Not Everyone Is an Alpha… And That’s Okay
February 26, 2010
This article asserts that our society is weakened by the insistence on focusing exclusively on academic skills — particularly English language arts and mathematics — while increasingly ignoring the tremendous importance of cultivating students’ potential in the arts, athletics, electives, and vocational fields.
A society of Alphas couldn’t fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a factory staffed by Alphas–that is to say by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to be capable (within limits) of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities . . . An Alpha-decanted, Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron work–go mad, or start smashing things up. Alphas can be completely socialized–but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren’t sacrifices; they’re the line of least resistance.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Chapter 16
In this excerpt from Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel, we are treated to a disastrous vision of what would happen to a society populated exclusively with, shall we say, “above-grade level students.” Huxley profoundly observed a social reality in 1932 that seems to have been forgotten, or is ignored, by education planners in the twenty-first century. Simply put: not everyone is an Alpha, and that’s okay. That our education system cannot (or will not) accept this is all the sadder for the fact that Brave New World was, at least at one time, required reading.
More recently, author Max Brooks, in his novel World War Z, convincingly describes a post-apocalyptic world where human society must be rebuilt after complete collapse. In this vision, academics are useless. The most important people in society are those with skills – vocational skills to be precise. This last statement is not fiction. Agricultural specialization has made higher education possible, because we academics do not have to spend time cultivating our food, but we would rue the day that agricultural workers disappeared and we were suddenly and starkly made aware of the true “value” of our precious “knowledge.”
We needn’t imagine some fantastical future to get the point. Last year, I attempted to fix a loose bathtub handle in my home, and succeeded in destroying an important part of the assembly I later learned was called the “cartridge.” As a professional plumber worked to repair the damage I had done, we got to talking about one another’s backgrounds, and he mentioned, somewhat self-disparagingly, that he never attended a prestigious college as I had. I was quick to remind him that it was my water that had been turned off for three days, and it was at his mercy where stood this impotent scholar.
Our educational climate is absolutely hell-bent on mass-producing an entire population of young adults whose only marketable skills are academic, and only limited academic skills at that. Supplicants of NCLB seem to believe that a person who is academically weak has somehow been “left behind.” Testing initiatives have us focusing increasingly on mathematics and English language arts, at the expense of all other subjects. This combines with budget cuts to form a two-pronged attack on creative and performing arts, athletics, electives, and vocational classes. Special education students in particular are imprisoned in high school until age 22 (if not physically, then socially) by the requirement to pass the CAHSEE (an exclusively ELA/math test). Some of them will never pass it. If they’re lucky, the Board of Education will attempt to inflate graduation rates by dropping this requirement, but then the students will be released into the world without having been given any alternative skills. Even general education students are entering society without knowledge of how to contribute to it or participate in it. For all the rhetoric on Diversity and learning modalities, the system does not actually allow students to explore their myriad potential or find the path that suits them best. It strives only to germinate and hatch Alphas.
An advanced society still requires laborers. We cannot all be thinkers. When push comes to shove, thinkers are useless. We can neither build nor maintain a sophisticated social infrastructure. At best, we can imagine it, and perhaps draw an impressive diagram. We need farmers, plumbers, construction workers, cleaners, drivers, and cooks. And if we are to have more than a skeletal fascist dystopia, we also need painters, musicians, athletes, actors, cartoonists, and fools. The lists are far from exclusive. Without the latter, our society is hardly worth having. Without the former, it ceases altogether. Students who are released into civilization without a variety of marketable skills may very well have “graduated,” but they are truly being “left behind.” We must return to broader horizons and multifaceted expectations. We must “leave behind” our blind allegiance to academics, or we will leave behind civilization itself.
Prior to engaging in a dialogue of how to best prepare students for the future I think it is important to identify exactly what schools are preparing students for. In an ideal world I believe the purpose of schools is to produce critical thinkers, but because we live in a capitalist society, the subtext of what schools do is to prepare students for the workforce, however students usually get no career guidance throughout their educational experience.
The nature of our current economy as been referred to as the “information economy,” an economy which is two tiered. Carpenters, plumbers, mechanics and electricians in the bottom tier and information based careers in the top tiers such as software engineers, computer programmers, economists and scientific researchers. I believe both tiers are necessary for a thriving society, but I do not believe that all students must follow the same track to get to their respective career.
