Miseducation Essay ⋆ Education Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The term miseducate was coined by African American historian and educator Carter G. Woodson with his 1933 classic work, The Mis-Education of the Negro. His premise was built around the notion that one’s education should have redemptive value, for both the individual and the group with which the individual identifies. Miseducation is particularly problematic for oppressed groups, who are led to believe that an education will help them overcome their oppressed status. The fact of the matter, he thought, is that the (mis)education they receive from the oppressor tends to reinforce their oppression, alienates them from their communities, and has more redemptive value when used in service to the oppressor. The effect of receiving a (mis)education is continued oppression and suppression of individual and group agency and self-determination.

If the word miseducation is considered more broadly, beyond Woodson’s conceptual interpretation of the term to indicate its effects on oppressed people, then the word can be defined in more conventional terms. When major dictionaries such as Webster’s do not formally define terms like miseducation, then the meaning of the prefix mis can be attached to the word education to indicate an education gone bad or wrong. This type of education is one that misleads the student to believe erroneous and inaccurate information or fail to acquire requisite literacy. Curricula designed to minister to various social, political, and religious agendas with minimal focus on social or scientific research evidence are more inclined to miseducate students. However, when members of the dominant group are miseducated, their dominance is reinforced. The redemptive value of such an education is that it serves their interests and allows them to continue to enjoy the privileges and benefits of a hegemonic social order.

Since the appearance of Woodson’s work, anyone wishing to challenge the value of various types of education, especially those who use top-down curricula sanctioned by powerful bureaucratic structures, adopt the term miseducation to express their dissatisfaction with such systems. For example, Noam Chomsky views schools as tools of miseducation and refers to them as institutions of indoctrination and obedience. Instead of schools creating independent thinkers, Chomsky believes they have been used historically as institutional systems to promote control and coercion among the citizenry.

Jane Roland Martin takes a “cultural wealth” approach to the issue by challenging cultures to preserve and transmit their cultural assets but not their cultural liabilities. Violence; racism; ethnocentrism; and religious, gender, and nonconformist sexual orientation hatred are cultural liabilities that hinder movement toward development of a more inclusive, democratic definition of culture and citizenship. Should society expand the concept of educational agency to include all groups and institutions, then the miseducated oppressed can be educated for first-class citizenship. Conversely, miseducated dominant groups can then be expected to denounce false notions of inherent superiority and advocate equal educational opportunity for everyone.

Others who weigh in on the miseducation phenomenon include David Elkind, who finds that early instruction is often miseducation, not because it attempts to teach but because it attempts to teach the wrong things at the wrong time, that is, at too early an age. Indeed age-inappropriate instruction can be problematic, especially when it involves matters of sex and sexual orientation. Activist Laura McPhee voiced her concern about sexual miseducation; because it omits vital information in its curriculum, it can leave children at risk for sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, and abuse.

James D. Koerner disparaged teacher education courses as another form of miseducation, calling them intellectually unchallenging and professionally useless. He advocated that pre-service teacher preparation place more emphasis in academic content areas. This is an ongoing controversy that has expanded to include the educational preparation of school and district leadership. Arguably at the center of scholarly debate is the importance of the right knowledge, skills, and dispositions for effective teaching and leadership. Paul Goodman’s 1964 critique of American education admonishes a school system for being too cozy with mass media. He observes students who appear systematically conditioned to follow the train of others’ thoughts and never come to learn or know anything about themselves or how to creatively construct knowledge from elemental learning tools.

Finally, pop culture’s most celebrated testament to American miseducation was music artist Lauryn Hill’s 1998 debut solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which received five Grammy awards. including Best Album, and was named by the television network VH1 as the thirty-seventh greatest album of all time. It also made Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time at number 312. Hill, who confesses much respect for academia, says the title should not be taken too literally. The songs reflect things learned outside of school and outside of what society deems appropriate and mandatory. School systems that favor blind patriotism over critical discourse run the risk of miseducating oppressed as well as dominant groups, because both fail to get an education that encourages service to our collective best human potential.

Bibliography:

Elkind, D. (1987). Miseducation: Preschoolers at risk. New York: Knopf.
Goodman, P. (1964). Compulsory mis-education. New York: Vintage.
Koerner, J. (1963). The miseducation of American teachers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Martin, J. R. (2002). Cultural miseducation: In search of a democratic solution. New York: Teachers College Press.
McPhee, L. (2006, April). Sexual miseducation [Online]. Retrieved September 15, 2006, from http://www.nuvo.net/archive/2006/04/05/sexual_miseducation.html
Woodson, C. (1933). The mis-education of the Negro. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers.

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