Meritocracy as Neoliberal Mantra

by Jo Littler, Discover Society:  https://discoversociety.org/2018/10/02/meritocracy-as-neoliberal-mantra/

Why is the idea of meritocracy – the idea that society should be organised so that anyone can rise to the top of the social pile, if they work hard and activate their talent – so normalized, so familiar, so ‘common-sense’?

In part it is undoubtedly because it holds within it some vivid elements of fairness. It is surely right that everyone should have a chance to progress and develop themselves, and to work in fields they are capable of working in, regardless of their background. It is right that establishments should not contract and ossify to keep the privileged inside their golden gates of power. It is right that people should not be discriminated against. All these points, which are generally part of the package of meaning that is meritocracy, are irrefutable.

Meritocracy is also part of our common-sense because it has been used consistently in the service of a right-wing agenda, which not only hinders democratic goals but relentlessly works to secure their exact opposite. Over the past few decades, narratives of meritocracy have been vigorously and inventively used to perpetuate entrenched privilege and rapidly extend inequalities. The notion of meritocracy has been deployed, in shape-shifting fashion, as perhaps the  core alibi for neoliberal capitalism. It has done so in a variety of guises, both socially liberal and conservative-authoritarian.

A key part of the problem is that meritocracy has always involved those who ‘succeed’ and rise to the top of the social hierarchy being given copious financial rewards. This element makes meritocracy a structural impossibility, as it creates the exact opposite of a level playing field. The co-existence of meritocracy with dramatic economic inequality was always a problem for those on the Left, from the moment meritocracy became a word in the mid-1950s (and indeed, even before it was coined as a term, the idea had plenty of traction as a discourse, from ‘pulling yourself up by your bootstraps’ in the US to Victorian self-help treatises [1]). In what is, to date, the first recorded use of the term, by the industrial sociologist Alan Fox in 1956 in Socialist Commentary (a journal described by Clement Atlee as a ‘useful corrective to the New Statesman’), the word is unproblematically a slur. ‘Why would you heap prodigious economic benefits on the already gifted?’ asked Fox, incredulously [2].

Unlike ‘equal opportunities’, ‘equality of outcome’, or ‘anti-discrimination’, the concept of meritocracy has always been inseparable from capitalism, as noted in the 1950s by social theorists and philosophers including Fox, Hannah Arendt and Raymond Williams. Meritocracy was also a problem, more notoriously, for the polymath Michael Young, for whom it became a way to lambast sectarian educational policies advocating grammar schools. In Young’s scathing 1958 fictional bestseller The Rise of the Meritocracy, which depicts past democratic progress and future social dystopia, meritocracy is also clearly a bad thing, leading through dangerous social division to a soulless, black market trade in brainy babies.  Yet at the same time, in Young’s entertaining yet often fairly obtuse text, the clearer socialist critique of meritocracy (which, to be fair, was never elaborated extensively at this time) was also obfuscated.

By the 1970s Young’s friend Daniel Bell had begun to promote meritocracy as a potential engine of the knowledge economy. Advocating greater social competitiveness probably did not seem to many as if it would hurt at a time when the welfare state was still flourishing. But by the 1980s, at the beginnings of the political implementation what we now call neoliberalism in the UK, the idea was being energetically deployed by right-wing think tanks as a possible conduit through which greater marketisation could be produced and collective provision could be dismantled. The ways in which meritocracy could be used as a destructive fiction and ideological tool, to gain consent for policies for increasing competition and destroying forms of collective or socialized resource, had been identified by Raymond Williams in 1958. Reviewing Young’s book, he noted that meritocracy went hand in glove with individualism, which ‘sweetened the poison of hierarchy’ and ran counter to solidarity and the task of common betterment.

The ideological function of meritocracy – as legitimation for contemporary neoliberal capitalism – has proved to be remarkably supple, as I track in my book Against Meritocracy: Culture, Power and Myths of Mobility [3]. For Thatcher, the language of meritocracy was a way to stick two manicured fingers up to the old Establishment of ‘the Great and the Good’, and to galvanise white working and middle-class aspiration and support for selling off public assets including council houses and the railways. The social conservatism – the racism and sexism – of this period was roundly rejected by New Labour, who ushered in a new language of socially liberal meritocracy, in which anyone could ostensibly ‘make it,’ no matter their ethnicity or sexuality; and which sought to protect the very young through SureStart programmes and an emphasis on reducing child poverty.

Wealth redistribution was not on the agenda, though, which meant that although attempts were made to protect children, a battery of moral education parenting techniques were also launched to try to offset the continual effects of inequality [4]. Meanwhile, adults were encouraged into competitive individualism as the privatization agenda became ratcheted up through Public Private Partnerships and Private Finance Initiatives. Post-New Labour, the Conservatives became ever more punitive, moralizing about ‘strivers and skivers’ and attacking what they depicted as a ‘bloated’ welfare system.

Crucially, neoliberal meritocracy also gained its traction from cultural, social and media discourse across a variety of realms from schools to dating to work. Neoliberal meritocracy is characterised by the extension of competitive individualism into ever more areas of life: from enforcing rankings between, and within, universities through TEF and REF (the Teaching and Research Excellence Frameworks), and of schools and children through league tables and SATS exams (Standard Attainment Tests); to the reinvigoration of the talent show format under the auspices of reality TV, where people elbow each other out of the way to be the top apprentice or baker or singer, and to competing online to be the last one living and flossing in the computer game Fortnite.

