NUMBER FOUR OF TEN ARGUMENTS FOR THE ELIMINATION OF SCHOOL

Having found yourself here, you may be interested, or outraged, enough to want to read arguments one, two, and three. They are here:
http://tdurrie.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/one-of-ten/

http://tdurrie.wordpress.com/2010/09/

http://tdurrie.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/three-of-ten/

School is the only place where questions are asked,
the answers to which are already known.–Neil Postman

            When you first start thinking about it, administering tests seems like a perfectly reasonable and practical thing to do. After all, how better for a teacher to find out if students are actually learning what they’ve been taught—especially if the number of students involved is 25 or 30, not unusual for a standard elementary or high school classroom? Say I’ve been teaching long division, why not just give the pupils a few examples to work out and see if they can do it? Sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, a simple process like this becomes derailed when it is used to produce grades. As we pointed out in Argument Number Three, grades are school’s way of rewarding the virtuous and punishing the miscreant. To look at it another way, testing that results in grades does nothing to improve instruction. In fact, as we shall see shortly, testing, especially standardized testing tends to downgrade instruction and interfere with learning.

Suppose you tell me a number of facts and then say Now I’m going to see if you were listening. Uh oh, you should have told me beforehand that there would be a test. Back in the days when I was teaching, the kids would often ask, is this going to be on the test? In other words, do we have to pay attention or not? Since grades have become the measure of success or failure, what’s going to be on the test becomes the important issue, not whether something is interesting or worth learning. Socrates would ask his disciples questions, not to see if they knew the answer but to provoke thought and enquiry. There were no “answers.”

The ubiquitous practice of scoring on the bell curve further undermines the possibility of testing to improve learning. Suppose all the students score 100% perfect on the test, does this mean that the teacher has done a great job and that the kids all know what they are supposed to know. No, it doesn’t. It means that there is something wrong with the test. The bell curve dictates that some must fail, some must be on top, and most must fall somewhere in the middle. If the scores aren’t distributed this way, then the test is either too easy (they all get it right) or too hard (they all get it wrong). One result of bell curve grading is that the teacher will teach to the top few learners, the “A” students. They’ll get the hard stuff and the other kids will distribute themselves as predicted.

The next step would be to have all the kids in all the schools take the same test. Enter so-called standardized testing—administering the same set of questions to a large group in order to determine individual competence or qualification. Though this kind of testing goes as far back as ancient China, it wasn’t until the twentieth century that the easily gradable multiple-choice, true or false type of test became mainstream. Around 1926, the College Board (then the College Entrance Examination Board) abandoned essay-type tests, which require considerable time and personal judgment to evaluate, in favour of multiple-choice. By 1936, the process of grading was speeded up by the invention of a rudimentary scanner (the IBM 805). By this time as well, thousands more students were moving to cities and attending high schools. So, simplifying and standardizing tests became increasingly attractive to teachers and school administrators. The same test could be administered city-wide, state-wide, even nation-wide, allowing for comparative evaluation of the performance of schools and teachers.

In seeking the background of the growing obsession with testing, the influence of Alfred Binet cannot be ignored. In 1906, along with his collaborator Théodor Simon, he developed a test which was designed to identify children who were mentally deficient and would require special training. This was followed, ten years later, at Stanford University, by the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale, widely know as the IQ Test. It was, and still is, widely administered and used as a way to predict academic aptitude. The notion of establishing norms of behaviour and ability as well as means of sorting individual children was reinforced by the work of Arnold Gesell. He and Frances Ilg, after exhaustive studies of children and even primates, published several books which laid out “norms” of child behaviour appropriate for given ages. An Atlas of Behavior (1934) and The Child from Five to Ten (1946) sent parents flipping through the pages to see if their child was “normal.” Both the IQ Test and Gesell and Ilg helped establish the notion that measuring devices could be created that would enable institutions, like school, to sort children into usable teachable categories. Further to that, such innovations led to the belief that there are testable standards for just about everything.

At the same time, starting in the late 19th century and continuing to the present, practitioners thought that human endeavours like education and psychology could be seen as “sciences,” employing scientific methods. Data gathering, experimentation, and testing are used as ways to determine process, assuming that results would be predictable. But human beings are not like chemicals, rolling balls, or pigeons; they are endlessly complex, variable, and unpredictable. This thinking has led to the constant parade of flavour-of-the-week teaching methods. I only mention team teaching, child-centred education, programmed learning, behaviour modification, traditional schools, and whatever comes next. Each has been proclaimed as THE perfect and effective method, scientifically designed and proven, only to be dropped when it became clear that it wasn’t working. Treating education as a science makes about as much sense as trying to applying the scientific method to determining who was the better composer Mozart or Beethoven.

Once the machines for reading and grading the multiple-choice tests were up to speed, there was no looking back. By the 1940s, multiple-choice standardized tests were being administered district-wide and being used to rate schools, teachers, and students. Needless to say, the creators and publishers of such tests saw and seized an enormous profit-making opportunity and lobbied government accordingly. In a Toronto Star article in 2003, Marita Moll wrote “The standardized testing movement now consumes millions of dollars and hundreds of hours that could be better spent on basic educational resources—like text-books, teachers and adequate support services.”

Imagine, then, the boon it was to the test-makers when George Bush introduced his No Child Left Behind legislation in 2001. This meant that standardized tests not only had government sanction but also would determine which schools, in which states, would get more money. The administration of tests was now mandatory. NCLB was based on the notion that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals would somehow improve educational outcomes. The idea being:  This is how high you have to jump, and I’m going to test you to see if you can do it. All those who reach the goal will be rewarded, and those who don’t will be humiliated. All well and good if you are selecting high-jumpers for Olympic competition. However, kids in schools are not high-jumpers and education is not like setting a bar to be jumped over at a certain height. The complexity of the human brain dictates that individuals learn in different ways and at different times. It is pointless to try to teach someone something in which they have no interest—even if you bribe them with rewards and punishments.

An unavoidable result when standardized testing is used to rate schools or teachers, is that success at the test will become the goal of instruction. (In British Columbia, the right-wing think tank Fraser Institute is ever so fond of publishing rankings of schools based on test results. They cheerfully ignore the fact that schools in high-income areas invariably rank higher than their less privileged counterparts.) And if getting good grades is the be all and end all, why not cheat? Diane Ravitch has put this well in her book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” (NY 2010):

Of all the ways of gaming the system, the most common is test preparation. Most districts, especially urban districts where performance is lowest, relentlessly engage in test prep activities. … For weeks or even months before the state test, children are drilled daily in test-taking skills and on questions mirroring those that are likely to appear on the state test. The consequence of all this practice is that students may be able to pass the state test, yet unable to pass a test of precisely the same subject for which they did not practice. They master test-taking methods, but not the subject itself.

And, I dare say, we all know about “cramming” for exams—short-term memory quickly forgotten. This is what passes for learning in our schools and universities.

Anyone who has seen Todd Solondz’s movie “Storytelling” will remember how “randomly” filling in the little multiple-choice balloons may have astonishing results. Students are encouraged to leave no question unanswered: Even if you don’t know the answer, take a guess and fill in something; a wrong answer is no worse than a blank. And, speaking of “wrong” answers, multiple-choice true-or-false tests imply that for every question there can be but one “right” answer, there are no in-betweens or shades of grey. The ultimate conclusion is to define an educated person as someone who knows all the answers. This ignores and even discourages thoughtful questioning and discourse.

As Marita Moll also wrote in the article mentioned above, “Fortunately, an informal ‘count me out’ movement against excessive testing is gathering momentum around the globe. Hundreds of teachers in Britain have recently voted to boycott the tests. Hundreds of parents in Alberta have requested that their children be exempted from the tests.” This may even suggest that parents and teachers are awakening to the fact that their communities have lost control over the education of their children. Like curriculum, tests are now devised by “experts,” often serving commercial interests, who determine what should be learned and how that learning should be demonstrated.

The teacher who asks his or her students a few questions to see if they have understood what was being taught or puts out a couple of long division examples to find out who needs help, is in a different world from the teacher who must administer the timed standardized test, while watching with an eagle eye to catch anyone who might be cheating.

No wonder the usual answer to the question What did you learn in school today? is Nothing.

They’re in this order:
1. SAVE THE YORK THEATRE (December, 2008)
2. EULOGY FOR JACK (September, 2009)
3. NO CASINO IN DOWNTOWN VANCOUVER (February, 2011)
4. SUICIDE–A SENIOR’S PERSPECTIVE (September, 2011)

SAVE THE YORK THEATRE
Speech to Vancouver City Counil, December 18, 2008

 Mister Mayor, Mister Chairman, Members of Council, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I draw your attention to the three remaining historical theatres in Vancouver: The Vogue, The Pantages, and The York. Out of a past when there were a dozen or more legitimate theatres operating in our city, these three are the only ones that have miraculously survived Vancouver’s obsession with the wrecking ball. Each of these theatres plays an important part in our history. I remind you that if we destroy our heritage, we leave no place for our ghosts to walk.

Today, we have the last chance to save one of these—The York Theatre, a proud reminder of the developing culture and prosperity of East Vancouver in the early 1900s. Since it was built, this theatre has been not only a vital part of its neighbourhood but also a cultural destination, especially through the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, for the entire city. (Incidentally, it was designed by a young John McCarter, who went on to become one of Vancouver’s most distinguished architects, creating The Marine Building and a number of other fine landmarks, now destroyed.)

