‘21st-century education’: Entrepreneurial citizenship vs democracy?

Tobey Steeves: BCSSTA 2011 Annual

Setting the stage:Supreme Court decision: Outcome = ???

Arbitrator’s ruling(s): August 28 & September 2, 2011; outcome = contestation

Threat of punitive measures, lock-out

Trends in government strategies vis-a-vis labour: Canadian Post

Global movements: Arab Spring, Greece, UK, Occupy Wall Street+

Positioning education policy in BC

Background context:

Background context:

• Vancouver ToC: Secondary Social Studies

Background context:

• Vancouver ToC: Secondary Social Studies

• UBC MA student, Centre for Cross Faculty Inquiry in

Education

Background context:

• Vancouver ToC: Secondary Social Studies

• UBC MA student, Centre for Cross Faculty Inquiry in

Education• Interested the relationships

between education/curricular policies and teachers

Localizing ‘21st-century education’: BC borrows an agenda

Localizing ‘21st-century education’: BC borrows an agenda

• Ministry of Education

• Canadian Council on Learning

• John Abbott, 21st Century Learning Initiative

• Premier’s Technology Council

• BCPSEA

De-localizing ‘21st-century education’: Whose desire?

De-localizing ‘21st-century education’: Whose desire?

•Transnational: OECD, ATC21S

De-localizing ‘21st-century education’: Whose desire?

•Transnational: OECD, ATC21S•National+: P21, 21CLA

De-localizing ‘21st-century education’: Whose desire?

•Transnational: OECD, ATC21S•National+: P21, 21CLA•Corporations: Intel, HP, Microsoft, Ford, Cisco, Disney ...

De-localizing ‘21st-century education’: Whose desire?

•Transnational: OECD, ATC21S•National+: P21, 21CLA•Corporations: Intel, HP, Microsoft, Ford, Cisco, Disney ...•Quantitative/Econometric analysts (a

Unpacking ‘21st-century education’:

“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task, and organized by problems and projects...” OECD, “Learning for jobs”

Unpacking ‘21st-century education’: • “Skills deemed necessary for

success in the 21st century workforce”:

“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task, and organized by problems and projects...” OECD, “Learning for jobs”

Unpacking ‘21st-century education’: • “Skills deemed necessary for

success in the 21st century workforce”:

(i) communication, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration

“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task, and organized by problems and projects...” OECD, “Learning for jobs”

Unpacking ‘21st-century education’: • “Skills deemed necessary for

success in the 21st century workforce”:

(i) communication, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration

(ii) economic/media/civic literacies

“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task, and organized by problems and projects...” OECD, “Learning for jobs”

Unpacking ‘21st-century education’: • “Skills deemed necessary for

success in the 21st century workforce”:

(i) communication, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration

(ii) economic/media/civic literacies

(iii) diversity, leadership, ethics

“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task, and organized by problems and projects...” OECD, “Learning for jobs”

Unpacking ‘21st-century education’: • “Skills deemed necessary for

success in the 21st century workforce”:

(i) communication, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration

(ii) economic/media/civic literacies

(iii) diversity, leadership, ethics

• Lifelong learning “...school learning is abstract, theoretical and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task, and organized by problems and projects...” OECD, “Learning for jobs”

Unpacking ‘21st-century education’: • “Skills deemed necessary for

success in the 21st century workforce”:

(i) communication, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration

(ii) economic/media/civic literacies

(iii) diversity, leadership, ethics

• Lifelong learning

• Assessment-driven(?)“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task, and organized by problems and projects...” OECD, “Learning for jobs”

Unpacking ‘21st-century education’: • “Skills deemed necessary for

success in the 21st century workforce”:

(i) communication, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration

(ii) economic/media/civic literacies

(iii) diversity, leadership, ethics

• Lifelong learning

• Assessment-driven(?)

