Michael John Callahan
Dr. Chandler
ENG-3029-01
Research Project Draft
This paper will discuss the validity of the appearance of economic
terms in the discussion of literacy, in relation to the permanence
of these terms as conceptual metaphors that describe a state of
affairs within American society that is a necessary condition for
that society. The question, since I have hypothesized a mutual
dependency between America and its economic system, is: how do we, as
Americans, reconcile the irrationality that is generated from
describing not only our literacy, but also our educational system, in
purely economic terms; since there are proofs of other ways—to
describe what literacy and
education is—by
other means?
First,
I
will look at current educational materials and language in terms of
their literacy and economic context; establishing the above mentioned
appearance
and
permanence of
conceptual metaphor, using the definitions of concept from George
Lakoff and Mark Johnson's “Metaphors We Live By”. This analysis
will lead me to enunciate an irrationality generated by the execution
of a program of literacy that does not recognize its own
irrationality and requires intervention via some other means; the
conclusion of another “means” will be reached via a juxtaposition
of Cynthia Selfe's examination on American belief systems in the
early 1990's to their corollaries today. I will then demonstrate the
terminal trajectory of this irrationality in a speech given by the
current Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, but I will neither
castigate him nor his audience for their propagation of this path;
instead I will offer it as proof of Selfe's concept of belief,
however I will redefine its evolution.
I
have proposed that the faith of America is its myth of economic
literacy has gone beyond the material immediate of the American; it
has transcended the permanent
metaphor
of economy and it requires the proposal of a “hybrid” metaphor
that allows for a literacy that allows Americans to interact with the
reality of the irrationality of the global market, while also having
the flexibility to achieve actualization within his or her own
context.
The
methods I will use to interrogate parts of various essays, the
Department of Education instructional documents and speeches of
officials in order to reach this conclusion are discourse and
literary analysis. This analysis will be shaped by a
post-structuralist lens, and by what will be seen by some as a strong
Platonic influence. I will also dabble in a bit of causal layered
analysis as pioneered by Sohail Inayatullah in my conclusion in an
attempt to strive towards a literacy that is an alternative from our
current state of affairs, but while maintaining the necessity of that
state. My intended methodology for this work is
social-constructivist, although many will initially see it as
materialist or even Neo-Marxist. I have a strong distaste for
Marxist theory, and it is not my intention to represent either the
oppressed proletariat or the bourgeoisie within these pages. I am
concerned with the language of actors involved in our current time as
it is represented, not with the actors themselves, because it is the
language that is the vehicle which transmits ideas; its imprecision
is what concerns me, the speakers are irrelevant after the words have
left the body. In writing this paper, I owe a strong debt to Barthes'
Death of the
Author
and Plato's Meno;
the ideas are spattered about this work, so let it be my footnote.
II.
The appearance of
economic analogy to an educator and the permanence
of that analogy to an economist.
K.J
Saltman, an educator and author of the essay, 'Corporatization and
the control of schools' gives an example of the metaphor of economy
by using the word “Neoliberalism” in the following:
1}“Neoliberalism appears in
the now commonsense framing of 2}education exclusively through
presumed ideals of upward 3}individual economic mobility and the
social ideals of global 4}economic competition...” (Saltman 55-6)
This
excerpt shows Neoliberalism—an economic ideology—as something
capable of “appearing” in line 1. I must assume then, that since
Neoliberalism must also have the quality of able to disappear;
according to this text permanent. Further in line 1, Neoliberalism
acquires another attribute attached to its appearance, a dependence
on “commonsense framing of education” for its existence within an
educational paradigm. This dependency of Neoliberalism within the
model is further delineated by the text in line 2 with the word
“through” with the text stating that the state of affairs must
be: “ ideals of upward individual economic mobility and the social
ideals of global economic competition”. The state of affairs is not
assigned a constant validity by the text however; this can be
inferred from the word “presumed” in line 2—it is a worldview
to this text. Thus the analysis of Neoliberalism as described from
this vantage of education yields: A thing whose appearance in the
paradigm this text operates from (education) is dependent wholly upon
the perceptions of a group looking from the outside into it; the
instance is also dependent on a state of affairs, the validity of
which has not been confirmed by this text. This construction, while
obviously biased, is perfectly grounded within that great faculty of
doubt which we use to test the ideas we perceive as foreign to
ourselves, and of which scholarship assumes:
the existence of other paths.
