1972: A G O O D Y E A R FOR A D U L T E D U C A T I O N by G W E N N . PAWLIKOWSKI B.A., The University of Regina, 1986 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF T H E REQUIREMENTS FOR T H E D E G R E E OF MASTER OF ARTS in T H E FACULTY OF G R A D U A T E STUDIES (Department of Educational Studies) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard T H E UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA February 1998 © Gwen N . Pawlikowski, 1998 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date feb. 7^/9% DE-6 (2/88) Abstract 1972: A G O O D YEAR FOR A D U L T EDUCATION by Gwen Pawlikowski The "field" of adult education can be viewed geographically. During some time periods, little change occurs and the landscape remains as it had been for a long time. In other periods, such as when a volcano erupts or an earthquake rocks a cityscape, the terrain is significantly altered. 1972 was that kind of period for adult education and three significant reports documented the changes. Learning to Be, the famed Faure Commission report from Unesco, called for adult education as a necessary force for the future. A. Future of Choices, A. Choice of Futures from Alberta's Worth Commission and The Learning Society, from Ontario's Wright Commission echoed Learning to Be. A critical examination of these reports reveals the new status adult education had received in the eyes of both educators and governments. While many new "territories" were opened to adult education, as evidenced by these reports, three in particular have been chosen for examination: leisure, technology and the environment. Adult education was being called into the field of leisure as a way for society to cope with the expected increase in free time. Technology, as well, was increasing the perceived need for education. At the same time, technology was viewed as a positive force in the provision of adult education. Finally, adult education was being asked to help societies confront the sweeping environmental changes and in this regard, adult education moved to serving planetary, as well as societal, organizational and individual needs. Within the field of adult education, these eruptions occurred, extending the area beyond its previous perimeters. Not only did the field grow in 1972; the terrain changed in new and pervasive ways. n T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S Abstract ii Table of Contents iii List of Figures v Acknowledgment vi Chapter One Looking at the Landscape 1 Introduction : 1 The Reports 3 The Meanings of Adult Education 9 How the Reports Affected Each of the Three Types of.... Adult Education 11 Statement of die Problem 16 Thesis Structure.. 17 Ch apter Two Con text 19 Educational Crisis 20 Student Protests 22 Flaws in Preparatory Education 24 Unesco Context 27 Canadian Socio-Economic Context 34 Conclusion 38 Chapter Three: Leisure 40 The Commissions' Views of Leisure 40 The Meanings of Leisure 44 Context 46 Worldviews of Leisure 47 Discussion 49 Chapter Four: Technology 55 The Commissions' Views of Technology 55 • The Meanings of Technology 59 Context 61 Worldviews of Technology and Environment 64 Discussion 66 Conclusion , 70 in Chapter Five: Environment 72 Commissions' Views of Environmental Education 72 Meanings of Environment 75 Context 75 Worldviews of Environmental Education 78 Discussion 81 Chapter Six: Implications for Future Research 83 Conclusion 83 Educating for Leisure 85 Educating for/with Technology 86 Environmental Education 87 Gender 88 Other themes 89 The twisting of learning to Be 90 References 93 Appendix 1 Major Events of 1972..... 99 iv LIST O F FIGURES Number • Page Fig. 1 Unesco Commission members 4 Fig. 2 Wright Commission members 7 Fig. 3 The island of fun 50 Fig. 4 Technology as a central force 66 Fig. 5 Islands of environmental thought 80 Fig. 6 Boshier's (1985) micro-and macro-needs 81 v A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S I'd like to thank the members of my committee—Roger Boshier, J.D. Wilson and Kjell Rubenson—for their guidance and encouragement throughout this project. I'd also like to thank Kristen Greene and Harry Ruggenberg for making this experience less solitary and more colourful. vi Chapter 1 L O O K I N G A T T H E LANDSCAPE Introduction Glance back at the years of your life and reflect on your birthdays. Did you meet some with hope and enthusiasm? Others with a churning stomach, fearful of the future, pained by imminent changes? Or still others with an empty-notebook stare, because nothing much happened or was expected to happen? Was it a non-eventful year, a prairie-kind of year, left over from earlier years of earthquake-like upheavals and volcanic-like eruptions? When are the important years of change in your life? My 14th was a good year, rich with optimism. Almost an adult, almost in high school, I was learning to drive. My driver's license, a golden carrot in the distance, was moving closer into view. My parents were even starting to let me practise driving on Sunday afternoons on narrow country roads with minimal traffic. The thrill of being given a chance to demonstrate my control over an entire automobile was intoxicating. I absorbed every molecule of this new acknowledgment. I was growing up. I was entering adulthood. I was driving! The new anticipation of the future has marked many of my birthdays since, but at age 14, this feeling was completely novel and exhilarating. How old is adult education? When is its birthday? When was it born? These are debatable questions beyond the scope of this thesis. Whether adult education should be described as a child, adolescent, adult or pensioner is not the issue. Nevertheless, 1972 was a good year for the field. Like me at 14, the field of adult education was recognized and acknowledged that year by important government 1 documents, both internationally and in Canada. For adult education, it was like being allowed to drive the car on Sunday afternoons; the quiet invisibility left behind in the swirling dust and exhaust in the rear view mirror. Consider the change in another way, a geographical way. In 1972, the landscape of adult education blossomed, drawing the attention of governments and international organizations, in some cases, bringing with it recognition, professional legitimacy, and money. Yet it wasn't only the acquisition of a higher status that altered and shaped it. A new conception of democracy also threaded through the landscape like streams from a glacial lake that has begun to thaw. Rivers of democracy brought new life and energy into the field that had previously been focused on professionalizing as a service commodity (Wilson, 1991). Boshier (1997a) notes that 1972 was a "halcyon year" (p. 4) for educational reform. Selman (1989) describes those 12 months as "truly startling and encouraging for adult educators in Canada" (p. 34) and as a year whose events "broke with dramatic impact" (p. 34). Why was 1972 so great? What happened that encouraged and delighted adult educators? How was the landscape so significantly altered? Three government reports indicate the growth of the field of adult education: one from the Ontario government, one from the Alberta government, and another from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). These reports mark significant alterations in the terrain of adult education, with changes that had previously been largely ignored or left to chance, like dormant volcanoes that suddenly awoke. Although the reports document the need and/or value of education in areas of human experience, this study will examine changes occurring in three: the incursion of adult education into the social question of leisure, the change in view of technology 2 from a force to be adapted to, to a tool in the adult educator's belt, and the alliance of adult education with environmentalism as a means to prevent future ecological degradation. The Reports The physical size of the books does not reflect their contents or contexts. The Unesco report, Learning to Be: The World of Education Today and Tomorrow, is the thinnest of all. Yet, it is the one book created from and for an international context. The seven (all-male) members of the International Commission on the Development of Education that produced the report were chosen for their cultural dissimilarities. Unesco Secretary-General Rene Maheu sought a study that was a: .. .critical reflection of men of different origins and background, seeking, in complete independence and objectivity, for over-all solutions to the major problems involved in the development of education in a changing universe (Faure, 1972, p. v). The chair of the committee was Edgar Faure, a former Minister of Education in France and a person known for his sweeping reforms of higher education in die wake of France's 1968 student revolts. Despite the small size of the report, Learning to Be has been recognized as "a template for the operationalisation of lifelong education as a 'master concept'" (Boshier, 1997a). The Commission had an international cast. 3 Former_Minister of Education for France Professor from the University of Chile and a former president of the Inter-American Development Bank and Executive-Director of the International Monetary Fund \lxlul R J / Z £ H H kadd'jura I Professor of Nuclear Physics at the- University of Damascus in Syria, Member of the Board of Governors of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency 1 lei in Lope- Minister of Foreign Affairs and Former Minister of Education in the People's Republic of the Congo \ifhut P tT \-,k\ Member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences in the USSR Former Iranian Minister of Higher Education and Sciences and Vice-President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council 1 mlcnck (ilumpion \\ M\] American Advisor on International Education, The Ford Foundation, former Dean at the University of Chicago Fig. 1 Members of the International Commission on the Development ot Education. 4 The Commission members were appointed in February of 1971 and submitted their report in May of 1972. In the course of completing their work, two- and three-member teams traveled to 23 countries to exchange views with educational authorities and political leaders, including Pope Paul VI. Commission members also visited 13 organizations within the United Nations system and four education-related conferences. Specialists produced 81 documents for the Commission's review and 16 specialists attended meetings of the Commission (Faure, 1972). In this way, the Commission collected its information. The Worth Commission wrote its report after similar investigations in the province of Alberta. Although the commission actually consisted of only one person, Walter Worth, a former Professor of Elementary Education and Vice-president of the University of Alberta's Campus Planning and Development, he then recruited an eight-person board. As well, the provincial government's Human Resources Research Council participated in providing studies on aspects of education and planning, and on forecasts for social, economic, demographic and educational futures. The Commission board also accepted submissions from 330 individuals and groups representing the public. Some of these submissions were presented at the 36 public hearings held in 20 locations around the province. Eighteen more public conferences and meetings were organized in the course of the Commission's work. Meanwhile, three task forces spent 14 months engaged in intensive study of compulsory, post-secondary and lifelong education (Worth, 1972). Worth and his board had significantly more time than the Unesco Commission. After being established, the Commission began work in October of 1969 and finished in 1972. Perhaps, the additional time resulted in additional content. Of the three books, the Worth Report is the thickest, 5 biggest and includes art to make the content more attractive to an average reader. Looking inside A. Future of Choices, A Choice of Futures puts the reader in a mood of the 60's. There are colour pictures, large type and the headings have no capital letters. The colourful, non-standard titles match the mood of the time. The style of the publication reflects the commission's desire to be accessible to the public; they actually expected people to read the report. Such was the optimism of the writers of the Worth Commission report. In the middle in terms of size and in terms of the number of people represented in its context is the Wright Commission report. The learning Society is the product of the collective labour of 13 men and women in the province of Ontario. Although the report centred on post-secondary education, the commission agreed that "post-secondary education is not an activity confined within the walls of familiar institutions of teaching and learning" (Wright, 1972, vi). The study was intended to provide recommendations on the needs of Ontario's students, including those of adult and continuing education (Wright, 1972, iii). The Wright Commission report took a little longer to produce than that of the Worth Commission. The Commission on Post-Secondary Education in Ontario was created in April of 1969 and submitted its report in December of 1972. Members of the group had links to post-secondary education. In particular, the chair, Douglas T. Wright, was a former Dean of Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Wright resigned as chair near the end of the commission work and D.O. Davis took over. He, too had a background in post-secondary education as a Vice-Chairman of the Council of Regents of the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology. Other members are listed, with details of their relevant experience, in Fig. 2. 6 DouulasT Wni'hf Former Dean of Engineering at the University of Waterloo D O D,I\IS Vice-Chairman of the Council of Regents of the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology ^WicPBlaTk m Former member of the Canadian Union of Students, member of the Ontario Press Council and Director of the Institute for Research on Public Policy 1 M > Circle Professor of History, University of Toronto William Oicn\ ^ ^ B I Former Executive Secretary of die Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Students' Association of Ontario |ohn DeuKch Principal of Queen's University at Kingston and former Economic Council of Canada Chair •RevalGelStSinM Honorary Fellow and Tutorial Teacher at Founders College, York University, member of die Committee on University Affairs 1 .uiri'iit I-.ibt'lk' Psychology Professor and former Director of the Guidance Centre at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa Board of Education Trustee Toronto lawyer and member of the Federal Committee on Youth )fill 1 1 s kllkjUh Professor of Metallurgical Engineering at McMaster University a\V i^amiJiadwriaii_ International Vice-President of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 11tii>li \ I ; i C i i n l ; i \ ^ Former chair of the Board of Governors of Ryerson Poly technical Institute VVilliam iNewnham j President of Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology 1 dn.i 1 1 i c r / e Master of English Literature at Cones toga College of Applied Arts and Technology Fig. 2 The members of the Wright Commission (Wright, 1972). 7 The Wright Commission functioned through a series of four committees: on research, aims and objectives, teaching and learning, and alternatives. The research committee served to develop a framework for research and to then award research contracts. The aims and objectives committee defined the educational philosophy of the Commission. The teaching and learning committee read about this topic. The alternatives committee explored new kinds of educational enterprises. Other committees were arranged for specific tasks, such as drafting and editing the final report. Also, Commission members met 41 times in the four years of their work. Individual members traveled to 11 countries to gather information and participated in at least four conferences. Naturally, the Commission consulted numerous specialists and held 38 days of public hearings in locations around the province. In total, 334 submissions arrived for the Commission (1972). When I read the reports now, I struck by the writers' hope for the future of lifelong education and for the world. This optimism contrasts sharply with the nihilism of Generation X, my generation. Faure, Worth, Wright, and the people contributing to the commissions' research had fears, especially about the environment and technology. Yet those fears were ultimately dominated by a humanistic belief that the good in humanity could be uncovered through education. Unfortunately, that same humanism now comes under criticism as being a distraction from issues of power and inequality. Small, medium and large, the books offered ideas and recommendations about educational changes for society. In particular, they gave new weight and space to adult education, a topic that had been relatively invisible in previous reports (Selman, 1989). A metaphor for changes in the world and Canadian consciousness, these reports show that the field of adult education was breaking through its boundaries, changing and was being brought into public awareness a way it never had before. 8 The Meanings of Adult Education When I tell people outside of this field that I am studying adult education, I am normally faced with a glazed or confused look. Following this is a confession: they don't know what it means. Members of the public cannot be faulted when adult educators themselves have had such difficulty defining the field. What adult education is remains a persistent problem, even after Vemer's (1975) and Shroeder's (1972) typologies. Before beginning to map adult education's growth in 1972, I will clarify the meanings of education and learning, as well as adult education, a notoriously amorphous entity to which this study assigns three distinct meanings. Education and learning are often used interchangeably; however, they are not the same. Learning is something which occurs naturally and spontaneously, and which may be individual or social, but is normally regarded as something internal. "Simply by being alive an adult is engaged in lifelong learning. It is an inevitable corollary of eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom" (Boshier, 1995, p. 4). Education, on the other hand, is an external, deliberate attempt to provoke or accelerate intentional learning. Although it may occur in a classroom, in informal or non-formal settings, individually or with others, education differs from learning in that it involves the creation of a relationship between educators and participants for the purpose of feedback (Boshier, 1995). Everyone who has suffered through high school knows that education does not necessarily lead to learning, and may in fact prevent it or produce unintended results such as skepticism about the system. Nevertheless, learning may occur within education, and ideally does. 9 The second distinction dissects the amorphous concept of adult education into three parts. For the purposes of this argument, I distinguish between three. The first distinguishes between the education of adults (physically mature individuals) and that of children (physically non-mature individuals). In Canadian society, people officially reach adulthood when they are 18. This definition doesn't consider emotional or mental maturity. A second meaning of adult education relates to the purposes and ways of instruction. Malcolm Knowles made a distinction between pedagogy, the art and science of teaching children, and andragogyj a model assuming adult learners to be self-directed (Knowles, 1970). Propelled by Maslow's (1954) hierarchy of needs, Knowles' vision of adult learners was of those seeking to fulfill needs, the highest of which were self-actualization. Paulo Freire (1970) contrasted "banking", in which a teacher deposits information into passive, unknowing students with his idea of problem-posing education, in which teachers and students learn together for a deepened consciousness of their condition. This conscienti^ation would in turn lead people to transform the unfair and inequitable conditions of their society (Freire, 1996). Earlier, Eduard Lindeman (1926) linked adult education to the fulfillment of democratic participation. "Vocational education is designed to equip students with the proper means for arriving at,the selected goals. Adult education goes beyond the means and demands new sanctions, new vindications of ends" (p. 47). Furthermore, Lindeman anticipated