Against Neoliberal Idolatry in Education

AGAINST NEOLIBERAL IDOLATRY IN EDUCATION By Institute of Theology and Politics [This article published in 2006 is translated from the German on the Internet, www.intpol.de.] For 1 ½ decades, we in the Munster Institute for Theology and Politics circle have critically reflected on the role of religious instruction in a neoliberal education landscape from a liberation theological and liberation-pedagogical perspective. We have not abandoned our visions of a new person and a new earth. During this time, we were witnesses of seemingly relentless “reform” “advances “of debt – and education policy in the suction of neoliberal ideas. The visionary concepts of alternative models accompanied burgeoning hopes for social change were no longer dismissed as “old school” in the 1970s. “School of the future” was the motto for making schools fit, for preparing and orienting children and youths mentally for a thoroughly capitalized society and working world. The holy trinity of neoliberal educational policy is competence – resilience and inclusion. - seemingly progressive, modern and more just than in the past. Unnoticed by the public, our educational system is reduced to selection. This criticism was also true in the past. The difference in our opinion is that this selection has induced market-conforming subjects to orient all their knowledge, abilities and desires at usability in a motley competitive world of goods. We try to show radical alternatives by going to the roots – fueled and “instructed” by Biblical-Judaic inspirations, Paulo Freires’ liberation pedagogy and the sharp Foucaultian idea on the “micro-physics” of power in schools. In a messianic-restricted way, we dream that Jewish-Christian religious instruction can be a salutary interruption and promote learning emancipative hope in a 200-year old capitalism with its increasingly subtle grasp on the heads and hearts of students. Being a different person in a different culture and in a different world is our telos and vision. Theses on the Current Situation in the Classroom In the ITP religious teachers circle, we try to characterize the subject, our student, in theses on the neoliberal education project. We will be able to read and develop “antidotes” when we first understand the goals activating students. The following theses should stimulate discussion and deeper thinking. Who really opposes us in the school? – The neoliberal subject: empty, meaningless and shallow without a point of view and without a framework (2015):