Basic Skills / Fast Company / Journal Project, Will R. Yliniemi  October 8, 1999

Fast Company Alternative Article #1, Learning in the Key of Life, What does it mean  and more important, what should it mean  to be educated?, by Jon Spayde, Utne Reader

Summary

This was my first article that I digested from the Utne Reader, and I found that the author Spaydes narrative style is probing, confident and maybe slightly flippant. The context of the article caught my eye and piqued my interest like a bear to honey. What should it mean to be educated?

The author surmises that talking about the meaning of education, inevitability leads to the question of what a culture considers most important. He also states that answers dont come easy, in a multiethnic, corporation-heavy democracy that dominates the globe without having much of a sense of its own soul. For our policyheads, education equals something-called training for competitiveness. For multiculturalists of various stripes, education has become a battle line where they must duke it out regularly with incensed neotraditionalists.

Spayde asserts that given all the diverse confrontational tensions, which encounter us, our education didnt prepare us for the world were living in today. He asks so what shall we do about it? He makes light of higher education and yet maintains that formal education is serious stuff. He says that the divide in American life that hurts the most is between those who are poorly trained and those we consider well educated. He contends that education like class is about power. Educational power has everything to do with attitude, access, entitlement, tools, people and ideas that make living easier to bear.

Spayde quotes Earl Shorris who started an Ivy League adult education course in humanities for low income New Yorkers. On the first day of class Shorriss said this to the students, who were Asians, whites, blacks and Hispanics at or near the poverty line: Youve been cheated. Rich people learn the humanities; you didnt. Humanities are the foundation for getting along in the world, for thinking, for learning to reflect on the world instead of just reacting to whatever force is turned against you. Will the humanities make you rich? Absolutely. But, not in terms of money. In terms of life.

Spayde concludes that by deliberately refusing to define poor Americans as nothing more than economic units whose best hope is training at fly-by-night computer schools, Shorris reminds us that genuine education is a discourse  a dialogue  carried on within the context of the society around us. School helps, but its just the beginning of the engagement between ideas and reality.

Reflection

This article and its author seem to have made the connection of what it means to be educated. I agree with the premise that being educated is a source of power, and that educational power has everything to do with attitude, access, entitlement, tools, people and ideas that make living easier. I do not agree that formal Ivy League or Higher Education should be or is the most prudent resource for educating people in reflection toward attaining genuine educational discourse/dialogue. Why? Because the powerless do not have access, which prevents the process of engagement from spawning. What if you do not or can not belong to this artificially defined position of described power? How do you respond? How do you react? How do you feel? How do you learn? How do you teach? What is your truth? How are you empowered? How are you engaged? Is it democratic?

Then where should this occur? How about families? Why not train teachers, school boards and parents to be transformative and reflective. I have come to the conclusion that if there is a beginning to a solution, it must have its foundation and facilitating responsibility embedded in each of us. Liberation from an emotionally constipated state of control and power will need to be understood, evaluated and altered. The expert model of teaching and learning legitimizes power and control, and quells dialog. The alternative of learner empowerment and involvement is much more complicated and will require the creation of a respectful intellectual atmosphere and safe environment for critical input and reflection. Can we start this process when we train our teachers? Can we enhance the process when we meet with parents? Do we as a society have the Guts to empower our children to reflect, engage and think!!

Discussion

One of my colleagues suggested that my Reflection comments tended to be a little radical. In discussing this article with my son-in-law, who is a sixth grade teacher, his response was that the system insists on continuing the expert model of teaching and tends to subdue any out of the box educational methodologies.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1999