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Movement & Meaning in Global Education: Old Wine in New Bottles?
Posted on 2006/04/20
The multidimensionality of the concept movement, and its role, influence and consequence relative to education, economics, politics, and community has been central to recorded general professional and community discourse for more than a hundred years. Two initial quotes, from two educators, will serve to illustrate the enduring connectedness regarding this general preoccupation:
1. "Some four specific developments may be mentioned as having a bearing upon the question of the school as a social center. The first of these is the much-increased efficiency and ease of all the agencies that have to do with bringing people into contact with one another. Recent inventions have so multiplied and cheapened the means of transportation, and of the circulation of ideas and news…that it is no longer physically possible for one nationality, race, class, or sect to be kept apart from others, impervious to their wishes and beliefs. Cheap and rapid long-distance transportation has made America a meeting-place for all the peoples and tongues of the world. The centralization of industry has forced members of classes into the closest association with, and dependence upon, each other. Bigotry, intolerance, or even an unswerving faith in the superiority of one’s own religious and political creed, are much shaken when individuals are brought face-to-face with each other, or have the ideas of others continuously and forcibly placed before them…It is said that one ward in the city of Chicago has forty different languages represented in it. It is a well-known fact that some of the largest Irish, German, and Bohemian cities in the world are located in America, not in their own countries…No educational system can be regarded as complete until it adopts into itself the various ways in which social and intellectual intercourse may be promoted, and employs them systematically…to make them positive causes in raising the whole level of life."
2. "I contend there are four factors at the heart of the current wave of globalization, the first of which is growing worldwide immigration. Sweden, a country of nine million people has about one million immigrants; the United States now has more immigrants (about 33 million people) than the entire Canadian population; and China alone has well over 100 million rural-to-urban migrants. The second dominant feature is the power and ubiquity of new global technologies…The third…is the post-nationalization of production and distribution of goods and services. Economies are growing more integrated, making it extremely difficult to talk about the “Swedish economy,” the “Indian economy,” or even the “Cuban economy.” The fourth…is the area of back-and-forth cultural flows…[E]ducation…can generate such powerful virtuous cycles and is the best antidote for growing inequalities and growing hatred among our youth."
The first quote is from an address entitled “The School as Social Center,” delivered by John Dewey (1859-1952) in July of 1902 to the National Council of Education; the second, from an interview with Professor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, then at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, published in their HGSE News, on April 1, 2004. The common, interrelated elements of immigration, contact, economies, communication, together with the general societal conundrum—due, in part, to the dissonance associated with their intermingling—of how to effectively and formally respond through education to the phenomena such that a nation’s particular identity constructs of culture, political system and community remain inviolate, have, in fact, persisted for more than a century.
The parallels are actually made stronger rather than weaker as one delves more deeply into the writings of Dewey around this same period. In the same address quoted above, he spoke of the phenomenon of native cultural and language loss, contempt and shame by immigrant youth, while not acquiring completely the host culture or language, and thus were “left floating and unstable between the two.” Dewey anticipated by almost half a century Octavio Paz’s (1914-1998)analysis in The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) of this phenomenon of marginality among Mexicans, and, in particular, Mexican-origin youth in the United States. Additionally, both writers addressed the roles of capitalism and socialism in seeking the common good and community, and the parallel, actively growing role of the increasingly vocal marginal groups in our 20th-21st century global society:
"[A]lthough The Labyrinth of Solitude is a passionate denunciation of modern society in its two versions, capitalist and totalitarian, it does not end by preaching a return to the past. On the contrary, it underlines that we ought to think it out ourselves and face a future common to everybody. Universality, modernity, and democracy are today inseparable terms. Each one depends on and demands the presence of the others. This has been the theme of all that I have written on Mexico since the publication of The Labyrinth of Solitude. It has been an acrimonious struggle and has gone on for too long, a struggle that has tested my patience because of the many blows below the belt, malicious insinuations, and campaigns of slander. Defending modern democracy, I must admit, has not been and is not easy. Never once have I forgotten the injustices and disasters of liberal, capitalist societies. The shadow of communism and its jails could have hidden contemporary reality; its collapse has allowed us to see capitalist societies in all their desolation: the desert expands and covers the whole earth. Among the ruins of totalitarian ideology now sprouts ancient and ferocious fanaticism. Present time inspires in me the same horror that I experienced in my adolescence when facing the modern world. The Waste Land, that poem that so impressed me when I discovered it in 1931, continues to be deeply topical. A moral gangrene corrodes modern democracies. Are we living the end of modernity? What awaits us? . . . I halt here: reaching this point, my reflection on Mexico closes. . . I limit myself to repeating: yes, the children of Quetzalcoatl and Coatlicue, of Cortés and la Malinche, enter now on their feet into the history of all people, and not pushed by a stranger. The lesson of the Mexican Revolution can be distilled into this sentence: We sought ourselves and found the others."
