In 1932, several of George S. Counts' speeches were published in one single volume with the title "Dare the Schools Build a New Social Order".  In it, he tried to "alert educators to the crisis and challenge of the economic depression [...]" and tried to propose "an educational and political response to that calamity".  I read the 1978 re-publication of this title in June of 1993 for a graduate course on educational philosophy, but I didn't truly understand the urgency nor the impact of this book until recently. The current attacks on Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States brought to mind that course (Philosophy of Education) that I took long ago. Because I didn't have a clear memory of what John Locke or John Dewey had said about education, I felt compelled to re-read some of the texts from that course because suddenly they seemed relevant to the moment that we are presently living. This post is just a reflection of what strikes me as most relevant today of George S. Counts' essays published in New Social Order and poses to answer the question: Is all education indoctrination? And, the simple answer is "yes".

Progressives vs Champions of Freedom

While I am appalled hearing of a school district, a state, or a public official arguing that teachers should not have the power to decide the curriculum in their public-school classrooms, what frightens me most is the desire to legislate curriculum and the proximity that this ideology has to authoritarianism. To argue that citizens, parents, and political constituents fear that their children will be indoctrinated by a progressive education program and "liberal" teachers is an effective strategy to distract other citizens, parents, and political constituents from the fact that those making the accusations are themselves indoctrinating the nation's schoolchildren. This is not a new strategy, and the fear is not new either.

In the 1920s, Counts addressed this concern in several essays. In 1932, Counts published the first edition of Dare the Schools, the contents of which were originally found in speeches he gave on his disdain for and the threat of the child-centered education that Progressives were promoting. Although he makes it very clear that he didn't agree with those who endorsed what he called a "progressive education" in his own time, he also did not support the conservative forces—who purportedly stood for the rights of the child to remain free of the imposition of an ideology within education. Early in the text he argued that "the advocates of extreme freedom have been so successful in championing what they call the rights of the child that they disclaim all intention of molding the learner (7)." Those that feared the negative influence upon the learner by the imposition of a progressive education did not recognize, somewhat ironically, that they too were imposing  ideology with their preferred type of education.  While Counts did credit "progressive" schools for having interest in the learner and the learner's needs, by using active learning methodologies, positing education to promote character, and for championing the rights of the child (as a student), he also listed the weaknesses of progressive education (4-5). Perhaps the greatest criticism Counts had of progressive schools was that he believed that the people who promoted them were not deserving of the public's trust to shape the country's educational programs because, as he stated, "[t]hese people have shown themselves entirely incapable of dealing with any of the great crises of our time—war, prosperity, or depression" (6).  Similarly, Counts also did not identify with the ideologues of the other side of the argument, whom he (perhaps, rather sarcastically) called the "champions of freedom". The champions of freedom considered themselves the advocates of the children, who worried themselves about the rights of the children not to be indoctrinated by the Progressives. He characterizes these people of "such an unenlightened pedagogy" in this way: "[T]he champions of freedom are the product of an age that has broken fundamentally with the past and is equally uncertain about the future; they feel themselves victims of narrow orthodoxies imposed upon them during childhood” (8). Thus stated, Counts surely wouldn't have identified well with either group of his time.  More certainly, he criticized the existence of both extremes.

US American culture and faith in education

Our national rhetoric is such that we do tend to think that education will solve all our problems. Rarely does a day go by that I don't hear someone attribute a poor person's condition to that person's lack of an education and, convinced of this, many excuse themselves from respecting the dignity of another human being because of that person's so-called "poor choices". I heard a caller on a radio show complain that we should differentiate between Type 1 Diabetes and Type 2 when we speak empathetically about the rising cost of healthcare causing some to go without lifesaving insulin. This person felt that Type 2 diabetics should not be given the same empathy for having the illness due to having made poor "lifestyle choices" for themselves. There's a certain arrogance in our culture that is permitted to separate those who have more money or more education than the next from the rest of society, treated as pariahs, by tracing the origin of all of society’s ills to the lack of education, and attributing to education the panacea of all that ails society.  When a factory shutters, when they close a coal mine, when a large employer lays off its employees, there is always talk that those facing losing their homes, or fearing being too old to get a new job or to learning new job skills, need only to "go back to school"—as if an education would immediately make a difference in the lives of all. How have we (as a nation) maintained this faith despite seeing that this is rarely true?

