What did we learn in school? Socialism

I know the textbook I used as a teacher of World History included a section on different economic theories. We compared communism, capitalism, socialism. We talked about who owned the means of production and why that mattered. We also discussed the various governmental philosophies. So why do people not understand these basic concepts today?

I was following a thread about socialism and one of the participants was dead set against socialism because of Jamestown, "and we all know how that ended", he wrote. First of all, Jamestown was a corporate charter exploratory colony and I would say that the outcome was ok. I smoked cigarettes, the outcome of that colony, for many years. Other comments on that thread and others I have read demonstrated a misunderstanding of the terms.

Socialism advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods should be controlled or owned by the community as a whole.  Whereas, communism as espoused by Marx is achieved by class war, eventually all property is publicly owned, and each person is paid according to their abilities and needs. In a capitalist system the means of production, distribution and exchange are owned by private entities to make a profit. I would add here that today, the capitalists are well on their way to own and control the government.

Another ism that gets bandied about quite bit is fascism and nazis. I am including the definition for that because I believe it too is misunderstood.  Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader. who controls the economy, and a strong demagogic approach. Some think that this is the turn the U.S. economy and government are taking.

Communism and socialism were 19th century responses to capitalist overreach. The robber barons set the mode of operation for the capitalist system. That was to disregard the needs of the workers and the workings of nature. The expectations of early capitalists for their labor force seemed to have been based upon the feudal system and some form of forced labor, such as slavery or indentured servitude. They have built their wealth using the nation's resources while disregarding the beauty and functions of the earth. Clean air and water are not the price we should have to pay for capitalists to create their wealth.

Communism and socialism have been demonized by capitalists because their ability to create as much wealth as they desire would be curtailed. If corporations have to pay the total cost of doing business their overhead would be much higher, less profit. Cooperative economic systems want their taxes to go for building and maintaining infrastructure, including schools, public spaces and services. That would mean that the capitalists would have to pay to clean up the toxic waste some of their businesses leave behind. They would have to pay their workers at least enough that anyone working would not need to use public welfare services, like food stamps. 


The capitalist system has painted all systems of government, control, and economic development as either good or bad, but just like all of life, it's systems are nuanced. Each government exists somewhere on a spectrum of each of the economic and governmental organization. The United States uses some of it's tax money to build roads, bridges and assist in the overall transportation systems of the country. Helping those in need is another example of using our resources to give a lift to those who need it. The pentagon is funded to protect us and the workers in that system live in a socialist economy where their food, housing and other benefits are subsidized or provided.

Economics is concerned with studying and influencing the economy. Politics is the theory and practice of influencing people through the exercise of power, e.g. governments, elections and political parties. These two systems  work together and often are conflated. Socialism and communism appear to us as bad systems because they have been adopted by authoritarian leaders. In essence those leaders make great promise to the average working man, making them easy to manipulate and use to gain power. Just because communism was used by Stalin in a brutal manner does not mean a more enlightened country with democratic principles can't benefit from the system. Likewise, Putin uses democracy as a tool to rule today's Russia and that does not mean the people of Russia have the same freedoms as people in the United States. 

The promise of socialism and communism is the use of cooperation versus individual enterprise. Individual enterprise allows the greedy to rise to the top while cooperation appears to them to deaden the roots of ambition. If the past is any guide these two principles will be blended to create a better world. Just as feudalism and mercantilism set the stage for capitalism, communism and socialism have set the stage to give the working man and woman the dignity individual enterprise has denied them.

Finland's Success

These thoughts have been provoked by the article, "A Model Lesson, Finland Shows Us What Equal Opportunity Looks Like" by Pasi Sahlberg.  Click here to read this article in American Educator Online.

I have been following the story of Finland's education success with interest.  I watched a program with one of Finland's education ministers and he said something that resonates with me because it seems to be such a common sense approach to education for a country like the United States of America.  It cuts to the core of what I believe this country represents.  Opportunity for all.  The minister said that while they were reforming Finland's education their goal was to create equity for all citizens.

In other words they were creating an education system to provide a level playing field for everyone.  Out of this system of equity developed a system of excellence.  It is hard for me to understand why the U.S.A. can not put the idea of equity at the core of our education system.  Why is it not possible to go to the failing schools and provide them with the resources and human capital they need to provide an education equal to that a student from a rich suburb has the opportunity to obtain.

The problem from my point of view is this,

In the United States we place our emphasis in education upon choice and competition, in Finland their driving philosophy is equity and shared responsibility.  

In the U.S. A. we think as individuals because we have been trained by an education system that places us in an age group cadre that rewards only those who can best follow directions for 12 years in a row.  This training skews our thinking toward competition and the idea that those who don't think like us don't think correctly.

We are now living in a world where all people are clamoring for access to the resources America has monopolized to become the powerhouse it is.  If we do not learn to cooperate with one another we may eventually be denied resources from outside our national borders.

 Remember what John Donne wrote, "No man is an island, entire of itself" this is true for nations as well, even those as rich and powerful as the U.S.A.  We must learn the skill of cooperation so that we might draw upon all members of society to build our future.