Originally named the Alcazar, it became the York Theatre during the tenure, from 1923 to 1977 of the Vancouver Little Theatre. During those 54 years, it was THE home of locally produced theatre. Every name in Vancouver’s theatre history walked upon that stage at one time or another. Through the past 30 years, the York Theatre has worn a wild variety of guises. It has served as a rehearsal space for rock bands, a venue for the Fringe Festival, a discount movie house, a mosh pit, a performance site of bands such as Metallica and Nirvana, and most recently showing South Asian movies. Back in 1981, demolition was threatened, and we formed the Save the York Theatre Society in response. While we were successful in preventing loss of the theatre at that time, we were not successful in generating interest in its restoration. I mention this, just to let you know that my interest here is not just a passing fancy.

By the 1990s, however, the dear lady had become the victim of too many fact lifts, too many makeovers. There was no theatrical lighting, the stage was cluttered with junk, and the dressing rooms were dark, dank, and damp. When it went on sale in 2006, several valiant but unsuccessful attempts were made to purchase and preserve the theatre for use in its intended purpose. The building was sold to its current owner in October 2007. Though enquiries were made, he was not informed—neither by the City nor by the real estate agent—of the theatre’s historical and cultural significance nor of the efforts being made to save it. Nevertheless, what Mr. Phillips bought for under $1 million was a fully operational movie theatre, with projectors, sound, and a well-equipped concession area. A little cosmetic fixing and the place could have been re-opened to the public in a few days.

Now, due to pre-demolition work—started without permit last August—the interior is completely trashed and anything of value has been removed or destroyed. Nevertheless, engineering studies have pronounced the building sound, and she awaits tender loving care to be restored to her original pristine glory, with the addition of modern equipment, enhanced audience amenities, and new dressing rooms and offices.

As you know, on September 18th Council approved a 120 –day Protection Order, delaying any further action until January 16th, 2009. On that date, the owner will have every right to proceed with his plans to demolish the building.

You have before you a report from City staff entailing recommendations regarding the important issue of density bonus. A patron and potential benefactor has come forward, seeking density transfer in exchange for restoring and adding to the building. The theatre would then be put in the hands of the Vancouver East Cultural Centre for operation. Staff recommends a transfer of density equal to 1/3 of the cost of this important project. The other 2/3—or around $8 million—to be raised by the York Theatre Advocacy Group and the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. I remind you that this report came into our hands on December 10th—just 36 days before the wreckers can move in. Given the time of year, we can probably delete two weeks from the 36 days. Coming up with funding and support in this short time is obviously out of the question—impossible. As it stands, the staff report is nothing but a demolition order.

Given the urgency we are faced with, I can think of no other way for us to save this precious theatre than to ask for a transfer of density equal to 100% or 3/3 of the cost of the project. This will give our benefactor the confidence to proceed immediately with purchase of the property, thus saving it from destruction and enabling the start of its long-awaited revival. I urge you—in fact, I beg you—to take whatever measures are necessary to give this treasure back to the community to which it belongs.

Thank you.

EULOGY FOR JACK
Jack Glover (June 19, 1928-August 6, 2009)
September 27, 2009, Brock House, Vancouver

I first started this by saying, “I knew Jack for about 30 years.” But now, I’d rather say, “I have known Jack for about 30 years.,” because this isn’t limited, it’s only “so far …”. I know that I shall go on knowing him for the rest of my life because the people that we know and love and who have touched out lives go on living as part of us whether they are physically present or not. We all have Jack’s face, his voice, his enthusiasms, his vulnerability and tenderness, his love of life, now as part of us. He lives on. I also know that at a time like this when we feel sorrow and loss, he would be the first to be at our side with comfort and consolation. He was that kind of man.

We first met Jack and Cecile when they regularly turned up at concerts on Hornby Island when I was managing the summer festival there. Jack’s enthusiasm for the performances was immediately apparent. In fact, it was contagious. Then, it wasn’t long before it seemed that we (and by “we” I mean my dear friend Cath and I) would see Jack and Cecile everywhere, especially at the opera—in Vancouver, in Seattle, and even, I think, in San Francisco. As you know, opera was one of the major passions of Jack’s life—one that he and I shared.. As we became better acquainted, there were many dinners and get-togethers at the their place and at mine—and always opera, to be listened to and to be talked about. He always arrived with a gift of tapes that he had made from various broadcasts. Then there were the long—very long—lunches that Jack and I had together usually at Joe Fortes restaurant downtown. Jack was a great fan of the Cobb Salad, which I usually had, too. Should you go there, be sure to have one, they are really good. Well, of course, there were also the martinis—many! I lost count after the third or fourth one. I hasten to add that we were always perfect gentlemen. These were convivial and enjoyable occasions. While the topic was mostly opera—along with stories of whom we saw in what and when, our favourite moments, memorable performances—we also talked about our own lives, our growing up, our work; Jack spoke lovingly about his family, about Cecile, his daughters, his grandchildren.

So you and I know that there was much more to this man than love of opera. He was interested in every aspect of human creativity: music, theatre, art, literature, movies, musicals, all that good stuff. I used to run into him at the library, where he’d be spending an afternoon reading and pursuing his many enthusiasms. I have to mention a small detail that I found very touching: He told me that, on his walks, he would take some cabbage or lettuce leaves to give to the rabbits in Jericho Park. To me, this gentle compassion toward the creatures with whom we share this planet is one of the most endearing and valuable attributes a person could have.

I know that Jack must have been a memorable and favourite teacher, and I know that some of you here were lucky enough to be in his classes. And, by the way, I know that he used to bootleg opera into his French lessons. He was, for years I believe, a driver for Meals-on-Wheels—caring for others. He remembered and sent a card for every birthday. He was also the indispensible accompanist for numerous musicals at the Metro Theatre. He loved those musicals—and all the people that were in them, as he loved his students. He touched the lives of so many people, and always with caring, enthusiasm, and love of life. I’m sure there were many other acts of kindness that I don’t know about. This was his way of being in the world.

If Shakespeare can say, “All the world’s a stage …“. I think we can say that life is like an opera. It has its overture that fills us with anticipation and expectation—and even as it begins, we know that it will end. The curtain rises and the scenes and acts proceed. There will be love and tenderness, there will be heroism and thrills, and there will be laughter and there will be tears. It’s a magnificent performance that stirs our emotions.. And when the curtain comes down at the end, we are sorry that it’s over but our hearts and souls are full. We have been part of something truly memorable. We rise to our feet and cheer. Bravo, Jack! That was truly marvellous.

Thank you

NO CASINO IN DOWNTOWN VANCOUVER
To Vancouver City Council, February 17, 2011
Also on YouTube

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council,

My name is Tom Durrie and I will speak first as president of the Grandview Woodland Area Council and then as a private citizen with an interest in Vancouver’s arts and culture scene.

I remind you that traffic is one the major concerns of GWAC. At a recent workshop, attended by one of our directors, Councillor Meggs was reported as saying that an estimated 200-300 cars per hour would be travelling to and from the proposed casino at all hours of the day and night. Many, if not most, will be travelling through Grandview Woodland on their way to the suburbs. This estimate may even be conservative since promoters of this development are estimating attendance at gambling of 42,000 people per week. That’s 6,000 per day on average. How many of them do you suppose will be taking the bus? Since I understand that there would be at least seven bars and lounges in the development, patrons will have plenty of opportunity to become well-oiled before they aim their cars at our neighbourhood children.

In our letter of January 10th, we also addressed matters of organized crime, the negative affects of gambling, especially on youth, and the reduction of support for charities. While it is tempting to speak to these issue, they will be fully explored by others here tonight.

Speaking strictly for myself now, I want to tell you frankly what I think of a so-called “entertainment complex” that is focused on Las Vegas style gambling.

Not long ago, I started looking at other cities, similar in size to Vancouver, to see what they were doing to develop their city centres, what they were offering to their citizens, and how they were promoting tourism. Four cities quickly emerged: Copenhagen, Valencia, Miami Beach, and Oslo, each promoting new cultural facilities—concert halls, opera houses, art galleries—as major reasons for visiting. If you take a moment to look these up, you’ll see that they also offer their historical heritage along with exciting contemporary architecture. No wonder they can speak with pride. I was drawn especially to Oslo, Norway, a city of around 600,000, because it reminds me so much of Vancouver. Situated on a fjord and surrounded by mountains, the city offers the same outdoor attractions as we do. The difference, however, is that in their promotional advertising they say, and I quote “Hike in the forest, swim in the fjord and go to a concert—all in the same day!” Oslo also informs us that there are 50 museums and galleries in the city centre. Out of a listed ten top attractions, there are no fewer than four major cultural institutions: The National Opera and Ballet (a simply stunning and user-friendly new building), The Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, the Vigeland Sculpture Park; and the National Gallery. I could list another six cultural attractions that are offered to the visitor along with the city’s spectacular natural setting. What do Pavco and Paragon want Vancouver to offer to us and to the world?    1,500 slot machines!

In light of what many other cities are offering, the Pavco/Paragon notion of entertainment seems somewhat limited.

The promoters promise lots of jobs and great amounts of cash flowing into the City’s coffers. If money is what counts, let me see, I could have cashed in by selling my daughter into prostitution or by dealing heroin to downtown east side addicts. Why not? Think of the employment—in medical and psychiatric services, paramedics, morgues.    Would this be justified even if I gave the proceeds to the Children’s Hospital?      Sometimes we have to make moral and aesthetic judgments. This is one of those times.

Some people will say that these notions are romantic pie-in-the-sky fantasies, but if we don’t dream we are doomed to be left in the muck.

You know as well as I do that this proposed development, with its aura of suspect deals and little regard for public values, is nothing more than a money-grab; it is an architectural and social disaster that would be a shameful blight on our city forever. It would be a mockery of the greenest city initiative so dear to this Council.

I trust that the name Vision Vancouver will ring true. I call on you to show vision, imagination, courage, and leadership. I know the future of Vancouver is as important to you as it is to me and to the many others gathered here. Give us a city that we can be proud of, a city that can rank with Oslo and the others as a place of civilized culture, social responsibility, and respect for citizens and their aspirations. We trust our voices will be heard. Say NO to this re-zoning proposal. Or even better, as good Canadians, say no thank you.

