Volume 29, Number 3

' Close our schools! against current trends in policy making, educational theory and curriculum studies' Stefan Hopmann and Rudolf Künzli

Leonard Waks

Temple University,
Philadelphia USA

My initial (and very preliminary) impressions: I have some problems with the political and sociological assumptions behind the argument. I am, however, very sympathetic to the positive idea addressed, that of the "playground." I'll stick to my concerns -- after all, my sympathies are of no importance.

Politically, the schools are vulnerable to irrational pressures which serve the office-seeking and office maintaining tactics of political people. This is a democracy, and the schools are prime political territory on local, state, and national scale, so I do not see any generic strategy for protecting schools from such pressures. This explains much of the grab-bag effect the Hopmann and Kuenzli dislike.

Let me explain with an analogy: a woman feels herself the victim of harassment. She sues her employer (e.g. the university). They settle out of court, and one element in the agreement is that the employer mandate "harassment training" for all employees. The employer accepts: the training is cheap, can be done by employees of personnel without additional wages, etc. Besides, this will protect the employer in future legal hassles -- he can say "we gave training." The employer however, doesn't think either that as a matter of fact the person WAS harassed or that the so-called training will have much effect on future harassment -- although it might have the beneficial effect of putting a general chill on workers. So every worker ends up getting something that arguably is problematic, that does no-one any good. But the powerful players in the situation (harassee and employer) each make what to their lights is a good deal.

Now the analogue: a group in society feels itself aggrieved -- it attaches some rider to an educational bill mandating that XYZ be in the curriculum (e.g. multicultural ed) as a condition for state or federal funding. Principals are compelled or strongly urged to include it. And they can load it on without additional cost. So why not. Its no worse than driver ed, and probably less trouble than sex ed. Cumulatively, the school is going through the motions with all that stuff. So I agree with your editorial writers: it knocks down the tone of the whole enterprise and makes it seem just a grab bag of mind-numbing baloney. But the question is: how is this to be prevented under current governance arrangements?

Now for the sociological concerns. As Durkheim said, the schools are an integral part of a social structure as a whole, and are articulated with the other parts (though obviously, with looseness in the joints). Thus the latent functions of the schools -- the so-called hidden curriculum effectively confronted by Dreeben and Jackson more than 25 years ago. But Durkheim concludes that we quite simply do not and cannot have the schools we "choose." The total package in some ways must serve the total ends reflected in thousands of decisions made under conditions of unequal power.

A hidden hand keeps the entire mechanism favorable to groups in proportion to their relative power. Like the employer in the analogy, they get a good deal in each of the thousands of decisions that add up to create and sustain the institutional arrangements.

As we move towards a "postindustrial" society, the schools will certainly re-articulate with other institutions (the job system, the electronic media, etc.) But this re-articulation process is the effect of many many actions, and is not a product of design: there will be no one very big agent who can affect the institution as-a-whole in a way which appears rational to him or her. Lots of people will get what they want here and there, and the whole system will also serve reasonably well in relation to what those who can affect their wills want from it. (Otherwise they change it as they can.).

This sort of sociological insight is what I think made Dewey the great theorist of the 20th century: he saw that industrial conditions would pressure educational institutions in certain inevitable directions, and looked for places where there was a little looseness in the joints to pick his fights. And even in the modest areas of action he picked he grossly over-estimated that looseness, so he lost his fights.

So I would want your editorial writers to explain more clearly just why the curriculum has this unbounded character they deplore, open to all these silly incursions. And I would want them to then say what they imagine the overall direction of change in educational institutions is, in light of developments in the postindustrial global economy, the postindustrial global polity, and the high tech computer-media context. What will be the "inevitable" developments and what the areas of looseness in the joints? What avenues will identifiable groups (e.g. workers, teacher unions, industry leaders, environmental activists, the elderly! etc) have to get to decision makers to make their will known? And in what directions do they want to push? Then, if the sort of "playground" conception remains among the remaining possibilities, the moves in favor of it can be genuinely interesting. Otherwise: there's a discontinuity of means-ends -- and castles (or playgrounds) in the air.

Incidentally, I think that despite the convergences of the global economy, the political differences suggest that the character of schooling shall remain somewhat distinct in western Europe, Japan, and the U.S..