After reading the book Hope in Troubled Times by Bob Goudwaard, Mark Vander Vennen, and David Van Heemst my view of ideology has been redeveloped. I am now able to see the world in a different light realizing that there are many ideologies. It’s my responsibility to not become a slave to these ideologies as well as reminding others to do the same while pointing them to the only hope in this world and that’s Jesus.
The problem with
ideologies is that they are everywhere in our world, even in the education
system. One element of education that I believe bears some tendencies towards
an ideology are the standardized state/national tests that students take each
year. Learning is no longer learning for
the sake of learning but learning to pass the tests. Although the education
system is flawed there are possibilities for solutions along the way.
First,
it is important to understand the concept of ideology presented in Hope in Troubled Times. The originator
of the term “ideology” is Destutt de Tracy he defines ideology as the focus on
ideas in their purest form for the purpose of achieving a social end (pg. 33).
The goal is to almost wipe clean the ideas that others may have in order to
regulate and manipulate them for the purpose of achieving a societal end. There are three elements that make up an
ideology. The first element is a societal goal and in this case it would be that
all students are learning. A societal goal starts off as something that is
good.
The second
element is a redefinition of currently held values, norms, and ideas to an
extent that they legitimize in advance the practical pursuit of the predetermined
end (pg. 33). This would be the idea that there needs to be a way to determine
that all students are performing at grade level. The practical pursuit used to see students’ progresses
are standardized tests that are given at the end of a school year. Testing students
is generally looked at negatively among students and educators but it’s used because
it’s the most convenient measure to evaluate student’s achievement but not the
most effective.
This leads into
the last element which is selecting the means by which a goal can be
effectively achieved (pg. 33). The means used to determine that the goal was
effectively achieved as stated previously is evaluated by the standardized
tests. All students are expected to score at a proficient level which is
supposedly an accurate gage that evaluates their knowledge. This absolute goal
has corrupted the education system. The original goal was that all students are
learning; the goal has now transformed into are all students able to score
proficiency on the standardized test. Teachers are no longer teaching for the
students to learn for fun but to learn enough to score proficient on the standardized
tests.
Therefore the
education system is following an ideology because learning is no longer the
absolute goal but the results of the tests scores to determine if a student is
learning.
The book
discussed many contemporary ideologies such as: identity, material progress,
and guaranteed security. I believe that the ideology of the education system
falls behind the contemporary ideology of material progress (pg.85). Before I
go any further what needs to be understood is that schools in the city usually
have lower test scores while schools in the suburban middle class areas usually
do well on their standardized tests. The question is, “Shouldn’t all students
no matter their environment score at state standard?” That’s the goal for the
tests is to have all students in the United States scoring at a proficiency
level but that scale seems to fluctuate from environment to environment. One of
the economic trends mentioned in the book is the poverty paradox; this is an
unequal distribution of wealth where the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer (pg. 87). This same poverty paradox can be seen through the education
system. 
As schools
increase in wealth they become more academically strong, when schools decrease
in wealth they become less academically strong. Wealth is generally generated
in direct correlation with the results of these tests. The problem is that instead
of improving the poorer schools the wealthier schools are given more money as a
sort of incentive for their good test scores. More money is going to give them
better teachers, resources, and extracurricular activities. While many city
schools are suffering from lack of finances, limited resources, and few
extracurricular activities. There is no way to prove that these standardized
tests can determine the knowledge of students with so many inconsistences that
lie in the way between poorer schools and wealthier schools.
The goal for
standardized tests are to determine that students are learning in there school,
which is a good goal to have. But, instead of the test being a review of what
students should have learned it’s turned into: this is what my students have to know by time they take the test or
else what they have learned counts for nothing if it can’t be evaluated through
the test. This is unfair to those in a disadvantage school or for students
that don’t test well. We’ve become so dedicated to this process of how
education works that it would be hard to change. The tests have become an idol
because they become our end goal in education; our goal should be that students
are learning and that they learn to love learning.
The book offered three guidelines for hope that can counteract this ideology of the education systems current state. The three guidelines are: the minesweeper, the rope ladder and the periscope (pg. 180). The guideline for hope that I think works best for the scope of education and students learning is the rope ladder guideline. The rope ladder guideline is a requirement that all people work together to solve one problem. The process requires a step by step technique for example when we redefine our purpose for education this can improve the whole scope of our schools. Reforming the scope of our education system that is so test based would be very difficult. The process would be a process of trial and error; it would require many people that are committed to this vision. It might even require working with people outside of our country to form a plan.
The book offered three guidelines for hope that can counteract this ideology of the education systems current state. The three guidelines are: the minesweeper, the rope ladder and the periscope (pg. 180). The guideline for hope that I think works best for the scope of education and students learning is the rope ladder guideline. The rope ladder guideline is a requirement that all people work together to solve one problem. The process requires a step by step technique for example when we redefine our purpose for education this can improve the whole scope of our schools. Reforming the scope of our education system that is so test based would be very difficult. The process would be a process of trial and error; it would require many people that are committed to this vision. It might even require working with people outside of our country to form a plan.
American schools
have a very poor education when being compared with other schools around the
world. First, small steps would have to be made this is something that would
take years to reform a decade or two. The first step would be to research and
go to the schools overseas that are doing well. We would use those schools as
model schools. From there we would start with one school district in the United
States that is doing poorly and reform it to model the overseas schools. When
we reform it to model the overseas school is will be important to keep in mind
our own visions and to only take bits and pieces of their system. We need to
reclaim the goal of students learning for the enjoyment of learning and this
can only be done when we all develop this vision. 