WORLD SUICIDE PREVENTION DAY
A SENIOR’S PERSPECTIVE
Georgia Plaza, Vancouver Art Gallery, September 10, 2011

What follows is my two-hour lecture about some reflections on aging and dying. Don’t panic, it’s condensed to five or ten minutes. I hope you’ll pardon the omission of a number of details.

There are three things I want to talk about today the first of which is a subject we shy away from speaking about openly in our society. That subject is Death. We have made death largely invisible. We hide it away in hospitals and so-called “extended care homes” for the aged. We employ euphemisms such as “passed away” or “passed on” to avoid saying “dead.” And it is almost unheard of to see a dead person.

Nevertheless, no matter how hard we try, we are unlikely to obliterate thoughts of death and dying. Death is ever present, lurking there in the shadows—waiting for us. And as age advances that mysterious light at the end of the tunnel is coming closer and closer. Thoughts of death and dying will—especially as the end becomes ineluctably nearer—bring up questions about the brevity of life and its meaning and purpose. Put simply: What’s it all for? And, if I were to die tomorrow what difference would it make? At the end of Stanley Kubrick’s magnificent epic Barry Lyndon, the following words appear on the screen: “It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.”

An older person is not only faced with philosophical questions like these but also with a growing sense of alienation. I’m full of aches and pains, I have to ask people to repeat themselves because I can’t hear very well (My grandfather said that the younger generation were mumblers. Speak up young man!), my digestive system has become unreliable, and I don’t sleep very well any more. These are minor annoyances, it’s true, but I might also be subject to more serious disabilities: arthritis, kidney failure, heart and circulatory problems—the list goes on. In addition to my physical state, the contemporary world is no longer the one I grew up in. Many, if not most, of the people I have known and grown up with are now dead, and I can’t relate to the young people and the popular culture of the present: the music, the movies, the automobiles and the technological gadgets that mean nothing to me. I no longer belong here.

I know I am painting a bleak picture that is probably not universally applicable, but I’m going to continue. Suppose, as a man—and I want to talk specifically about older men—I have worked all my life, and in my late fifties and early sixties started looking forward to retirement. This seems like my reward for a lifetime of getting up and going to work every day, but, alas, for many men the absence of work equals the absence of meaning and purpose. Leisure is not all it’s cracked up to be. What then if my retirement dreams are shattered by the unexpected death of my wife, who has been my helpmate and caretaker for these many years? What if my grownup children are living in other cities or even other countries? People are not tied to their home town the way they used to be. So, I find myself alone; the future holds little promise; I am asking myself. Why am I here? What do I have to live for? …

The second matter I want to talk about is also something that we have made largely invisible in our society, and that is Art. And by “art” I mean all of the arts that have been practised over the centuries and into the present in societies all over the world. For some reason, a visit to the art gallery or the library or attendance at a symphony concert or opera would be regarded by many as some exotic activity available only to the wealthy or so-called “cultured” classes. The truth is that artists of all disciplines and of all cultures always speak directly to the heart and soul of all other humans. It is art that gives meaning and dimension to the complexities and ambiguities of life. If we care about the meaning of life and of death, we will find that painters, sculptors, musicians, poets, and writers have addressed these issues from the earliest civilizations right to the present day. Questions of life, death, love, jealousy, beauty, and despair are far too important to be left to the doctors, the scientists, or the experts. I say, if you want to know about love, about living and about dying read Emily Dickenson, read Shakespeare, go look at contemporary painting at your art gallery. If you want to know about suicide, listen to opera, read Sylvia Plath, study the work of Mark Rothko. These are only examples of a vast world of human endeavour that we ignore at the risk of devoting our lives to accumulating worthless consumer goods—you can’t take it with you—and anaesthetising precious hours of our lives with mindless commercial entertainment. Yes, I’m being harsh here because, in my lifetime, I’ve witnessed a steady deterioration of the popular fare that’s offered to the public. You can be sure I’d have more to say about that in the two-hour talk you are being spared today.

Now, on to the third and final matter I want to address, and that is What are we going to do to prevent suicide—especially among older men? I understand that the suicide rate among older men is a matter for serious concern. I will start by saying that I believe much of what we are doing is wrong. I have looked at so-called seniors’ programs being offered by community centres, many of which appear to be aimed at bringing old people together to engage in activities, mainly entertainment, like “gentle yoga,” card games, guided tours, and holiday social gatherings. I know I’m being unfair here because these programs—and there are others of greater interest—are designed by extremely well-meaning people, mostly young, who want very much to engage the older people in their communities. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with playing cards, holding potlucks, or even hopping aboard a bus to have lunch and see a waterfall. But that’s not enough.

What I want to suggest is that—especially where men are involved—we offer challenges. I believe that it is just as important for older men as it is for boys to be offered a chance to see what you’re made of—to test your mettle. An active and challenged mind will lead to physical activity and better health—mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a healthy body, they go together.) Now that you’re seventy or eighty years old, what can you do that you’ve never done before? I’m throwing out some generic ideas here: We have a bunch of young guys in our neighbourhood who are getting into trouble with drugs; what can we do about that? There are some young artists in live-work studios out there that are creating some pretty weird stuff; how about getting together with them and finding out what they’re up to? Remember the movies you saw and loved forty or fifty years ago? Let’s have a few movie showings—popcorn and double features. Want to laugh? Why not a marathon of great comedies with the likes of the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin? (They don’t make ’em like that any more. Great artists that could make us laugh and cry at the same time.) Let’s go the art gallery and ask them to create docent tours, like the ones they do for school kids, for us oldsters; maybe we can get a handle on so-called modern art. Why not put us together with the kids? What can we do to bring young people and old people together to work on meaningful projects and social issues? How can we challenge older men to do something to leave the world a slightly better place than when they entered it? In other words what can we do to make the years, days, hours, or minutes we have left exciting and worth living, no matter what? I remind you of some outstanding Canadian men who show no signs of giving up: the well-known environmentalist David Suzuki, 75; the actor Christopher Plummer, 82; the composer R. Murray Schafer, 75; and politician and social activist Ed Broadbent, also 75. Why not hold these men up as role models?

There is something I want to leave you with. Shakespeare has a lot of uncomplimentary things to say about old men. Here’s probably the most famous one from the all-the-world’s-a-stage speech in “As You Like It”:
…         The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.

In one of his very finest plays, The Tempest, however, Shakespeare gives us Prospero, an old man of great dignity, wisdom, and purpose. I want to end with one of his speeches, which, I think, conveys a profound thought about life:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Thank you

As someone once said, “You’re born, then you get a job, and then you die.” The bitter reality is that this is true. We enter and leave the world gasping for breath, and, in between we strive and struggle to make a go of things: to be a part of a social group, to acquire goods, to feed, clothe and house ourselves, and we long to love and to be loved. And then it’s all over. All the other creatures are so fortunate: they don’t know that they are going to die, they just go about the business of living their brief lives.

As I watch my friend, who is dying at home, sinking slowly into oblivion, I contemplate what this will be like for me and for the people that I know. As a youth, and in middle age, death seemed remote, impossible. The Ash Wednesday mantra Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris (Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return) didn’t mean much to a ten-year old. Though not a believer any more, at the age of eighty I am keenly aware of the truth of that saying.

Life takes up a brief span of time between birth and death. What shall we do during that time? Again, I don’t know. I only know that my brain demands that I continue to learn and to experience as rich an intellectual and emotional life as possible. When that brain ceases to function is all the learning and experiencing for naught? Probably. The people who know me will undoubtedly remember for a while, and the possessions that I have lovingly collected will be distributed or thrown away. I will not have left much of a legacy, only a few things here and there, some good, some bad, and people may say, “Remember that guy who …. “

I don’t know what I’ve done so far or what I will do in the time I have left. I think I should do something to leave the world a tiny bit better than it was when I arrived here. Sometimes, given the forces that work against this, it hardly seems worth the effort. Meanwhile, time passes. Inexorably.

Marking and Grading

Marking and grading schoolwork, one of school’s most powerful and insidious methods of control—reward the compliant, punish the noncompliant—is such an integral part of the system that we tend to assume that it has always been with us. It hasn’t.

Imagine, if you will, a one-room schoolhouse with around twenty children, usually aged 6 to 14, with all levels of achievement, under the supervision of one teacher. This teacher would have known each pupil personally and have been intimately concerned with their progress in mastering such things as Irish Readers (in Canada) or McGuffey’s Eclectic Reader (in the U.S.) and Elementary Arithmetic for Canadian Schools by E.E. White. Remember, too, that many children were taught to read at home from the Bible. Or, as put by Nicole Lassahn “… education consisted mostly of students in small groups working with mentor teachers. The quality of the education was tied largely to a teacher’s ability to pass on skill and knowledge to this small group of students.” http://soulycatholichs.blogspot.com/2008/05/grades-grades-and-more-grades.html Arranging pupils in grades and marking their work would have been irrelevant. Not to say that there weren’t rewards and punishments, but that’s another matter altogether.

Scientific Management
Enter William Farish (1759-1837). Farish was a professor of chemistry at Cambridge during the industrial revolution, and it occurred to him that the more students each teacher, himself for example, could deal with, the more money he/they could make. Growing numbers of children in cities meant a need for larger schools and larger classes. Adapting factory methods to schools was the answer. In the same way that large operations in the factory were broken down into separate steps, each person performing the same task over and over with the overriding discipline of quality control, Farish figured out that each piece of schoolwork could similarly be broken down and rated on a more or less arbitrary system of performance, just as a clothing or fabric manufacturer could set a standard of workmanship based on what quality of product he wanted produced.

