Education

Education

Saddam Hussein—Brutal, despotic leader of Iraq. Minority Sunni oppressor. Hated. Feared. Repressive, iron grip on society. Go type “Iraqi literacy” into Google (or the search engine of your choice). The results are fascinating:

“Saddam was credited with creating one of the strongest school systems in the Middle East. Iraq won a UNESCO prize for eradicating illiteracy in 1982. Literacy rates for women were among the highest of all Islamic nations, and unlike most Middle East school systems, Iraqi education was largely secular” (csmonitor.com).

“After several ineffectual efforts, the leading party (BASP) in 1978 launched the National Comprehensive Campaign for Literacy, making the eradication of illiteracy a national issue. By 1980 the campaign claimed 1,588,997 citizens had become literate. This figure represents 76.4 % of the 2.3 million target population of 15-45 year-olds” (Eric.ed.gov).

Iraq, under the iron rule of a repressive regime led by a reviled leader was one of the most literate, educated societies in the history of the Middle East. Huh? It just doesn’t add up. If education is the key to liberating a society, if literacy is the key to taking power from the few (the church) and spreading it to the masses, it stands to reason that a brutal dictator would want to keep his people uninformed, uneducated, illiterate, lacking critical thinking and reasoning skills that come with “being educated.” In short, stupid. After all, who did the Nazis round up first? The intellectuals—the few who might question the actions of the many (bearing in mind, that many of the intellectuals were also “political undesirables” opposed to fascism). It’s far harder to control a society if people are questioning the means with which a leader asserts his control.

Which then begs the question—Why would a brutal, controlling madman such as Saddam Hussein make literacy a national concern? Why would he work so hard—winning international recognition—to make his country literate? Should we rethink our opinions of the man? Perhaps, but that is a different conversation, one I am ill equipped for and uninterested in. To me, the man is a madman and horrible example of the rule of power and the law of tribal allegiance over secular, humanistic values.

More so, I think this calls into question the roll that education plays, or potentially plays in shaping and controlling a society. Of course Saddam educated his people. One cannot rule by force alone. Education broadens minds and facilitates deeper thinking. It also may be the most effective means of directing a society toward a unified, unquestioned worldview—the way you shape what people think (how they make meaning of the world around them) is by controlling what they think about. Media is one way, but education is far more effective and subtle. Get to them when they are young and control them when they are older. When they come of age and begin to ask real questions, they will be battling themselves, having spent their formative years being indoctrinated into specific ways of thinking and seeing the world.

We mostly spend our formative years in one of the most powerful institutions in the country, being indoctrinated into a system of thinking, bombarded with images, information, ideas, ways of seeing the world, ethical dilemmas and morality debates with tacit right answers. Our education system is not set up to challenge people to think deeply about the world, our culture, our systems of beliefs. Rather, it is in place, in large part, to perpetuate the status quo.

For example, (a couple cheap ones) – in 1492 Columbus…? Right, discovered America. An interesting means of whitewashing the subjugating, terrorizing history of the founding of this country (of which I am a proudly a member of the greatest sociological experiment in the history of human kind—the U.S. of A.). We discovered it (poor Amerigo Vespucci) and celebrate that discovery every year (Fucking Columbus Day?). Finders keepers. Never mind that people, humans, lived here and so it could hardly be discovered.
Another?
Abe Lincoln freed the slaves. Hooray. We fought a war over slavery, led by Honest Abe (one of my favorite presidents—this is not intended to vilify Lincoln. He was a fascinating and complex leader in one of the most relevant, difficult times in the history of this sociological experiment of a country). Except for the fact that we fought the Civil War over the South’s attempt at secession and that in Lincoln’s first inaugural address, he vows NOT to stand in the way of the South’s desire to maintain slaves if it meant keeping the Union intact. Lincoln freed the slaves, in part, to bolster the Union army with reserve manpower and because it crippled the largely agrarian Southern economy, which depended on massive labor forces to run plantations (showcase.netins.net). But how would a founding father of this free country come across should he be remembered for upholding the subjugation of millions and thus undermining the words of the constitution he swore to uphold?

Let’s dig a little deeper.
Consider the English used in the classroom. We all speak multiple kinds of English (we speak to our friends differently than our parents and than our pastors, teachers, policemen—all of which contain different semantics, diction choices, sytax, grammar, body language, etc). Linguistically, any of the versions of English are valid. They’re just different.
However, the English used in a classroom most closely reflects the kind of English spoken by white, middle-class people in white, middle-class communities.
So, students coming into college from different linguistic backgrounds potentially have to move much farther away from their home or community dialect in order to assimilate academic English norms, rules, mores, etc—none of which is questioned by the student. They know that if they want to succeed at higher education and get a good job, they have to be able to speak and write “correctly.” In other words, they are rushing to acquire a system of language that will allow them to succeed, thus (in part) reinforcing the very language norms that are functioning to separate and oppress them—Laws exist that forbid hiring practices based on race, ethnicity, religion, etc. However, no law exists forbidding hiring practices of people who don’t read, write, speak, and listen correctly, never mind that language skills are learned behavior and so heavily influenced by culture and background and socioeconomic status. In other words, I cannot choose to not hire someone because he is black; however, I certainly can choose to not hire someone because he cannot speak or write properly, although how he speaks and writes is very influenced by his race, culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic reality—language as the last bastion of blatant institutionalized racism in this country. So if someone wants that job, that diploma, that pay raise, s/he better learn to speak and write the “right” way.

Education:
To shape
control
influence
Reinforce dominant social norms and class disparity as well as build and perpetuate political, social, and cultural myths [such as money=power or security or happiness—all of which functions to idealize wealth and so perpetuate consumerism (the life’s blood of a capitalistic society), never mind the environmental, political, social, psychological repercussions of this cultural obsession with little rectangular pieces of fucking paper].

Education.




Works Cited
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED328472&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&objectId=0900000b8004bb7f

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1104/p11s01-legn.html

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/1inaug.htm