Every era has its own newspeak. Once upon a time, they were called cuts, social discipline, and class selection. Today, however, they are called "modernization," "flexibility," "innovative teaching," and "personalized curriculum." ---- And so, while public schools are being dismantled piece by piece, they explain to us with a smile that they are actually "improving" them. ---- With the reform of technical-vocational schools promoted by Minister Giuseppe Valditara, Italian schools are finally taking a leap into the future: less culture, less critical thinking, fewer tools for understanding the world. Instead, more business, more training, and more obedience.
After all, what good are Law, History, Political Economy, Geography, Languages, or in-depth Mathematics when the real goal is to learn as quickly as possible to smile at the boss, punch a time clock, and adapt to precariousness?The idea is simple and ingenious: gradually transform technical and vocational schools into a sort of detached department of companies. No longer schools, but pre-training centers for work subordination. A factory-like school where students enter and "human resources" emerge. Naturally, everything is presented as an achievement.
The reduction of subjects becomes "streamlining of curricula." Cultural impoverishment is transformed into "concrete teaching."
Subordination to companies is renamed "connection with the territory." It's the usual ideological trick: changing the name of things to hide their nature. Behind the rhetoric of pragmatism lies a very specific idea of society: there are young people who must lead and young people who must obey.
High schools are still entrusted, at least in part, with the function of training the future ruling classes: those who will speak, manage, and administer. Technical-vocational schools, on the other hand, are entrusted with the task of preparing an adaptable, flexible workforce, ideally one that is less confrontational and less inclined to ask too many questions.
Because the problem, evidently, isn't job insecurity, low wages, or poor work. No. The problem would be that students study too much.
So let's start with alternating work placements starting in the second year, with companies directly involved in teaching, with curricula tailored to local production needs.
The goal is no longer to train citizens capable of critically understanding society, but to train workers compatible with the market. Docile, adaptable, open to blackmail.
Ultimately, it's perfectly in keeping with the times.
We live in a society where it's constantly repeated that "we must be competitive," while rights are being dismantled one after another. A society where work is increasingly precarious, but the blame lies with schools, which fail to adequately prepare for the needs of businesses.
So instead of raising wages and rights, schools are being downgraded.
Instead of emancipating the working classes through knowledge, knowledge is being reduced to better adapt to exploitation.
And here lies the political heart of the reform: removing cultural tools means removing critical capacity. Those who know less, argue less. Those trained only to "do" struggle to imagine that the world could be organized differently.
This is why knowledge is annoying. This is why a truly emancipatory public school always frightens those in power.
A school that teaches immediately usable skills, perhaps destined to become obsolete within a few years, is much better than a school that teaches reasoning, connection, understanding, and discussion.
The real tragedy is that all this is sold as progress.
Under the guise of innovation, an increasingly classist school is being built: one for those who will command, another for those who will obey.
And while they call all this "merit," "excellence," and "modernization," public schools are slowly losing their most important function: allowing those born without privilege to acquire the tools for emancipation.
Because an educated population can become difficult to govern. A trained population, on the other hand, is much less so.
http://www.alternativalibertaria.org
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Source - A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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