In the process, neoliberal meritocracy has also been characterised by drawing, highly selectively, on the language of social justice – particularly anti-racism, feminism and gay rights – which expanded from the 1960s and by flipping it on its head. Anyone can make it, we are told, and we are offered parables of progress in the form of luminous media examples of the few who actually manage to ‘make it’ and travel up what is a really long social ladder.

And it is those who are least privileged and most affected by what we might call a ‘meritocratic deficit’ who are the most intensely incited to work hard and to believe in achievement, that nothing stands in their way but graft and self-belief  (Chapman). Women are encouraged to ‘lean in’, mothers to solve the work/childcare problem themselves by becoming mumpreneurs who set up their own businesses from home, and underprivileged young people to hustle and be ‘entrepreneurial’. This is the ‘meritocratic’ way: to make the ever-lengthening ladder harder to access in the first place, and to instruct the least privileged to blame themselves rather than tackling the structures that continually fail them.

In its current form, neoliberal meritocracy shows how the judgements about who has ‘merit’ and privilege can, in stratified and unequal systems, not only become increasingly contentious (Payne) but open to extreme abuse. Donald Trump uses and exploits the language of merit to validate who he will let enter the US and who he will lock up. His actions show how the struggle to maintain power co-exists with a language of merit and worth, to racist, sexist, abusive and inhumane effect.

Meritocracy is an obfuscatory neoliberal mantra which has been used for decades to powerful effect, providing a key justification for increasing privatization and inequality in the interests of a few. It has provided crucial ideological ballast to the process of extending capitalism further and further into our social, material, psychological and environmental lives with devastating consequences. Neoliberal meritocracy should be challenged, dismantled and replaced with genuine egalitarianism: including economic redistribution, robust anti-discrimination policies and initiatives, and free education.  Instead of neoliberal meritocracy we need policies and cultures which prioritise care, common ownership and collective development of our shared natural, physical, cultural and psychological resources [5] rather than fostering the lonely empowerment of individuals towards goals which, ultimately, both diminish and threaten us all.

References

[1] Todd, S. (2015) The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class, 1910-2010. London: John Murray.

[2] Fox A (1956) ‘Class and equality.’ Socialist Commentary. May (1956): 11–13.

[3] Littler, J. (2018) Against Meritocracy: Culture, Power and Myths of Mobility. London: Routledge.

[4] Jensen, T. (2018) Parenting the Crisis: The Cultural Politics of Parent-Blame. Bristol: Policy Press.

[5] Raworth, K. (2017) Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21^st century Economist. London: Random House Business.

Jo Littler works on the politics of culture and society. She is a Reader in the Department of Sociology at City, University of London, a co-editor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies and part of the editorial collective of Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture. Her book Against Meritocracy: Culture, Power and Myths of Mobility (2018) is out now with Routledge.

Image: Rosie Kerr on Unsplash

Noam Chomsky Defines What It Means to Be a Truly Educated Person

by Josh Jones, Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2016/04/noam-chomsky-defines-what-it-means-to-be-a-truly-educated-person.html

There may be no more contentious an issue at the level of local U.S. government than education. All of the socioeconomic and cultural fault lines communities would rather paper over become fully exposed in debates over funding, curriculum, districting, etc. But we rarely hear discussions about educational policy at the national level these days.

You’ll hear no major political candidate deliver a speech solely focused on education. Debate moderators don’t much ask about it. The United States’ founder’s own thoughts on the subject are occasionally cited—but only in passing, on the way to the latest round of talks on war and wealth. Aside from proposals dismissed as too radical, education is mostly considered a lower priority for the nation's leaders, or it's roped into highly charged debates about political and social unrest on university campuses.

This situation can seem odd to the student of political philosophy. Every major political thinker---from Plato to John Locke to John Stuart Mill---has written letters, treatises, even major works on the central role of education. One contemporary political thinker---linguist, anarchist, and retired MIT professor Noam Chomsky---has also devoted quite a lot of thought to education, and has forcefully critiqued what he sees as a corporate attack on its institutions.

Chomsky, however, has no interest in harnessing education to prop up governments or market economies. Nor does he see education as a tool for righting historical wrongs, securing middle class jobs, or meeting any other  agenda.

Chomsky, whose thoughts on education we’ve featured before, tells us in the short video interview at the top of the post how he defines what it means to be truly educated. And to do so, he reaches back to a philosopher whose views you won’t hear referenced often, Wilhelm von Humboldt, German humanist, friend of Goethe and Schiller, and “founder of the modern higher education system.” Humboldt, Chomsky says, “argued, I think, very plausibly, that the core principle and requirement of a fulfilled human being is the ability to inquire and create constructively, independently, without external controls.” A true education, Chomsky suggests, opens a door to human intellectual freedom and creative autonomy.

To clarify, Chomsky paraphrases a “leading physicist” and former MIT colleague, who would tell his students, “it’s not important what we cover in the class; it’s important what you discover.” On this point of view, to be truly educated means to be resourceful, to be able to “formulate serious questions” and “question standard doctrine, if that’s appropriate”…. It means to “find your own way.” This definition sounds similar to Nietzsche’s views on the subject, though Nietzsche had little hope in very many people attaining a true education. Chomsky, as you might expect, proceeds in a much more democratic spirit.

