.
WHAT CAUSES WHAT? -- Galen to Art
%%%
TODAY'S QUOTES:
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything one has learned in school."
-- Albert Einstein (often attributed to him)
%%%
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
-- Mark Twain
%%%
Wednesday
June 6, 2007
"D-Day"
Dear Art,
The school board's meeting schedule got shifted around a bit from what I'd expected, so that, instead of the public meeting I was anticipating this evening, the board is meeting upstairs in their conference room for a closed executive session followed by a semi-open budget workshop. My point being that, as a consequence, I may actually have a few minutes to unravel some randomnalities.
The title of today's open letter is "What Causes What?" because it's occurred to me of late that "What causes what?" is nothing less than the most important and the most basic question we can -- and should -- ask. (Always, over and over, in every situation.) If we're lucky and smart and focused, we've learned to ask ourselves and each other this question early in life. By grim contrast, we've all observed fools throughout our life for whom WHAT CAUSES WHAT? never does register as a question worth bothering with.
For instance, when you & I were undergrads at Wichita State in the early 1970's, the very act of asking ourselves WHAT CAUSES WHAT? was such a taken for granted component within every problem-solving process and every other format of inquiry our mentors invited us into that I seem to have carried with me into middle age, here in the roaring zeros, the dangerous illusion that the majority of our fellow Americans revere and practice the asking of this most central and basic of all questions (i.e. "What causes what?")
as religiously as you and I have continued to revere and practice the asking of it. But I was deluded in this. I was wrong.
Here's but one case in point: If you'll return now with me to this Board of Education Bldg. in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, where I'm writing this open letter to you this evening, let us turn our thoughts momentarily to the colossal hoax known as "No Child Left Behind." In the process of seeing and hearing what I've seen and heard here in KCMO in recent months, as well as through my reading of Jonathan Kozol's latest book -- and of the books and articles of numerous other educators -- I've come to the conclusion that a student's scoring well on some standardized written test IS NOT CAUSED by numbing drills in "The 3 R's," but rather by that student's home and community (aka "cultural") environmental factors. To get as personal about it as I know how to in this tiny text field this evening, just let me say that it has taken Galen Green nearly half a century and a perilous journey into urban America's pedagogical heart of darkness to finally figure
out that only roughly 23.7% of the correct answers he/I ever came up with on those dozens of standardized tests which our generation began in the 1st grade and didn't finish until we swam the GRE, LSAT, etc. . . WERE CAUSED BY my classroom experience. The rest (the other 76.3%) WERE CAUSED BY those aforementioned factors which we might as well lump together for our purposes here as DUMB LUCK.
That said, I'd be curious to know if you'd perhaps arrived at a similar conclusion years ago and just hadn't bothered to mention it. RSVP when I see you in 3 weeks.
Enlightenmentally Yours,
Galen
.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
From Field Notes to Theories to Heresies
.
FROM FIELD NOTES TO THEORIES TO HERESIES
%%%
TODAY'S QUOTE:
"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Physics and Reality" (1936).
%%%
Thursday
May 31, 2007
The Darling Buds of May
Dear Pam,
Here are some thoughts which have passed through me since our phone conversation on Tuesday evening. Even though I'd planned only to leave a couple of two-minute messages in your voice mail box, I'm glad that you picked up and that we ended up talking for a half hour or whatever it turned out to be. Part of the serendipity of our inexplicable 40-year platonic bond of solidarity has been, for me, the equally inexplicable inspiration which sometimes flows my way from out of it when least expected.
"From field notes to theories to heresies" may be a thought-journey that exists only in my imagination. Still, it does exist there. But is it really a thought-journey as much as it is an evolutionary process that takes place in both real time and imagined time?
But what I'm describing here is a predominantly inductive process, while Einstein's thought-journey tended to be predominantly deductive. Using it, he was able, as we all know, to extract from Nature several bookloads of Principles containing as Promethean a fire as was ever brought down to our species. Can an analogously Promethean fire be extracted from Nature by the bookload of Principles pertaining to the stuff of Galen Green's field notes, the stuff of cultural anthropology? Perhaps not? Perhaps that is the "very much reality" to which T.S. Eliot was referring in "The Four Quartets" when he warned through the voice of "the bird" that humankind cannot bear it.
And yet, this principle still obtains:
NO TRUTH, NO JUSTICE. NOT JUSTICE, NO HAPPINESS.
-- as does this principle:
THE GREATEST GOOD FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER IS THE CLOSEST THING TO HAPPINESS WE DARE STRIVE FOR AS A SPECIES.
In today's title, however, I didn't mention "principles," but rather "theories." That's because I sensed (rightly or wrongly) that "theories" was a concept that would come across to my readers as less presumptuous than "principles." And yet, I chose to say the word "truth" in the body of my discourse, even though we've all heard it misused and otherwise appropriated by liars of every stripe since the world began.
