Neoliberalism and Education, Bad Combination

In this blog post I want to discuss the realities of neoliberalism. It is important to discuss neoliberalism at this time because all the concepts of the other blog posts can be tied into the epistemologies of neoliberalism. According to P. Lipman in the essay, “Education Policy, Race, and Neoliberal Urbanism”, neoliberalism is defined as

an ensemble of economic and social policies that promotes the primacy of the market and individual self-interest, unrestricted flows of capital, deep reductions in the cost of labor, sharp retrenchment of the public sphere, and withdrawal of government from providing for social welfare (45).

From this we can see the epistemologies of neoliberalism as a drive to make all the spaces within the public sphere (libraries, parks, roads, ect..) adhere to market forces. For example, the No Child Left Behind law brought a market style drive to education. If schools are not performing well than resources are taken from that school, further letting it fail. This is similar to a corporation that may cut labor or resources from a division of the company that is underperforming. Some conspiracy theorist may believe this market style approach to education is an effort to privatize education with federal tax dollars. This brings about the emergence of charter schools or federal education vouchers for students to attend an alternate school.

Who benefits from intense privatization of public services? Lipman offers insight by saying that a large amount of wealth will transfer from middle and low class families to the very wealthy (47). Lets look at this through an example; if a park is purchased by a rich capitalist they can decide to charge the public to use it. Therefore this will ensure that the wealthy capitalist makes a profit off a once public space.

If neoliberalism had its way this would occur:

Lets look at this from an educational perspective. There has been a lot of debate over privatization of education in the United States. Lets look at the extreme case in which a soft drink company owns a district. The soft drink company can then supply materials that ensure the continuation of consumers of its products. Lets also consider the owns of the soft drink company happen to be very religious. Therefore they have the ability to impose its religious objectives onto the students.

Those who are most effected by neoliberal ideologies tends to be students of color. The students of color will not be given the rules to enter the culture of power. In addition, by the wealth going from the poor to the very wealthy this will increase the separation of wealth and further make the poor poorer.

Where neoliberal tends to deal with a weakened state, neoconservatism tends to call for a strong state. According to M. Apple’s essay, “Whose Markets, Whose Knowledge?”, the issues of neoconservatism “is especially true surrounding issues of knowledge, values, and the body” (47). In terms of education, Apple continues to state that a neoconservatism would want to call for “mandatory national and statewide curricula” and “a ‘return’ to higher standards” (47). This neoconservative perspective does not look at multicultural education as a means to achieving higher standards.

From this we can see how both the neoliberal and neoconservative perspectives see the world as black and white. They see the world as both the public and private spheres. When responding to society crises the solution tends to come only from the public or the private and little attention is given to those solutions outside these spaces. Therefore for a more complete society we need to look beyond neoliberalism and neoconservatism to see the solutions that benefit us all.

Both neoliberalism and neoconservatism look at the individual as the only unit in the society and do not take into consideration the power of society. From many indigenous societies we learn that the focus is the health of the tribe and all situations deal with how they affect the tribe. Therefore we can see how our society can be easily caught up into neoliberalism because capitalism deals greatly with the individual efforts rather efforts of the collective. Certainly efforts of the collective are much more powerful and speak to the multicultural society that we live in. Therefore this is why there is such resistance to neoliberalism; it widens the economic gap and it is mono-cultural.

Einstein Quote

It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry; for what this delicate little plant needs more than anything, besides stimulation, is freedom

What we Learn From "Informal" Epistemology

When we talk about diversity we often talk about the physical differences between us. In this blog I have often looked at color of oneself as the primary tool of separation and discrimination. I have not looked at how the difference in thinking practices separate us. These thinking practices is known as epistemology and the study of the differences in thinking practices is known as epistemological diversity. As a note, epistemological diversity is not the study of ideologies of a governing body, rather it is what entails the practices of knowledge and education that encompass a way a society thinks.

In my future classroom I cannot forget that this epistemological diversity exist. This is the reason for a differentiated curriculum. That is a curriculum that caters to the different learning styles of the students. Students bring with them a learning style that is independent of the school system. It is one that may be based on a students family and cultural background. It may take into effect visual, audio or written discourses are better suited for that those learning styles.

It is important to remember that generalizations cannot be made based on a students skin color, gender or physical appearance and the learning style that works for them. Often society has “labeled” certain races to have a learning style that is not realistic. In Lomawaima and McCarty’s essay, “The Strengths of Indigenous Education: Overturning Myths About Indian Learners”, we see that “Native individuals were assumed to lack the verbal, cognitive, even motor skills necessary to succeed in schools” (16). This assumption leads to an image in society that Native Americans are “stoic and silent” (19). This is an assumption that only benefits the educational system and we see in the other blogs that it would be one that keeps Native Americans from being successful in the formal educational system, hence lacking the ability from entering the “culture of power”. Also formal education system are continually seeking ways to make sense of the world in simplistic and one-dimensional way. Therefore by making sense of Native Americans in this way it caters to the idea that, “standardizing institutions demand myths demand myths that simplify the world” (22). Lets look at the how Indigenous education system is set up that contradicts the idea that Native Americans are static and stolid.

