Dare the School Build a New Social Order?

Curriculum studies have long examined the interaction of school knowledge and the social order. Many question whether schools contribute to dynamic thinking and human agency or conforming acceptance to cultural norms. George S. Counts's booklet Dare the School Build a New Social Order? critiques the socializing function of schooling as it searches out the politics of possibility in the curriculum.

Concerned with America's social and economic inequities, University of Chicago graduate and longtime Columbia University professor of education, Counts (1889–1974) (re)examined schools and the curriculum through a series of essays in the 1920s. Jolted by the Great Depression, Counts critiqued “progressive” education as limited and set forth a new politicized, some say radical, agenda for education. Three papers delivered in 1932, “Dare Progressive Education Be Progressive,” “Education Through Indoctrination,” and “Freedom, Culture, Social Planning, and Leadership” were published as Dare the School Build a New Social Order? that same year. This book is often viewed as the platform of the social reconstructionist movement.

Counts's earlier books, including Selective Character of American Secondary Education, Social Composition of Boards of Education, School and Society in Chicago, and The American Road to Culture set the stage for Dare the School Build a New Social Order? In those works, he examined the failure of (high) schools to reduce economic inequality, substantiated corporate control of educational policy, spotlighted the resistance to elite influence in school governance in Chicago, and commented on the role of school in culture making.

The first section of Dare the School Build a New Social Order? presents a critique and break with progressive education and the Progressive Education Association. Counts wrote of his great hope for schools, namely the curriculum, to be active and vibrant in addressing social issues. Focused on child centeredness, progressive education lacked a social point of view and was unable to spread social democracy. He wrote that in the midst of economic catastrophe and political uncertainty it had no theory of social welfare and no political direction. The progressives, he argued, were good liberals under the influence of middle-class elitism. They were romantic sentimentalists who could not grasp the urgency for sweeping social and economic change. He concluded that authentic education must go beyond the uplift of children to promote an understanding of the world.

In the next section, Counts examined critics of his reconstructionism who raised fears of indoctrination and imposition. He believed the indoctrination thesis was a red herring. Children are not autonomous and are inevitably socialized into cultures and traditions. The real problem for Counts was not indoctrination, but rather an irrelevant and impotent curriculum in matters of social democracy. Counts scoffed at the mythological [Page 276]paradigm of impartiality wherein schools produce dispassionate agnostic individuals who withhold judgment in the interest of objectivity. Children and society, he argued, are not neutral and in fact are influenced in many ways. He suggested we place our concerns on the ideals of our society.

Section 3 joins Counts's views on technology with the role of teachers in transforming society. He proclaimed that the center of gravity is shifting from politics to economics. The conquest of nature and scientific advancement allows for the creation of abundance where poverty is finally banished. Economic democracy in the technological industrial society can end want, creating goods and services for all. Despite the Depression, a new world is on the horizon. It needs ushers. For Counts, teachers are uniquely positioned, for they possess the knowledge and wisdom of the ages. They are organized and presumably have the interests of the children and society at heart. Teachers should reach for power, for they are the bridge between school and society.

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