From: lee@wang.com (Lee Story)
Subject: Re: Duty to graduate ?
Organization: Wang Laboratories, Inc.
Distribution: na
Date: 6 Apr 92 13:28:00

(Carl Edman) writes:

   You appear to believe that an educational system which does not end up  
   giving a PhD in mathematics to any one who enters kindergarten is a  
   failure. This is not so. You may be surprised to find out that only a  
   few PhDs are needed in this society. As the talent or lack of the same  
   among those will have the greatest effect, it is only logical to select  
   the most talented and most effective people for those tasks. And by the  
   same logic it goes on from there on down, selecting the best at every  
   level. This is a fact which you can not alter. All you can do (and have  
   to some extent successfully done) is to destroy the possibility of  
   distinction and so to randomize the process. This was not a service to  
   society.

I had just decided to read this thread quietly when I arrived at
Carl's last paragraph, quoted above.  This seemed to demand a
response, lest anyone assume that the dichotomy presented by Ms.Greis
and Mr.Edman covers the only possible positions.  I find I am not
anywhere in this spectrum.  What I find wholly objectionable about
Carl's statement is the notion that education is (and should be)
instituted and formalized so that the student can provide a "service
to society".  And that the number of PhDs (presumably shorthand for
"the number of people who have PhD-level knowledge in some
subject-matter") is to be determined by some unspecified, and I think
unspecifiable, measure of how many "are needed in this society".  Even
if I accept the fantastically unreasonable premise that each of us
exists merely for the greater good of all the others (like a hive of
bees, unindividuated, personless), yet would the society be the worse
if each and every auto mechanic had a design engineer's knowledge of
the machine's construction?

When educators support such wholly externally-directed evaluations,
I'm not surprised that men like John Gatto rise up in complaint.  (The
"objective standards" and "constant recertification" that Ms.Greis
advocated in a recent post seem to me equally uncompelling, so I'm not
in either camp, nor that of Mr.LeBlanc, who seems to find in education
the unique field in which the vendors get to do the evaluations,
untroubled by customer complaints.)  The model that I would suggest is
one in which, other than for basic literacy instruction (which even
Gatto agrees should be compulsory), a person seeks and acquires
vocational or non-vocational formal education when he or she feel the
individual need to do so.  The only objection I can find to this is:

Industrial society would suffer ("progress" would slow) as students
failed to be selected for useful roles (as dept.  store clerk or PhD
mathematician) early enough to make their maximum "contribution".  But
slowing the wild consumption of non-renewable resources (including
human talents) in the service of physical well-being, and using much
of the freedom from immediate physical want already gained to
encourage _personal_ pursuit of knowledge, wouldn't seem such a bad
path.

Also, I really, actively FEAR the wholehearted implementation of Carl
Edman's point of view.  When I entered college, my freshman roommate
had already performed the Mozart K.466 Piano Concerto with a regional
symphony.  I am 47 years old, have played the piano since I was
seven, and only now can perform that concerto (mostly) satisfactorily.
(Of course I did a few other things in the meantime, and don't intend
to be the slightest bit apologetic about my slow technical development
at the keyboard.)  Carl seems to suggest that, in the interest of
social efficiency, I should be busy screwing widgets into boreholes
(or coding our object management server, or whatever) and leaving the
piano playing and music study to those quick learners who can be ready
for concert careers at twenty-one.

Sure, this is a parody of Carl's comments, and no more direct an
implication from his position than "giving a PhD in mathematics to any
one who enters kindergarten" follows from Carla Ann Greis's stance.
But I remain an exponent of individual satisfaction rather than
professional competence or social certification as the main
educational goal, and certainly do not see college or even
(non-professional) graduate school as primarily a pump-primer for some
majoritarian view of societal well-being.  Hopefully this has been
clear in my posts on the value (or lack of value) of grading and the
evaluation of teaching.

I believe that the major differences expressed in this and other
education newsgroups are differences of ends, not just of means.
That's probably why the educational theorists who occasionally post
here seem so annoyed that the discussion is not deep enough, or formal
enough, or strays from what they consider its purpose.  And they may
have a very good point.  Perhaps it's time for a "misc.education.tech"
which will really focus on means---which will discuss serious research
on hierarchies of understanding, whole-language reading, motivational
effects of grading, and many other such topics in such precise
technical terms and with all the critical apparatus in place.
--

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  Lee Story (lee@wang.com) Wang Laboratories, Inc.
     (Boston and New Hampshire AMC, and Merrimack Valley Paddlers)
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