Had I world enough and time, I'd get around to saying all that I mean to say. But I don't, so I shan't. Instead, I'm going to leave you with this cryptic piece of suggestion to encourage, affirm and perhaps even cheer you:
Revisit, when you find yourself with a minute or two now and then, the biblical books of Job & Psalms & Proverbs & Ecclesiastes. Based on the substance of our Tuesday evening conversation, I honestly believe that it might help more than you'd expect. All I'm suggesting is that you read it purely for pleasure; any wisdom to be found in this ancient "Wisdom Literature" of an essentially oppressed peoples is likely to seep right through to perform its healing function.
I imagine that it shocks -- and even disappoints -- both my supporters and critics to hear me recommending to anyone that they read any portion of The Bible. But we find ourselves living in an age which is repeating history because it never knew it in the first place. If patriotic peasants like you and I are to enjoy this ride, we'll need tools beyond the imagining of these sleepwalkers who oppress, revile and slander us. Tools such as:
ECCLESIASTES, PROVERBS, PSALMS & JOB,
&Galen
.
FROM FIELD NOTES TO THEORIES TO HERESIES
%%%
TODAY'S QUOTE:
"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Physics and Reality" (1936).
%%%
Thursday
May 31, 2007
The Darling Buds of May
Dear Pam,
Here are some thoughts which have passed through me since our phone conversation on Tuesday evening. Even though I'd planned only to leave a couple of two-minute messages in your voice mail box, I'm glad that you picked up and that we ended up talking for a half hour or whatever it turned out to be. Part of the serendipity of our inexplicable 40-year platonic bond of solidarity has been, for me, the equally inexplicable inspiration which sometimes flows my way from out of it when least expected.
"From field notes to theories to heresies" may be a thought-journey that exists only in my imagination. Still, it does exist there. But is it really a thought-journey as much as it is an evolutionary process that takes place in both real time and imagined time?
But what I'm describing here is a predominantly inductive process, while Einstein's thought-journey tended to be predominantly deductive. Using it, he was able, as we all know, to extract from Nature several bookloads of Principles containing as Promethean a fire as was ever brought down to our species. Can an analogously Promethean fire be extracted from Nature by the bookload of Principles pertaining to the stuff of Galen Green's field notes, the stuff of cultural anthropology? Perhaps not? Perhaps that is the "very much reality" to which T.S. Eliot was referring in "The Four Quartets" when he warned through the voice of "the bird" that humankind cannot bear it.
And yet, this principle still obtains:
NO TRUTH, NO JUSTICE. NOT JUSTICE, NO HAPPINESS.
-- as does this principle:
THE GREATEST GOOD FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER IS THE CLOSEST THING TO HAPPINESS WE DARE STRIVE FOR AS A SPECIES.
In today's title, however, I didn't mention "principles," but rather "theories." That's because I sensed (rightly or wrongly) that "theories" was a concept that would come across to my readers as less presumptuous than "principles." And yet, I chose to say the word "truth" in the body of my discourse, even though we've all heard it misused and otherwise appropriated by liars of every stripe since the world began.
Had I world enough and time, I'd get around to saying all that I mean to say. But I don't, so I shan't. Instead, I'm going to leave you with this cryptic piece of suggestion to encourage, affirm and perhaps even cheer you:
Revisit, when you find yourself with a minute or two now and then, the biblical books of Job & Psalms & Proverbs & Ecclesiastes. Based on the substance of our Tuesday evening conversation, I honestly believe that it might help more than you'd expect. All I'm suggesting is that you read it purely for pleasure; any wisdom to be found in this ancient "Wisdom Literature" of an essentially oppressed peoples is likely to seep right through to perform its healing function.
I imagine that it shocks -- and even disappoints -- both my supporters and critics to hear me recommending to anyone that they read any portion of The Bible. But we find ourselves living in an age which is repeating history because it never knew it in the first place. If patriotic peasants like you and I are to enjoy this ride, we'll need tools beyond the imagining of these sleepwalkers who oppress, revile and slander us. Tools such as:
ECCLESIASTES, PROVERBS, PSALMS & JOB,
&Galen
.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Everything Is One Thing
.
TODAY'S QUOTES:
"Everything is one thing."
-- from "After the Fall" by Arthur Miller
-------------------
"We're not talking about what we're talking about."
-- ibid.
%%%%%%%%%%%%
Friday
April 13, 2007
"EVERYTHING IS ONE THING" -- for Dr. Jane
Dear Jane,
I'd write to you more often if I could manage to focus the voice within me on a single subject long enough to "spit it out." Instead, it seems nowadays as though all that voice can keep its mind on (that voice which does the writing for me) is a dozen or so things at once. Which is what reminded me of today's title quote (above) from Miller's "After the Fall," one of his later plays which fictionalizes his marriages, including the brief one to Marilyn Monroe. I promised myself that during this period of however many months it turns out to be that I'm assigned here at "the board building," I'd devote as much time and energy as is feasible to drafting pieces of THE TOOLMAKER'S OTHER SON. Each weekday morning as I wake up, however, and go about my inner "pre-writing" of whatever may come out as words later in the evening, I feel the attention of my inner voice, my writing voice, drawn away from memoir and, instead, toward the sorts of insights, opinions, observations, meditations, philosophizings, etc. which you've been finding in your mailbox in recent months.
