The most effective ways of molding college graduates fit for the workforce are identical to the teaching practices recommended by those educating for radical change.
By Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin
December 18, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
Image: Stephan Jockel
Colleges and universities around the globe are once again squarely in the political crosshairs, with many of us in academia bracing for a cold winter, especially in the United States with a second Trump term looming. Truth is, this has been a long time coming. College is increasingly taking on a transactional character, and there’s a growing sense that we’re losing much of what there was to cherish about institutions of higher learning.
Yet I find reasons for hope. There are good people doing good work, including many bright, eager students interested to learn the truth—and appreciative of the opportunity to pursue it with others. But my reasons for optimism in these dark times run deeper than faith in the power of good people.
I have been energized by the recognition that there is significant and remarkable overlap between effective teaching, as judged by the standards of the neoliberal imperative to mold graduates fit for the workforce, and the teaching practices recommended by those educating for radical change. At least when it comes to education, neoliberalism’s contradictions may be the source of its undoing.
This may seem surprising. It’s often taken for granted that capitalism is best served by an educational system that obfuscates truth and stifles creativity. But considering the logic of the system suggests that can’t be quite right.
If neoliberalism is characterized by the application of market forces to everything, then education is no exception. This entails evaluating teacher and school performance according to standardized metrics and allocating (and withholding) funding on this basis. It also entails conceiving of the mechanisms of social reproduction and innovation in terms of competition amongst the best and brightest. Educational institutions play a necessary role in propping up the status quo. Perhaps this is truer of higher education than grade school. All the same, though the system may require an army of complacent workers, it also needs creative talent. And herein lies the rub.
Critics on the Left are correct to decry the deleterious effects of the neoliberal paradigm on public preparedness for democratic participation. Yet there is a silver lining to be exploited. The very teaching techniques touted as evidence-based aides to the production of “career ready” graduates are nearly identical to those recommended as tools to engender the critical consciousness necessary to upend the status quo.
The lesson here is not that those of us committed to a brighter future—those of us concerned with people, not profits; those of us committed to anti-racism, anti-ableism, and LGBTQ+ rights—may simply sit back and let history run its course. There is work to be done!
The lesson is that the seeds of change may be planted while playing by the current set of rules. The house may be destroyed using the master’s tools. Let me try and explain.
Career Readiness
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) defines “career readiness” as “a foundation from which to demonstrate requisite core competencies that broadly prepare the college educated for success in the workplace and lifelong career management.” As an agenda-setting organization for many institutions of higher learning, NACE’s eight “core competencies” help shape college curriculum and how it is assessed. Universities are increasingly being asked to graduate students competent in: career and self-development, communication, critical thinking, equity and inclusion, leadership, professionalism, teamwork, and technology.
Most, if not all, of this list should be unobjectionable to those interested in progressive education and critical pedagogy. Indeed, it includes some supposedly verboten priorities. The idea that colleges should promote equity and inclusion has come under intense attack by those on the right. Yet it’s something employers say they want.
At least on its face, then, career readiness does not appear to be entirely objectionable to those of us on the Left. Look a bit deeper still, and we see that it is not only compatible with, but also congenial to, the development of the sort of critical consciousness central to radical conceptions of education.
Consider how faculty are supposed to help students become career ready. The literature on teaching and learning is replete with studies that show (and meta-studies that confirm) that active and student-centered teaching techniques lead to increased student performance, satisfaction, and success. If one wants college graduates that have the requisite knowledgebase to enter the workforce as productive employees, then one would do well to ditch the “sage on the stage” model of classroom instruction for one that involves learning by doing and reflecting on what one is doing.
The same goes for one who wants college graduates capable of critical thinking, teamwork, and effective communication. This is best promoted by practices that provide students with more opportunities to engage with their peers and approach the subject matter in ways that resonate given their lived experiences and personal goals.
Put another way, career readiness is best served by, to borrow Paulo Freire’s labels, the problem-posing, not the banking, model of education. Teaching by asking questions, facilitating group work, and allowing students more autonomy tends to be a more effective means to learning. It results in more motivated and engaged students, as well as better concept mastery and development of the skills employers are looking for.
Effective Teaching: Evidence-based and Liberatory
It may be worth making explicit the striking parallels between the teaching techniques trumpeted by those aiming to produce students ready to enter the workforce and those aiming to provoke liberated thinkers capable of identifying and questioning the power structures that shape our lives.
Consider the teaching technique referred to as “picture prompt.” This involves showing students an image without explanation or context and asking them to explain it and justify their answers. It is often used in combination with other techniques, such as think-pair-share, as a means of generating deeper discussion of a particular concept, problem, or idea.
