[MD] Imaginings

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Craig]
IMHO part of the problem in your debate arises from not 
distinguishing between "diverse", "multi-cultural" & "open-minded" societies.

[Arlo]
To be fair all around, these are tricky terms to define. That's why 
I've been asking John for more examples of what he means by 
"monocultural". So far, all he's supplied is religious diversity, but 
even this I have questions about, since those rural Oklahoma towns 
I've been pointing to may have twenty different minor variations of 
Christianity, but I don't think that matches the religious diversity 
of Tokyo (or any metropolitan city, for that matter).

I believe Japan, from my experience, to be a place of much 
intellectual diversity (another form of diversity), as is evident 
from their world leadership in many academic disciplines. Academic 
journals give evidence to the variety in intellectual thought. Its 
simply wrong to assume they all "think alike" somehow.  It is also a 
country of musical diversity, you have everything from classical to 
rock to punk to tribal. And simple photos of Tokyo streets 
demonstrate as much, at least, diversity among its dwellers in terms 
of social appearance (related perhaps to various subcultures) as in NYC or LA.

On top of all this, however, is the evident "ethnic" marker, or 
"race" (I suppose, although I don't like that word). A lot of Japan 
is like a lot of the USA, very homogenous in its ethnicity. Granted, 
there may be areas of the US where there are "more" people from 
"more" places across the globe, giving many US cities quite 
remarkable ethnic enclaves. But this still does not support John's 
(apparent) contention that "monocultural" populations learn better 
somehow, as I have pointed out, this would not support why towns in 
rural Oklahoma fair worse against the more "multicultural" (or 
multi-ethnic) population of Tokyo.

My initial comment about Finland and Japan led to the argument that 
"public schools" only work in monocultural settings. I've tried to 
show this is false, pointing to US public schools that fail in the 
most "homogenous" towns imaginable, whether one assumes 
"monocultural" to refer to ethnicity or religion. I can't wrap my 
head around the great religions diversity in rural Oklahoma that John 
apparently feels dooms its school to failure, nor how these towns are 
"more diverse" (in any sense) than metropolitan Tokyo.

And, since he has focused exclusively on religion, it would also 
indicate that American religious schools would outperform public 
schools in diverse areas of Japan or Finland. This is not the case. 
Indeed, if "monoculturality" was the marker for success, we would see 
American private and religious schools performing at least as good 
as, if not better, than schools in Japan and Finland.

But yes, compared to many public districts, American private and 
religious schools fare better. Many studies have examined this, and 
across the board one of the major reasons is that parents who send 
their kids to these schools are more involved in their kid's 
education. Indeed, the success of these kids is identical to the 
success of kid's in public schools whose parents' indicate a similar 
level of involvement. There are other factors, to be sure, classroom 
size, teacher support and agency in the classroom, money for 
extracurricular activities, field trips, etc, as well as money for 
classroom learning items (computers, books, films, etc.).

But I suspect, based on John's latest post, that this is really not 
about that. This is about whether or not taxes should fund public 
education, whether or not public or private is better for learning is 
not really at issue. Its a different argument, to be sure.