Lessons for Society
Nursing school has allowed me many opportunities to rewire my thinking in regards to the way our educational system should be structured. Lessons are based on having the basic knowledge to not only further your learning but to also make inferences on the material to solve problems per simulation of real-life situations in the nursing career. More often than not, there is no one correct answer, rather, there are answers that can always be improved as we take a look at the problem as a whole and make our assessments. However, it was very different than my education as a kid. Back in elementary school, the concept of grades was simple. The higher you were in a grade level, the harder the material. You had to have “mastered” one grade before going to the next, creating this linear model of education. But what is “mastering” in terms of our current educational standards? As of now, many public school teachers may tell you it is when a student has properly learned the materials they need to understand the lessons in the next class or grade. However, the incessant boredom that often plagues students in the classroom, the regurgitation of information from books to test, and the criticism if not punishment of a student who dares question the teacher or curriculum, alludes to a real problem of an educational system structured upon conformity.
Democracy is supposed to allow us to break this conformity of school, through engaging oneself in public policy, the analysis of current situations, how it affects yourself and others, and taking action through voting or protesting. I have always felt lucky to live in a country that allowed the public to have a voice and say in who runs the country or policies that get passed. However, as I have taken this class over the last few weeks, reading article after article about the roots of discrimination and racist narratives that our country was founded upon, I’ve concluded that American democracy has been corrupted long before. In class, we learned about the Jim Crow laws enacted the “separate but equal” policies that allowed the dominant group to strip African Americans and other minorities rights of an American citizen. Inaccessibility to quality education, voting rights (African Americans weren’t allowed to vote from 1900–1965), and the violence that ensued whenever someone tried to advocate for the rights of minorities, further oppressed this population and silenced their voices. Public education doesn’t fall far from the tree, as today, we can see the trends in education that structured around linear and inflexible curriculums don’t encourage students to think about their situations and challenge the current status quo. They continually conform children to a set standard that society has made for them that discourages advocacy for the injustices of their own and others’ situations. This isn’t a democracy, however, writers Patricia Collins, author of Another Kind of Public Education Race, Schools, The Media, and Democratic Responsibilities and Bill Ayers, author of Another World Is Possible/Another Education Is Necessary attempt to reconstruct the narratives that have so long hindered the development of representative democracy, and address the ways public school education can be used as a tool to develop critical consciousness.
In her book, Patricia Collins writes about Zora Neale Hutson, a famous author, anthropologist, and filmmaker who often portrayed the struggles of African Americans in a time where speaking about race was considered a very controversial and radical movement. She uses Zora’s prospects and works to represent her visions for a democratic society that embraced equity. Collins states, “She consistently engaged in provocative critical analysis about the democratic promises and practices of American society…routinely pointed out the failures of democracy when it came to its African American citizens, poor people, and women and argued that democratic ideals would remain compromised so long as these and other groups remained second-class citizens,” all while remaining committed to democratic ideals (Collins, pg. 177). Zora’s actions demonstrated what Collins has termed “visionary pragmatism.” In philosophical terms, pragmatism is defined as an approach that assesses the truth of meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application. Combined with “visionary,” visionary pragmatism in the regard to education, are actions guided by the embracement of change and a desire for a better future as a result of the analysis of one’s situation under the current status quo, and the situations of those who are disadvantaged and benefitting from it. Collins sees visionary pragmatism as a key to a successful public education system that encourages students to create a vision for change and success, and then to commit to values that pilot their moves to accomplish their visions.
Staying within the topic of democratic principles and the need for public education reformation, Bill Ayers describes a very similar concept to “visions” that Collins writes about, in which he refers to as “hopefulness.” He describes the desire for public school reform by noting the inequalities caused by policy and racially fueled action. Ayers states, “In a democracy, how can we justify one school for wealthy white kids funded to the tune of $40,000 per student per year, and another school for poor immigrant kids or the descendants of formerly enslaved people with access to $4,000 per student per year?” in which he portrays his frustration that continually fails children in reaching their full potential because the dominant groups refuse to give up their power (Ayers, pg. 195). Ayer’s “hopefulness” is the start of a student’s desire for change, yet hopefulness with no action results in no justice. Unfortunately for minorities, public education forces lessons and teaching methods that facilitate hopelessness. They are being segregated into areas of higher poverty where schools are often less effective in general, resulting in lower test scores. This type of discrimination is rooted in the racist narratives that American society to create disadvantages for minorities from the formation of this country. Ayers states, “All children need to develop a sense of the unique capacity of human beings to shape and create a reality in concert with conscious purposes and plans,” making the inference that children need the opportunities for engagement and problem solving that exercises their resourcefulness that leads to the development of critical consciousness in the future (Ayers, pgs. 197–198). American public education does the opposite.
