Chapter 1: The Problem
from the book "RootEd: How Trauma Impacts Learning and Society" by S.R. Zelenz
General Problem
If the purpose of education is to help individuals and society live in healthy, balanced ways that lead to a joyful, peaceful existence, then contemporary education and most school reform efforts are failing (Jacobs, 2003). One of the reasons for this problem relates to cultural and educational hegemony and how the powers that control education seem to be aiming at conformity to a particular image of how things should be. "Educational leaders have tried to transform immigrant newcomers and other "outsiders" into individuals who matched their idealized image of what an "American" should be" (Tyack & Cuban, 1995).
I propose a radically different approach to school reform, one that recognizes the phenomenon of epigenetics and the understanding of brain development for those exposed to trauma. The latter provides a more natural model for balanced diversity and happiness (Bracho, 2006) and the former offers a scientific explanation for both why people whose DNA still reflects historical trauma are “failing” so often in modern schools and how all peoples can “redirect” DNA toward higher potentials by changing how things are done. Epigenetics, and a component of it referred to as “transgenerational epigenetic inheritance,” suggests that environmental habits, from stress and diet to lifestyle choices and educational systems, can not only modify genetic expression in health and behaviors within one lifetime, but that such changes also can be passed onto offspring. My hypothesis is that modern influences on education have drastically changed or are significantly challenging more natural genetic expressions of humans in ways that contribute to the growing problems both in schools and in the world at large. I argue that recognizing this possibility and returning to what can be described as holistic ways of knowing that remain, more or less, in our genes, can help reverse these problems. At the very least, it may help those whose genes themselves tend to resist most mainstream approaches to education because their epigenetic coding is closer to its original patterns.
Many classrooms disregard personal authenticity, exploration of self, and almost always employ the use of a hierarchical structure that tends to remove the opportunity for students to learn self-direction through intrinsic motivation. Learning and classroom management, the organization and maintaining of an environment conducive to learning, seldom involve self-motivated responsibility on the part of students as is commonplace in traditional Indigenous education. The following is a sample listing of issues that schools are not addressing adequately:
Loss of interest in learning school curriculum (Kridel, 2010).
Violence and problems of bullying (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011).
Inadequate curricula (Rutowski, 2001) including lack of appropriate education relating to ecological issues (Slattery, 2006).
Apathy in civic and community involvement (Marbeley & Dawson, 2009).
I offer a preliminary argument using theoretical research from a variety of fields. My hope is that this book will begin a dialogue that will move toward more experimental research. I believe the aforementioned problems demand a radical rethinking of educational reform. Current educational reform, as I will show, is narrowing the focus of education and moving away from a more natural, holistic way of being in the world that was practiced by our Indigenous ancestors and continues to be practiced by many Indigenous groups, as I seek to critically examine and illustrate in this book.
By “holistic education” I refer to an approach that Ron Miller defines as a community connection that facilitates identity discovery and intrinsic respect for learning and life (Miller, 2000). The focus of this form of education is to bring about the fullest possible development of each individual in a manner that offers them the opportunity to personally experience life and their goals completely (Forbes, 2003). “Holistic education broadens and deepens the educational process. It represents a planned approach that encourages personal responsibility, promotes a positive attitude to learning and develops social skills. These are essentials in the modern world in which we live” (Hare, 2010, p. 7). As I will argue later, Indigenous ways of knowing embrace this holistic approach (or perhaps, vice versa).
In this chapter, I will discuss the wider implications of our current reform strategies, the history of education in the United States, understanding from a systemic level, authoritarian structure and its place in the overall systems, the purpose of education and of course how this compilation of issues affect students in our public schools. These issues must be addressed to inform our current educational reform strategies.
