[MD] Imaginings

[Arlo Bensinger]

[John]
Ah, no.  That is not what I "say", nor is it what I write.

[Arlo]
Okay, rather than comment on all this, let me back up.

My understanding was that you said the public schools in Finland and 
Japan succeed because they serve a "monocultural" population.

I take it, from this, that the reason public schools in America are 
failing is because they serve a "multicultural" population.

So far, you've defined "cultural" as only "religious". Indeed, you 
suggested that the reason schools in Japan do better than schools in 
Oklahoma is due to the "religious diversity" in Oklahoma.

Am I correct so far?

Because on one hand you seem to be suggesting that schools do better, 
than children learn better, when they are in "monocultural" environments.

On the other hand you're arguing that regardless of whether or not 
children learn better in "monocultural" environments, it is morally 
wrong for the government to provide public education.

[John]
Very big brother-ish of you Arlo.

[Arlo]
Yikes. Well, you know me, I am a despotic tyrant totalitarianist. 
Hate freedom. Hate it. And liberty too. Hate that even more.

[John]
My terminology is different. I'd say Vouchers rectify the unfairness 
of taxing people to support ideas antithetical to their core values.

[Arlo]
See, you jumped from why the public schools in other areas top the 
world, even our own American private schools, to a moral argument 
about the uses of taxation. Would I be correct in assuming that even 
IF American public schools topped the world, you'd favor abolishing 
the public schools in favor of "vouchers"? Because it seems like that 
would be what you'd be for based on this statement.

[John]
I agree.  I think the best schools would offer the kind of diversity 
you are idealizing here.  I think a non-diverse school is weak for 
the exact same reasons that a non-diverse educational system is weak.

[Arlo]
And yet you just said that the success of Finnish and Japanese 
schools resulted from their LACK of diversity. If "non-diverse 
schools" are weak, why do the public schools in Finland and Japan 
exceed even our private ones?

[John]
That's what really bugs intellectuals. When they can't control.

[Arlo]
Well, you know I am a control-freak despotic tyrant. I hate dynamic 
quality. I want everything to be controllable and static. That's me. 
Enemy of freedom, hater of things I can't control. You know, being a 
stupid intellectual and all.

[John]
No doubt there are lots of viewpoints on the issues.  I listen to 
talk radio too.  Write to Michael Savage if you don't like what he has to say.

[Arlo]
Savage? My point, in case you missed it, was that your condemnation 
of the "media education complex" and what you accuse ME of runs 180 
degrees opposite of the condemnations leveled against me by Platt, 
whom you seemed to turn to for support.

Okay. So with you I am condemned for being anti-diversity, a great 
homogenizer. With Platt (in line with talk-radio) I am condemned for 
being pro-diversity, a great  heterogenizer. You condemn me for 
tossing everyone into a melting pot. Platt condemns me for pulling 
everyone out of a melting pot.

Man, that's quite a trick! I really get around!

[John]
My assertion is that Catholicism and Judaism would survive better...

[Arlo]
Well, certainly. You isolate something, and you strengthen it. It 
doesn't have anything to adapt to, and change with, or anything like 
that. I'm not sure why "preserving Christianity" should be a function 
of schools though. Cultural customs are always in flux. The more 
diversity, the greater the flux. If you are advocating "diversity", 
why would preserving any one particular static pattern be of great concern?

[John]
I aknowledge that possibly the individual Jewish and Catholic 
schoolgirls might do better (lots of reason they would) they might do worse.

[Arlo]
Okay, again with the back and forth. Are you saying that schools 
offering "monocultural" populations would do better, or not? At first 
you said they would, and the argument was about what is BEST in terms 
of learning. Now you seem to be suggesting, again, that whether they 
do better or worse is not the issue, its about the moral idea of 
public funded education. Which exactly are we arguing here?

[John]
But it seems wrong to me for the Govt to come in and take the 
Catholic or Jewish taxes and use the money to impose a VFM upon their kids.

[Arlo]
Okay, now it does seem to me you are moving the argument from what 
schools foster learning the best to an anti-tax argument.

Let me ask, what do you feel is the "purpose" of education? Why do we 
educate? Why do you have "compulsory" education? (Do you think we 
should eliminate that?)

[John]
I don't really think of it as privatization.  I think of it more as 
elimination.  Elimination of the bigness.  Elimination of the 
centralized control.

[Arlo]
All of which can be meet while keeping education funded publicly and 
available to all.

[John]
The only way to get communities to value the system, is to get them 
to buy into it.  Give them a choice.

[Arlo]
That's not the only way. Finland and Japan prove you wrong.

[John]
That's how you get community investment.  Give them control.

[Arlo]
No disagreement here. I am all for educational reform that moves 
control to the local communities involved.

[John]
It's the very  fact of Japanese cultural "monosity" that makes it 
much less problematic to offer up a centralized educational system.

[Arlo]
To clarify, you find the schools in Tokyo to be less diverse than the 
schools in, say, rural Oklahoma?

And it is "religious diversity" in Oklahoma schools that causes them 
to fail? You feel, again to clarify, there is more "religious 
diversity" in a town in rural Oklahoma than in metropolitan Tokyo?

By your argument, then, areas in America where there is very little 
"religious diversity" should be scholastically outperforming areas in 
America where there is much "religious diversity"? No?

[John]
Tell me Arlo, do you really think the world would be a better place 
if everybody was just the same?  Do you think society would be served 
by everybody thinking like you?

[Arlo]
Oh, yes, John! Everyone should think just like me. That's my motive, 
here. That's what I want, a world of clones. How very astute of you!!

No, I think learning for all in enhanced when more students are 
exposed to more diversity. I do not think that isolating or 
segregating "subcultures" into their own little worlds serves this at 
all. In fact, I'd say it does the opposite.

[John]
And yours is to simply wipe them all out so there is no differing 
worldview from your own.

[Arlo]
A page from Platt's playbook. Kudos! You know us "willing 
executioners", after all.