When students in the United States think of formal education the image is usually clear. Formal education involves a location, usually with brick or concrete walls. There is also an individual who holds a certificate that deems them the title of a “teacher”. In contrast Indigenous education is considered to be informal, in that it does not take place within the confines of a concrete box. Although labeled as “informal” the Indigenous education is one that adheres to certain pedagogical goals. According to Lomawaima and McCarty the educational system is structured by, “gender, age, and clan or rank” and the reason for the education system is for “strength and leadership” (28-29). In our “formal” education system we measure success on rankings on standardized tests, whereas the educational goals of the Indigenous system is “to produce competent, caring adults” (30). I believe this a beautiful pedagogy that every educational system should be based off of. If the current educational system took into account the epistemologies of Native Americans I believe we would be in a very different world. See the video below for a greater understanding of this:



These ideas of Floyd Red Crow Westerman from the video would be passed down through songs, stories, observation, and through the simplistic acts of caring for animals and plants. Of course words and lectures are given also to instruct and discipline. In Lowawaima and McCarty’s essay, Buffalo Bird Woman “recalled that her Hidatsa grandfather often talked to her and scolded her when she was naughty” (36). So we can see that everything wasn’t song and dance as it is often thought to be.

The Indigenous system often took place in the home. All societies including the Native American see “the home as the central educational system” (38). Often to educated Native Americans they were taking away from their home. In my blog “How Languages are Lost and How they Are Important” we see that Native Americans were taken from their home to be taught in boarding schools. This went completely against the epistemology of Native Americans and seen as the primary means to create control.

From this we can see many of the primary differences from the formal US education. How can these epistemologies be incorporated into the formal education system? In a similar way to my “Embracing Mathematics” blog, we need to not dismiss the culture’s contributions to a education system. Rather I need to show students how their culture contributed to the subject matter and in turn the students may feel that they too can have a part in it. Therefore it has a relevance and meaning to their lives.

Embracing Mathematics

On February 1st I posted a link in regards to the “culture of power”. I looked at what the culture of power is and how others are affected by it. What I would like to look at in greater detail is the historical denial of literacy by certain groups so that they can stay in the culture of power.

In Robert P Moses essay, “Algebra and Civil Rights?”, he looks at how by keeping African Americans illiterate, to keep them from gaining power during and after the civil rights movement, this has led to African Americans not gaining the literacy they need to be successful in today’s job field. Moses is not only saying that just African Americans are illiterate in math, but rather generalizes to say that our culture, as a whole, accepts illiteracy in math over illiteracy in reading and writing. He says, “Failure is tolerated in math but not in English” (9). As a future mathematics teacher I have seen this in the field. Students don’t see its relevance to their lives so they shut down. This relevance and the culture opposition to mathematics has even greater significance for African American students. To me it is shocking to read from Moses that:

Blacks make up perhaps 15 percent of this country’s population, yet in 1995 they earned 1.8 percent of the Ph.Ds in computer science, 2.1 percent of those in engineering, 1.5 percent in the physical sciences, and 0.6 percent in mathematics.

If educators want to prepare students for the future, than schools are truly under serving African American students. This becomes especially true since we have moved from a majority of jobs that required mechanical, mindless tasks, to jobs that require mathematical reasoning and a knowledge of computers. James Paul Gee also mentions, in his essay, “Teenagers in new times: A new literacy studies perspective”, how we are in now faced with a “new global, hypercompetitive, science-and-technology driven capitalism, products and services are created, perfected, and changed at ever faster rates” (414). Gee also mentions that we are not preparing students for this new economy. It can be concluded that if we are not preparing students as a whole for this economy, than we certainly are not reaching African American students.

Moses also brings urgency to the issue of illiteracy due to the overwhelming number of African American’s in the countries prison system. He states, “A young man born this year has a one in twenty chance of living some part of his life in jail...unless he is Black, this his chances jump to one in four” (11). What can we do for African American students so they don’t oppose math literacy, and they can not become part of that statistic? Often this misnomer is that students don’t care about learning and they are lazy. There are constant examples of why this is not the case, Moses believes that young people, “have the energy, the courage, the hope to devise means to change their condition”. It is up to the teacher to give the students the tools to change their own condition. By preparing students for the new economy we are giving them the ability to change their condition. Not only does this come from teaching them about mathematics, but also racism, and any other factor that may inhibit them from entering the culture of power.