In the interview above from 2013 (see the second video), you can hear him discuss why he has devoted his life to educating not only his paying students, but also nearly anyone who asks him a question. He also talks about his own education and further elucidates his views on the relationship between education, creativity, and critical inquiry. And, in the very first few minutes, you’ll find out whether Chomsky prefers George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (hint: it’s neither).

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The Rise of Cognitive Enhancers is a Mass Social Experiment

Pranjal Mahna

by Emma A. Jane, UNSW Australia and Nicole A Vincent, Georgia State University, The Conversation: http://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-cognitive-enhancers-is-a-mass-social-experiment-40072

Want to sign up for a massive human experiment? Too late. You’re already a lab rat. There was no ethics approval or informed consent. You weren’t asked, you never signed up, and now there’s no easy way to opt out.

We don’t want to be alarmist. We’re not suggesting you’re about to sprout wings, grow coarse hairs in surprising places and become a gruesome half-insect like the Brundlefly (the side effects of real life scientific experiments rarely impress like the special effects in David Cronenberg’s film The Fly).

But we do know not everyone wants to be a human lab rat. And yet we are all currently enrolled in a massive experiment involving cognitive enhancers.

Smart drugs and devices

“Cognitive enhancer” is a broad term for any of a number of different drugs and devices that - depending on which academic or gamer you listen to - will sharpen your mind. To get the gist, check out this preview of Neil Burger’s film Limitless:

But what drugs, what devices? Well, take this guy, for instance, pumping electricity through his brain with a homegrown transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) device that emits a current so small it can run off a nine-volt battery.

Or Elizabeth, the 20-something founder of a start-up who takes Adderall - a medication prescribed to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - except she doesn’t have ADHD.

Ritalin, modafinil, and donepezil are further examples of medications normally prescribed to people with disorders that do-it-yourself brain-hackers are trying to repurpose for cognitive enhancement.

And for the less adventurous - those who don’t want to nab their grandparent’s dementia pills - there’s a growing range of over-the-counter “nootropic” supplements, which enhance memory and other cognitive capacities, available at pharmacies and from online retailers.

A diverse range of people including video gamers, students, neuroscientists, entrepreneurs, classical musicians, and public servants use cognitive enhancers. We reckon there’s a good chance that you too, dear reader, are sampling the options. Or if not you, then perhaps your partner, neighbours, or work colleagues.

Why would anybody want to use cognitive enhancers? To supersize their mental capacities, of course. Depending on the precise method - and the creativity of the given product’s marketing department - touted benefits include superior memory, focus, reflexes, calmness, clarity of thought, problem-solving ability, mental stamina, and ability to function well with little sleep.

But here’s something to dampen your enthusiasm. In many circumstances, it may be illegal to buy or sell these medications. And some are controlled substances, which is why Elizabeth gets her Adderall - a cocktail of amphetamine salts - from shady dealers.

Health is also a consideration. Aside from isolated studies, buckets of hearsay, and tons of hype, scientists know little about which of these methods work, how they work, and their potential side effects. Experts are urging restraint, at least until more research is conducted and scientists can say which brain interventions are safe and effective.

But our concern is that by then it will already be too late to extract ourselves from this massive human experiment.

An en masse human experiment

It’s around this point that we often encounter scepticism. Unless everyone is actually using cognitive enhancers, how can everyone be part of the experiment?

Here’s our thinking: imagine that in time we develop cognitive enhancement methods that are given the tick of clinical approval by the requisite number of citizens in white lab coats. Presumably ordinary people would then start using them because they can. Suddenly it’s possible to pop a pill and blitz calculus. Or perk up while transplanting someone’s heart and lungs, or while flying people across the Atlantic.

But here’s the catch. While cognitive enhancement might feel like a free choice at the start, once everyone round town is doing it, an insidious form of social coercion sets in. Just as the use of beta blockers has become widespread in the classical music scene, so too cognitive enhancement threatens to become a new “normal”, a de facto standard that pressures everyone to bio-hack their brains to keep up.

Obviously we can’t divine the future. But predicting the social side effects that safe, effective, and inexpensive cognitive enhancers are likely to have in competitive societies like ours seems like a no-brainer. Our bet is that it will result in an even more work-obsessed culture, and even less time than we currently have for other pursuits that enhance human life.

Remember those predictions from the 1980s about how in the future we would all be working 15-hour weeks thanks to gains in efficiency afforded by technological advances? The reason that never happened is not because the technology failed to deliver those gains in efficiency. It’s because we chose to use that efficiency to do more work.

e c d o David/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Social side effects

Scientific and technological developments shape our lives - often imperceptibly - by gradually changing our values and the moral, legal, and social landscape in which we live. Lab tests, clinical trials, and epidemiological studies are great for identifying medical side effects - blurred vision, nausea, nasal blockage, and so on - but they completely overlook the social side effects that science and technology can also have.

This is one reason why you don’t actually have to use cognitive enhancers to be a subject in this massive human experiment. You just have to share a society with others who do. When they use cognitive enhancers, you get the social side effects.

Then there’s informed consent. Would you still want to take a smart drug if it increased the chances of you making not-so-smart decisions about how much you worked simply because you could suddenly work more? What if it changed how much your boss thought it was reasonable to expect you to work given what everyone else around the office was suddenly capable of doing?

Athletic doping is rejected not for safety reasons but because we want sport to be about inspiring achievements. Rikard Elofsson/Flickr, CC BY

Bioethics: convincing as well as cute

For perspective on what’s missing in how we talk about cognitive enhancement, consider the stark contrast between debates over enhancing physical and mental performance.