Of even greater importance, especially in North America, was Frederick W. Taylor. Taylor invented the concept of “Scientific Management” in which the operations of each worker were examined and broken down into the smallest increments. The performance of each increment was rated and, then, rewarded and punished according to the results produced. The influence of Taylor and Farish cannot be overestimated when in comes to the creation of standardized curricula, testing, and grading. These methods were readily adapted to schools as populations became urbanized resulting in larger and more populous “egg-crate” schools with students segregated according to age and grade level. No longer were teachers part of a small community, known by everyone and acquainted with everyone. Teachers were now professional “managers” who had to demonstrate control of large homogeneous classes and show, by test results, the quality of their teaching while maintaining standards set by school superintendents, school boards, and a growing body of university-based “experts.” This fit well with the development of curricula as discussed earlier.

A-B-C-D-F and the Bell Curve
Interestingly enough the A-to-F grading system didn’t actually gain popularity until the late 1920s-early 1930s. Even then, it was recognized that there was no way to standardize the meaning of these letter grades. In other words, grading then—and now—is purely arbitrary, based on the judgment of a single teacher or on the results of a standardized test. More of this later.

It was early recognized that not only was grading arbitrary but also that teachers tended toward “grade inflation,” that is giving a more high grades (As and Bs) than low grades (Ds and Fs). Because “average” was getting a bad reputation, it was being avoided. The answer came in the form of the Bell Curve, which “normalized” grading by distributing marks such that the majority of students receive Cs, followed by a small but equal number of students receiving Bs and Ds, and an even smaller number receiving As and Fs. In spite of criticism, this method of grading is widely used today. The absurdity of this becomes obvious upon a moment’s reflection. No matter how demanding or difficult the subject matter, there will always be a few who excel, with a majority falling down the scale as percentages dictate. The same is true if the subject matter is simple. In other words, grading on a curve does not take into account the subject-based accomplishment of students, high or low. Take, for example, a lesson in factoring square root. Some students will probably “get it” and others won’t, but even if every one in the class gets it only a few will get As on their report cards, and another few will necessarily fail.

Nowadays, the school people will tell you that this has all been ironed out by the use of standardized tests, with their simple yes-no or multiple choice answers to predetermined questions. Right-wing organizations like the Fraser Institute are especially fond of such tests and use them to rate schools on how well students are supposedly learning the matters put before them. We will address the issue of tests and their relevance to actual learning in a subsequent article.

Watch your step
Unfortunately, the grades you are given in school follow you throughout life. These are often accompanied by secretive so-called cumulative records in which teachers have noted their judgements of behavioural and other characteristics, to your benefit or detriment. In other words: Fail at school, fail at life.

I would like to end this article with two quotes from Neil Postman’s Technopoly—The surrender of culture to technology (Knopf, NY, 1992): “If a number can be given to the quality of a thought, then a number can be given to the qualities of mercy, love, hate, beauty, creativity, intelligence, even sanity itself. When Galileo said that the language of nature is written in mathematics, he did not mean to include human feeling or accomplishment or insight.”

and

“To say that someone should be doing better work because he has an IQ of 134 or that someone is a 7.2 on a sensitivity scale, or that this man’s essay on the rise of capitalism is an A- and that this man’s is a C+ would have sounded like gibberish to Galileo or Shakespeare or Thomas Jefferson.”

Needless to say, the people who believe in marking and grading do not bother themselves with such perplexing philosophical notions.

The video
I just watched a video called Suicide Awareness and Prevention for Older Adults; I was watching it because the Crisis Centre has been talking to me about leading workshops for care workers (I think they’re now called Gatekeepers) who are involved with older people. Having already been to a couple of meetings about this issue, I am aware that many aging men and women are now living solitary and lonely lives, locked away by their own choosing in apartments in West End towers and elsewhere. It’s very sad, and this video attempts to provide instruction about how to deal with old people who are depressed and possibly contemplating suicide. According to statistics quoted in the video, an inordinately large number of people over the age of, say, 60 are committing suicide, and with the aging of the so-called boomers, these numbers are expected to increase.

First of all, I have to comment on the video, because I thought it was rather poor. It’s probably unfair to judge this instructional video by artistic standards, but here goes. There is a scenario threaded through that concerns a man of 72 whose wife had died two years previously, and who is taking to drink, not looking after his diet or personal hygiene. Sorry, but I thought the acting was very unconvincing. I also found it rather unnerving—and I speak from the standpoint of one well past the age of 60, even past 72—that the featured experts were all professional practitioners of geriatric care in their, I would say, mid 40s. Ha! What do they know?, I thought. But now I am being unkind, because surely these people are experienced, highly-trained, and well-meaning to a fault. The featured narrator, a psychiatrist I believe, obviously reading from a teleprompter, appears frequently throughout to fill us in on the latest statistics and other features of what it means, in the professional view, to grow old. The other practitioners who appear are more convincing in the unscripted portions of the presentation.

Mr. Johnson attempts suicide
In the drama, the elderly Mr. Johnson, after a small mishap with his car (he had been knocking back the scotches in a bar), goes to see his GP. He complains of a sore back as a result of the accident. The kindly young doctor questions him about other aspects of his life and whips out the prescription pad—you know, something for your pain, something for your depression, don’t drink while you’re taking these, and see you next week.

On the next visit, the doctor does question Mr. Johnson about any possible thoughts of suicide, which the patient denies. He is given a brochure describing the Crisis Centre (Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Centre of B.C.). Once home, though hesitant at first, he picks up the phone and dials the number. He receives rather cold, formulaic (sorry, Susan) and preplanned-sounding responses. However, sticking to the script, Mr. Johnson is pleased and relieved to have made contact, and optimism appears to have won the day, though not for long.

In a later scene, after a visit from his ever-worrying and bitchy daughter, he impulsively drinks a bunch of whisky and swallows a handful of pills. Daughter finds out because he doesn’t answer the phone; we see him taken to hospital where he now will presumably receive the professional care that makes everything turn out OK. The final scenes portray our elderly hero enjoying a sort of go-fetch Frisbee game with his grandson.

What is wrong with this picture?
What is wrong is that poor Mr. Johnson really doesn’t have anything to live for. He doesn’t appear to have any interests—other than drinking—and no excitement of any kind in his life. He claims to be bored with his friends and irritated by his grandchildren.

I can imagine that he worked at the same job for many years, while his wife raised their daughter and dutifully looked after the cooking and housekeeping. What did they do to while away their evenings together? My guess is that they watched television. They probably had plans for an uneventful retirement, he would play golf, she would continue to cook, and they might go on a cruise or two. These plans were painfully subverted by a deadly cancer suffered by Mrs. Johnson leading to her death. Once she was gone, Mr. Johnson truly had nothing left. Of course he didn’t look after his diet or personal hygiene because, like many men, he had no occasion to learn how to cook or to clean. Because their relationship was probably one of co-dependence or symbiosis—two people work together to make one person—he was left without mooring or itinerary.

I know this sounds harsh, because being alive always seems better than being dead, but if life is, in fact, a living death, what’s the point? Was there anything in his life to provide a context within which to grieve, or a reason to find stimulus and interest in life? Did he read, go to concerts or art galleries, or even engage in political debate with his cronies? Apparently not.

A reason to be alive
What I’m getting at here is that art, in all its forms, provides not only a reason to be alive but also a purpose and direction in life. Have you read all the novels of Dickens? Heard all the string quartets of Beethoven? Been to the Uffizi or the Prado (even via the Internet)? Are you learning a foreign language? Do you know the musicians and painters, young and old, in your community? Do you accept the challenge of contemporary art, music, and literature? Do you care about making the world a better place?

My question is why didn’t the young doctor, instead of prescribing pills, ask Mr. Johnson what he did every day? What was his life like? Did he have any interests? Perhaps, instead of medications, a better prescription would be for a visit to the library or art gallery. (I doubt that you can do yourself any harm by overdosing on either.) Why don’t the practitioners and caregivers (oops! Gatekeepers) focus on what might give the aging population some reason to be excited about living, some sense of making a contribution to society, leaving a legacy?

Speaking of leaving a legacy, I’ve always thought that one of the most fun things to do, once I’m beyond the age of dashing about, would be to read to kids at the local library. I can hear the kids talking already, “Remember that old coot that used to read Wind in the Willows to us on Tuesdays? We used to laugh when sometimes tears would run down his cheeks as he read. I hear he kicked the bucket a while back. I sure like that book though; I’ve read to my kids about three times already.” Why not?

Youth vs. Age
We often cite stories of young people who have done remarkable things (as if they couldn’t). Probably the most famous one is about David Farragut, who was commanding a naval vessel at the age of 14. What about Sir Richard Branson, high school dropout, of Virgin Airlines and record stores fame, who started his first successful business at 16 and went on to become a billionaire? Or Mark Zukerberg, who dreamed up and founded Facebook when he was 20. Stories of brilliant and accomplished youngsters are everywhere. But do we celebrate the accomplishments and achievements of the aged? Rarely.

Here are but a few of many: Giuseppe Verdi ((1813-1901) came out of retirement (he composed Otello at 74) at the age of 80 to write Falstaff, one of the most exuberant and penetrating—and funny—comedies of human foibles and young love ever written. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) wrote some of his greatest works after the age of 70, and near the end of his life (at 82) he was carrying on a lively and influential correspondence with Mohandas Ghandi. Then there was Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), who quit writing operas at age 37 and more or less gave up writing music until he was in his 70s. He then composed a series of witty and entertaining chamber pieces that he referred to as Sins of My Old Age. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) created many of his most colourful and revolutionary paintings in his late 80s and early 90s. His creative genius simply never stopped. And if you ever want to hear some ravishingly beautiful music—written by a man in his 80s—listen to the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss (1864-1949). The conductor Arturo Toscannini (1867-1957) even in his 80s could terrify the musicians in an orchestra into playing better than they ever thought they could. Elliot Carter, born 1908, still astonishes the musical world with his dense and complicated solo, chamber, and vocal music. There was a National Film Board movie I saw once about a 100-year-old woman who went around playing the piano to entertain the “old” folks in the rest home. It just didn’t occur to her that getting old would somehow stop you from doing anything you wanted to do. And don’t forget that David Suzuki is 74, showing no signs of quitting.

