Stanford 9 scores repudiate educationism by Greg Swann I can remember as a small boy sitting at the dining-room table after Sunday dinner, listening to my grand-uncles arguing about trigonometry. They would defend their positions with figures and calculations lightly penciled onto the tablecloth. I had no idea what they were talking about, but the depth of their knowledge was amazing to me. How well educated my grand-uncles must have been, right? Not really, not by their standards. They were all factory workers, the sons of farmers and coal miners. They got a perfectly ordinary schooling at a perfectly ordinary public school in a tiny little town in the midwest. Their advantage, their inestimable advantage, was that they were educated before the public schools were taken over by the likes of David Berliner, Dean of the Arizona State University College of Education. Berliner is most famous as an apologist for the poor--and steadily poorer--performance of the public schools. With Bruce Biddle, he wrote a book called "The Manufactured Crisis", which insists that public schools are not only doing a fine job, they're getting better all the time. My grand-uncles could do trigonometry and today's high school graduates can't make change, but that's the kind of evidence that Berliner and his fellow purveyors of educationism prefer not to notice. And they fervently hope _you_ don't notice it, either. Educationism is a term of art coined by Richard Mitchell, who is quoted at length in the accompanying article. Mitchell wrote four compelling books on the theories of the lecturing classes, picking apart the festering corpses of their corpus, demonstrating with wit and grace that the very _last_ thing the Berliners of our culture want is an educated, literate population. Do you doubt this? This is Dr. Berliner speaking in his own behalf. The italics, astoundingly enough, are his: [T]he U.S. public schools have done a good job of producing large numbers of literate Americans _should that level of literacy be needed in their lives._ "Should that level of literacy be needed." My uncles could do trigonometry. They probably rarely had need for it, but when they did, for work or for intellectual play around the dining-room table, they had it. A literate adult can read Richard Mitchell, which is a level of literacy Dr. Berliner might opine no one needs. Of course there is no such thing as a _level_ of literacy. One can either read--which means read Mitchell or Melville or Shakespeare--or one cannot. It's no accident that Berliner's book, tendentious and dull, was ringingly reviewed, while Mitchell's books are all but out of print: Innocents imprisoned in the levels of hell below literacy rather like to be told that their condition is heavenly, substantially better than the awful fate of people who can read, make change--even do trigonometry. This would make for a rousing farce, were it not for this: Educationism is holding our children hostage. The objective evidence against the Berliner model of public education is indisputable: Our children don't learn math, they don't study Latin nor do they master any foreign languages, they don't read literature, they don't learn the art of logic. Huge numbers of them never learn to read at all. This is borne out in test scores, which Berliner tries to dismiss, and, of course, it is borne out in the inability of many high school graduates to function in real life. We surrender twelve or more years of their lives and vast hordes of our treasure so that the furtive freebooters of educationism can _rob_ our children of an education. The school that my grand-uncles were lucky enough to attend insisted that every student could do serious academic work, even if some of them had to work at it harder than others. The philosophers of educationism argue that virtually no one can do serious academic work, and therefore no one should work very hard at all--least of all the teachers. I wish I were joking, but I'm not. Luckily, the traditional schools movement has arisen to erase the ugly mess the educationists have made on the blackboard. Often referred to as "back to basics", traditional schools aren't actually back to anything--except back to the classroom after the decades-long educationist recess. Traditional schools uphold serious, rigorous academic standards, and they expect students to meet and surpass those goals. It will come as a surprise to no one but the minions of Dr. Berliner that they do. The Stanford 9 scores released in July show that the Alhambra Traditional School is the best public school in the Valley of the Sun, the cities comprising metropolitan Phoenix. Berliner and his fellow professors of educationism advise us that we should not trust test scores--since they are mere objective measurements--and in any case, we should expect scores to be high where mobility is low and where parents speak English and make a lot of money. Educationists are wise to mistrust objective evidence, since it so often disproves their claims: Alhambra is at 37th Avenue and Osborn Road on