Dr. Patrick Finn (center), professor emeritus of education at the University of New York at Buffalo, talks with Dr. Fiona MacKinnon (left), associate dean, College of Education and Human Development, and Dr. Elmer Spreitzer, professor emeritus of sociology, following Finn's President's Lecture Series address.

President’s Lecture Series
Schools are key in reaching potential of democracy

“The schools are the final frontier in the march to democracy and full freedom,” said Dr. Patrick Finn in his President’s Lecture Series address March 17. The author of Education with an Attitude: Educating Working-Class Children in Their Own Self-Interest believes if teachers and parents are to help the nation’s working-class children reach their potential, they must inspire a new type of motivation to achieve.

All citizens possess three types of inalienable rights, he said: civil rights, which have been secured by the courts; political rights, provided by the legislature, and social rights. Finn contends it is the job of the schools to secure social rights, and the schools are not performing their duty.

The urban activist, author and professor emeritus of education at the University of New York at Buffalo described social rights as the right to decent standards of clothing, shelter and health care, and the right to “live life as a cultivated human being and to participate in the common culture.”

Moreover, he added, without social rights, it is hard for citizens to exercise their civil and political rights—without the knowledge of the culture gained through education, people are less likely to have the awareness or the necessary skills and information needed. Thus, schools have a large role to play in bestowing those rights as well.

Despite its purported basis in equality for all, he said, the American educational system is fairly rigidly divided into working-class and higher-class schools, with resources divided very unequally between them. More importantly than the tangible, physical resources of books and materials, those resources consist of the way education is conducted.

From the unspoken but widely held belief that “poor people are not as smart and certainly don’t work as hard as rich people—that’s why they’re poor people,” to its converse, “rich people are more intelligent and work much harder—that’s why they’re rich,” Finn said, come two widely different methods of teaching and -dealing with students that reinforce class roles in the society.

The myth of meritocracy
Finn said he believes the country has been functioning under the “myth of meritocracy,” which holds that even those from the lower classes who are more intelligent and work harder will naturally rise to the top, and that teachers will recognize these high achievers and help them to move beyond their social class.

In a system reminiscent of Thomas Jefferson’s “aristocracy of talent,” Finn said, “we believe that this unequal distribution of resources is fair. I believe this model has entered the American psyche, and I want to explode that myth.”

Citing studies by Dr. Jean Anyon, a prominent author and political economist of education, in which she analyzed the education delivered in working-class versus wealthier schools, he outlined striking differences between the two. She found that working-class students were educated to be obedient wage laborers, while richer kids were educated to be creative thinkers and leaders.

Poor kids and middle-class kids are prepared to take their parents’ respective roles in the workplace, Finn said.

“All education is either empowering or domesticating,” he said. “The richer the school, the more striking is the empowering education,” which directly impacts one’s ability to participate in democracy and exercise the rights of citizenship.

It is no wonder, then, that often students from poorer schools are not motivated to succeed, he said. And when the “oppositional identity” assumed by students who have a history of oppression with their teachers, such as Koreans in Japanese schools, Palestinians in Israeli schools or African-Americans in white-led schools, is thrown into the mix, students reject any learning offered by what they perceive as an alien culture.

A new kind of motivation
While some people are motivated by an intense interest in learning itself or in a particular subject, which is intrinsic motivation, and others by a desire to get good grades in order to get into college or a job, or extrinsic motivation, Finn described a third type of motivation that he promotes among teachers, parents and children in working-class schools.

That is the motivation to learn in order to help others and to work for social justice. Called Freirian motivation after Paolo Freire, a Brazilian educator who believed that the purpose of literacy is to engage in a struggle for justice, this type of motivation holds the promise of hope for change in poor schools, Finn said.

Just as civil and political rights were not secured without conflict, though, neither will social rights be achieved unless parents and teachers agitate and act on behalf of children, who cannot do it for themselves. Finn said one of his goals is to give parents the skills and knowledge they need to act.

He would like to see universities offer professional education from a Freirian perspective, as well as a minor in working-class education.

"The classroom is the site of the struggle for social rights, and till everyone has secured those rights, we have failed to meet the full potential of our democracy,” Finn concluded.