Contemporary Education
A brief overview of how contemporary education, including reform efforts, seems to be the antithesis of holistic education will help describe the problem at a more superficial level than I will describe in later chapters. “Education as Enforcement: The Militarization and Corporatization of Schooling” offers a poignantly graphic general description of current trends. One of the contributors to this text writes:
The school as a public good has been transformed into either a training ground for a consumer society or a pipeline for channeling disposable populations into the grim confines of the criminal justice system......Jean-Marie Durand states that "youth is no longer considered the world's future, but as a threat to its present. Vis-á-vis youth, there is no longer any political discourse except for a disciplinary one." In this discourse, both "the figure of the child and the cultural capital of youth" are being radically configured as to undermine the rights young people have as rights-bearing citizens. (Giroux, 2010, pp vii-viii)
Indeed, today’s schooling does these things with consistency and schools and teachers are being held accountable for ensuring such oppressive education is successful. If the teachers cannot produce students who perform well on the standardized exams, then they are often released from their positions, or the school is penalized through government take-over or funding reduction.
Loss of interest in curricula, violence, and bullying in schools are serious concerns that affect graduation rates. “Dropout rates among the population ages 16 to 24 declined between 1972 and 2008, from 15 to eight percent. However, wide disparities by race,....persist” (Child Trends Databank, 2010). Verification of the racial disparities' statistics can be found on the National Center for Education Statistics website. Dropout students do not have many employable skills (Child Trends Databank, 2010). Public schools focus on academic skills, without teaching these students applicable skills (Child Trends Databank, 2010). Nearly half of the dropouts are currently not in the workforce (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008). It should not be surprising that many of these dropouts live in extreme poverty and demonstrate a higher risk of being more involved in crime (Child Trends Databank, 2010).
The 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress test results released by the United States Department of education, stated that 67% of American public school eighth graders were not proficient in math and 65% were not proficient in reading (NAEP, 2017). Urban districts bore even lower percentages. Some districts had proficiency levels ranging between 7-14%. One of the initial purposes in establishing public education in the mid-1800’s was to ensure that the “three R’s” were being learned: reading, writing, and arithmetic. At that point in time, eighth grade was the furthest most students ever attended school. It appears that whatever the initial goals were, 160 years later, they are not being met at the most basic level.
Race to the Top (2011) is a recent educational reform model, intended to motivate teachers, school districts, and states to raise the level of quality education, data collection and graduation results to a higher standard. No education reform strategy has researched the ability of teachers or administrators to truly empathize with their students. Teachers and administrators come from various walks of life, few of them have experienced dire poverty in their lifetimes. Higher on the pyramid we find superintendents who live completely different lives from those of the students they are responsible for. Psychology professors at University of California, Berkeley conducted a research study suggesting a person's social class dictates their ability to empathize. More specifically, this study clarified that those from upper class experience had less empathy than those who live in the lower social classes. The study stated that those in survival mode have learned how to rely on one another to survive, whereas those in the upper social classes are financially independent, and less likely to seek assistance to attend to their immediate needs. This lack of “need” for assistance is what hinders their ability to empathize with those in need (Kraus, et al., 2010). This is important to consider in our current reform strategies.
Attempts to restructure schools have aligned themselves with the hiring of extremely wealthy businessmen and women as the heads of the educational reform. Not only have they not lived the same experiences as those they are in charge of educating, but their ancestors most likely experienced a better life as well. The students who are not faring well in our schools are most often poor. Wealthy educators (or administrators) are most likely not prepared to relate to these students at a level which would encourage their highest learning.
School Reform: History
Our current educational system was designed to create a specific type of worker who is also a consumer to function in and drive today's capitalistic society. Public schools were originally established to assist the industrial age in its need for obedient workers who would endure long hours of repetitive, non-thinking, non-problem solving, and non-creative work. This training approach presupposed that no one in the working class was capable of individualistic, creative solutions to the problems that society faced (Gatto, 2001).
