The child, the teacher and the school (education)

What is the identity of the preschool? How do we understand knowledge? Who is the child? The great importance attached to this last question, sometimes put as 'What is our image of the child?', reflects an awareness of the many answers that are possible and how the answer chosen is very productive, for better or worse: 

Many different images could be possible: highlighting what the child is and has, can be and can do, or on the contrary emphasizing what the child is not and does not have, what he or she cannot be or do. The image of the child is above all a cultural (and therefore social and political) convention that makes it possible to recognize (or not) certain qualities and potentials in children... What we believe about children thus becomes a determining factor in defining their social and ethical identity, their rights and the educational contexts offered them (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005, p.137).

Educators have to negotiate with children, develop their capacity to listen rather than transmit programmes. We see the context [of the preschool] as a meeting point, of children and adults, which offers more possibilities than we could think about at the beginning... We desire to discover the constructive potentials in the children, to give children the freedom to find out and transform the world. What is important is possibilities, not targets... Our education is 'targeted' to develop children's consciousness that not one single world exists. Pedagogy is the cultivation of many worlds, the opposite of Candide. We must not do our utmost to justify the existing world, [but support] the creative potential of individuals towards the dimension of diversity (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005, p.135). 

This book arises out a lifetime's preoccupation with quest, with pursuit... the quest has been deeply personal... it has been in some sense deeply public as well: that of a person struggling to connect the understanding of education,... to the making and remaking of a public space, a space of dialogue and possibility... The aim is to find (or create) an authentic public space... Such a space requires the provision opportunities for the articulation of multiple perspectives in multiple idioms, of which something common can be brought into being. It requires, as well, a consciousness of the normative as well as the possible: of what ought to be, from a moral and ethical point of view, and what is in the making, what might be in an always open world... My hope is to remind people of what it means to be alone among others; to achieve freedom in dialogue with others for the sake of personal fulfillment and the emergence of a democracy dedicated to life and decency (Greene, 1998, p. 175). 

It is not too much to say that neoliberal goals are embedded in a culture's way of thinking. It not only governs and controls our thinking and action but also raise question on what it means to educate others, or to be educated, well in the neoliberal society.



Reference

Dahlberg, G. & Moss, P. (2005). Ethics and politics in early childhood education. New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.

Pinar, W. (1998). The Passionate Mind of Maxine Greene: I Am...Not Yet. Bristol, PA: Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis Inc. 

Photographs by Esther Han

Neoliberalism and Education

Nicolas Burbules(2004) states that education can allow people to fulfill their potential, to become more free, more self-reliant and self determining as well as promote the advancement of society, build democracy, promote social cohesion, and stability (p.5). Furthermore, Dehlberg and Moss (2005) emphasize that the advanced liberal state, like neoliberal economics, espouses a strategy of freedom - but of a certain kind. It is the freedom to make individual choices, to enter the market as an informed consumer calculating best values in relation to cost and preference, to be oneself and do one’s own thing. Freedom, as Rose puts it ‘is seen as autonomy, the capacity to realize one’s desires in one’s secular life, to fulfill one’s potential through one’s own endeavors, to determined one’s own existence through acts of choice.’ The state thus governs not through coercion, but through citizens governing themselves through the practice of such freedom (p.45). They also add that,

In order to act freely, the subject must be shaped, guided and moulded into one capable of responsibly exercising that freedom through systems of domination, Subjection and subjectification are laid upon one another. Each is condition of the other... On the one hand [advanced liberal practices of rule] contract, consult, negotiate, create partnerships, even empower and activate forms of agency, liberty and the choice of individuals, consumers, professionals, households neighborhoods and communities. On the other hand, they set norms, standards, benchmarks, performance indicators, quality controls and best practice standards, to monitor, measure and render calculable the performance of these various agencies. The position of ‘freedom’ on advanced liberal regimes of government is exceedingly ambivalent (p.46).

How is the concept of freedom is challenged under the dominant discourse of neoliberalism?


The article below is focused on neoliberalism in education in the United States. However, many schools in Canada has been adapted and implemented early intervention with high-quality school readiness programs.

Neoliberalism in Education 
Market-Style Pressures Inform Content of Race to the Top Policy

Jan 21, 2010 Candace Cofield

Since the 1980s, multiple neoliberal policies have been implemented in education, social welfare, and the economy to shrink “big government,” and redistribute wealth upwards to stimulate economic recovery and growth.

Major examples include the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which includes sanctions and punishments for students and schools that don’t achieve “adequate yearly progress “or high standardized test scores; The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which is also known as welfare reform; and the Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994, which assisted in deregulating the banking industry.

Neoliberal Influence in Race to the Top

Today, the neoliberal agenda for education is supported by both Democrats and Republicans. It continues to dominate federal policies such as Race to The Top, which is an education policy that offers 4.35 billion in education aid to states that meet most or all of its nineteen measurements of competitiveness for the funds. It echoes neoliberal, market-driven themes including merit pay based on student test score achievement, school choice, and the proliferation of fast-track training for teachers.

• Merit Pay: Teachers compete to get a pay increase or bonus based on their success rate with increasing student achievement as measured by standardized test scores. 
• School Choice: Schools compete for students based on their ability to maintain their school charter. 
• Alternative Routes to Teaching: Teacher preparation programs compete to attract students by incentivizing a fast route into the classroom. 

How education is seen in the article and how "freedom"(p.46) regulates and governs not only children but also teachers? Why is freedom taken for granted? How can schools maintain as loci of ethical practice rather than ethics being a matter of prescribing, transmitting and applying a code of rules(p.12)? 

References:

Burbules, N. (2004). Ways of Thinking About Educational Quality. Educational Researcher. Volume 33, No.6, pp.4-10

Cofield, C. (2010). Neoliberalism in Education. Market-Style Pressures Inform Content of Race to the Top Policy. Retrieved from  http://www.suite101.com/content/neoliberalism-in-education-a192209

Dahlberg, G. & Moss, P. (2005). Ethics and politics in early childhood education. New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.