Culture as Curriculum … or Indoctrination: Multiple Perspectives

1. Culture as Curriculum… or Indoctrination: Multiple Perspectives Paul Godden November 12th 2012 EDUC802: Curriculum Theory

2. The “article of curriculum” we’re going to look at is a poster. Marketed as a parody of social networking and modern culture, but used widely in U.S. and U.K. schools, and in at least four elementary and high-schools in the Carleton Place, Perth, Smiths Falls and Westport to Brockville area of south eastern Ontario in Canada. We’re going to look at the article through several perspectives of learning… but all will be tied to the central theme of a learners’ own complicated conversation. Introduction

3. An overview

4. A run-through of the imagery

5. Imagery from contemporary culture

6. Through the lens one of our recent readings… [T]he issue of student experience as a central component in developing a theory of schooling and cultural politics. The way in which student experience is produced, organized, and legitimated in schools has become an increasingly important theoretical consideration for understanding how schools produce and authorize particular forms of meaning and implement teaching practices consistent with the ideological principles of the dominant society… What is often ignored is the notion of pedagogy as a cultural production and exchange that addresses how knowledge is produced, mediated, refused, and re-presented within relations of power both in and outside of schooling. Giroux & Simon (1989, pp. 1-2 )

7. The imagery of my “article of curriculum” is placed around a school, a structure of security, safety and learning. Students line-up daily beside it, waiting to enter the school hall. They absorb “almost subliminally” the messages contained. At elementary levels particularly, can children recognise their internal dialogue? As Pinar (2012) puts it, their currere? Or are they “rather the possessor of a consciousness: an empty ‘mind’ passively open to the reception of deposits of reality from the world outside" (Freire, 2008, p. 247). An abuse of power?

8. Who’s the audience?

9. Friends

10. Underoath Fan Club: (stylized as Underøath) is an American Christian metalcore band from Tampa, Florida. They are currently signed with Solid State Records, and are the label's most popular group. In October 2012, the band announced through their Twitter account that they would be disbanding in 2013. • Red Sox Nation Fan Club… Dancing with the Stars… Guitar Hero… Digital Backup of the Book of Life… the book in which God records the names of every person who is destined for Heaven, or alternatively, thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15)… WWID = WWJD Bracelet: The phrase "What Would Jesus Do?" (often abbreviated to WWJD) became popular in the United States in the 1990s and as a personal motto for adherents of Evangelical Christian groups. • Carrie Marie Underwood (born March 10, 1983) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and actress who won the fourth season of American Idol, in 2005. The entry here refers to "Jesus, Take the Wheel", a song in which a mother is about to crash her car and hands over control of the vehicle to Jesus. This is not recommended by the OPP. Ellsworth (2005) discusses the experience of repeated exposure to media as being an almost subliminal experience… “[O]f drinking up and swallowing ‘facts’ and ‘information’ in a way that leaves ‘unshakable images’ and ideas that can be remembered ‘warmly’ for 30 years” (p. 22). Groups, To-Do and the Wall

11. What’s the message?

12. Messages from many perspectives… • Jesus Christ was a figure in history, a caucasian male, born and raised in a known location. • The son of God who observes and takes part in all our lives, and who approves and disapproves of certain aspects of human behaviour. • Those who think for themselves and disagree are wrong (and admit it once they have seen the truth). • Those who let Jesus lead the way are “friends”, names to be entered in the “Book of Life”, backed up digitally and not to be thrown in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15). Freire’s problem-solving need not apply

13. “Education as the exercise of domination stimulates the credulity of students, with the ideological intent (often not perceived by educators) of indoctrinating them to adapt to the world of oppression.” Freire, 2008, p. 248. I would suggest that this article of curriculum fits well as an example of Freire’s “banking” concept. Free-thought and problem-solving are not encouraged. Acceptance of doctrine is an apparent aim, at an age when Pinar’s “complicated conversation” cannot give coherent voice. The result is adaptation “within relations of power both in and outside of schooling” (Giroux & Simon, 1989, pp. 1-2). Indoctrination not education

14. In a recent study, Long (2011) followed a group of students from a Christian background through their first exposure to evolutionary science at college level. He found that these students experienced existential anxiety when challenged by evolutionary science to move beyond the absolutism of theological dogma, as one interviewee expressed… I did ask my mom one time, ‘What do you think about evolution’? And she just told me, ‘Don’t want to talk about it. Can’t believe you’re even thinking about it’. I mean well—she just told me that if I get into that, and believe in that, that I’m pretty much going to hell—to put [it] bluntly. (p. 74) Culture and education

15. At Christmas-time one year my daily newspaper, the Independent, was looking for a seasonal image and found a heart-warmingly ecumenical one at a school nativity play. The Three Wise Men were played by, as the caption glowingly said, Shadbreet (a Sikh), Musharaff (a Muslim) and Adele (a Christian), all aged… Dawkins, 2006, p. 337. Culture cannot be extracted from education, but at what point should we acknowledge the difference between culture and indoctrination? Play a thought game, let’s swap “Sikh”, “Muslim” and “Christian” for “Communist”, “Fascist” and “Nazi”. How early should we arbitrarily label a child? A final consciousness raiser