This same desire to use education to create obedient workers and compliant citizens ignored the value of diversity and tended to oppress individuals who were not white, male, and from relatively wealthy families. As John Taylor Gatto states in his book as seen edited in Ode Magazine:
Mass schooling of a compulsory nature was conceived and advocated throughout most of the 19th century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold: to make good people, to make good citizens, to make each person his or her personal best. (Gatto, 2008, p. 24)
In practice, the school structure becomes more divisive and exclusive than it appears. An early forerunner of this 19th century educational purview was Dr. Alexander Inglis, Professor of Education at Harvard University, Cambridge. In his Principles of Secondary Education, he demonstrates conclusively that industrial age education was designed to segregate the under-classes (Inglis, 1918). Ranking students according to test scores, labeled children, thereby determining their future chances of success. Unfortunately, this practice continues today.
In compliance with the 2001 "No Child Left Behind" Act, students are required to be tested on certain mandatory subjects at predetermined grade levels. Through this form of evaluation, schools are theoretically more aware of their weaknesses, and therefore able to address areas in need of improvement. This governmental regulation ties school funding to school performance. If schools under-perform, their funding is cut. Most often, the schools that under-perform are those in lower income communities. Reduction in funding to these schools further hurts the educational prospects of students who are already at a recognized disadvantage in their living environment and socioeconomic status (Mathison & Ross, 2004).
Dr. Alexander Inglis, Assistant Professor of Education at Harvard University in 1918, wrote six basic functions of education. The perpetual continuation of Inglis' ideas merits further consideration, especially when considered as the basis for the traditional pedagogical model or system. Inglis demonstrates his idea of the six basic functions of modern schooling as the following:
The adjustive/adaptive function – fixed reaction to authority.
The integrative function – students conforming to the expectations of authority figures.
The diagnostic and directive function – students' records used to determine "who" the students are and what they will become.
The differentiating function – students are "trained" to their "diagnostic and directive function" determination and no further.
The selective function – utilizing Darwin's theory of evolution (1871), students with poor grades are selectively excluded from higher educational opportunities. Their peers are also very aware of these "labels" and act accordingly.
The propaedeutic function – the small fraction who make it through the labeling process with the highest marks are chosen to rule the most influential and controlling organizations in the country (1918).
With the concepts discussed in Inglis' writing, the goal of public school education becomes much clearer. Standardized examinations are still used to separate the abilities of the students. More importantly, these tests systematically fail to inculcate critical thinking skills and instead tend to create mass consumer mentalities, more likely to follow the trends set before them.
Although this may not have been consciously intended by those who implement these efforts, it has become the effect. In order to understand how we got to this place in our educational beliefs, we must understand the history behind it. Our government is an oligarchic plutocracy, this means that money decides who is in control. It is the proverbial golden rule of capitalism: whoever has the gold makes the rules. Therefore, those with money often do not attend public school. They either have private tutors or attend private schools, which teach them a different perspective of the world; their place in it and challenges them to find creative solutions to the world's problems – in effect to be our leaders. Keeping the masses in their place with a coercive education ensures that power remains with the few. These "few" have no desire to change this system for fear of losing what they have. This prevents them from doing anything to alleviate the socio-economic damages created by the inequalities in our educational system. I would now like to reiterate my point regarding current trends in administrative choices. Billionaires and company CEOs from a higher socio-economic reality are now at the helm of the educational pyramid (Fertig, 2010).
Our educational structure is a suppressive form of hierarchy. An administrator suppresses the teachers who suppress the students –– creating obedient employees. This need for control, or power, stems from the elite of our capitalistic society. This imbalance in societal structure has created strife among peoples for centuries. This is the normal structure for colonized societies. It is not the normal structure for many tribal cultures (Reagan, 2005).
School Reform: Current Reform Trends
Classes are divided up by specific subjects. Teachers are hired and expected to be experts in their "specific" area of study. The teacher's ability to cross-educate among other disciplines is not usually considered. The students' ability to see the greater picture of how the various subjects integrate into their current lives, into the history of their current world, and how everything is interconnected is rarely discussed or addressed. Everything is segregated.
