The Permanent Reform of the American School

In New York City during the 1930's, my father's elementary school classrooms contained 35 to 40 students, sitting in rows, facing a teacher who gave her instruction standing in front of a chalkboard.  The students' shirts and blouses were of one color: white; the suits were usually some shade of grey.  Learning was highly regimented, and students were generally afraid of incurring the displeasure of the teacher.

On the one hand, my father's school experience sounds stifling, judging from his description.  On the other, the "outcomes", to use contemporary jargon, of the educational methods and classroom structure of my father's childhood were in many ways superior to what we achieve nowadays.  He was amused when I pointed out that in many of today's public schools, any teacher whose student desks were arranged in rows, and who failed to "circulate" throughout the classroom might receive unfavorable marks on a lesson evaluation.

The temptation to think back on American education of the period 1920-1960 with nostalgia is almost irresistible.  Teachers and administrators were not enthralled by faddish theories; they taught only what we would nowadays call "content", often through rote memorization, drill, and lecture.  Class discipline could be severe, but it was unequivocal and usually effective.  Students and teachers wore decent clothes in the schoolhouse, and it was assumed that students would treat one another with civility and adults with respect.

It is true that schools in that period sometimes brutally reflected inequalities in the larger society.  Students who were black and brown, or lived in disadvantaged areas of the country usually languished in appalling facilities.  The notion of education as an instrument of social justice barely existed.

However, my purpose is not to defend nor to question traditional education methods.  I am more interested in why our system of education has been in a constant state of revision over the last four decades.

In the period just mentioned (1920-1960), there was consensus about what constituted proper relations between adults and children, about what children were to learn at school, about child behavior, about the role of the school and the role of the family.  It was thought that families raised children, while schools only had to educate them.

That simple formula no longer applies.  The roles of schools and families are now blurred.  Even if one wanted to recreate the school of our parents and grandparents, it could not be done.  We no longer view authority as absolute; home discipline varies too greatly from household to household; society gamely offers too many distractions; there is disagreement about what should be taught.  The naive notion that students should enter a school completely ready to learn is at odds with contemporary attitudes -- namely, that schools should nurture children -- and moreover goes against reality.

We have decided that the American school must fulfill more than just the educational needs of our children.  To be fair, this is a very well-intentioned idea.  And just because it would have seemed absurd a couple of generations ago does not mean that we should stop trying to address both what educators call the "affective" domain (emotions, self-esteem, etc.) and the "cognitive" (intellectual) domain.  This dual mission is expected of all contemporary educators, and one has to be effective in both of these "domains" to be successful.  However, it is uncertain how successful schools have been in taking on some of the responsibilities that were once squarely in the domain of family life (instilling confidence, building character and work habits, teaching good self-presentation, bolstering self-esteem, etc.).

This is why, I believe, the search for new ways to structure schools will be ongoing (or, less charitably, unending).  We may find some ideas that are partly successful (charter schools, in some cases), but a sure formula will always remain just out of reach, because the educational system can not, on its own, bring about the changes in our society that would ensure long-term educational and career success for the majority of our students.  It is the culture, not the school, that is most in need of reform.

The New Communications Devices

Questioning the role of computers, smartphones, touch-pads, etc., and their ever-expanding applications may seem not only prudish but futile. They have already changed society as few would have predicted even just a few years ago. We are probably seeing just the beginning of an utter transformation not only of  the way we socialize, but of the nature of being itself.

That is, the definition of "humanity" will itself be altered fundamentally, as some are predicting that technology may someday be actually physically integrated into our bodies.  It would be sentimental, then, to note that some social activities and forms of expression we have taken for granted will have completely vanished -- many are already all but gone -- as we ever more make convenience and immediacy the main standard for communication.

One might ask again the question that others have also posed, namely whether this unprecedented access to information, or at least a certain kind of information, isn't making everyone somehow less well informed.  And whether the ability to communicate more or less ceaselessly, yet with remove, does not distort and even devalue that which connects people to one another.

But to my purpose in writing.  The communications revolution will have completely done away with what is left of American bourgeois culture.  There could well be no more forms, traditions, and ever fewer communal rituals in the mainstream of society .  We will no longer be the embodiment of a heritage that is in the public domain, but will have as our main object the fulfillment of our private needs and the cultivation of our close personal sphere.  Public space is expanding, in theory, while the private sphere grows ever smaller.

Immigration

Immigration vexes the developed world; it is an issue that has shown itself impossible to address in all its dimensions.

One simple reason that immigration defies solution is that the conditions that spur it and the problems of assimilation are on different sides of national borders. Nations that traditionally receive immigrants and the nations that send them have opposing interests; they have no incentive towards a common solution. 

The racial component of immigration is unsettling; at the same time it stifles honesty.  In the United States and Europe, the immigration of today is mainly of non-white peoples. Traditional cultural identity is being eroded, in the view of many Europeans and a good deal of Americans as well. That many of the new immigrants are non-Christian is also an issue.  In spite of a consensus that immigration needs to be addressed, ethnic and religious fears make rational discussion of the issue impossible. 