Octavio Paz (2000; posthumous publication)
Dewey, in 1898, wrote clearly and passionately about the roles of socialism and, between 1919-1921, social conflict in democracy and their relationship to education and community:
"Men will long dispute about material socialism, about socialism considered as a matter of distribution of the material resources of a community…but there is a socialism regarding which there can be no such dispute—socialism of the intelligence and of the spirit. To extend the range and the fullness of sharing in the intellectual and spiritual resources of the community is the very meaning of community."
"[Social conflict is fundamentally] conflict between classes, occupational groups, or groups constructed along ideational, or perhaps even ethnic lines…Social conflict occurs not because interests of the individual are incompatible with those of his society, but because the interests of some groups are gained at a disadvantage of, or even by the oppression, of the interests of other groups…We must devise means for bringing the interests of all the groups of a society into adjustment, providing all of them with the opportunity to develop, so that each can help the other instead of being in conflict with them. We must teach ourselves one inescapable fact: any real advantage to one group is shared by all groups; and when one group suffers disadvantage, all are hurt."
My purpose has been to present the value of placing our present themes and related topics in historical perspective, to underscore that these same themes and topics have been eloquently, creatively and profoundly addressed by major educators and other professionals consistently since the end of the 19th century, and that they have been recorded and preserved, and are accessible to that segment of the global general public—including students and teachers—that has access to texts through libraries, whether physical or virtual, bookstores, and related venues (e.g., private collections). I also do so to raise the question as to the degree that these historical texts are being integrated into our “the world is flat” discourse, both professional and popular. I do so, finally, to remind us of the perennially current adage that keeps a society from progressing, although it may be moving, and which is attributed to George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
I look forward to receiving your comments and building our conversation.
Dewey, John (1902). “The School as Social Center,” in Boydston, Jo Ann (1976), John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, volume 2: 1902-1903. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 80-93. Note that the other three factors were “a relaxation of the bonds of social discipline and control[;] the intellectual life, facts, and truths of knowledge, are much more obviously and intimately connected with all other affairs of life than they ever have been at any previous period in the history of the world[; and] the prolongation…of continuous instruction…[the] reason is obvious enough. Conditions about [the worker] are highly unstable; new problems present themselves; new facts obtrude.” [pp 86-89]
Choy, Carol P. (2004). “Education and Globalization, An Interview with Thomas Professor of Education Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, in HGSE news, retrieved on April 19, 2006 at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features/mso04012004.html
Octavio Paz, (2000). “How and Why I Wrote the Labyrinth of Solitude: An Elucidation,” [Translated by Jason Wilson], in Hopscotch: A Cultural Review 2.1 (2000) 60-71. Note: Octavio Paz was born in 1914 and died in 1998. Retrieved on April 19, 2006 at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hopscotch/v002/2.1paz.html
John Dewey (1898) quoted in Westbrook, R. B. (1996), Public Schooling and American Democracy, in R. Soder, (Ed.), Democracy, Education, and the Schools (pp. 125-150). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
John Dewey (1919-1921) quoted in Westbrook, R. B. (1991), John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 245-246.