It is also a means of avoiding importing one’s own assumptions into the classroom, which is precisely what Freire seeks to avoid in a passage from Pedagogy of the Oppressed describing what is essentially the same technique.
Freire describes a “thematic investigation” in Santiago, where a “group of tenement residents discussed a scene showing a drunken man walking on the street and three young men conversing on the corner.” The residents commented that the drunken man was “the only one there who is productive and useful to his country” and “worried about his family because he can’t take care of their needs.”
Freire continues:
The investigator had intended to study aspects of alcoholism. He probably would not have elicited the above responses if he had presented participants with a questionnaire he had elaborated himself. If asked directly, they might even have denied ever taking a drink themselves. But in their comments on the codification of an existential situation they could recognize, and in which they could recognize themselves, they said what they really felt.(Freire 2005, 118)
What a lovely description of the power of active and student-centered learning to open space for students to connect with the material they are learning, to think critically, and to effectively communicate their thoughts!
This is one instance where evidence-based recommendation meets liberatory practice. It’s not the only one.
In a striking article from 1974, “Towards a Marxist Theory & Practice of Teaching,” Bruce Rappaport enumerates teaching strategies appropriate for “offer[ing] an effective way of understanding the world and, quite crucially in these often depressing times, a powerful sense of optimism about change” (76). He may just as well have been offering a playbook for an active and student-centered classroom.
For instance, under the heading of combatting “isolation in the class,” Rappaport recommends four things: have students learn each other’s names, encourage group work, encourage peer learning, and have students divide up readings and teach each other. The last of these resembles a popular active learning technique called “jigsaw.” Indeed, Rappaport’s recommendations, both in this category and others, overlap significantly with those gleaned from research on teaching and learning.
They also overlap with the sentiments about teaching in general expressed by celebrated champions of radical teaching. Rappaport comments:
The most immediate problem that teachers face in the classroom is that a lot of our students come into the class expecting the worst and are depressed and sunk both by these expectations and their day-to-day life and work activities.(Rappaport 1974, 77)
Compare this with bell hooks’ comments about her own experience as a student:
I learned, along with other students, to consider myself fortunate if I found an interesting professor who talked in a compelling way. Most of my professors were not the slightest bit interested in enlightenment. More than anything they seemed enthralled by the exercise of power and authority within their mini-kingdom, the classroom.(hooks 1994, 17)
Rappaport is concerned to show his fellow Marxists how to break out of the “traditional and authoritarian styles of teaching”; hooks relates how her professors who “used the classroom to enact rituals of control that were about domination and unjust exercise of power” helped her to learn “a lot about the kind of teacher [she] did not want to become.” And both express sentiments that would be at home in any professional development workshop on evidence-based teaching practices.
The Punchline
A social system based on competition between individuals for its own reproduction and innovation requires an educational system that prepares each new generation for combat by imparting essential skills and knowledge. Enemies of this system seek to light a revolutionary fire by preparing the next generation to identify what is really going on and effect radical change. It turns out, the same methods serve both aims. The evidence suggests that effective teaching just is what the radical educator would prescribe.
What does this mean for those of us who see education as integral to helping bring about a more just future?
I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I do think this much is clear. First, we should, along with hooks, see the classroom as a “radical space of possibility.” We should be open to going off-script and breaking the traditional educational mold, something too few of us are doing in higher education. Second, we should pay attention to what scholars of teaching and learning conclude are the most effective practices. By doing our jobs well, as judged by neoliberalism’s standards, we will also be doing good work in service of social justice. Of course, this doesn’t mean that every student we teach will become a radical. But it does mean that there need be no conflict between doing our jobs and living our politics.
Lest my glasses appear too rose-colored, I hasten to add a third, perhaps most important lesson. We must be live to the possibility that the times are changing. There is good reason to think that the neoliberal order is giving way to something more sinister.
Call it fascism or authoritarianism. The proper label doesn’t matter as much as the recognition that we appear headed towards a system that plays by different rules. The reign of the market may be giving way to a cult of personality and nostalgia for a mythical past of purity and power. If so, then it will no longer do to notice that neoliberalism may have sown the seeds of its own destruction. The Dear Leader does not need nor want an educated workforce. He requires followers. In that case, I fear, the joke may be on us all.
