To The 21st Century Elitist Teachers of Education

IQ

Theodor Adorno

"The modes of behaviour appropriate to the most advanced state of technical development are not confided to the sectors in which they are actually required. So thinking submits to the social checks on its performance not merely where they are professionally imposed, but adapts to them its whole complexion. Because thought has by now been perverted into the solving of assigned problems, even what is not assigned is processed like a problem. Thought, having lost autonomy, no longer trusts itself to comprehend reality, in freedom, for its own sake. This leaves, respectfully deluded, to the highest paid, thereby making itself measurable. It behaves, even in its own eyes, as if it had constantly to demonstrate its fitness. Even where there is no nut to crack, thinking becomes training for no matter what exercise. It sees its objects as mere hurdles, a permanent test of its own form. Considerations that wish to take responsibility for their subject-matter and therefore for themselves, arouse suspicion of being vain, windy, asocial self-gratification. Just as for neo-positivists knowledge is split into accumulated sense-experience and logical formalism, the mental activity of the type for whom unitary knowledge is made to measure, is polarized into the inventory of what he knows and the spot-check on his thinking-power: every thought becomes for him a quiz either of his knowledgeability or his aptitude. Somewhere the right answers must be already recorded. Instrumentalism, the latest version of pragmatism, has long been concerned not merely with the application of thought but the a priori condition of its form. When oppositional intellectuals endeavour, within the confines of these influences, to imagine a new content for society, they are paralysed by the form of their own consciousness, which is modelled in advance to suit the needs of this society. While thought has forgotten how to think itself, it has at the same time become its own watchdog. Thinking no longer means anything more than checking at each moment whether one can indeed think. Hence the impression of suffocation conveyed even by all apparently independent intellectual productions, theoretical no less than artistic. The socialization of mind keeps it boxed in, isolated in a glass case, as long as society is itself imprisoned. As thought earlier internalized the duties exacted from without, today it has assimilated to itself its integration into surrounded apparatus, and is thus condemned even before the economic and political verdicts on it come fully into force." 

A major focus today, concerning education, has been about the increase of tuition fees. What I fear is that this has created a blind-spot, that grows disturbingly large every time I step foot in certain classrooms and lecture halls. Yet bambi-eyed with horror, I wonder if anyone else sees this black-hole of an elephant that gallops from professor or tutorial assistants' mouths to the student, perhaps clogged, ears. To sit a full hour with a tutorial assistant, constantly questioning the books a class has read, especially books not on the course reading list, only forms an atmosphere of elitism. The student who cannot recall The Intellectuals and the Masses, is left out of discussion, and is condemned from ever speaking out when in fact the hour was suppose to be a focus of deep reading Sons and Lovers. The tutorial assistant continues, a list of "contemporaries". For pete's sake, ANYONE AND ANYTHING that has been written after a piece is a contemporary, and this enormous focus of literature in time-frames, barred from being juxtaposed with other time-frames is despicable. Can we not penetrate thought between modernism and plain old modern literature? Can thought no longer find a purpose to be "fully-circular"? 

Education is collapsing, not only because of a simple ca-ching, but because of a group of those who seem to be drawn to teach it. Titles of authority mean nothing, excuse me Lecturer, Professor, Doctor. The ability to memorize the titles of books you constantly repeat within a section, shows nothing more than your head being stuck up your ass. Let the students speak, let them shuffle the time-frames, compare ANYTHING TO ANYTHING. Now this does not mean, every professor to tutorial assistant behaves this way, and I do compassionately honor those who see a student excited with knowledge fumble his or her way to form an understanding through intelligence, inspiring those to keep at it, playing devil's advocate. But when a student feels incompetent as you shut them down with a statement to stamp your authority in the classroom, you destroy education, and this destructive behaviour should be thrown out of classrooms, not the student. Be careful what you teach, be careful how you teach, if we are going to fight for higher education, I will only fight if the education is purely taught for the masses to create intellect. 

And in honor of the "publish yourself" mentality of this blog,

This past week of shot down thoughts:

"There is a thin line between utopia and eugenics" 

"Sons and Lovers should and can be read along side the modern text of A Woman Who Walked into Doors, both illustrate an issue of silence within the home."

Okay so the utopia and eugenics thought may have been a little tug worthy of the soul strings, but thankfully a friend, who happens to be a T.A at UCSC, responded appropriately...

"Insofar as utopia remains a good place, a no place, and a blueprint, then it's homologous to eugenics, which also declares that there is an order that could come to be the case, and that the entire messy reality of how things are need to be brought into line with that order, means and consequences be damned."

This is how thought should be treated, not with a command to be silent. 

It is silence who penetrates and creates miserable humans, communicate to your students while they still exist in the classroom.

Check out Evan Calder William's blog. CLICK HERE. 


Perhaps education has already left the classroom...