From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Aug 25 2002 - 11:11:12 MDT
Roh H. writes
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Dehede011@aol.com
> Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 3:39 AM
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Re: American Education
>
> In a message dated 8/25/2002 4:20:17 AM Central Standard Time,
> forrestb@ix.netcom.com quotes Griffin: "In our dreams we have unlimited
> resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our
> molding hands....We shall not try to make these people or any of their
> children into philosophers of mental learning or of science. We have
> not to raise from among them authors, editors, poets, or men of letters...
> The task we set before ourselves is very simple as well as a very
> beautiful one: To train these people as we find them to a perfectly
> ideal life just where they are...in the homes, in the shop, and on the farm."
Well, it will still amaze me if such grandiose plans by
social planners ever amount to beans. The "people" aren't
nearly so docile, I say, at least not the people (in America)
that I know anything about.
Ron H. then relates
> Thank you Forrest. I was raised on what is often known as a raggedy
> pants cotton farm. Early on it was noticed by my teachers that I had the
> talents to learn and especially I was good with numbers. As they had no
> facilities for teaching a kid like me they did the next best thing and left
> me free to learn on my own. I became an engineer, earned my raises &
> promotions then at the appropriate age retired.
That's what I think happens in America, generally, and that was very
sensible of the people who brought you up. One question
in my mind is whether that's adequate. I guess not: as for me in
California in the 60's, they've always had the notion here that gifted
children should be set apart and encouraged with slightly more difficult
classes. I think the basic good effect here is that at a young age
kids are thereby shown a scale of advancement, shown that there is
a ladder of progress that maybe they want to climb.
> I tell you this to set the scene. The local large scale farmers and
> merchants that served on the school board had decreed that kids like me were
> to be educated to be contented cotton choppers and cotton pickers. The local
> view of a boy that had made good was to elevate yourself to being known as a
> good "tractor hand."
Well, I doubt that this is so typical anymore. As the The Bell Curve
emphatically stated, intelligent kids are being ruthlessly drawn out
of the typical occupations and sucked up into colleges where an attempt
is made to turn them into professionals. For example, fifty years ago
you were quite likely to encounter an extremely intelligent truck driver.
No more. All the bright people have been gotten into more professional
jobs.
> To make a long story short there was no way I could afford her. And,
> there was absolutely no way she would be dumb enough to settle for such a
> life.
> At the time I thought the local powers that be were very self serving
> in their attitudes. An aside, yes, things are open enough in a southern
> cotton farming community that I knew where the problem lay even at fourteen.
I can understand this. Picture a meeting at the local school
board where you went to school. The manager or local cotton
producer will express just the attitude that you've conveyed:
> The local view of a boy that had made good was to elevate
> yourself to being known as a good "tractor hand."
It makes sense that that's how it would have come down. No
evidence here of a grandiose conspiracy to implement an India-
style caste system, or an effort to suppress the ability to
think. What we have here is a bunch of locals responding to
local conditions. This is reality.
> Now I hear that the national powers that be want to
> educate our children in the same manner. This sounds an awful
> lot like England to me. A few very wealthy people exercising
> a custodial function over the lower classes while living very
> well themselves.
Okay, here's where it stops entirely making sense to me. The
incentive of the local cotton growers to make their concerns
known and the local school board meeting---this mechanism I
understand. But what could be the incentive of a national
conspiracy to implement changes that won't have direct effect
on the conspirators, at least not for decades?
> As I write this a line that I probably read in John Taylor Gatto keeps
> running through my mind. It no doubt struck a very responsive chord in me as
> I had so often observed it during my career in industry.
> The idea is that the uneducated worker doesn't give the manager the
> difficulties the educated worker does. I was an "efficiency expert" and
> spent a lot of my career eliminating large numbers of low skill workers. Of
> course this resulted in a higher proportion of highly skilled workers.
This last paragraph contains a potential contradiction. If the
uneducated worker doesn't give the manager difficulties (in some
very low paying McDonald's or cotton-picking job), then the boss
will tend to prefer uneducated workers. Yes. But from The Bell
Curve we also know that the boss---even at McDonald's---prefers
highly intelligent workers. Intelligent workers are simply more
productive (remember Murray and Herrnstein's great description
of busboys).
> Relatively speaking, the lower skilled workers were more docile but
> managing the highly skilled was like herding cats.
> I think it was the authors of The Bell Curve that made the argument
> that a conflict was going on in the upper ranks of American business. As our
> economy became more and more sophisticated the old money has to hire more and
> more highly educated very intelligent people to run those businesses for
> them, the old money. As the HIVI become more indispensable they are
> challenging the old money for more of the profits and the authority.
Conflict? If one thinks in terms of "classes" and conspiracies, then
yes, there would be a conflict. The "old money" wouldn't like all
these highly educated and intelligent people moving in. (And I'm
sure that you can find examples in American history where this
happened, especially if race and ethnicity is involved.) By the
way, I don't remember where in The Bell Curve the authors made the
argument that such a conflict was ongoing. What's the evidence
for a conflict here? (And I'll settle for just a suggestion of
what's in it for who, and what actually happens as a consequence
in the classroom.)
> I wonder if Gatto is right and what we are seeing is an increasing
> imposition of the Indian education for caste system??
Instead of vague allusions to such impositions, I'd appreciate folks
here discussing specific mechanisms (sorry to be so lazy to do the
research myself). I liked your description of the cotton economy
and the effect it had on certain individuals; your anecdotal evidence
supported your general thesis of what was going on, and the motivations
of all the parties was clear to me.
I also understand the mechanism described in The Bell Curve, whereby
it becomes harder and harder for any intelligence person to avoid
being presented an opportunity to rise to the managerial and professional
classes. Strong efforts are even being made across traditional race
and class boundaries to pull smart kids into Ivy league schools (as
if this was news to people on this list).
I also admit that Gatto and others are perfectly correct when they
describe a number of unwholesome influences in school rooms where
a left-leaning elite try to pass on their personal views on everything
from politics to gender identity to our "poor little vulnerable kids".
But if anything, we have less of a caste system than ever before in
history, and I don't see a trend for it coming back.
Lee
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