It follows, then, with this kind of rigid thinking and the attendant unrealistic expectations that are the inevitable outcome of viewing children as machines, that discipline and enforced order become tantamount to success. So much so, that anything (or anyone) who questions the prevailing order or refuses to abide by its strictures is perceived as a threat to be subjected to discipline, the linchpin of coercive education. Which brings me to discuss discipline as a form of repression.
Disciplinary structures create behavior that is reminiscent of prisons. Students who don’t “behave” in a certain predetermined fashion can be labeled and encouraged or compelled to seek counseling and medication. They are most often isolated to various corners of the classroom or removed entirely from the classroom. This “disciplinary” action is counterintuitive to the reform efforts guaranteeing quality education for all students in our public schools. The government requires that students attend school, but they don’t guarantee that a student will actually learn anything there. Our teacher training programs continue to emphasize the same assertive discipline methodology used for decades. Teachers aren't conforming to the student. If the student doesn’t conform, he or she is excluded, leaving classroom populations that are not reflective of the diversity in the community.
Furthermore, the curriculum is written from the viewpoint of the dominant population’s perspective. All other students are expected to accept this information without question. The only requirement is that they must be able to repeat this information in the manner that was given to them for the standardized test. No critical thinking is required, allowed, or even tolerated. The dominant population has also recently “edited” their history books to reflect history in a manner that they feel is important for children to believe. Texas has almost completely removed the civil rights movement from their current history textbooks (Elfman, 2010). Arizona has banned ethnic studies (James, 2010). Other states have followed similar “curriculum adjustments.”
Students who come from less represented cultures are not given the opportunity to learn or share their ancestral histories and viewpoints from the same segments of history. Understandably, this creates resentment and rebellion in students, inadvertently creating the apparent need for more discipline to ensure continuing order in the classroom. This trend snowballs with the attempted imposition of ever greater discipline which is continually thwarted by behavioral challenges from kids whose educational needs are continually going unmet. A feedback loop is created that fails to realize that the very problems it was created to solve are in turn caused by the actual system itself. Suppression of inquisition and challenging of authority is not tolerated.
School Reform: Systemic Understanding
The theory behind segregation of subject matter was to isolate the core aspects that make it exist. By understanding the core aspects, the whole subject is then more completely understood. This segregation of subject matter fails to introduce the inter-relatedness each subject shares with another subject and how it applies to the world we live in. Students cannot understand the implications of these subjects in their world if the subjects are segregated from reality and the students are never taught how to look at each subject in relation to another. "Fragmentary thought has led to a widespread range of crisis, social, political, economic, ecological, psychological, etc., in the individual and in society as a whole" (Bohm, 1980, p.21). This understanding has begun to take root in the corporate world and in general management and leadership training. Corporations are paying thousands of dollars to hire specialists to assist their employees in becoming more cooperative, more constructive, and to be more efficient. A system that no longer fragments and separates is emerging. When one group does not understand what the other group does, inefficiency occurs and ultimately costs the company more money.
These shifts in how we think about strategy and planning are important to notice. They expose the fact that for many years and many dollars, we have invested in planning processes derived from Newtonian beliefs. How many companies made significant gains and consistent progress because of elaborate and costly strategic plans? Very few (Wheatley, 2006, p. 38).
The current educational "system" is clearly a Newtonian structure. By Newtonian, I mean mechanistic. This method of breaking down learning into subjects, age-segregated classrooms, divided physical classrooms, and grading systems perpetuates this antiquated notion of separateness. This reduction into parts and the proliferation of separations has characterized not just organizations, but everything in the Western world during the past three hundred years. We broke knowledge into separate disciplines and subjects, built offices and schools with divided spaces, developed analytical techniques that focus on discrete factors, and even counseled ourselves to act in fragments, to use different "parts" of ourselves in different settings (Wheatley, 2006).