• ICT

“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task, and organized by problems and projects...” OECD, “Learning for jobs”

Unpacking ‘21st-century education’: • “Skills deemed necessary for

success in the 21st century workforce”:

(i) communication, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration

(ii) economic/media/civic literacies

(iii) diversity, leadership, ethics

• Lifelong learning

• Assessment-driven(?)

• ICT

• STEM

“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task, and organized by problems and projects...” OECD, “Learning for jobs”

‘21st-century education as national/global imperative:

“I’m calling on our nation ... to develop standards and assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity.” - U.S. President Barack Obama, March 10, 2009

“There is a global movement to transform education systems to ensure learners are prepared for success in the 21st century. Increased competition in the global economy makes improving the productivity of B.C.’s workforce a necessary and urgent priority.” - BC Ministry of Education, May 2011

Essentializing ‘21st-century education’:

Essentializing ‘21st-century education’:

•Nationalism

Essentializing ‘21st-century education’:

•Nationalism•New package, old song

Essentializing ‘21st-century education’:

•Nationalism•New package, old song•Vocationalism

Essentializing ‘21st-century education’:

•Nationalism•New package, old song•Vocationalism•Entrepreneurialism

Essentializing ‘21st-century education’:

•Nationalism•New package, old song•Vocationalism•Entrepreneurialism•Colonialism

Citizenship as dualistic tradition:Liberal Civic Republican

• Love & service to State (local, provincial, national)

• Focus = “healing” civil society• Exclusive

Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses on citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.

• Focus on rights of individuals • Constraints to protect

others• Redistributionist

Contextualizing entrepreneurialism as neoliberal citizenship:

Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses on citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.

“Within the neoliberal view, the public sphere - schools, parks, social security, and healthcare included - should be privatized or put into service for the private sphere ... The

real triumph of the market-based rhetoric was to shift discussion away from political concerns about the role of

public education in preparing citizens for democratic participation and to redefine public schooling as a good or

service, like toilet paper or soap, which students and parents consume.” - Kenneth Saltman

Contextualizing entrepreneurialism as neoliberal citizenship:

• Combination of market fundamentalism and aggressive individualism

Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses on citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.

“Within the neoliberal view, the public sphere - schools, parks, social security, and healthcare included - should be privatized or put into service for the private sphere ... The

real triumph of the market-based rhetoric was to shift discussion away from political concerns about the role of

public education in preparing citizens for democratic participation and to redefine public schooling as a good or

service, like toilet paper or soap, which students and parents consume.” - Kenneth Saltman

Contextualizing entrepreneurialism as neoliberal citizenship:

• Combination of market fundamentalism and aggressive individualism

• Merges the fields of capitalism and democracy

Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses on citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.

“Within the neoliberal view, the public sphere - schools, parks, social security, and healthcare included - should be privatized or put into service for the private sphere ... The

real triumph of the market-based rhetoric was to shift discussion away from political concerns about the role of

public education in preparing citizens for democratic participation and to redefine public schooling as a good or

service, like toilet paper or soap, which students and parents consume.” - Kenneth Saltman

Contextualizing entrepreneurialism as neoliberal citizenship:

• Combination of market fundamentalism and aggressive individualism

• Merges the fields of capitalism and democracy

• Homo economicus (naturalization of competition, marketization as civic duty)

Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses on citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.

“Within the neoliberal view, the public sphere - schools, parks, social security, and healthcare included - should be privatized or put into service for the private sphere ... The

real triumph of the market-based rhetoric was to shift discussion away from political concerns about the role of

public education in preparing citizens for democratic participation and to redefine public schooling as a good or

service, like toilet paper or soap, which students and parents consume.” - Kenneth Saltman

The 21st-century social imperative: Entrepreneurialism?

“Canada needs a national vision for 21st Century learning models of public education. There is an urgent need for Canadians to understand the economic and social imperative underlining this debate. The world is shifting to a knowledge economy ... Wealth creation is and will continue to be generated by highly creative and innovative people. Failure to impart 21st Century competencies and skills to a nation’s youth will make that country economically vulnerable[.]” 21st Century Learning Associates, January 30, 2011.

