A Radical Critique of Modern Education by Nashrah Tanvir
After I won the first slam poetry competition I took part in, I remained tight-lipped and refused to reveal that I'm from the School of Open Learning, a distance learning organization, out of shame. It was no winning at all. It didn't count that I reached towards mere college education through trials and tribulations.
The only college that accepted me was Women's College, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Yet my mother and uncle had different ideas for my future. To paraphrase, it would be insulting for me, a girl, to go to AMU, when my mother's brothers never managed to. I rebelled, as I often had to due to growing up in an emotionally abusive household, but it turned out to be futile.
As someone who gets maternal love in proportion to the grades I scored, I got eager to discard my lifelong dream of studying literature and gave in to my mother's demands to join Bennett University, a private college filled with oppressive ideologies, for journalism. I've spent more than half of my life explaining that creative writing and objective writing are two different things. It was a surprising process to learn that grades reduce us to mere numbers and kill intrinsic motivation in an attempt to follow behaviourism. Despite being widely followed, it's an outdated idea. It was during my time at Bennett University, that a teacher joked if I dropped out. I was horrified since I was used to looking down on people who couldn't complete their education. I didn't know at the time I would become one of them and reconsider everything I've been led to believe.
In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined, and self-defined, as losers. This view also assumes that those at the bottom of the social status are the most stupid or lazy. The unemployed, the ill and those who live on welfare benefits are often portrayed in society as lazy and are seen as part of a lower subculture.
Equality in education is a cynical and prejudicial lie. As a person with debilitating social anxiety disorder, I was forced to sit in front of video calls to give vivas which replaced examinations. That turned out to be my personal horror story. In theory, It sounds like the staff meant well and tried to make the education process easier during the lockdown. The point we are missing is that they never considered how mentally ill and neurodivergent students are differently affected in comparison to the majority population.
However, it is not in the interest of capitalist society to resolve the mental health crisis. Yet capitalist media allows mental health talks as it leads to commodification of mental illness from which a profit could be driven. The ruling idea of mental illness lies in personal qualities that create individuals where everyone contains a brain which may be subjected to chemical changes. It ignores the social factor. It is no surprise that the alienated view of humans as self-contained individuals is home to capitalism. Depending on SSRIs are one example. Scientists have questioned the efficiency of these drugs for decades. From sese-help to CBT places the ultimate responsibility for the sufferers’ mental state on the sufferers themselves. This is done by emotional regulation or trying to adapt one’s psychological responses to a distressing situation. It tries one size fits all to win over mental disorders because capitalism is all about profit. Further, products of capitalism- racism, sexism, and colonialism contribute to degrading mental health situations.
Public education is still in the hands of those who rule the country in service to large corporations and determine the curriculum and methods- the what, the how, and the when of public education. It creates enormous inequality in matters pertaining to gender, class, caste, and health. We cannot limit ourselves to proposing a few reforms to correct specific problems in education without questioning the institution of public education.
Public education came into existence as a result of the struggle between the capitalists and a large workers' movement demanding free and expansive education. Public education is rooted in the need to form a workforce and to satisfy social demands made by the working class.
The education apparatus was formed to fit the tenets of capitalist production and is configured not only with explicitly ideological components but as the creation and consolidation of the idea that the alienation of the labour force is natural. Students are taught not only by the formal curriculum in their classes but also by the organization of the entire schooling system.
The history of education is irrevocably the history of class struggle. On one side are the efforts of the bourgeoisie, the corporations, and their governments to build an education system that serves their interests. On the other is the glorious history of education workers’ struggles.
The idea that schools and colleges provide equal opportunities is a strong legitimating force of capitalism. The idea of equal opportunity under the capitalist system is, in itself, a fallacy. Treating students with different mental illnesses, classes, castes, and genders equally is unequal treatment because it is a way of perpetuating the existing inequality in schooling opportunities. The child begins to learn that equality has no material basis and only exists in the sphere of ideas. The same grading system for all children, the right to vote every five years, and the right to sell one’s labour, taken together, form the basis of a superficial understanding of the concept of equality.
Public education can exist without being in the hands of the government. We must put it in the hands of the people who are truly interested in children’s education- the parents, teachers, students, community organizations, and working-class organizations.
The issue of education from the point of view of working-class and low-income communities needs to be discussed. We must face the contradictions that have been unleashed via the struggle for free, quality public education for the children of the working class. The current form of education is a far cry from being politically neutral because it cannot be disconnected from class interests. Education doesn't exist on the margins of politics, it's the central idea of politics.
We should be aware that educational institutions serve as the main institutions of capitalist society and must reject the idea that they are eternal and immutable and that the natural way of learning takes place within the four walls of a classroom with fixed timing, grade levels, and other factors. Schools are the products of history. They appear in a specific moment and are therefore not natural or eternal. The learning institutes of today are destined to disappear or change along with the society that gave rise to them.
Educated and uneducated are opposite terms, especially in sociology and linguistics to describe individuals with and without formal schooling. This contrast is often used to suggest a continuum of more educated or less educated. It is more of a social judgement than a scientific one. It oversimplifies and distorts complex issues and relationships.
Educated people have certificates that prove their level of education, thus they have more opportunities to get good jobs and earn better incomes. Those who are uneducated have to work in temporary jobs or do hard labour in construction or in the fields. It is based on the assumption that uneducated people's works are less worthy of respect. Schools and colleges not only train students in matters of skill sets but also in the naturalization of the social relations of production. We end up internalizing the values, ideas, and attitudes of the dominant society.
Aims of education like sending students to college so they could acquire a degree or dedicate life to supplying children with the best education possibilities are hollow because modern schooling is a product of the needs of the bourgeoisie. In their hands, schools and colleges become another tool for capitalism. According to Lenin, “The bourgeoisie themselves, who advocated this principle, made their own bourgeois politics the cornerstone of the school system, and tried to reduce schooling to the training of docile and efficient servants of the bourgeoisie, to reduce even universal education from top to bottom to the training of docile and efficient servants of the bourgeoisie, of slaves and tools of capital. They never gave a thought to making the school a means of developing the human personality.” They see knowledge as part of their own monopoly and tries to convert it into an instrument of their domination.
There are two paths to persuasion- the central route and the peripheral route. When the central route is used, we evaluate the presented information and try to discern whether it's true or not. But when the peripheral route is used, we pay more attention to cues besides the content. We might evaluate someone's argument based on their degree of education rather than factors that merit their points. Therefore, we become easy targets of manipulation. This brings up the question of who is more vulnerable to manipulation through the peripheral route. The ones with glossy paper degrees to brag about! Educated people are obsessed with how others view them. They also tend to be all over their reputation and may stoop to agreeing with popular views to save their skin. They also hold less favourable views of others. Unfortunately, opinions can confer status regardless of their truth value.
What capitalism prioritizes, the world does more of which leads humanities education to be looked down upon. The disciplines that come under the umbrella of arts produce social welfare, which cannot be priced- neither bought nor sold. Societies that are organised around free markets prefer consumerism and material production at the cost of happiness, social connections, and human welfare.
In light of these secrets, it's okay to have an education, whether formal or not, at your own pace.
About the Writer:
Nashrah Tanvir writes about mental health, feminism, and Islam. Her poems have previously appeared in Magic Pot, The Hindustan Times, Gulmohar Magazine, The Radiant, and AZE Journal.
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