Michael Apple





Quoting from the Wikipedia:


 * Michael W. Apple (born 1942) is a leading critical educational theorist, recognized for numerous books and scholarly interests, which center on education and power, cultural politics, curriculum theory and research, critical teaching, and the development of democratic schools.

He is currently the John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, where he has taught since 1970. Before completing his EdD at Teachers College, Columbia University, Apple taught in elementary and secondary schools in New Jersey, where he grew up, as well as served as the president of his teachers union. For more than three decades Apple has worked with educators, unions, dissident groups, and governments throughout the world on democratizing educational policy and practice.

Opposing Sides on Education
In the essays Defending Liberalism on Campus and Evolution Versus Creationism in Education by Michael Apple, he discusses issues in higher education that have prompted many questions, and has been a center point for many educational debates. To begin, Apple asks the question of “What’s Liberal About Liberal Arts? Does the “liberal” need defending? Issues such as race, class and gender have been the facet for many of the issues surrounding discussions regarding liberal arts. In Apple’s second discussion he discusses issues regarding recent literature on the creation-evolution controversy. In both essays their first real issue is how to address these in the right manner in our education system. What is right and what is wrong? In both articles the author brings in points of view from other authors. There are many beliefs about how mankind came to be. How do schools properly address and teach the concept of creationism versus evolution to where it suits everyone? Is it even possible? Among all the issues that the author addresses there are points to these seemingly desperate issues.

Secondly, Apple discusses an issue at a University where a student was asked to write a report on why George W Bush is a war criminal. She received a failing grade because she proceeded to write that Saddam Hussein was a war criminal. Another student at the same university also received a failing grade because he wrote a “pro American” term paper about the US Constitution. These are examples of how some educators attack those for their beliefs. In the second article, Apple discusses a movement called “Authoritarian populism”. This movement as been a sore spot for those who feel economically and culturally threatened. Apple states, “one of the reasons that authoritarian populism is indeed growing is because it contains elements of good sense. That is, rather than assuming, as too many progressives do, that anyone who holds very conservative views is simply out of touch with the realities of modern society, we should instead ask what is true about it.” Should we be afraid to state our points of view because we may be “wrong” in another’s eye?

Lastly, among the most significant instances of these losses has been the judgment in the Dover, Pennsylvania case where a judge ruled that intelligent design was a form of creationism and should not be afforded equal weight in science classes. Another was in Ohio where a majority on the Ohio Board of Education challenged a model biology lesson, which they claimed once again was a way to open up the science curriculum to intelligent design. Of the number of states that have adopted standards that want evolutionary theory to be critically analyzed is growing. Intelligent design is a new key phrase in use in many of the attacks on evolution; the school board adopted a how-to-guide to teach intelligent design. Everything cannot be explained by evolution. There must have been another cause, an intelligent designer who set things in motion and established the way things are today. In the end, Apple discusses how we believe that these movements to export rights and corporate“ educational” ideas, practices, and policies from K-12 to postsecondary education are far more crucial to defend liberalism against than are media panics and complaint Web sites. Still, we should be aware that all of these things are coordinated efforts, each feeding the other. There is a lot of media out there discussing the dangers of liberal bias in higher education. It hopefully feeds public acceptance of the need for change.

In conclusion, there are many issue regarding liberalism and education. What is too liberal? What should and should not be taught? As an educator, I tend to be on a more liberal side and feel that students should have access to all information where they may form their own beliefs. It should not all be written for them in curriculum where we create “cookie cutter” students. Students have the world at their fingertips, let them explore and establish their own views. Debates will continue to happen, let students be educated in a manner and to a level so that they may stand for what they feel is right and be recognized.

Reader's Comment 12/30/08
Our world is a very complex place in which to live. We have diversity in people, diversity in social systems, diversity in living environments, diversity in culture, diversity in educational systems, and so on. These are all part of what makes life so interesting.

Our current educational system grew out of the industrial age, factory model of work and mass production. Even though we now recognize many serious flaws in such a factory-model of education, this approach continues to dominate in the educational thinking of a great many people.

School systems throughout the world differ in the rigidity of curriculum content, teaching processes, and assessment. Today's and tomorrow's Information and Communication Technology make it more and more possible to individualize education. We could be moving our educational system in a direction that does much more to empower individual students and their teachers.

Author
The initial version of this Web Page was developed by Michelle Trotter.