The funeral home has a roof, by a happy accident of design, fit perfectly for watching the sunrise. Not only is it mostly flat, allowing me to sit in a chair facing the east, but the highest ridge also has a small platform which one may comfortably sit upon, with legs resting easily on the gentle slope of the asphalt shingles.
The black night turns a velvet indigo at about 6:00 am. If I were an emperor I'd have my robes dyed in that glorious note and give the purple cloak to a lucky beggar. The colour seeps across the sky a bit like flowing wax. It tends to loose its lustre once it travels a quarter way down the sky, as if it dried out, or dried up. Only on the eastern horizon the molten colour is warmed by the invisible fire.
The terrestrial objects lose the mystery with which the night temporarily mantled them, but curiously, the aspect of the whole gains in proportion, for the blue morning light is, if not the most beautiful, and least the most wholesome. By the end, the colour of the sky is what is called sky blue, that light pastel which glows in the eyes of a few blessed individuals.
The sunrise is best watched in snapshots. I had a candle and a book with me, and every so often looked up to see a new palette or the moon having appear from behind the cloud banks. This way one appreciates each phase with sharp pleasure, otherwise the experience is a bit like watching paint dry.
For the most significant fact of a sunrise is what an ungodly time it takes. Out of the precious twenty-four hours in a day, a sunrise takes a good hour-and-a-half at least. The Farmer's Almanac claims that sunrise in Hillsdale was at 7:36 am, but that only indicates when the sun crossed the threshold of the horizon. It lit up the Great Lakes Plains well before then. On top of that, even from my excellent vantage, I had no change of a glimpse of the sun until it was well above the horizon, owing first to the hills and trees in the distance, and then to the vast swathe of altocumulus that looked very pretty but absorbed all the rays. And by the time the sun actually appeared above the clouds, it had lost nearly all its morning grandeur. It was just your run-of-the-mill Platonic form of the Good.
Sunsets, by comparison, are very short affairs, overflowing with gold and garnets, where the sun is extinguished in the space of a few short minutes. In this the sun bears a resemblance to many growing things - Empires, universities, people, trees, shops, anything you like, which are knit with the threads of fate so slowly, yet in their decay, crumble at a single fierce blow.
So was it worth it? Absolutely not. Maybe on a Carolina beach, with a driftwood fire, sizzling bacon, and a couple friends. But in Hillsdale, after an hour and a half the cold had made me so numb that all I could think about was wrapping up in my duvet.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Words for All Seasons - Introduction
At some point in the rose-tinted future, my website will be handsome. It will also have tabs at the top to allow you to navigate between the sorts of things I write. For now, I must make do with this highly inefficient system of entries in series (rather than in parallel), so please accept my apologies.
My next trick is for lovers of the English language, where I brush the dust off of those old and pretty words which civilization forgot. Many beautiful people do just this, but, while like good librarians they catalogue the titles, they often forget to open the covers, to read, and to smell the pages fragrant with decomposition - rosin from the ink, vanillin and alchohols from the wood pulp. The soul of words is their historical meaning, and for this we must have context. The words here will come with the sentences where I found them, and their (historical) definitions and etymologies as given in the OED.
Collins, n.:
A letter of thanks for entertainment or hospitality, sent by a departed guest; a ‘bread-and-butter’ letter.
Etym: The name of a character, William Collins, in Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice (ch. xxii)!
"When he left, his thanks were never formal; delicacy, humour and affection, often adorned with a sketch or a poem, turned the briefest note into a treasured literary possession. He was certainly the greatest writer of Collinses in English social history."
R. Speaight (1957) p.513 Hilaire Belloc
My next trick is for lovers of the English language, where I brush the dust off of those old and pretty words which civilization forgot. Many beautiful people do just this, but, while like good librarians they catalogue the titles, they often forget to open the covers, to read, and to smell the pages fragrant with decomposition - rosin from the ink, vanillin and alchohols from the wood pulp. The soul of words is their historical meaning, and for this we must have context. The words here will come with the sentences where I found them, and their (historical) definitions and etymologies as given in the OED.
Collins, n.:
A letter of thanks for entertainment or hospitality, sent by a departed guest; a ‘bread-and-butter’ letter.
Etym: The name of a character, William Collins, in Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice (ch. xxii)!
"When he left, his thanks were never formal; delicacy, humour and affection, often adorned with a sketch or a poem, turned the briefest note into a treasured literary possession. He was certainly the greatest writer of Collinses in English social history."
R. Speaight (1957) p.513 Hilaire Belloc
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Universal Literacy
Since the earliest times, literacy was the mark of education; it was the prized possession of jurists, legislators, priests, and generals, no doubt for its enormous practical value, but also, surely for its intrinsic beauty and power. For what other reason do hieroglyphics in their thousands graffiti the walls of the Egyptian palaces? As wealth increases, so education envelops a larger proportion of the population, so alphabets develop partly to simplify the problems of teaching language, so that around the Mediterranean, noun-pictures become syllabic pictures, and finally abstract letters, whereas in China the Mandarin alphabet has been horribly complex up until very recently, when a concerted effort is being made to simplify it. A body of higher knowledge preserves civilization, but literacy is at the root, and taught from the earliest age.