Historically the contributers to mathematics, like other subjects, have been white males; those in the culture of power. We know that other cultures have contributed highly to mathematics. On the whole, mathematics is not taught from the “who did what perspective”, rather the material is taught as being most important. Perhaps if mathematics is taught from more of a historical perspective and showed how other cultures contributed to mathematics than perhaps their will be less opposition to the subject from African American students. To see some African American contributions to mathematics see the following video:

Being Critical About Literacy

Throughout this blog I have questioned what literacy is and what different literacies mean to different people. Literacy has gone from the simple definition of being able to read and write, to one that entails the knowledge of facts and culture. In my readings I have come across another perspective of literacy called “critical literacy”.

Critical literacy does not simply mean being more aware of literacy, but it is the ability to separate ourselves from the mainstream culture that tells us to think or act in a certain way. According to Ernest Morrell in his book, Critical Literacy and Urban Youth, he defines becoming critically literate as, “having the skills and sensibilities to ask demanding questions of the ideas, concepts, and ideologies that are presented to us as fact” (38). This same idea is present in Kevin K. Kumashiro’s book, The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate on American Schools. His book brings into light multiple examples of how we are presented ideas of fact through multiple mediums, and how we are unable to distinguish these ideas from the reality. To listen to Kumashiro speak, watch the following video:



In a similar way, both Morrell and Kumashiro are telling us that if we become more critically literate than we will hold the power to be mentally independent. We will be able to not be controlled and know what to do in order to control our own destiny. This is a big concept for educators to get across to students, especially as students are looking for ways to define themselves in a very complex world.

From Morrell we see that students are engaging themselves in literacy practices outside school that allows themselves to define who they are. According to Morrell, “Their [students] lives were saturated with sophisticated literacy practices: and this was true for even the more underperforming students” (92). He has continues to say that adults tend to label underperforming students as illiterate and lazy, but this is just irresponsible of that adult. What educators have to do is find ways that engage in students out-of-school and bring them in school. In the same way, educators need to bring awareness of these literacies so that students can be critical of them and know that the decisions they are making come from themselves, not from outside influences.

Morrell offers some examples of how he brought popular out-of-school literacies in school by making connections between the Odyssey and the movie The Godfather. Both works were epics and they showed students themes of the larger world (95). Also the students were able to engage in literacy practices that they may of otherwise felt uninterested and grown negative towards. To me this makes complete sense: engage students in something they enjoy so that when they are faced with a similar challenge with an out-of-school literacy they can approach it with the same critical awareness.

This approach to teaching becomes even more important in urban situations. At North High, where Morrell has taught, he states that every year that he taught, “at least on student was murdered”. Therefore it was natural and important that Morrell teaches a unit that address this violence. Students engaged in discussion that questioned violence in school. This is a topic that is probably avoided by educators because, like racism, some feel if you discuss it then it will occur more. In contract, students have a direct moral connection to this violence, if it is there friends and family that are being taken away by this violence. Morrell offers an excerpt from Samantha, one of his students. She says, “The end to violence has to start with us”. In this way she is searching for a solution to end the violence.

As a future math teacher I look at this and say, “How can I incorporate this into my classroom”? I need to search for ways that math is connected to student’s out-of-school literacies. One thing for math teachers that makes it hard for them to deviate from the core curriculum is that hard standards. Therefore, I must say, “how can students learn math from this but it is fun for them”. On February 18th, I posted a blog about low-riders. I can incorporate how math can be used in the construction of low riders. In addition I can look at rap music and look at the financial aspect of the music industry. Regardless of the specific lesson, what is important is that I need to constantly be seeking new ways to engage students on their level, that way they can see how the information is important to them.

How Languages are Lost and How They Are Important

On February 18th I looked at how out-of-school literacy is important for in-school literacy. I looked at how students school material can be related to the things they find important to them, such as comic books, low riders and rap music. By looking at these out-of-school literacies we can see that students are not simply passive about their lives, but rather engaged in a medium that does not fit the school curriculum.

In a similar way a student’s culture or language may not fit the way that the “standards” of the curriculum. Not only have non-English languages not fit the curriculum but they have been forbidden from being spoken. In the essay titled, “Indigenous Bilingual/Bicultural Education”, by Lowaima and McCarty, we can see how Native American languages have been considered “unquestionably ‘unsafe’” (114). As a consequence for speaking their own native language at school there were accounts of “students being beaten, placed in solitary confinement, having their mouths ‘washed’ with bar soap, or being forced to stand for hours holding stacks of books on their heads” (115). (See Movie) The question then becomes, why were they forced to not speak their native language?



Back on February 1st, I posted a blog about what is the culture of power. When I see a culture being controlled by another I think about the culture of power and those in the culture of power trying to stay in power. Also as a general rule we know that those who are more literate, have a larger body of knowledge, tend to me more successful. Therefore if the US government can limit the literacy of Native Americans they can in effect control there ability to advance in society. Lowaima and McCarty confirms this reasoning by saying that the education system for Native Americans can be the “key to ‘movement for tribal or community [education] control’” (119). For Native Americans bilingual/bicultural education was set up to assimilate them to the new culture. In most cases they have been a form of control.

