“The modern primary and secondary school system has been much altered by changing theories of pedagogy and, most especially, by affluence and the youth culture itself. But there is no mistaking its origins in the factory, if not the prison. Compulsory universal education, however democratizing in one sense, has also meant that, with few exceptions, the students have to be there. The fact that attendance is not a choice, not an autonomous act, means that it starts out fundamentally on the wrong foot as a compulsory institution, with all the alienation that this duress implies, especially as children grow older.
“The great tragedy of the public school system, however, is that it is, by and large, a one-product factory. This tendency has only been exacerbated by the push in recent decades for standardization, measurement, testing, and accountability. The resulting incentives for students, teachers, principals, and whole school districts have had the effect of bending all efforts toward fashioning a standard product that satisfies the criteria the auditors have established.
“What is this product? It is a certain form of analytical intelligence, narrowly conceived, which can, it is assumed, be measured by tests. We know, of course, that there are many, many skills that are valuable and important for a successful society that are not even remotely related to analytical intelligence, among them, artistic talent, imaginative intelligence, mechanical intelligence (the kind that Ford's early workers brought with them from the farm), musical and dance skills, creative intelligence, emotional intelligence, social skills, and ethical intelligence. Some of these aptitudes find a place in extracurricular activities, especially sports, but not in the measured and graded activities on which so much now depends for students, teachers, and schools. This monochromatic flattening of education is brought to a kind of apotheosis in educational systems like those in France, Japan, China, and Korea, where the exercise culminates in a single examination on which one's future mobility and life's chances substantially depend. Here the scramble to get into the best-regarded schools, to find extra-hours tutoring, and to attend special exam-preparation cram courses reaches a fever pitch.
“How ironic it is that I, who write this, and virtually anyone who reads it, are the beneficiaries, the victors, of this rat race. It reminds me of a graffito I once saw in a Yale toilet stall. Someone had written, 'Remember, even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat!' Below, in a different hand, someone else had riposted, ‘Yeah, but you're a winner.’
“Those of us who ‘won’ this race are the lifetime beneficiaries of opportunities and privileges that would not likely otherwise have come our way. We are also are likely to carry a lifetime sense of entitlement, superiority, accomplishment, and self-esteem that comes from this victory. Let us bracket, for the moment, the question of whether this dividend is justified and what it actually means in terms of our value to ourselves and others, and merely note that it represents a fund of social capital that adjusts the odds of financial and status mobility radically in our favor. This is a lifetime privilege extended to perhaps one-fifth at most of those the system turns out.
“And what of the rest? What of the, say, 80 percent who in effect lose the race? They carry less social capital; the odds are adjusted against them. Perhaps as important is the fact that they are likely to carry a lifelong sense of having been defeated, of being less valued, of thinking that they are inferior and slow-witted. This system effect further adjusts the odds against them. And yet, have we any rational reason to credit the judgments of a system that values such a narrow band width of human talents and measures achievement within this band by the ability to sit successfully for an exam?
“Those who do poorly on tests of analytical intelligence may be incredibly talented at one or more of the many forms of intelligence that are neither taught nor valued by the school system. What sort of a system is it that wastes these talents, that sends four-fifths of its students away with a permanent stigma in the eyes of society's gatekeepers, and perhaps in their own eyes as well ? Are the dubious benefits of the privileges and opportunities accorded a presumed ‘analytical intelligence elite’ by this pedagogical tunnel vision worth so much social damage and waste?”
Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play
