“The number one health problem in the United States is mental illness […] Still another problem concerns misinformation–commonly referred to as the “credibility gap” or “news management.” The misinformation problem takes a variety of forms, such as lies, cliches, and rumors, and implicates almost everybody, including the President of the United States. Many of these problems are related to, or at least seriously affected by, the communications revolution.”
The above excerpt is from the introduction to Teaching as a Subversive Activity by Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner (1968) – a text written 49 years ago. With exception to references to the Vietnam War, Cuba, and the lack of references to any feminine intelligentsia, it could have been written today.
Postman and Weingartner go on to state their thesis that “change–constant, accelerating, ubiquitous–is the most striking characteristic of the world we live in and […] our educational system has not yet recognized this fact.” They compare the educational institution’s approach to driving a race car while looking into the rear-view mirror as we scream “Faster! Faster!” They say “we have paid almost exclusive attention to the car, equipping it with all sorts of fantastic gadgets and an engine that will propel it at ever increasing speeds, but we seem to have forgotten where we wanted it to go.”
What strikes me is how little has changed over 50 years. We are still plagued by an educational system stuck in old methodology, looking to the past, stifling creativity and indoctrinating students to consider themselves part of a defined future that no one can define: go to college, get a good job, make a lot of money, then you’ll be happy. Yeah, right. How many of my fellow 50-year-olds, those of us born in the late 60s, have found this formula to work? What happened to the change that Postman and Weingartner attempted way back in our infancy? We continue to buy stuff – computers, document cameras, interactive white-boards – thinking that somehow these “things” will bring us prepared for the 21st century. All the while teachers fight against cell-phones in the classroom and the continued state of constant distraction and disengagement of the majority of our students — particularly those who have not bought into the do well in school and you’ll be successful in adult life line.
Most of my students have fallen prey to the line. Heck, even my own child has fallen prey to the anxiety of “doing well in school” and having to get not just good but perfect grades. How’s that for mental health.
I’ve watched the rise of a demagogue, incredulous, wondering how our educational system could have so failed that a man with no scruples, no experience, and no compassion could have bought his way into the White House. Not that this is about politics – it’s not, really – except insofar as politics relates to a way of life, to our participation in our own governance, our awareness of our world and the choices we make in making the world a place in which we want to live. Students don’t get much of an opportunity to think about what that world looks like or what it should look like.
As a teacher, I intend to make it my mission to change that: to give students opportunity to think about what the world looks like, what it should look like, and ways to create the world in which they want to live.
