Fain, Perez, and Slater's Educating for Democracy, Changing the World

Fain, Stephen M.,, Slater, Judith J.Callejo-Pérez, David M.,eds. Educating For Democracy In A Changing World: Understanding Freedom In Contemporary America. New York : Peter Lang, 2007. Print.

Chapter 11, "Language of the Curriculum: Memes of Practice," Judith J. Slater

Judith J. Slater is a co-author of Higher Education and Human Capital: Re/thinking the Doctorate in America (2011), Collaboration in Education (2010), The War Against the Professions: The Impact of Politics and Economics on the Idea of University (2008), Teen Life in Asia (Teen Life Around the World) 2004), Pedagogy of Place (2003), The Freirian Legacy (2002), Acts of Alignment: Of Women in Math and Science and All of Us Who Search for Balance (2000), and  Anatomy of a Collaboration: Study of a College of Education/Public School Partnership (1996).

Educating for Democracy (2007) is a response to the events of 9/11 and argues that while the Bush administration further militarized the United States to protect the country, he carried this movement of regimenting systems to what Cintron calls a "discourse of measurement," a discourse that brought on initiatives such as No Child Left Behind. The ever-increasing threats to our nations security began a self-inflicted threat to freedom in and with Americans.  The irony is that freedom, as a requisite condition for democracy, became part of a discourse of measurement that redefined democracy. Democracy in America has become something much more narrow and controlled -- a thin democracy. And this trend has threatened the education in America -- equating learning with test scores and democracy with capitalism. The authors caution Americans and ask that we be more aware of the practices of the state alerting readers to instances of abridgement of our freedoms and pointing to what is influencing such practices.  As I am considering critical pedagogy and the practices of teachers in middle and high school, I am looking at how Slater, in particular, considers the rhetoric of curriculum. What is the logic at work here?

Slater begins her chapter talking about the use of language. Of course, in the field of education, mass beliefs and behaviors about education and schooling are communicated through language, and such beliefs are duplicated as that language makes its way through district offices, then faculty meetings, and then the classrooms. We, the education community, make certain assumptions about this language, this semantic environment, and for the most part, the assumptions are that this is what we "should" be doing, especially if it is "research-based." The language, however, is based on an ideology about what education and schooling is supposed to be and do. What is this ideology? "What allows this transformation of idea to language to occur? More importantly, what ideational representations do we place out there in print and between people and institutions that lead to action or inaction, to political, social and economic predispositions that permeate the common agreements that we have about who we understand and misunderstand each other and the institutions that we create to enforce and perpetuate them" (144).  Slater considers the mechanism of  memetics here.

Citing Richard Dawkins (1989) who coined the term memes to represent those elements of culture that are passed on by imitation, Slater  explains that by naming things and ideas, we given them a "boost in their quest for imitation and replication, building more and more memes around theme that are maintained and grow in size and complexity...for example, standardized testing takes on a new meaning within and without the original context that it was designed to represent" (145). Because memes are what Slater calls "second replicators unique to human beings," they vary as they are passed on, never passing exact copies, from person to person. We think, act, and learn through imitation and instruction as we evolve personal ideas that are in the interest of the replicating memes, according to Blakemore (1999). For example, the movement from A Nation at Risk to the legislation of  No Child Left Behind demonstrate how ideas were copied from site to site across the country and how classrooms began to look more and more alike as they taught to the test. Teachers stopped talking about what the text is doing and began talking about how to select the best answer because of the spread of memes. But what is it about the language or our minds that explains why some minds imitate and others resist replication? Does the memes need to be more easily imitated in order for it to spread? When I did some research last semester comparing the discourse of two mandates, it was clear that the "standards mandate" was followed and replicated over the "genocide mandate" primarily because the language was more "thin" or easily to replicate.

Slater asks, "How can less spreadable memes be sustained and compete concerning decisions about curriculum and instruction? What conditions would create environments for alternative memes to penetrate the discussion about education?"

If we first think about the functionalist use of language as a form of social control,we can think of language for transmission of information to establish relationship among people. The language itself may not be what controls, however, but rather the interpretation of the language. Slater says that the most powerful meme is democracy, but what meme of democracy is being imitated? Whose version of democracy should be imitated and how is this communicated? Slater writes, "The communicative function uses of mass media, the press, movies, television, and the Internet to help raise aspirations of people as they strive to be like others and this is facilitated by imitating memes. The world keeps going on the collected wisdom, information that helps control the environment from one generation to the next, creating cultural and intellectual cooperation that we take for granted in our meme-driven world" (150). It seems to me that this meme-driven world is, in fact, merely symbolic in nature. It is an imitation and not the real; the rhetoric of democracy, a democracy of competition and measurement, is the verbal world of schools. Slater and Hayakawa call this a false map. The imitator, perhaps a teacher, believes the prejudices of maps that are presented are the actual territory, maps with misinformation and error, rhetorical maps. Because so many teachers believe the map, the meme, is scientifically based and because we believe the source has authority because he or she is in a position of power, then we believe the maps (or language).

Of course, this logic of meme does not put much faith in the minds of teachers to resist meme or to produce new a new meme that might cultivate a profession of critical thinkers. Language is symbolic, and while its interpretation has the power to shape action and inaction,any new meme will not necessarily be any more true than the last. Slater argues against "oververbalizations, smoke screens for action and ideas, guided by words alone rather than facts that should guide us," but the "should guide us" language here assumes the curriculum workers can "create and imitate memes that lead to more appropriate ends" (151). She asks "rather than letting the memes of imitation of programs and ideas control the endless duplication, let those on the front lines, who know the student population best, work toward the goals of equity instead of having the solutions come to them ready made and impenetrable"(152). She is referring to the timelines, penalties,  funding and the legislation to measure equity and accountability. 

I am not convinced that those on the "front line" can shake the years of mimesis that pervade their pedagogy, but I do think that Slater ends her chapter with an important point about democracy and what a rhetoric of thick democracy can do to counter the logic of meme. Democracy is not about imitation; it is the antithesis. Democracy is complex, messy, and alive. Slater says that an orientation to this type of democracy requires another form of thought and language that is open to debate and dialogue so that they truly reflect the underlying values of a society.  "We have to be careful what memes we aid and abet and which ones we as yet have the opportunity to create" (153). Indeed, we do, but the question really needs to be "What is the answer to the logic of meme?"