Phoenix's decaying West Side. In the Alhambra school district, mobility is 32 percent, parents speak 32 different languages and 87 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. The difference between Alhambra and a normal public school--the difference between a real school and a Berliner-style play-prison--is the curriculum. The students at the Valley's traditional schools--Alhambra, Phoenix Magnet and Abraham Lincoln in Phoenix and the three Benjamin Franklin campuses in the suburb of Mesa--are expected to master difficult material as a means of taking mastery over their minds. Using "The Writing Road to Reading" by Romalda Spalding, students learn to read--which means to read Mitchell or Melville or Shakespeare. They are expected to work a grade-level ahead in math. They have homework every day, and it's not the play-prison kind of busy-work. In exchange for the time and effort and money set aside for their education they obtain an education. Not an excuse. Academic rigor has only recently returned to the public schools, but it has already completely refuted and repudiated the teachings of Dr. Berliner and his educationist cronies. When my grand-uncles were in school, if someone had argued for giving children a 'level' of education, for giving them anything less than the best that could be provided, he would have been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. David Berliner has yet to suffer this fate. But, of course and obviously, people were much better educated in those days... From "Less Than Words Can Say" by Richard Mitchell A colleague sent me a questionnaire. It was about my goals in teaching, and it asked me to assign values to a number of beautiful and inspiring goals. I was told that the goals were pretty widely shared by professors all around the country. Many years earlier I had returned a similar questionnaire, because the man who sent it had promised, in writing, to "analize" my "input." That seemed appropriate, so I put it in. But he didn't do as he had promised, and I had lost all interest in questionnaires. This one intrigued me, however, because it was lofty. It spoke of a basic appreciation of the liberal arts, a critical evaluation of society, emotional development, creative capacities, students' self-understanding, moral character, interpersonal relations and group participation, and general insight into the knowledge of a discipline. Unexceptionable goals, every one. Yet it seemed to me, on reflection, that they were none of my damned business. It seemed possible, even likely, that some of those things might flow from the study of language and literature, which _is_ my damned business, but they also might not. Some very well-read people lack moral character and show no creative capacities at all, to say nothing of self-understanding or a basic appreciation of the liberal arts. So, instead of answering the questionnaire, I paid attention to its language; and I began by asking myself how "interpersonal relations" were different from "relations." Surely, I thought, our relations with domestic animals and edible plants were not at issue here; why specify them as "interpersonal"? And how else can we "participate" but in groups? I couldn't answer. I asked further how a "basic" appreciation was to be distinguished from some other kind of appreciation. I recalled that some of my colleagues were in the business of _teaching_ appreciation. It seemed all too possible that they would have specialized their labors, some of them teaching elementary appreciation and others intermediate appreciation, leaving to the most exalted members of the department the senior seminars in advanced appreciation, but even that didn't help with basic appreciation. It made about as much sense as blue appreciation. As I mulled this over, my eye fell on the same word in the covering letter, which said, "We would appreciate having you respond to these items." Would they, could they, "basically appreciate" having me respond to these items? Yes, I think they could. And what is the appropriate response to an item? Would it be a basic response? Suddenly I couldn't understand anything. I noticed, as though for the first time, that the covering letter promised "to complete the goals and objectives aspect of the report." What is a goals aspect? An objectives aspect? How do you complete an aspect? How seriously could I take a mere aspect, when my mind was beguiled by the possibility of a basic aspect? Even of a basic goals and basic objectives basic aspect? After years of fussing about the pathetic, baffled language of students, I realized that it was not in their labored writings that bad language dwelt. _This,_ this inane gabble, this was bad language. Evil language. Here was a man taking the public money for the work of his mind and darkening counsel by words without understanding. Words never fail. We hear them, we read them; they enter into the mind and become part of us for as long as we shall live. Who speaks reason to his fellow men bestows it upon them. Who mouths inanity disorders