From: Mati Palm-Leis (mpalm@merr.com)
Date: Sun Jul 31 2005 - 15:41:53 BST
Arlo & Platt
As a public school administrator I have some thoughts about MOQ and
Education.
Arlo stated:
[Arlo had asked]
Should we rethink the purpose of high school, and what is taught, to make a
high-school diploma capable of providing "meaningful employment"? The
"apprenticeship" model of Germany I mentioned could be one solution. But, is
this in line with the MOQ? In ZMM, Pirsig talks about letting students "drop
out", get a hard-knocks education, and potentially return to the school
motivated by Quality, rather than money, grades or degrees.
Can/should all education be like this? Should we abolish "compulsory"
altogether?
Mati: There is a can full of issues here. First should we gear up our
education system like Europe's. As far as apprenticeships are concerned
many do exist in current school system across the United States. I
personally worked for 5 years with the Youth apprenticeship in Southeastern
Wisconsin. It takes a lot of vision and money to start up and maintain
these programs. Given the current state of support for education, both
morally and financially, nationally and locally, these programs that are so
promising are the first to go in the name of fiscal prudence.
As far as Compulsory Education is concerned it is another issue altogether.
Thirty years ago someone could drop out and manage to be absorbed by the
local economy. Given the sophistication of today's labor market a dropout
with out any other form of education is likely go nowhere. Gav gave a great
presentation at the conference related to the disenchantment of some youths
with current state of education. And yes there is a sincere need to address
"At Risk" youths, but that is only part of the picture to consider. There
are a number of fronts educational institutions are being stressed by.
Fiscal support is one. Moral support is another. Decay of the traditional
family and community structures. The social levels on which schools are
built are changing in such a way that they are not able to support the
intellectual demands that are being required.
Arlo:
This gets back to "purpose". One of the original "purposes" was to turn out
"good citizens", and teach life skills, hygiene, etc. If it is to teach a
basic set of skills, what goal does that basic set serve? Health and
hygiene? Vocation? Art? Literacy? Informed citizenry for voting purposes?
Mati:
The "purpose" of American Education has been based in part on the needs that
American Society has had. Immigrants came to this country and education was
given the job of assimilation. After WWII there was a need to pull out
unemployed men and absorb them into colleges hence the GI Bill. There is a
whole books on the history of American Education, Secondary and Post
Secondary. The point is for the most part public education are locally
supported institutions with it purposes determined shaped locally. If you
want to know what the purpose of your school is, attend a local board
meeting and see it in action.
Platt stated:
IMO the purpose of education is to develop intellectual skills, beginning
with the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic. That "serves" to
bring more individuals into upper quality realms of the intellectual
level, the highest level next to DQ itself. Without a thorough grounding
in basic intellectual skills, not much more can be accomplished in an MOQ
moralsociety. Set high standards for attaining intellectual proficiency
and the rest -- careers, life skills, good citizenships, etc. will pretty
much take care of themselves.
Does that fit your concept of an MOQ education?
Mati: Pretty much agree though there might be some technical understanding
of what "intellectual skills" means, which I will for go at this point.
What Platt has in a single paragraph would require an enormous amount of
change support and leadership. It is wonderful to talk about grand visions,
but when the class starts and the kids are in their seats a lot of good
things are already happening. What is needed is a change in which much of
the system which is pretty good is preserved and needed changes are
implemented. It is like changing a wheel on a car while it is running.
Schools are always running.
[Arlo]
I'm not sure I have a concept of that worked out yet. But, your answer that
publically supported education has the purpose of skills beginning with
reading, writing and arithmetic, gets me back to the question of "when" we
drop public support. By most accounts, these basic skills can be learned by
around 6th grade, or maybe earlier. Should we drop public funding at that
point?
Mati: My feeling the actually intellectual development of children starts
about 6th grade in which they use the basic skills to develop the
intellectual values.
OK, I will continue in part 2.
Mati
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