Is homework a form of capitalist opression

[Goodoldrebel]

I have been thinking more and more about my homework load. Since I have become an anti-capitalist, I have noted how it plays a critical role in tuning the youth to be mindless drones of the capitalistic establishment. It is just busy work and as such wants to make us like Pavlov's dogs. At least this is my idea. What does everybody else think about homework's role in tuning kids toward accepting opression?

[Unicorn]

No, homework is not a form of oppression. The problem is that capitalist schools teach too little and demand too little from children to keep the proletariat ignorant.

The Finnish communist band Agit-Prop even made a song about this poem by Bertolt Brecht.

Praise of Learning

by Bertolt Brecht



Learn the elementary things!
For those whose time has come
it is never too late!
Learn the ABC. It won't be enough
but learn it! Don't be dismayed by it!
Begin! You must know everything.
You must take over the leadership.
Learn, man in the asylum!
Learn, man in the prison!
Learn, woman in the kitchen!
Learn, sixty year olds!
You must take over the leadership.
Seek out the school, you who are homeless.
Acquire knowledge, you who shiver!
You who are hungry, reach for the book:
it is a weapon.
the leadership.
Don't be frightened to ask, comrade!
Don't be talked into anything.
Check for yourself
you don't know.
Scrutinize the bill,
it is you who must pay it.
Put your finger on each item,
ask: How did this get here?
You must take over the leadership.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_qDHs_-Hyw

[Red_or_Dead]

I have been thinking more and more about my homework load. Since I have become an anti-capitalist, I have noted how it plays a critical role in tuning the youth to be mindless drones of the capitalistic establishment. It is just busy work and as such wants to make us like Pavlov's dogs. At least this is my idea. What does everybody else think about homework's role in tuning kids toward accepting opression?


Homework is something that the teacher uses to make you learn something, which is, more times than not, useful, or even neccesary. It doesnt have anything to do with the system. You do know that even schools in socialist states had homeworks?

[Schrödinger's Cat]

No.


I have noted how it plays a critical role in tuning the youth to be mindless drones of the capitalistic establishment. Tedious acceptance of the status quo as true is what keeps the constant flow of workers going, not homework. Young revolutionaries should be edumucated, after all.


What does everybody else think about homework's role in tuning kids toward accepting opression? Children need to learn; the process of dumping information (usually from a single source) into a child and then shutting him up is another matter.

[cenv]

It's too extreme to call homework a form of "oppression." But in general, I do think the structure of the bourgeois education system forces people to internalize an ideology based on individualism, competition, and the sanctity of hierarchical relationships.

(Which doesn't mean teachers aren't proletarian.)

[Post-Something]

The problem with schools is that it replicates the world of work almost immaculately.

You have the teacher-pupil relationship (bourgeoisie-proletariat), to teach kids they're place. You also have a minimum of actual real learning being done. There isn't really any focus on the subjects they teach, and even if the teachers are enthusiastic, the main aim is always to ensure the bourgeoisie have a ready supply of laborers for the economy. If you haven't noticed, for example, in Britain over here, they have these sort of league tables, which is basically to make schools competitive. Now, a school doesn't want a bad reputation, so it will work to minimize the level of bad results it gets by kicking out the pupils who might not do as well. This happens all over here; and it just proves how little emphasis is really being placed on education. It is essentially just secondary socialization in preparation for exploitation. The economy is the infrastructure, remember, so it leeks into all areas of life as a result, and education is no exception.

Now, the problem with homework isn't really the fact that it's homework or whatever, it's that they are boring repetitive tasks. Just like the ones in future work prospects. I'd suggest reading up on Althusser and maybe even look at Bowles and Gintis' work on education.

[F9]

no its not.
But i think it would be better youths dont have homework,they should finished it at school,so they have help if they want .So they will have the time if they want to study more at home the subject they personally want.

Fuserg9:star:

[Wanted Man]

No, there is no way to concretely show that it's capitalist oppression, although I'm sure that kids can do more 'liberating' things than learning lines of German in order to enjoy continued education.

That said, a better way of education will have to be figured out. In the Netherlands in the late 90s, it was decided to abandon classical top-down "teacher-to-class" teaching, and replace it by "the new learning". This theory claims that kids need to "learn how to learn" by setting "learning targets" for doing group-wise tasks, with teachers functioning as coaches. When finished, they then reflect on their work through extensive reflection models.

This model is not based on scientific research, but on idealist, almost mystical wild guesses. It does not assume criticism, but you simply have to point out "what didn't go so well" and "how I would do it better the next time". In my study, I currently have to fill out such a form. It explains: "Positive formulation of reflection generates energy." An idealist crock of shit if I've ever read one. By filling out this nonsense, I can get 4 (four!) out of the 60 ECTS credits (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Credit_Transfer_and_Accumulation_System) that I need to pass this year of college.

Nevertheless, it has largely and enthusiastically been applied to tertiary education, and to some parts of secondary education in the Netherlands, without much research on its practical consequences, nor sufficient resources to prepare for that. Now, a study by a governmental commission has found that it has failed miserably. Yet, the ones responsible for it continue to sit in boards, and it continues to be spread. Its most extreme proponents want to extend it universally, to every facet of the education system.

[shorelinetrance]

school is just another way to introduce the youth to bourgeoisie morals/ideas/values, and get them "ready" to be exploited.

but is homework oppression?

not really.

school for the ruling class is an incredibly valuable tool, i can understand how homework could be viewed as oppression.