thought for all who listen. There must be some minimum allowable dose of inanity beyond which the mind cannot remain reasonable. Irrationality, like buried chemical waste, sooner or later must seep into all the tissues of thought. This man had offered me inanity. I had almost seized it. If I told you that this little book would provide _you_ with general insight into the knowledge of a discipline, would you read on? If so, then you had _better_ read on, for you are in danger. People all around you are offering inanity, and you are ready to seize it, like any well-behaved American consumer dutifully swallowing the best advertised pill. You are, in a certain sense, unconscious. Language is the medium in which we are conscious. The speechless beasts are aware, but they are not conscious. To be conscious is to "know with" something, and a language of some sort is the device with which we know. More precisely, it is the device with which we _can_ know. We don't have to. We can, if we please, speak of general insight into the knowledge of a discipline and forgo knowing. Consciousness has degrees. We can be wide awake or sound asleep. We can be anesthetized. He is not fully conscious who can speak lightly of such things as basic appreciations and general insights into the knowledge of a discipline. He wanders in the twilight sleep of knowing where insubstantial words, hazy and disembodied, have fled utterly from things and ideas. His is an attractive world, dreamy and undemanding, a Lotus-land of dozing addicts. They blow a little smoke our way. It smells good. Suddenly and happily we realize that our creative capacities and self-understanding yearn after basic appreciations and general insights. We nod, we drowse, we fall asleep. I am trying to stay awake. An oasis in Arizona's desert of illiteracy by Greg Swann Imagine, if you dare, a rosy future in which all Arizona first-graders can read. Read well, with full comprehension. Write well and legibly, with correct spelling. Imagine that Arizona's bilingual students can read and write English well by the end of the second grade. Imagine that Arizona's large number of semi-literate adults learn to read and write fluently. Imagine even learning-disabled and special education students mastering the skills of literacy. Is this a pipe dream? Arizona students score near the bottom on national reading tests. Not as badly as California children, but not even as well as children from Arkansas. How could we possibly hope to improve reading scores significantly anytime soon? Governor Jane Hull and state school superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan want to spend an additional twenty million dollars on reading. To hire new instructors. To pay for new materials and training for teachers. To extend the school year. We know from bitter experience that these things won't work, at least not well and not quickly. So let's up the stakes. Imagine that we could teach all of Arizona's non-readers--children and adults, anglo and hispanic, able or disabled--and imagine that we could do it quickly, cheaply and _well._ Imagine an Arizona where eighty percent--or more--of fourth-graders are above the line of literacy instead of below it. Imagine that! To be drenched in words in Arizona's desert of illiteracy... That would require a panacea, a magic bullet, a miracle. Not a mirage but a true oasis. Lucky for us, we have one. The Spalding Method is a reading curriculum that actually works. Developed by Romalda Spalding and published in 1957 in the book "The Writing Road to Reading", the Spalding Method is a complete approach to English--reading, writing and spelling--that actually achieves the results claimed for it. Ordinary children learn to read and write in one year--or less. Disabled and bilingual students learn to read and write English in two years. Illiterate adults become literate adults in months. The Spalding Method really works, and it really works for everyone. Failure rates are negligible, and schools switching to Spalding experience remarkable gains in reading comprehension and writing and spelling skills. The superiority of the Spalding Method is well established--in university-level reading research, in reading test scores, in parent and teacher testimonials and in the remarkable reading ability of Spalding students. Valley public schools using Spalding include Alhambra and Abraham Lincoln in Phoenix and Benjamin Franklin in Mesa, as well as many private and charter schools. Better yet, the Spalding "materials" are minimal and inexpensive, and any literate adult with good diction can learn to teach Spalding in a matter of hours. And that's the best news of all for Arizona parents. There is no need to wait for the Governor or the state or the school board or the principal to discover that the Spalding Method is not just better but _much_ better than the alternatives. You can get "The Writing Road to Reading" for yourself and teach your children to read--really _read--_at home. The book is $18 at retail, less at Amazon.com, and you can borrow