Let
us now compare education from within another context of the metaphor
of economy. This is an excerpt from Milton Friedman's essay, “The
Role of Government in Education”:
1}Most general education adds
to the economic value of the 2}student--indeed it is only in modern
times and in a few 3}countries that literacy has ceased to have a
marketable value.
(Friedman)
(By
“general education”, the text is referring to an education
encompassing literacy and basic mathematics not vocational
training)
This text brings to the
forefront of its text a conceptual metaphor in line 1:
“general education adds to the economic value” To decipher
this metaphor requires deference to the methodology of George Lakoff
and Mark Johnson’s celebrated work, “Metaphors We Live By”. In
the objective frame or state of affairs, if such a thing can be
perceived without the aid of irony, general education is general
education, it is a thing wholly unto itself. However, when
put into terms of metaphorical analogy, general education
takes upon the properties of the paradigm of its analogue in order to
relate the idea withing the boundaries of that ideology: in this
case, an economic one in adds to the economic value. General
education is a concept unequal
to value itself, but because of the dictates of the ideology of
economics—where everything is described in relationships of
value—it is forced to take on a value to make itself functionary
within the system; this value of general education is
now permanent. (Johnson and Lakoff: 1980)
Therefore
the difference between the short excerpt from Saltman’s essay and
Friedman’s, is that the state of affairs the metaphor operates in
is transitory in Saltman’s, while in Friedman’s it is very
permanent. This creates a tension between the zero-sum game of
economics and the pluralistic reality of literacy and educational
discourse; we must be able to use language that is inclusive of both
these worldviews, since both realities are parts of our world.
III.
Effects of the permanence: STEM, redundancy and a
literacy guide
Fig.1
1}“The
overall Federal
investment in STEM
education for
fiscal 2}year 2010 was $3.4 billion, or about 0.3 percent of the
Nation’s 3}total education budget of $1.1 trillion. About
one-third of that 4}$3.4 billion directly benefits students from
groups currently 5}underrepresented in STEM, addressing a major Obama
6}Administration goal to develop a
STEM workforce that reflects 7}the full diversity of the
Nation.”
(White House,
Office of Science and Technology Policy: 2011/emphasis authors)
Fig.2
1}“69% of 8th
Grade students fall below the proficient level in 2}their ability to
comprehend the meaning of text. Reading
3}ability is a key predictor
of achievement 5}in mathematics and 4}science.” (Dept. Of Education
Poster: 2010)
I
have added emphasis to certain text in Figure 1. It is important to
note that this text did not come from the website of the White
House's Office of Economic Advisers, but from the Office of Science
and Technology Policy. The permanent metaphor of education adds to
the economic value has transcended the boundary of economics, and
moved into the sphere of science and technology. This is apparent in
such language as: Federal Investment in STEM education
leading to the stated goal at the end of the text-- Administration
goal to develop a STEM
workforce. (White
House) The
endstate is completely compatible with the paradigm of the general
education equals added value—STEM education = STEM workforce—but
it creates a redundancy in bureaucracy. If things are to be cast in
an economic light? Why was this not released through the Office of
Economic Advisors.
