Educators as Public Intellectuals - Literature review Example

Educators as Public Intellectuals Introduction According to Spizzirri (2003) one who sways from one idea to another easily, has fairly large social and political concepts, and is capable of communicating complex ideas in an accessible language is a public intellectual. Educators as public intellectuals can thus be considered as more than common people who are well-versed in books, academia and the written thought on any subject. They are the people who know the art of creating learning spaces, raising discussions, asking questions, discussing answers, identifying problems, providing solutions and exploring unimagined possibilities. Said (1994) has remarked that raising absurd questions is the forte of public intellectuals; they do not bat an eyelid in confronting dogmas and orthodoxy and are difficult to be co-opted by corporations and governments. Ralph Waldo Emerson, over 150 years ago, was the first person to discuss the function and meaning of an 'intellectual’ in his essay, dubbed as great by many scholars of his and times now, titled "The American Scholar". The essay was part of Phi Beta Kappa Society address of 1837. Emerson called this intellectual as a complete person, the "One Man" who embodies multiple dimensions of human actuality and potential. This man, according to him, could be a priest, an engineer, a statesman, an artist, a soldier, a scholar, a professor or an educator. This intellectual is always thinking, his mind is always at work and in action. The concept of a public intellectual was further modified by Said recently. He added a political tone to it. Said was with Columbia University and popularised the public intellectual in what is known as 1993 Reith Lecture series titled Representatives of the Intellectual. Said remarked that public intellectuals, like educators, always stand outside of the society (and yet be part of it), they are non-aligned, stay away from institutions and keep disseminating 'the status quo’. Public intellectuals’ primary job, according to Said, is to advance human knowledge and freedom (Lightman, nd). Educators as Public Intellectuals The current classification of public intellectuals divides them into three levels. Level I public intellectual is one who is experienced in a specific domain, like education and can write or speak eloquently about the discipline. Level II public intellectuals are capable of writing and speaking about how their chosen field of interest relates to cultural, social and political factors surrounding it. Level III public intellectual is one who has elevated himself to a symbol, a stature which outweighs the essence of the discipline from which this intellectual hails. Example for this could be Einstein, who when he attained fame in 1919, was invited to lecture on education, religion, ethics, world politics and philosophy in 1919. Similarly, in the recent times, Gloria Steinheim is considered a modern symbol of feminist thought and Lester Thurow that of global economy. Today being an educator is a totally complex activity. This is because in the present educational scenario triangles of imperatives and interests have to be taken care of. For example, this triangle requires teachers to act as catalysts who can not only promise but also show prosperity and opportunity in the knowledge society, put forward counterpoints to the threats that may exist in this society, and be ready to be causalities of the standardisation which the knowledge society's imposed imperatives might pose (Hargreaves, 2003). In order to meet these challenges, Said (1996) propounded that educators or teachers must don the mantle of 'amateur intellectuals'. This, according to Said, would enable teachers to be skeptical to social trends and mainstream political thought. They would further be empowered to raise ethical dilemmas and moral issues when the same confront any professional or technical activity in the field of education. Why Said uses the term 'amateur' is because he believes that teachers of today are working in a more complex knowledge society which is fast changing by the day. These teachers will have to move away from convention and teach in a manner in which they were never taught. Their commitment must be to continuous reflection and learning, should be skeptical of mainstream social trends and political thought, and must adapt themselves such by heightening their intellectual capabilities that they can be considered as elevated to ask moral questions about current educational practices. This type of imparting education, as Ricoeur (1992) has remarked, would be larger-sense, phoresis-based teaching, which involves acting and living ethically. Smits (in Lund et al, 2006) has presented this dictum as "acting well in terms of some sense of overall good". McDonough & Feinberg (2003) have observed that teachers must begin reflection and analysis as part of their free choice so that they can reverse neoliberal imperatives which form the centrality of knowledge economies. This, the scholars argue, will pave the way for them to be developing themselves into public intellectuals so that they can develop conceptions of education which counter utilitarian aims. Such moves will enable nations to evaluate their educational system on quality-based parameters. This, according to Pinar (1974, 1976), can be achieved by currere method, which can act as the starting point of this transformation. Currere method emphasises that teachers can intersperse life history or narrative and practice and theorise vast pool of their experiences into dialogues which can be propagated to examine possibilities and segments for change. On currere, Grumet (1976b) has remarked that it is a reflexive cycle in which thought leans back upon its own self so that it can recover its volition. In other words, for life to be understood, one has to do it backwards but with an eye on forward movement (Soren Kiekegaard, cited in Habermas, 2003, p. 4). It is like excavating the past, merging it with present and shaping the future. The past here refers to the life experiences of present or former educators and teachers. Britzman (1986) has contended that individuals like educators have an inherent potential to participate in something that can shape the future. This can be achieved by responding forces, mostly social in nature, that either have influenced or still do influence. Dewey (1938) has thoroughly discussed role of experiences in teaching and learning and has stressed the point that teachers should know that there are multiple possibilities lying hidden in experiences that otherwise go unnoticed. Educators have the potential to transform the existing public education arrangements and unravel new concepts which can replace standardisation