[Demogorgon]

All I can say is: Get some bloody perspective

[mykittyhasaboner]

it might not be oppression (as everyone is saying), but most of the time, homework is just shit to keep you busy and uninformed, and certainly acts in the same way opression does. you dont need homework, but if you dont do it, then your grades go down. to a student it certainly would seem like direct oppression from the state, but its the teachers decision of what homework is, so it cant be considered "oppression"

[Faux Real]

In its current form it's breaking your mindset into a mode of uncritical and passive work ethic. If you don't accept it and refuse to do it, or simply forget you're "punished" accordingly with that lower "grade" (that supposedly can speak for the students "mastery" over the subject matter).

I would recommend reading this (http://www.montalk.net/conspiracy/39/the-horrors-of-public-education) (Its not a strict leftist/materialist perspective, it's Amerocentric I think, (I dislike how he singles out the public school system) but he does critique the American school system nicely; just ignore the parts about the "paranormal", becoming "successful", "escapism", "academic socialism" and entrepreneurship) article to gain some insight about how meaningless school has become to the development of human beings both at work and outside.

[shorelinetrance]

it might not be oppression (as everyone is saying), but most of the time, homework is just shit to keep you busy and uninformed, and certainly acts in the same way opression does. you dont need homework, but if you dont do it, then your grades go down. to a student it certainly would seem like direct oppression from the state, but its the teachers decision of what homework is, so it cant be considered "oppression"

exactly, homework keeps you uninformed and passive, its really like this, they are putting you under the guise of education, but really you are just regurgitating textbook information back to the teacher, what a farce but if you don't do it, you will "work at mcdonalds" for the rest of your life.

so really, its still win win for the ruling class.

[cappin]

I have been thinking more and more about my homework load. Since I have become an anti-capitalist, I have noted how it plays a critical role in tuning the youth to be mindless drones of the capitalistic establishment. It is just busy work and as such wants to make us like Pavlov's dogs. At least this is my idea. What does everybody else think about homework's role in tuning kids toward accepting opression?
Lol ya and your chores too?

It's good for you, in fact, you need MORE homework to keep you away from the tv set.

[cappin]

But don't get me wrong. I'm completely against how dumbed down the educational system is and how we're all taught how to be good little citizens that accept our fate....but then that's what government run public education is so don't complain about the inevitable.

[mykittyhasaboner]

, but really you are just regurgitating textbook information back to the teacher
right, most textbooks are complete bullshit anyways. i for one do not believe a single word in my current world history text book. its a shame that people take those text books as fact.

[Feedyourhead]

I think that homework doesn't help you learn that much at all. You are doing the same work that you could be doing in class, it is just more inconvenient because it gets in the way of your social life. As if spending 8 hours a day at school being force fed knowledge isn't enough.

I also don't think that it should be a law that you must go to school. Instead of forcing children into a system of learning, why not let them do it on their own? Of course, this only applies when they can make their own choices, which varies from person to person.
If someone wants to not learn anything and not go to school or teach him/herself, then they will soon be faced in situations where they must learn to complete certain tasks.

[Psy]

I think that homework doesn't help you learn that much at all. You are doing the same work that you could be doing in class, it is just more inconvenient because it gets in the way of your social life. As if spending 8 hours a day at school being force fed knowledge isn't enough.

I also don't think that it should be a law that you must go to school. Instead of forcing children into a system of learning, why not let them do it on their own? Of course, this only applies when they can make their own choices, which varies from person to person.
If someone wants to not learn anything and not go to school or teach him/herself, then they will soon be faced in situations where they must learn to complete certain tasks.

The current system seems to want to enforce this idea that you need a class system even to learn (yes there is a class system within the educational system), that you need someone of a higher class to tell you what to do and grade your performance. Schools totally ignore those that mastered their skills outside the school system, and hate the very idea that people could learn outside the school's class system.

[EscapeFromSF]

DeBaron,

;). I saw some of that nonsense here in the United States as well. You're absolutely right; it is a crock.

At a conference they held for teachers at my college during summer break, some of its advocates held a session this way. It was the most amazing thing because the teachers simply introduced themselves and left us to figure out the rest. As a fellow graduate student put it, we never hear the "expert" view; there is a real sense of "the blind leading the blind."

But I don't think that's really the issue that inspires this thread. The complaint, after all, is about homework.

Leftism, even anarchism, cannot be taken as an excuse for a refusal to contribute to society. I certainly agree that too much of our educational system is devoted to producing cogs for the corporate wheel, vicariously pacified with consumerism. Learning is not the problem here. Treating students as receptacles in what Paulo Freire called a bank deposit system of education, however, is.

Freire advocated dialog, which validates the knowledge that people bring to the learning situation, as a means of sharing. Importantly, it ensures that participants' concerns about the material with which they are presented are considered.

It isn't always easy to encourage dialog. A concern my department chair had when I first started teaching was that he had heard that freshman students weren't participating in the classroom. I completely accept that this is a result of their K-12 experiences, and I'm not nearly so polite as Freire was in describing it.

So I've started assigning more homework, not less. They actually have to (well, yes, I am teaching in an authoritarian setting) write papers for my public speaking class. They aren't major papers, but increasingly, they are papers they haven't previously learned to write. It is more work for me, but it enables me to initiate a dialog with each student.

[Cossack]

As a kid obviously I don't like homework as were forced to do it, is forcing kids to go to school by law the equivalent of forcing a person to do their job by law?

[shorelinetrance]

I think that homework doesn't help you learn that much at all.

homework helps the retention of information for tests, but here within lies the problem, modern students only think education is useful for testing, and getting good grades to move up farther up the capitalist pyramid, but i believe that in socialism/communism/anarchism any leftist ideology, education is for the pragmatic use, you are taught what you need to know to be productive worker, and all other types of education are up to the individual.

am i off the mark?, anyone have any links to information regarding to what education would be like in a leftist world? (all ideologies are interesting to me)