Catherine,

I was merely attempting to unpack the two meanings of the notion that, "teaching is political."  

In the sense that the process of teaching helps nurture the very survival and dynamism of the society in which the people are being taught, this is one sense of how teaching can be said to be a political act. I call this sense the least controversial simply because today we are removed from the days when it was far more controversial to attempt to educate everybody. 

The second sense in which teaching is political is the more controversial one today, and this is when teachers inject their preferred brand of politics into a classroom in order to win adherents to their world view.  

To have any sort of fruitful discussion about "teaching is political" I think it is imperative that we acknowledge that this phrase means two very different things, especially regarding the different ethical tensions that are manifested in each.
 
Regards,

Kearney

 
Kearney_Lykins at yahoo.com




________________________________
From: Catherine B. King <cb.king at verizon.net>
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Sent: Thu, November 5, 2009 10:21:31 AM
Subject: [PD 4139] Re: On the meaning of politics and why teaching is political

 
Hello Kearney:
 
You say:  "So, in its least controversial sense, teaching may be a political act, but that is not the dynamic I am addressing.."  
 
I am saying that  teaching is a political act in its **most** controversial sense.  
 
I gave examples of political oppression in my earlier note (copied below).  That literacy and education are so commonly accepted in our own USA culture and, therefore, **seem** less controversial, only means we are once-removed from the political oppression that our founders were responding to in the first place.  It means that we who are recipients of what they built can too-easily forget how literacy and education, in fact, are wedded to that political air (by "air" I mean a small-d democracy and, in particular, our the Constitution, the rule of law, habeas corpus, etc.).  
 
Also, I'm not talking about two meanings of polis.  There is (1) citizens being free to read and educate ourselves, and teachers to teach, within a polis (a political community) and there is (2) the establishment and maintenance of that polis.   Once a reasonably free polis is established (in our case, the USA), a literate and educated citizenship is more likely to keep the citizen/polis in tact; where an illiterate and under-or uneducated citizenship is less likely to maintain the polis and is more likely to follow the persuaders and sophists and purveyors of half-truths and lies that you are talking about in your note.     
 
Regards,
 
Catherine King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA
 
Earlier narrative:  Helping people learn anything is already a political act.  A cogent case-in-point is when the slave-owners in the south made it a crime to teach slaves to read.  They knew what slaves being-able-to-read would mean to the political status quo--that we all here know about.     
----- Original Message ----- 

>From: Kearney Lykins 

>To: Catherine B. King ; The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List 

>Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 7:01 AM

>Subject: [PD 4134] Re: On the meaning of politics and why teaching is political

>

>

>Catherine,

> 

> 

>It seems to me that you are blending the meaning of two uses of "polis."

> 

>I'll grant you that in the broadest, Aristotelian sense of the term, that because teaching helps members of society become better equipped to make decisions, it can be considered a form of political action; it is political friendship perhaps. I think it is this understanding of the nature of teaching that leads most teachers to become teachers in the first place. 

> 

>But that's not the sort of political action I am addressing. I am talking about ideological partisan views that are unethically wrapped in a literacy package. 

> 

>Literacy isn't the only subject to be pimped in this way. I have seen websites that ostensibly offer fun, interactive, ready-made science lessons for grade schoolers, but which are little more than vehicles for injecting socialist economic propaganda (e.g., asserting as fact that if we raise Americans' taxes, we can change the Earth's weather).  

> 

>So, in its least controversial sense, teaching may be a political act, but that is not the dynamic I am addressing.

> 

> 

>Regards,

> 

>Kearney

> 

>

>

>

> 



      
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