that is devoid of any soul and creativity which is 'killed'. Educators have the potential of becoming 'transformative intellectuals' with a broad vision of exploring the possible rather than the probable (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985). In order to live up to the role of being public intellectuals, it is important for educators to realise that the role as a teacher in the first place has a profound impact in a knowledge society. This also encompasses disequilibrium from the existing setup in which these educators are comfortably placed; to be a public intellectual means to first get dislodged from the existing space. Some educators, when offered to be public intellectuals, may not be easy donning the mantle as that means accepting disequilibrium before anything else. Some scholars have argued that to bring about such a change a revolution is needed in the education system, particularly among teachers. But, other scholars argue, that key to such transformation can be held in currere, which is being seen as a tool towards recognising self-discovery among teachers. Cochran-Smith has argued that current education system needs public intellectuals so that they are able to certain myths and conventions that are governing the system at present. One myth is that teacher education can be seen through the prism of public policy, if it is problem then again it is a public policy problem and it can be resolved through critique and rationality. Another myth is that feel-good approach is sufficient for teacher education and teaching, which means schooling is and must be all about being very considerate to children. Cochran-Smith has stressed the need for addressing this issue and discussing to seek answers. However, the problem with the role of educators as public intellectuals raises its head when a look is taken at the current public school teaching. Almost everywhere, teachers have diminished as being seen as valuable public service institutions. When they served as vital public service setups, teachers were seen as those who laid the foundations of future generations by imparting crucial and skillful knowledge which honed them into perfect individuals, well-knowledgeable in their specific disciplines. A strange trend began in 1980s schools began to be seen as more as a private right than as a public good; this erosion affected educators too, because by and large, most of them stand for public good Giroux, 2010. Even though educators or teachers have never been publicly hailed as public intellectuals, they still play a stupendous role in imparting valuable learning components to their pupil. Even though not credited for it so widely, they stand as moral compasses to show directions and remove aberrations. Role of educators as public intellectuals is essentially important for the knowledge society because of many practices currently in vogue in the systems, which do not do any professional good to students. Baldwin (1963) has referred to the current phase of education, particularly public schooling, as "a very dangerous time". As the school system has gone practically berserk with several metrics systems incorporated in the teaching and learning processes, teachers are being pushed to activities which are taking them widely apart from their measures that put teaching in context of broader cultural, social and historical perspective. In other words they are being removed from the typical classroom life, typifying pedagogical and normative framing. This is unfortunate part of an educator's journey towards being or acting responsibly like a public intellectual. This is because this seizures from them the freedom to experiment or think outside of box. Giroux has added that defining educators as public intellectuals is as much relevant today as it was in 1988, when his "Teachers as Intellectuals" created ripples in the education sector. This is because the paper propounded that education should be treated as a moral practice, full of virtues, legitimate knowledge and positive perspectives on the future. Giroux has further added that the need of the hour is a language which can understand and recognize the role of educators as public intellectuals. Conclusion Given the background changes that have taken place in the education system in past and the fact that the system is going metrics-based transformation; being an educator has become an occupation riddled with complexities. Irrespective of several problem areas that hinder the role of an educator to be taken seriously as that of a public intellectual, the fact still stays that educators are capable of bringing about changes far more valuable than reckless standardisation which is resorted to from time to time. References Aronowitz, S. & Giroux, H. A. (1985). Education under siege: the conservative, liberal, and radical debate over schooling. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Britzman, D. (1986). Myths in the making of a teacher. Harvard Educational Review, 56, pp. 442‐472. Baldwin, J. (1963). "A Talk to Teachers," The Saturday Review (December 21, 1963). Retrieved http://richgibson.com/talktoteachers.htm. Accessed April 05, 2013. Cochran-Smith, M. (2006). Teacher Education and the Need for Public Intellectuals. New Educator, V 2 n 3 p 181-206. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan Grumet, M. (1976b). Psychoanalytic foundations. In W. Pinar & M. Grumet, Toward a poor curriculum (pp. 31‐50). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Giroux, H.A. (2010). Henry Giroux: In Defense of Public School Teachers in a Time of Crisis. Retrieved http://fightbacktcnj.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/henry-giroux-in-defense-of-public-school-teachers-in-a-time-of-crisis/. Accessed April 03, 2013. Habermas, J. (2003). Thefuture of human nature. London: Polity. References Hargreaves, A. (2003) ‘Teaching in the Knowledge Society: Education in the Age of Insecurity’. Buckingham: Open University Press. Lund, D., Panayotidis, L., Smits, H. & Towers, J. (2006). Fragmenting narratives: The ethics of narrating difference. Journal of Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 4 (1), pp. 1‐23. Ligghtman, A. (nd). The Role of the Public Intellectual. Retrieved http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/lightman.html. Accessed April 05, 2013. Ricoeur, P. (1992). Oneself as another (Kathleen Blamey, Translator). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press Said, E. (1994). Representations of the intellectual. New York: Pantheon Books. Spizzirri, J. (2003). Public intellectuals: Who needs them? Retrieved http://www.uiaa.org/chicago/uicalumni/ctxt0203a.htm. Accessed April 05, 2013. Said, E. (1996). Representations of the intellectual. The 1993 Reith Lectures. New York: Vintage. Read More