It is my personal belief that students after their sophomore year of high school must make the decision to continue on down the academic path or choose a vocational training program. Society should not expect all students to become doctors, lawyers and engineers. Schools, I believe, needs to move toward a more individualized method of educating their students.
Good thoughts, Capital. Thanks for reading and contributing.
I do not believe that any proponent of “college-readiness for all,” would argue against the notion that we can’t be all alphas. However, the college oriented curriculum does not necessitate someone towards college; it merely provides an option for college. There are plenty of students who choose not to go to college after high school but rather opt for a different career. Nonetheless, many jobs that do not require a college degree require some form of education. A beautician must go to a school just as a plumber may have to learn through mentorship. A college oriented curriculum increases the likelihood that a student has the knowledge to learn new knowledge regardless of the source of that knowledge. The reverse, however, is not true. A high school education that is not geared towards college cannot prepare a student for college, thereby, reducing choices and increasing hardship for the student.
Yet, even in this economy, there are many skilled jobs left unfulfilled for lack of qualified applicants who can learn while “on the job.” I know of an electrician mentorship program, which, in three years, can enable a student to earn more than my salary as a teacher of ten years. This program does not cost the student anything; after three months of trade schooling, the apprentice learns and earns as he or she works. Yet, this program that is starving for applicants cannot find enough prospects that can pass the mandatory algebra exam entrance requirement. Now I do now know why algebra is required, but that is not the point. Skilled workers need an education to gain the academic prowess that enables them to learn new skills in this fast changing, ever demanding economy.
There are also egregious consequences for instituting a vocational based high school curriculum program. Is education bureaucracy so nimble as to match vocational classes appropriate to its own contemporary, local economy? Doubtful. Can programs like auto shop circumvent the need for professional, perhaps specialized, certified education? Not in today’s world. On the other hand, a college geared high school graduate is academically prepared for automotive technology training.
My own experience exemplifies well the other side of vocational training in high school. Ten years ago I worked as a teacher for a district that had not one college-required profession represented during its annual career day. The administration informed me that the orientation was designed for what is best for the student community. This also happens to be the same community from which I graduated high school.
I realized then the irony of having the angry impetus for my career as a teacher, that is the inadequate preparation for college, staring at me with its wicked, mocking smile. My high school offered many vocational programs at the time, including gardening, lawnmower repair, husbandry, graphic arts printing, etc. However, as reminded that career day a decade ago, my community “really didn’t really go to college,” but rather was being prepared for the “real world. ” This perspective led to practices that did not prepare anyone for college. I wanted to be a mathematician, but the epitome of high school preparation ended freshman year with Algebra 2. The high school did not offer higher levels of mathematics. After all, people like us didn’t go to college.
I paid the price of this perspective with a fourteen year circuitous route to my terminal career as a math teacher. (It wasn’t until I was nearly 30 years old that I heard of a federal loan program that could fund college.) Although I love my job, it remains a compromise to my original aspirations. A compromise willingly taken in light of my middle aged responsibilities. A compromise that I would not have burdened had only my educators, or rather perhaps the “system,” believed that I can go to college and be not destined towards a skill-based profession.
My argument does not rely on my own anecdotal experience. I graduated near the top of my class and was woefully underprepared. Accordingly, generations of graduates before and since my high school graduation year have experienced a similar academic program. (Could it be related to the 99% Hispanic population?). In other words, they graduated with limited opportunities from well-intentioned but insidious policies that espoused it’s vocational programs as the jeweled panacea to the community’s woes.
It is not practical nor economically feasible for high schools to be all things for all persons. A longer view is necessary, and a large part of that longer view is giving the student the most opportunities it can afford after graduation. I submit that it is better for a would be laborer to be college ready than a would be scholar to be only labor ready.
Thank you so much for taking the time to add all that, Bob. Everything you’ve stated is true. The only thing I would say in response is this: the climate we see in high schools these days does not simply offer college-oriented curriculum as an “option” or to bolster other subject matter. Such curriculum is being increasingly offered as the only option, while we see more and more vocational classes and artistic electives being completely erased from catalogs everywhere. Without enough variety, we will only turn students away from school, and when this happens, they can’t benefit from the college-oriented material, either.