Patricia Shields credits Dewey and Peirce for insight into the process of inquiry that takes place when writing a large research paper. Dewey and Peirce note that a transformation happens during this process, due to doubt associated from questioning the existing system. As student researcher, we begin with a topic and in a state of equilibrium. The process of reviewing the literature leads to doubt and a challenging of the original belief or understanding ("disequilibrium"). Eventually (it is the hope), we reach a new understanding further up the "learning curve".
I find myself in the muddy state of "disequilibrium" where my previous understanding has been challenged. Even as little as a week ago, I thought I had a general understand of the problems of our education system. Any major city such as Austin or San Antonio (my hometown) reveals a wide gap in performance levels, funding, etc. between the top schools and the "bottom" schools. This gap reflects the systematic structural inequality that is evident in multiple areas of society. Based on David Labaree's social mobility approach, this inequality within the educational institution provides the upper middle class with the capital to stay ahead of the lower classes, furthering the inequality found in society. How can those who start out with less capital get ahead when the education system is a stratified hierarchy? I find myself doubting my previous understanding of such a complex situation, because I realize that the answer is not clear cut. The answer is not just redistributing tax revenues or increasing budgets, because the problem is more fundamental than that. I cannot say that I have found an answer to the problem of inequality between and within schools, but I can say I believe that we should aim to solve issues of equality through schools.
How we pay for public schools continues to be problematic. Unraveling and resolving matters of unequal treatment are difficult because they involve actions that have an impact on individuals and on groups (categories of kind).
ReplyDeleteThe case currently before the Texas State Supreme Court, The Texas Taxpayer and Student Fairness Coalition, is the latest in a series of litigated cases that extends back through the 1968 case from San Antonio, Edgewood ISD v. Kirby. The school finance problem is a ‘structural’ one as regards equality and fairness, as is the Fisher v. University of Texas case that now before the U.S. Supreme Court. That is, we’ve created ‘efficiency systems’. We claim solve equality/equity problems (at the level of the individual). The fact is they do neither. From a policy perspective, we’ve got a problem of scale: there’s a mismatch between the scale of the remedy (funding at the level of the school district) and the actual problem (the quality of learning that occurs at level of the relationship and interaction between a teacher and student).
I suggested that intellectual activism is an integral part of the LBJ thinker/doer legacy. It’s a particular attitude about public service attitude, similar to the ‘critical optimism’ Shields outlines as an essential feature of the pragmatist’s community of inquiry.
ReplyDeleteShe says in her essay, “The Community of Inquiry: Classical Pragmatism and Public Administration”, Critical optimism is the faith or sense that if we put our heads together and act using a scientific attitude to approach a problematic situation, the identified problem has the potential to be resolved. This is faith in the human capacity for progress. …(it) is the belief that the specific conditions which exist at one moment, be they comparatively bad or comparatively good, in any even may be bettered. It encourages intelligence to work to improve conditions and it arouses reasonableness and confidence as optimism does not” (Dewey, 1948, p.179).
A community of inquiry is difficult to form if members are ‘fixated’ in their belief system and impervious to fresh evidence. Charles Sanders Peirce (1958) draws a distinction between doubt and belief and the impact each has on action.
“Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into a state of belief; while the latter is a clam and satisfactory state…. The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief. I shall term this struggle inquiry (p. 99.) Classical Pragmatism argues that inquiry using the methods of science is the best way to “satisfy our doubt” (Peirce, 1958, p. 107). Ideally, members of the community of inquiry recognize the value of uncertainty.
Equality is an aspect of human well-being. What are our doubts and beliefs about them? How did we get there?
From my readings of Labaree, I think it's important to note his view of the current education system in relation to equality. He discusses how education is now mainly a private good used for social mobility, which creates a stratified system and more inequality. He, in fact, explains how we have gotten to a system that is increasingly unequal. However, the public rhetoric still strongly emphasizes the idea the education creates equality. I think this is probably because the general population puts their own self interest first, which means using the current system to get themselves or their children ahead. These people try to convince others that education is an opportunity for equality, but the benefits are very selective and differential. It is possible that policy makers think they are acting in concordance with Shield's idea of critical optimism, believing that they are working to genuinely improve conditions. However, this is clearly not the case. I'm in the process of rejecting previous beliefs about education that are being proven wrong and am back in the state of doubt. It is my belief (and hopefully the belief of most) that inequality is not something to be comfortable with. It is hard to abandon an idea for equality (education) when other solutions don't exist. What can we do in our society to alleviate the inequality that is so rampant?
Delete