The subtitle of the book, “Education as Enforcement,” is “The Corporatization and Militarization of Schooling,” and the many critical educators contributing to it make a strong case that education is making the same mistake that corporations have made. The only difference is that the corporations have learned from their mistakes and are now opening to new beliefs in leadership and productivity. Perhaps the model used in these new interwoven corporate leadership styles should be included in the classroom. The students would then be prepared for working in such an environment.
School Reform and Authoritarian Structures
“Authoritarian structures are mechanistic. Power and authority rest almost exclusively in a tightly coupled organization (clear goals and bureaucratic authority guide the organization). Effectiveness is moderate” (Burns, 2003, p. 5). This is the structure found in traditional public schools all over the United States. This structure is counter-intuitive to many indigenous cultures' beliefs in leadership and learning. This structure is also heavily utilized in the criminal justice system. The structure within schools prepares the students for the workplace or prison (ACLU, n.d.). Students who do not fare well within the confines of the bureaucratically generated authoritarian structure are often tossed aside into public school “alternative” programs. These programs often tighten the original ineffective controls even further. These alternative programs are not different from their traditional counterparts other than the population in attendance. This population consists of students whom teachers and administrators could no longer handle or teach in the traditional classrooms.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 pressures schools to perform at a certain standard. The students are rigorously tested annually to check for acquired learning. If the students do poorly on these exams, the school is punished, and the federal and state governments remove their financial support. Often, the schools that suffer these consequences are located in the poorest communities. These communities have a higher percentage of second language English learners as well as high criminal activity. Fair Test states:
Students from low-income and minority-group backgrounds are more likely to be retained in grade, placed in a lower track, or put in special or remedial education programs when it is not necessary. They are more likely to be given a watered-down or "dummied-down" curriculum, based heavily on rote drill and test practice. This only ensures they will fall further and further behind their peers. On the other hand, children from white, middle and upper income backgrounds are more likely to be placed in "gifted and talented" or college preparatory programs where they are challenged to read, explore, investigate, think and progress rapidly. (Fair Test, 2007, para. 3)
This can be seen as another way the current educational system has become a "feeder school" for the criminal system.
School to Prison Pipeline
Criminal activity is often a result of financial instability. Support for poor communities is bleak; adding lack of education to the mix only ensures continued poverty and escalating crime rates. This clearly does not serve the students' best interests. It does, however, look similar to the functioning of America in the days of slaves. Often the populace of such neighborhoods is made up of the ancestors of those enslaved, the African American. This was intentionally created through districting and house affordability, including access to home loans.
Minorities are often inadvertently forced into the lifestyle of the street due in part by keeping the availability of a high level of education, including an environment conducive to constructive learning, limited or non-existent. This ensures low pay and a life of desperation, a desperation that often leads, again, to criminal activity. Criminal activity leads to prison terms. Prisons utilize these criminals as employees. These employees perform industrial tasks including crop work, license plate manufacturing, among many other "industrial" age type work. These workers can earn anywhere from 8-40 cents per hour. This is clearly an abuse of human life – identical to the use of slave labor.
The school to prison pipeline is well documented (ACLU, n.d.; Fair Test, 2011). Disciplinary actions and various classroom management strategies are often the root of what pushes these children out of the traditional classroom, providing lower literacy rates. Once students find themselves on the street (due to suspension or expulsion), their ensuing lifestyle often lands them in the prison system (National Center for Education Statistics, 1994).
Among adults ages 25 and older, a lower percentage of dropouts are in the labor force compared with adults who earned a high school credential. Among adults in the labor force, a higher percentage of dropouts are unemployed compared with adults who earned a high school credential (U.S. Department of Labor, 2007). Further, dropouts ages 25 or older reported being in worse health than adults who are not dropouts, regardless of income (Pleis and Lethbridge-Çejku, 2006). Dropouts also make up disproportionately higher percentages of the nation’s prison and death row inmates (U.S. Department of Education, 2009).
