Conservatives are destroying education by whittling it down to job training and theyre doing it
Last edited Wed Feb 21, 2018, 09:24 PM - Edit history (1)
on purpose.
ALTERNET
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/conservatives-destroying-education-whittling-job-training-theyre-purpose/
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When California home health aide Maya Luna signed up for community college several years ago, she was after one thing: a better paying job. But taking classes in subjects like history, anthropology and art ignited a love of learning she didn’t know she had, and transformed her into a community activist. A clear success, right? Not if your goal is to mold the next generation of compliant employees.
In the latest episode of the Have You Heard podcast, AlterNet education contributor Jennifer Berkshire and co-host Jack Schneider explore the push to limit higher education for working-class and poor students to vocational skills. Mike Rose, a research professor in Education and Information Studies at UCLA and the author of Back to School, argues that narrowing what students learn also means controlling what they’re exposed to, and what they’re likely to demand after graduation.
Have You Heard: We just heard the story of a home health aide who went back to school and was basically transformed into an activist. Maya Luna’s story seems like the right’s worst nightmare, and exactly what’s being targeted in the push to make school for poor and working-class students strictly vocational.
Mike Rose: The more narrowly you craft a training program or an educational trajectory for somebody, the more likely you are to control what it is they’re going to be exposed to. That story you just shared doesn’t surprise me at all, by the way; I’ve seen it again and again. It’s not like people are politically naïve, but you take a class in political science or you hear speakers on campus and it can begin to sharpen your awareness. You learn more facts. You’re exposed to a more complex points of view. You actually read some of the statistics about, oh gosh, anything from income levels to child poverty. People always have a voice, but these kinds of experiences sharpen their voices or intensify or channel them in new ways. They end up getting involved in civic, political, social causes and issues in a way that they might not had the chance to do before.
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