Where did people get the idea that schooling was neutral anyways?
On my newsletter, I succinctly suggest that schooling was never neutral. In recent times, I wrote about English Language Arts and all that comes with the term “literacy.” I wrote about Math because I do this. What’s the idea behind this writing? Simple. We can’t talk about schooling without dissecting the ways we operate in it. Our policies and practices are written in thinly veiled language that suggests impartiality.
Why lie?
We keep using words like “achievement gap,” “equity,” and “growth mindset” to put the onus on the people on the ground level doing the most work (students, teachers, parents) and not on the system upon which the schools sits. At some point, if the results of the game never change, we have to critically analyze the game. We can talk about the players, the referees, the coaches, and the managers. But after all that’s done, we may want to ask how the game gets played, what we’re using to play it, and whether we need to play a new game entirely.
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Jose, I love your analogy here about the education system being a “game” and us teachers being the coaches or whatever we may be in this analogy, and how often times, we are the players receiving heat for our actions, not that of the actual game itself. Through my limited studies in becoming an educator, and from simply being a participant myself, I feel like its time for the audience to stop analyzing the game, and time for the coaches to speak to the game directly. I appreciate all your direct and thought provoking words. Best.
Author
Thank you for this comment! We have a long way to go before we can take over all the metaphors.