Which
leads us to the Literacy Guide from the Department of Education in
figure 2: in line 1 we begin our sentence with a dualistic quantity,
a percentage—something that contains both value and operator—to
divide to the subject of the sentence--“8th
grade students.” For what force are we creating this division? As
we move further down line 1 we find that the students “fall below
the proficient level”. The text’s use of this diction is a key
marker of economic influence; it is a buzzword of quality control
textbooks, MBA-speak and the business vernacular. The text just as
easily could have said: are not proficient; but once again we have a
confluence with the economic world and education. There is a
metaphorical analogy established between business and education. This
concept is extended with the prepositional phrase “in their
ability/ to comprehend the meaning / of text.” The nature of a
preposition allows extraneous objects having to do with the things
and actions of a subject and actions o be related to it; to be
“tacked on” in space and time. They are very convenient when a
person or text wants to tie disparate objects or things to an already
accepted analogous concept within our world. (Lakoff and Johnson
1980) Thus we can infer from line 2 that “reading
comprehension” has an economic meaning vis-à-vis the proficiency
level metaphor.
Just
as there was with the White House statement, there is also a
problematic end state implicated by this poster: “achievement in
science and mathematics” in line 4. The language of the poster
establishes an economic paradigm, and not only is the concept of
reading tied to it, but now so are math and science. The ideas of the
market trails “Reading ability” in line 3; a new conceptual
metaphor is established: reading ability is a key predictor.
Professional forecasts
and outcomes are the realm of the astrologer, economist and
weatherman; not the young pupil. We find the same pattern as outlined
above—attached prepositional phrases to the conceptual metaphor—to
reach the end state of reading + economic paradigm to = math &
science.
IV.
Redundancy, contradiction and belief.
The
redundancy of our society's understanding—or at least the
government's understanding—of putting things within the terms of
economy came to a great test recently in the crash of 2008. The
alchemists that run our entire economic system said the kool-aid was
too sweet; everyone ran to try and find their sugar, and almost no
one got any. This has created a curious singularity because as we can
see from the texts and discourse of our policy makers, they are
still defining things via the myopic metaphors of economy. How can
this be when, as stocks crashed, people saw their reality melt before
them, and forced a new one on them. Later I will argue that the
reason this reality was not replaced with another one, is because
there was no previous literacy in the psyche of the American populace
at large to construct a new permanent metaphor system for America
outside of the one that had failed them, which their own literacy was
tied to; but for now I will digress to the belief in the system that
continues to propagate today.
Cynthia
Selfe outlines this certain irrationality with amazing precision:
Americans have always tended to either invest economically or
ideologically in literacy projects that articulate their worldviews.
Selfe uses as an example the literacy portions of the National
Infrastructure Initiative of the late 1990’s spearheaded by the
Clinton administration as an ideological driven project with clear
economic intent, perceived among the populace in many disparate ways.
(Selfe 127)
Arguably,
the dominant discourse within both education and society in our
current age is employment related and it will continue to be until
the permanent metaphor for
American success is changed within a national context or discourse.
One must only look to the historical myths of America and their
prominence in modern political discourse I have already outlined for
the road to success (when that itself is a paradox, moving forward,
by looking behind you on a straight vector is impossible—go ahead
try to do it). One of Franklin's aphorisms in “The Way to Wealth”,
“he that hath a trade hath an estate; and he that hath a calling,
hath an office of profit and honor.” (Franklin 221) Fraknlin ties
employment in American society to wealth and honor; this idea has had
230 years to percolate in its American flavor, no wonder it has a
permanence within our society; economic metaphors are not akin to
belief, because belief implies ideology. They are attached to
American faith; a faith born of itself. And this is why the permanent
metaphor, redundant and irrational as it is( if in our world, where
a=a b=b , like things can only equal like things, a like thing cannot
equal an unlike thing, and unlike things cannot equal unlike things
then literacy = literacy, literacy =/= economy and economy = economy)
is to subscribe to a view of the suspension of the rational, and thus
take a leap of faith into the mythology of Franklin, where the end
state is profit and a trade, which will award honor.