The doping of athletes is rejected not just for safety reasons but because we want sport to be about certain things, like those gloriously muscular humans and their inspiring achievements - not a technological and scientific arms race. When it comes to sport, we decide how we want things to be and set rules to ensure that’s how things become. Values shape how we conduct ourselves in sport.

And yet, despite the potential impact on the rest of our lives, values other than safety, effectiveness, and equality are marginalised in debates about mental performance enhancement. Enhancers are likened to caffeine, pain killers or doing the occasional online course to skill up. And people who express a distaste for the kind of society that cognitive enhancement could encourage are ridiculed by enthusiasts as being neo-Luddites.

Take this tweet from a genome researcher, for instance, to our work on the ethical and legal issues around cognitive enhancement:

"But in our view a cognitively enhanced society is neither inevitable nor unobjectionable. Our case is that we should engage in careful contemplation of the full suite of ramifications of any given emerging technology not because we think all technological change is bad and must (or can) be stopped, but because we owe it to our future selves. As a society we have a responsibility to do this".

To release new drugs and technologies into the world without regard for their potential social consequences is on a par with sending a new medicine into the market without clinical trials. Failure to do this is nothing less than a reckless form of social experimentation.

We would love to keep going with our “cute” bioethical persuasion, but it’s time for us to enhance. This will involve stopping work at a reasonable hour, hanging out with our favourite children, pets, and friends, doing the exercise and balanced meal thing, and then attempting (but failing) to get a decent night’s sleep.

Emma A. Jane is Senior Lecturer in Media, Journalism and Communication at UNSW Australia.
Nicole A Vincent is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Law, and Neuroscience at Georgia State University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Next Stage of Schooling

"Lehrer-Student", Rostock (Wikipedia)

by Gregory V Diehl

Education is the process through which an individual mind gains understanding of principles of change, or cause and effect relationships in reality.

This differs from training, which is usually just the presentation of conclusions derived from understanding these principles.

Education is foremost about gaining an understanding of a system of correlated information. Training is foremost about how to apply information.

To put it one way: Training is memorizing the fact that the earth revolves around the sun.

Education is understanding the laws of planetary motion which allow you to arrive at that fact.

Consider a mechanic who understands the principles of combustion and the construction of the engine which makes the car work compared to the driver who only needs to know how to turn the steering wheel and which pedal makes it stop.

Or the difference between a music theorist and a musical performer. One intimately understands the mathematics and tonal relationships of harmony; the other can follow instructions on command and produce intended notes at the right time on a given instrument.

In fact, at some point in history, the terms "musician" and "musical performer" carried these similar but distinct meanings respectively.

Much of what is typically called "education" around the world is actually just training in a specific set of skills or cultural values.

For example, if you look what is called "religious education", it usually amounts to little more than training a child or recent convert in how to speak, dress, pray, and act in accordance with that religion's list of rules and values. Rarely is there any real education on major cosmological principles of change.

Or consider the concept of etiquette. It is training to condition a child to shake a stranger's hand when they meet for the first time, or to tuck in their shirt at a formal occasional. While these practices certainly serve their purposes, most are totally arbitrary and esoteric.

Training to perform a task is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. It's a necessary part of navigating the modern world with its constantly shifting technologies and methodologies. The problem comes when training replaces education.

The majority of educational institutions around the world specialize in teaching children how to act, not how to think. This creates adults who lack character, ambition, intellectual integrity, and an ever-expanding sense of identity.

Another thing to consider is ...

It should come as no surprise that learning is not strictly an intellectual process. The ability to learn is dependent upon a student's level of curiosity, patience, dedication, and sense of self-worth.

These are all powerful emotional forces which cannot be neglected and ignored if true education is to be accomplished.

Under natural settings, it would be the duty of parents, family members, and other friendly older figures in a young person's life to ensure the development of these healthy emotional capacities until they reach adulthood.

Under traditional schooling, children are taken away from their parents for the majority of the day and left to develop under the unfamiliar eyes of state-appointed strangers simultaneously tasked with keeping dozens of other children in line.

It is a physical impossibility for these types of teachers to act as an instigator of the necessary emotional tools inherent to healthy education and human development.

A proper education must be entirely voluntary ...

... and initiated by the curiosity of the student to learn the particular information at hand. A five-year-old will not learn how to read without the desire to know how to read. A teenager will not learn algebra or chemistry without a desire to understand them.

This desire can either come from a fear of negative consequences from not learning them ("bad grades", punishment, parental and social scorn, the pathological fear of being perpetually stuck flipping burgers to make ends meet), or a genuine enthusiasm for gaining new knowledge and abilities.

The inescapable conclusion is that a teacher must become a specialist in creating either fear or enthusiasm in children.

A proper educator should be emotionally qualified to nurture the development of these basic humanities in the age range of children they choose to work with.

In other words, if you wouldn't trust them to raise your children for you, should you really trust them to be their primary emotional influences?

Let's take a look at the educational options available to most people:

Public school

Public school is almost universally poorly funded. This means there are never enough teachers or learning materials to satisfy the multitudes of students.

Furthermore, because public school is funded through taxation and not free market voluntary exchange, it is not subject to a proprietary incentive to continually be improving and optimizing its services.

Because it is designed and implemented by the whim of the majority and their elected officials, public schools can never cater to any form of outliers. They are designed for the average person to be able to produce easily quantifiable results and prepare them for college admissions.

Private school

Private schools are prohibitively expensive for most parents, if for no other reason than the fact that the taxes for public school must still be paid whether or not it is ever attended.

While generally superior to lackluster public schooling, the quality of education in private schools can vary widely depending upon the limitations and biases of the methodology upon which it is based.

They can even create a sense of privilege and entitlement over students who had to go to "regular" school.

Homeschool

Homeschooling, while not particularly expensive, comes with a major opportunity cost that is impossible for many parents to bear. If both parents work full time, homeschooling is impossible.

It also depends entirely on the parents' abilities as instructors, which is a role many are not prepared to play past early childhood for their own kids. If proper attention is not taken to keep the children involved in social activities, it can be very isolating for them.

Finally, while homeschooling is gaining in popularity, it is still at a point where it does not carry the same social merit as having attending an "official" schooling institution.

Private lessons & tutoring

Individual private instructors are available for almost any subject imaginable. They come in all levels of quality and cost. Because they are seen as supplementary, their effectiveness if often limited by a child's primary obligation to complete their traditional schooling matters first.

The education from these types of teachers usually happens in short sporadic sessions (such as an hour or two a week) so a continuity of thought and progress is difficult to achieve.

As with homeschooling, the social merit of taking guitar lessons or learning calculus from a tutor instead of a class is erroneously considered very low.

Self-education

Finally, humanity's oldest form of education. Self-education occurs every day through tools like books, videos, images, audio, and good old-fashioned trial and error. Technology has made self-education on any topic a viable option for anyone in the developed world.

However, significant self-education requires a student who is intensely naturally driven to learn and expand their knowledge.

There is also no live external guide or influence to help a budding mind through trouble spots, incite further curiosity, or aim their attention in new directions they would never see on their own.

While self-education is a powerful tool in the right hands, it can never compare to having a second set of eyes to show us what our biases fail to see.

It should also go without saying that, except to other self-educators, it will never carry much weight in the world to say you read about something in a book rather than learned it in a classroom.

So ...

Why do most schools and educational institutions fail to teach their students how to think? Why are the fundamental emotional components of learning hardly ever addressed by conventional educators?

The simple truth is that there are thousands of naturally qualified and experienced individuals across North America, Europe, and the rest of the world who could be amazing assets to developing children and their parents.

You will never hear about these people because they do not fit the reigning social mold for what a teacher is supposed to look like. They come in all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds, each specializing in their own unique form of mentoring influence.

The best thing a caring parent can do for their children is to be there for them physically, emotionally, and intellectually during their formative years. However, as children get older, they will naturally start to reach out beyond the boundaries of what any single set of parents can provide for them.

This is why additional mentors, guides, coaches, and substitute older siblings are so important to the developing mind and personality of a child.

Human history is riddled with social and technological revolutions.

It happened when our hunter ancestors adopted agriculture as their primary means of acquiring food. It happened when we began to use electric light or the automobile. It's happening now with the way we raise our kids and share the dearth of human knowledge acquired in generations past.

The revolution of decentralized education may change the world more than any other revolution prior. It could fundamentally change human culture as we know it.

We live now in the age of information, where experts are everywhere and anyone with a laptop can access the majority of knowledge ever discovered. Anyone who wants to learn something will find a way to learn it.

But what we are still lacking is a large proportion of people capable of catering to the emotional needs of children and students as they grow. We have no one to challenge us, comfort us, and push us to where we did not know we could go.

Who do you want guiding your children? Someone who relies upon a series of increasing threats to keep them focused and moving along the path society chose for them? Or someone who uses their emotional and intellectual expertise to encourage them along a developmental journey tailored individually for their temperament and interests?

The school of the future isn't a school at all. It's a network for connecting the right coaches and mentors with the right students.

Its function is to enable every individual learner to determine their own intellectual path according to their natural strengths and interests, and to provide the emotional influence and encouragement necessary to make this happen.

Since no two individual minds are exactly identical, the decentralization and degeneralization of education is the only way to make this happen.

When the first priority in education becomes teaching people how to think and helping them choose for themselves what they are most interested in learning, human societies around the world are bound to undergo massive progressive change.

We may even make major leaps in ending the various social problems and forms of strife created by populations becoming obsessed with asserting and preserving their training through violent conquest of superficially different people.

We may open countless new doorways to philosophical & economic exchange, scientific advancement, and broadening of narrow human mindsets.

It's impossible to see just how amazing and far-reaching this paradigm shift may be in regards to creating a world of greater peace, prosperity, freedom, and overall happiness.

Enabled Youth is a youth mentoring, development, and coaching service run by Gregory Diehl. It is dedicated to helping young people live up to their highest potentials.

Gregory is a professionally certified youth mentor, coach, and international educator with experience with children in seven countries. He helps children and teenagers unlock their highest potentials and achieve personal success against the many trials of the world.

Through his coaching practice, he also helps parents connect more deeply with their children and create harmony at home.

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Uncapped University

by Andee Jones, Online Opinion: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15214

About the Author: Andee Jones is an author and retired psychologist and academic. Jones’s essays and creative non-fiction are published in mainstream, literary and scholarly journals. Her most recent book is Barking Mad: Too much therapy is never enough. Jones’s 2010 memoir Kissing Frogs has been adapted for the stage by AFI-winner Annie Byron as RU4Me, which is touring regionally August-October, 2013.

