Behavioral Conditioning for Schools and Capitalism (an excerpt)
In response to the future administration's agenda to dismantle the Department of Education in America, I offer an excerpt from this chapter of my book, "RootEd: How Trauma Impacts Learning and Society."
From Chapter 9: Behavioral Conditioning for Schools and Capitalism
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” Edward Bernays, Propaganda
"Behavioral Conditioning in Schools
If coercion or external motivation is such a deterrent for learning, why do schools use it? Many would argue that they spend far more time with classroom management than they have time to teach various methods on how to read or do maths (or any other subject). This has become such a focus that there are significant books and strategies encouraged by teachers and for teachers on how to manage classroom behavior. This is where behavioral conditioning in school becomes paramount.
Noam Chomsky has been known to speak on the topic of how the education system was “designed to turn independent farmers into disciplined factory workers” and that the society as a whole believes that:
People are supposed to be passive and apathetic and doing what they are told by the responsible people who are in control. That’s elite ideology across the political spectrum - from liberals to Leninists, it’s essentially the same ideology: people are too stupid and ignorant to do things by themselves so for their own benefit we have to control them. (Kasenbacher, 2012, para. 11)
Additionally, schools track behavior records, and generate profiles on students which frequently label their behavior. This occasionally results in recommendations for medical intervention, such as drugging the child into compliance through medical approval. The sheer number of students medicated for behavior issues in American schools since the late 1990s’s is staggering. Between 2011-2012, The National Center for Health Statistics reported that 7.5% of children in the United States between the ages of 6 and 17 were prescribed medication to control emotional or behavioral challenges (Howie, Pastor, & Lukacs, 2014). The number of children under the age of 18 that are prescribed psychostimulants increased six-fold to 4.2% from statistics taken between 1988-1994 and compared to 2007-2010 and that 1.3% of the children were prescribed antidepressants (National Center for Health Statistics, 2014).
What has resulted since the initial educational efforts of schools in the early 20th century has now become something which has been used through various media and social media platforms to manipulate behaviors of individuals throughout the world in order to create behavior patterns that fulfill the goals of the persons responsible for such campaigns. Cambridge Analytica is a perfect example of how tracking behavior patterns of individuals and collecting their data can be used to create very targeted campaigns to change their behavior and manipulate them to choose something they may not have otherwise. This includes choosing things that are actually not in their best interest or the best interest of the nation (Amer & Noujaim, 2019). At this juncture, any former protestation over the manipulation of minds for corporations has now been much more deeply transferred to the benefit of governments as well. This is additionally reinforced by school districts who force teachers to sign documents saying that they will never say anything against their government. This perhaps is intended to prevent teachers from inciting dangerous behaviors, but it also reinforces following what they are told, and reinforcing children to do what they are told. This is not the way in which democracy can function.
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Over the last century, the world has seen numerous countries challenge the ruling classes. This resulted in revolutions that in many cases turned into dictatorships, communism, fascism, and other states where a vocal demagogue could easily persuade the masses to follow his lead in order to change the way that society has endured under the former leadership. In America, the increased exposure to schooling has directly correlated to decreases in challenging the ruling class. This was not the case in late 19th century America. Those with little or no schooling were able to organize trade unions, a large-scale working people’s cooperative, and many other political movements that forever changed the trajectory of America including breaking the power of large banks in order for farmers to obtain easier credit (Levine, 2018).
John Taylor Gatto (1990) stated while accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award,
The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aids and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. (Levine, 2018, p. 95)
Psychologist, Bruce E. Levine, has spoken extensively about these shifts in America and finds that schools teach compliance to hierarchy, obedience to authority devoid of actual respect, trains students to regurgitate information, socializes passivity in students and teachers, and for all to blindly adhere to reward and punishment systems implemented by authority figures (2018). One of the most concerning aspects he addresses is how people in our society currently pretend to care about things that are unimportant to them while simultaneously incapable of changing a life unsatisfying to them (Levine, 2018).
Jonathan Kozol, an educator and outspoken critic of the American education system excelled in his elite prep school career and later Harvard education. Kozol claims that children learn quickly that they will not succeed in school by expressing themselves, and that dissent must be channeled into polite discussion (Levine, 2018). Levine further highlights how Kozol states that institutions teach inert concern, which insinuates that caring is ethical by its own merits, but “disobedience is immature” (Levine, 2018).
It was previously mentioned that many nations that overthrew their governments were subsequently found to fall prey to communist dictatorships and fascism. This may also appear to align with what Noam Chomsky was referring to regarding people not knowing how to lead. There is truth to that as they have not had experience with leadership, nor have they received any formal or informal training on how leadership works. Former training was isolated to employment alone. There was no collaborative opportunity in their nations that offered any concept of democracy nor how to facilitate it effectively. The population was still programmed to be led and the most motivating voice that rose from the crowd drew their attention easily as they had already been trained to follow what appeared to be grand leaders from their former monarchies. None in the populace had any real experience with leadership and no knowledge of how to navigate a changing political landscape. Those who projected that they knew what to do easily persuaded the masses to believe them by telling them what they wanted to hear, regardless of their ability to fulfill those promises."
Read the rest of the chapter here: