The Right’s Fear of Education: What I Learned As a (Former) Conservative Military Man

[Panich52]

The Right’s Fear of Education: What I Learned As a (Former) Conservative Military Man
Sensible people need to stand up against the vilification of education.
By Edwin Lyngar / Salon

My first college experience was failing half my classes at the University of Nevada Las Vegas in 1992.  The highlight was getting a “D” in English 101.  Like many small town kids, I was overwhelmed and underprepared.  I dropped out of UNLV, joined the military and got married.  Being a 20-year-old father and “enlisted” man showed me exactly how not to live, so I started a backward, fumbling and circuitous process of getting my undergraduate degree.  In seven years, I attended four community colleges, a university on a military base and attended military journalism school.  I pieced the whole mess into a bachelor’s degree from Excelsior College, a credit aggregator that caters to military members.

Modern conservative politics push the notion that people who flip switches, burgers or bedpans don’t need “education.”  They instead need “job training.”  In Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s budget, someone crossed out this phrase: “to extend knowledge and its application beyond the boundaries of its campuses and to serve and stimulate society.”  And added this instead: “to meet the state’s workforce needs.”  Walker backed down on the language change when it was exposed, claiming it was a “mistake.”  Really it was just one more tired attack on the idea of education as a public good, one that helps people find fulfillment and meaning.

I value education more than many people, because I struggled so hard to get it.  I had a bad elementary school experience, failed the fifth grade, muddled through high school and dropped out of college.  Teachers were always kind to me, saying things like, “He’s clever, but lazy.”  They were wrong about me, just like when Republicans are always wrong about poor people being lazy or stupid.  When I failed out of college the first time I was working a full-time job far above 40 hours a week, while also going to school.  I was most worried about making a living, and my skill set mirrored that of so many in the working class: Work hard, day in and day out and be grateful.  Educational success has little to do with innate intelligence or “goodness” and almost everything to do with class, upbringing and privilege.

I also viewed education with suspicion bordering on paranoia. I came from a rural mining town in Nevada where I knew mostly blue-collar men who neither needed nor wanted a college education. Listening to adults talk they always had a favorite villain: the person who jumped ahead in line and got a job or promotion, only because he or she had a college degree.

... First generation college students, like me, face an impossible climb.  If you add in conservative hostility to education, it gets that much harder.

... Antioch University Los Angeles, a school that emphasizes social justice—for many conservatives, a coded phrase that means “liberal.”  Even as a libertarian attending a liberal college, people went out of their way to be both kind and tolerant to me.  My preconceived notions about the “evil liberals of the ivory tower” looked more ignorant and narrow by the day.

Before college, I voted conservative, hated gay people, loved America and served my country in the armed services.  I’ve changed because of many factors, but I know that college and graduate school made a difference. I met people unlike myself and was forced to defend sometimes ugly political positions.  The Tea Party thrives on blue-collar “common sense” that is composed of a combination of ignorance, superstition and fear. A literate and educated populace is an existential threat to the kind of thoughtless rage that has consumed the right over the past few years.
...

Some people on the right are very educated. Rick Santorum holds an MBA and a JD (with honors, no less), and his vehement hatred of college seems to stem from his kooky take on religion.  ...

...

More
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/rights-fear-education-what-i-learned-former-conservative-military-man?akid=12840.1924881.Xr7OOR&rd=1&src=newsletter1032621&t=5

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Congrates my man.

Many of us who were first generation College kids had to experience the same struggles. Once away from the small rural community were College was only for maybe 2 to 3 people from most Graduation Classes,and they were usually kids that had a parent that did graduate from a 2 year or 4 year College,life sure changes,and must admit I did struggle and hung in their and made it work after 5 hard years working full and part time to pay my way.

Now living in Vegas,we see what you are talking about the lousy TeaBillie school system. If you have school aged children,you do not wont them in a Nevada Public School. Most of the Professional People send their children to Parochial Schools or Private Schools. The Public School System has a dropout rate of twenty percent. Just a preparatory school for Casino Workers and Retail Clerks.

[KT2000]

2. familiar with the anti-education mindset

When I moved to a rural community with a long history of logging and mill work. I was shocked to see the anti-education feeling people had for their own children. Some of it comes from fathers who do not want their children to do better than they did. It is a class consciousness that fears their children entering a higher class.

It also has to do with living with cynicism. If a parent lives with cynicism about their place in life and their child becomes educated and does well, the cynicism has to be replaced with the concept of one's own failure. Social customs such as early drinking, early pregnancies, trouble with the law are tolerated and encouraged as family values - the world view remains intact.

Teachers in such communities are very challenged and many times heartbroken when they see talented kids succumb to such pressures from families and peers. Other students from upper class play a role too.

[LWolf]

3. I teach rural kids, who,

for the most part, come from under-educated, anti-intellectual families that do not value education or trust the educated. There's a reason why so many "small-town kids" are overwhelmed and under-prepared for higher education. Their parents resist efforts to prepare them.

In the modern day and economy, even most of the anti-intellectual want their kids to further their education after high school. They just don't want them taught to think or to question anything, or to use "big fancy words" that extend beyond their parents' vocabulary, or to spend time reading instead of doing things with their hands. The constant mantras from those parents include:

"We didn't have to learn this when I was in school"/"We didn't do it this way"/etc., etc., etc.

"I never liked math/liked school/was good at _______" either," said with a little chuckle excusing a student who is struggling.

"You are way too hard on them. You guys just need to give them the basics and quit pushing."

"Little Freddy don't do homework; he's got too many chores to do on the ranch when he gets home. He don't have time for reading/writing/math."

"Little Freddy can't stay after school or come before school for extra help, either; we're too busy. He has barn chores."

"We'll be gone most of hunting season. Just send him some worksheets he can complete in the tent at night."

"She can't spend time studying for school this month. She's too busy studying for her hunter safety course." (Of course, I want them all to pass this one!)

"He don't need to be here everyday. Just send home the worksheets."

They assume that if their kids manage to squeak out a regular diploma from high school that they will be ready for college without managing to master all that "extra" that they didn't value. And so do their kids, until reality smacks them in the face.

[swarmster]

4. Anti-education

I have never understood why much of the right is anti-education.

[-none]

5. Fear.

The Right is all about fear because that is what they feel when they do not understand something, or something does not fit in with what they have been led to think.
If you are educated, you are harder to control, for one. And worse, you are less likely to accept what you are told because that is what you have been told. You know Will Rogers "Herd of cats"?
Heave forbid someone can think for themselves, or has too many problems with the daily talking points because they are better educated. The Right doesn't like that. They prefer and operate on group think.
Is it any wonder the Right has denigrated Liberals for so long?
Liberals have a tendency to upset the neat world view of conservatives by bringing in a bit too many 'shades of gray' reality to their binary world for them to be able to handle properly... Until the talking points on that come out.