Neoliberalism's Attack on Education:

I rant and rave about how education has become a battleground of ideology that pits educational research against neoliberalism's drive for a homogenised education system that benefits only the global elites.


Peter O'Connor from University of Auckland (smart man - I attended a lecture of his a while back) thinks so too. Go read this succinct account now:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/6134611/Good-public-education-is-at-risk

Get your argument sorted and get busy debunking this government's plans to further corporatise education.

Professionalism and the corporate monster

The notion of professionalism comes up time and time again in the world of early childhood education. Teachers struggled for years to gain this status, even to the extent of rejecting elements of their work that were frowned upon – such as 'caring' that harps back to 'mothers work' which we all know is the polar opposite to being a 'professional'. Anyway, a recent visit by some teachers from a corporate chain (which I won't name) sparked some reflection and inquiry...

Being able to define and create ones own place in a community, to exercise agency concerning practice, pedagogy and curriculum I would consider to be a hallmark of professionalism. At the centre I work we are carving out a pedagogical niche and the process of 'becoming' is well embraced (This concept of 'becoming' is attributed to Vossler et al, 2005 which I recommend you read). Through observation, reflection, dialogue with colleagues and community, research and professional development, the teaching team here are wholeheartedly engaged in an ongoing process of learning that befits their professional status.

In contrast to this ideal, we were visited by a group of teachers from a corporate chain. Throughout the morning their enthusiasm for the curriculum is evident, but their conversation is peppered with comments about how they would never be allowed to incorporate ideas like this, and how proposals for 'change' are reframed by their mangers in economic terms and that arguments on a pedagogical basis have little impact.

Professional autonomy is widely considered as a key hallmark of professionalism. The ongoing need for professional knowledge, for critical dialogue with colleagues and the learning community, to critically critique the contexts, paradigms, discourses, values etc, that exert influence on the teaching and learning process, all require professional autonomy (Duhn, 2010; Moss, 2010 etc – actually there's a whole swag of really interesting reading just out on professionalism).

Duhn (2010) paints a lovely picture of independent owner-operator centres created through partnerships with community and able to rapidly transform to meet community needs. Of being able to critically engage with pedagogy and curriculum, to practice teaching as 'being', a process of learning where uncertainty and risk-taking is embraced with no pressure to met pre-determined external outcomes. It was in such centres that this 'critical ecology of the profession' (Dalli, 2010) helped create Te Whāriki, our early childhood curriculum.

Neoliberal reforms experienced by New Zealand in the 1980's saw changes to both the governance and mandate of education. International discourses on education saw traditional national goals of 'public good' replaced with rigid predetermined transnational targets that primarily focus on economics and the maintenance of neoliberalism (Duhn, 2010; Codd, 2008). Codd discusses how this radical shift in the purpose and intent of education has been heralded by a managerial culture preoccupied with performativity – what is produced, observed and measured, with educators now relegated to technocrats implementing the directives of political ideology. Codd further argues that this loss of autonomy is precipitating a decline in teacher commitment to the values and principles of education.

Urban (2010) positions education historically as a political practice, a “meaningful and equal interaction (that is) deeply embedded in the sociocultural, economic and historical context of human society,” and argues that such a view is opposed to the neoliberal concept of education as a “de-contextualised technocratic practices imposed on children and educators (…) as highly effective means of control, normalisation and confinement." In the face of such fundamental change to the profession of teaching, Farquhar (2008) asks if the early childhood sector is shifting from a position of professional advocacy to being an institution “subsumed within a culture of regulatory requirements” (Dalli, 2010).

According to Moss (2010) neo-liberalism has seen the nature of relationships transform from a social and political paradigm to economic and managerial constructs where early childhood education exists in a “strange balance of free-markets and central control” (p.12). Neoliberalism positions teaching as a skill that can be separated from other aspects of centre life. Teachers set and maintain bench marks for standards; quality and professionalism become terms that lead to tangible outcomes like salary rises and promotions (Duhn, 2010).

In discussing the isolation of teachers from professional decision making Woodrow (2008 ) examines the impact of corporate dominance in the ECEC sector with “many aspects of the daily curriculum that children experience and ECEC professionals implement, 'authorised' and mediated through corporate relationships designed to maximise shareholder returns”. In-house training see professional knowledge tightly controlled and ensures loyalty to the company over the profession. Centres that are absorbed into this model lose the ability to authentically reflect and respond to their immediate community. Iris Duhn (whose rather scary investigation of corporate baby-farmers ABC is worth finding) argues that teachers in corporate centres are often isolated from decision making roles and lose control over curriculum and professional development

'Professionalism' is a key neoliberal discourse as it relates to accountability, control and the notion of quality: a measurable, manageable, standardised outcome. This economic interpretation of professionalism is mirrored in recent government policy moves that include lowering the percentage of qualified teachers in a centre, cuts to professional development, and the closing of Centres of Innovation research programme, and is further entrenched in the recent ECE Taskforce review and recommendations.

