Science

From Jeff Schmidt - Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look At Salaried Professionals And The Soul Battering System That Shapes Their Lives

Chapter 12: NEUTRAL VOICES

[Description of a 3-card-monte scam]

For the operator of the game, getting the mark to go peacefully is a necessity, not an option, and so cooling out is not something that happens “after” the game. Cooling out is an integral part of the game.

The U.S. socioeconomic system, like the hustler, makes false promises, the principal one being that social mobility is available to all who work hard. By its very nature, a hierarchical system cannot possibly keep such a promise. The number of positions at successively higher levels decreases very quickly and is always less than the number of hardworking people who want the positions. This structure sets many ambitious workers on a collision course with the reality of limited opportunity. When they are finally hit with the tragic disappointment, they may become angry or resentful, and so the hierarchical system must engage in widespread cooling out. It does this not only to protect its agents who stand at the gate and do the dirty work of exclusion, but also to make sure that those who have been disappointed do not become opponents of the hierarchical system itself and enemies of its power elite. It is vital to the system that the losers serve the hierarchy respectfully, and not sabotage it, when they find themselves with jobs that have lower social status than the society of “unlimited opportunity” had led them to expect. Cooling out is therefore an integral part of the socioeconomic system.

As the avenues for getting ahead in this country have narrowed, the route of formal education has become dominant, so that today the pursuit of opportunity in the United States is to a large extent institutionalized in the colleges. As a result, the colleges have become one of the pyramidal system’s main tools for cooling out people’s “unrealistic” career ambitions. They do it on a massive scale, yet by necessity conceal the fact that that is what they are doing.

[Pre-College description (SAT, etc)]

[Context:] Each year, only about 5% of those enrolled in two-year colleges transfer to bachelors granting institutions, an astoundingly small fraction.

Clark analyzed the process by which junior colleges change transfer students into terminal students. He considers as an example a student who wants to be an engineer but who is destined not to be one. What might be the sequence of experiences that cools him out? At many junior colleges these experiences start even before classes do, in the form of testing and counseling. Thus, after an enrollment examination in English and mathematics, our would-be engineer may find himself in remedial classes, which delay his eventual transfer to a four-year college and, more importantly, shake his self-image as a future engineer. At a required advising session, a counselor looks over his “counseling folder,” which contains transcripts from other schools, test scores, recommendations from teachers and so on. Although his file is thin, the counselor observes that high school grades and test scores such as these usually suggest a less ambitious program —’’but of course you are free to go ahead and try the pre-engineering program if you want—just remember that we have a lot of really good vocational programs here, too.”

The student will face this folder again and again as the months go by and as grades and “need for improvement” notices from instructors accumulate. The file of impersonal, objective-looking data shadows him and, when it grows sufficiently strong, will stalk him. The counselors, skilled in handling the “overambitious” student, use the growing file to justify becoming more persistent with their advice. Advice given at previous counseling sessions is in the student’s folder and is now cited impersonally as part of the accumulating “evidence.” The counselors edge the student toward a vocational program, but they never countermand his choices, for the whole point of the protracted exercise is to avoid a personal, hard “No,” and to have the student make the “correct” choice on his own.

Finally, the student is put on academic probation for receiving below average grades and must now submit to more than the usual amount of counseling. Students are allowed to stay on probation for a number of semesters or indefinitelv, depending on the school, so probation does not force many students out of junior college. Rather, it is designed to get the student to think about himself and admit to his thinking the possibility of reclassifying himself as a terminal student. Reclassification would allow him to receive the college’s two-year degree, Associate in Arts, by putting him in classes in which he would get grades high enough to bring his average up to the required level.

He relents, at last, and reclassifies himself, marking a big change in his life. The college expedites changes of this sort by making them appear as small as possible: Our student will be an “engineering aide” instead of an “engineer.” There is a world of difference, of course, but on the surface things appear pretty much the same: He continues as a student (at least for the time being) and tells family and friends that he has decided to “start out” as an engineering aide.

[Pivot to University education.]

Many students who do get bachelor’s degrees want to work toward a professional credential, such as a law degree, medical degree or PhD. As we have seen, the criteria that determine who is permitted to do this include attitude, and in particular favor individuals who have the kind of uncritical attitude, or narrow focus, that makes them easy to direct. But it is not enough for the qualification system to give the best positions to those who will do the best job from the point of view of employers. It must also cool out the high educational and career expectations of those who are excluded, including those who would do the best job from other points of view, such as that of clients and the public. Professional qualifying examinations help to do both: Not only do they help identify those who would serve employers best, but they also help cool out the “failures.”

The [standardized pre-professional qualifying] test’s nonpartisan look transforms it from a tool of the institution into an independent third party, allowing the institution to maintain a purely positive image: The institution is set up to produce successes: it is the test that forces denial. (“Modern personnel record-keeping, in general, has the function of documenting [for] denial,” notes Clark. 1 ") When faculty members judge a student negatively and crush the student’s hopes of becoming a professional in the field, they use the test to distance themselves emotionally from what they are doing and to avoid feeling personally responsible for their decision. Yes, the faculty members write the test, administer it, score it and report the results, but in doing each of these things, they see themselves as clerical workers, not as judges. It is the nonpartisan third party that judges the student. Faculty members are generally sympathetic, but detached, as the neutral third party snuffs out the student’s aspirations in a clean, mechanical, businesslike way.

Qualification systems almost always allow for repeated attempts at success — and repeated occasion for failure. The student has the right to retake the qualifying examination even when the faculty doesn’t encourage the student to do so. This right to try again is always presented in terms of the opportunity it provides, not in terms of its main purpose, which is to let down the hopes of the unwanted slowly, rather than in one abrupt, alienating, and potentially explosive step. When students are failed for the first time, they begin to admit thoughts of revising their goals. By the time the exam comes around again, they are more prepared to accept its judgment of their ability to learn the tricks of the trade. The faculty is more persuasive this time, now that it is backed up by another piece of “objective evidence.” The facts get increasingly hard for the student to explain away.

“Maybe the faculty is right and I’m just making excuses.”

Sorry to make such a long post lol. I tried to summarize where I can.