What needs to change?
First of all, let’s stop of thinking of age as a disease that needs to be treated with medications, meals on wheels, and condescending attentions. I am not minimizing the physical problems that seem to accumulate with age, like stiff joints, frequent trips to the washroom, dyspepsia, insomnia, squinting at the small print, and having to ask people to repeat everything. These, like Mr. Johnson’s sore back, are annoyances for sure but hardly catastrophic or worth medicating (with the inevitable side-effects). Such minor irritations can be ignored as long as we have something going on in our lives. It’s like stubbing your toe in the midst of an exciting soccer game; you would ignore the pain and carry on.

At the same time there are serious ailments that do require intervention. Thank heaven, these are available. I hasten to point out, however, that serious illness, injury, and chronic physical failings can occur at any stage of life. As we age, we are in danger of becoming obsessed with bodily functions and impending disease and inevitable death. With a vigorous mental and emotional life, I suspect that we can take most of these in our stride. For a story about someone who life is so full that he carries on in the face of death, read about Chuck Davis, age 74: http://bit.ly/cj1gyH

How about not categorizing people by age? By classifying people as children or seniors, we discount their abilities to do anything of value or to effect any kind of change s. Children are supposed to be in school learning that they must depend on someone else to tell them what to do, and seniors are defined as being “retired” or no longer leading productive working lives. It is unfortunate that for many people work means holding a job that is unfulfilling and boring. Retirement is viewed as liberation from work, an opportunity to pursue entertainment, leisure, and inactivity. Alas, these soon prove to be unfulfilling and boring, too, and life loses lustre and excitement. Why not think of retirement—at whatever age one chooses to take it—as an opportunity to do other, more fulfilling, kinds of work? Just ask yourself, what can I do to make the world a better place? and you’ll find more than enough to keep you interested, busy, and involved. Just think of all the things that you don’t know about, all the music you haven’t heard, the books you haven’t read, the social ills that need to be cured. Of course we are aware that our time is slipping away, but just think of how much there is still to be done. When the great Canadian broadcaster Lister Sinclair, who died in 2006 at the age of 85, was asked what he would like to see inscribed on his tombstone, he said, “He died learning.”

What should we do
I know that there are numerous programs, in community centres and in seniors’ centres, that are provided for the aging. Most of these offer interesting things for people to do, but like school for kids, it’s all preplanned and led by someone probably younger than the participants. I know this is not always true, but most community centre programs are run by well-meaning and intelligent people, like the experts in the video, who are in their 30s and 40s. I notice that the words like “gentle” and “low impact” occur frequently in descriptions of these programs. Maybe “rough” and “high impact” would be off-putting, but the words that are used suggest an attitude about old people. Offerings like Cribbage, Bridge, Scrabble, Chair Massage, Reflexology, and Seniors’ Exercise, not to mention the ubiquitous notion of having “fun” suggest limited interests and abilities. It’s not that these activities might not be of interest and value, it’s just the reiteration of terms of condescension that keep hammering home inabilities and weaknesses.

At the risk of rambling on forever, I offer a few suggestions:

1. Find the seniors in your community who are so busy that they don’t have time to join in on “seniors’ activities.” (If you want something done, ask a busy person.) Ask them what they are doing and figure out how to get them involved.

2. Have docent tours of the Art Gallery for people of all ages, not just school kids. Maybe invite older people to join the kids’ tour.

3. Involve the Health Arts Society in your community programming. http://www.healtharts.org/

4. Bring young and old people together to work on a serious project, like dealing with addictions, homelessness, or political action in your community.

5. Bring together a group of people (of any age) facing terminal illness. Talk about how they are dealing with the inevitable. Get someone like Chuck Davis to join the group.

6. Talk frankly and openly about suicide.

7. Let’s not ignore and deny the fact that the older we get the closer we come to dying. How do we cope with that? What are we thinking about dying? What are we going to do between now and then?

8. Have some young artists and musicians show and talk about their work.

9. Get a bunch of active seniors to search out the homebound, lonely, and alone. Get them involved in something or respect their desire to be left alone.

10. Show movies, play serious music, and look at art that is seen as challenging and difficult. Talk about what the creators of the works are thinking and doing.

11. Read books and poems; talk about them.

12. Read books to kids at the library or at school.

And never forget Robert Louis Stevenson’s little rhyme:
THE WORLD IS SO FULL OF A NUMBER OF THINGS
I’M SURE WE SHOULD ALL BE AS HAPPY AS KINGS.

CURRICULUM

NOW WHAT?
Now that we have the kids in school, duly segregated by age into grades and classrooms, we’d better figure out what we expect them to do. Enter the Curriculum.

The curriculum determines what outcomes are expected as a result of a youngster having spent nine or so months per year in his pre-determined grade and up to thirteen years in the school system. A tremendous amount of work and verbiage has been spent creating the curriculum for the public schools in British Columbia. (I’m sure the same applies elsewhere.) To get the idea, just glance at the Ministry of Education’s website http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/gc.php You’ll be delighted to see hundreds of pages of mind-numbing “Prescribed learning outcomes,” with so-called outcomes divided into countless steps and subdivisions.

If you’re wondering who does all this work and who puts the stamp of approval on it, the answer may be found in the Q & A section on the website noted above.

“The provincial curriculum is designed to prepare students for life after secondary school, with a holistic approach that goes beyond marks and includes human, career and social development. Research and public consultation form an integral part of the ministry’s ongoing process for revising existing or developing new curricula. The process includes consultation with educators and subject-area experts, as well as opportunities for public review and feedback.”

Considering school’s obsession with testing and grading, the phrase “a holistic approach that goes beyond marks” is simply laughable. (More about marks and grades in the next argument.) Rest assured that, even though the process allows for “opportunities for public review and feedback,” the real “process includes consultation with educators and subject area experts.” Thank goodness this is not left in the hands of a bunch of ill-prepared parents or even kids who might just come to school with interests and expectations of their own.

A couple of examples:

In “English Language Arts—Grade One: Purposes (Thinking and Reading) Students who have fully met the Prescribed Learning Outcome are able to:
Create a representation (e.g., draw a picture, dramatize a section)
Identify connections between a picture and text (e.g., “What does the picture tell us about the story?” “What do the words tell us about the picture?”)
Tell how story events or characters are the same or different from their own experiences (text-to-self)
Make text-to-text connections by comparing two versions of the same text and expressing a preference

To quote just a few “outcomes.”–
By the time the student has completed Grade Five, he or she will now:
Discuss their favourite texts and why they are personally meaningful
Compare their responses to texts with the responses of others
Identify powerful passages from texts and describe why they are personally meaningful
Respond to text by drawing or writing, making personal connections (text-to-self), connections to other texts (text-to-text), and connections to related events (text-to-world)

It’s hard to believe, but there are hundreds of pages of this kind of stuff.

WHY NOT HAVE A DETAILED CURRICULUM?

Well, why not? What’s wrong with laying out all this detail, step by step, prescribing what the results of classroom learning should be? Of course, the answer is right there in the question. Does learning ever take place in an organized step-by-step manner? Just think of how you learned something; say, baking a cake, or riding a bicycle, or playing street hockey.

Wait! I hear you say, don’t things like cake-making involve a step by step process? Yes, there are steps: beating eggs, mixing dry and wet ingredients separately, etc. All the time, however, the end product is in sight, and you will carry out the whole process from breaking the first egg to taking the finished cake out of the oven with that end in mind. Cake-making, like most accomplishments, is not a simple matter of following directions, and there is no such thing as starting with an easy cake and working your way up. The only way is to dive in and do it, and there will be a lot of trial and error. However, the entire operation, even to a novice, makes sense from beginning to end. It’s perfectly clear how each part works to create the whole.

You’d probably have more fun and even learn faster if you had an experienced cake-maker—a person that you liked and identified with—to work with you along the way. You could watch them (the way I used to watch my mother make cakes and pies—she was a whiz at it!) and learn some of the details of the operation. This would be a good start to developing skill of your own. You could also get a cookbook and tackle the task with someone like Irma Rombauer or Betty Crocker at your side in spirit. With some practice, you could become a pro at baking cakes. You would only do this, however, if you really wanted to and if you really enjoyed the process. The surest way to kill any possible pleasure you might have in such an endeavour would to have it be a task imposed by someone else, an expert perhaps, who believed that it would be good for you to learn how to bake a cake.

If you decide at the outset that baking a cake is too messy and too much bother, you will simply go out and buy one. Using a cake mix is, in the eye of a true cook, like cheating. But, what the heck, go ahead, there are no rules about this except for the ones you make up by yourself. Cake-making, like riding a bicycle and playing street hockey, is not on the curriculum. Thank the powers that be that the experts have not turned their attention to such pleasant activities. You can choose to do any of these things if you have friends who do them and if they appeal to you. Whereas, in school, you do not have a choice about what you are expected to learn, you do not make up any rules for yourself, and the one-by-one tasks do not, by themselves, make sense. It’s absurd to assume that “create a representation (e.g., draw a picture, dramatize a section),” will somehow eventually “prepare students for life after secondary school.”