Countering this corporate definition of professionalism are calls for a ground-up interpretation of professionalism that envisions the re-establishing of democratic and participatory structures and relationships, to reclaim space and ask critical questions that once again build on the radical roots of the early childhood profession. Dalli's (2008) research into teacher perceptions of professionalism is rather dry to read, but it showed that pedagogical strategies and collaborative relationships ranked at the top of desirable attributes with the notion of best practice and managerialism, ranking the least important. Faith is restored! Dalli's call for a re-conceptualisation of what it means to be a professional that reflects the reality of teaching is echoed by others (Urban, 2010; Moss, 2010) concerned that as a result of corporate dominance, the loss of professional autonomy is rendering teachers powerless.

I consider autonomy to be a critical tenet of professionalism and its loss calls into question the status of teaching – we are not technocrats at the mercy of our masters. Dalli (2010) calls for a re-emergence of the critical ecologies that once drove the transition of the early childhood workforce into a profession. Here, as a result of collaboration, critical thinking, research and advocacy, professionalism grew out of the profession rather than it being imposed from above.

Yes, activism.

Bloody politicians...

I really hate responding to their crap, but I guess their crap is slightly easier to deal with as they are - technically anyway - mere representatives of the people (cough cough) and thus bound by notions of social justice, democracy and citizenship.

Imagine education if it were solely run by the corporate sector? No way. Yes I know that they've tried to engineer this to be a reality, but surely the privatisation/globalisation tsunami has only affected parts of the education system?

Wrong!

Governance: Reforms to governance were at the heart of the neoliberal reforms to education in the 1980's and their impact is obvious with the private sector (ECE centres and schools) now receiving public monies and all schools required to operate under a business model where they compete against each other.

On a more subtle level we have the OECD seeking to make educational systems in different countries the same through the PISA assessment which is a standardised test on competencies. This test has led to the reconstruction of education systems in some countries and replaces national aims with rigid predetermined transnational targets that primarily focus on economics and the maintenance of neoliberalism. This is the most potent example of transnational organisations leveraging control over national educational systems. National Standards anyone?

 

Mandate, or what education wants to achieve, is another area where the state has ceded power to transnational organisations in order to better achieve national goals. Our economic focus is now global, while the goals of citizenship and social cohesion etc remain of national concern. This has seen the emergence of parallel discourses: NZ Curriculum Framework is an example where a strong national focus through culture sits alongside the rhetoric of neoliberalism with its focus on the 'global knowledge economy'.

How is this happening? Through the global dominance of the 'economic growth model' of education where quality of life is weirdly linked to a nations economic wealth. Such an education system only needs to produce workers with basic skills in literacy and numeracy with some people to have more advanced skills in computer science and technology. Equal access is not important: a nation can grow economically while the poor remain illiterate and without basic computer skills.

Doesn't that sound fucking awful? Check out the 'Human Development Model' for education where critical thinking, diversity, empathy, imagination and the arts are still thankfully valued!

Capacity? Well despite the criticisms, schools are deeply embedded in social structures and change will be slow - and our responsibility!

So while evil globalisation does not carry all before it, the dominant mandate is to ensure that education contributes to the country's ability to participate the GKE.

So why the rant?

Well the New Zealand government has once again thrown early childhood education up in the air with another 'working group' make some strong recommendations....

• let the market dictate teacher salaries - wealthy communities can afford quality teaching at the expense of poorer communities.
• refocus equal funding schemes to targeted 'at-risk' groups rather than ensuring universal access.
• allow centres to prioritise this funding, thus creating another decile ranking system with the ensuring 'white flight' .
• the removal of fee controls.
• an acceptance that 80% qualified teachers is good enough.

And so the corporatisation of education inches that much further. They drive me insane. We so need a revolution.

Tectonic pressure...

From an interesting conversation:

We are experiencing downward pressure on early childhood education services to adapt more to the needs of compulsory education, IE, children are able to read and write before they begin school; children are able to sit quietly and listen to a teacher for long periods; children able sufficiently subservient to relinquish their power to teachers.

What's scary is that these ideas are acceptable to some ECE teachers despite the fact that they go against all theories of learning and set back notions of the empowered child living in the here and now as active learners by several decades: once again, children are empty vessels to be filled with 'our' knowledge and moulded as we see fit...

Let me talk you through this cascade of reality:

Parents are increasingly under economic stress ....   this translates into fear over their children's opportunities in life....  this feeds a perceived need for changing education providers so they focuses on 'academic' success as this is obviously the only option ....   this consumer demand prompts education providers to tinker with the curriculum and produce a more academic, teacher-controlled environment ....  this practice prompts right-wing education lobby groups like Child Forum to call for a review of the early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki claiming that it is too vague in telling teachers just what to teach...

