one pencil per child

A student brings in an article for his functional text.  It's a story about the One Pencil Per Child initiative.

"Sorry kiddo, but this isn't a functional text," I explain to him.  

"Sure it is.  It's telling the reader how to colonize Africa with pencils."  

"It's informational text with some narrative mixed in," I explain.  

"But it's an implied functional text.  At the end there is even a description of what you can do to help."  

I inform him that he will need to bring in a new article tomorrow, but we will discuss his article together as a class during our civics time.  For what it's worth, I'm not so sure that civics needs to be a class.  Shouldn't everything we do be a civics lesson?  Shouldn't our aim to be to encourage critical thinking, democratic citizenship?  Doesn't exactly fit our factory school, though.  

*      *      *

"Is this good for the children in Africa?" I ask.  

One girl steps in, "Would you ask that same question about Europe? It seems to me that Africa is a whole continent with different languages and cultures.  Yet we treat it like it's this one entity.  The people of Africa have no chance to determine their own national and cultural identity."  It's a hard topic for her, because her family is from Africa and she is mixed race and our town is generally segregated.  

Another boy adds, "We've been learning about imperialism.  It seems like passing out paper and pencils to kids is simply another form of imperialism."  

"I disagree," a girl responds.  "Imperialism has motives of conquering and using resources.  It doesn't respect the rights of the people."  

"And you think this does?  Did anyone from the OPPC study the needs of the people?  Did anyone study the culture?  No, they just toss out green pencils and claim that it will lead to freedom.  Africa needs economic development.  Africa needs the right to nationhood without interference from imperial powers. Pencils are nice, but I don't think they are very helpful in keeping France and Britain out of your backyard."  

"So, do we do nothing?  It seems like doing nothing just makes it worse.  Kids need paper and pencil.  They need an education.  We can talk about imperialism, but let's be honest, every kid needs a chance to write."  

"Maybe," a kid adds.  "And maybe the pencils will be a good thing.  But I still think it's imperialism.  It's using kids' minds for their own good.  Why are they doing this?  To feel good about themselves probably.  And to get a little recognition when people see just how shiny and durable the green pencils are. So, they might have good intentions, but it's still imperialism if they are using the minds of Africa to boost their sense of purpose."  

*     *     *

When I tell Mr. Brown about this story, he explains to me, "I am the product of colonialism.  I hate that word product, but that's how it feels.  I don't even know my Indian last name.  My language, my clothes, my religion - all British.  I think they're asking the right questions."  

"It makes me wonder about our grant proposal.  If we have a guy like Carnegie paying for our education, isn't he now the one with the loudest voice?  And even if he is looking out for kids and really wants us to have pencils, isn't he failing to look at the injustices of his own factory? Sometimes I wonder if we should raise the money from the community instead.  Let the resources come from the locals."  

"Or not," Mr. Brown reminds me. "Look, there is injustice in all the resources we use.  You can get all worked up about the iPaper and the waste of money when we could get open source paper.  However, you miss the fact that little kids in the factory are making the paper that our kids are using.  Or we talk about imperialism and that's fine, but how often do you push your own agenda on your kids?  Everyone is guilty either by complicity or apathy or outright participation.  The amazing part is that out of injustice something beautiful grows."  

a Trojan Horse?

It's no secret that William McKinley wants to "civilize and Christianize" the Phillipinnes.  I have a hunch that it has to do with stategic military positions and imperialism, but then again I'm a bit of a cynic.  In my own class, I have a decent number of immigrants who supposedly pose a threat to our nation if they do not experience quick assimilation.  While we have no official language in our country, it is absolutely essential to people that my students learn English and abandon their own language.

So what does all of that have in common?  Social engineering.

Man vs. the machine is now man is the machine turning man into the machine.  It has a real zombie quality to it. For all the talk of life-long learning, my school is designed to be a factory-meets-prison.  Some say it is a necessary evil.  If one considers evil to be necessary, then there is probably a flaw in one's world view.  Still, we have large numbers and we "have to" move them through the curriculum effeciently and so with the desire for effeciency and measurable results, the school shifts into an unspoken factory metaphor.

I mention all of this, because I am up for a grant.  My class might be receiving phonographs, a telegraph (to be used school-wide) and cameras for photographs.  Very twentieth century.  Life on the graph.  On the grid.  In the box.  On the assembly line.

It's sponsored by the robber baron Andrew Carnegie, who wants to impose his idea of education on our school.  Last time I checked, schools were social institutions belonging to the public.  The goal is to help raise critical thinkers for a thriving democracy. Carnegie's goal is increasing market share.  Don't confuse free markets with free thinkers.

My uncle died in one of Carnegie's factories.  No amount of free libraries will bring him back.

If Carnegie essentially buys my classroom, does that mean I have sold my students' minds to the highest bidder?  Is that simply a more refined form of child prostitution? Moreover, is this the beginning of education moving toward privatization?  Will corporations create a monopoly on our schools the way they have monopolized steel and petroleum?  Will we some day have large corporations creating the materials, the curriculum, the assessments and eventually the standards of what we teach? They could easily manufacture an edu-crisis and then create the snake-oil solutions every time.

So, I wrestle with this gift.  Is it simply a Trojan Horse?  Is it Pandora's box?  Is it Prometheus stealing fire from the gods only to let us lose our insides?  Is it the same "gift" of our military presence in the Phillipines?  Just another area to colonize and gain market share?

I could leave it there and it would be a great political rant.  Except it has me thinking of my own classroom.  Technology (even pencils) are never neutral.  They have layers of social and cultural meaning.  Each tool becomes not simply a means of creating, but a means of socialization and potentially indoctrinating.  If I have students follow a format, a program of binders, for example, I have imposed my own layer of social engineering and if I'm not careful, I can end up like McKinley and Carnegie.