Apart from the odd compulsive student, like me, or the odd obsolete teacher (also like me), few people know that what now passes for a university isn't a university.

More than a decade ago, philosopher Raimond Gaita (1997) reported an exchange between UK philosophers and a Minister for Education about the closure of university philosophy departments.

The philosophers said that no institution that lacked a philosophy department could rightly call itself a university. The Minister - described by Gaita as a cultured man - listened carefully but finally replied, "In that case, we will call it something else!" They haven't had to bother.

Penny pinching by federal governments has destroyed everything but the name.

By 2007, compared to public university education in the rest of the OECD, Australian students paid amongst the highest tuition fees in the world and their governments contributed less than half the amount they once did per student.

Over the decade to 2005, student fees increased by 70 percent and resources per student fell, saving the government the equivalent of $1 billion (NTEU, 2007).

Staff cuts and student increases have forced universities into a two-stream system in which islets of senior academics supervise shoals of research students, while a sea of casual staff - desperate to make landfall before they hit retirement - carry the vast bulk of the teaching load.

As a university teacher last century, I learnt to teach while treading water and also on dry land but nothing prepared me for my experience as a student in 2011.

Last year I enrolled in Masters-level courses at two self-exulted Australian universities. I wanted to choose the one that better suited me. I didn't realise I'd entered the academic equivalent of a chockers London Underground lift.

For the first tutorial, 25 students sidled into a 35-degree, airless closet. I scored a seat at a back table, straddled the corner, balanced a notepad on my knees, wedged my pen and specs on the table between my neighbours' clipboards - and waited.

My joy of joys is a new course brimming with the promise of passionate intellectual engagement. As in the petri-dish question on Biology exams, within 5 minutes the class had doubled.

The latecomers sat on the floor, backs against the walls, knees jammed into the behinds of the lucky sods who'd scored chairs.

Just as any semblance of humanity was long gone from the London lift, so all vestiges of teaching had fled the uncapped classroom. The airless closet was a taste of things to come.

From 2012, the Australian government will fund universities for as many students as they can enrol (excepting postgraduate and medical students). In the three years prior to the anticipated uncapping, Australian universities increased their enrolments by 20 percent (DEEWR, 2012).

At RMIT this year, places reportedly increased by 1343 while the cut-off scores for admission to some courses plunged. For one business course the score fell from nearly 70 last year to 50 this year; for one civil engineering course, 79 to 62; and for one psychology course, 81 to 68 (Topsfield, 2012).

As enrolments skyrocket and cut-off scores plummet, many universities are slashing staff numbers - and playing the old blame tune.

Announcing cuts of 340 at Sydney University, Vice-Chancellor Dr Martin Spence said the university could no longer carry those staff members "not pulling their weight" (Bennet, 2011).

In the university context, "not pulling their weight" is executive-speak for "publishing fewer papers than Canberra wants".

To Canberra, only numbers count. It doesn't matter to an auditor that one timely, substantial paper might contribute more to scholarship than four light-weight pieces put together.

Muttering "Not pulling their weight" in the general direction of academics keeps them treading water. The slogan taps into community suspicions - already trained by the tabloids - that university teachers don't have enough to do.

But on Canberra's publish-or-perish showboat, the survivors try to keep the sharks at bay. Sometimes against their better academic judgment they publish prematurely or turn one paper into several. After all, why feed Jaws a single prey when tossing him two halves has him behaving as if he's twice as full?

Under-the-knife and under-published academics join forces, set up new journals and publish each other. Meanwhile, in vain, scholars scour the literature for something that's still breathing.

Back in the airless closet, the Masters-level subject comprised a series of unpaid visitors ad-libbing on "What I do to earn a buck in this industry".

At both universities the justification for the absence of teaching was that we Masters students were already proficient.

What we'd get out of the course was the know-how to sell our wares in the marketplace. So why wouldn't we just do a marketing course? "Indeed," said one lecturer, "some of our best students have".

In his article, philosopher Raimond Gaita mourned the loss not only of a serious conception of the value of learning for its own sake, but also of the very language with which to articulate such a conception.

He quoted Hazel Rowley: 'Never has there been so much talk of "excellence" and "quality assurance" and never before ... so little concern for either', and added, 'For a long time we did not notice what we had lost'. Not that it'll worry the auditors; they'll just call it something else.

Why I Became a Science Teacher: I Want to Raise the Aspirations of My Students

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, M.D. (Wikipedia)

Schools Improvement Net: http://schoolsimprovement.net/why-i-became-a-science-teacher-i-want-to-raise-the-aspirations-of-my-students/

Teaching was going to be a stopgap for Kevin Onabiyi, but once in the classroom he found it impossible to leave and soon become head of teaching and learning in his school.

Here’s an extract of his story from the Guardian.

It wasn’t until I started my first placement, at Sarah Bonnell school in Stratford, that I got the teaching bug.

I got the first job I applied for, teaching science at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (EGA), a girls school in north London.

I’m the kind of person who likes to have a goal, so I decided to teach at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson for five years and then go for a job as head of year in another school, as I realised almost straight away that the pastoral side of the job was my particular interest.

So that was the plan, but just two years later I got the job as head of year. My teaching load was reduced to 42 periods every two weeks to give me time to do the pastoral side of the role with years 8 and 9.

Year 8 is a pivotal time at school and there can often be a dip in attitude after the novelty of year 7 has worn off and it’s time to work harder.