Dr Carol Mutch of Auckland University talks of how ECE teachers as a sector have little understanding of their collective power and do little to defend their sectors educational philosophies and theories. Shit happens to us and we let them.

The current climate of downward pressure to align more with primary schools is damaging the integrity of early childhood education. Teachers are willing to change fundamental learning practices because their own personal power // pedagogy is too weak. We need to collectively articulate to our communities just what is wrong about the teaching practices of compulsory schooling and that we must defend children's rights to learn as they intuitively do and not succumb to right-wing ideology masquerading as educational theory.

There you have it.

Oh, I do have loads of other interesting conversations at parties...

Nightmares...

It came in the middle of the night...

It was a block in some research slash thinking that has been inspired by my plunge into social science. Poverty, we have it because our system requires inequality to operate. Children are set up to fail at school - they leave with a similar social position as their parents and no manner of whips and carrots really changes this predetermined reality.

So capitalism fails children in its need for hierarchy and exploitation to generate profit. Yet as an early childhood educator I'm guided by Te Whāriki which holds aspirations for all children to succeed like nothing else matters...

but then they go to school and their wings are clipped: sit still, listen, passivity, docility, obedience, where the social and cultural capital of middle-class pākehā are the keys to the magic bus...

Te Whāriki is recognised as a tool of neoliberalism and promotes the high aspirations of this ideology, yet there is tension with traditional capitalism which seeks hierarchy within a social structure like New Zealand.

The thing is we're now global. We follow the knowledge economy where we are positioned as thinkers and not doers. The hierarchy is now global with working-class poor not in Porirua or Otara, but in Asia. Tension within the systems of capitalism.

Of course.

What the hell are we to do?

The double-speak of neoliberalism

This caught my eye today:

"The covert nature of schooling is to internalise control of citizens"

That's the basic function of schools as was envisioned by the rulers of Prussia who wanted  loyal, obedient, homogeneous thinking citizens who would willingly go to war.

Bingo. We willingly do just that.

One particular piece of contemporary internalised double-speak which again only benefits our masters is the notion of 'equality'. What's wrong with equality? Well...

Don Brash talks of equality in the context of some members of our society getting 'special treatment'. Equality has been co-opted by neoliberalism along with other rhetoric such as 'freedom of choice' and 'individual responsibility'. The new meaning of equality is now all about the starting of a journey rather than the finish or outcome. So we have equal access to schools, medical care and the whole shebang of life-chances, but this equality does not factor in structural inequality that means Brash get to choose a private school while we get the shitty local. No sir, but that's all about 'individual choice' eh? I mean you're born human, how much more equal can you get?

This is bullshit of course.

Rather we should talk about 'equity' as in the outcomes are equal. So regardless of social position, ethnicity, gender, ability, first language etc, you should be able to achieve the same outcome: complete university, obtain a well-paid job, achieve good health etc.

Capitalism relies on exploitation to be successful thus inequality in inherent in our economic and social structures: poverty is part of the business. In the face of such inequality, we need equity. The world of Brash, Key, and Goff means few of us have the material, cultural and social capital to achieve in a way that wealthy white males can.

We need a step up. We need equity, not the smoke and mirrors of equality.

Equity is targeted benefits, it means higher funding for certain schools, subsidised transport, free books, more teachers and a breakfast programme. It means jobs, a minimum wage that is livable, fresh food that is affordable, and communities that are safe and supportive. Equity is the antithesis of neoliberalism.

True equality will only come with the death of capitalism. In the mean time, when you hear politicians cloaking their racist, classist, sexist agendas with the rhetoric of 'equality', first, vomit, then demand equity.

From play to empathy...

Sitting around the kitchen at a friends while the kids riot in the lounge produced some interesting ideas...

I have never considered the link between imaginative play, empathy and democracy before. Have you?

Novelist Ian McEwan opines that empathy, as in the ability to think and feel what it might be like to be someone else, sits at the centre of morality and is the most important competency our children should be learning.

As children we develop empathy through our play, particularly make-believe or fantasy play. It is here that children get to try out social roles that are outside their world and practice social interactions safely within the context of 'it's just play'. Dramatic play is by its nature full of confrontation and challenge, it the schizophrenic plot and ensuing tension that keeps play interesting as well as throwing up social dilemmas to be worked through where we learn to think outside of ourselves.

Apparently (no references sorry) research of the top one thousand USA crims found that their commonality was a lack of play as children. A lack of empathy enables you to kill randomly, to hurt without caring, to exploit without hesitation. Sound familiar these days?