George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905. Retrieved on April 19, 2006 at http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/George_Santayana
1. "Some four specific developments may be mentioned as having a bearing upon the question of the school as a social center. The first of these is the much-increased efficiency and ease of all the agencies that have to do with bringing people into contact with one another. Recent inventions have so multiplied and cheapened the means of transportation, and of the circulation of ideas and news…that it is no longer physically possible for one nationality, race, class, or sect to be kept apart from others, impervious to their wishes and beliefs. Cheap and rapid long-distance transportation has made America a meeting-place for all the peoples and tongues of the world. The centralization of industry has forced members of classes into the closest association with, and dependence upon, each other. Bigotry, intolerance, or even an unswerving faith in the superiority of one’s own religious and political creed, are much shaken when individuals are brought face-to-face with each other, or have the ideas of others continuously and forcibly placed before them…It is said that one ward in the city of Chicago has forty different languages represented in it. It is a well-known fact that some of the largest Irish, German, and Bohemian cities in the world are located in America, not in their own countries…No educational system can be regarded as complete until it adopts into itself the various ways in which social and intellectual intercourse may be promoted, and employs them systematically…to make them positive causes in raising the whole level of life."
2. "I contend there are four factors at the heart of the current wave of globalization, the first of which is growing worldwide immigration. Sweden, a country of nine million people has about one million immigrants; the United States now has more immigrants (about 33 million people) than the entire Canadian population; and China alone has well over 100 million rural-to-urban migrants. The second dominant feature is the power and ubiquity of new global technologies…The third…is the post-nationalization of production and distribution of goods and services. Economies are growing more integrated, making it extremely difficult to talk about the “Swedish economy,” the “Indian economy,” or even the “Cuban economy.” The fourth…is the area of back-and-forth cultural flows…[E]ducation…can generate such powerful virtuous cycles and is the best antidote for growing inequalities and growing hatred among our youth."
The first quote is from an address entitled “The School as Social Center,” delivered by John Dewey (1859-1952) in July of 1902 to the National Council of Education; the second, from an interview with Professor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, then at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, published in their HGSE News, on April 1, 2004. The common, interrelated elements of immigration, contact, economies, communication, together with the general societal conundrum—due, in part, to the dissonance associated with their intermingling—of how to effectively and formally respond through education to the phenomena such that a nation’s particular identity constructs of culture, political system and community remain inviolate, have, in fact, persisted for more than a century.
The parallels are actually made stronger rather than weaker as one delves more deeply into the writings of Dewey around this same period. In the same address quoted above, he spoke of the phenomenon of native cultural and language loss, contempt and shame by immigrant youth, while not acquiring completely the host culture or language, and thus were “left floating and unstable between the two.” Dewey anticipated by almost half a century Octavio Paz’s (1914-1998)analysis in The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) of this phenomenon of marginality among Mexicans, and, in particular, Mexican-origin youth in the United States. Additionally, both writers addressed the roles of capitalism and socialism in seeking the common good and community, and the parallel, actively growing role of the increasingly vocal marginal groups in our 20th-21st century global society:
"[A]lthough The Labyrinth of Solitude is a passionate denunciation of modern society in its two versions, capitalist and totalitarian, it does not end by preaching a return to the past. On the contrary, it underlines that we ought to think it out ourselves and face a future common to everybody. Universality, modernity, and democracy are today inseparable terms. Each one depends on and demands the presence of the others. This has been the theme of all that I have written on Mexico since the publication of The Labyrinth of Solitude. It has been an acrimonious struggle and has gone on for too long, a struggle that has tested my patience because of the many blows below the belt, malicious insinuations, and campaigns of slander. Defending modern democracy, I must admit, has not been and is not easy. Never once have I forgotten the injustices and disasters of liberal, capitalist societies. The shadow of communism and its jails could have hidden contemporary reality; its collapse has allowed us to see capitalist societies in all their desolation: the desert expands and covers the whole earth. Among the ruins of totalitarian ideology now sprouts ancient and ferocious fanaticism. Present time inspires in me the same horror that I experienced in my adolescence when facing the modern world. The Waste Land, that poem that so impressed me when I discovered it in 1931, continues to be deeply topical. A moral gangrene corrodes modern democracies. Are we living the end of modernity? What awaits us? . . . I halt here: reaching this point, my reflection on Mexico closes. . . I limit myself to repeating: yes, the children of Quetzalcoatl and Coatlicue, of Cortés and la Malinche, enter now on their feet into the history of all people, and not pushed by a stranger. The lesson of the Mexican Revolution can be distilled into this sentence: We sought ourselves and found the others."