Authoritarian Behavior Observed
Observations I have made in various schools demonstrate how well established this current authoritarian model is. The treatment of public-school students is often identical to the treatment of students in juvenile corrections facilities. Observations have included the following:
Students are required to walk silently in lines with their hands behind their backs. I observed this in Fort Worth Texas, Rancho Mirage California, and Pine Hills Youth Correctional Facility in Miles City Montana.
Elementary students with desks shoved into corners, backs turned from the rest of the class, excluded due to their behavioral challenges. This can only exacerbate the student's negative self-concept and inadvertently create an autonomous rationality that wants to further rebel against the prevailing "social order." I have personally seen this used in schools in Rosebud and Miles City Montana; Poway, Rancho Mirage, San Jose, Indio, Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs, Palm Desert, Newark, Temecula, Menifee, La Quinta, and Cathedral City, California; and also, in various schools within Spokane, Washington.
The teacher blows a whistle, all students drop and squat wherever they are, immediately. They stay in this position until they hear the teacher's command. When the teacher blows the whistle again, the students line up. The teachers lead their students to class with their hands behind their backs. This was observed in an elementary school in Rancho Mirage, California.
Students suspended or expelled for repetitive behavior – not accidentally, right before the standardized testing is to take place. This ensures that the students' scores won't bring down the scores of the whole school and affect the school's funding. I saw this in California.
Students who pose academic or behavioral problems (often both) are encouraged to be absent on the days of the standardized tests. I observed this in California.
One teacher in National City, CA claimed to me that the teachers at her school give the answers to the students during the standardized test in order for the school to pass.
Most troubling to me was the use of the whistle conditioning at recess. It is clear that these schools have chosen Pavlovian conditioning (Domjan, 2005) to create a theoretically constructive learning environment. There are teachers who use hand signals and others use different sounds. The effect is the same; the kids develop a learned response for when the teacher signals. Teachers are expected to maintain order (Edwards, 1994). The assumption is that the students are incapable of controlling themselves and thus need an adult to control them (Edwards, 1993). There is no respect for the children's own ability to self-control or self-direct (Edwards, 1989).
School Reform: The Purpose of Education
Before introducing the Indigenous education concepts that contrast authoritarian structures, I want to revisit our Euro-centric education system's purpose. Compulsory education began in America in the 1850's; with the intent to create a society prepared for industrial revolution. Some feel that the industrial revolution created devastation to our natural resources while simultaneously moving our society forward with significant inventions (Hobsbawm, 1999) that have ultimately brought us to the current technological era.
Society has changed tremendously since the initiation of compulsory attendance in public schools. Schools have also changed, but not to the same degree that their world has. The industrial revolution gave way to the technological revolution. Education today focuses on examinations and verification of learning through rote memorization. “Teaching to the test also narrows the curriculum, forcing teachers and students to concentrate on memorization of isolated facts, instead of developing fundamental and higher order abilities” (Fair Test, 2007).
Psychological Development in School
One of the most significant aspects ignored in education is the psychological impact that these reform efforts and authoritarian structures play in brain development. The view of the child as a blank canvas to be painted is antiquated and harmful. The results of this choice can be seen in the society around us. The selfishness and inability to demonstrate emotional intelligence and empathy for others is rampant. The increasing demonstration of narcissistic behavior patterns has been dismissed as generational, yet the very generations making these claims also harbor the same behaviors. The only common theme that all generations have is school.
The efforts made to acknowledge behavior in students were made at the turn of the 20th century and little has been done to question this research. It has been widely accepted and perpetuated for well over a century. With each passing generation, we see ever increasing tendencies toward the disregard of others and the inability to effectively manage healthy boundaries. This has created predatory work environments and has cost worker productivity in many areas of society. In the next chapter, I will discuss narcissism and the role it plays.