I worked to embed a motto in my students’ hearts - that there is no excuse for failure, and that is true in every area from punctuality, attendance, behaviour, attainment and involvement.

When a new headteacher came to EGA, she decided to reorganise our systems so one head would stay with the same year group of children take them all through the school up until year 11.

So then I realised then I needed to learn about pastoral care for key stage four, there was so much to learn and I found it so interesting that I wanted to stay at EGA.

Last year I became associate assistant head and in charge of teaching and learning for the whole school and the pastoral side of supporting other year heads in the school. This has been a wonderful challenge.

I also lead student voice and the seniors (EGA’s version of prefects). Throughout all this time I have been teaching science as well which I am passionate about.

So, my top tips for teachers just starting their careers is enjoy the kids you’re teaching. Sometimes they are so hard to get on with but if you love the people you serve, you put everything into it.

This is especially true in schools in inner London where sometimes the support and care from parents isn’t quite there and so what happens in school becomes so much more important.

Also be in love with your subject you are teaching. Teaching isn’t just a job, really you can’t just go to work and plod through the day - children’s lives are involved.

More at: Why I became a science teacher: I want to raise the aspirations of my students

OPINION: The Most Remarkable Teacher I Ever Had

Teacher and student, Khairat (India) (Wikipedia)

by J Jacob Kotteckaly

Have you ever asked "what do you want to be?" to anybody who had been a teacher?

The answer will, most probably, be "a teacher again."

No other profession holds the satisfaction and dignity as that of a teacher.

I have also been a teacher in the early years of my career.

I consider it the most emotionally satisfying job I ever had. If it was not for the financial crunch, I would be a teacher to this day.

I have met many unforgettable teachers since my days as a student. This article is about one such teacher who has left an indelible mark on my mind.

I did my primary education at St. Francis Assisi School at Athani. Athani was, at that time, a suburban area that was slightly bigger than a village but smaller than a town. It is located at the Ernakulum district of Kerala. At that time, the school had classes only up to the seventh standard.

The school was unique in that every student had one thing in common. Nobody wanted to reach the seventh standard. The reason was that Sister Beatrice - whom all the students considered the most fearsome person on earth - taught Hindi in the seventh standard.

As it turned out, she was also the most loved person in the school. I did never understand how one person could become the most feared and the most loved until the week after the Friday on which I forgot my umbrella in the class.

Being the indolent student I was, I asked no one about the umbrella; it was gone anyway, why bother? It was the monsoon season, but I preferred walking in rain more than carrying an umbrella. Four days passed in the next week without any sign of my umbrella.

The Friday arrives, and, as usual, Sister Beatrice takes the last hour. The hour passes without any major calamities. We are waiting for the last bell to ring when, out of nowhere, I hear my name called out.

How do you feel when a thunder strikes in a classroom? Hearing a student's name called out loudly by Sister Beatrice is a similar experience. I rewind my brain to two seconds back to confirm. Yes, it is indeed my name. I stand up in my place. I see Sister Beatrice sitting in her table looking at me.

A cold shiver runs through my body. I cannot feel my legs; they are frozen. Sister Beatrice nods her head. I see the class looking at me with sympathy. Her nod is infamous; it means "I want you near my table."

An invisible hand must have picked me, moved me through the air, and landed me near the table as the next moment, I was standing near the table facing her. She moves her chair back and stands up.

"Did you forget something in the class?"
"... "
"Did you?"
"Y... y... yes"
"What was that?"
"... "
"What was that?"
"My ... my umbrella"
"Did you ask anybody about your umbrella?"
"N ... n ... no"
"Why?"
"..."
"Why?"
"..."
"WHY?"

The teachers (including me) who are behaviourists expect a response for a stimulus. When they do not get it, they go mad.

The next thing I feel is that a strong hand holds my right hand and turns me around so that my back faces the class. I know what is coming and close my eyes. The cane makes an exhilarating noise as it moves in the air, not as much when it lands on my leg - once, twice, thrice.

After 2 minutes of silence, I open my eyes. I see the flaming eyes staring down at me from behind the glasses.

She asks me, "how can you let go of something so important so easily?" and hands me the umbrella.

The marks stayed on my legs for two weeks, but her words never went away from my ear. They echoed in my ear for a long time. Even now, when I need something and am reluctant to ask it to anybody, I hear the sound of the cane piercing the air followed by her words. They make me speak up, not keep my voice in my mind.

After I left the school, I saw Sister Beatrice only once. It was about two years later. I was in the tenth standard and was one of the best students in the school. I was representing my school for the science fair.

My old school was also participating in the fair. I along with two of my friends was walking down the long corridor when I saw Sister Beatrice coming towards us. I never imagined that I would be so happy to see her.

She talked to me for a brief period and then said, "bring your friends and help me take some plants from the backyard." We went with her and dug out all the plants that she needed. I offered to carry them to her stall.

She said with a smile, "No, Jaimon. It is fine." She took those plants in both hands, walked back to the long corridor, and slowly disappeared from my view. That was the last I saw of her.

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OPINION: Why an MBA is Nothing More Than an Over-Rated $150,000 Job Interview

by Goro Gupta, 21st Century News: http://www.21stcenturynews.com.au/mba-overrated-150000-job-interview/?inf_contact_key=12051354b18beb11decb7f9d2853cd342550a3c7353bd0ba9002c8c874f187c8

Goro Gupta explains why an MBA is nothing more than an over-rated $150,000 job interview.

