Cultural Memes of Educational Funding

Cultural Memes of Educational Funding

The objective of this work is to write a paper which will incorporate the memes concept from Dawkins and the education-funding concept from Kozol and to identify the cultural memes that would have to be altered in order for Kozol's solution to be accepted. This work will further look at an approach to funding education as a paradigm and analyze the problem as a paradigm including the education and memes paradigms embedded in the overall concept.

STATEMENT of THESIS

There is a memes existing in today's society regarding education that is deeply entrenched in American thought concerning the quality of educational provision in the United States. This memes is simply the belief that educational provision is equal to all children, in all schools, and that all children has the same potential successful educational outcomes because that is how it is done in the United States. This however, could not be further from the truth and that is specifically what the following research examines.

INTRODUCTION

This work examines Dawkins proposed "selfish gene" and the work of Kozol who relates that a cultural memes is inevitably woven within the very structure of today's educational system - indeed a way of thinking and perceiving that is so deeply embedded that it will require purposeful and cognitive focus toward reprogramming this factually digressive and pervasive memes regarding education in the United States.

I. CULTURAL MEMES DEFINED

The work of John S. Wilkins entitled: "What's in a Meme? Reflections From the Perspective of the History and Philosophy of Evolutionary Biology" states that the fundamental concept "of memetics is the meme - the unit of cultural evolution and selection. This term is unclear in its meaning and what it denotes, and the application of evolution to culture is often based on a partial or even mistaken notion of the general structure of evolutionary explanation." (1998) Memes are defined specifically as "an information pattern, held in an individual's memory, which is capable of being copied to another individual's memory." (Heylighen, 2001) Memetics is defined as: "the theoretical and empirical science that studies the spread and evolution of memes." (Heylighen, 2001) Heylighen states that "...cultural evolution, including the evolution of knowledge, can be modeled through the same basic principles of variation and selection that underly biological evolution. This implies a shift from genes as units of biological information to a new type of units of cultural information: memes." (2001) Heylighen further informs this study that a meme is a:."..a cognitive or behavioral pattern that can be transmitted from one individual to another one. Since the individual who transmitted the meme will continue to carry it, the transmission can be interpreted as a replication: a copy of the meme is made in the memory of another individual, making him or her into a carrier of the meme. This process of self-reproduction (the memetic life-cycle), leading to spreading over a growing group of individuals, defines the meme as a replicator, similar in that respect to the gene." (Heylighen, 2001; (Dawkins, 1976; Moritz, 1991)

Three characteristics of the 'memes' are stated in the work of Dawkins for a successful replicator which include:

1) Copying-fidelity: the more faithful the copy, the more will remain of the initial pattern after several rounds of copying. If a painting is reproduced by making photocopies from photocopies, the underlying pattern will quickly become unrecognizable;

2) Fecundity: the faster the rate of copying, the more the replicator will spread. An industrial printing press can churn out many more copies of a text than an office copying machine; and 3) Longevity: the longer any instance of the replicating pattern survives, the more copies can be made of it. A drawing made by etching lines in the sand is likely to be erased before anybody could have photographed or otherwise reproduced it." (Heylighen, 2001)

Heylighen compares memes and genes and states that while memes are quite similar to other replicators such as 'computer viruses or crystals.".."the genetic metaphor for cultural transmission is limited, though. Genes can only be transmitted from parent to child ("vertical transmission"). Memes can be transmitted between any two individuals ("horizontal transmission" or "multiple parenting"). In that sense they are more similar to parasites or infections." (Heylighen, 2001) Memes, unlike gene which require a generation, take only minutes for replication.