Octavio Paz (2000; posthumous publication)
Dewey, in 1898, wrote clearly and passionately about the roles of socialism and, between 1919-1921, social conflict in democracy and their relationship to education and community:
"Men will long dispute about material socialism, about socialism considered as a matter of distribution of the material resources of a community…but there is a socialism regarding which there can be no such dispute—socialism of the intelligence and of the spirit. To extend the range and the fullness of sharing in the intellectual and spiritual resources of the community is the very meaning of community."
"[Social conflict is fundamentally] conflict between classes, occupational groups, or groups constructed along ideational, or perhaps even ethnic lines…Social conflict occurs not because interests of the individual are incompatible with those of his society, but because the interests of some groups are gained at a disadvantage of, or even by the oppression, of the interests of other groups…We must devise means for bringing the interests of all the groups of a society into adjustment, providing all of them with the opportunity to develop, so that each can help the other instead of being in conflict with them. We must teach ourselves one inescapable fact: any real advantage to one group is shared by all groups; and when one group suffers disadvantage, all are hurt."
My purpose has been to present the value of placing our present themes and related topics in historical perspective, to underscore that these same themes and topics have been eloquently, creatively and profoundly addressed by major educators and other professionals consistently since the end of the 19th century, and that they have been recorded and preserved, and are accessible to that segment of the global general public—including students and teachers—that has access to texts through libraries, whether physical or virtual, bookstores, and related venues (e.g., private collections). I also do so to raise the question as to the degree that these historical texts are being integrated into our “the world is flat” discourse, both professional and popular. I do so, finally, to remind us of the perennially current adage that keeps a society from progressing, although it may be moving, and which is attributed to George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
I look forward to receiving your comments and building our conversation.
Dewey, John (1902). “The School as Social Center,” in Boydston, Jo Ann (1976), John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, volume 2: 1902-1903. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 80-93. Note that the other three factors were “a relaxation of the bonds of social discipline and control[;] the intellectual life, facts, and truths of knowledge, are much more obviously and intimately connected with all other affairs of life than they ever have been at any previous period in the history of the world[; and] the prolongation…of continuous instruction…[the] reason is obvious enough. Conditions about [the worker] are highly unstable; new problems present themselves; new facts obtrude.” [pp 86-89]
Choy, Carol P. (2004). “Education and Globalization, An Interview with Thomas Professor of Education Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, in HGSE news, retrieved on April 19, 2006 at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features/mso04012004.html
Octavio Paz, (2000). “How and Why I Wrote the Labyrinth of Solitude: An Elucidation,” [Translated by Jason Wilson], in Hopscotch: A Cultural Review 2.1 (2000) 60-71. Note: Octavio Paz was born in 1914 and died in 1998. Retrieved on April 19, 2006 at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hopscotch/v002/2.1paz.html
John Dewey (1898) quoted in Westbrook, R. B. (1996), Public Schooling and American Democracy, in R. Soder, (Ed.), Democracy, Education, and the Schools (pp. 125-150). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
John Dewey (1919-1921) quoted in Westbrook, R. B. (1991), John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 245-246.
George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905. Retrieved on April 19, 2006 at http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/George_Santayana
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