Approximately 8 years ago, a study done by the Stanford Business School based on 40 years of data about people who had completed MBA’s, came up with the following surprising yet common sense conclusion:

“There is scant evidence that the MBA credential, particularly from non-elite schools, or the grades earned in business courses are related to either salary or the attainment of higher level positions in organizations.”

An MBA these days can cost anywhere from $100,000 to about $400,000 depending on where you get your degree from. Yes you can get a ridiculous HECS loan that cripples you for the next 10-30 years to support this, but let’s face reality for just a moment and look at the facts:

a) Most high paying employers rarely look at your degree, rather they are more focused on the results you have produced in the past.
b) Even if employers do require a degree, they hardly ever check the validity of what’s on your resume.
c) Most resume’s end up on a pile, with a minor chance of your’s being read.

In today’s job market, you must be dynamic, and prove yourself as a professional. Your LinkedIn account in just as valuable as an MBA. Imagine spending those 3-5 years of your life learning how businesses really work, by adding value and learning the art of true entrepreneurship.

A company is more likely to hire you based upon the contacts you have within the industry rather than a piece of oversized paper that’s verified by an institution.

This article is not about giving yourself permission to be lazy, instead its about finding other ways to add value. It is a proven fact that when companies look to hire someone (outside of a regular recruitment agent), its usually based on their past experience and contacts with management that really matter.

While an MBA might just help you get the foot in the door, its not going to help you be successful in the interview.

Applied knowledge is true power in today’s world. Imagine you’re a high paying employer- put yourself in their shoes just for a moment and play along.

Behind door A, you have an MBA graduate student that has graduated from one of the top schools in Australia. Behind door B, you have a person who you have met a few times before or have seen their work on business forums and perhaps even used their products or services - which one would you pick?

Making an impact in 4 years will get you much further than a ‘paper-based’ education.

Yes, you do need to know most of the terminology and look at successful case studies; however, these can be obtained for a fraction of the cost.

Some resources to look at could be as cheap as picking up the book - ‘the personal MBA’ or attending various entrepreneur-designed courses such as the Business Education Summit or the unconvention (and its relevant MBE course) held every year in major cities around Australia.

Educate yourself the new way - by learning and applying at every step. You will find it much more rewarding, both mentally and financially. 

Goro Gupta is a leading lifestyle design coach, 21^st Centurys Platinum success coach and a qualified life coach and mortgage broker.

What High School or College Classes Have You Found to Be the Most Useful?

French language stop sign (Photo credit: mechanikat)

by Larry M. Lynch

Useful High School and College Classes

When I first read this question on Mentalfloss dot com, I was intrigued. After thinking about it for a couple of minutes, I came up with some surprising answers.

Since I have taught English as a Foreign Language for more than 20 years, my high school and college English classes would certainly qualify.

Even a junior high school English (and Latin) teacher is still memorable for me.

In fact I still remember several of my English / Latin teachers from junior high school (now usually referred to as Middle School) on. Latin was later useful in helping me to wade through other language classes like French, then Spanish.

French and Spanish

Although I didn't study French or Spanish in high school, I had to learn both later when I first lived in Montreal for two years, then Paris for a year. Because I had to "babysit", I took my oldest daughter with me to French study hall so I could practice. I even had a French-speaking girlfriend in Montreal who spoke NO English at all.

That really catapulted my French language skills into the stratosphere. Spanish reared its romantic head for me permanently when I met and married a Latina from Colombia, then worked at various times in Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica and Ecuador.

Latin Language Study

My early Latin studies also paved the way for a better understanding of linguistics, which came up in my studies of Twi (Ghana - "Esono ensa, na esono ensa"), Kpelle (Liberia - "Wo hun te se in"), Russian (Soviet Union - "Spakoyne noche") and Tagalog (Philippines).

Actually, my last girlfriend before I got married to my present Colombian wife, was a beautiful Filipina lady. In fact, I nearly married "Felina" with her "crooked English" instead.

Biology and Chemistry

As a student, I liked science, and still do, and on occasion themes which I learned in Biology and Chemistry classes continue to pop up - especially Biology. I like to visit the local zoo at least once every year, and digital photos of animals comprise a large part of my photo collection.

Mechanical Drawing and Drafting

Another very useful class for me was a Mechanical Drawing class I did in Junior high school. I even still remember the teacher's name although by now he's a long time in his grave or so old he may as well be. Because of that one class though, and the influence of several art classes from then and later, I worked as a Draftsman for close to 20 years.

During the 1980s, the field upgraded to its computerized form which still exists today. I was sitting at a dual-screen computer terminal at work everyday when early PC versions like the Commodore 64 and Apple were emerging from the minds of IBM, Texas Instruments and others. LEDs were the hot thing in hand-held calculators which cost nearly a month's salary.

People still used slide rules for calculations - do you even know what that is?

So How About YOU Then?

For a few years I moonlighted as a photojournalist, a job I have even until this day. My early high school art classes contributed a lot to my knowledge of colors, composition and perspective, as did my mechanical drawing classes.

So how about you then?

"What high school or college class have you found to be the most useful?"

Regretfully, I wasn't into math at all during my formative years, but now wish I'd paid more attention in Algebra, Trigonometry and other more advanced math and Physics classes when I was younger. When I now hear the younger sets complain about how "boring" and "useless" some of their classes are, I can't help but snicker.

Little do they know!

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