Heylighen states:

If a story is spread by being told from person to person, the final version will be very different from the original one. It is this variability or fuzziness that perhaps distinguishes cultural patterns most strikingly from DNA structures: every individual's version of an idea or belief will be in some respect different from the others'. That makes it difficult to analyze or delimit memes. This does not imply that meme evolution cannot be accurately modeled, though. After all, genetics was a well-established science long before the precise DNA structure of genes was discovered. In human society, almost any cultural entity can be seen as a meme: religions, language, fashions, songs, techniques, scientific theories and concepts, conventions, traditions, etc. The defining characteristic of memes as informational patterns, is that they can be replicated in unlimited amounts by communication between individuals, independently of any replication at the level of the genes." (Heylighen, 2001)

In the attempt to model memetics it is held by Heylighen that memes "...undergo processes of variation" also understood as mutations and recombinations of their internal structure with the differing variants in competition for the very small amount of space in the memory that can be accessed in different people. Heylighen states that the "most fit variants will win this competition, and spread most extensively." (Heylighen, 2001)

II. RICHARD DAWKINS - the SELFISH GENE

The work of Richard Dawkins entitled: "The Selfish Gene" relates that we are animals that exist only for the preservation of our genes and are simply machines to be thrown away after furthering the gene which is characterized by ruthless competition furthering its own existence through exploitation. According to Dawkins, even the seemingly altruistic acts within nature are simply the selfish and subtle gene. Dawkins writes: "We are survival machines -- robot vehicles blinding programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes." (1990) According to Dawkins once we are able to "understand what our selfish genes are up to...we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do." Dawkins, 1990) Dawkins goes on to state that of all the animals man is the only one "...uniquely dominated by culture, by influences learned and handed down. Some would say that culture is so important that genes, whether selfish or not, are virtually irrelevant to the understanding of human nature." (Dawkins, 1990) in Dawkins theory it is held that memes are "selected at many levels through their expression in behavior, including verbal, practical and intellectual, and this behavior need not be the behavior of individuals; it can be the behavior of languages, institutions, societies and even traditions." (Dawkins, 1990) to understand this theoretical framework it helps for one to consider the 'hierarchy of selectionist knowledge processes' posted in Campbell (1974) which are inclusive of: (1) genetic adaptation; (2) nonnemonic problem-solving; (3) vicarious locomotor devices; (4) instinct; (5) habit; (6) visually supported thought; (7) memonically supported thought; (8) Observational learning and imitation; (9) Socially vicarious exploration; (10) Language; (10) Cultural cumulation; and (11) Science.

III. JONATHAN KOZOL - SOLUTIONS

The work of Jonathan Kozol relates a study of longitudinal nature through experiential observational, interactive application of ethnography of student learning obstacles and factors of societal influence that affect provisions of education and ultimately the educational outcome of students and specifically students in poor urban and rural areas. Education, according to Jonathan Kozol in the work entitled: "Educational Advocacy" is "taken for granted in modern American society. If a child cannot afford to attend a private or parochial school. The assumption is made, because of compulsory attendance laws, and the societal emphasis on childhood learning, no matter what, a child is getting an education. Unfortunately, attendance is not a prerequisite for education." In the eyes of Kozol the educational system is "blatantly hypocritical."

The approach of Kozol is one that takes a realistic view through the eyes of equality in education for all students. Kozol's work entitled: "The Shame of the Nation" provides a description for how students of the black and Hispanic races in the United States are concentrated in schools representative mostly by only these races of students. In preparing to write this book Kozol visited approximately 60 schools in the United States and discovered that inner-city schools had worsened greatly since Brown v. Board of Education. Kozol share the reluctance of the news media to share the problem with the public - schools in the United States are still radically segregated. Kozol notes the differential expenditures at schools and states inequities in New York City spending $11,627 on a child's education in the period 2002-2003 while in Manhasset that amount was $22,311. (the Shame of the Nation: Separate and Unequal by Nathan Glazer. The New York Times. September 25, 2005)

In the work entitled: "Kozol Discusses "Shame of a Nation" During Hauben Lecture" the author, Brian Whitson states: "The proportion of black students attending public segregated schools is at its highest since the death of civil rights activists Martin Luther King, Jr. is the news related by Kozol to a "...sold out crowd at the Kimball Theatre." (Whitson, 2006) Whitson relates of Kozol's speech at the Kimball Theatre that: "Kozol, who became an educational activist more than 40 years ago when he was fired from an inner-city Boston school for reading to his students a poem by black author Langston Hughes, said he sees the same students as he travels to some of the poorest school divisions in the country. it's a case of social and economic segregation, he said. "I don't see a white child in the school," Kozol told a crowd of more than 400 people. "Many people don't want me to use words like segregation and apartheid. Nobody wants to talk about this anymore but I speak about it all the time." (Whitson, 2006)