On that branch, our public education operates under a type of color-blind racism that gives everyone the same curriculum, yet disregards the situations minorities are placed under that contribute to lower test scores and a lack of motivation to improve. Collins states, “I believe that this new form of racism retards our ability to further democratic processes and that a critical analysis of its organization…” about the system that is quick to box minorities in the narratives that tell them they can never achieve their higher goals and the circumstances the students were put under are indefinite (Collins, pg. 179). Students cannot create change that contributes to democratic principles if they were never able to create a vision for change in the first place. As Collin states, “Kids and adults who are adducted — to acquiring material possessions; to use alcohol, tobacco, or drugs…live lives that lack vision, even a personal vision for themselves,” (Collins, pg. 179). Despite how disheartening it all sounds, the lessons that come out of this situation contributes to visionary pragmatism and action through hopefulness.
The first step in disadvantages around is recognizing the disadvantages themselves. Having access to information that evidences the disparities as a result of inequalities prevalent in a community allows students to envision their own. Ayers states Educators who are today oriented toward justice and liberation and enlightenment as living forces and powerful aspirations focus their efforts not on the production of things, but on the production of fully developed human beings who are capable of controlling and transforming their own lives…” where he highlights the importance of an educator’s role in a student’s motivation in pursuit of their desire for change (Ayers, 197). In that optimistic regard, Collin states, “Visionary pragmatism embraces the vision that deep-seated change is possible, and in particular, that we can move beyond color-blind racism to something else,” is a testament to the power this method can bring to public education and students (Collins, pg. 183). A world brought on by these hopes and visions of change creates a more just and equitable society for future generations and propels in a direction of achieving true democracy, where voices are no longer silenced, and people are represented.
As a slight branch off, but still connected, topic, I believe prison is one of the biggest and best opportunities that the U.S. consistently misses the mark for. Prison is a chance for reforming, rehabilitating, and further educating inmates to become not only working-class citizens, but a chance to grow even more from that position, and become full advocates for the communities they came from who may be experiencing and acting upon the same things than got them into prison in the first place. Unfortunately, the U.S. uses prison as a cruel punishment, with sterile feeling cells, strict control, labeling of inmates through numbers instead of names, and the lack of engagement with brain-stimulating activities and chances to interact with others outside of jail. Sure, inmates might get the chance to think about their actions, they might get to read books from the prison library (if even provide one), but they usually aren’t given any more than that. Instead, they are wrung through a system that justifies inhumane treatment as a means of “justice” and leaves inmates with no tools to form a better life for themselves, forcing them into the same criminal acts and back to jail for ever-increasing sentences to be profited off of, since more prisoners equal more money for prisons.
These characteristics of the American prison reminded me of the drastic differences from Swedish prisons, where rehabilitation is the main priority. In an article by Zeeshan Aleem of Mic titled, “Sweden’s Remarkable Prison System Has Done What the U.S. Won’t Even Consider” a comparison between American prisons and Swedish prisons are made in terms of statistics, the makeup prison facilities, and the methods used within the structure of the Swedish prison system to reduce the prison population. There is a very prevalent problem with the number of prisoners we hold in American prisons. Aleem states, “The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world: It has only 5% of the world’s population, but one-quarter of its prisoners,” which is an incredulous figure to fathom, along with 2/3 of inmates reentering prison at another time(Aleem, 2015, p.2). However, in that same vein, Aleem states, “the number of Swedish prisoners has dropped from 5,722 to 4,500 out of a population of 9.5 million. The country has closed several prisons, and the recidivism rate is around 40%, which is far less than in the U.S. and most European countries,” showing numbers far lower our prison demographics, so it begs the question, what is Sweden doing right?
This picture here depicts a Swedish prison. It is spacious, private, well lit, clean, and it contains comfortable furniture as opposed to America’s lack of privacy, small beds, and metal cells. This is called “open prison” where prison cells resemble more of a college dorm-style with access to all the amenities a person in regular Swedish society would have, such as television, speakers, and while being closely monitored, can even travel outside of the prison to a job or their family (Aleem, 2015, p. 13). Instead of acting like the strict, no-mercy guards, we associate with American prisons, Swedish prison staff work with the prisoners by eating with the prisoners, interacting with them over activities, and giving emotional support through their time in prison. Sweden’s humane actions of comfort and collaboration have worked amazingly for them. Their “open prison” system has made it so that Although America has a different population than Sweden in numbers and demographics, there is a lot that we can take from the philosophy of Swedish prisons. America needs to start to focus on more humane treatment, through methods of rehabilitation, addressing inmates’ physiological/psychosocial needs, and remember that prisoners don’t need more punishment, they need support.