adult education as a social phenomenon which would enhance democracy. "Adult education specifically aims to train individuals for a more fruitful participation in those smaller collective units which do so much to mold significant experience" (p. 57). Whether from Freire, Knowles or Lindeman, the field of adult education has been influenced by proponents of enhanced personal freedom or democracy. The founding fathers (adult education has been male-dominated, 10 so unfortunately sexist language is most appropriate) would not have agreed on the meanings of freedom or democracy, but, in general, they claimed that adult education included a special responsibility beyond the education of children, preparatory education and vocational education. This notion of adult education's purpose being that of freedom/democracy/self-actualization is the second meaning. A third definition of adult education relates to the development in this area as a field of study composed of teachers, researchers and writers, with a distinct body of knowledge. As the field has grown and developed, primarily in the 20th century, it has professionalized, legitimating some types of knowledge and leaving others behind. A common example of this has been documented by Arthur Wilson (1991) who reviewed the Handbook of Adult Education books. His study argued that adult education, as demonstrated by the handbooks, has never had an emancipatory outreach, as defined by critical educators at this point in history. Rather, any emancipatory projects were largely ignored to promote a scientific, professionalized base located increasingly in the 20th century in universities. This example demonstrates the movement of the adult education field toward professional status, ensconcing itself in this terrain and abandoning others, such as adult education for social movements. The growth and incorporation may also be described as the colonization of adult learning under the auspices of adult education. This aspect of adult education is the third meaning. How the Reports Affected The Three Types of Adult Education When I write that 1972 was a good year for adult education, I intend all three of the meanings of adult education previously discussed. Each of the reports called for the education of physically-11 mature people (vertical integration), encouraged a democratic/freedom enhancing mission, and asked for more legitimacy for adult education as a field of study and practice. In addition, the reports also supported horizontal integration, in which value is placed on education in non-formal as well as formal educational settings. Previous government commissions on education in Canada ignored the education of adults (Selman, 1989). Consequently, the attention given to adults in these reports was a surprise. The Ontario report linked adult education to continuing education and deemed the latter to be a "revolutionary concept" (Wright, 1972, p. 21). Of course, the meaning of 'revolutionary' is stripped of any challenge to authority and contains the usual humanist hopes for education. Nevertheless, adult education became a thing whose time had come and a panacea for the problems of a changing world: Opportunities for adult education have existed for a considerable time. But more leisure, the domination of our society by new technologies and accompanying concern for the quality of life and human values have given adult learning a new birth. We have known for at least 50 years . that people of all ages have the capacity for new learning. Now we have come to realize that continuing education throughout life, by diverse means and in many settings is necessary for a satisfying, self-fulfilling existence in a constantly changing and shrinking world (p. 21). Unesco Commission members also saw inequities in education. They considered unfair the rapidly increasing spending around the world for formal, preparatory education. The report notes that "[fjhis reflects the old idea that schooling is the only valid education and that the time for learning is limited to traditional school age" (p. 44). Commission members believed "...this narrow conception, this unilateral method of financing needs is fundamentally unjust" (p. 44). The way to make educational provision more fair was to allocate resources to the non-formal, non-preparatory 12 systems, among them, adult education. Similarly, the Worth Commission saw the need for further (adult) education as urgent and made specific recommendations for improving service to adults. Increasing the democratic/freedom enhancing/self-actualization aspect of education was discussed in differing ways in the reports. The Worth Commission noted that lifelong learning had to be more than mere learning for earning. Lifelong learning should lead to humanistic notions of self-actualization. "Lifelong learning seeks to make every individual truly a person and a full citizen of our society—a partner in the benefits of life in Alberta" (p. 38). The scope of personal freedom would be enlarged. In the Unesco report, that meaning of democracy was extended beyond the usual Western liberal-democracy variety. In the introduction to Learning to Be, Faure assured readers that different forms of democracy can be achieved with the help of education and notes that democracy is a concept which should be further developed. Most importantly, Faure offered democracy with teeth: he tackled the usually untouched issue of inequality between socio-economic classes. He expressed a belief in education's ability to decrease privilege and increase justice. While the Faure report promoted political education, the writers stressed the need for true political awakening that leads to participation in social structures and in the struggle to reform them. The Wright Commission (1972) considered ways to increase the participation of women, native peoples and cultural minority groups within post-secondary education. Not only would these underprivileged people receive a fair chance, they would receive special attention to ensure an effective opportunity for high skill and learning development. The Commission also targeted older people and those living in remote areas for more services. Formal post-secondary education should become more accessible to all, the members agreed. Worth et al. also viewed education as a way to enhance emancipation of underprivileged groups such as native peoples and the poor. They saw 13 these Albertans locked in social and economic imprisonment, and education was expected to break the bars of imprisonment and provide freedom. The reports also examined power relationships between students and teachers. Faure, in particular, had clear ideas about how the relationship between teachers and students should be democratized. His commission envisioned a less authoritarian role for teachers, one which involved the diagnosis of needs, and one in which the learner assimilates and conquers knowledge. The Worth Commission hoped for further education to become more than a replica of youth education. The report includes discussion of "pupil power" as a means of getting trust and respect. Teachers would be asked to be less intrusive by practicing a pedagogy of restraint in which, the Commission suggested, the teacher is "...doing more guiding and assisting and less directing" (1972, 197). The Worth Commission even proceeded as far as suggesting a reduction in teacher talk by 50 percent. In acknowledging adult education's new importance, the commissions recommended more time and space as well as money and status. The Wright Commission said adult education needed to be more than something provided on an overload basis that existing employees did to top up their salaries. Adult education needed to move closer to the centre. "If adult education is to realize the new promises of continuing education, it can no longer be treated as a peripheral" (p. 22). The Unesco Commission made similar recommendations. "Adult education can no longer be limited to rudimentary levels, or confined to 'cultural' education for a minority" (Faure, 1972, p. 205). Adult education can't remain on the fringe, the Unesco group stated; it must get a more dominant place in policies and budgets. The commission then recommended strategies that would evoke rapid development of adult education. Existing schooling resources should be used for adult education, the commission suggested, a point also made by the Worth' Commission. Through whatever means 14 possible, individual and community educational activities should be promoted. Self learning, as well, was something the Unesco Commission also recommended for promotion. Members encouraged available means and resources to be made accessible to as many adults as possible. (Members within Unesco, as well as elsewhere, paid attention. In 1976, another Unesco Commission focused exclusively on adult education and its development throughout the world.) Similarly, Alberta's Worth Commission also urged the spending of public dollars for adult/continuing education, which it termed "further education." This new outreach was "as urgent as was the establishment of the provision for elementary education almost a century ago" (1972, p. 59). So urgent was the perceived need for further education that the Commission suggested a provincial government Department of Recurrent Education. (The Alberta government already had an Education Department and an Advanced Education Department.) Adult education getting its own minister, staff, offices, space and agenda in provincial government? Now that's a dramatic proposal for expansion of the field of adult education. Until this point, adult education hadn't really even had its own desk. The Wright Commission clearly expected formal institutions to be the main location for adult education, but the commission also agreed that this wasn't the only appropriate place. By acknowledging the varied settings for learning, commission members contributed to horizontal integration. "Society should openly acknowledge that not everyone needs or benefits from formal education at the same point in his or her life, and that learning and maturing take place in many settings" (1972, p. 40). The Wright Commission suggested that society should broaden its ideas and recognize learning projects such as community service, travel and various forms of inservice training. The recognition suggested was more than a pat on the back: reward students with degrees and diplomas for learning both in and out of institutions, the Commission urged. The Unesco 15 Commission agreed. All that money for expansion in the formal system could no longer be justified. Expansion into other rich educational areas, outside of formal schooling, was the answer: Once we acknowledge that it is time to enlarge present systems and even to adopt alternatives or replacements, we quickly become aware of the education wealth to be found in the daily life of the community: in economic and administrative structures, in the mass media, at work and in the home (Faure, 1972, p. 175). Together, these reports had recommendations which made dramatic changes in the varied dimensions of adult education. Statement of the Problem Having regard to the foregoing, analysis of the three reports in light of other related developments demonstrates how 1972 emerges as a crucial year for adult education in which it broadened its territory, colonizing and claiming more of the space of adult learning. In dealing with the large amount of data in the reports, I found the material required organization into thematic categories. From notes taken while reading each of the reports, I selected points of opinion stated in the reports which contributed to a widening appreciation for adult education. Several categories emerged including social problems, women's status, computers, environment, leisure, teacher-student relationships, money, class conflict, horizontal integration, change, lifelong education and democracy. After scrutinizing the notes from my reports, I reorganized the data into themes common to all reports. I found that the themes of leisure, technology and environment elicited provocative comments from report writers. The strong feeling on these topics exists in 1997 only for issues related to the environment. Concern about increased leisure has evaporated now 16 that the work week has not been reduced as was expected. Technology is met with minimal resistance and is more generally viewed as a positive force within society. The reaction to these themes by report writers is intriguing in light of the mainstream opinions being expressed a quarter of a century later. Furthermore, analysis of the reports showed relationships between the three issues. Discussion of one often led to discussion of another. Leisure was often described as the result of advancing technology, which was also the source of environmental degradation. What types of leisure would be possible in a degraded environment? And so on. These were the issues that the commission members struggled with during their investigations into what education would do for the changing world. These were issues, in particular, that were beginning to be connected with adult education. Thesis Structure The purpose of this thesis was to examine and critically reflect on the three government reports in light of events occurring in the larger societal context. In reflecting on these documents, three themes became apparent as common throughout the reports. What the reports said about these themes is examined in light of other writing at the same time on these themes. The report recommendations on these themes, as well as other writing at the same time, make up the "raw materials" of this study. My critical reflection on the data, with help from others writing on these topics, is the analysis. Chapter 2 will provide an analysis of the context of 1972. This means not only the year itself, but issues and events that contributed to the writing of the reports and made many recommendations about adult education acceptable to policy makers. Following this background, Chapter 3 17 investigates leisure education. Report writers had differing views on adult education's move into leisure, but one in particular wanted us turning off the T V and turning on to ballet. Chapter 4 looks into the role technology was playing in education. Chapter 5 analyzes the effect of the declining natural environment and the use of education in reacting to that degradation. Chapter 6 concludes this thesis and makes suggestions for future research. Elsewhere in this chapter I mentioned that I have not covered all the themes in these reports. They remain a rich source of study for future researchers, particularly for those who want to examine education for work and the "professionalism" of educators. Throughout this thesis are scattered vignettes from my own experience in and around 1972. These have been included for two reasons. For one, they serve to reveal my position as I interpret and analyze the three government reports. Secondly, these fragments give a more personal face to issues and ideas swirling around the collective consciousness of the time. Finally, I hope they serve to enrich this portrait of 1972 and the influence it had on the growing field of adult education. 18 Cbapter2 HISTORICAL C O N T E X T In 1972, I was in Mrs. McCubbin's Grade 2 class in a rural village in Saskatchewan. My class was composed of a small group of white kids from working class families who mostly lived on farms. I had been ambivalent about education up to this point. After all, it meant being away from my mother for several hours a day and being subjected to a school culture that placed restrictions on going to the bathroom, speaking with other kids, and such things. But by Grade 2, I was getting used to it. One day has lodged itself in my memory as a particularly good one: the day that Mrs. McCubbin allowed me to use her large scissors when all the child-size ones had already been claimed by other kids. Oh! The pride of being given such trust and responsibility! Education and school moved up several notches in my estimation. Through education, I could achieve, a new kind of status, one that would separate me from the mass of other kids. I could be trusted to use the big scissors, and who knows what other devices of technology lay waiting in my future? Who knows what I could be trusted to accomplish? Clearly, education and schooling were amazing avenues to securing a place for myself in the world. In thinking this, I was not alone. This was a prevailing thought throughout the world in the 1960's and 1970's. Education could secure avenues to future places of contentment for lots of individuals just like me. Unfortunately, there were varied problems identified with the preparatory education people like me were experiencing. That's a large reason why the faith in preparatory education was altered somewhat and shifted to lifelong education, and in particular, the education of adults. 19 Although I wasn't aware of it at the time, I had just lived through the 1960's, that famous decade of change, wherein a culmination of events challenged existing traditions, especially with calls for more democracy. Student protests, the second wave of feminism, increased environmental concern and growing distrust of formerly-trusted institutions like government, the church and family: these among other elements were changing the Western world. Changes to the culture of North America resulted in corresponding changes in the culture of education and adult education. A worldwide educational crisis and searing critiques of the preparatory education served to shift support away from preparatory education over to adult education within the larger framework of lifelong learning. As a result, adult education became a new aspirin for a culture with more frequently occurring headaches. The growth in the field of adult education resulted internationally, principally through Unesco, and more specifically in Canada. These two contexts will be examined to show the events and issues surrounding publication of the three reports of this study. Educational Crisis As exciting as the time around 1972 was for adult educators, they were about to plunge into a profound world education crisis that persists today. Philip H. Coombs, (1982), a senior bureaucrat at the International Council for Educational Development (ICED), documented the crisis that first erupted in 1967/1968. He describes critical issue's of the crisis which include rapidly expanding learning needs, a growing financial squeeze that hit hardest in North America with the 1973 oil crisis, serious maladjustments between education and employment, and finally, educational disparities and inequalities. In particular, unemployment was troublesome. Coombs notes: 20 The late 1960's and early 1970's witnessed a wrenching transition in most economies throughout the world from an era of ubiquitous shortages of educated manpower to a new era of growing surpluses. As a result, the phenomenon of the 'educated unemployed'—a term originating in India in the 1960's—spread like wildfire through both the developed and developing world in the early 1970's, creating personal anxieties and explosive political tensions (1982, p. 150, 151). While this crisis certainly affected North America in the mid-1970's, in 1972, the crisis was not serious enough to dampen the optimism of the Worth and Wright Commissions. Neither was the looming crisis yet apparent enough to stop the spending of public money on education. Unemployment rates, although they were rising, were, at just over 7% at the end of 1972, not that serious (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1973). In particular, a disturbing surplus of educated workers had not yet occurred in 1972. Nevertheless, personal anxieties and political tensions simmered with the persistent problem of inequalities. In (so-called) developed countries, expansion of education helped to reduce disparities. However, in developing countries, expansion of education had the opposite effect; the disparities between urban and rural students were increasing. While there are differences between individual countries, many developing nations had and have an urban system that outshines the rural one at every level. As more money was spent on education, much of it ended up in urban areas. As Coombs notes: These huge educational disparities, of course, are part of a much broader imbalance between urban and rural economic and social development that underlies the heavy concentration of extreme poverty in the rural area of most developing countries and that has been a major stimulus to urban migration (1982, p. 155). 