Charlotte Iserbyt: Societies Secrets

[Ed Jewett]

You just provided a description what I would call "socialist man".

The problem with computer gaming systems relates to the original post here describing her whistleblowing experience in the US Dept. of Ed where she discovered the plan to replace teachers with computers and have coaches, i.e. minimum wage paras, coach in computerized classrooms. That enables the oligarchy to spend more on preemtive wars to export more "inverted totalitarianism". See Princeton's Sheldon Wallin's work & his description of the destruction of not just democracy but politics by the national security state.

I respectfully disagree, in some general sense, but we are getting far afield from the topic of the thread (or even its sub-topics). I don't disagree with the last two sentences in which you discuss the oligarchy, pre-emptive wars, inverted totalitarianism, and the destruction of politics by the national security state. I am unfamiliar with Wallin's work but, on the surface, it sounds like I would agree with it.

But it appears that you have seized upon a very limited aspect of my description of a range of ideas about educational reform. I don't know what you define as "socialist man" I did try to find an acceptable definition of the term but found several of them, few of which I could actually understand; perhaps in a different place you can describe this type of individual, how he is trained or taught, what he is trained or taught, and how that works out for him. One book noted above is by Howard Gardner, a professor of the psychology of education at Harvard, who describes multiple intelligences and how they differ from person to person; we can't all be the same, and all low scores in one intelligence can't necessarily be altered significantly no matter how many highly-paid teachers or sophisticated teaching systems you throw at it.

I heard the other day about how much happier everyone was in a socialist government; I didn't get any clarification from that person either.

I don't suspect, as I did of him, that you are tossing the terminology around lightly. Are people who are "socialist men and women" competitive in a socialist society? Are they capable of being auto-didactic? Self-motivated? Does the system of socialism honor and allow for individual differentiation, personal sovereignty, and cognitive freedom? How does the "socialist man" make use of his talents and intelligences if all value belongs to the state? Is there no incentive? My daughter's teammates used to get angry because she went to the gym frequently -- an All-American in strength and conditioning -- and routinely -- by performance -- created pressure on them to do the same. At lower levels, they screamed at her not to throw the ball so hard. Are they "socialist" teammates?

With regard to past or current plans to replace classroom teachers, I have three reactions to your comments. The system addressed in the book I noted does not replace classroom teachers; it actually adds a layer of "coaches" who, by their very nature, must be super-prepared in terms of educational psychology and counseling, pre-testing (as opposed to post-testing), and in terms of a broad understanding about how knowledge is acquired, and are likely to have to be paid more, not less. Secondly, there are, whether we like it or not, elements of some education that can be handled adequately and arguably better than an average bipedal because, through systems, they can allow for more sophisticated personalization that allows the individual learner to proceed on a proper path that is fitted to them and their understanding and performance, and to proceed on that path more rapidly. Finally, with regard to teachers and whether they should be retained, paid, given job/social benefits, etc., how is the mass of them doing so far? How are they serving society and the individual?

I am not talking here about the current trends in educational systems management, Bush's No Child Left Behind and Obama's Race to the Top. That stuff sounds good on the campaign trail, in an Orwellian sound bite.

I am more concerned with the individual than the collective. The oligarchy wants sheep, robotic workers, people dumb enough to shut up, sit down, consume, and get to debt slavery jobs.

I am talking about the 8th grade teacher who, when asked about how my daughter might find some experience that would allow her to explore a possible love for animal care, didn't have an answer, didn't suggest that she would give it some thought, and couldn't name the two obvious answers we as parents had already considered. I am talking about middle school principals who leer at adolescent girls and make lewd jokes about them when they think no one can hear them. I am talking about high school officials, teachers, and others who favor their own children above others and get irritated when someone else comes along and takes the prize away from them on the basis of hard work.

I am talking about the high school baseball coach who, when asked by my son if he could be told when he would be on the pitching rotation so that a college coach could come and see him, was laughed out of the office. [The coach came and offered him a half-time scholarship for four years and he was a starting pitcher for a team that won the NE D-II league championship.] This is the same coach who forced him to undergo, as a catcher, a "balls in the dirt" drill run indoors on hardwood -- without a chest protector -- from which he came home covered with black-and-blue bruises all over his chest and arms.]

I am talking about a coach who told my daughter she might be lucky enough to win a partial scholarship at a small D-II school in New Hampshire but was unaware that she had the skills to be recruited in another sport by five or six top D-I schools, one of which invited her to apply as an honors student and then gave her a full four-year scholarship in athletics.

I am talking about teachers who tell their students they can't... when they should be telling their students they can, and will, and giving them the understanding of their own mind that will allow them to accomplish anything they choose to achieve. That doesn't sound like a socialist man or woman to me.