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.

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.

“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.”

“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.”