailing winds’ in the societal debate that has taken the discussion about education over – often in collision course with what research in the field has shown./…/

As an academic vocational education the teacher’s education shall, as you use to say, rest on scientific ground and well-tried experiences. But it shall not only, Franke maintains in her investigation, be linked up with science – it shall be based on research.”

The leader writer thinks this is a considerable accentuation.

Franke even enter into the discussion on the outer and inner motivation, which for a while has been under discussion. The school has of tradition used ‘grades, remarks (reprimands), detentions, blaming as tools steering the students. But the motivation psychology has, she notes, changed the outlook on the student, in favor of one seeing the students as ‘a basically constructive and curious individual.’

Education and ways of working building on inner motivation will most likely become more effective seen long-term than activities principally based on outer motivation – rewards and punishments.

Addition February 23: The presumed discipline problems in school is that part of the propaganda? See earlier posting.

Also see further from “Neoliberalism, Teachers, and Teaching: Understanding the Assault.”

“Over the last couple of decades a new global consensus about reshaping economies and schools has emerged among the politicians and the powerful of the world. Whereas in the past governments -- preferably democratically elected -- have assumed the responsibility to ensure that all children are educated, schools and universities are now regarded as a potential market. In these educational markets, entrepreneurs set up schools and determine what is taught and how it is taught in order to make a profit. The assumption that schooling is a ‘public good’ is under the most severe attack it has ever endured. Teacher trade unionists are grappling with the increasing privatization of education services, the introduction of business ‘quality control’ measures into education, and the requirement that education produce the kind of minimally-trained and flexible workforce that corporations require to maximize their profits. Among scholars and global justice activists, these reforms being made to the economy and education are often called ‘neoliberal.’ They are experienced almost universally by teachers, children, and parents.

While rich northern nations spend billions of dollars prosecuting wars and have bottomless resources for the exploiting of new gas and oil reserves, the most precious reserves of all -- the world's children -- stand at the back of the line. Nor is there an opportunity to develop education systems so that they can fulfill their true purpose -- to enable people to live a full and creative life, or as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it, to ensure that education is directed ‘toward the full development of the human personality.’

There is an old saying that ‘a lie gets halfway round the world before the truth gets on its running shoes.’ The lie making the running in schooling is that private corporations and entrepreneurs are much more able to make education work for the poor than teachers, communities, and their elected representatives in government. And when one listens to politicians and reads in the media about the benefits of bringing the private market and business methodologies into education, one can often feel as if teachers have hardly begun to tie the laces on their running shoes. The voices for privatization and neoliberalism have virtually the whole of the world's media at their disposal to speed them on their way.

Rebutting the ‘private good, public bad’ propaganda is complicated by neoliberalism's hijacking of ideals and terms borrowed from those who have spent their lives campaigning for education for all and opportunities for the poor and oppressed. Hearing news reports and politicians' statements of lofty goals, one might think there is nothing closer to the hearts of the international financiers, accountants, and politicians than the needs of the poor. It is only when you look at the actual effects of the policies of world financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank on ‘developing’ countries and their education systems that you realize that nothing could be further from the truth. The World Bank's structural adjustment programs have destroyed perfectly adequate education systems in countries like Zambia and are threatening to do the same in many others. Neoliberal reports, websites, and corporate financial bulletins with titles like ‘Why school fees are good for the poor,’ show that when it serves their purpose, neoliberal gurus are quite willing to ditch the rhetoric of social justice and equality and lay bare the true face of their education policy.”

Written by LOIS WEINER is a Professor at New Jersey City University and a member of the New Politics editorial board. MARY COMPTON is Past President of the UK National Union of Teachers, the largest teacher union in Europe.

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"Modern education is competitive, nationalistic and separative. It has trained the child to regard material values as of major importance, to believe that his nation is also of major importance and superior to other nations and peoples. The general level of world information is high but usually biased, influenced by national prejudices, serving to make us citizens of our nation but not of the world."

“This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.

In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.”

