Feb 2008
Social work education: Neoliberalism’s willing victim? (In response to Larry Arnold)
Not my words, but within the article:-
Social work education: Neoliberalism’s willing victim?
..... This attack is not only being waged by university administrators, but also by social work educators themselves. Administrators who have no understanding of social work are often in positions of authority to make decisions that can affect the mandate and direction of a school of social work. Colleagues who have bought into the neoliberal dream have also created an intolerable situation for those of us who resist this nightmarish vision.....
......In order to illustrate our argument, we will examine research, writing and teaching by reflecting on some of our experiences to date. It is important to mention that at the time of writing this article, the first author is in her fourth year as an academic and the second author is in his first year. The latter brings to his academic experience 20 years as a front-line social worker, and the former brings 15 years of activism to her work. Teaching conformity: The mind imprisoned.....
.....Where am I? I seem to be in a prison cell with no walls. The air is fragranced with fear and excitement. This cell is reserved for delinquent educators who refuse to teach the subjects dictated by the corporate administrators. Their surveys of employers and analyses of market trends have generated a prediction of the most profitable topics to teach. Diverging from this curriculum is punishable by marginalization. I run and run and run.....
....Concluding thoughts: Resistance and beyond..... ......A few months have passed and the nightmare has yet to return. I am finally free of its grasp. Instead, the nocturnal world now brings dreams of solidarity. I am in a sunny room surrounded by laughing generations of academics. We have embraced our responsibility as scholars to work alongside communities to create a transformed world.......
...... Freireian viewpoint.... ......Freire’s (1969/1998; 1990) ideas are particularly relevant to multicultural environments as Freire identifies key concepts of the oppressor and the oppressor within, the banking system of education, critical consciousness, liberatory education (education for freedom and hope), working together across boundaries, and praxis. The oppressor is the person or system in dominant power that subjugates those who are not in power. The oppressor within is that internalized oppression that allows oppressed people to continue to go along with the oppressor.
The banking system of education is the idea that those in power have knowledge to impart to those who do not have knowledge, and fill their students with knowledge, which the students accept as an investment for their future. Critical consciousness is that awareness of one’s place in historical context, which for many oppressed people is liberating. This awareness on a deep level of the personal is related to the possibility of freedom, which brings hope (Freire, 1998). When a person understands the oppressor within, he or she has education for freedom and hope to make a revolutionary change. Working together across boundaries brings unity in diversity. Praxis is the interconnection of theory and practice, interrelated systemically to bring meaning and change in concert (Freire, 1969/1998; 1990; Freire & Macedo, 1995).
Neoliberalism -- UTOPIA OF ENDLESS EXPLOITATION What is neoliberalism? A programme for destroying collective structures which may impede the pure market logic.
Chomksy states...Certainly the neoliberal programs have no serious theoretical basis, .... in 1993 in which he wrote about the neofascist orientation of one member of the ...
Holocaust History Project......
......and Finally.... "Deconstructing Botsford"
....Holocaust denial has had a long history that has included adherents from both the extreme right and the extreme left. Many examples of such material are written clumsily and are easily understood by the public for what they are. Outright claims that murder by gassing was physically impossible that the Nazis killed only thousands of Jews, and that history was falsified by a massive Jewish conspiracy are easily understood for the lies that they are. Recently, Holocaust deniers and Nazi apologists have put forward more sophisticated arguments. Gassing was possible they admit, but the testimonies are inconsistent with physical facts. Others claim that the belief in murder by poison gas arose not by a conspiracy but by misunderstandings and rumors. A third category are those who avoid the central claims of the deniers, but intentionally legitimize them by misrepresenting deniers as misunderstood intellectuals whose only crime is to defend an unpopular view in a legitimate debate. An example of such a piece can be found on the AAARGH Holocaust-denial site at: http://www.abbc.com/aaargh/engl/DBfreedom1.html
Noam Chomsky And The Gatekeepers Of The Left
Larry, I hope you are right mate and that disabled people and other minority oppressed groups are not part of a NeoLiberal (NeoFascist) 'hidden' agenda to lead us all back to the gas-chambers, for the 'final-solution', within a 'cure' for all neoliberal social and economic ills and that as I said to a friend this morning I don't want to have to write a new book called:- "A Crip Hitchhikers guide to the gas-chambers" :-)
Ranta Claus
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