Rituals of Failure
Sandro Contenta 1993
Between The Lines Publishers Toronto
Page 130
. . . the rigidly bureaucratic nature of schools makes it less likely that teachers will rock the boat. Those who try to spark a social conscience in students recognize they are jeopardizing the progress of their careers in a system in which administrative efficiency pave the road to the top.
“If you stand out on the front lawn and start calling for change, you’re going to be viewed as a wild-eyed, semi-crazed sort of person because you’re going to be questioning some fundamental values in society,” said Edmund Rice principal Brother Kieran Murphy. “Sometimes it means your job if you’re going to talk about the injustices of society or the fact that you’re living in a system that’s hypocritical. Those kinds of things follow you right through your career. They’re not going to put the disturbers in positions of authority, they want corporate people.” Alan King’s study suggests Murphy’s belief is accurate. Teachers most likely to seek administrative positions, King found, are those who did not choose teaching as a first career.
Students are the only group below teachers in the school hierarchy and, in their own words, they have had it with the “power trips” of teachers. It all breaks down into an environment where everyone seems to be pushing and being pushed at the same time, creating a kind of petrified frenzy.
Page 131
Norman Henchey from Education for the 21st Century prepared for the Canadian Teachers’ Federation
Communications replace production and transportation as the key industry and mode of organizing economic activity, the chip replaces the gear and the car as the new social metaphor.”
Page 194
The Western myth of progress promised a consumer heaven on earth through scientific achievement. In this sense, it was much the same as the utopian promises of communism. The new myth or story we require promises to leave utopia to the gods. It promises no final chapter or happy ending. It promises only to exist from the moment a child enters nature and a desire becomes a gesture and then a name. It’s a story that waits to be told as a book waits to be read. What counts is the tale’s construction. Schools should develop builders of tales – people who construct narratives with a passion and lucidity that limit rebellion by respecting a common and inalienable human dignity. The central goal of schools should be to develop storytellers in revolt.
To come to serious grips with important social issues is to raise in the classroom problems and issues and perspectives that are not going to be popular with the people on whose livelihood the teacher depends. You can’t ask individual teachers to bear the burden of being particularly saintly in a bureaucratic environment. And so you need to create the context, at a broader level, in which this kind of conversation and emphasis is acceptable. (Hence the school musical)
Page 197
The tragedy is that teenage rebellion, vibrant and confused, usually falls prey to co-option or resignation. But building on the vague awareness sparked by rebellion can pave the way to meaningful social change. The challenge is to guide the aimless revolt from one that negates human dignity through resignation to one that affirms it through action.
Schools need as much as possible, to hand over control to students. If the purpose is to help them understand that myths are theirs to mold and remold, then students will eventually insist on changing their school environment. They need the power to substitute hierarchy with democracy.
Page 202
In the end, it’s neither the kinds of courses taught nor their content that’s most important, but the process practiced. An education that encourages students to search for personal meaning and care about social change is of the essence. Whether it happens in a class on popular culture or in Latin is of no consequence. Our desire is for builders of tales; people for whom seeing through myths is as easy as reading street signs; people who will revolutionize society through art or science; people who will revolutionize their families or workplaces through actions big or small.
Page 210 (concluding paragraph in book)
I asked [principal] Penner what James and other children like him are supposed to do with their anger and confusion once they figure out the whole world isn’t an inner city. “Well, some of the traditional things are available,” he said. “I mean we have a heavy-duty sports program. There’s all the outlets and activities that we have here. We ski, we go snowshoeing, we swim, we skate, stuff like that.” He paused, and then added that he’d like students to get more of a chance to play out – and “act out” – their anger and confusion. “Staff aren’t too keen about that. It makes their job harder. I mean, if you light the population up, you might not be able to put them out.”
Light the match.