George1 was a lovely human being, he was also one of my professors at York University. But, more than that, he was a mentor. A soft soul in such a troubled world. It was an honour to share life with him.
Below is an email exchange we had, where he beautifully described the decline of education. And here, you can listen to one of his presentations.
This was an email exchange in 2008, when I was an undergraduate Political Science student. He had written a thousand words, and never lost sight of his message — “to go out into the world, with the best skills you have, to confront inequality and injustice“.
Dear George,
I was just thinking about something you had said a few weeks ago during our meeting — ‘a BA degree back then, is equivalent to what a Master’s is now’.Why is that? Are we victims of a new era of forced illiteracy?
Thank you,
Mikhael
Hi Mikhael. This is an important issue, that deserves a bit more attention than I can provide in an e-mail. But there are two major phenomena going on, with different foundations.
First, there is indeed an increase in illiteracy, and a general loss in the skills required to engage in analytical reading and reasoning. But there has not been a comparable dumbing down in mathematical skills, although it is always true that only a minority of those who are educated actually acquire all of the skills to which they are exposed. The main problem with literacy — including spelling, essay writing, and critical reading skills — is that in the late 1960s and early 1970s a new approach to education was championed. This new approach took off from the anti-authoritarian principles of the era — a time when racism, sexism, militarism, and class oppression were all being challenged — to propose a non-authoritarian foundation for education.
Combined with similar principles of psychology that were emerging in that era — a time when transactional therapy, experimentation with LSD, and opposition to the over-medication or shock-treatment of patients was challenging conventional medical approaches — this led to a new orthodoxy in education. While I believe that the challenges to authority and opposition to oppression were good, even at that time I was not convinced that the implications that were being drawn for education were correct. Spelling, for example, is not really about “exploring possibilities”, but rather about being able to express words in ways that can be understood by others. It is like learning Morse code: you get it right or you don’t. Similarly, students are being encouraged to “get in touch with themselves” in their writing, rather than being trained in the ability to communicate complex ideas intelligently to others.
This has, in fact, led to a serious decline in literacy. All of us in higher education see it, and to our disappointment there has even been an increasing number of new professors who never properly learned basic skills themselves. What used to be assigned as first year readings when I was a student are not now assigned until third year, or even later. And most students entering university do not write as well as high school students did 40 years ago. Even graduate students are not as skilled as average undergraduates were back then.
But this is not a “forced” illiteracy in the sense of a conscious state policy. Rather, the state has ensured that absolutely minimal literacy and skills in math and science are being maintained (since these have implications for economic competition), but it has seen no reason to ensure that real critical literacy skills are maintained. So, ironically, the anti-authoritarian tendency has played into the hands of the interests of business and state power, since people are less able to express their objections to the way things are — or even to formulate such ideas — but are still able to function in a way that makes money for others. This was not actually planned by big business or the state, but they have been more than happy to live with it.
There is a second aspect to this issue, however, which deals not with real skills, but with “credentials” — the certification of graduates as qualified. Here there has been a dramatic change over time. The bottom line is this: over the past century and more, the average educational level of people has risen continuously, but simultaneously the educational “credentials” required to get jobs at comparable levels of income and status have risen. What this means is that the population has exactly stood still with respect to income and status over the whole period of time, since everyone’s education has gone up, but the requirements for jobs at every level have gone up as well. Before the Second World War, it was enough in Canada to have a grade school education in order to get a good job. After the Second World War, down through the 1960s, it was enough to have a high-school diploma. By the end of the 1970s, and down through the end of the 1990s, it became increasingly necessary to have a university education (which at first could be an “ordinary” degree of 3 years, but then increasingly had to be an “honours” degree of 4 years). Since the beginning of the century, it is now increasingly the case that people need MA degrees to get decent jobs. That is not yet a general expectation, but students are getting such higher degrees in greater numbers, and businesses and government are already learning to expect them. What is important here is that, throughout this ongoing process, there is no real change in the social hierarchy — the same percentages are rich and poor, have good jobs and bad jobs. Only the credentials required to “succeed”, all across the board, have increased. This is something that was first observed in the 1960s, and it has remained true since then. Most families try to have their children get higher levels of education, yet all the families more or less stay at the same level into the next generation.
This is only a quick overview of an important topic, but you have picked up on something worth thinking about. On the one hand, it is true that education is not making people better educated — it is actually creating new generations of people who cannot write or spell, and who know no grammar. On the other hand, education is increasingly important in getting a job, even if you don’t actually know anything. The real trick is to take advantage of education for your own purposes, to learn whether or not others want you to, and then to go out in the world with the best skills you have to confront inequality and injustice.
Anyhow, that was a good question. I’ll look forward to more opportunities to talk in the future.
George
“The real trick is to take advantage of education for your own purposes, to learn whether or not others want you to, and then to go out in the world with the best skills you have to confront inequality and injustice.”
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