[MD] The Trouble With Wilber

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Krimel]
You are my hero, Arlo. Such incredible patience! Over the years I 
have watched you wade through this crap tirelessly. I have always had 
this Pollyanna belief that people are not really stupid they just 
need to have things explained better or maybe they just have not been 
presented with the right information.

[Arlo]
Well, I don't know about being patient. You should see me banging my 
head against the computer sometimes. Luckily, I don't have to deal 
with the deceptive and distortive rhetoric of xenophobic wing-nuts 
often. In fact, only here really.

The whole "bash the Academy" crowd, which pretty much defines 
right-wing politics, uses the same rhetoric generation in and 
generation out. They labeled Pirsig a "radical professor" fifty years 
ago, and still use that tired phrase with each new round of nonsense. 
"Dumbing down our schools" is just another old, worn-out cliche, and 
every time you hear it you are justified to roll your eyes and tread 
with caution. More often than not, it is used to masquerade attacks 
against non-white, non-European cultural information. Its the damned 
liberals and foreigners who are ruining the country, destroying the 
schools, blah blah blah.

Now, this is not to say "everything is fine". There are problems in 
the current system that should be addressed. As I said, I think the 
fundamental is deriving from our lack of true comprehension as to why 
we are publically educating in the first place. I've spoken to many 
people over the years, in and out of the Academy, and the most common 
answer I get is "because its the right thing to do". Okay, but WHY? 
What are our purposes?

If our goal is an informed citizenry for voting, then we should 
certainly foreground history (American and World), political theory 
and economics. But why fund art, music and vocational tracks then? 
Why fund "literature"? Why fund "math"? If our goal is to meet the 
demands of labor, why fund (again) literature and art? Why not turn 
all public education into vocational learning? Most likely, education 
serves a mixed goal set. And it should. In a complex society, the 
outcomes of a public education are broad; vocational as well as 
informed citizenry. But how do we determine who gets what and when? 
How do we integrate "what" with something meaningful? Why should 
Janey find reading "Catcher in the Rye" valuable? Why should Johnny 
find learning long division valuable? Because it will "get them good 
jobs"? Make them "better people"? I have this conversation with my 
daughter all the time.

On a closing note, David Granger recommended a book to me a while 
back that I am just now opening up and starting. "The manufactured 
crisis : myths, fraud, and the attack on America's public schools" by 
David Berliner. It looks like a good read. You may want to check it 
out (I know we all have book lists that are impossibly long).