21 These disparities matched with a poor unemployment picture and an increasing population with increasing learning needs were the raw materials of the developing crisis. Yet, from this bad time sprang a hope that adult education could provide at least a partial solution. As the famous Chinese saying goes, crisis is another word for opportunity. The worldwide educational crisis became the worldwide adult education opportunity. Student protest arid revolt Student protests grabbed headlines around the world in the 1960's and early 1970's. The topics of protest ranged from opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam war to anti-nuclear war technology to the relevancy of university curricula. Historian Doug Owram (1996), writing about the baby boom generation in Canada, notes that few students were actually forces of radicalism or activism on campus, but the pervasive force of protest affected all students. Resistance through protest and dissent became a part of the mythology of the baby boomer generation. A popular theme among protesters at the time whether in Canada, the US or in Europe was a call for more participatory democracy. Direct involvement was deemed an antidote to the alienation that students perceived to be sweeping through not only their ranks but society. A vibrant thread in the fabric of the time, attempts to create participatory democracy echo throughout the pages of the three reports. With this need to participate came a complementary need for personal inspiration and emotional satisfaction. University education, at least, was framed as more than a means to get a good job; university classes took on the aura of a pursuit of enlightenment. According to Owram, 22 "[t]he professor ceased to be a certifier of specific skills but a guide The student's personal journey of discovery, rather than mastery of any specific content, became central" (1996, p. 237). While the student sought more democracy on an individual level, enhanced democracy for society was also a perceived need. In this context, students wanted power to be more fairly and equitably distributed. Writing during the late 1960's, Julyan Reid noted that students wanted the university to reflect not the present state of the world, but a fairer, kinder world: It would be a world of new morality: hence the university should question the morality of war, the morality of working for defense research. It would be a world of justice, hence the university should be truly open to Indians, poor people, language minorities. If only the upper socio-economic classes "qualify" for university entrance then surely something is wrong (Reid, 1969, p. 4). Although localized issues often took the. spotlight, student revolts were part of a politics of resistance to the dominant order. In North America, at least, student groups became important centres for the New Left. Whereas traditional Marxists had viewed the proletariat as the primary agent through which social change would be accomplished, New Left proponents thought the affluence of the age made that unlikely. Students, among other groups, were expected to become the new agitators against the dominance of capitalism (Owram, 1996). Furthermore, protests in Canada, as in other countries, took on an international element. In the view of many students, Western democracies formed a military-industrial complex that persisted in colonizing or otherwise interfering with a struggling Third World (Reid, 1969). While universities were the centres for student dissent, influence spread outward to colleges and even into high schools, whose students expressed similar conclusions about education. The Ontario 23 Union of Students (1969) symbolized an effort to link the goals of high school and post-secondary students through a common oppressor. We are all in the same school system. They are trying to reduce our minds to clay and make us fit in. All our classes are overcrowded, boring, and often irrelevant to daily life. The content of what is taught is specifically designed to create an unthinking person to run the machinery of our society. Yes we are to run the machinery that is perpetuating war, racism, keeping most of the world hungry and suppressing the creative potential of people (p. 335). Student revolt, in the various forms it took, provided a provocative critique of both society and schooling. Student voices were an added dimension to the voices of other critics that had stepped up to the microphone at the same time. Flaws in preparatory education Critics of education had varied messages. Some, like Ivan Illich wanted much less school. However, many critics saw a need for more, better varieties. They wanted improved education for children, young people and adults. Preparatory education was neither enough nor hitting the right targets. The Worth Commission, in particular, found education to be limiting and irrelevant for the time: The process of schooling cannot be divorced from the process of living. This report makes that point through its principles of context and personalization; others less polite make the same point by saying that the schools are teaching too much rubbish and too little love (1972, p. 153). Ideas like this stem from the hope that flourished in the 60's for a better society. Criticism of existing institutions reflected a desire for profound change. In the US, a 1971 Carnegie report 24 deemed American schools grim, joyless and oppressive in addition to not adequately educating students (Tracer, 1992). Internationally, organizations like the Council of Europe, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Unesco were aware that youth education wasn't working (Kallen, 1979). Such organizations had also recognized the necessity of spreading learning over a lifetime (so-called lifelong learning). In 1968, Olaf Palme, then the Swedish Minister of Education, introduced the concept of recurrent education at the Conference of European Ministers of Education in Versailles in 1968. The concept reappeared later in many O E C D reports (Kallen, 1979). When the concept was further articulated in 1971, it meant education for adults intended to occur within a formal setting on a full-time basis. The target audience for this education would be adults whose earlier preparatory education had been disrupted. By 1973, recurrent education's meaning had been expanded to included part-time study and non-formal settings. Adult education, firmly situated within the recurrent education framework, contributed to the flexibility of the system in sanctioning non-traditional places and styles of instruction, according to an O E C D publication. "In terms of location, timing and nature of the teaching resources, [adult education] has adapted itself to its clients' needs and often gives them a real chance to participate in the planning and management of the courses" (as cited in Kallen, 1973, p. 19). An underlying preference for "...achievement of objectives that serve the advent of a more equitable society.." (Kallen, 1979, p. 49) became apparent around this time as well. Although the O E C D ignored the more daring aspects of recurrent education, the organization did take some important steps toward the implementation of this concept. 25 Evolving at around the same time was the Council of Europe's notion of education permanente, a strategy for social action with little adherence to economic (i.e., capitalistic) needs. Like Unesco's ideas of lifelong learning, education permanente\v3& its roots in adult education and finds its justification in the failure of preparatory education. Adult educators were optimistic that permanent education could become a framework that would "...give adult education a new purpose and codify the disparate adult education programmes, without sacrificing their diversity of methods and contents " (Kallen, 1979, p. 51) while at the same time creating a comprehensive policy for all education throughout life. Educationpermanente was another of the mini eruptions that culminated in significant landscape change during 1972. Yet another force of change came from Illich who in 1970 proposed something as radical and earth-shattering as Deschooling Society. In a book that has since become a classic of adult education, Illich (1970) deplored the system of schooling that had turned learning into a product of teaching and education into a commodity. He recommended dis-establishing schools in favor of learning webs and non-formal learning exchanges. Illich charged that school is the tool of oppressive elites which creates only a mirage of equal opportunity. Unfortunately, what working class citizens learn is how to fail since the content is selected by and for the bourgeoisie. Only now and then are brilliant underclass members allowed in, merely to provide a little variety in the blood supply. Mich's ideas stimulated audiences in Canada as well as elsewhere; to the real power brokers, Mich's message was more a novelty item than a possible course of action. Historian J. Donald Wilson notes that Illich "flashed onto the Canadian scene in 1970 speaking to packed audiences right across the nation and reaching the attention of many Canadians" (1977, p. 28). But within two or three years, Mich's influence dissipated, leaving the country with as much school as ever. 26 Illich's theme was not unusual when it was introduced (although it was radical). Three years previously, John Holt's (1969) Underachieving Schools hit bookshelves, criticizing public schools for making children hate learning. In 1971, School is Dead: Alternatives in Education appeared. Everett Reimer's (1971) critique echoed Illich's. These ideas were complementary to Freire's educational program for conscientization. Whereas Illich, Holt and Reimer had.detailed the problem, Paulo Freire (1970) offered a solution with Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It had such an apparent effect on a least someone involved with the writing of the Worth Commission report that Freire's own terms are reproduced, although with the critical edge removed. The report considers "authentic" learning and "problem-posing." Both Worth and Faure reports refer to the importance of treating learners as subjects, not objects to be filled with information. These terms echo Freire's own call for liberatory practice, although the words reproduced in the reports do not challenge existing authority to nearly the same extent as Freire did. Unesco Context To provide readers with a complete international socio-economic context of the events that encouraged adult education in and around 1972 would require years of research involving all countries. That is not the intent of this thesis. However, one important context in which international feeling toward adult education was exhibited is that of Unesco. With members from around the world and a commitment to the expansion of adult education, Unesco events and publications are an important lens through which to view the growing field of adult education. Unesco events and publications themselves are part of the blossoming that occurred in 1972. 27 In order to see that blossoming, themes that arose in and through the Unesco context will be separated into the three, already-discussed meanings of adult education. Unesco served to promote the vertical integration that provided more opportunities for learning to adults as opposed to children. Unesco also highlighted the democracy/freedom-enhancing/self-actualization definition of adult education in and around 1972. Finally, Unesco was vocal in calling for the development of the third meaning of adult education: those people who work within the area. Unesco supported enhanced status and funding for the development of a.professional body with its own knowledge base. Unesco has had an enduring interest in adult education since it was formed in 1946. In his book The Education of Adults: a world perspective, John Lowe (1975) notes that interest had surged and declined, but from around 1969 interest in adult education experienced a revival. Paul Lengrand (1970), a long-time member of the Unesco Secretariat and adult educator, published Introduction to Lifelong Education. In this book, Lengrand argued the significance and importance of lifelong education. He notes that four factors were required as sources of innovation to overcome obstacles and resistance to lifelong education. These included political revolution (such as the 1917 revolution of the Soviet Union), users' (students'/learners') protests and dissent, development problems and adult education. Not only was adult education deemed an important factor of innovation, Lengrand notes that lifelong learning may not have been possible without the contribution of adult education: Lifelong education has become not only desirable but possible only because new avenues have opened up. If, for example, we did not have the benefit of the appreciable contribution made by adult education, and more generally by out-of-school methods of training, if countries had not built up extensive networks of communication through radio and television, and if the means of universal instruction were not at hand, then our thoughts concerning lifelong 28 education would be without meaning and would doubtless not even have begun to take shape (1970, p. 99). Lengrand believed not only in the first meaning of adult education-the education of adults rather than children, but also in the democratic project noted earlier. The voluntary aspect of adult education along with the improved status of learners as "a partner in a collective undertaking" (p. 41) had created a new type of exchange between teachers and learners that was more mutually-beneficial than traditional education had ever been. This aspect of adult education would have an effect elsewhere: The results achieved in this sector are of considerable value, not only with respect to the training and teaching of adults but in terms of the whole educational effort These [adult education] pathfinders, through their inquiries and suggestions and on the strength of the experience acquired, are in this way contributing effectively to the formulation of a new doctrine of education far more mindful of realities and of the truth of man than traditional doctrine (p. 42, 43). Despite his obvious respect for those working in the field of adult education, Lengrand didn't specifically call for growth in the professional field of adult education, described earlier as the third meaning. However, even though he didn't include this type of promotion, it was not a lost theme in Unesco. It would arise again during the Third International Conference on Adult Education in 1972. Lengrand's book was released in the same year as the General Conference decision to organize that conference. Held in Tokyo from July 23 to August 7, just following the completion and release of Learning to Be, this meeting was a further important source of stimulus to the field of adult education. Nearly 400 delegates from 82 states and representing 37 intergovernmental and non-29 governmental organizations attended the event. Unlike the previous two conferences held in Montreal in 1960 and in Denmark in 1949, the Tokyo Conference attracted politicians and administrators—those with the power to implement policy. Previous conferences had attracted more practitioners than policy makers. Lowe (1975) notes that a change in demographics of this sort was a sign of the greater public weight now being given to adult education. While the delegates themselves were notable, so too were the resolutions and recommendations that resulted from the conference. No one was asking whether to educate adults, or if they could leam. According to Lowe, the question of hoiv to provide more adult education was more important. "The desirability of lifelong education was no longer a controversial topic; controversy was centred rather upon the methods by which lifelong education might be instituted during the adult phase of life" (1975, p. 14). Adults, the group previously forgotten or ignored by traditional systems of education, were recognized as suitable recipients of education. Despite development within the adult education field up to this point, reaching all adults remained problematic. Worldwide, underprivileged groups, in particular, those who had not had successful experiences with preparatory education, were not participating in adult education. As a result, the educated were becoming more educated, while the lesser-educated remained at the same level. Ironically, thanks to adult education, the gap between privileged and underprivileged was widening. The goal, much discussed during the Tokyo Conference, was to find ways to reach these people who most needed the benefits of adult education, but who were not participating in it. This could have resulted in missionary-like paternalism aimed at "saving" those people. However, the Final Report of the Tokyo Conference was clear that none of this condescension was appropriate in adult education or in lifelong learning: . ' 30 In the general debate, delegate after delegate emphasized the urgent need to increase the participation of the educationally underprivileged and to give them the means to take part in decision-making and to define and solve their own educational problems. One requirement was legislation regulating the right to part-time release from work without loss of pay. The unemployed too should receive training. The significance of tolerable living conditions in making study possible was stressed (Unesco, 1972, p. 13). Delegates discussed ideas that remain controversial and challenged a quarter of a century later. Considering objective circumstances of the educationally underprivileged was a bold step in the democratization of adult education and lifelong learning. Part of this attempt to increase access to education included calls for non-formal education. Delegates agreed the needs of the educationally-underprivileged would not be met by waiting for them to come to a formal educational institution. Delegates also discussed the democratic/personal development agenda of adult education. While training of adult workers was expected to contribute to the development of human capital for industry, delegates at the conference wanted to make sure that this wasn't the only purpose. The Tokyo Report reflected this aim: Vocational training should go further, however, than simply preparing an individual for a productive role. The adult should be able to share in the control of all the processes in which he was involved. The individual's other roles in society—cultural, social, political—should therefore be borne in mind when training programmes were being planned. The object of adult education should be to develop the whole man even when for practical reasons only one skill or highly specialized knowledge had to be imparted (1972, p. 15). 