Graduation from High School After 10th Grade

 Some Useful Websites for Teachers
My Timeline will help you construct a timeline, adding events, descriptions, and images that help bring content alive.
How Stuff Works is a great site for a student to explore!
After School Activities brings hands-on activities and digital library resources into afterschool play!


Some Articles to Read 
(These articles may require you sign up to read them) 
Librarians' Roles Shifting to Address the Demand for Quality Online Content by Katie Ash 
'Algebra-for-All' Push Found to Yield Poor Results By Debra Viadero 
Educator Teamwork Seen as Key to School Gains By Lisa Fine

 

Thoughts from Yrisarri

This week I read a number of articles about plans for high school aged students to enter college and some about the importance of cooperation among teachers at schools to insure that all students get effective teaching.  I think these ideas have a lot of merit and could be utilized to make education more relevant and effective. 

Ky. in test that sends sophomores to college 
Information from: The Courier-Journal, http://www.courier-journal.com 

Louisville Ky. (AP) — Kentucky and seven other states will participate in a pilot education program that will send some students to college two years early. The National Center on Education and the Economy is providing the program under a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  The Courier-Journal in Louisville reported that, under the program, students who complete the 10th grade with test results showing they can handle college-level studies will be allowed to enroll in colleges and universities.  The program is still being worked out, but is expected to begin in fall 2011 with 10 to 20 high schools taking part in each of the states.  Besides Kentucky, schools in Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont will participate.

Why not take this idea further?  Mandatory public education should end after the 10th grade for students who are prepared for the next level of education.  One of our educational problems is the 9th grade.  Young adolescents are beginning to view the world around them with a different frame of reference and become impatient with the schooling process.  I believe if they knew there was only one more year of mandatory schooling, there would be more motivation to finish.  My experience is that students in early adolescence have a hard time assessing their long term future and a shorter goal to graduation would help.  Not all students need to go to college at 16, but they do need to have a curriculum that is relevant to their lives and ambitions.  At end of mandatory public education is the beginning of what Australia calls Tertiary Education

from Australia's Government Website  http://www.dfat.gov.au/aib/education.html

There are two types of tertiary education programs: those offered by institutions, private training providers and industry in the vocational education and training (VET) sector; and those offered by universities and other higher education providers.

Why not allow students to make a decision about their education at this point?  Something that is often overlooked about our educational system is that anyone, at any age can change the direction of their careers by going to school.  Some students may choose to work and that should be encouraged and be a part of a planned tertiary education experience. The tertiary experience would provide for a diversity of curriculum, programs and experiences for young people prepared to take that step.  I believe that offering this program would cause many more students to be prepared.  Not everyone will be ready at this point but those who are not can be mentored and tutored in a more effective manner than flunking or passing to the next  level without the skills they need to suceed.

It should be understood by all Americans that  life-long learning is encouraged by our society and there is no real end point or time in life when it is too late to study and change.  Just as there should be no subjective value placed on the work individuals choose to do.  In a democracy such as ours there should be an egalitarian approach to vocational and professional choices individuals make.  All jobs should be understood to have paths for growth and advancement, and that security is possible with most choices made about work.

So how do we decide if a young person is prepared to take this step? It would require cooperation among school, community and business to create a meaningful diploma.  A committee chosen from representatives of the larger community could evaluate a student’s portfolio and decide if they had met the predetermined standards and benchmarks the community believes are necessary to begin the tertiary stage of education and guide them in the execution of their next step.

from When Should Students Graduate ... And Who Should Decide ?
By S.G. Grant  Education Week On-Line

What would happen, we wondered, if state policymakers took themselves largely out of the picture and allowed local, district-based committees to define the assessments that would demonstrate students’ readiness to graduate? Students would still need to sit for and pass the standardized state exams, but those results alone would not determine whether a student was competent and ready to graduate. Instead, state exams and their scores would be part of a larger slate of assessments that gauged students’ knowledge and understanding in more realistic and authentic ways.

A system like this would require that we care about each individual and work together as learning communities.  The burden of success would be local rather than centererd in some distant bureaucracy.  Each student would be required to have an educational plan evaluated at predetermined benchmarks.  Teachers would have to cooperate  to insure that student plans are successful in the long term.  This would cause schools to take advantage of the full talents of their teachers and administrators.

from Teacher Learning: Sine Qua Non of School Innovation
By Stephanie Hirsh 

You wouldn’t know it from current discussions about teacher effectiveness, but the talent and expertise needed to raise student achievement already exist in many, if not most, schools. Unfortunately, too few of them have a culture that encourages teachers and administrators to work together on a regular basis, to consult each other more often on matters of teaching and learning, to share responsibilities for instructional improvement, and to implement professional-learning opportunities that address both their needs and their students’.

Having the right conditions for professional learning promotes trust and respect among educators, the essential ingredients for an honest dialogue about what is working and what needs to change. Absent these conditions, the most effective teachers and successful schools will continue to operate as “islands of excellence,” rather than as places all educators can turn to as a way of learning how to improve their own results.

This plan would require us to focus on the individual students, give them a voice in their educataion, allow for the growth of diverse curriculums in the teritary system, give students authentic instruction, and provide for community and school cooperation at many levels. It would also depend upon rethinking what schooling, education and learning mean and how our society views the value of different types of work in our culture.