it for free from the public library. It would be a wonderful thing if the state and local functionaries who control public education were to discover Spalding. But even if they don't, you can. The Spalding Education Foundation maintains a web page at http://www.spalding.org/. Better yet, they're located in the Valley, at 2814 West Bell Road, Suite 1405, Phoenix, AZ 85053. The telephone number is 602-866-7801. You can request information by email at staff@spalding.org. This is a fact: Your children can learn to read and write English well. So can your neighbor's. So can bilingual students, special education students and illiterate adults. Whether or not the state does anything about this, you can. The magic bullet is not magic, it's real. It's not a mirage, it's a method, the Spalding Method. "The Writing Road to Reading" is your oasis in Arizona's desert of illiteracy. Glimmerings of hope... The gift of mind... I am in awe of Richard Mitchell. This site would not exist without him. It is one thing to notice that our schools are 'dumbing us down'. It's harder, perhaps, to do the kind of analysis effected by E. D. Hirsch, among others. But it is a thing of the ages to dissect the philosophy of educationism, to show that unstudied mendacity and pretentious gobbledygook are not the unintended consequences of educationism's theories _but their unintended causes!_ With the masterfully named Underground Grammarian, Mitchell at first sought nothing more than the satisfaction of defending the English language from the barbarians of the academy. From there he proceeded to an exposition of this seemingly barbaric language, an examination of the ends to which it is the only apposite means. And from this he was able to devise a fully-detailed, strikingly original epistemology. Mitchell's published books are masterpieces, enthralling and delightful and enraging and inspiring. _The Gift of Fire_ is one of the best books of this century--this millenium--and I would rank all four of his books in my top ten. His mind is a vein too rich ever to be fully mined, but you are commended to try. Richard Mitchell might well regard this particular guerrilla engagement, a mere shadow of his own efforts, as being possibly worthy and almost certainly futile. In this he is probably correct: One can hold little hope for state-schooling in the large as long as there _is_ such a thing as state-schooling. In the small is another matter, and this is the subterranean, subversive business we are about. In any case, since we are talking about standardized testing in this first issue, it seem wise to let Dr. Mitchell caution us on that very subject. --GSS The Turkeys Crow in Texas (September 1980) by Richard Mitchell TIME magazine reports that schoolchildren in the USSR, by the end of tenth grade, have been ruthlessly deprived of their right to a language of their own and subjected to ten years of learning grammatical _rules_ and as many as _seven_ years of some _foreign_ language. And there's worse. Those godless communist tykes have had their creativities and self-esteems _destroyed_ by geometry, algebra, and even _calculus,_ for God's sakes! And not _one lousy_ mini-course in baseball fiction or the poetry of rock and _roll!_ You talk about elitism? Now _there's_ your elitism. Those commies want to make just about _everybody_ into some kind of elitist. Why just about the only thing an American kid would recognize in a Russian school is the values clarification and social adjustment stuff. Probably swiped it from us in the first place anyway. Still, let's hope we don't have to fight with those Russians, an anti-humanistic crew all hung up on mere skills. In fact, if we have to fight, let's see if we can't arrange to fight with the Texans. Down in Texas, the school folk are mighty proud of the results of their new state-wide competence tests. You might not believe this, but it turns out that _ninety-six percent_ of the ninth graders in Texas can _correctly_ add and subtract _whole numbers_ three times in four! (Stick _that_ in your samovar, comrade!) And that, friends, means that the teenager in the diner on Route 66 will give you the correct change ninety-six percent of seventy-five percent of the time, or _seventy-two_ times out of every hundred chili dogs. And in Russia you can't even _get_ a chili dog. And if you're worried about writing, forget it. Fifty-four percent of the Lone Star State ninth graders have "mastered" writing. And that beats hell out of the whole _New Yorker_ crowd, of whom more than ninety-nine percent still have to worry about stuff like whether or not "ambient" is really the best word. [At the end] you will find the topic assigned for the writing competence test and the essays of two ninth graders, _one_ of whom has _mastered_ writing. See if you can figure out which -- and why. Keep in mind, as you cogitate, that it was not the schoolteachers of Texas who scored the essays. The scoring was to have been done by the Educational Testing Service, but the canny Texans decided that they wanted no part of