31 What delegates wanted was more than the leaming-for-earning that is so prevalent now, nearing the 21st century. In his closing statement, Unesco Director Rene Maheu reiterated the importance of the democratization of education: We must go further and say that adult education viewed in the context of life-long education is education for democracy. We must, of course, not expect education, whether it be adult education or any other form, to solve all the problems of society; but it is well to realize, as you have done, that adult education basically means learning the discipline of freedom, and.as such it is irreplaceable for the welfare of the community and for individual fulfillment (1972, p.72). As part of the learning that should go beyond vocational skills, delegates saw adult education as integral to the development of citizenship and nation-building. "Especially, but not only, in nations recently emerged from a colonial rule, adult education could help to induce a sense of national direction and purpose, weld the people together and assist them to participate more actively in public affairs" (1972, p. 15). Delegates suggested that national development should begin with subsistence farmers and manual workers, rather than the already-educated. Such nation building was intended to give these people the tools to improve their immediate living conditions. Discussion at the Tokyo Conference included emancipatory aspects of adult education, but it heavily stressed the need for more recognition and reward for adult education professionals and specialists. The field had experienced gains since the 1960 Montreal Conference, but serious problems persisted. Many governments, despite a lot of positive talk, had not acted to treat adult education as an integral part of their education systems. In addition to keeping the field at the periphery, all but a few governments had maintained a dismally low level of financial support. Furthermore, even though the number of people working in adult education dramatically increased 32 in the 1960's, many were part-time, volunteer and expenditures for non-teaching aspects of the field were "derisively small" (p. 182). This factor prompted obvious concern, according to Lowe, "...no single factor is more conducive to the quickening activity than the appointment of full-time staff. Yet almost nowhere in the world is the full-time staffing of adult education services remotely adequate..." (p. 136). If the field of adult education was going to accomplish all the goals that had been set out for it, more financial support would be needed for adult educators at the front lines and those involved in research, a neglected topic at the Tokyo Conference. By the end of the meeting, delegates had approved a number of resolutions for Unesco itself to enlarge its activities in adult education and to act as a leader for other organizations. The Director General called adult education a priority field of action and included increases in the organization's budget for adult education of 15% to 25% over the next six years. As Unesco took the lead and arranged for more funding for adult education, it modeled the behavior it expected of its members. The object of the recommendations at the end of the conference was two-fold: enhance the public status of adult education by guaranteeing minimum standards of provision and encourage member states to enact appropriate sustaining laws. Through the Tokyo Conference, Unesco produced profound gains for adult education. Earlier conferences had created great ideas for changes that would promote adult education, but the 1972 discussions called for the field to be marked by laws and financial support. In essence, the conference meant adult education was to be given money and power. Give any farmer more money and power and watch what he does to his field. So, too, with adult education. The desert blossomed. 33 Canadian Socio-Economic Context Unesco's optimism about adult education was matched during the decade of the 1960's in Canada with a nationwide enthusiasm for all education. For several reasons, education seemed to be just what the country needed. Various problems plagued policymakers. Ranging from a weak national identity, to a diverse populace of immigrants and marginalized indigenous peoples, to the cultural split between English and French, to the threat of being overwhelmed by the powerful culture of the United States, to a lack of skilled labour. These difficulties seemed solvable with education. Around the same time, the "educational" events of Expo and the Canadian Centennial of 1967 (Marsh, 1967; Continuous "Learning Editorial, 1967) prompted mass learning and understanding of the meaning of being Canadian. The support for education drew more than polite talk. As a country, Canadians paid for their optimism with considerable investment in formal education development. Learners paid with their time, staying in school longer and with a larger percentage of students attending post-secondary institutions than ever before. In contrast, schooling of the '40's and '50's was elitist and academic. Historian Walter Pitman (1981) describes the system as a screening device intended to give the masses some basic skills and filter out a few for further learning in university. Yet, Canada changed for two reasons. One, the Second World War pushed the Canadian social responsibility button and had "aroused the social conscience of the nation against chronic poverty" (1981, p. 17). Education became a way to save and help the underprivileged. The second reason was the lag between Canada's technological development and that of other industrialized countries. The US, smarting from the realization that its leadership was not as far in front as it had earlier been, poured resources into education. Canada, not wanting to fall behind, copied. What resulted, according to Pitman, was that "...North America began its 34 concentration on education and particularly a focus on mathematics and sciences in the hope of maintaining a preeminence which was presumed to be critical for survival in a nuclear age" (p. 17). Caught in a wave of what Robert Pike (1981) calls education worship, Canada reached for its wallet and started to spend. In 1961, the Vocational Training Act was passed and the money began to flow from the federal government to the provinces for training Canada's youth (Pitman, 1981). Between 1961 and 1969, the proportion of the Gross National Product (GNP) devoted to education jumped from 4.3% to 7.6 %. In 1961, 14% of major government expenditures were devoted to education. By 1972, that percentage had leapt to 22%. Education spending was growing faster than personal income and the GNP (Stevenson, Stamp & Wilson, 1972). By 1969, Canada was spending more of its GNP on education than any other major industrialized country. In the midst of this, between 1960 and 1973, 15 major commissions of inquiry into education were organized. Recommendations emanating from these reports called for changes that were often costly (Wilson, 1977). Canadian governments were expanding and spending with abandon. The target of this spend-fest was formal educational institutions. The formal system was regarded as the only appropriate place for education to occur (Pitman, 1981). At the same time, fewer students were dropping out of high school, meaning increased retention rates. More students were attending university. As a result, enrollment was increasing and roles of both institutions were changing. Once a screening mechanism for university, high school had become a holding tank with university now functioning as a sorter (Wilson, 1977). While the formal system filled its pockets with government money, education in non-formal settings was also growing. As noted earlier, both Canada and the US were changing their educational systems to mass from elitist in order to retain positions of technological leadership in 35 the world (Pitman, 1981). One philosophy behind this development was human capital theory, as espoused by such economic writers as J.K.Galbraith in The Affluent Society (1969) and The New Industrial State (1971). Promoted by North American economists in the 1960's, human capital theory suggested, according to Pike (1981), more educated people meant more productivity. Not only were average citizens more likely to spend more time and money on education as a result of a belief in human capital theory, businesses also invested in their employees. The Canadian government spent too, thanks to human capital theory. The Economic Council of Canada repeatedly linked investment in education to the growth in the national economy. Capable, professional, technical, skilled labour was viewed as a basic national need which would enable future growth. Rubenson (1992) notes this philosophy was.satisfying to proponents of both left and right ideologies. "The concept.. .provided an umbrella to cover both the conservative elements interested primarily in economic growth and the reformists who saw in educational expansion equalization of opportunity, income and, ultimately, power" (1992, p. 5). Unfortunately, human capital theory did not keep its promises to provide more equality. Despite heavy investment in education, the income share of the poorest people in Canadian society mostly declined between 1951 and 1971 (as cited in Rubenson, 1992). Still human capital theory was not the only motivating force behind educational actions, especially for employers. Alan Thomas (1981) noted that "it was too expensive, or simply impossible to find the necessary individuals with the necessary skills on the open labour market" (p. 254). Furthermore, people were realizing that technology was changing too rapidly, that the public school systems would not be able to keep up with the changes. As Thomas (1981) notes, "never again would it be possible for the public system to provide anyone with the bulk of what he or she 36 needed to learn throughout his or her lifetime" (p. 255). Following 1966, more changes became relevant and increased the need for non-formal, non-public school system training. Canada had relied on importing skilled workers from Europe. As those pools of labour began to dry up, the Canadian pool of unskilled and unemployable workers was growing (Thomas, 1981). Industry was either unwilling or unable to handle this problem through its own education efforts. This crisis-waiting-to-happen prompted creation of Canada's Manpower program, which focused its energies on training and employing Canadian workers. In 1972, the Canadian labour force grew at a rate higher than in any other Western nation (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 1991). Unfortunately, with the greater numbers of women and young people looking for jobs, the growth wasn't sufficient to absorb the numbers of people who wanted work. That left many people bitter and questioning the worth of education. What was the point if there was no job in sight at the end? This was at the forefront of the resulting disillusionment with education in the mid-70's that followed the spending frenzy of the 60's. Disillusionment may be too weak a word for the betrayal many Canadians felt they had suffered at the hands of education. Richard Needham, Globe and Mail column writer, beautifully captured the bitter feelings of the time in describing the "unwanted generation": This is the first generation in history which wasn't needed.. ..The kids aren't needed for war; not in Canada, at any rate. They aren't needed for work on the farm or in the store or in the factory. Nobody can think of anything for them to do except to consume (food, clothes, records, cars, drugs) and to sit around in a university or community college (Needham, 1972b, p. 317). 37 Needham's solutions were varied, but included offering one-way plane tickets for young people to Germany, Australia and Japan, all places with a demand for labour (Needham, 1972a). Little wonder that the international wave of student unrest also' swept through Canada to confront such attitudes. Had I been older, I might have been similarly outraged at the thought that the adults of the land didn't need or want any work I had to offer. Yet, as outlandish as Needham's ideas may have seemed at the time, this solution of travel and work abroad has undoubtedly saved scores of Canadians from unemployment and Mcjobs (Douglas Coupland's (1991) description of alienating, non-career employment plaguing his protagonists in Generation X: Tales of an Accelerated Culture) I was one of many young, unemployed who left Canada to work in Japan in the late 1980's. Unfortunately, by that time, the unemployment figures had swelled and no one was offering any free tickets anywhere. Get out, was the message, but pay your own way. That was a meaner, leaner time. In the late 60's and 70's, the disillusionment was not so pervasive that a little optimism couldn't be reclaimed for adult education. Faith in formal, preparatory education was dwindling, but as it did, hope for adult education grew stronger. It was far less costly, for one thing. For another, it could take less time and could flexibly keep up with technological change. And any problems that preparatory education missed would logically be handled by adult education. The 1960's surge in support for preparatory education and the following pull back left the ground open, and adult education, with numerous invitations, moved in. Conclusion At the international, Unesco level, adult education was viewed as the solution to the problems plaguing the world in the form of an educational crisis and flawed preparatory education. The 1972 38 Tokyo Conference provided a visible awareness-raising event that provided a forum for calls to expand adult education. Not only was adult education given philosophical support, delegates at the conference called for more money for people and programs as well as legislative support. Unesco provided a model for other countries by upping its budget for adult education. In Canada, the country was in an educational mood. Motivated by the learning evoked at EXPO and the patriotism of the Centennial in 1967, Canadians were open to education at the adult level. Like the delegates at Unesco, the Canadian government put resources into action by providing money for programs, staff and institutions. But, altruism was not the only motivating factor. Faced with increasing unemployment and a pool of unskilled labour, Canada accepted the human capital theory of development and invested in its citizens. The circumstances in these contexts plus the worldwide education crisis, student revolt and critique of preparatory education provided a backdrop amenable and encouraging to the growth and development of adult education. 39 C h a p t e r 3 LEISURE In 1972, one of my favourite leisure activities, outside of playing with toys, was watching television with my dad. In the evenings, he was usually tired from a day of farm work and liked to sit in his recliner and watch all kinds of programs. After coming in from outside, coated with the dirt and grime from a day in the fields or with the cattle, he washed and our family ate dinner together. A couple of hours later, I would fall asleep in front of the glowing cube, completely content and safe, and secure that I would wake up in the morning in my bed, where my dad had delivered me when he finished watching television. I liked falling asleep in this way and resisted attempts by my mother to be taken to bed earlier. I suspect many kids were doing the exact same thing as I was in the evenings: watching television with parents who were drained from physical labour and wanted a quiet evening with some soothing, escapist entertainment. The Commissions'View of Leisure Not everyone would have been delighted with my dad's nightly leisure activity. T V was taboo in some circles. Throughout the 1960's, sociologists and others began to expect that the work week would be decreased and the available time for leisure would be increased. Numerous writers, as will be explained later in this chapter, feared that people would not make effective use of the increased 40 leisure time available to them. Around this point, the idea of educating adults for leisure became an issue for those interested in or involved with adult education. Even though previously adult education had been mainly successful at attracting already-educated people, now educating everyone for leisure became a point of emphasis. Each of the reports of this study have a different motive for wanting the general public to have access to education for leisure. Learning to Be was the most altruistic. Looking at the global perspective, Faure's group saw the effect of mass media and the needs created by it. The Commission recognized that leisure, as a complex phenomenon now infected with messages to consume, created a "new alienation" for people who were already experiencing alienation within their working lives. Education could be an essential factor in assisting people to shape their futures. Education for leisure would have to take on two dimensions, according to the commissioners. One dimension would assist people to assess change through non-conformist and non-conservative frames of mind. The other dimension would "play the part of antidote to the many distortions within man and society" (1972, p. 103). This education would provide a remedy to frustration, depersonalization and anonymity in the modem world and, through lifelong education, reduce insecurity and enhance professional mobility. The Unesco Commission was not unique in its fears of the effects of advertising. Ottenheimer (1963) suggested that leisure should be about doing and being, not having, and that we should resist the compulsion toward display, consumption and domination: Here we and our children are not as well prepared as we should be. We have not developed our critical faculties to cope with the organized, money-backed, powerful campaign to prostitute leisure. This process of brain washing emphasizes quantity and ignores quality in its campaign to 41 capture the leisure market. The experts in motivation research play upon our propensity towards love, hate, fear, vanity, sex and morality. During our leisure time we are urged— through print, spoken word, image, jingle, and cartoon—to smell, look, speak and act in certain ways; to take as many pictures as possible, to travel as many miles as we can, to drink as much of various brands of liquor, or soup, or calorie-free soft drinks as the human stomach can be expected to hold; to have as many clothes as the Joneses; to display as much 'culture' as is compatible with one's status—and if necessary to borrow as much money over as long a period as possible—and to pay usury at as high a rate as permissive government agencies allow (1963, p. 39). Like the Unesco Commission, Ottenheimer worried that the expected increase in leisure time would leave people vulnerable to the forces of advertising and consumer-driven capitalism. The Worth Commission in Alberta had a significantly different perspective on the issue of leisure education. The group encouraged the development and even nurturing of leisure skills because they expected an increasingly technological society would ultimately mean a reduced work schedule and more leisure time. They hoped to prevent leisure from becoming a burden, and make it an asset. The Commission's report noted that many submissions from the public pertained to education for leisure. They expressed distress that leisure time was being spent in an unsuitable way: few people were attending concerts or theatre, few people were reading, and some were watching "certain" television programs. (The) vast majority gives itself to popular, often mindless, television schedules, and a host of other activities just as lazy and just as meaningless. Quite a few of our younger educational products take drugs to escape from the ordinary.. ..