Segregated, apartheid - and great inequalities are said to be present in educational provisions of today's schools throughout the United States. Kozol relates that in schools in the Bronx that there are 11,000 black students and 22 white students. Kozol relates the time he was fired in the early 1960s when he was teaching fourth grade in one of Boston's poorest neighborhoods. All students were black and were learning from "raggedy" books. One day Kozol brought a book of poems by Langston Hughes to the school newly purchased in Harvard Square. Whitson states of Kozol taking the book to class and says Kozol stated: "As soon as the students saw the shiny new book, the entire class went silent. I heard one student whisper, 'Look, there's a colored man on the cover.'" (Kozol, 2003, in Whitson, 2006)

Kozol relates that the following day he was fired for "curriculum deviation.." (Kozol in Whitson, 2006) This began Kozol's quest for improvement in public schools and particularly in the poorest areas of the country. Kozol relates that while he is not great at mathematics of the 11,000 students in the Bronx that are black and only 22 that are white Kozol states "...that's a segregation rate of 99.8%. Two-tenths of one percentage point now marks the difference between legally enforced apartheid in the South of 50 years ago and socially and economically enforced apartheid in almost all our major cities." (Whitson, 2006) in his work Kozol states:: Affluent Manhattan parents sometimes donate private funds to supplement the parsimony of the state, using private money, for example, to reduce the size of classes and to hire extra teachers in the local elementary schools, giving their children the individual attention long denied to children in poor sections of the city like Mott Haven, and thereby providing their own children with a better chance of winning entrance to the city's very few truly distinguished secondary schools. This basically self-serving and undemocratic practice adds another layer of injustice to the many inequalities already faced by children of the poor. " (Shame of the Nation, 2000) most wonderful example of the dilemma between the business driven model of education and the reality model of education is described in the work of Eric S. Piotrowski (2003) entitled: "A Profit without Honors: Against the Business Model of Education" which states a:

parable of the teacher who teaches a guest business lecturer a lesson on management policy. After hearing about the need for a quality product and better results in education. Vollmer, the guest speaker who is an executive for an ice cream company seeks to link high quality of the corporate enterprise with educational outcomes and a teacher "grills the speaker: 'Mr. Vollmer, she said, learning forward wit a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, 'when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do? ' in the silence of the room, I could hear the trap snap. I was dead meat, but I wasn't going to lie. 'I send them back.' 'That's right!' she barked, 'and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it's not a business. it's school." (Piotrowski, 2003)

This example corporate influence on education is stated along with another story reported in 'The School Administrator' published by the American Association of School Administrators that relates that Dental policy evaluating dentists rating them as Excellent, Good, Average, below Average and Unsatisfactory are conducted by counting all the cavities each patient has and then averaging however, this is not accurate since some dentists in poorer areas will be rated poorly based upon other factors that are beyond their control. This is said to be important to keep in mind in terms of education, or specifically it is necessary to cognitively assess the methods in which the findings are presented and manipulated in order to show specifically desired outcomes. 'It is related in this work that teachers are given orders for improvement on tests to be shown at all times "regardless of individual circumstances, and are not given corresponding resources to make it happen." (Piotrowski, 2003) the high stakes while very bad are.." compounded by what has been come to be known as the uncertainty principle of sociology: 'the more important than any quantitative social indicators becomes in social decision-making the more likely it will be to distort and corrupt the social process it is intended to monitor. This means that, when rewards (or punishments) or money and other resources are attached to the outcome of the test, it is often worthless as an indicator of the school's progress." (Piotrowski, 2003) Teacher are ordered to "teach the test" and stress and anxiety have been the factors characterizing classrooms since the No Child Left Behind Act began leaving so very many students so very far behind. Teachers are being called cookie cutters who only read scripts to children and fail to actually teach. Corporations through media advertisement have infiltrated the classroom as corporations and industries work to influence the future workforce in terms of preparing for entry into the hierarchical business society in today's marketplace.