On the local news at noon today, while Marie & I were eating lunch, we learned of a young unmarried local woman who'd given birth on her parents' basement floor and immediately murdered her newborn babe by stabbing it over a hundred times. "Whatever became of infant adoption in America?" I asked Marie. So, Jane, what has become of it? Harry & Margaret loved to remind me of the hoops they were compelled to jump through in order to adopt me in 1949. (As well it should have been, of course.) I'm asking you this in your capacity as an anthropologist. I realize that sometime in the 1970's & 80's, it became pandemically fashionable for young American women (particularly within the lower socioeconomic strata) to (mostly pretend to) take a stab at single parenting, with their offspring more often than not ending up being (usually, mostly) haphazardly raised by the grandparents (meaning the young mother's mother).
Meanwhile, Jane, what became of all the public and private, religious and secular channels for the Harrys & Margarets of the 70's, 80's & 90's to adopt healthy young infants born inside these United States? I realize that I'm probably revealing a shameful degree of naivete in humbling myself to ask you this question. But I'm not completely blind; and part of what I've been seeing plainly has been that just a little over 100% of the American babies born to working class and lower class single mothers of EVERY race would be better off being adopted and raised by the 21st century equivalent of Harry & Margaret. All the evidence leads us to conclude that each and every one of these single mothers would be better off as well -- as would American society as a whole, not to mention biological "fathers" of these unadopted infants, many of whom end up in the 21st century version of debtors prison as a result of their inability to keep up their "child support" payments.
All that I've just insinuated as backdrop to the question I've asked you, Jane, must now be hidden within taboo and buried deep beneath "We must not say so" -- since I'm a lifelong liberal Democrat and civil rights activist who's not even supposed to be thinking these thoughts, because it might offend the pseudo-feminists and sundry other pseudo-liberals.
YOUR NAPPY-BRAINED BASTARD COUSIN,
Galen
.
TODAY'S QUOTES:
"Everything is one thing."
-- from "After the Fall" by Arthur Miller
-------------------
"We're not talking about what we're talking about."
-- ibid.
%%%%%%%%%%%%
Friday
April 13, 2007
"EVERYTHING IS ONE THING" -- for Dr. Jane
Dear Jane,
I'd write to you more often if I could manage to focus the voice within me on a single subject long enough to "spit it out." Instead, it seems nowadays as though all that voice can keep its mind on (that voice which does the writing for me) is a dozen or so things at once. Which is what reminded me of today's title quote (above) from Miller's "After the Fall," one of his later plays which fictionalizes his marriages, including the brief one to Marilyn Monroe. I promised myself that during this period of however many months it turns out to be that I'm assigned here at "the board building," I'd devote as much time and energy as is feasible to drafting pieces of THE TOOLMAKER'S OTHER SON. Each weekday morning as I wake up, however, and go about my inner "pre-writing" of whatever may come out as words later in the evening, I feel the attention of my inner voice, my writing voice, drawn away from memoir and, instead, toward the sorts of insights, opinions, observations, meditations, philosophizings, etc. which you've been finding in your mailbox in recent months.
On the local news at noon today, while Marie & I were eating lunch, we learned of a young unmarried local woman who'd given birth on her parents' basement floor and immediately murdered her newborn babe by stabbing it over a hundred times. "Whatever became of infant adoption in America?" I asked Marie. So, Jane, what has become of it? Harry & Margaret loved to remind me of the hoops they were compelled to jump through in order to adopt me in 1949. (As well it should have been, of course.) I'm asking you this in your capacity as an anthropologist. I realize that sometime in the 1970's & 80's, it became pandemically fashionable for young American women (particularly within the lower socioeconomic strata) to (mostly pretend to) take a stab at single parenting, with their offspring more often than not ending up being (usually, mostly) haphazardly raised by the grandparents (meaning the young mother's mother).
Meanwhile, Jane, what became of all the public and private, religious and secular channels for the Harrys & Margarets of the 70's, 80's & 90's to adopt healthy young infants born inside these United States? I realize that I'm probably revealing a shameful degree of naivete in humbling myself to ask you this question. But I'm not completely blind; and part of what I've been seeing plainly has been that just a little over 100% of the American babies born to working class and lower class single mothers of EVERY race would be better off being adopted and raised by the 21st century equivalent of Harry & Margaret. All the evidence leads us to conclude that each and every one of these single mothers would be better off as well -- as would American society as a whole, not to mention biological "fathers" of these unadopted infants, many of whom end up in the 21st century version of debtors prison as a result of their inability to keep up their "child support" payments.
All that I've just insinuated as backdrop to the question I've asked you, Jane, must now be hidden within taboo and buried deep beneath "We must not say so" -- since I'm a lifelong liberal Democrat and civil rights activist who's not even supposed to be thinking these thoughts, because it might offend the pseudo-feminists and sundry other pseudo-liberals.
YOUR NAPPY-BRAINED BASTARD COUSIN,
Galen
.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)