holisticism. So they gave the scoring contract to Westinghouse, naturally, and the Westinghousers, naturally, hired some two hundred residents of Iowa City and a certain Paul Diehl, who is a porseffor of Eglinsh. (See The Porseffers of Eglinsh.) at Iowa University. These combined forces, some aiding, some abetting, gallantly resisted the indecent allure of holistic scoring and devised instead an austere discipline, "focused primary trait holistic scoring." Naturally. It is the special virtue of focused primary trait holistic scoring that it rewards exactly that kind of competence that we have chosen as the goal of our highest national aspirations -- the _minimum_ kind. It takes upon itself, in the best Christian tradition, the work that God seems to be shirking. Focused primary trait holistic scoring exalteth them of low degree, and, by ferreting out and punishing pretensions to elitism, putteth down the mighty from their seats. That's the American way, and if the Russians would just go and do likewise, we wouldn't have to worry about them anymore. And thus it comes to pass that, on a scale from 0 to 4, Essay B gets a 2, witness to mastery, and by far the most common score. Essay A, however, is not up to the standards of focused primary trait holistic scoring. It gets a 1. How so? Simple. Writer B gave _two_ reasons for his choice. That is mastery in the "organization of ideas." What is more, his prose style suggests that professors of education and superintendents of schools won't feel too déclassé in his company. Writer A gave only _one_ reason for his choice. However, even had he given fifty reasons, he would not have earned a better score. Focused primary trait holistic scoring is _not_ intended for the encouragement of wiseacres like that snotty A kid, and it provides that no score better than a 1 can be awarded to any writer who "challenges the question." You have to nip that funny stuff right in the old bud. You let that once get started and the next thing you know some of those brats will clarify some of _our_ values and that will be the end of life adjustment as we know it. Well, maybe if we make focused primary trait holistic scoring a state secret, some Russian spy will steal it. It's our only hope. The Topic Suppose that your school is short of money and can keep only one of the following: driver education, school athletics, art, music, or vocational programs. You and other students have been asked to write to the principal and tell which _one_ program you most want to keep. Be sure to give the reasons for the _one_ you choose. Remember, you can choose only _one_ program. ESSAY A "You have proposed an illogical situation, but I will do my best to give you an answer. I choose driver's education over the other classes on my own special process of elimination. School athletics is out because I can't stand the class and have no wish to inflict it on others. Art and music are really unfair electives to leave out, but they are certainly not as important as driving unless you plan to make a career of them. In that case, I'm sorry but life is hard. Vocational programs were the toughest of all to leave out (and it is the subject your mythical school will probably keep, despite this recommendation), because you _do_ make a career of them, but look at it this way: Driving is almost essential to a person's life, and although one could learn to drive elsewhere, it would be much more expensive. Actually, my whole rationale doesn't have to make sense because your question didn't in the first place." ESSAY B "I think you should keep Athletics. Because its good for the Body. And it can Help you if you would like to Become a pro football player." Glowerings of despair... Open-book surgery? Mr. Morris Feller, whose letter to _The Arizona Republic_ is quoted verbatim below, advertises himself as a Master of Science on the web page he cites. He doesn't say which science, but we would bet a hard dollar it's a soft one. In any case, while we may be more cognizant than he of those all too realistic real-world situations where people may actually be expected to perform under very restrictive conditions--involving, for example, time, space, money or values more precious--we are still benevolent enough to hope that Mr. Feller is never so unlucky as to be operated upon by a surgeon educated according to his precepts. But the justice of nature is sure if not swift, so it seems reasonable to expect that, in due course, Mr. Feller will expire from open-book surgery. Unfortunately, so will the rest of us... Not accurate reflection The standard tests as currently given do not accurately reflect the true abilities of our students. A closed-book test is not a valid method of testing for several reasons. First, preparation for a test is done open book. Then the rules are suddenly changed, and the test is given closed book. Second, the test site does not represent a real-world situation: it is a place where students have to perform under very restrictive conditions. When away from the test site, the student will always