Citizenship & consumption:

“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns.” Lebow, (1955) Price competition.

“One of the most chillingly ironic features of this process is the reversal in the meaning of ‘vocation’. That ‘the vocational’ - a religious concept denoting a divine calling to some special, morally significant work in life – should have come to convey the precise opposite of its established meaning (namely, something purely instrumental and of economic value alone) epitomizes the current situation: ‘capitalism as religion’.” Osborne, (2010) Privatisation as anti-politics.

Consumerism & democracy:

• “[T]he undivided reign of the market and the consumer, the commercial substitute for the citizen, has kidnapped the state: it has made the public good a private good ... What is at stake now is winning back democracy from technocracy.” - Pierre Bourdieu

Bourdieu, P. (1998). Acts of resistance: Against the tyranny of the market. p. 25.

Re-conceptualizing ‘21st-century Education’:

Ethics:•“the empty chair”, Ruitenberg (2011)•becomings, (1987) Deleuze & Guattari

Citizenship:•Critical: feminist, queer (Abowitz & Harnish, 2006)

•Nomad (Holland, 2011)

Considering the Present of our Future:“I’m not sure about the next millennium but I think I give us a 50/50 chance of surviving the next hundred years. I fear that the speed of man’s [sic] technological discoveries is outpacing our wisdom and ability to control what we have discovered.” - Sir Martin Rees (2003)

“What looms on the horizon today is the unprecedented possibility [of] biogenetic mutation, a nuclear or similar military - social catastrophe and so on. No longer can we rely on the safeguarding role of the limited scope of our acts: it no longer holds that, whatever we do, history will carry on.” - Slavoj Zizek (2008)

‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:

‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:

• Democracy?

‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:

• Democracy?

• Citizenship?

‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:

• Democracy?

• Citizenship?

• De-professionalization

of teachers?

‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:

• Democracy?

• Citizenship?

• De-professionalization

of teachers?

• Ethics?

‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:

• Democracy?

• Citizenship?

• De-professionalization

of teachers?

• Ethics?

• Equity?

‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:

• Democracy?

• Citizenship?

• De-professionalization

of teachers?

• Ethics?

• Equity?

• Aesthetics?

Can education be re-captured as an emancipatory agenda?

•The Critical Thinking Consortium (www.tc2.ca)•MeToWe (www.metowe.com)•The Purple Thistle Institute (www.thistleinstitute.ca)•School of Everything (schoolofeverything.com)•Don McDougal: (a/e)ffective becomings for ‘at-risk youth’

References:21st Century Learning Associates. (2011). A national vision for 21st century learning. Accessed Oct. 9, 2011 at http://21stcenturylearningassociates.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/hello-world/.

Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses of citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.

British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2011). Revised 2011/12-2013/14 service plan. Victoria, BC: Ministry of Education.

Bourdieu, P. (1998). Acts of resistance: Against the tyranny of the market. New York, NY: The New Press.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987/2009). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. (B. Massumi Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published in 1980)

Holland, E. (2011). Nomad citizenship: Free-market communism and the slow-motion general strike. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Lebow, V. (1055). Price competition in 1955. Journal of retailing.

Osborne, P. (2010). Privatisation as anti-politics. Reclamations, 3. Accessed Oct. 9, 2011 at http://reclamationsjournal.org/issue03_peter_osborne.htm.

Rees, M. (2003). Our final hour: A scientist’s warning. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Ruitenberg, C. (2011). The empty chair: Education in an ethic of hospitality. In R. Kunzman (Ed.), Philosophy of Education 2011. Urbana, IL: Philosophy of Education Society.

Saltman, K. (2007). Capitalizing on disaster: Taking and breaking public schools. Herndon, VA: Paradigm Publishers.

Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Zizek, S. (2008). In defense of lost causes. New York, NY: Verso.