October 14, 2007
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Topic: Thoughts on “communism,”
I know very little about communism, or communist countries. But a comment was made about something that happened in my classroom involving group rewards. My co-teacher and I had donuts for our students, and were planning to give them out if the whole group was well behaved one afternoon. They weren’t, and the issue came up whether or not we should give donuts to the few students who did do the right thing. My philosophy is that in this situation, nobody deserved the donuts, but a colleague of mind responded, “That’s communist.” She went on to say, “How is it fair to penalize those who are doing the right thing, because some people are making bad decisions.”
My roommate and I were further discussing this point. Isn’t this like saying, “Why should the government take my money, and pay for people who are making bad decision in their lives?” But the argument I saw, was, it is our responsibility, as a community, to help each other. And if people disagree, then that just further shows that we live in an everyone for themselves society. My classroom might only be my small attempt to create a utopian society, but it does ask the question of what is the best way for a community of people to live?
The conversation continued about how communist countries restrict freedom of speech. “How could they possibly restrict people from doing a google search on democracy?” I wondered. I couldn’t imagine having people policing my thoughts, and my words. But there was a small piece of logic I saw. If your goal is to build a community, then you need to weed out those who are interested in the idea of an individual society. But I don’t believe in a coerced community. For community to work, just like democracy, there needs to be an effort from the bottom up. In my classroom, I support both democratic education, giving my students voice, and community building, creating a sense of team.
What do you think?
Comments (4)
You are a university graduate – you need to be able to distinguish between “Communism” – the economic theory of Marx and Thomas Paine and Israeli kibbutzim, and “State Socialism” – the politico-economic structure of Lenin and Mao, and “Democratic Socialism” – the communalism of the Catholic Church and modern Europe, and “Totalitarism” – the political system which seeks heavy control over human thought and private behavior.
It is funny, the kind of conversation you had with your co-teacher and your room-mate is so absolutely, uniquely American. It could not happen among people educated anywhere else in the world.
So please understand – your doughnut decision had nothing to do with either democracy or socialism. The question comes up because school is totalitarian. If the students had been asked to decide how to divide up the treats, there’d be reasons to raise some of these concerns. If you are deciding, you are acting as Stalin.
i think the classroom has to be a mix of things. I’ve observed that kids need structure from adults. If my students had been asked to decide, they would have grabbed the box of donuts, and donuts would have been thrown all over the room. the question I was dealing with is group rewards, vs. individual rewards, or creating a combination of the 2. There is very little that is totalitarian about my teaching style by the simple fact that I am highly respectful of my students, but I am not in a situation where my students can succeed academically if given complete choice.
Whats up? It’s Tom, love your style. Come get some ringtones on our new blog and hear some music. Xanga supported.
could you rishk them throwing the donuts two times? Three times? Five dozen times? I think that’s the challenge. We know that learning comes primarily through low-cost failure – you do something, it doesn’t work but you are not hurt, you try again. The problem with the whole idea of the classroom, with the whole idea of the teacher, is the inherent impatience and unwillingness to allow true student failure – to embrace that failure in a way that leads slowly to success.
Think of it this way, if you have a one-year old who throws food, do you stop giving him/her food? Of course not. If your Little League kid strikes out in practice do you stop pitching to him? No, you throw him hundreds of pitches. Schools never do this. They are scared to death of kids making the wrong choices. But by interfering with the wrong choices kids are prevented from learning how to make choices.
Kids hitting each other, hurting each other – that requires concern and intervention – destroying donuts? It might have been the best lesson you ever presented.