In Europe, the relaxing of border controls within the continent has brought tension, rather than the intended economic openness and flexibility, as eastern Europeans and others have migrated north and west.   The non-European, often Moslem immigrants who began arriving during the period of colonial independence have played a fraught role in societies at best ambivalent about their presence; they have often found themselves ghettoized, the symbols of their religious practice sometimes subject to legal restriction.

In this country, it is Hispanic immigration has obviously intensified in recent years, and it has also provoked racial and cultural anxiety.  To many native-born Americans, the nation is under assault.  And, as in Europe, there is anti-Muslim sentiment.

Immigration is redefining our national identity in ways that we are not able to control or predict.  While it would be immoral to stop immigration entirely, the haphazardness of immigration in the U.S. over the last 30 years has also had repercussions. There needs to be greater acknowledgement that while the pressures spurring immigration have never been greater, the problems related to assimilating large numbers of immigrants have in no way diminished. 

That said, the United States is a country with a firm tradition of accepting immigrants; it also still has the space as well as the economic opportunity for them.  Additionally, we need immigrants to replenish our national culture; immigrants bring cultural authenticity where there might otherwise be none.  They often have virtues that would otherwise be unacceptably scarce in the general population: self-discipline, a willingness to take on tasks that are unpleasant or unpromising in short-term rewards, family loyalty, reverence for education, and a sense of gratitude.

Yet, lacking a rational, enforceable official immigration policy (and, for some reason, being unable to see even a generous quota as an honorable compromise between the free-for-all that immigration is now, and the drastic reduction or elimination of immigration that some are advocating), we manage to dissatisfy all sides.  It also seems reasonable, as well as intellectually honest, to demand more of the countries for which emigration to the United States is a social pressure release; at the same time we should welcome a certain number (I advocate a generous number) of immigrants from those same countries, acknowledging that they, in the very great majority of cases, contribute enormously to society.

In Europe, things are somewhat different, however.  In my mind, there is no question that a certain number of people from the former colonies (or present foreign possessions) should be permitted to settle in the seats of the former empires that ruled over them (obviously, this has already taken place).  This would not be to assuage guilt, but to recognize that formerly colonized peoples do, to a degree, form part of the national identity.  Europe must also square its anti-immigrant feeling with the declining birthrate of the native population.

However, what is (to me) most disturbing development related to European immigration is that (note that this the exact reverse of what has occurred in the United States) immigrant areas have become cultural no-man’s-lands.  They have neither the cultural richness of the immigrants’ native lands, nor that of the host country (this is leaving aside the social dysfunction that is often endemic in these zones).  While this may seem a secondary concern in the eyes of some, this can only be considered unimportant if one believes that the quest for material necessities, regardless of social and cultural cost, should be unregulated.  During the last 50 years, authentic regional cultures have withered as Western consumer ‘values’ have penetrated even to the most isolated corners of the planet.  Material necessities are a fundamental right; however, the acquisition of these necessities in the setting of a complete cultural vacuum is a phenomenon of which we all should be very wary, if not actually fearful*.

As it is in America, the (often) desperate are trying to gain entry into Europe in great (and ultimately, unsustainable) numbers.  And, as it is here, the racial and religious component of the phenomenon has prevented meaningful debate.  The result satisfies hardly anyone: not the immigrants themselves, many of whom lead marginal existences and experience rejection by society; not the host populations, who see their national culture and traditions under threat. 

In my eyes, there is little contradiction between accepting and assimilating the immigrants and their descendants already living on the European continent, and seeking henceforth to regulate their entry strongly.  That said, this tight regulation of entrants to a country, though a necessity, is an unpleasant one, and places heavy moral and financial burdens on host countries.  Worse, it unfairly casts these countries as brutish and ‘xenophobic.’

However, one of the completely wrongheaded assumptions about both American and European immigration is that all the parties to it are behaving responsibly.  The governments of the nations that have historically sent migrants abroad, when they do not openly act as if emigration is their fundamental right, have not been held to account for failing completely to provide livelihoods for their people.** It is also astonishing how few people publicly make the connection between unchecked population growth and desperate, large-scale human migrations.  The absence of rational debate on population control is just one aspect of the intellectual void surrounding the immigration problem; the lack of reasoned voices on most of the issues with a bearing on immigration is what, as much as anything, keeps the problem from coming to a solution.

In order to settle the problem of immigration once and for all, both developed countries and the poorer ones that send migrants to them must accept some contradictory ideas. That is, immigration is desirable, even highly so, but it must be more closely controlled.  Culture, though not required for physical survival, must absolutely be protected, or the result will be social and eventually even physical degradation.  Immigration can benefit the national culture, but can also damage it in some instances.

*Phenomena as seemingly disparate as increased obesity and diabetes among the Inuits and crime and other social ills in the Paris suburbs can result from stripping away the culture (Inuits) or from placing people into a cultural void (northern and eastern Paris suburbs).

** Obviously, the developed nations have frequently colluded with despotic rulers of poorer countries at the expense of ordinary citizens, and so they too have played their part in creating their own immigration problem.