But
this Faith, is of necessity. I have stated above and enumerated
examples of literacy tied to the economic metaphor, if there is no
construction, or paradigm for them to go to, like the one Saltman
enjoys in his essay, it still does not remove the reality
that people
still need a way to put a meal on their table, and to have a table,
and a roof etc. Theory does nothing if it does not accomplish this.
This requires dancing with that devil that is the permanent economic
metaphor.
This
waltz will have to coincide with current trend of this nation,
sponsored by the administration is to invest in the arena of STEM and
apply literacy in economic terms in a relation to STEM. The remainder
of the essay will focus on what I call the “hybrid” method of
literacy, which recognizes the importance of future job availability,
while also incorporating more traditional literacy practices that
have borne the transmission of our culture for eons.
V.
Working towards an answer
Stump
speeches and rhetoric are not going to marry a literate, actualized
populace and the market; but they show us another portion of the
puzzle. Here is a portion of US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s
speech on
1}“Just
this week, Mark Edwards, the visionary superintendent from
Mooresville, North 2}Carolina came to our department to meet with our
management team. Three years ago, 3}he gave every student in 4th
through 12th grade a laptop. Almost overnight they saw 4}gains in
school attendance—new forms of collaboration between teachers and
students5—and ultimately gains in reading, math and graduation
rates.” (Arne Duncan)
This
portion of the speech, given to an audience of media executives at
South by Southwest, highlights the quantifiable data to of the speech
“the gains in school attendance” in line 4 and the “ultimately
gains in reading, math and graduation rates.” In line 5. The
conceptual metaphors of economics are transmitted unilaterally:
the concepts of education have
been reduced to a risk/reward strategy forced upon it, instead of an
attempt by the Secretary to act as translator for educational
concepts which exist:
such as the use of technological literacy (even though the term is
problematic etc.).
We
must build redundancy into the system of our conceptual metaphors at
the point of an individuals obtaining of literacy to facilitate
bilateral or even
multilateral communication
with disparate concepts and peoples; so that the ideas of conceptual
metaphors can diffuse in any spatial direction they have need, having
multiple options and paradigms with which to join concepts to. This
is not a new idea. The most complicated machine ever built by man,
the space shuttle, was built with one guiding principle: redundancy.
Not a redundancy of the system itself, but a redundancy of backups.
VI. The tenets of a
“Possible” Hybrid
I am without authority, but
since I haven’t found an example of a literacy model that I liked,
or that I felt met the condition—as outlined above. I
propose the following:
The American literacy
1/ The idea of what is
literacy must be fundamentally sound and true, viz. it must serve
the totality of Americans.
2/
This new literacy must be both economically and pedagogically
feasible for all educational systems in America to implement. If they
cannot support the curriculum, then it is not feasible. We must work
with the disparate
resources, people and ideologies that constitute our communities
instead of against them.
This requires the intervention of government as a guarantor of the
public interest; the public as the actualizing force of ideas in
America and the guarantor of its government; the private sector the
place for Americans to actualize those ideas and to secure its
country's economic environment for future prosperity.
3/ The new literacy must be
socially responsible. The purpose of this literacy must be to
facilitate ideas and communication; it is not a force for
stratification. By creating and maintaining a common base for a
literacy that serves all Americans, this system will encourage
opportunity without the need for external motivators or historical
mythologies. It will be an organic literacy that is becoming
like the citizenry it serves.
VII.
Conclusion
The
ideal of a literacy and its implementation are two different animals;
I have tried not to paint too many happy trees in the attempt. The
inspiration for this paper came from a memorable comment on a
freshman composition essay of mine: “things don't always have to be
valued”. It took a professor to metaphorically smack me out of the
my reality to get me to stop subconsciously using the permanent
conceptual metaphors of economics. They serve a purpose—utility is
a very economic concept—but they are limiting. I do not think that
we should have to have faith
in our education, or our literacy; I think these things are concepts
that should be and are becoming to be—limiting
them, limits ourselves by tieing the concepts prepositionally to
things in time: people, ideologies etc. We need to move beyond this.
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