Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

Judith Butler 65
along with the macro; each has an affect upon the other and each changes and is changed by the
other. Interpretation is the key, according to Butler. Everything is up to interpretation. It is this
interpretation that tells each of us what the world around us really is; it explains our own reality—
knowing that there is no such thing as one “true” reality, but instead multiple realities, each being
shaped by our interpretation of the macro. What Butler believes forms our interpretations is our
culture, our social, and our environment in which we have been brought up and in which we
currently live. So, again our interpretations are fluid as well, the micro and macro both play a part
of forming each other’s “realities.” Which is why minorities (and I mean ALL types of minorities:
race, creed, color, culture, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) do not do well on standardized tests
because their “realities” are not the same as the white guy who made the test. What may be
important to Mr. White Guy may not be, and probably isn’t, what minorities deem as important.
Instead of having children create their own realities, as Butler would have done in schools, NCLB
has mandated that every student conform to the “right” and dominant reality.
When Butler stated that we could change reality and thus the power systems that operate within
by changing the language, I believe she must have known that this would hold true for education
as well. The power in our educational system, much less our country, is in the hands of the “elite,”
or what society has deemed elite—the Eurocentric, upper/middle class male, and in accordance
with that falls the language we are to use, the “proper English” we are to teach our students. In
order to change this power system, the system that thinks the answers to all our problems are in
tests, we must change the language. A great place to begin this transformation is in our schools
and classrooms. We concentrate on test scores for individuals and make sure that each individual
child listens and memorizes, instead of coming together to learn from one another. Since there is
no “I” in gender as Butler (1999) has stated in Gender Trouble, I would like to take it one step
further and state that there is no “I” in education (p. 145). Gender is a performance, fluid and
free, it changes as its environment changes, so should education.
In college I took a variety of subjects and courses. Some of which were standard banking system
approaches to learning, while others were far greater than anything I could have imagined; classes
where I was allowed to be free, to challenge myself, and educate myself. I was allowed to disagree
with those philosophers, theorists, and scientists that many would say were “the greats.” I learned
from those around me through projects and discussions, some of which were very heated, but
what is wrong with that. I became a more well rounded, better educated, and a more critical
person through my discussions and dealings with different types of individuals, individuals who
had been previously silenced in my educational world because their knowledge was not deemed
worthy in my school. But why did I have to wait until I was in college to have these educational
experiences? Why couldn’t I have had them in preschool? Butler would agree that the reason I
didn’t was because it is too risky for those “elite” to have people think for themselves. If I had
said the things that I did or gave the opinions I gave while I was in college during my K-12
education I would have been punished, just as Butler (1999) says we are punished for “doing”
our gender “incorrectly” or against the status quo, in her book Gender Trouble.
With standardized testing, and NCLB in the larger context, there is always a right and a wrong,
a correct way and an incorrect way, which is of course based on Eurocentric, patriarchal values.
There is no interpretation, only the following of a set script, which ensures upper/middle class
whites succeed and others fail and pushing those who do “fail” into trade schools or worse pushing
them out of school altogether. Our country’s lawmakers and those specifically behind NCLB’s
purpose would have to be to ensure our country has white, male CEOs and minority McDonald’s
workers, if they are even lucky enough to get that job in these trying times.
I’m sure Butler would agree that NCLB has begun and encouraged others to believe in the
propaganda that they have been trying to “sell” for quite some time now. In my opinion, just as
the Nazis unleashed their propaganda against the Jews in order to demoralize them and bring their