We need not look far to find an exception.  It doesn't really matter how much education a public school teacher gets, she will never be paid appropriately for the contributions she makes to society. Most secondary teachers that I have known worked second jobs to make ends meet. And, many, like me, had incurred a lot of student loan debt to pay for their education. A teacher with a family can't afford to buy a home in some markets and a teacher who is a single parent, can find herself on welfare or dependent upon other  government subsidies. Another example of education not curing all that ails society is to consider that a non-violent crime committed by an educated person (or a so called “white-collar crime”) is still a crime and to consider well-educated people also can be the protagonists of violent crime. Well-educated people can face bankruptcy if they can't pay their bills, just as a less-educated citizen might. Education hasn't solved poverty, preventable diseases, crime, or sociopathy. If education has the power to heal us all, why is it that so? I would think that the human factor is the real problem. We often do things that are not best for us. We smoke, eat too much, drink too much, drive too fast, engage in risky activities--and, in many cases, that's not due to a lack of education. Human beings, aware of risks they are taking, do not always make the best decisions. Right now, we can hear daily that some voters—of one political party or the other—elect candidates who don't have their best interests at heart when they’re legislating. While democracy is supposed to work best with a well-informed electorate, there's absolutely nothing that proves that the informed electorate is necessarily a well-educated one. Schools have limited power and limited reach. As Counts indicates, after so many millennia of wars, the well-educated nations, like the less-educated ones, are still fighting and killing each other over territory and flags. While I would say that human beings themselves are at fault for the lack of progress we've made on some fronts, Counts attributed the lack of progress to investing too much faith in education and too little investment in the social welfare of our fellow human citizens. In fact, Counts criticizes the agenda of Progressives precisely because they value noise over substance, that is, they prefer to seem "busy" rather than actually being busy accomplishing something; have never produced a theory of social welfare beyond "extreme individualism", and it reflects the perspective of the wealthy who pride themselves on their "open-mindedness and tolerance " but have no loyalties, "possess no convictions” and are "insensitive to the accepted form of social justice" as they "play the role of interested spectators in the drama of human history" (5). Counts identifies those depression-era Progressives who espouse an interest in child-centered education as part of upper-class society who view education as the tool to effectively keep their children from coming in contact with “the grimmer aspects of industrial society” and those who “do not want their children to mix too freely” with poor people or people of the “less fortunate races.” Their racial and socioeconomic superiority affords their children an opportunity to experience life “at a distance” and said opportunity is called an education.  For this reason, he proscribes that if Progressive Education proposes to redeem itself, it "must emancipate itself from the influence of this social class, courageously face every social issue, establish an organic relationship with the community, develop a realistic and comprehensive theory of welfare, fashion a compelling and challenging vision of human destiny, and “become less afraid than it is today of the bogies of imposition and indoctrination.” […] Progressive Education cannot place its trust in a child-centered school (7).

Ten Fallacies that led to faith in the myth of an education without indoctrination

There is no doubt that Counts believed that education is inherently indoctrination. He affirms in New Social Order his belief that in “any adequate educational program” should have a critical factor: “An education that does not strive to promote the fullest and most thorough understanding of the world is not worthy of the name” and admits that his expectation is that “all education contains a large element of imposition.” (9).  What he does condemn is the deliberate distortion and suppression of details to support a particular theory or perspective. In an effort to explain why the Champions of Freedom fail to recognize the ideological imposition of the freedom of education that they endorse, Counts offers the explanation of ten distinct fallacies that prove the implausibility of an education without indoctrination.

Fallacy #1: Man is born free and helpless.

Those that believe in this myth disregard the fact that, as Counts asserts, “Man achieves his freedom through the medium of culture” (12). As we are all being nurtured to be members of a particular society, from birth we are imposed upon and conditioned to think, believe and act in a way that is permissible within society. Our community shapes us with rules and disciplines us appropriately so that we are aware of the expectations and standards of excellence of our culture.

Fallacy #2:  The child is born good.

Counts points out that building a good society is an educational process that is “fashioned by hand and the brain” (13). The morals and ethics of a society are taught to the child through the guidance of the community’s elders and appropriate conduct is modeled by them with the support of the laws and policies within thar society.

Fallacy #3: The child lives in a separate world of its own.

While he argues that those who espouse this fallacy perceive of the child existing in a protective bubble, Counts contends that a child can perceive only the society in which he lives and assumes that others experience this same reality. Therefore, not only does the child live in the same world as the adults in his life, but he would logically reason that everyone in the world shares his perspective.