(Albert Einstein)

The school and authoritarianism…

From an article that has been laying here for quite a while I thought was so good…

With the heading “Political Agenda corrupts the picture.” An article about school politics in Sweden and our (lousy in my strong opinion and feeling) school minister.

The author of the article writes that 30-40 years ago we had a discussion where one draw attention to the encyclopedic knowledge as one called it, namely the knowledge where you just reeled off facts without understanding connections, relations and processes in the ground (yes, deep or surface knowledge or what it’s called in English?).

One discussed grades (betyg) and saw the risks with rewarding the easily measurable knowledge.

Laboriously (with difficulty) one has walked in another direction in the school here in favour of a deeper understanding of the knowledge matters/subjects.

The students were taught to reflect, to think themselves. Yes, even to question things, state of affairs etc.

Now we are obviously turning back to the superficiality’s paradigm again!

Our school minister’s so called reforms indicates a somewhat childish way of behaving to knowledge and pedagogy. Carrots and whips (carrot and stick discipline) shall become honored again and maybe Björklund also has confused the need of a teacher’s authority with authoritarian teachers.

In the Academic world different researchers of course can have different views on science and knowledge, but they aren’t allowed to misrepresent their sources or slip when they quote.

When Björklund has talked about the alleged bad results in Swedish schools a specific, but not expressed view on knowledge is talking.

Parts of the liberal press agree with Björklund and thinks he identifies the real problems (!!!). But is it possible to identify problems when you distort the facts as the sources in fact point out?

How is the dominant liberal press’ ethics and moral when it thinks that this is an acceptable way of using source materials?

Is it the same sort of moral the Alliance (the current ruling coalition here, and hopefully not lasting) uses, and the press gladly presents as the truth, when it paints Swedish citizens black who are said to cheat Social Insurances in Sweden or say that they are working instead of being home with children that are sick? The alarm report which sketched out a picture of millions of cheating Swedes showed to be erroneous, but this they speak very quietly about!!!

If you can assert that the common welfare system is used by greedy citizens, then it’s easier to wind up.

If you can prove that a school where teachers and students try to live together in a friendly atmosphere gives bad results, that the lack of grades from the first beginning lower the students motivation, yes, then you can shout for earlier grades (betyg), harder grips, authoritarian methods.

A certain political agenda is operating here, a hidden agenda.

4,000 Swedish school kids answered an inquiry about security and wellbeing where the Swedish school reached top results. What sort of view on man does Björklund have when he chooses to overlook exactly those students’ – these young people whom in fact are experts on their own situation? Aren’t they? Does he show respect? And why not?

Of course there are things to criticize in our school, but the political platform has to be given an account of.

For example if one likes a school with military drilling more than one who negotiate (Björklund is a former officer). Quite ironically, yes.

Miller on poisonous pedagogy, punishments…

[addition June 29 in the end, the posting is also slightly edited]. At page 64-65 in “The Truth Will Set You Free” Alice Miller writes about corporal punishment in schools (which still exists in the world, but not here in Sweden, or the other Scandinavian countries since long):

“…a teacher who understands these children’s fears [for a blow from the teacher, expending energy on observing the teacher so as to be prepared for the physical ‘correction’ that they feel are inevitable] might move mountains – provided, again, that the abused child’s reality is never played down.”

And it can be (is) something similar with other forms of correcting measures, of other nature, which aren’t of physical nature. The same things are true for grown up people? If they are fearing to be punished in different ways? Grown ups react in the same way? But are usually not (at all) as powerless as children??

She continues:

“We come across the same phenomenon in politics. As long as we are unaware of the degree to which the right to human dignity was denied us in childhood, it will not be easy to concede that right to our children, however sincerely we may want to do so. Frequently we believe we are acting in the interests of the children [for their own good!! Which is no excuse for what we do] and fail to realize we may be doing the very opposite, simply because we have learned to be callous [förhärdade, okänsliga!!!] in this respect at such an early stage. The effects of that learning are stronger than all the things we may learn later./…/