But until the day comes when it’s no longer possible, I will do what I can to teach my bright, eager, inquisitive students to the best of my abilities—and to help my colleagues to do the same. I’ll find sustenance in the recognition that doing my job well, as judged by those in positions of power, is compatible with doing it for reasons dear to my own heart.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers. Donate
Image: Stephan Jockel
Colleges and universities around the globe are once again squarely in the political crosshairs, with many of us in academia bracing for a cold winter, especially in the United States with a second Trump term looming. Truth is, this has been a long time coming. College is increasingly taking on a transactional character, and there’s a growing sense that we’re losing much of what there was to cherish about institutions of higher learning.
Yet I find reasons for hope. There are good people doing good work, including many bright, eager students interested to learn the truth—and appreciative of the opportunity to pursue it with others. But my reasons for optimism in these dark times run deeper than faith in the power of good people.
I have been energized by the recognition that there is significant and remarkable overlap between effective teaching, as judged by the standards of the neoliberal imperative to mold graduates fit for the workforce, and the teaching practices recommended by those educating for radical change. At least when it comes to education, neoliberalism’s contradictions may be the source of its undoing.
This may seem surprising. It’s often taken for granted that capitalism is best served by an educational system that obfuscates truth and stifles creativity. But considering the logic of the system suggests that can’t be quite right.
If neoliberalism is characterized by the application of market forces to everything, then education is no exception. This entails evaluating teacher and school performance according to standardized metrics and allocating (and withholding) funding on this basis. It also entails conceiving of the mechanisms of social reproduction and innovation in terms of competition amongst the best and brightest. Educational institutions play a necessary role in propping up the status quo. Perhaps this is truer of higher education than grade school. All the same, though the system may require an army of complacent workers, it also needs creative talent. And herein lies the rub.
Critics on the Left are correct to decry the deleterious effects of the neoliberal paradigm on public preparedness for democratic participation. Yet there is a silver lining to be exploited. The very teaching techniques touted as evidence-based aides to the production of “career ready” graduates are nearly identical to those recommended as tools to engender the critical consciousness necessary to upend the status quo.
The lesson here is not that those of us committed to a brighter future—those of us concerned with people, not profits; those of us committed to anti-racism, anti-ableism, and LGBTQ+ rights—may simply sit back and let history run its course. There is work to be done!
The lesson is that the seeds of change may be planted while playing by the current set of rules. The house may be destroyed using the master’s tools. Let me try and explain.
Career Readiness
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) defines “career readiness” as “a foundation from which to demonstrate requisite core competencies that broadly prepare the college educated for success in the workplace and lifelong career management.” As an agenda-setting organization for many institutions of higher learning, NACE’s eight “core competencies” help shape college curriculum and how it is assessed. Universities are increasingly being asked to graduate students competent in: career and self-development, communication, critical thinking, equity and inclusion, leadership, professionalism, teamwork, and technology.
Most, if not all, of this list should be unobjectionable to those interested in progressive education and critical pedagogy. Indeed, it includes some supposedly verboten priorities. The idea that colleges should promote equity and inclusion has come under intense attack by those on the right. Yet it’s something employers say they want.
At least on its face, then, career readiness does not appear to be entirely objectionable to those of us on the Left. Look a bit deeper still, and we see that it is not only compatible with, but also congenial to, the development of the sort of critical consciousness central to radical conceptions of education.
Consider how faculty are supposed to help students become career ready. The literature on teaching and learning is replete with studies that show (and meta-studies that confirm) that active and student-centered teaching techniques lead to increased student performance, satisfaction, and success. If one wants college graduates that have the requisite knowledgebase to enter the workforce as productive employees, then one would do well to ditch the “sage on the stage” model of classroom instruction for one that involves learning by doing and reflecting on what one is doing.
The same goes for one who wants college graduates capable of critical thinking, teamwork, and effective communication. This is best promoted by practices that provide students with more opportunities to engage with their peers and approach the subject matter in ways that resonate given their lived experiences and personal goals.
Put another way, career readiness is best served by, to borrow Paulo Freire’s labels, the problem-posing, not the banking, model of education. Teaching by asking questions, facilitating group work, and allowing students more autonomy tends to be a more effective means to learning. It results in more motivated and engaged students, as well as better concept mastery and development of the skills employers are looking for.
Effective Teaching: Evidence-based and Liberatory
It may be worth making explicit the striking parallels between the teaching techniques trumpeted by those aiming to produce students ready to enter the workforce and those aiming to provoke liberated thinkers capable of identifying and questioning the power structures that shape our lives.
Consider the teaching technique referred to as “picture prompt.” This involves showing students an image without explanation or context and asking them to explain it and justify their answers. It is often used in combination with other techniques, such as think-pair-share, as a means of generating deeper discussion of a particular concept, problem, or idea.