(T)he battle against painless, seductive spectator entertainment must still be fought" (p. 184) 42 The report doesn't suggest directly how leisure time should be spent in an ideal world, but the implication of the superiority of high culture was clear. However, the Worth writers stay well on the side of capital, opting instead to call for consumer education: In attempting to communicate the difference between living fairly well and living really well, schools can at least help the individual develop a sensible attitude toward consuming. The good things in life are many and diverse, and one must learn to be both a discriminate and prudent consumer" (p. 184). A good consumer, based on this assessment, is one who pays for a ballet ticket but not to see a Hollywood movie or a professional hockey game. The call for more Eurocentric high culture reflects the urban bias and experience of members of the Commission. Although Alberta's population was largely rural and its population had limited access to high culture events, the city of Calgary was a thriving visual arts centre. In the 1960's, Edmonton became noted in the art world for its metal sculptors. Both cities also had professional performing groups. Edmonton had a symphony and Calgary a philharmonic. Each city had an opera company and dramatic arts groups, and Edmonton had two ballet companies (Marsh, 1985). The local arts scene had demonstrably influenced members of the committee, even if it had had minimal effect on the non-elite population. The Wright Commission didn't care as much what the folks in Ontario were doing with their free time, but they hoped and predicted that more leisure time would mean more adult education. Since the Commission recognized that post-secondary education was coming to be regarded as a consumer good for citizens in a society destined to work fewer hours, it wanted to prepare for an 43 influx. More students meant more money and influence for institutions. The Commission uncritically accepted the commodification of its educational services. What led report writers to see leisure education as a terrain open to education, and in particular, adult education? What was happening outside that was reflected by the reports of Faure, Worth and Wright? One of the most important developments in the field of leisure was very similar to a continuing adult education problem: defining itself. What, after all, is leisure? It's not as innocent as it seems. The Meanings of Leisure You can see it in front of you, sitting there on the table. It's as easy to define as the parts of a meal when you were a child: the first, barely manageable part involves meat, potatoes or rice and vegetables, depending, of course, on what your family liked to eat; the second is fun and fluffy and sweet and is dessert. Leisure, in the meal of life, is dessert, and the rest of the meal, that's work. You eat it only because you have to, and because getting dessert depends upon choking down the broccoli. It's not fun, you didn't expect it to be, and yet, sometimes it can be oddly satisfying afterward. Still, the really good part is dessert. Leisure and work follow the same pattern: work is that which is struggled through to attain leisure. Writers on leisure during the 1960's and 1970's found this distinction too simple. Leisure is not the dessert that follows the work entree, leisure experts like Charles Brightbill said. While leisure is associated with time left over after that required for survival, it is also the time to choose and a time when compulsion is minimalized (Brightbill, 1966; Kidd, 1971). A further definition includes time 44 left over from not only paid work, but also from obligations to family and society. The prevalent 20th century meaning of leisure is derived from work: it is the free time which we attempt to use in a productive, profitable and efficient way (Green, 1968). The classical view stems from Aristole's notion of something for its own sake. Yet beyond free time, the writers urged something more ephemeral. Leisure should have a dimension of spirituality, but should also be the adult version of play (Green, 1968; Brightbill, 1966). "Whatever the difference between the play of the child and the satisfying use of leisure by the adult, it does not amount to much" (Brightbill, 1966, p. 32). Kidd linked leisure and adult education: Both adult education and leisure are about what a man is. Yet the most significant thing about a man is not just who he is, but what he may become. Leisure and learning are about becoming as .well as being (1971, p. 36) The consolidated definition of leisure then is that free time which is left over not only from work, but also family and societal obligations; time which is used in a form of adult "play" with some form of spiritual (beyond religious) dimension that normally leads to self-development; something more than the dessert with which this discussion began. Yet these are the more positive meanings for leisure. Some people, such as environmental writer Theodore Roszak (1972) defined it in a significantly different tone: .. .die void that is left behind when the machines have taken over the drudgery that no one ever wanted to do in the first place is called "leisure"—a vacuum rapidly filled with cheerless, obsessive getting and spending with idiocies like pre-packaged tourism (the chance to make an international nuisance of oneself), or with pure boredom (1972, p. 420). 45 Roszak's depiction of issues was clearly different than the mainstream approaches at the time. His definition contributes to the context that would have influenced the members of the Unesco Commission as well as the others. Context Leisure was becoming such a hot topic in the 1960's and 1970's that in 1969, Convergence, an' adult education academic journal devoted almost an entire issue to it. Kidd was one of the editors at the time. In that same year, the First Montmorency Conference on Leisure offered a forum for dialogue for an interdisciplinary group meeting in Quebec. If writers of the Worth or Wright Commissions missed the published proceedings of this conference, a second, held in 1971, may have captured their attention. Internationally, Unesco had established the International Centre for Leisure and Education in Prague in 1968 following a Unesco conference organized in 1965 in Prague. Rene Maheu, Director General of Unesco at that time, would later set in motion the Faure Report. An article in a 1969 Convergence issue notes that Maheu urged leisure educators at the 1965 conference to offer activities that would "contribute to human civic and social progress" (Weiner, 1969, p. 74) This theme later emerged in the Faure Report. Meanwhile, the International Centre published its ideas and research in the academic journal Society and Leisure. The journal devoted one of its 1971 issues to adult education and leisure with an article from Kidd. Clearly, leisure had claimed space on the to-do lists of many adult educators. 46 Worldviews of Leisure Collins (1984) organizes orientations of lifelong education into three main worldviews and deals specifically with the issue of leisure. Citing in detail Brundage and Mackeracher, Collins describes conservative, liberal-democratic and liberal-socialist paradigms as three pre-dominant worldviews of lifelong education. Those holding a conservative orientation perceive an objective, knowable reality in which teaching involves the dissemination of information. Others with a liberal-democratic orientation accept that each person develops a unique reality; thus teaching involves the sharing of perceptions through dialogue with others. Finally, those of the liberal-socialist orientation perceive the effects of social and political environments on learning. By assisting students to un-leam aspects of their experience that have been distorted or misrepresented, teaching ultimately aims to provoke social change and an improved society. Collins focuses on the liberal-democratic and liberal-socialist orientations as they apply to leisure. Liberal-democrats would see leisure as "the acme of human life and that when people leave work behind them they are able to self-actualize, to grow, to be creative in unique ways" (1984, p. 32). Farina espoused this orientation when he described leisure as "a kind of freedom to be or to do what we are intended to become or do as human beings" (1969). Green (1968) and Brightbill (1966) in their connection to leisure as play also define it in a liberal-democratic manner that does not question the alienating nature of work for most of the poor. This type of definition serves to legitimize tedious, mundane work because self-actualization can be achieved elsewhere during leisure time. Brightbill's implications place him firmly in a more conservative camp when he discusses the undefined "dangers" of leisure: "Just as the geneticists will learn how to breed out the less desirable qualities of man, so we shall learn how to minimize the threats of leisure" (1966, p. 95). Through Brightbill's work, we see a glimpse of the use of leisure for social control. 47 The purpose of social control is something that the'liberal-socialist orientation addresses in its view of leisure in capitalist society. Adherents to this worldview see leisure as an outlet for workers with alienating jobs who need escape into an unreal world (Fergusson & Mardle, 1981). Workers, in fact, are further targets for the consumption of mass-produced leisure goods. Self-actualization and fulfillment are really only affordable and possible options for the middle and upper classes. In a stinging critique of leisure education in capitalist society, Basini (1975) attacks the idea that (a) there is an age of leisure, and (b) that it has any relevance for education. If education has played any role in leisure education, it has been to reinforce inequality: Failure is part of the inegalitarian society and education itself is geared to predisposing some people to accept failure and lack of self-fulfillment in work. There seems to be within education an acceptance of the idea that because we exist in a segmentalised society, unrewarding work experiences should, and can, be offset by creative and challenging leisure (p. 108). The "leisure problem" suggested by so many writers is further suspect, according to Basini (1975): The able are not seen as having a leisure problem. They will be involved in long and arduous studies leading to a well rewarded and satisfying profession. It is the rest.. .who must be given courses, attitudes and skills that will make them accept their position which is the dismal one of unsatisfying, poorly paid and insecure employment. The fallacy in the leisure education argument is the idea that somehow leisure can be used to compensate or socialise young people for inadequate work opportunities and experiences and more generally to accept the inequality inherent in the structure of society (Basini, 1975, p. 110). Viewed through the lenses of these worldviews, notions of leisure education become much more integrated and problematic, as do the notions of leisure within the 1972 reports. 48 Discussion Having written about the report writers' views on leisure, discussed the meanings espoused at the time, and offered frames of reference of lifelong education that offer views of leisure, I'm left with the question: what was leisure education supposed to do for adults? Worth wanted to help people learn meaningful activities for all their free time. Faure wanted to help people resist advertising that created artificial needs. Wright wanted to make adult education products (i.e., classes) available for potential learners looking for things to do with their increased free time. Also, what was adult education supposed to do for people? It seemed as though leisure time was an island split in two. The one side habitable; the other forbidden. Adult educators were supposed to get people off the wrong side of the island and bring them back to the safe side. See Fig. 3. 49 Figure 2: How the space of leisure appeared in 1972. Separated from the time of work, and much smaller in time and space, I have depicted leisure as a small island compared to the continents of work and responsibilities which make up our lives. My 5 0 view of the idea of appropriate use of leisure time has been most profoundly influenced by the Alberta writers of A Future of Choices, A Choice of Futures, but all of the reports were concerned with the use of leisure time. Two distinct categories appeared: appropriate use of time as depicted on the "Civilization" side of the island, and inappropriate use of time as depicted on the "Forbidden" side of the island. Appropriate activities include those which can be found mostly in urban centres and those activities which epitomize "high" or Eurocentric culture. In Canada, a distinction is made between culture and "kulcha", which is the former spoken in a feigned, upper-class British accent. In Canada, the differing pronunciation distinguishes (ironically) between mass and high culture, with some disparagement intended for high culture. The name of the city, Kulchaville, has been chosen because it is the place where the "right" kind of goods are available for consumption: access to ballet, art galleries, museums, symphony orchestras and so on. Worth's contribution to the view of leisure includes the desire to commodity and sell adult education because of the expectation that people would have more time to consume leisure. Forbidden activities are those treated as an inappropriate use of leisure time and which people are to be weaned away from- These include watching television, non-approved (by Worth and his team) clubs, loafing, unemployment, taking drugs and alcohol, and recreational sex. These activities were viewed as both voluntarily taken up by people or imposed on them by economic and societal forces (e.g. unemployment). Preventing people from using their leisure time to pursue these activities was deemed to be the purpose which Adult Education was to pursue. Adult Education would be able to reclaim this territory, break down the fence and open the Island of Fun to acceptable forms of leisure. Faure's group, who wanted to protect the Island of Fun from the civilizing force of advertising do not appear on this map. 51 Of particular curiosity is the strong bias of the Worth Commission toward high culture. While it is not surprising that the members of this commission would be chosen from the educated elite, and would therefore have developed an appetite for this form of entertainment, it is surprising that such obviously inaccessible cultural opportunities would be pushed onto the people of the province, many of whom resided in rural areas. Perhaps commission members were focused entirely on the working class urbanites who demonstrated no interest in high culture. Yet, the explanation lies not far away, in 1949, in the Royal Commission that would cement the notion of high culture with that of a Canadian nationality. Historian Paul Litt (1992) writes that the Massey Commission was founded to protect and advance the favourite causes of Canada's cultural elite at the time. Throughout the hearings that formed this cross-country investigation, the commissioners faced a prevailing tension between the mass culture enjoyed by average Canadians and the high culture preferred by the cultural elite. Mass culture was seen as the basis of profitable commercial activity whereas high culture was loftier and involved the acquisition of knowledge and insight: Culture involved a process of exploration, reflection and intellectual growth through which individuals came to know themselves, as well as the nature of their social existence better. In this way, the otherwise peripheral and suspect commodity of culture was in fact a form of education, a fundamental concern in liberal democratic societies a path of self-improvement leading to intellectual freedom (p. 84). Massey Commission members and high culture aficionados forming the elite at the time despised movies, trashy magazines, commercial radio and sports events, all deemed to involve passive, non-participation which did not improve individuals. Behind this missionary-like need to help the other 52 classes find themselves lurked a fear that they might be so stupid as to fall prey to the persuasion of political radicals, such as communists. If the masses could be edified, however, they would better execute their democratic responsibilities and choose the right political directions. As Litt concludes, " . . .[c]culture was a necessary part of education for citizenship in a liberal democracy" (p. 102). In its uncritical promotion of high culture, however, the Massey Commission made the same omission as the Worth Commission would two decades later: .. .[A] theoretical attachment-to liberal economic principles prevented most members of the culture lobby from offering any fundamental criticism of the capitalist system which had created the cultural conditions they abhorred. Despite the threats it presented to individual freedom, the liberal capitalist political economy was considered an integral part of the Western way of life threatened by communism. Instead of attacking the root of the problem, they could only offer high culture as a counterweight, a source of values which defined political freedom in human rather than scientific or capitalistic terms (1992, p. 103). The intentions were good in the Massey Commission, as undoubtedly they were in the Worth Commission. Assisting people to be freer is a worthwhile cause, as is creating a Canadian identity separate from that of the US, another covert Massey Commission initiative (1992). Still, at least one voice argued for non-education into high culture. The message may have been similarly spoken to members of the Worth Commission: Did it ever occur to those presenting briefs to this distinguished body that perhaps the ordinary individual is quite satisfied with the type of amusement and entertainment that he at present enjoys? Do they dare to think that their way of life is happier than his, or more full of the zest of living?.. .We are a free and democratic people, and should be allowed to choose our own way of life... (as cited in Litt, 1992, p. 76,77). 53 From my position in 1997, it remains debatable just how free and democratic we are. Yet, it is further questionable whether leisure education in high, Eurocentric culture will enhance our freedom and democracy. The quest to save the masses from their own free time is a meddlesome interference into their private lives. No one needs education for high culture leisure; you need money and accessibility, something that the working poor in Alberta wouldn't have had, regardless of all the laments from the Worth Commission. The two Canadian reports construed educating adults for leisure as desirable for the future. The Faure Report saw it as problematic. Despite an initial appearance of simplicity, educating for leisure emerges as a more complex notion which ultimately leaves humanism, the philosophy that supports it, looking drab and conniving. The critiques provided have shown the more sinister use of leisure education as a means of social control and as a complement to tedious, alienating work. With all the attention to leisure education, adult education grew in this area. However, depending on the approach taken, leisure education may or may not have been a emancipatory development. 54 Chapter 4 T E C H N O L O G Y My favourite technological device in 1972 was my parents' stereo and their collection of records. This was a good source of fun for a farm kid with an infant sister, no immediate access to friends, a developing literacy and a fairly fertile imagination. I discovered the joy of lip-synching on weekend afternoons and performing for my adoring, albeit invisible, fans. The technology assisted my day dreams and my play. Since then, I have retained a healthy view of technology as a thing which can contribute to my fun, whether it occurs in the course of work or leisure. I maintain a similar view of television and computers. As a child, television brought me images of culture, which I construed to be something both outside myself and outside my entire province. Television reduced the isolation I felt and remains a window to other worlds. The use of a computer, especially the internet and electronic mail, play similar roles. They enhance contact, and as such, serve to combat isolation inherent in urban life. The Commissions' Views of Technology Given my appreciative view of technology, I was surprised at the trepidation with which the commission members in all three studies treated technology..A scary item, technology was deemed as something for which people needed education to adapt. Looming and threatening in the 55 distance, technology appeared to hold the potential to dehumanize and degrade. It's amazing that any commission members found any potential for educational good or utility at all in technology. Still the prevailing view of all three commissions was to meet this menace head-on with education. Education, and adult education in particular, was expected to slay this dragon. The Unesco Commission believed, "Prospects for scientific, development are exalting, impressive and at the same time terrifying" (Faure, 1972, p. 91). The members expected science and technology to provide solutions to human problems but not without the potential for world-wide anxiety. The Unesco Commission believed education should take steps to prevent progressive dehumanization from technological progress " . . .by proclaiming aims of a humanistic nature" (1972, p. 82). Fear of a technocratic elite, imposing its will, or the will of its masters, turned out to be a legitimate concern voiced by Faure. This fear was voiced elsewhere in the 1960's and 1970's by writers such as French sociologist/historian Jacques Ellul. The Worth Commission, as usual, was one step more dramatic than the other reports. Members feared a decline in education caused by technology which elsewhere, had "set society spinning" (1972, p. 36). The damages, caused by technology, included a grab-bag of societal ills: the situation of the poor, the restlessness of youth, the fluctuation of the economy, environmental destruction, urban expansion, deterioration of community life, increasing mental illness, crime and drug abuse. The Worth Commission believed all these were precipitated by technology. Education, as the members saw it, had a big job on its hands. In the post-secondary education context of Ontario, the Wright Commission report showed no fear of technology. The call for education and training to "cushion the shock of rapid change" (1972, p. 43) exhibits an acceptance of technology. It was coming, and education's job was to 56 cushion people displaced and disoriented. The Wright Commission echoed the reactive purpose of adult education discussed previously. The Unesco Commission repeatedly linked education with the development of democracy. The same link occurred when the members discussed technology. The scientific/technological revolution occurring in the 20th century creates new problems for training and education, the Commission noted. The omnipresence of mass media results in new implications for educating people for democracy. "The development of mass-communication media has provided political and economic authorities with extraordinary instruments for conditioning the individual.. .especially as a consumer and as a citizen" (1972, p. xxiv). Democracy was viewed as the only way to avoid enslavement by machines. However, the standard idea of formal democracy was seen as obsolete. New concepts with new implications were needed. Faure hinted at the direction. "...