[The punished, humiliated children] are learning to fear their parents, to play down their own pain, and to feel guilty. Being subjected to physical [or others sorts of] attacks that they are unable to fend off merely [blott och bart] instills in children a gut feeling that they do not deserve protection or respect [they aren’t good enough for that they think]. This pernicious false message is stored in their bodies and will influence their view of the world and their attitude toward their own children [and other people’s children, and not least other people in general]. They will be unable to defend their claim to human dignity, unable to recognize physical pain [and other sorts of pains; emotional pain for instance, which of course also can be physical] as a danger and act accordingly [more or less unable to protect themselves adequately]. Their immune systems may even be affected. In the absence of other persons on whom to model their behaviour, these children will see the language of violence [physical and emotional violence, and maybe even sexual violence] and hypocrisy as the only efficient means of communication. Naturally, they will avail themselves of [benytta sig av!] that language when they grow up because adults normally suppress feelings of powerlessness and helplessness. This is the real reason why so many defend the old system of parenting and schooling.”

And this language is used by politicians we see today too! And because this language is well-known to so many is the reason why so many support our current school minister’s ideas - and all other “reactionary” (and "inhuman" or unempathic, contemptuous, in my feelings) ideas our current government has? No, I don't like it and their politics...

In the Swedish part of wikipedia it stands that this “epithet” can be used by people both to the right and left about their “adversaries.” :-)

PS. Silently: I must be struggler, of the worst sort... Struggling with the most impossible things... Where the success is minimal, not even existing... I must think I am not worth anything better?? Responses or mutuality... Humiliating myself... But of course I can't blame the other part for this... And in fact, I am not ironical here, but very serious. I ought to know better. Why don't I? Am I so little worth? Not at all lovable? Seeking things where I can't get it?

Listening to (watching) the birthday celebration-concert (50 years) for and with Esa Pekka Salonen (he is from Finland, but speaks Swedish, too) and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, part 2. Here part 1 and here part 2.His home site. Håkan Hardenberg played so beautifully (his homesite here) in Piazolla's Oblivion (se below played by a flutist). I didn't know of this piece. I think Salonen has chosen both the music and artists to this concert in the Berwaldhallen in Stockholm.

Addition June 29: Skimmed Miller's "The Body Never Lies" in search for something. She wrote in the chapter "Kill Rather Than Feel the Truth" at page 136-137, about why people become criminals or murderers, about the rapist and serial killer Patrice Alègre:

"In each case he was killing the person who had condemned him to such unspeakable torments as a child [cruelly beaten by his father, the policeman, and being lookout to his mother when she was entertaining customers as prostitute]. He himself could hardly realize that fact. Hence he needed victims. Even today he asserts that he loves his mother. Because there was no one to help him, no enlightened witness to stand by him and help him admit to himself, become aware of, and understand his death wishes toward his mother, those wishes proliferated inside him and forced him to kill other women instead of his mother [but one can 'kill' in other manners: emotionally, by exercising power, seeing so people don't have the economic means etc.]

'Is it as simple as that?' many psychiatrists will ask. My answer is yes - it is much simpler than what we have been forced to learn in order to honor our parents and not feel the hatred they deserve [the effects of suppression and denial - and what can it cause if you have a lot of power?? As our politician leaders have...]./.../

The price for this illusion [about his loving mother in this case, and the illusion, belief that she wanted his best] was paid in this case by his victims. Feelings do not kill. The conscious experience of the disappointment caused by Patrice's mother, or even of the desire to strangle her, would not have killed anyone. It was the suppression of such a need, the disassociation of all the negative feelings unconsciously directed at his mother, that drove him to his terrible crimes."

This is the extreme. Miller also writes at page 135:

"There may be many children who survive a confusing fate without turning criminal at a later date./.../

Such a child may even achieve fame, like Edgar Allan Poe, who ultimately drank himself to death, or Guy de Maupassant, who 'came to terms' with his confused and tragic childhood by engaging with no fewer than 300 short stories. But he too, like his younger brother before him, became a psychotic and died in an asylum at the age of forty-two."

Or you become politicians or leader... Or, yes, teacher... And pass what you experienced further on people under you. Even if your need (or even strong urge) to exercise power is disguised. Exercising power by for instance claiming that you do things to other people for their own good (in law-making, political decisions etc.), things which are in fact harmful in different ways, but you have no awareness of what you are actually doing or access to the origins of your acts or emotions connected to this.