Real learning tends to be messy, haphazard, and involving of pals, mentors, guides, or other people that you enjoy being with. Those people might even be the writers of things like cookbooks or travel guides. Maybe you’ll learn to love reading because your dad loved books and your mother read to you when you were growing up; maybe you’ll learn about electricity, as I did, by tinkering with doorbells and batteries; maybe you’ll love music because your grandfather had and played a collection of opera records; maybe you’ll learn about photography because your brother had a camera and a darkroom; maybe you’ll learn about foreign languages because your friends speak Italian or Mandarin at home. There is no curriculum for genuine learning.

CONCENTRATE!

One of the chief notions of school is that kids should always pay attention and try hard. The only reason that there is such a thing as school discipline, with its bells, grades, tests, and class divisions, is that the curriculum does not make sense to the kids, only, presumably, to the experts who created it. Therefore, it requires enforcement to keep it going. It’s impossible to explain to a child how those “learning outcomes” will ever add up to a successful life. Constant efforts and, yes, threats (fail at school, fail at life), must be directed at students to engage them or get them to pay attention to the teacher. I remember a senior teacher who regularly exhorted her classes to “Concentrate!” On the other hand, have you ever seen anything more concentrated than children at play? No exhortation and no curriculum required.

Oh, you say, I remember a teacher who made everything so interesting that I loved her/his classes. Yes, there is the very rare teacher who is inspired with an infectious love of learning accompanied by an unconditional love of children. You can be sure that this teacher is more involved in the interests and pleasures of students than in the learning outcomes predetermined by experts.

PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE PRUSSIAN ARMY

Most people either do not about it or would rather not think that our public school system is based military innovations devised by Friedrich Wilhelm I, King of Prussia from 1713 to 1740. He introduced the notion that an army should be a fighting machine, made up of battalions of identical soldiers trained to execute a precise series of actions in unison. The men were drilled relentlessly within a harsh disciplinary regime. An important part of the innovation was that each movement or manoeuvre was broken down into small incremental steps, each to be mastered in sequence. For example, in order to load and fire a single round, soldiers were trained to perform twenty-two separate actions in rigid sequence. Uniforms were identical, and hair and beards were worn and trimmed to strict regulations. The result, of course, was that the Prussian army became a powerful and fearsome fighting machine. In other words, the success of the Prussian military was based upon a one-size-fits-all, do-as-you-are-told, do-not-question-authority, and drill, drill, drill.

Not surprising, I suppose, was that this idea of rigorous and uniform practice was extended to the Prussian education system. It was seen that a highly disciplined universal and compulsory schooling could produce a docile and unquestioning population. Attendance at school was made compulsory, and a detailed system of step-by-step learning was to be universally and rigidly followed. Then, in the early 19th Century American educators and politicians became fascinated with the Prussian system. Many of them visited Germany to see how it worked. They saw an opportunity to transform the ragtag one-room schools that served a mostly rural populace into an organized system that would produce a unified and predictable product: a manageable and well-trained public. After his visit to Germany in the 1840s, Horace Mann returned to America inspired by the Prussian system, which he immediately sought to introduce into the state of Massachusetts. Thus, by 1852, attendance at school was made compulsory, a state-wide curriculum was created, pupils were segregated into grades, and teachers were trained and certified in approved methods.

The school system that Horace Mann and his many Prussian-admiring cohorts established in the 1850s is not much different from that of today. No doubt discipline is less harsh and a bit of nonconformity is tolerated here and there, but the basics of the Prussian system are in effect. Children are compelled by law to attend school starting at a given age; certain standards of behaviour are demanded; they will be taught by someone who is certified by the state as qualified to teach; and they will progress through the proscribed curriculum in an orderly step-by-step fashion until deemed ready to be set free into the world of work. Throughout this process, they will be assessed and judged by relentless standardized testing. They are trained, as it were, “to perform twenty-two separate actions in rigid sequence” just like the Prussian soldiers.

The solidification of a rigidly systemized schooling continued into the 19th century, and in 1918 Alexander Inglis published his highly influential Principles of Secondary Education. Reading through this book (it’s available on line) is like reading a design for an assembly line factory. In fact, it was about the same time that the Prussian system of dividing all processes into small parts and treating people and animals like machines was spreading to the means of production and agriculture. Indeed, Inlgis lays it all out in minute and precise detail, speaking of educating the young in the same way that one would speak of assembly-line manufacture of automobiles or sewing machines. The basic assumption is to put each child through a minutely designed and universally applied process, and, voilà, identical citizens will come out at the other end. With this in mind, you will not be surprised to read: Our schools are… factories in which the raw products are to be shaped and fashioned… And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down. (Ellwood P. Cubberley in the 1922 edition of Public Education in the United States)

Forgetting that children are not machines to be processed on assembly lines, schools still, by and large, operate on these 18th and 19th Century theories and assumptions. They are as influential as ever in today’s public schools: attendance is compulsory, teachers are trained not educated, pupils are segregated into grades, a curriculum determined by experts is applied throughout, and the process is regularly assessed by tests and examinations. I remind the reader that schools in Canada are modelled closely on those of the United States, not of England or other European systems.

In 1924, H. L. Mencken wrote: The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.

His words are as true today as they were in 1924. If you doubt that, just look around.

May I remind the reader that alcohol has been the preferred anodyne of humanity–ever since the first pile of grapes fermented and gave off that luring aroma that we still relish in the finest (and/or cheapest) of wines. That was many centuries ago, perhaps even at the moment when evolution produced a cerebral cortex with enough sense to seek modification through alteration. In other words: produced the desire for mind-altering substances. I mean, why have a mind if you can’t play with it? (I give the reader permission to contemplate the possible variants of this thought.)

Now, you see I’ve wandered away from my original purpose which was merely to quote the concluding, and inspiring, paragraph from “The Perfect Martini Book” (Harcourt Brace 1979) by Robert Herzbrun. So here goes:

“To presidents and commoners, workingmen and practitioners of leisure, the Martini and cocktail hour are the perfect marriage. The chilled crystal alive with beads of frost. The union of clear, crisp gin and golden hued vermouth. The streak of yellow lemon peel, gently twisted and subtle with flavor. Or the well-rounded olive studded with a flash of flaming red pimiento. The King of Cocktails, the Dry Martini. Little wonder it is the perfect cocktail for that glorious time of day, the cocktail hour, the Martini Hour. A time to relax and reflect. A time when all the pieces take their rightful place . . . and the day comes into focus. A time when those nagging, gnawing problems don’t seem quite that serious after all. A time, in fact, when humor emerges from tribulation . . . and the crisis of the day becomes a subject for laughter. The Martini Hour: when friendships are rekindled and relationships reborn.”

I am especially fond of “practitioners of leisure.” What a thought! Thank goodness for civilization.

*I use the term with tongue-in-cheek, since it was invented as an excuse to allow those who were not clinical “alcoholics” to drink as much as they pleased–or could. The notion that “alcoholism” is a disease is as ridiculous as the claim that jumpy kids “need” Ritalin. Mind you, all kinds of money are made this way. I am reminded of a story I once heard. A middle-aged mother was told that her son was an alcoholic. She replied, “He’s not an alcoholic, my dear, he’s a drunkard.”

So be it. Amen.

ART AS RELIGION

For some people the Arts are like religion, they think everyone should believe. Had I remained a Catholic, as I was brought up, I would still firmly believe that I belonged to the One True Church, all the others were merely misinformed. I’d feel sorry for all those pathetic non-Catholics, who were probably doomed to hell. I would truly believe that, if they had any sense, they would convert. Strangely enough, I realize that much of my thinking about ART (note the capitalization) has been very similar. Surely the world would be a better place if everyone loved classical music, went to the opera, art galleries, read great literature, and kept up with the latest developments as much as I did. I’ve even done my share of proselytizing for the cause, as indeed I did for the Church during my Catholic youth.

Guess what, though. I never once thought that the government should pay me for going to Mass or for taking the sacraments. Even in this day of dwindling church attendance, I do not hear religious people lobbying for subsidies. On the other hand, as a devotee of the Arts, I have always assumed that government should take responsibility for providing funding. After all, aren’t artists providing a necessary public service? And, haven’t the Arts always been supported by the church, by the aristocracy, by the wealthy, or by government? It’s only popular entertainment that makes money; true Art, like religion, is outside of the marketplace and does not concern itself with such sordid matters as profit-making.

GOVERNMENT WITHDRAWS FUNDING

Consider the outcry and outrage when, last fall, our provincial government announced drastic cuts to arts funding. Protest rallies were organized, massive letter campaigns promoted, petitions were signed, and announcements were made at concerts and plays. When the provincial budget came down recently, it was clear that the government was not swayed by any of this. My question is: Why should they be? Arts supporters can easily be discounted as a “special interest group,” obviously more worried about their own subsidies than about more serious matters like hungry school children, health care, and budgetary deficits. Let’s just say that the government’s attitude was “Ignore them, and they’ll go away.” And, sure enough, after the initial furor, the rallies and letter campaigns dried up. The same thing happened when the CBC (remember the CBC?) curtailed its classical music and serious discussion programming in order to inform us that “Canada lives here” and that we should follow “Everywhere music takes you.”

The government people were right. How many would you say wrote letters or marched in righteous outrage over cuts to arts funding? Several thousand, maybe—really nothing compared with the more than four million voters in the province, most of whom either didn’t care or didn’t know about arts funding in the first place. What they were excited about were the Olympics (Go, Canada, go!) and the latest three-D blockbuster. Our governments, it would seem, are following the procedures of television programming: Find out what they’re watching and give them more of it.

THE WAY IT USED TO BE

Some of us remember when radio and television devoted major programming hours to opera, serious theatre, symphony concerts, and provocative discussion. People used to tune in weekly to symphonic concerts like the Standard Hour, the Bell Telephone Hour, or the Firestone Hour. The American National Broadcasting Corporation, created and fully funded the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, in two-hour Sunday concerts from 1937 to 1954. The Ed Sullivan show regularly featured opera stars like Birgit Nilsson, Joan Sutherland, and Franco Corelli. Our public schools had lively music and art programs. (Until sometime in the 1980s, each school district in the lower mainland had a full-time music supervisor.)