It is also a means of avoiding importing one’s own assumptions into the classroom, which is precisely what Freire seeks to avoid in a passage from Pedagogy of the Oppressed describing what is essentially the same technique.
Freire describes a “thematic investigation” in Santiago, where a “group of tenement residents discussed a scene showing a drunken man walking on the street and three young men conversing on the corner.” The residents commented that the drunken man was “the only one there who is productive and useful to his country” and “worried about his family because he can’t take care of their needs.”
Freire continues:
The investigator had intended to study aspects of alcoholism. He probably would not have elicited the above responses if he had presented participants with a questionnaire he had elaborated himself. If asked directly, they might even have denied ever taking a drink themselves. But in their comments on the codification of an existential situation they could recognize, and in which they could recognize themselves, they said what they really felt.(Freire 2005, 118)
What a lovely description of the power of active and student-centered learning to open space for students to connect with the material they are learning, to think critically, and to effectively communicate their thoughts!
This is one instance where evidence-based recommendation meets liberatory practice. It’s not the only one.
In a striking article from 1974, “Towards a Marxist Theory & Practice of Teaching,” Bruce Rappaport enumerates teaching strategies appropriate for “offer[ing] an effective way of understanding the world and, quite crucially in these often depressing times, a powerful sense of optimism about change” (76). He may just as well have been offering a playbook for an active and student-centered classroom.
For instance, under the heading of combatting “isolation in the class,” Rappaport recommends four things: have students learn each other’s names, encourage group work, encourage peer learning, and have students divide up readings and teach each other. The last of these resembles a popular active learning technique called “jigsaw.” Indeed, Rappaport’s recommendations, both in this category and others, overlap significantly with those gleaned from research on teaching and learning.
They also overlap with the sentiments about teaching in general expressed by celebrated champions of radical teaching. Rappaport comments:
The most immediate problem that teachers face in the classroom is that a lot of our students come into the class expecting the worst and are depressed and sunk both by these expectations and their day-to-day life and work activities.(Rappaport 1974, 77)
Compare this with bell hooks’ comments about her own experience as a student:
I learned, along with other students, to consider myself fortunate if I found an interesting professor who talked in a compelling way. Most of my professors were not the slightest bit interested in enlightenment. More than anything they seemed enthralled by the exercise of power and authority within their mini-kingdom, the classroom.(hooks 1994, 17)
Rappaport is concerned to show his fellow Marxists how to break out of the “traditional and authoritarian styles of teaching”; hooks relates how her professors who “used the classroom to enact rituals of control that were about domination and unjust exercise of power” helped her to learn “a lot about the kind of teacher [she] did not want to become.” And both express sentiments that would be at home in any professional development workshop on evidence-based teaching practices.
The Punchline
A social system based on competition between individuals for its own reproduction and innovation requires an educational system that prepares each new generation for combat by imparting essential skills and knowledge. Enemies of this system seek to light a revolutionary fire by preparing the next generation to identify what is really going on and effect radical change. It turns out, the same methods serve both aims. The evidence suggests that effective teaching just is what the radical educator would prescribe.
What does this mean for those of us who see education as integral to helping bring about a more just future?
I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I do think this much is clear. First, we should, along with hooks, see the classroom as a “radical space of possibility.” We should be open to going off-script and breaking the traditional educational mold, something too few of us are doing in higher education. Second, we should pay attention to what scholars of teaching and learning conclude are the most effective practices. By doing our jobs well, as judged by neoliberalism’s standards, we will also be doing good work in service of social justice. Of course, this doesn’t mean that every student we teach will become a radical. But it does mean that there need be no conflict between doing our jobs and living our politics.
Lest my glasses appear too rose-colored, I hasten to add a third, perhaps most important lesson. We must be live to the possibility that the times are changing. There is good reason to think that the neoliberal order is giving way to something more sinister.
Call it fascism or authoritarianism. The proper label doesn’t matter as much as the recognition that we appear headed towards a system that plays by different rules. The reign of the market may be giving way to a cult of personality and nostalgia for a mythical past of purity and power. If so, then it will no longer do to notice that neoliberalism may have sown the seeds of its own destruction. The Dear Leader does not need nor want an educated workforce. He requires followers. In that case, I fear, the joke may be on us all.
But until the day comes when it’s no longer possible, I will do what I can to teach my bright, eager, inquisitive students to the best of my abilities—and to help my colleagues to do the same. I’ll find sustenance in the recognition that doing my job well, as judged by those in positions of power, is compatible with doing it for reasons dear to my own heart.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers. Donate
Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin
Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin, PhD, is the Director of the Teaching & Learning Center and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX.
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