And those people who have learned to honor their parents, like maybe our school-minister, pass their unprocessed things further... Pupils and students shall learn to obey and keep quiet!!! And they need whips and carrots (rewards and punishments), if not they will never do their utmost or learn anything!!! (how does one create creativeness? Is it the old belief that the artists need to suffer to create the greatest master-pieces??? What rubbish!) As we grown ups also need rewards in form of for example money to make our best!!!???

Loudly thinking... Oh, please, can somebody help me saying things with fewer words??? :-) And (much) more condensed!! :-) But I get so speechless, so I get lost in a lot of words and emotions??

About the Alègre-case here and here.

Loud thinking…

from a walk April 17, 2007.

[Updated in the evening, see the end] I thought yesterday about writing about my role as teacher, triggered by both this and that probably during a long time, and my possible influence on young people – in a negative sense. Of course? What do I have to contribute with?

But there was so much at work, so I hadn’t time writing then. And now it feels as I don’t have that inspiration or drive any longer. Probably temporary. But I will make a try.

I think we as grown ups aren’t aware of what we are doing always despite all good intentions. But as long as we try to have a good communication we can at least talk about these things.

And still, I don’ feel like a real grown up, am still feeling like a girl… What are they calling it in the co-dependency movement? “Grown up child”?

I got the great honour joining eight speech-lessons with my oldest nephew and two of his friends (they were 20 years and just below) and his sister (my niece, then soon 16 years) a little more than a year ago. And the speech-teacher said after our first initial telephone-calls that she thought I was younger than I was… I felt very ambivalent about this...

Sounding very kind? And nonthreatening? Mom’s cheerful girl? So she wouldn’t get bent to the ground, as a lousy and bad mother? Not adding to the burden of guilt on her shoulders? And not threatening dad with being a strong, competent woman?

Miller writes about a longing and wish to communicate directly, openly without taboos or ideological walls. Yes, many f us have that longing, but not always consciously? Many of us aren’t even really aware of it? Noone has helped us put words on it?

She writes in Path of Life that she thinks she has developed a greater patience by the years, because she thinks she doesn’t have to prove to other people something that is obvious to her any longer.

With time she has become more tolerant and patient she writes. She thinks she can wait for others easier than she has been able earlier, and that she can give others the time they need to convert or transform her thoughts in action.

The fact that she hasn’t felt less alone as twenty years ago (today thirty years ago?) has helped her in this she thinks.

Many people, autodidacts and professionals (fact-people) have with time confirmed her thesis, expanded and broadened them from their own experiences, both inspired by her and also totally independently.

She thinks it was very painful realising what she had done to her children of pure ignorance. What she neglected for their and her own sake. She thinks it was (and I guess it still is, when she today realises more and more) painful realising that with more information many things could have developed differently and better, and that much isn’t possible to get back. Things you can’t make it undone. For some this can be so painful so they don’t begrudge other people (many times own children) other and much better experiences?

She writes that most women she knows are glad that they at least today are better informed than earlier about how a small child sees the world and better informed about its most vital needs. The increased knowledge makes it easier to have a more open dialogue with their now grown up children and develop a new understanding for their grandchildren.

But still she thinks these people amount to a minority.

She writes that many get depressed when they one day with astonishment realises or establishes how they in their relation to not least their children and partner are lacking the freedom which they have longed from since their youth. Not always consciously longing?

Maybe they then feel as if they were in a sort of blind alley or dead end (återvändsgränd). As children they couldn’t find their way out. They had no choices, had to adapt to the environment, and as grown ups they don’t even know they have any alternatives.

If we get more aware about those stampings (??) we don’t have to behave like automats.

And yes, how does one handle these things as grown up?

How does one react when one sees things, or think one sees things? What is about me and what is about the other part? Now I am thinking about what I see among children and young people… And what I see in the interaction between children and parents. When it comes not only to pupils, but also to siblings, cousins, friends’ children?

