This educational model is what Alfie Kohn refers to as traditional education, or "Old School." He says, "Proponents of traditional education often complain that the model they favor is on the wane. They're apt to describe themselves as a brave minority under siege...such claims are understandable as a political strategy; it's always rhetorically advantageous to position yourself as outside the establishment and to describe whatever you oppose as 'fashionable.' To those of us who spend time in real schools, though, claims about the dominance of progressive teaching represent an inversion of the truth so audacious as to be downright comical" (The Schools Our Children Deserve, 6-7).
Ah, good old rhetoric. Takes me right back...to ancient Greece. We (humans) have been learning about rhetoric, the art of persuasion, since at least the beginning of our Western (read: Eurocentric) written history. And speaking of our Western history, I'm interested in that quote for the reference to political strategy. What's the end game for proponents of traditional education? I'm guessing there's a money trail to follow, because there always is (hello, capitalism), but that will have to wait for my final paper.
I wrote this! Read more at https://fuckedupandwonderful.blogspot.com/2024/10/imagine-world.html