Fallacy #4:  Education exists independently of the cultural milieu and has remained equally beneficial at all times in all places. 

Counts considers this the most dangerous of all fallacies and claims that it is “responsible for many sins committed in different countries by American educators traveling abroad”  (15-17).  To consider “any defensible education program” as immutable and relevant to all people in all places at all times without consideration of the “social situation” as ludicrous and perhaps, abusive.

Fallacy #5:  It is possible for the school to be impartial and instruction without bias is impossible.

For Counts, the fundamental truth is that “complete impartiality is utterly impossible” because the school, by design, is intended to shape minds and impose ideas (16).  While some might believe that every school has the responsibility to teach its children to be good citizens and to promote what they consider “democratic sentiments”,  Counts argues that there can be no consensus on which elements of citizenship will promote growth in the desired direction and, therefore,  said sentiments are neither the responsibility of the schools or its educators. 

Fallacy #6: The objective of education is to produce the college professor, who adopts an agnostic attitude towards every important social issue, and  delays action until his powers of action atrophy and social sympathies decay. He talks about waiting until the solutions of social problems are found, when there are no solutions in any definite and final sense.

Counts opposed the belief that the true intellectual stood back to observe all of society's ills with an attitude of "true impartiality" until all evidence was in on an important social issue;  but instead, considered that college professors held a valuable social function in society. Because they should be capable of "gathering and digesting facts" and, at the same time, "make decisions and act" (19), they would become the real social leaders, finding solutions to the social problems. Therefore, the objective of education should be to teach the student to think rationally, to be able to make decisions and act to resolve problems.

Fallacy #7:   Education is primarily intellectual in its goals, giving meaning, direction, and significance to life.

Counts addressed this fallacy with moral urgency.  He argued that schools, unless faced with misery, crime, and injustice, tended to demonstrate “complete moral and spiritual bankruptcy” (19). Lacking passion and faith, schools “evade their moral responsibility of challenging the next generation” to find ways to resolve the world’s problems and therefore, “destine their children to a life of self-absorption, inferiority complexes, and frustration” (19-20).

Fallacy #8:  The school is an all-powerful educational agency.

Asserting that leaders of Progressive Education perpetuate faith in this fallacy because they tend to believe in the power of the school to reconstruct society while living in fear for the future because of the possibility that the school impose some point of view upon all children to “mold them all to a single pattern” (20), Counts counters that the concern is misplaced.  Instead, he asserts that major concern should be to make certain that every Progressive school will use its power to oppose and check the forces of social conservativism and reactionaryism (20-21).

Fallacy #9:  Ignorance, rather than knowledge is the way to wisdom or that there is something profane in any effort to understand, plan, control the process of education.

Counts argues that the school should know what it is doing and “accept full responsibility for its actions” (22) in light of the fact that some deliberately prefer to be ignorant of the consequences that their influence may have upon the intellectual growth of the child.

Fallacy #10:  The major responsibility of education is to prepare the individual to adjust himself to social change. Consequently the individual must possess an agile mind, be doing by no deep loyalties, hold all conclusions and values tentatively.

Counts viewed this fallacy as irrational and essentially anarchic in that it assumes that man is incapable of controlling his own brain and that industrialization and mechanization was the root of this cruelty. He argued that this imposition is unenlightened in that it promotes chaos, uncertainty, hopelessness, and a sense of pernicious competition that would bring about a “brutish struggle for existence and advantage” (23).

Teaching is indoctrination. Teaching is a responsibility.

Perhaps, the verbs indoctrinate and impose have developed negative connotations in recent years, but education is inherently indoctrination. Whether educators and schools are willing to admit this or not, they have a responsibility to teach the students, who are not inherently good, nor are they blank slates sitting ready for an imprint, nor are they empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge. If we accept that education is impossible without intention, we acknowledge that all education is indoctrination and if we are to be held responsible for what we teach, then education needs to be a controlled act. Education requires a curriculum and curriculum requires a pedagogy. When education was democratized, determining that all people deserve an education, having the power to think and rationalize is much more liberating than recitation of any doctrine. Education should be about harnessing the power to make rational decisions to cure all that ails society—hunger, thirst, sickness, and pain are universal and we should know how to avoid them and how to resolve the issues that cause them.