(I)t can no longer be limited to a minimum of juridical guarantees protecting citizens from the arbitrary exercise of power in a subsistence society..," (1972, p. xxvi). Learning to Be linked educational action with scientific humanism, in which science is to be used for the improvement of human life. Ultimately, the three commissions opted to side with science and" technology. Even though elsewhere, as will later be discussed, serious critiques of the extent and type of technology were occurring, all commissions accepted increasing technology as inevitable. They hoped education would assist people in coping with and in benefiting from the change, but commission members didn't suggest people be encouraged to resist the increasing technology invading their lives. Learning to Be expressed this resignation to the effects of technology. Commissioners predicted the decade of the 1970's would be preoccupied with "already dramatic 57 problems of unemployment arid by the .need to change social structures" (Faure, 1972, p. 30). Education was needed both to adapt to change and to assist change. Mixed with the fear and acquiescence to technology's immanent advance onto the human landscape is a smattering of fascination, much like what I described earlier as I played my parents' records. The Unesco Commission examined the instruments of change, including radio, television and computers, and deemed that they had educational potential which hadn't been tapped. In particular, there were high hopes for computer-assisted teaching. The members expected that computers could create conditions for efficient learning and would be an integral part of lifelong education. Computers, because of their interactive potential, would not be limited to the mere presentation of i knowledge. Instead, computers could help students learn to manipulate concepts and techniques for developing intellectual aptitudes through a dialogue between pupil and system. Worth Commission members wanted planned change and hoped to manage the future. One way to enhance education of adults would be through a new delivery system. This would involve a wide variety of learning media. Technology was harnessed for human improvement. Courses would be delivered through the creation of the Alberta Academy, a distance education delivery system, which would become an "all-terrain [educational] vehicle" (1972, p. 99). It's interesting that the metaphor the Worth Commission writer(s) chose involved a machine. The fear expressed by the Faure and Worth Commissions is incongruent with the optimism for what technology offered to education. Were the commission members really afraid of this force that seemed so massive at the time, yet so pedestrian and pervasive now? As previously mentioned, there is no resistance to technology, just the mixture of fear and delight one feels as a big thunder storm approaches. It is certain there will be sound and fury, but after the storm ends, you remain 58 safe and dry, watching from the window. The commission reports express a feeling of safety from the threat of technology, a threat that was prompting others, like Ellul and Canadian philosopher George Grant, to call for an end to the insatiable, narrow-minded project of science and technology. The Meanings of Technology Technology, like leisure, appears to be a simple concept. When I think of technology, I think of my computer, or seismology equipment, or virtual pets. I think of machines. Yet, the word has many more implications. Consider Alvin Toffler's (1970) definition in which technology is more than factories and machines: [Technology] includes techniques, as well as machines that may or may not be necessary to apply them. It includes ways to make chemical reactions occur, ways to breed fish, plant forests, light theatres, count votes or teach history (p. 25). J.K. Galbraith (1971) saw another implication that arose through the meaning of technology: Technology means the systematic application of scientific or other organized knowledge to practical tasks. Its most important consequence, at least for the purposes of economics, is in forcing the division and subdivision of any such task into its component parts (p. 12). The subdivision of tasks is a feature often deplored by anti-technologists as resulting in an overspecialized populace. Such critics see a less neutral definition of technological society. Environment education writer George Sessions (1983) supplies one such meaning: 59 Technological society is based on an erroneous view of the world which not only alienates humans from the rest of Nature but also alienates humans from themselves and from each other. It necessarily promotes destructive values and goals which destroy the basis for stable viable human communities in symbiotic interaction with the natural world (p. 29). Technology from this perspective loses the neutrality it has in some definitions. The destructive/dangerous aspect of technology finds expression in the reports of the Unesco and the Worth Commission, although the potential damage of technology focuses on the alienation of humans. The Wright Commission takes a view of technology that is similar to Toffler's. Still, what is implicit in this second definition is the notion that the overwhelming growth of technological dominance should be arrested. Report writers, as earlier indicated, describe technology as an inevitable force to which society must adjust. Another definition from biologist/environmentalist Barry Commoner (1971) presents a view of technology as the most important link between society and the ecosystem, but a link which appears to be out of control. "Technology often seems to act like an autonomous force, relatively independent of and more competent than the mere human beings who practice it" (p. 179). Ellul (1970), who contributed a comprehensive analysis in The Technological Society, critiques not technology per se, but the technique that seeks the creation of a machine-oriented society: Technique integrates the machine into society. It constructs the kind of world the machine needs and introduces order where the incoherent banging of machinery heaped up ruins. It clarifies, arranges, and rationalizes.. ..It is efficient and brings efficiency to everything (p. 5). 60 Technique and technology, although often granted neutrality by education writers (see for example McDonald, 1960), held multiple meanings in 1972, with a larger diversity of negative critiques than would persist a quarter of a century later. Context In 1972, Canadians had six million televisions and ten million telephones. The Polaroid camera system was unveiled. An electronic mail program had been invented a year earlier. Three years had passed since the American flight to the moon. Fifteen years had passed since the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik, which had prompted the American Department of Defense to form the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). In the 1960's, ARPA was fostering research into computerized communications networks that would ultimately lead to the massive use of the internet in the 1990's. The introduction of advanced technology to enterprises in capitalistic countries altered the nature of business and work. As Galbraith (1971) notes about the American context, technology was an expensive addition to business; mistakes and failures needed to be avoided through the management of consumer demand, namely advertising. The large capital investment required by technological innovation also meant growth into large corporations, vertically integrated to avoid the uncertainty of irresponsible or greedy suppliers. Smaller corporations were increasingly pushed from the scene as more and more business mergers took place.' Advanced technology further required the creation of a technostructure formed of educated professionals who could not only plan the needs of consumers and therefore manage the market, but who could also plan for stability in the area of labour. The technostructure's desire for this stability matched with the possibility of 61 robots and automated machines that don't strike or have sick days results in the obvious: a reduction in blue collar workers. Increasing unemployment resulted. Matched with an increasing demand for white collar, technologically-astute workers, an emerging need for adult education and re-training became apparent. Ellul (1970) saw an even bleaker scenario. Technique (and its resulting technology) feeds on itself, he said. It creates a need for more and more technique. Ultimately, it creates a need for people to fit into its purposes, to work mechanically and efficiently in artificial surroundings. Unfortunately, in this type of environment, people might become unhappy and rebellious, were it not for education, which could teach them how to adapt to these conditions and how to be happy. Ellul believed that the danger of such education was just that. "It makes men happy in a milieu which normally would have made them unhappy, if they had not been worked on, molded, and formed for just that milieu" (p. 348). Ellul saw no solutions to the problem of advancing technology, except for more technological solutions. For Canada, some critics saw increasing technology as a further problem because so much of the technological force originated in the US. It was bad enough that technological society deprived people of pre-technological myths and symbols, and even superstitions. But worse still was evidence of the same bothersome colonial message, this time spoken in the language of technological advance. The history of Canada (at least of white people in Canada), wrote Grant, is a history of a country bound up with various world empires. Now, increasing technology, and the lifestyle it rendered in Canada, was just the latest form of the American colonization of Canada: Our very form of life depends on our membership in the western industrial empire which is centred in the USA and which stretches out in its hegemony into parts of western Europe and 62 which controls South America and much of Africa and Asia. Somewhere in the minds of nearly all Canadians there is the recognition that our present form of life depends on our place as second class members of that system (1969, p. 64). Colonization was nothing new for Canada. Yet, Grant argued the American-based system was one step worse than previous colonizers. Britain and France had retained at least some traditions that stemmed from pre-progress/pre-modern times. The US, however, had nothing but a mandate for progress. "The American supremacy is identified with the belief that questions of human good are to be solved by technology; that the most important human activity is the pursuit of those sciences which issue in the conquest of human and non-human nature" (1969, p. 72). Those pre-technological aspects of culture (myth, superstition, etc.) were eliminated if they did not conform to the pro-science, pro-progress beliefs of American hegemony. And, to Grant's dismay, Americans were intent on forcing their system on those outside the US, in particular, those in Vietnam. Grant feared that this was only an initial intrusion. He believed increasingly technological societies would inevitably be increasingly imperialist societies, even if governments decorated their conquests with talk of well-being and good will. Canada, through its branch plant economy of the US, would be a collaborator as well as a victim. Many viewed technology and its encroachment as a problem. Yet at the same time, the possibilities of technology were seen as a solution to the difficulties in providing access to education for large numbers of people. Husen (1981) notes that this was more an issue in developing countries: The unit costs that were going up in affluent countries did not give rise to serious concern as long as the economy was expanding and education was allowed to absorb more of the growing resources than other sectors of society. However, new devices, such as programmed instruction 63 mediated through teaching machines, were often perceived as panaceas that would not only save teaching staff but bring down the costs as well (p. 252, 253). Educational technology was seen as part of the solution to the educational crisis that left many underprivileged people under-educated. During the 1972 Tokyo Conference, delegates agreed that educational technology was not being sufficiently used. Lowe (1975) notes that "...the rationale of education technology is that every possible human skill and artifact should be deliberately and methodically put at the disposal of the learner" (p. 116). Not only was the use of educational technology deemed as desirable, but essential. "[l]t is widely recognized that mass, or at least a large-scale, adult education is financially and structurally impossible without maximum exploitation of the mass media and the full resources of educational technology" (p. 113). Educational television, computers, programmed learning and a variety of gadgets were seen as assisting in reaching large numbers of people and in freeing up the teacher to use the extra time for purposes assumed to be beneficial to the schooling cause. Worldviews of Technology and Environment Two prevailing lines of thought have emerged through the introduction of the meanings of technology. The dominant worldview that supports massive technological development has been described as the contemporary urban/industrial technocratic social paradigm (Skolimowski, 1981). In this frame of reference: 64 Humans are the ultimate locus and arbiters of value in the universe; diis world view is dominated by a radical anthropocentricity Non-human nature is understood as but a commodity to be manipulated, dominated, managed and controlled for the material, recreational, and esthetic satisfaction of humans (p. 28). Rationality, "conceived of in a narrow calculative utilitarian manner" (1981, 28) also reigns as the supreme method of decision making, which facilitates the scientific/technological domination of nature. Ultimately, technology becomes an instrument of oppression. Since these insights and principles are incompatible with those of ecology, the alternative worldview involves a critique of technological society. In the ecological frame of reference, the interrelationship of humans and nature is viewed in a deeper, more intimate way (Sessions, 1983). This sense of radical interprenetration and intermingling of all aspects of the biosphere constitutes the essentially subversive perspective of ecology. Humans are totally interrelated with the natural world—our mutual fate is inexorably intertwined (p. 29). In this alternate worldview, the role of technology varies, but it has a significantly reduced status compared to that of the previously discussed and currently dominant technological frame of reference. In some cases, ecological proponents call for a simplified society that is much more in touch with the rhythm of nature. Other proponents call for innovative technology which creates non-polluting, recyclable products instead of technology as a means to increase profit margins. This technology should not intrude into the natural world. Return to primitivism is not for all ecological worldview holders; they see a role for technology, but a diminished one in comparison to the current dominant frame of reference. 65 Discussion This chapter on technology has been physically located between chapters on leisure and the environment. It was a random decision, at first. However, in retrospect, technology seems appropriate as a central force that was causing changes in other arenas, as the following figure demonstrates. Fig. 4 Technology as a central force of change which made a direct impact on both leisure and the environment. Increased technology in the workplace was expected to create more leisure time. For those people who lost jobs because of automation, it has, although we normally now refer to this unwanted leisure time as unemployment. The resulting leisure time also left a vacuum that is sometimes filled with technological devices such as computers (and computer games), surfing the internet, video machines and vast television cable networks. 66 Increased technology has also left its mark on the environment through effects too numerous to note here. At the same time, wounded by technological progress, environmental problems now cry out for technological solutions; a chemical to clean up polluted rivers, an upper-atmospheric ozone factory located over Antarctica. Technology is now locked into intense relationships with both leisure and the environment. The fear expressed by members of die commissions seems natural and prophetic; the delight, an understandable expression of optimism during an optimistic time. Two themes run through the reports of the Unesco Commission and the Worth Commission: fear of technology mixed with delight in its potential utility. The Wright Commission has no expression of fear, merely an acceptance that change is coming, and education should provide assistance to people in coping, with the change. Ultimately, this is where fear of technology leads in the Worth and Faure reports. Technology, as frightening as it appeared, was on its way. There would be no stopping it. Education's role was to assist with the change and to minimize the damages. Adult education's role was the same. Whereas education would try to prepare a future generation for a technologically altered world, adult education and re-training would assist the displaced workers whose earlier education had become obsolete. In this regard, adult education gained in importance and status again. Technology was causing serious problems, such as unemployment and alienation. Adult education would be needed to make things better. Ellul (1970) would have said the techniques of adult education were another technological solution to a problem created by technology. If anyone on these commissions mentioned, as a goal for education, a need to resist or to form change, then this opinion was unfortunately disregarded. There is no evidence of discussion about employees intervening in technological change through workplace democratization. Rubenson 67 (1992) suggests that broad knowledge about "how technological innovations exert an influence on...work, which alternatives exist, possibilities or lack thereof to control the technology" (p. 18) could become a necessary part of 21st century civics education. However, there is no mention of this in the 1972 reports. : Commission members also made the questionable assumption that increased technology means a need for more skill and correspondingly, more education. In opposition to this, the deskilling hypothesis argues that advancing technology requires simpler handling skills (Rubenson, 1992). The commission reports reflect a philosophy of humanism exemplified by the hope in education to promote fulfillment and satisfaction. Yet, Ellul (1970), as noted earlier, had little hope for either of these. His view of education's role in the creation of a technological society has already been discussed. His view on humanistic principles is similarly without hope: When the technical problem is well in hand, the professional humanists look at the situation and dub it Tiumanist.' This procedure suits the literati, moralists, and philosophers who are concerned about the human situation. .. .Unfortunately, it is a historical fact that this shouting of humanism always comes afterthe technicians have intervened; for a true humanism, it ought to have occurred before (p. 339 emphasis in original). To Ellul, technical humanism, such as that spoken of in the three reports, is impossible. This is not surprising. In the 436 pages devoted to his ideas on technological society, he sees no capacity for resistance and no solution to the problem, other than