Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Moving Toward Authoritarianism

Yong Zhao via Curriculum Matters:

"Clearly, American education has been moving toward authoritarianism," he writes, "letting the government dictate what and how students should learn and what schools should teach. This movement has been fueled mostly through fear—fear of threats from the Soviets, the Germans, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Chinese, and the Indians. The public, as any animal under threat would, has sought and accepted the action of a protector—the government."

Read more...

This is the kind of thing where the "schools haven't changed in 100 years" rhetoric is counter-productive. They have changed, and they are changing, but what's posing as reform is reactionary.

Also, it isn't clear that "the government" is behind the authoritarian impulse. Aren't corporations and the philanthropists of our new gilded age driving it?

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