The Age of Paradox (Guest Blogger Bill Farren, no. 4)
Monday, 17 March 2008 Clay Burell 
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[Fourth in a series: 1. My Intro to Bill: "Beyond 'Did You Know?' - 'Did You Ever Wonder?'"; 2. "Education for Well-Being"; 3. "The Hidden Curriculum"; 4. "Random Acts of Deceleration". It's been an honor to have Bill guest-blog here. We need vision like his. You can subscribe to Bill's Education for Well-Being site here. -- Clay]
I’d like to give a huge “thank you” to Clay for inviting me to guest post on Beyond-School and for helping promote the concept of education as an instrument of well-being. His desire to do what’s best for students, the planet, and for education in general, inspires.
The Age of Paradox
This from a book I’m currently reading:
“We live in the age of paradox. Our buildings are taller, but our purposes shorter. We have more labor saving devices, but less time for neighbors and friends. We have more money but less fairness; more weapons but less security; more power over nature, but a less-stable nature than ever before. We have more science, research, and intellectual capability than ever, but less common sense and good judgment in our public affairs.” David Orr, Design on the Edge
Ours is also a time of skills—skills that far outstrip purpose. We have the skills to put people on the moon, move whole mountains, create 100,000 different chemicals, and build stealth bombers. I’d like to argue, following Orr’s thinking, that it’s not a lack of skills that will keep us from succeeding. It will be a lack of reflection on the values needed to wisely manage an ever-growing skill set.
Almost exclusively, the educational dialogue today centers around the skills students will need in order to succeed in the 21st century. Discussions about the values needed for success happen with much less frequency. I’m guessing this has to do with the fact that many consider the teaching of values beyond the purview of educational institutions, especially secular ones. There is some validity to this. Who is to say what values should be taught? So as not to walk onto this slippery slope, I’d like to frame the discussion differently. Instead of arguing about whose values should to be taught, I prefer instead to look at the concept of value itself.
We can study value. By doing so, we will be better able to direct our limited cognitive, material, and emotional resources towards more fruitful ends. Our skills can be put to better use. There is an ever-growing body of information about value that is shattering many ideas that are currently the standard fare in our curricula. Redefining Progress believes “that if policymakers measure what really matters to people—health care, safety, a clean environment, and other indicators of well-being—economic policy would naturally shift towards sustainability.” The burgeoning field of true cost economics allows us to get a better picture of value that goes beyond the incomplete view taught in most classrooms today. “True Cost Economics is currently creating a sizable ruckus in the academic world, and its value as a system of thought is starting to be recognized by the economic establishment.” [Underline added; source: Utne] We currently spend vast amounts of money training people for military service and for jobs associated with the military industrial complex. (M. I. T. has been dubbed the Military Institute of Technology in the popular press.) Vision of Humanity put out an interesting study which looks at the economic value of peace (among other benefits). On their site they state, “Although we have the concept of a war industry and the economics of war, few people would relate to a peace industry and the economics of peace. Yet it is evident that business wishes to invest in areas where there is minimal violence. The economic benefits of peace seem obvious.”
Natural capitalism and the understanding of ecosystem services can also help us better judge value. During his annual Independence Day address to congress, Leonel Fernandez, president of the Dominican Republic, referring to a $2.6 billion deal struck with gold companies giving them mining rights on the tropical island, announced to applause, “This will be the largest investment ever realized in the history of the Dominican Republic.” One wonders though, had the leadership of this fragile island been better educated in the issues of value, would they have struck such an unfavorable deal? It’s easy to look at $2.6 billion as pure gain when no consideration is given to what is lost.
The paradoxes we see today are largely the result of our pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, our ideas about what will make us happy are often wrong. On the positive side, subjective experiences like happiness are starting to be studied scientifically. As this new area of inquiry matures as is given more prominence, schools would be wise to incorporate the findings into procedural and curricular domains. The scientific evidence available to date should have schools questioning the pursuit of high test scores in the name of high-paying jobs. (For more about our poor choices related to happiness, watch this video:
Author Juliet Schor, in her book Born to Buy, notes in a survey of students that, more than half agree that, “when you grow up, the more money you have, the happier you are,” and 62 percent say that, “the only kind of job I want when I grow up is one that gets me a lot of money.” She later goes onto say, “American children are deeply enmeshed in the culture of getting and spending, and they are getting more so. We find that the more enmeshed they are, the more they suffer for it. The more they buy into the commercial and materialist messages, the worse they feel about themselves, the more depressed they are, and the more they are beset by anxiety, headaches, stomachaches, and boredom.”
If educational institutions have as their mission the improvement of lives, then they should consider how they are preparing students to critically deal with the dysfunctional value systems that permeate our lives. If looked at objectively and approached scientifically, we can discuss the pedagogy of values as easily and frequently as we do that of skills.