have access to the information needed for solving the problems. Third, in addition to being confined while taking the test, a strict time limit is imposed. Given these unrealistic conditions, a high anxiety level is created in the student which can cause panic and unclear thinking. A more complete development of the above argument plus ways to remedy the testing process are given in my paper, which can be found at: www.edcen.ehhs.cmich.edu/ins/open.perf. --Morris Feller, Phoenix Too much monkey business... > From: "Greg Swann" > To: "Morris Feller - Honorary Baboon" > CC: "Ken Western/The Arizona Republic" , > "Jennifer Dokes/The Arizona Republic" , > "Bev Medlyn/The Arizona Republic" , > "Patricia Biggs/The Arizona Republic" , > ADE Superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan , > "Barry Young - KFYI" , > "Bob Mohan - KFYI" , > "Ed Walsh - KFYI" , > "Jeremy Voas - New Times" , > "Stephen Auslander - AZ Daily Star" , > "Bobbie Jo Buel - AZ Daily Star" , > "Michael Limon - Tucson Citizen" , > "David Berliner - Dean ASU College of Education" , > "Peter Likins - President UA" , > "John Taylor - Dean UA College of Education" , > "Lattie Coor - President ASU" , > Arizona Governor Jane Dee Hull , > Arizona Parents for Traditional Education , > "Marianne Moody Jennings - ASU/Arizona Republic" , > Arizona Education Association , > "~Greg Swann - Corresponding Secretary" > BCC: > Subject: Guerrilla Schooling #1: Too much monkey-business... > Date: Mon, Aug 2, 1999, 8:10 AM _The Guerrilla Schooling web-page update challenge:_ Can we achieve monkey-see-monkey-do without open-book testing? Welcome to Guerrilla Schooling, a new web-based magazine devoted to achieving academically rigorous education by any means necessary. Keep your hands in plain view and no one will get hurt. We direct your attention to the 'To:' line, where Mr. Morris Feller is honored as our very first honorary baboon. He merits this distinction for a work of the mind published in _The Arizona Republic,_ itself a suspiciously simian-like enterprise. Mr. Feller advocates open-book testing, although we suspect he might be willing to make exceptions for airline pilots and handlers of raw meat. After all, an open-book test _may_ be a valid test of the book and it _may_ be a way to determine if a blind pig can snuffle up a truffle in less than a pig's age, but we can't imagine that even Mr. Feller would willingly risk a mid-air collision or an _e coli_ outbreak just so test-takers can get an uneven break. Whatever. The ha-ha behind this brouhaha is the reaction to the recent release of the Stanford 9 test scores. The reaction, not the release. The _Republic_ approached the issue with the kind of clean, geometric logic that can only be described as orangutangular. First, we were instructed, the scores don't mean anything because the best-performing schools are schools of choice. And second, the scores don't mean anything because a cadre of professors of education don't want for them to mean anything. Breaking vases is actually the very best recreation for cats, according to the cats, but this evidently did not occur to Ms. Bev Medlyn, who is seen above in the 'CC:' line. She recorded with round-eyed credulity the doubt-casting of the unlearned doctors, and she never once heard an encouraging word. Much worse, she didn't bother to mention that the Grand Poobah of the pooh-poohing professors was none other than Dr. David Berliner, also 'CC'd' and himself not just vaguely mandrill-like. Berliner is co-author of a book that claims, _e coli_ fatalities notwithstanding, that the public schools are doing a fine job, never better. It would have been refreshingly scrupulous of Ms. Medlyn to have clued her readers in on this fact... But wait. There's more. The _Republic's_ editorial page trolled for letters denouncing the test results and standardized testing in general. Unsurprisingly, they got some, which is how Mr. Feller came to our attention. They front-loaded the question, baldly, and the sole 'evidence' offered was the stilted, titled articles from the _Republic's_ own pages. But they wouldn't stop beating the dead horse even when they had beaten it to a vapor. Out of ten letters published, two were written by minions of Dr. Berliner who had been quoted by name in Ms. Medlyn's article. If you don't have your book open, that's twenty percent. There is a name for this kind of business, and it ain't monkey-business. But it's all one, isn't it? It is conceivable, at least, that the _Republic_ was too trusting, too naive, too ready to listen to the cloying whisperings of fast-talking con-men. And it is conceivable, at least, that they're not _really_ con-men, they're just misunderstood... Fine. _Our_ business is not monkey-business, either. _Our_ business is to get an education for our children. A _real,_ rigorous academic education, not any of the many unreasonable, unreasoning facsimiles. For _our_ children, not all children everywhere. _Now,_ while they're still children. We are guerrillas, not reformers. We are happy enough to