From: lee@wang.com (Lee Story)
Subject: Re: Duty to graduate ?
Organization: Wang Laboratories, Inc.
Distribution: na
Date: 7 Apr 92 10:44:17

Our main news machine went berserk last night, so I'll risk this one
repost --- sorry if it's a duplicate.

   (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.
--

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