So I act in a way that isn’t harmful for anyone, but constructive…

And also; how do I avoid myself too adding damage? And how do I handle if I see things colleagues do? How do we talk about these things?

The best way would be trying to work on ones own issues? And try to find people with whom one could talk about these things with (face to face would be the best?), in a non-moralizing way?

PS. This afternoon our Youth Symphony Orchestra has 25-year jubilee, with concert and buffet after the concert. Former colleagues coming...

There's a lot more I would want to blog about: the school... For instance a long article about our grade system (which has been and is a hot debate here) in the teacher's paper, which I got yesterday, and Education at a Glance, a report from OECD I was tipped about by a friend (a shorter version than the linked though), which I have printed out and started to read here and there. And, no, it isn't really about education at a glance (med en flyktig blick)! This report is 451 pages long, but my shorter version is "only" 58 pages long.

There's a backlash in society? Our current school minister is very authoritarian I think.

At wikipedia it stands about his political views (I didn't vote for this government, whose politics I don't like...):

"Björklund is often seen as a representative of the more right-wing, hard-edged faction of the Liberal Party. He has focused most on school issues, where he is known for his support for orderliness and discipline. He has criticized the Swedish schools system for being to 'muddled' and not focusing enough on knowledge. Among other things, he has advocated more frequent assessments and a reformed grade system.

In 2002, as first deputy chairman of his party, Björklund expressed his support for the coming U.S. invasion of Iraq and urged for Swedish participation in the multinational coalition."

Updated in the evening: In a programme at the Swedish TV Beckman, Ohlson and Can, with for instance our current school minister (se above) and the director Suzanne Osten (her home site in English), they spoke about our “muddled” school - and “muddled” society in general (a deep sigh).

Osten said something I think was worth thinking of, a little freely related by me:

“Scared people are screaming about ‘muddle’ (flum)! They try to find one single solution to all problems! A kind of black-white thinking. We want to define all human weakness away. We have a dream of a hero [a father-figure, hard but just?], who shall come there and save us [the Swedish professor in religion-psychology Owe Wikström wrote something similar in one of his recent books; that he feared people would scream for tough leaders]. We live in a loveless society!”

They also spoke of the school achievements in countries like Finland and Korea (top ranked one of them said, which probably is true if I remember the OECD-document right I have skimmed and started to read), where the school-system is much harder than here. But Osten pointed out that these two nations are relatively respectively (my history knowledge isn't especially fresh! Thanks to our lousy school? Or thanks to how hard it is to teach me something? But yes, I have my thoughts about my schools) much younger than our society, and still have something to strive for and look forward to. They still have a drive. But we are lacking this! I agree.

Actually the Swedish actress Lena Endre said something about this in an interview many years ago, that there are noone among all our leaders and politicians who have visions for our society (something positive worth striving for), and she sounded upset over this.

They also spoke about how “we” (who are those "we"??? Maybe I'm remembering wrong what they actually said) rely on the society in all situations. Björklund mentioned (took as an example) a mom in a meeting at her 9-year old daughter’s school just outside Stockholm, where the mom said to the headmaster and all other parents and the teacher/s that she thought the school should look so the kids weren’t out at town at 9 PM!!! Of course one can wonder if THIS is the school's duty?? But this Björklund sees this single event as a sign for how we push responsibility away (all of us) and a need for teahing people personal responsibility (my free interpretation!) and of course he also advocate “harder grips”? Is this, one and only event, representative and to what degree? And if it is; what would the proper “medicine” be? I don't believe in his ideas (and I don't think Osten and the other two women did either).

We are too spoiled?

Many politicians are so fond of speaking about the individual’s responsibility today… Putting the emphasis on this. I just sigh. Of course I think we all have responsibility for ourselves, but there is a but... And this (authoritarian talk?) is applauded by many (??). I wonder: must the one exclude the other? The individuals and the society's responsibility I mean.

And why have people put everything in the hands of society – if they have? What are the roots for this?

And as always, some are overly responsible taking (but they are forgotten in the societal debate) and some are pushing their personal responsibility far away? But actually how many suffer from the latter “disease”.