In 1949, the Massey Commission (Royal Commission on Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences) was created by the St. Laurent government (Try to imagine the current government creating such a royal commission). Upon the recommendation of the Commission, the Canada Council was created and funded in 1951. Support for the arts in Canada seemed guaranteed–until the mid 1980s when government appropriations began to fall In real terms (taking inflation into account), Canada Council’s resources had decreased by over 30% by 1992. Government claims to the contrary not withstanding, this decline has continued. The same is true for the British Columbia Arts Council.

AND THEN?

So what happened? Why is support for the arts dwindling and why is that hardly anyone cares? As I said before, our governments and our popular media have become followers, not leaders. This all started with the advent of television and the market surveys that determined who was watching what. If the majority of people are watching sitcoms, why then let’s give them more sitcoms. The advertisers, after all, want to expose their wares to the largest possible audience, and it was soon discovered that intellectual challenge tended to drive viewers to other channels. Consequently, it was necessary to assess public taste and create corresponding programming. In the parallel world of food, McDonald’s has done this brilliantly. You always know what to expect, no surprises, and don’t ask any questions about fat, salt, methycellulose, or nutrition. The comparison with television is apt.

We’re all familiar with the notion of “dumbing down.” Just listen, for example to the dialogue in 1940s radio and even in 1950s television. The vocabulary as well as the political and social allusions are of a level of sophistication unknown in today’s popular shows. Action must now be fast and frenetic, and the sound bite has replaced the meaningful quotation. Popular movies are the same. Cutting is rapid-fire, with shots lasting rarely more than a second or two. Compare this with a scene from, say, “Citizen Kane.” Here you will see single shots lasting five minutes or more, typical of films from the 1930s and 1940s. The slower pace implies that the audience is capable of paying attention and following the measured development of plot and character. The big box office blockbusters of today present us with a slam bang relentless array of images of crashes, explosions, fights, and chases. Never a dull moment. And once you have created such a film or TV show, the only way you can improve upon it is to up the ante: more and louder crashes, more and stupider jokes (with laugh track), more provocative sexiness, and more carefully engineered “reality.”

WHAT HAPPENED TO POPULAR MUSIC?

Meanwhile, the field of popular music has also undergone radical changes. Throughout most of history, the basic format of classical and popular music was the same. A sentimental ballad sung by Frank Sinatra would run a close parallel to a song by Schubert: vocal melody with accompaniment, poetic text, and basic song form. The difference being that the Schubert song would probably be more adventurous harmonically, have a more complex accompaniment (for piano), have a melody that might take unexpected turns, and be set to a poem of artistic merit. Nevertheless, the listener to the Sinatra song would have no problem engaging with the Schubert, if he or she so chose. What has happened over the past 40 or so years is that popular and classical music have taken widely divergent paths, and as these paths diverged, the public followed the pop music path and forgot about the classical or high art path.

In many ways, popular music has remained more traditional—relentlessly so, with its simple harmonies, repetitious rhythms, and rudimentary forms. The ubiquitous electric guitar has placed its homogenizing stamp on virtually all popular music. Like television and the movies, popular music has become simpler and simpler, usually electronically engineered to sound like nothing that could happen in acoustic reality. Early Rap, with its street-smart, in-your-face vitality, soon morphed commercially (mostly by white guys) into a sullen pseudo-rebellious “product” so popular with boom-car drivers, relying on dirty words for effect. A similar process transformed Rock ‘n’ Roll from its vigorous black-ghetto beginnings into the nice-English-white-boys style of the Beatles. For more on this, I recommend “How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll” by Elijah Wald (Oxford, 2009). What with sexually charged techno pop, glam rock, and teen and “tween” performers, popular music is now almost entirely the purview of the young and reflects the lack of sophistication, life experience, and technical expertise of maturity. Our young people are now immersed in a hyper-sexualized, over glamorized, anti-intellectual milieu, their brains addled by drugs, cell phones, IPods, and social networking. YouTube sites popular with kids, including the very young, have titles like “Do I look like a slut?”, “Too drunk to fuck” and “Stick it in”.

Do we imagine that a symphony concert or an exhibition of cubist painting could possibly compete with the supercharged glitz and glamour of a Lady Gaga? Could I leave my Facebook page alone long enough to sit through an opera or a play? As someone once said, how can people who have grown up with the three-minute popular song comprehend a twenty-minute symphony, let alone a four-hour opera?

OH THOSE STUFFY INTELLECTUALS

Along with this has come a widespread disdain for the output of the mature and intellectually developed adult. Classical music, literature, poetry, and art are dismissed as boring. Even politicians must now be careful not to betray any intellectual prowess or achievement. Better to be “just folks.” Remember how Stephane Dion was ridiculed, in the 2008 election, for being “the professor”? Notice how Michael Ignatieff adopts a “folksy way … when trying to be a man of the people, ‘What the heck are the facts?’” (Ron Graham in The Walrus, January/February2010) Used to be that people looked up to leaders who were articulate, well-read, idealistic, and thoughtful. Louis St. Laurent, whose government founded the Canada Council, while known as a man of the people, made no apologies for being a respected lawyer, a professor of law (Laval University), a humanitarian, and an articulate speaker.

THE DISAPPEARING PUBLIC

When did artists start losing the public? My piano teacher used to refer to certain pieces of music as “musicians’ music,” in other words, music that only musicians could understand. In his 1948 essay “The Dehumanization of Art” José Ortega y Gasset cites “art for artists” as a reason why the public does not favour “the new art.” New art, in this case, being cubism, abstract expressionism, and performance art. As if that weren’t enough, the public was further alienated by the musical creations of composers like Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Igor Stravinsky, and, later, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez et al. In the theatre, people were confused by plays by Luigi Pirandello, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and others. Arts and artists were breaking new ground, and the public was left behind in the dust.

I am not suggesting for a moment that artists should not be breaking new ground. This is the very nature of art. But at the same time that the above-mentioned ground was being broken, the public was being lured by new, easier, sources of entertainment: radio, movies, and, television. As soon as the television moguls discovered polls and ratings, the downward spiral began. After all, the more popular your show, the more advertising you can sell. Classical music, visual and plastic arts are now entombed in museums and concert halls where people behave and dress in ways that are foreign and off-putting to everyday people. Again, popular television, blockbuster movies, and rock concert producers—and don’t forget McDonald’s restaurants—know what people want, and they deliver entertainment (or food) that is fast, immediately recognizable, and easy to grasp—no surprises for the generally passive and uncritical consumer.

WHO NEEDS IT? WHO CARES?

Massive cuts to government funding to the arts are but one result of the alienation of the public. In other words, who cares? If people no longer respect or even know about what artists are doing, how can we expect them to care if their tax money no longer goes to support these arcane activities? As I said before, I would not expect the government to pay the faithful for their church attendance or for the priests and ministers who deliver the sacraments and sermons. Then why should we expect taxpayers’ money to support the rarefied indulgences of an elite and aging population who want to attend the opera, the symphony, and the art gallery? Or even a cadre of younger artists, who, instead of giving people what they want, insist in striking out in new directions creating challenging and disturbing new art?

Like the television and rock concert producers, governments know what people want and where their support lies. Hence you will soon be able to spend up to $9000 for a seat to watch two guys beat the stuffing out of each other in an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at GM Place (“could generate millions for the local economy”). If violence of that sort is not your dish of tea, you could stroll over the new $500 million (and counting) casino at BC Place and relieve yourself of your excess cash. (Be careful, on your way, not to step on any of the homeless people trying to sleep on the street.) Oh yes, the Vancouver School Board has just announced the virtual elimination, “due to cutbacks,” of art and music programs. One or two parents have lamented this loss, but ultimately, who cares?

In case you haven’t noticed, our governments have become followers, not leaders. Look, for example, at the Harper government’s “tough on crime” legislation. As we speak, $2 billion is being spent on building new prisons. Bill C-2, which will probably be supported by election-shy Liberals and the NDP, calls for tough minimum sentences and more invasive control of drug use, with penalties that emphasize retribution as opposed to rehabilitation. This in spite of all scientific and sociological research demonstrating that tougher sentences do not reduce crime. This government can push its own agenda by playing on the belief that we are living in a dangerous society. To convince people otherwise and to take a sensible and humane view would mean assuming a leadership role. It’s easier to ignore the fact that the crime rate has been steadily descending since the 1970s.

Because the Prime Minister was embarrassed by his pre-election remarks about artists at fancy galas, he has had his picture taken with a boy with a cello and he even sang a Beatles tune to his own accompaniment at, imagine!, a fancy gala. Remembering that he didn’t bother to show up at the Canada Council’s Fiftieth Anniversary celebration, I am not convinced. But he got a lot more media coverage from his singing and playing than he ever did from his no-show for the Canada Council.

This might be a good time to remind the reader of the difference between “market driven” and “product driven.” As we’ve pointed out, most popular entertainment as seen on television, movies, and rock concerts is based upon what the public wants, often determined by polls or by market surveys. Art, on the other hand, is, or should be, created out of the compulsion and imagination of the artist. As we have seen, the public may be confused and feel somehow cheated. The artists are playing tricks on them—and getting paid for it. Remember the anger expressed by some people when the National Gallery paid nearly $2 million for Barnett Newman’s “Voice of Fire”? This very large painting consists of a single red stripe on a blue background. “My four-year-old could have done that,” people were heard saying, somehow equating the value of the work with the amount of labour involved. A lady I was talking with at a concert recently, said, “I don’t trust the modern stuff.” She explained that she had attended a concert of contemporary music and heard only dissonance and not a single melody. In the essay cited above, Ortega y Gasset also wrote: “We then have an art which can be comprehended only by people possessed of the peculiar gift of artistic sensibility—an art for artists and not for the masses.” For the most part, the public is acquainted neither with the arts of the past or of the present. And what’s more, they don’t care. No one even let’s them know that it exists.