an oblivion of more technical solutions which in turn create more technical problems. Unless writers of the three reports wanted to accept such a pessimistic, hopeless stance, they had to create hope somewhere. They found it in notions of 68 democracy and in scientific humanism. Education built upon a foundation of these philosophies could result in a better society. Could the technology changing the world in multiple other ways also revolutionize education? Members of the three commissions said yes. Undoubtedly, by the time these reports were written, most people worldwide had heard of a Canadian communications researcher named Marshall McLuhan, who had a great deal to say about the role of technology in the form of mass media. McLuhan (1970a) had harsh words for education as it was confronted with technology. In an address to Ontario's Provincial Committee on the Aims and Objectives of Education (which would become the 1968 Hall-Dennis Report), McLuhan slammed schooling. "What goes on inside the school," he said, "is an interruption of education, of the education available in the current environment" (1970a, p. 516). Mass media changed the environment for the television generation to one which was composed of information which could readily and independently be discovered. However, this was not the environment of school. Naturally, when students were in school, they pushed aside instruction in favour of discovery. We have to realize that more instruction is going on outside the classroom, many times more every minute of the day than goes on inside the classroom. That is, the amount of information that is embedded in young minds per minute outside the classroom far exceeds anything that happens inside the classroom in just quantitative terms now (1970b, p. 552) Furthermore, the electronic age had ushered in diversity and decentralization. But, schools, meanwhile, were manufacturers of conformity. When faced with the choice between the two, students would naturally be inclined to psychically drop out. 69 As for educational technology, McLuhan labeled it nonsense: You cannot introduce electronic forms into the classroom without rescheduling the whole process of instruction, and that is impossible under our unwieldy, fragmented conditions of classroom use (1970b, p. 549). In the case of adult education, the promise of educational technology was involved with reaching masses of uneducated and underprivileged people. Given adult education's democratic aims and goals, McLuhan may have been more supportive of educational technology for adults than he was for students of preparatory education. Conclusion The three reports express fear about the impact of technology and the need for education to serve as an adjustment. In addition, the commissions expressed a hope for educational technology in creating better and more equitable access to education. Ultimately, discussion in the reports led both to acceptance of technology as an inevitable force of the future, and to a need for an underlying philosophy of technology, such as scientific humanism, which would promote a good society. Goodman (1964), in Compulsory Miseducation, phrased it well: Our aim must be to make a great number of citizens at home in a technological environment, not alienated from the machines we use, not ignorant as consumers, who can somewhat judge governmental policy, who can enjoy the humanistic beauty of the sciences, and, above all, who can understand the morality of a scientific way of life (p. 77). 70 A quarter of a century later, some scholars are still pursuing an elusive philosophy of technology that is adequately beneficial to society. What the commission members worried about and what they hoped for has yet to happen. Environmental education writer David Orr (1992), writing in the 1990's, expresses the same type of concern as these reports: Whether [technology] can be controlled and harnessed to the long-term benefit of humanity is the question of our civilization. If so, the goal of a sustainable society based on the model of natural systems is not necessarily antithetical to technology. The question then becomes what kind of technology, at what scale, and for what purposes. In thinking about issues of this sort, we lack a philosophy of technology that could help us decide the most important issues on the human agenda. Without such clarity, we are prone to what Langdon Winner has called 'technological somnambulism, a willing sleepwalk,' a passive acceptance of whatever technologies are thrust upon us by whomever for whatever purposes (p. 39). By opening up discussion on the technological effects on society, and the corresponding use of education in handling those effects, commission members opened a debate that is still continuing, a quarter of a century later. The problem of technology was another of the dominant themes of the three reports, and another of the reasons why adult education experienced a growth spurt in 1972. Technology was the problem, but in these reports, at least one of the solutions was adult education. 71 Chapter 5 ENVIRONMENT One day, in or around 1972, my mother and I noticed a new inhabitant locating herself (maybe himself) outside our dining room window. A little spider, not a Black Widow or anything as sensational as that, had begun spinning a web in the lower corner. This small being engaged itself in spinning and in trapping and eating flies and other insects throughout the summer. During this time, we watched and talked about the little spider's routine. As we ate our breakfast, she sucked the life out of a tasty fly. At the end of the season, the spider left, going wherever spiders go when the summer is over. At the time this event was unremarkable to me. But now, my mother emerges as a striking environmental educator. Despite an intense love of cleanliness, she did not rush to remove the spider and its web from the window. She rather displayed a respect for this being and its life purposes, treating the spider as a subject deserving space and time to fulfill its goals. This is the type of environmental education that was being urged during 1972, but which often got lost in discussions of conservation and resource management. The Commissions' Views on Environmental Education Environmental education was one of the results of the environmental/conservation movement. This movement was certainly not born in the 1960's or early 1970's, but it did undergo important development during that time. Consequently, debate on the ecology movement was more 72 pronounced and prevalent than before. Education was introduced as a solution to environmental cataclysm. Commission members accepted this new responsibility for education, and for adult education. All were clear that education should, in one way or another, deal with the topic of environmental annihilation. But the ways in which education would approach that immense goal differed. The Wright Commission (1972) saw a need for a: .. .continuing broadening of skills and knowledge to enable us to live in a world where the problems of providing sufficient goods, the social strains of living closely together, and the ecological dangers of ruining our environment all threaten survival itself. When faced with the imperative need of education for survival, universal access should seem, not a benevolent dream, but a categorical necessity (1972, p. 33). The Unesco Commission took a more adversarial role. Technological development has had harmful effects on a number of aspects of contemporary life, especially the environment, they noted. Faure's Commission described education as an appropriate means to challenge increasing environmental degradation: The job of confronting these multiple dangers falls largely on education stimulating new awareness of such dangers is a demanding task for education, but particularly appropriate to it for many reasons and , too often, one that is much underestimated (1972, p. 101). The Worth Report offers information on hopes for environmental education. General goals included " . . .curb[ing] the continuing deterioration of the physical and social environment...[and] counteracting] the threatened instability of the social structure.. ."(1972, p. 47). Worth's group 73 wanted a clean, orderly and environmentally-sound world. They would not have concurred with environmentalists like Roszak who say that the only way to ensure an ecologically-healthy world is through anarchy, which is touted as the only human social structure to allow for true freedom, self-realization and ecology (Sessions, 1983). "Environmental education.. .must dominate our future horizon if there is to be a future horizon" (Worth, 1972, p. 192). The Worth Commission avidly supported environmental education, writing about it as a "special concern" along with Canadian Studies, drug education and language learning. The themes of the Commission's recommendations about environmental education were so forward-thinking that the same calls persist today. The report calls for a "valuing framework that helps learners clarify their concepts and attitudes about the inter-relatedness of man, his culture and his biophysical surroundings" (p. 192). On a more practical level, the commission believed that environmental education should "permeate the entire learning pattern" (p. 192). Its application to the social studies and applied sciences is obvious, but some may feel other subjects do not contain coat-hooks for the ecological cloak. But can business courses avoid attention to our throw-away economy? Can physical education forget the contaminants inhaled during its deep breathing exercises? Can literature sidestep Walden Pond, The Greening of America or T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland} And can the theoretical sciences ignore Buckminster Fuller any longer? (1972, p. 192). At the same time as calling for an ecologically-aware approach to all education, the commission wanted to promote "special activities with a pure environmental focus" (p. 192). These activities would be offered in schools, colleges, institutes and universities during the summer. 74 The Meanings of Environment Environment is not as contentious a topic as others discussed in this thesis. However, deep ecologist Neil Everenden (1993) offers an alternative to the traditionally accepted meaning of environment as surrounding objects or circumstances. He argues that this typical definition has been possible only since the Renaissance. Around this time, the environment began to exist in human consciousness because it was made separate from the context of human life. With the help of science and then business, the environment began to be seen as things which could be counted and measured and ultimately used in various ways. Environment stopped being a life-world, Everenden suggests, and became surroundings. Nature became a conglomeration of natural resources and storehouse of materials. "Indeed [environment] is not a 'thing' at all but a statement of anthropocentricity: the planet, now expropriated as ours alone, is our surrounding, our environment" (p. 152). An alternate perspective more favourable to Everenden situates environment as "an entity of intrinsic worth that must be maintained" (p. 4) and to which we are intimately linked in a subject-to-subject (not subject-to-object) relationship. Context By 1972, Greenpeace had been created in Vancouver, B.C. in response to American nuclear testing in the Aleutian Islands (Brown, 1989). The birth of this now worldwide organization symbolized the surge of environmental concern that saw further expression in 1972. It was also in this year that the Club of-Rome released Limits to Growth, a controversial result of computer analysis concluding environmental catastrophe was only 130 years in the future, unless current trends were altered. A similar 1972 document, a special edition The Ecologist, provided a Blueprint for Survival supported by 75 33 eminent British scientists. The writers, all studying environmental problems, called for numerous forms of ecologically-responsible changes, including decentralized settlements to replace expanding urban centres. Each of these centres was to be ultimately self-sufficient and self-regulating, arranging for their own food production and waste disposal. Meanwhile, in June of 1972, a United Nations Conference on the Human Environment drew 1,200 politicians and officials to Stockholm for two weeks of plans and agreements for international pollution control (1973b). While these events drew the world's attention in 1972, they were by no means the beginning of the environmental movement, which began earlier, much earlier than even Earth day I in 1970. Historian Donald Fleming (1972) traces the environmental movement in the US back more than a hundred years to the time of Emerson and Thoreau. These American Transcendentalists believed that an individual could intermittently break the bonds of selfhood by openness to physical and biological phenomena (i.e., nature) and that self-forgetfulness would ultimately result in self-renewal, self-enchantment and the elimination of anxiety. In 1892, after falling under the influence of Emerson's work, John Muir formed the Sierra Club, the organization Greenpeace creators would ultimately break away from in 1970 because it was no longer radical enough to meet their needs (and presumably the needs of an environment under attack) (Brown, 1989). Still, in the early 20th century, the Sierra Club served as a point of resistance against development and became more subversive under the leadership of executive director David Brower (1952-1969). Although he was ultimately forced from his position, Brower talked about the intrinsic worth of wilderness and the rights of beings other than humans. Aldo Leopold's arrival on the ecology scene, culminating in A Sand County Almanac in 1949, added another dimension to the movement: all species were part of an intricate web of life that could not be severed without consequence to other species. Rene Dubos' 1950's and 1960's writing on the control of bacteria confronted the notion of mastery over nature 76 through the planned eradication of bacteria, insects and rats. Instead, he hoped for a way to hold these in check through maintaining healthy environments, a contribution to the developing ecological ethic. In 1962, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring on the effects of the pesticide D D T linked dangers in the environment to dangers to human health, raising a defensive interest in the public. Biologist Barry Commoner argued on a philosophical level against the scientific tendency toward reductionism, and on a more practical level, he argued against the use of detergents that added to the oxygen depletion of Lake Erie. Whereas Commoner didn't implicate overpopulation in the looming environmental crisis, others did. Both Garett Hardin and Paul Ehrlich called for population controls, as did computer simulation expert Jay Forrester, whose model eventually became an instrument of the Club of Rome's (1972) The Limits to Groivth report. In a similar vein, Lewis Mumford raged against the "Megamachine" of unlimited capitalistic, technological growth that created inhuman urban structures that distanced people from nature. Environmental awareness increased as a result of the growing movement. In the United States, at least, the changed attitudes and behavior during the late 1960's and early 1970's "border on the incredible" (Albrecht, 1976, p. 154). These were the currents of the environmental movement running through the social milieu of which members of the Unesco, Worth and Wright Commissions may have been aware as they wrote their reports recommending environmental education. While representatives of a new environmental way of thinking created a new mass movement, physical changes continued to take place throughout the world's ecosystems (1973b). The Sahara Desert was advancing at a rate of about 3 km (1.5 miles) yearly. Photochemical smog and problems with waste disposal plagued Tokyo. Brazil was under international pressure to conserve its tropical rainforests. US troops in Vietnam were destroying crops and topsoil while Portuguese authorities used similar tactics to fight Mozambique guerrillas. Yellowstone Park in Wyoming was suffering 77 from serious overcrowding as tourists poured in for a bit of leisure. The International Whaling Commission refused to accept a proposed moratorium on whaling recommended by the Stockholm conference, even though some species were gravely close to extinction. In Canada, commercial sealing was banned in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Seventy-nine countries signed an international convention prohibiting the dumping of some dangerous substances into the oceans. These were just a few of the events and changes to the physical environment that occurred in 1972. Worldviews of Environmental Education Competing worldviews related to environmental education echo those discussed in the previous chapter on technology. The dominant frame of reference for environmental education is that of resource conservation and development. In this worldview, components of non-human nature are to be managed and used for human consumption, whether in the form of sustainable development forestry or as national parks designed for recreation such as backpacking. An alternate worldview for environmental education is that of deep ecology, which involves dimension of spirituality and eco-philosophy. Proponents from this frame of reference promote an understanding of human life as part of, rather than above, nature. They call for a reorganization of society along more naturalistic terms and a decrease in urbanization and consumerism. Sessions (1983) describes the perspective eloquently and so I quote him at length. He says proponents of this worldview have: .. .an intimate experiential awareness of interrelatedness and intermingling between all individuals and species on the planet. This is understood as a relation of reciprocity between all components of the biosphere. All of Nature has equal intrinsic value and the right to blossom 78 into its own particular form of realization. The human community must be integrated into the wider biotic whole. Standards of human health and sanity are dependent upon an ecologically sound relationship with a healthy biotic community. Direct unmediated experience is the key to overcoming the subjectivism and value relativism of anthropocentric perception and states of consciousness. This kind of experience provides access to the objectivity and reality of individual concrete existence together with an awareness of the ecological interrelationships of individuals within the biotic context. While abstract scientific principles provide us with important information about the world, they are no substitute for (and can be a serious hindrance to) understanding which comes from direct experience of individuals (1983, 34). Sessions adds that proponents of this worldview believe the conservation frame of reference, which stems from an industrial/urban conception of the world, will lead to an inferior way of life for humans. Environmental educators of this deeper ecology type fear conservation education to be no solution to, and actually a contributing agent to, eventual environmental destruction. See the following map for a visual description of the two worldviews, or islands of thought. 79 Fig. 4 Islands of Environmental Thought The island to the left is the original and dominant worldview which refers to the earth and its non-human elements as objects for human use. The Human in this worldview has higher status as designated by the location on a mountain and through the use of a capital letter. Other elements are described by their use to humanity. The island to the right represents the previously discussed alternate or deep ecology worldview. In this frame of reference, adherents see humans as beings in a relationship to other beings. I have taken Everenden's (1993) notion of humans as mere "skin-encapsulated objects" (p.13) and extended this description to all other beings that form relationships that compose, on a local scale, ecosystems and on a planetary scale, the earth. On this island, no mountains serve to hold up one species over another. Each being runctions in an interdependent relationship with other beings. 