look askance at standardized tests without outsized admonitions of agitpropriety. Resolved: Standardized tests are worse than almost anything. The only thing they're better than is nothing, and this is why we should be more than suspicious of poor, misunderstood non-con-men who insist we should prefer the nothing instead. What we _could_ prefer would be a test as simple as this: A ten-year-old child stands up and reads aloud twelve or twenty lines from _Moby Dick_ and then speaks intelligently to the text. This would be an amazing feat, and you had better know that very, very few ten-year-olds can do it today. So, of course, the test would have to be dumbed down to _Lord of the Flies_ and from there to _Harriet the Spy._ But even that would be too much to expect, so we would have to work our way down to _Curious George,_ and we might then ask our students simply to say something, anything at all, about Curious George the monkey. But we have not yet reached the level of mastery measured by standardized tests, so perhaps we should 'test' to see whether a room full of non-readers can at least _screech_ like a monkey. And when it turns out that half or more of them can't, Mr. Feller will be thrilled to tell us why: It's because the test wasn't open-book. There is no top to human achievement, no level of mastery above which some other master cannot rise. Shakespeare and Copernicus and Beethoven and countless others showed us what we can do at our best, but each one of them bested a giant in his turn, and each of them might someday be bested. Achievement has no top, but surely it has a bottom. There must be some level below which human beings cannot sink, below which we will not only not be human, we will no longer even be alive. All guerrilla objectives aside, it seems a poor idea to plumb for that level. For Mr. Feller is _not_ a baboon, he is merely an _honorary_ baboon. He can do things no baboon can do. For example, he can argue that humanity is not what it is, that knowledge can exist in a book but not in a mind or that a mind without knowledge can nevertheless solve problems, at least problems not involving mortal emergencies. And in its turn a baboon can do things Mr. Feller can never do. Not very many, to be sure, and they're easy skills, easily mastered. Monkey-see-monkey-do all the live-long day, and not a single professor of education to screech up an excuse about why failure should be expected and welcomed, celebrated, cherished even. And no matter what, we are left with this embarrassing detail: Whether it's cracking nuts or cracking skulls, a baboon can do the few small things it can do without ever cracking a book... _______________________________________________________________________ All _that_ is by way of welcome, friends and victims, allies and adversaries. The real business of Guerrilla Schooling is carried out on its web site, which you can find here: http://www.presenceofmind.net/Guerrilla/ The purpose of this note is simply to advise you that the web site has been updated with a new issue. Not such a huge surprise, taking account that this is the first issue. But: We are new and we hope not too awkward. We are lean-look'd prophets whispering fearful change, dancing and leaping all the while. You'll get used to it. Rage, war and scalding scoldings, plus tools, tricks, techniques and tactics. Our children's education is our only destination, and it doesn't do to get sidetracked. If you should someday find your name in the 'To:' line, take heart. It's a rare honor, and you can only claim it by taking and failing to earn tax-dollars for the work of the mind. And you can always strive to do better in the future, although we won't be reserving any breaths awaiting that outcome. If you're in the 'CC:' line, it's because you are presumed to have an interest in education. Fair warning: Being in the 'CC:' line will not keep you out of the "To:' line. The guerrillas are in the 'BCC:' line, the line you can't see. If you think we are laughing at you, you could be as much as half right. _______________________________________________________________________ Marginal notes: We are much too Arizoniated right now. There are guerrillas everywhere, but we need links and the email addresses of educrats and media bigfeet from all over. Send along what you can. And: We speak of ourselves in the plural not because we are regal or editorial but simply because we are enormous, a great demanding glare. It's a good light to read by, I think. And surely there is something I am overlooking, but I can't seem to think of it. I could consult an open book, but I forgot to bring it to class. Worse yet, I haven't yet _written_ that particular book, which makes it hard but not impossible to read. We can read it together if you like, twelve or twenty lines at a time. We can whisper the text or we can shout it, but we cannot speak of reason and lose our voices. And reason is all the arsenal we need to win this war... Until next time, Greg Swann gswann@presenceofmind.net http://www.presenceofmind.net/Guerrilla/