Bill Farren
- Guest-Blogger Bill Farren: Education for Well-Being
- The Hidden Curriculum (guest-blogger Bill Farren, post 2)
- Random Acts of Deceleration (Bill Farren Guest-Post 3)
- Edit Envy for “Fear Factor”: a New Video by Bill Farren
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No. 1 — March 17th, 2008 at 7:15 am
@ Bill
You can’t have happiness and contentment without self reflection and a purpose. The pursuit of wealth is a never ending quest that can never satisfy. As a former options trader turned teacher I had to learn the hard way that having all the money I wanted didn’t do much to make me happy. I hated who I was becoming and wanted something else.
How you teach this with out an appeal to religion is difficult. I do think the liberal arts model of pushing students to think critically about values is part of the story but I imagine in most public schools at least in the states their would be a fear of being sued by some radical secular activist.
Personally I feel Catholic education offers the ability to debate freely these issues within a setting that tolerates the push for truth and meaning. If what we believe is true then the fear of dialogue on the issue is irrelevant.
Charlie A. Roy’s last blog post..A Jott in Line and Saving Time
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No. 2 — March 17th, 2008 at 11:43 am
@Charlie, Funny I was holding a copy of The Moral Animal: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology in my hands when I read your comment. Like so many other branches of science (including the new, data-driven “happiness studies” featured in the video Bill embedded), this one posits an understanding of values and ethics rationally derived and cross-cultural, and thus breeding unity across the great religious tribes, rather than further consolidating them.
This is delicate, but I have to say that the odds are at least as strong that a secularist who opened the validity of religious beliefs up to critical thinking in the classroom would be targeted by a “radical religious dogmatist.”
I know this from experience, in fact. A parent tried to have me fired for including Bishop John Shelby Spong’s “Call for a New Reformation” in the classroom, as a modern example of the effects Martin Luther had on his contemporaries.
We both agree, though, that the Gospel of Consumerism – by far the most dominant religion in the world today, regardless of our Sabbath habits – is not the one that leads to happiness.
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No. 3 — March 17th, 2008 at 11:58 am
@ Clay
I see your point. I personally would find it hard to teach in a public school. This difficulty doesn’t come from a lack of appreciation for the differences in religious affiliation but for the fact that how can one really discuss history, philosophy, or art while pretending that religion has nothing to do with any of it.
As human beings we are religious creatures be it the cult of consumerism, Catholicism, Hinduism and on and on our lives are animated and directed by the principles we adhere too. Everyone could benefit from thicker skin and a sense of humor especially some of the sensitive families we work with.
Sorry to hear that you had such a wonderful run in with the above mentioned parent. I listen to parents every week demand the firing of someone for something. My favorite was this past fall when a parent actually demanded the firing of a teacher for not making her daughter’s yearbook picture big enough. She was serious. I’m writing all this stuff down so I can author a book one day.
I always enjoy your posts.
Charlie A. Roy’s last blog post..A Jott in Line and Saving Time
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No. 4 — March 17th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
@Charlie – and I always enjoy your comments. But really, that teacher _should_ be fired!
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No. 5 — March 17th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
The issue is a complex one partly as there is no real agreement on the important values in society. the desire for wellbeing as I see it is not of a moral nature in it self. The agreement that the most important thing is to pursue the general wellbeing is a different thing all together. As I see it the only thing that is agreed upon is not to disturb each other in their attempt to achieve wellbeing and this is not enough as the differences between people and belief systems are on the things that are more important then wellbeing when other things are equal.
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No. 6 — March 19th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I found this post to be an articulation of the thoughts and feelings i have been having for quite a while.
especially agree with what Juliet Schor says in her book.
this is incredibly sad.
the question is – what can really be done about it by us – moms and dads?
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No. 7 — March 21st, 2008 at 12:58 am
@Clay @Charlie: Clay, you said it better than I did right here:
Like so many other branches of science (including the new, data-driven “happiness studies” featured in the video Bill embedded), this one posits an understanding of values and ethics rationally derived and cross-cultural, and thus breeding unity across the great religious tribes, rather than further consolidating them.
If you look at the major religions, most, if not all (I’m not a theologian by any means) seem to point to what the science of happiness and well-being seem to be finding: moderation, limits, purpose, charity, involvement… are good for us. The religion of consumerism, by far the most powerfully adhered to ever, points in the opposite direction: no limits, greed, competition, individualism, shallowness… The fact that science and religion often seem to be in agreement here, I think shows the value of science and religion while also unifying and harmonizing.
I also think that if we discuss values framed as practical self-interest, then we can avoid the traps, especially in secular places, that shut down the conversation and keep the consumer juggernaut safely on track.
@Danielle: I would say as parents, one thing you can do is ask, then demand, that your school teach media literacy so that kids (at any age) can have a different way of looking at marketing. As it is now, they don’t have a chance. My experience shows that few people in schools are thinking to any degree worth noting, about how they can set up a curricula that helps children defend themselves against the noxious messages they continually encounter. I think it would also be very helpful if parents started to demand that schools realign the curriculum to be on the side of kids not corporations. In the meantime, I highly recommend Juliet Schor’s book if you haven’t already read it. I think most parents would be aghast at what marketers are doing to their children in the name of profits. Most seem to think it’s harmless and cute. The science and the statistics shows otherwise.
Bill Farren’s last blog post..Winner Takes Pizza
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