In schools were native language and culture was taught appropriately, there was a dramatic increase in students tests scores. This was realized by immersion students that learned the Navajo language. It was noted, in another essay by Lowaima and McCarty titled “‘The New American Revolution’ Indigenous Language Survival and Linguistic Human Rights”, that “immersion students performed better on local assessments” in both English and Mathematics (143). Bringing us back to the beginning of this blog, I can conclude that the reason behind the increase in performance is that students saw the culture relevance in there school work. Similar to how students out-of-school interests help students see the relevance of in-school subjects, we can see how culture relevance can also dramatically help students see perhaps a greater relevance.

This connection between student, school and culture was also noted by Mari Hanenda in her essay, “Becoming Literate in a Second Language: Connecting Home, Community, and School Literacy Practices”. Since students come from a large diversity of backgrounds, Mari states:

An important question to consider, given this diversity, is in what ways teachers can make connections among their students’ literacy practices in different contexts, so as to make school learning meaningful for them.

I feel that this is everything for the child. Often students ask, “Why is this important”? By making the material culturally relevant students then can answer this question by themselves. As a result students don’t have to feel like strangers in school, nor do they have to grow resistant to the educational system. The boundary between school and home becomes blurred and the result will become a greater appreciation and desire to learn.

In addition to making the curriculum more culturally relevant, educators must be accepting of multiple languages and diverse forms of assessment. In addition, it must be recognized that some students are better at vocalizing their meaning rather than writing it. Therefore these students should be given the ability express themselves in this manner. This was the bases to Soraya Sablo Sutton’s essay, “Spoken Word: Performance Poetry in the Black Community”.

Personally though I am very conflicted on letting students be given complete freedom on their form of assessment. If educations goal is to prepare students for the real world than assessments need to be similar. At the same time there is the contradiction that we are hoping to bring greater awareness and diversity to society. When a student goes in for their first job interview they will be judged on the way they speak and write. This is just the reality of the world. This is my dilemma and if anyone has a suggestion please let me know.

Transsexuality: Yes, It Exist!

For me it is very interesting to see how our definitions of gender become very limited by our language. If we see gender only as male/female or men/women we are almost taking a stance similar to that of colorblindness. As colorblindness rejects the notion of racism is society, not recognizing transgender is also being racist to a part of society.

The issue of dividing society into categories takes place from the birth of a child. As soon as a child is born either a pink or blue cap is put onto its head so that it can be distinguished. Likewise, clothes for newborns are divided into color categories. My question becomes, why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we not have more gender neutral ways and allow the child to choose a gender that best suits them?

As we learn from Darryl Hill in his essay, “Categories of Sex and Gender: Either/Or, Both/And, and Neither/Nor”, we learn that historically society has always seen division between the sexes. He even mentions that transsexualism was “recognized as a legitimate psychiatric disorder in the 1980 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual” (25). The effort of getting this put into the manual was the working of Harry Benjamin. Why did he feel that it must be considered as a “psychiatric disorder”? To explore this I am going to look at the culture of power (See Blog: Culture of Power: Either you are in or you are out).

In almost any modern nation the male gender is the dominate sexual orientation. Therefore it would be advantageous for that group to express its dominate throughout society in order to stay dominate. If gender was separated into male or female group and subsequently having certain roles for each than they would adhere to these roles for years to come. In America in the 1950’s women we suppose to stay home while the men went into the workforce. If women did not work than they did not have a means to provide resources for themselves therefore they in a way became a slave to their husband. Therefore men could stay dominate over women.

If transsexualism was recognized as a legitimate gender that would be going against the culture of power. For conservative groups this would seem threatening and any effort to abolish it would be taken, hence the efforts of Benjamin.  In a way, his efforts put a negative connotation to the word transgender and negated its legitimacy as a gender.

As a future teacher, in order to take down the barriers of categorizing and recognized persons of all genders I need to use language that is not separated into men and women categories. Hill in his essay conducts interviews with persons that would recognize themselves as transgendered. Many of them recognized themselves as being a both male or female, or being a division of male or female. What struck me as interesting are those who did not recognize themselves as either male nor female. Hill describes this as a thirdness, this is looked at as, “a possible way to surpass gender dichotomization” (29).

In conclusion, as a future teacher I need to recognize that this space of multiple genders exist and that I don’t categorize gender. At the same time I feel that it is important to talk to students about these different issues so that they also realize that everyone is not simply male or female. This in turn will create a society that recognizes greater diversity.

I included this video at the end because I want to show that transgender feelings can occur in children, therefore it should be discussed in schools.