80 Discussion The new interest in using education, and in particular, adult education, as a way to prevent environmental degradation and decimation reflects a movement from the idea of micro to macro needs. Boshier (1985) notes that adult education's "...preoccupation with individual needs was congruent with the narcissism of the 1960s, the radical individualism of urban industrial capitalism, and Third Force psychologies that emphasize self-actualization and personal development." But to cope with the increasing technological change, and particularly to prevent a devastated environment, more than micro needs (individual and organizational) would have to be negotiated. Macro needs of communities, society and the planet could no longer be neglected. See Fig. 3. Fig. 3 Boshier's (1985) Micro- and macro-level needs. 81 This figure shows individual needs at the centre and the means of making change. However, individual needs are circled by organizational, community, societal and planetary needs. The outermost component, planetary needs, is the one with which this chapter deals. By acknowledging the macro-level need to save the planet, members of the three commissions gave legitimacy to a movement of adult education into teaching and learning that would have an environmental/ecological aim. This extends well beyond the self-actualization aims normally associated with adult education. Commission reports can be faulted for not taking enough of a deep ecology perspective in promoting environmental education. However, given that the fissure between ecology and deep ecology was still a small crack around 1972, such a critique seems unfair. Even Roszak (1972) was describing ecology as a subversive science. To accept the prevention of environmental decline as a mission for education in 1972 society was a brave and potentially controversial step for members of the commissions. By legitimating environmental education, however, the commissions added to the agenda, and field, of adult education in a new and encouraging way. 82 Chapter 6 Implications for Future Research A geographical metaphor comparing the abstract field of education to diat of land has been used throughout this thesis as a heuristic device. With the approval and encouragement of the government reports described in the introduction, adult education expanded, changed and blossomed. It grew in many ways, but three areas in particular have been singled out for analysis in this paper: leisure, technology and environment. While these were important areas of attention in the 1972 reports, there were many more. Furthermore, while these areas were given special attention, important issues, such as gender, were missed or received passing attention. Future researchers may consider that 1972 was a good year for the adult education of men, but did little to limit the oppression of women. In addition, the issues of professionalization and education for work are a potential source of study for researchers wishing to investigate this theme. Conclusion By 1972, governments around the world had spent abundandy on education. Yet the need seemed insatiable and growing exponentially. The pending educational crisis meant governments and non-governmental agencies like Unesco had to find solutions. The disappointment of all the spending was that traditional education (for children, adolescents and students of higher education) didn't seem to fulfill what it had been promising. Despite the appeal of human capital theory to both left and right alike, education was not providing enough of a solution to inequality. The critics, 83 meanwhile, had had a decade of education bashing. Several authors, such as Illich, Goodman and to a lesser extent, McLuhan, made their reputations pointing out the flaws in preparatory education. In Canada, the issues were the same. More tax money was going to education budgets but unemployment was rising. Numerous government reports called for solutions, among them, more adult education. At the Unesco level, the concept of lifelong education had been introduced slightly earlier but was most avidly promoted through Learning to Be and at the Tokyo Conference. Lifelong education as it was construed through Unesco depended upon adult education, particularly its democratic principles, to work. Adult education, as a result, grew in status and in size, thanks to the support through Unesco and reports in Canada such as the Worth and Wright Commissions. The Worth Commission created a legitimate role for "further education" (adult education) and called for a variety of changes to facilitate adult learning in the province of Alberta. The Wright Commission created more space for adult education in the context of post-secondary institutions in Ontario. While all three reports added new energy to the field of adult education, they made specific incursions into new areas, especially leisure, technology and the environmental movement. However, there is some argument whether adult education grew into these areas, or whether these areas grew into adult education. Regardless, because of attention to these topics, adult education changed, sometimes in beneficial ways, sometimes in detrimental ways. Education for leisure can be argued to be one of the ways that adult education evolved in a negative way. 84 Educating for Leisure Leisure education became a popular notion in the 1960's after technology appeared to promise a future of shorter work weeks and tedious labour. A rich, resonant leisure activity was expected to make up for dull work or worse, lengthy unemployment. In more altruistic writing, leisure was a natural by-product of a technological society which increased the mass standard of living enough to allow everyone to have the wherewithal to enjoy high culture. The most critical see leisure education as yet another form of social control, a way to keep the masses from getting bored and causing trouble through crime and drugs. The Faure Report had a different perspective on leisure. Commission members feared that advertisers would exploit the extra free time of the masses to sell products. Without education to resist the provocative call of ads and commercials, people would be influenced unfairly to spend their leisure time accumulating leisure goods. They would focus on "having" rather than "being" or "doing". The Unesco Commission wanted to protect people from having their leisure time colonized by advertising. The Worth Commission expressed similar sentiments, but also expressed a bias toward high culture. The report specifically railed against television watching and promoted more urban-centred, Euro-centric pastimes like ballet and opera. Two decades earlier, a federal Royal Commission on culture (known as the Massey Commission) made similar pronouncements, linking high culture with Canadian nationalism. A citizenry of discriminating cultural aficionados were the anticipated soldiers in the battle against the Americanization of Canada. There is a likelihood that members of the Worth Commission had been influenced by discussions surrounding the Massey Commission. 85 The Wright Commission looked at leisure from a pragmatic perspective. People would have more free time, the members reasoned. Many of them would want to spend time in adult education. They wanted Ontario's post-secondary institutions to be ready for a large influx of new students. Educating for/with Technology Commission members regarded technology with a mix of fear and delight. While it promised increased efficiency and a better standard of living, increasing automation and environmental degradation were obvious results of technology. The Unesco Commission put its trust in scientific humanism as a guiding philosophy to technological development. In this way, promotion of educational technology was a natural recommendation. The Worth Commission blamed technology for many of society's problems and feared what a high tech future might include. Still, the same sub-theme of delight mixes with the fear. Educational technology offered so many solutions to the growing need that it was ultimately accepted. The Wright Commission similarly accepted the coming technological invasion and pragmatically hoped to plan for it. Absent in the reports is any discussion of resistance. However, hope in scientific humanism made resistance philosophies unnecessary. No significant critique of science underlies these reports, which, a quarter of a century later, leaves these documents looking a little naive. Still, I prefer to frame the commission members' lack of critique as more optimistic than naive. Certainly, they were expressing the dominant attitude toward technology as they planned education around and with it. 86 Environmental Education Twentieth century industrialism and technology had made its mark on the physical environment by 1972. By this time, an environmental movement had emerged as a force of resistance to the ecological degradation that was occurring. Education, and adult education, were deemed as sources to augment that resistance. At the same time, some viewed education, and adult education, as a way to "teach" people to adjust to a declining environment that was certain to involve increased urban living. The Wright Commission expressed the idea that helping people to cope with change was essential. The Faure Report showed a similar view, but the Worth Commission offered the most ecologically-advanced approach. Like environmental educators now, the Worth report advocated an education in which ecology was front and centre; one which featured an interdisciplinary focus on ecology through as many subjects as possible. Short courses as well, which would be more ecologically intensive, were to be pursued in the summers in Alberta. The Worth Commission expressed fear that education without attention to the environmental context would ultimately permit ecological cataclysm as was being predicted at that time by such organizations as the Club of Rome. Although the emphasis given to environmental aims is favourable, the reports may not have gone far enough, particularly to satisfy deep ecologists like Everenden. For him, the earth is not an exterior "thing" or "object" but an extension of ourselves through which we can partially achieve our full expression of being. Conservation approaches are doomed to fail, Everenden argues, because they continually exclude the environment from our human existence and treat it as a thing to be used. The "using" of the environment, rather than the acceptance of Nature as an entity with which we have an intimate relationship, will only land us in the same environmental problems. 87 Gender Although 1972 was a good year for the growth and change of adult education, it was not a particularly good year for the growth and change of the adult education of women. All three reports mentioned the need for education that would improve women's opportunities within education and generally discussed the hope for a more egalitarian world. The Wright Commission discussed specific ways to increase the participation of women both as students and in administration and faculty. However, in the areas of leisure and technology, the commission members neglected to look critically at what those issues meant in a gendered sense. The all-encompassing proposals and discussions are stated in a gender-neutral way, but upon examination reveal themselves to actually be a discussion of the future of leisure, technology and the environment as they will impact men. In the topic of leisure, the report writers generally predicted an increase in leisure time because of a decreased work week. The typical conceptualization of leisure as "free" time rarely applies to the realities of women's lives. Available time for women, both now and in 1972, likely occurs in fragmented bits and is highly dependent upon whether a family member requires assistance (as cited in Lackey, 1993). Commission members failed to regard leisure in this way, as did standard critiques of leisure occurring in and around 1972. Similarly, commission members discussed the effects of technology but without regard to the special impact of technology on women. Implicit in the reports is the fear of what increased technology will do to workers, particularly the poor who may be displaced from manual labour jobs through automation. However, women were expected to be harder hit than men. Writing in 1992, Rubenson noted: 88 Women are largely concentrated in a very narrow range of occupations and industries such as office work and the information industry which may be hard hit by the technological revolution. Those who continue to chose traditional women's occupations during the coming 5-15 years will carry a disproportionately large burden of the adjustment to the technological revolution (1992, p. 13, 14). This perspective comes twenty years after the three commissions released their reports but it identifies a problem that would have been the same in 1972. The coming information age would hit office workers in a dramatic way; many traditional female occupations outside the home occur within the setting of an office. Technological change may leave a majority of women with little work beyond the menial and the routine (McDonald, 1992). The educational technology viewed with such promise by commission members and delegates at the Tokyo Conference may serve to put women, a large proportion of teaching staff, out of work. Meanwhile, employer-sponsored technological training is offered more often to men, since women are expected to spend a shorter time in the labour force (1992). The commissions were blind to the special problems that technology would mean for women, as were most of the opinions on technology at the time. Other themes in the reports Several other possibilities for further research have been noted. Among these, two offer especially rich potential. One of these, education for work, receives a great deal of attention in all three reports. Future research could uncover the embedded philosophies underlying this area, as well as the strength and weaknesses of the recommendations. The second area is that of credentialing. All three reports discuss the advantages and disadvantages of credentialing and its implications. In our increasingly certificate-oriented society, a historical critique of credentialing would serve to shed 89 new light on the normally-accepted assumption that credentials are a beneficial component of education. The twisting of Learning to Be Since its growth spurt in 1972, adult education has continued to develop and expand in various ways. However, the democratic project supported by the three reports appears now to be in increasing jeopardy. Boshier (1997b) argues that lifelong education was mugged, the emancipatory ideas and language co-opted by the new right. "The politicality, particularly the democratizing potential of 'lifelong education' has been gutted; what remains is a slogan or simulacrum" (1997b, 2). In other cases, Learning to Be was reduced to a set of techniques. Furthermore, new right "hijackers" of lifelong education have fostered a new and debilitating focus on the individual, enhanced through the use of technology and distance education. Boshier (1997b), quoted here at length, summarizes the subtle change which has served to frustrate collective learning: Faure foregrounded the legitimacy of learning from life, recognized the importance of indigenous ways of knowing, resisted the metanarratives of western scientism and education and was firmly committed to participation and democracy. Faure did not diminish the importance of worklife and learning at work but nor did the Unesco commission raise it to the kind of fetishistic levels of recent elaborations of lifelong learning. Moreover, whereas Faure foregrounded the need for collectivity, conviviality and learning in groups, the recent reports place an extreme emphasis on individual learning. For them, education is a process of using high technologies to leam how to learn. The emphasis on individual learning, worklife, 90 autonomy and choice within what is clearly anticipated will be an era of further cuts to public education (p. 12). The push to individualized learning is something that Roszak, writing around 1972, saw coming; a technological solution to the multi-problematic nature of schooling: When public education collapses under the weight of its own coercions and futility, the systems teams will step forward to propose that the schools invest in electronicized—individualized— computerized—audio-visual—multi-instructional consoles (1972, p. 65). The messages of reports like those of Faure, Worth and Wright may be twisted to legitimize new cuts to education. However, lifelong education and its component part, adult education, still provide the capacity for resistance to such efforts. These messages, a quarter of a century ago, created a great deal of growth and expansion for the field of adult education. They still have the same capacity and adult education benefits from re-examination of such issues. 1972 was a year in which adult education not only survived, but thrived. Contextual elements as well as forces within adult education served to burst previous confines, giving expansion and a new maturity. It was an important year during which adult education drew closer tov the goal stated by Unesco's Director-General Maheu during the Tokyo Conference: to do everything that can possibly be done so that life-long education can at last become a living reality in which adult education can find a framework and from which it can draw sustenance so as at last to attain fulfillment (1972, p. 66). A good year, 1972 stands apart within the collective memories of adult educators working at the time. It offers itself as a model for future good years for those of us too absorbed then with our 91 scissors and spiders to have noticed. 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Toronto: Ministry of Public Works. 98 Appendix: Major Events of 1972 (Tracer, 1992; Encyclopedia Britannica, 1973a) Month Economy Environ ment Politics/War Everyday life Jan. • Canadians start the year with a G N P of CanS92 million, up from • Bloody Sunday in • Canada's North Ireland population nears 22 mil l ion with 10 million the 1971 total o f $84 million Feb. phones and at least six mill ion televisions • President Nixon and Chairman Mao Tse-Tung meet and end Mar. hostilities between the U S and China , • First national black convention held in | | | Apr i l • N i x o i Trudt the G Watet Agree intent Indiana i and • Polaroid system ;au sign unveiled nreat Lakes - Quality ment led espec clean Erie Ontai May • Unemploy-ment •. rate in Canada is 6.3% tally to up Lakes and i o • First U S presidential visit to Moscow | • American Defense Department announces expansion in war against Nor th Vietnam 99 Canada's GNP • now at Can$102 billion, the first | time ever to exceed flOO billion. Annual growth is marked at 6% United Nations Conference on the Human Environment President Nixon announces peace talks with North Vietnam will resume. International Federation of Air Line Pilots declare a 24-hour strike for more protection from hijacking Mexico redistributed 222,000 ha. of private estates to peasants Eight-week dock strike ended at St. Lawrence River ports after Parliament orders strikers back to work, outlawing strikes, slowdowns or lockouts at the three ports • Terrorist incidents occur in Argentina marking the 20* anniversary of the death of Eva Peron Ms. Magazine starts publication •with Gloria Steinem as editor BC port workers strike and are legislated back to the bargaining table 100 Sept. | • Canadian exports are up 8.4% and imports up 19.8% compared to one year earlier • Palestinian terrorists shot two Israeli athletes and held nine others hostage at the Olympics in Munich • First new rapid transit system since 1907 opened in San Francisco area • Bobby Fischer becomes me first US world chess champion il • Canada's unemployment rate now at 7.1%, an 11-year high • Canada's consumer price index up 5.3% over rate one year earlier Shellfish harvested around New England were declared safe from the "red tide" that was reported a month before Canada's Liberal party loses its majority in the federal election • Team Canada defeats the USSR Nov. SALT II (strategic arms limitations talks) opened in Geneva Militant American Indians ended a week-long occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters after reaching agreement two black American students killed on Louisiana campus in police attempt to end student occupation of university building Dec. Canada ends the year with a deficit of $450 million Earthquakes destroy more man half of Managua, Nicaragua President Nixon calls for resumption then halt in bombing of North Vietnam • Apollo 17 astronauts discover orange soil on the moon 101