It doesn’t take long to realize that the media are devoting large amounts of time and energy to talk about sports. Sports have taken over the public imagination with regard to accomplishment and civic pride. We hold up our Olympic athletes as role models for the young, and we cheer wildly when “our” hockey team wins the series. (Even though the players are mostly from elsewhere.). There is nothing wrong with this, but it is happening in a vacuum of reporting about the accomplishments of our artists. We have not celebrated the achievements of our artists, writers, and musicians, many of whom are better known abroad than at home. Who knows that 22-year-old baritone from Toronto Elliott Madore was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions? Who ever heard of Jan Lisiecki, the brilliant 15-year-old pianist from Calgary who has performed at Carnegie Hall and with major orchestras all over the world? He has recorded both Chopin piano concertos to great acclaim. He is International Youth Ambassador for UNICEF. Governor General Michaëlle Jean told him “You are an inspiration to children and adults across Canada.” Who knew? Why aren’t these artists and the many others, young and old, as well known as Sidney Crosby?

As long ago as 1948, José Ortega Y Gasset, in the essay cited above, wrote:

In these last few years we have seen almost all caravels of seriousness founder in the tidal wave of sports that floods the newspaper pages. Editorials threaten to be sucked into the abyss of their headlines, and across the surface victoriously sail the yachts of the regattas. Cult of the body is an infallible symptom of a leaning toward youth, for only the young body is lithe and beautiful. Whereas the cult of the mind betrays the resolve to accept old age, for the mind reaches plenitude only when the body begins to decline. The triumph of sport marks the victory of the values of youth over the values of age.

Arts groups have tried to lure back a bewildered public by trying some market-related tricks, pretending that they are “just folks” like everyone else. The Vancouver Symphony presents concerts of video game music, complete with large-screen video so you can see the musicians sweating it out. Vancouver Opera offers Manga versions of opera stories and a few young people “blogging” about the opera on opening night. The string quartet plays an arrangement of a Beatles tune. All this is well and good, but I’d wager that not one person has been moved to attend a regular symphony concert or an opera—or to come to believe that their taxes should support the arts—as a result of these slogans and condescending offerings. What we’re really saying is that we don’t believe that the product is good enough to sell itself on its own. We don’t expect you to sit and listen to an orchestra concert or a string quartet or to study up on an opera story.

If religious people can no longer persuade the wider public that church attendance will ensure a blissful afterlife, people who believe in Art have failed to make the case that participation in the arts guarantees a richer more fully-lived temporal life. We come up with flimsy slogans like “Creativity Counts” or “Don’t Torch the Arts” whilst flaunting grey squares to show how poverty-stricken a world we would have without Art. As if anyone cared.

We have failed to display a passion for and dedication to making Art. We have failed to engage the public with Art and artists. Our protests have been short-lived and insignificant. We have stood by while schools have eliminated arts programs. We have tuned out of the CBC’s erosion of music programming. We have failed to demand media attention for the arts at least equal to sports reporting.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. It took years of hard and constant work to get the environment onto the public agenda. People risked their lives; people went to jail and endured ridicule and hardship. They asked who cares? and answered: We do! And environmental issues have made it into the media and into public awareness. The government is compelled to respond, like it or not. Until we have the same kind of courage and determination, Art will stay in the background, an unnecessary frill, an elite indulgence. Why should tax money go for that?

In her 1953 book “Feeling and Form,” the philosopher Susanne Langer wrote:

An enlightened society usually has some means, public or private, to support its artists, because their work is regarded as a spiritual triumph and claim to greatness for the whole tribe.

How will we answer the question Who cares?

LIE AND LAY

To put it simply: “lay” is a transitive verb and “lie” is an intransitive verb. (Not to be confused with the noun or verb “lie”, meaning a prevarication or to prevaricate.

I have found that terms like “transitive” and “intransitive” leave most people under the ag4e of fifty scratching their heads, allow me to explain. A transitive verb is an action word that takes a direct object. In other words, it is a word that denotes an action performed directly upon an object, be that a person, place, or thing (a noun). An intransitive verb does not take a direct object.

Hence: To “lie down” implies an action sufficient unto itself. “His missing overcoat lies on the chair.” To “lay something down” implies an action performed upon an object (“something”). “Please lay your coat upon the chair.”  Simple, eh?

The problem arises in the past tense. The past tense of “lie” is “lay”. “Yesterday, his overcoat lay on the chair.” The past tense of “lay” is “laid”. “Yesterday, he laid his overcoat on the chair.”

The past participles of these troublesome verbs are “lain” and “laid”. “His overcoat has often lain on the chair.” “He has often laid his overcoat on the chair.”

Here’s a simple diagram:

And another set of examples:

Now, I lay the book upon the table. (I am laying the book upon the table.)

Today, the book lies on the table. (The book is lying on the table.) [Note the spelling change.]

Yesterday, I laid a book upon the table.

Yesterday, a book lay on the table.

In the past, I have often laid my books upon the table.

In the past, several books have lain on the table.

Try making up some sentences of your own, remembering that “lay” is also used as a noun, as in “The lay of the land” or “A good lay.”

Don’t get confused by the bedtime prayer: Now I lay me down to sleep … “. Simple enough. Here “lay” is the transitive verb because “me” is the object of the laying. This sentence means the same thing: Now I lie down to sleep. It’s just not as poetic.

WHO AND WHOM

Now that you understand the difference between transitive and intransitive, you can easily understand “direct object.” “Whom” is always a direct object and “who” isn’t. (Note: “Whom” becomes an indirect object when combined with “to” in a prepositional phrase.)

Here are some examples:

Who is that person to whom you were speaking? (“whom” is the object of the preposition “to”.)

To whom should I address my letter?

Whom did the dog bite? (The dog bit whom?)

Who bit the dog?

It can become confusing when “who” or “whom” or “whoever” or “whomever” are used in subordinate clauses. For example:

Please give this note to whoever answers the door. (“whoever” is the subject of the clause “whoever answers the door” and the whole clause is the object of the preposition “to”.)

Please give this note to whomever. (“whomever” now stands alone as the object of the preposition.)

Who is it that we are going to visit?

Whom are we going to visit?

It just takes some practice. Of course, you are now permitted to make yourself obnoxious by correcting other people’s erroneous usage.

Another time, perhaps, we’ll tackle “like” and “as”.

The famous little book “The Elements of Style” by Strunk and White is not only enlightening on these and other matters but also quite entertaining

First of all, let me confess that I’ve borrowed this title from Jerry Mander’s excellent “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” (HarperCollins, NY, 1978). I would highly recommend reading his book, even, perhaps, as a preamble to these blogs, especially if you have any questions in your mind about how television has affected our society—and, especially our youth. I add that the effects of school are parallel, if not similar, to the effects of television. There will be much more about this later.

These ten arguments do not appear in order of importance. They are all, in my opinion, equally damning of a system that not only fails to educate but also fails to support the social and intellectual growth of young people under its control.

SEGREGATION

School takes as its right and privilege the segregation of children into groups or classes according to age and what it chooses to measure as ability. It is taken as natural and beyond question that its charges shall be placed in grades and classes, the unchallenged assumption being that all six-year-olds, for example, will be ready to live and learn in very close to the same way. This segregation of the young begins at Kindergarten age (five-years-old) and continues through the next twelve to thirteen years, at which point 18-year-olds are discharged to fend for themselves into society or graduated into university which further proscribes their associations and limits their pursuit of enquiry.

Thus, from the time I first enter school, I am forced to surrender what is, in democratic societies, generally assumed to be a universal and inalienable right: the right to associate with whomever I please. No other person can decide for me who should be my friends or with whom I should pass my time. Until I go to school, that is. I must now spend the better part of each day in an artificial setting which pretends that I am equal to my twenty to thirty-some classmates while, at the same time, encouraging comparison and competition.

But that’s not all. The school year starts in September. If, in that month, I am six years old, I will be compelled to attend Grade One. I may have turned six in August or I may have turned six the previous October. Thus, in any grade and in any one classroom, youngsters differ as much as ten or more months in age. At this stage of life, those ten months can make a huge difference in physical and mental capacity. This discrepancy will continue for the next eleven years—and its effects felt forever after.

In his very interesting book “Outliers” (Little Brown, New York, 2008), Malcolm Gladwell documents the superiority of hockey players born in the early part of the year. The reason being that these players had a whole year in which to grow, practice, and develop, before the league-entry cut-off date of January first. The same would certainly apply to the arbitrary school-entry month of September.

Back in school, I will also be placed in a classroom run by one teacher, over whom I have neither choice nor control (except such control as I am able to apply subversively, through disruptive behaviour or inattention). Anyone who has ever been to school will remember certain teachers that they liked and certain—probably most—that they didn’t like. As Frank Smith says in his very enlightening book “The Book of Learning and Forgetting” (Teachers College Press, New York, 1998), “…we learn from the individuals or groups with whom we identify.” I think you’ll agree that most kids do not indentify with their teachers. In other words, they don’t say to themselves, “I am just like Ms. Wilson, therefore I want to learn how to be more like her and to like everything that she likes.”

Segregation is only one of the ways in which school takes control of lives and implants dangerous and destructive attitudes which deter growth and have far-reaching effects on how we live our lives. I have touched it but briefly here. This  topic, like those to come, lends itself to further elaboration which will be dealt with in another context.

I emphasize again that the ten arguments for the elimination of school that will appear here are not presented in order of importance. All are equally important and illustrate the disastrous effects of this moribund institution.

More to come.