The totalitarianism of the individual as championed under neoliberalism does not need or nor want empathy. Capitalism does not need or want empathy.

Empathy leads to truer more authentic democracy based on equality, community and mutual aid.

Dramatic play provides the foundation for developing empathy, but to enhance this learning we need to get in there, to be a co-player, to be throwing open-questions, ideas and challenges into the play that keeps it dynamic, but also allows the learners to build social competence.

Think Vygotsky, the Zone of Proximal Development and social justice education.

Now, play like it really matters.

Look Ma, life-long learners....

I've really come to hate that phrase 'life-long learners'. It oozes political bullshit, another hegemonic whitewash that covers up the reality of neoliberalism, globalisation and the Global Knowledge Economy, or 'GKE' to the academics. It's the education buzz-word of the decade...

Life-long learners are the drones of the GKE; those whose jobs are constantly being disestablished as we (as a nation) move further and further away from producing tangible products to play the game of hyper-capitalism - ideas, knowledge, data, information - all that shit that poorer countries can't under-cut us on... “Designed in New Zealand, Made in fucking China.”

Jane Gilbert's 'Catching the Knowledge Wave' (2003) dives into the festering sore of neoliberalism to explain that 'knowledge' in the neo-liberal context does not mean old knowledge, but innovation, as in a process.

“Minds, instead of being like containers – databases of stored knowledge, will need to be thought of as being like processors and/or resources that are connectible to other minds – to generate new knowledge.”

So knowledge is no longer “matter”, but an “energy” that “causes things to happen”, the knowledge we gain is not to be used as intended, but rather as a catalyst to modify and improve; ie, to generate new knowledge.

Thus we are 'life-long learners' who do not dilly-dally with content, but put that knowledge to use to generate new knowledge, new ways of making and selling shit to the plebs. Knowledge is the product of societies that don't actually do much any more. We don't produce tangible goods, we just design the packaging. The actual hard work is left to third world countries where costs are cheapest. The knowledge wave is essentially hyper-capitalism and by aligning with it as a country we are aligning with the exploitation and oppression of the world's poor.

In early childhood education this way of learning if fundamental. Children are building upon prior learning as they meet new challenges and assimilate or accomodate this new knowledge. We ain't too worried about content, it's dispositions to learn that matter: motivation, perseverance, collaboration, reflection...

It's a catch-22 situation countered by a critical analysis of power that is rooted in social justice, equity, and the freedom to live ones life as they want. It's a tough job but someones gotta do it eh?

Life-long learners don't have to be mindless sheep. My new mantra.

National Twists the Knife...

Pre-budget briefing papers released today show that the NACT Government is not intending to pass on wage increases won by Kindergarten teachers to other types of early childhood services.

How bizarre. Or not.

This amounts to a further $20 million cut on top of the $285 already cut from centres employing more than 80% qualified staff. NZEI's Judith Nowotarski says, “with no flow-on funding, early childhood services will struggle to pay teachers the same rates as their kindergarten colleagues. That represents a huge step backwards for early childhood teachers in their fight to have their professional status recognised.”

The sad reality is that the Kindergarten model as we know it is being gradually killed off as the cheaper (with less qualified staff) and more flexible private sector explodes in growth. Their business model is more acceptable to neo-liberalism and it's odd they've been dealt an underhand here. I just hope any anger is not directed at Kindergarten teachers...

There are so many overlapping discourses it's hard to know who to kick:

 -   Free-market capitalism for creating 'investment opportunities' and thus dumbing down educare;

-   The private sector destroying the hard-fought-for standard of professionalism by simply dragging it's arse in the pursuit of profit;

-   A neoliberal Government shedding community assets on the sly;

-  A piss-weak union...

Kick 'em all I guess.

Now we do know that the Government dropped any notion of cutting the 20hrs-free policy beacuse it's so popular hence the cutting off of every other limb. Are we seeing the softening of the population to accept rising childcare fees? If NACT make it back for a second round will they attempt to further shed the private sectors reliance on funding and firmly put the 'neo' back in neo-liberal?


These moves, and a dozen others in various areas, show a Government hung up on ideology rather than pragmatic thought-out strategies for lifting the standard of education and thus the health of the nation. Unequal societies crap out in every measurable way, from GDP, teen pregnancy, hospital admissions and suicide rates... you name it and we bomb. Aotearoa ranks third or fourth in the world for inequality. This is no paradise.

While this Government continues to systematically shift the wealth of the nation further into the hands of the rich by slashing funding at every opportunity, we're essentially stuffed as a country.

Our strength is in numbers, but it also lies in a critical analysis of knowing just what the fuck is going on in education today and at the present time while we have unionised numbers, we simply don't have this knowledge or ideological unity.

In the words of the old-school IWW union, or Wobblies, lets educate, organise and agitate for real change.