In the last three centuries we have reached the logical conclusion of this historical process (and be quiet, I'm not a Whig), where everyone can read and most can write. Now obviously not everyone can, but this is a fault of inefficiencies and philosophical stupidities in the present pedagogical system rather than inherent limitations in the possibility of universal literacy.
Now the democratic system of government depends upon universal literacy. Over the course of the 19th century the Liberal and Tory parties of England debated the wisdom of extending the franchise. It was a chief complaint of the Tories that Englishman without an education couldn't be expected to participate in government, and it was a chief effort of the Liberal party to give everyone that education, precisely as a rebuttal to the Tory objection, so that in 1866 Gladstone could accuse Parliament of foolishness and senselessness to withhold political power from the working classes, as since 1832, they had increasingly become fit for the exercise of it. Likewise the American founders held universal education to be a necessary defence of sensible government. The early frontier schools didn't teach much, but they taught as much as was needed to read the papers and consider the merits of an argument. The middle class, especially, was trained to read very deeply. Almost every independent household before the revolution had at least a Bible and either a work of history or law written by an Englishman.
This isn't the place to assess the reasons for the link between universal education and democracy, and the most basic reasons should be obvious to the educated person. What I want to consider, briefly, is the danger to democracy when universal literacy begins to decay, as it is doing today: when the system is in place, but repeated attempts to reform it fail; when a growing percentage of citizens no longer claim to be able to read and write; and when those who can make abominably poor use of it. Consider the rise of the paperback bestseller. An elderly fellow who works at the funeral home, a '63 graduate of Hillsdale, used to be an English highschool teacher. He told me today that when he gets Imprimis he immediately throws it into the trashcan, not because he thinks its rubbish (and there's something of an argument there), but because he just doesn't read that stuff. He went by the library today to pick up several volumes of mysteries to entertain himself during the hours he works here, and because recently, apparently, T.V. isn't so good. Many people I know and you know do the same thing.
Here is the problem, as an deductive argument.
Major premise: Democracy depends, and has always depended, among other things, on universal education.
Minor premise: Schools have always taught, and continue to teach, literacy.
Minor premise: Literacy used to stand for, but longer stands for, an education.
Conclusion: Our country is no longer a stable democracy.
"The glories of the past are destroyed, they are no longer understood, and language is forgotten. Letters, you have gone down in a cataract from depth of folly to further depth, from obscenity to obscenity, until you have reached the inane. For whom should any man now write? What ears remain to hear?"
Hilaire Belloc - The New Keepsake (1931)
In the last three centuries we have reached the logical conclusion of this historical process (and be quiet, I'm not a Whig), where everyone can read and most can write. Now obviously not everyone can, but this is a fault of inefficiencies and philosophical stupidities in the present pedagogical system rather than inherent limitations in the possibility of universal literacy.
Now the democratic system of government depends upon universal literacy. Over the course of the 19th century the Liberal and Tory parties of England debated the wisdom of extending the franchise. It was a chief complaint of the Tories that Englishman without an education couldn't be expected to participate in government, and it was a chief effort of the Liberal party to give everyone that education, precisely as a rebuttal to the Tory objection, so that in 1866 Gladstone could accuse Parliament of foolishness and senselessness to withhold political power from the working classes, as since 1832, they had increasingly become fit for the exercise of it. Likewise the American founders held universal education to be a necessary defence of sensible government. The early frontier schools didn't teach much, but they taught as much as was needed to read the papers and consider the merits of an argument. The middle class, especially, was trained to read very deeply. Almost every independent household before the revolution had at least a Bible and either a work of history or law written by an Englishman.
This isn't the place to assess the reasons for the link between universal education and democracy, and the most basic reasons should be obvious to the educated person. What I want to consider, briefly, is the danger to democracy when universal literacy begins to decay, as it is doing today: when the system is in place, but repeated attempts to reform it fail; when a growing percentage of citizens no longer claim to be able to read and write; and when those who can make abominably poor use of it. Consider the rise of the paperback bestseller. An elderly fellow who works at the funeral home, a '63 graduate of Hillsdale, used to be an English highschool teacher. He told me today that when he gets Imprimis he immediately throws it into the trashcan, not because he thinks its rubbish (and there's something of an argument there), but because he just doesn't read that stuff. He went by the library today to pick up several volumes of mysteries to entertain himself during the hours he works here, and because recently, apparently, T.V. isn't so good. Many people I know and you know do the same thing.
Here is the problem, as an deductive argument.
Major premise: Democracy depends, and has always depended, among other things, on universal education.
Minor premise: Schools have always taught, and continue to teach, literacy.
Minor premise: Literacy used to stand for, but longer stands for, an education.
Conclusion: Our country is no longer a stable democracy.
"The glories of the past are destroyed, they are no longer understood, and language is forgotten. Letters, you have gone down in a cataract from depth of folly to further depth, from obscenity to obscenity, until you have reached the inane. For whom should any man now write? What ears remain to hear?"
Hilaire Belloc - The New Keepsake (1931)
Friday, March 13, 2009
Pregnant Thought for the Day No.1: Tension and Balance
Tension is the sensation an open system endures while outside forces compete to govern it.
Balance is the composition of any system conceived, with reason, as a unity.
Tension is to balance as the material and efficient causes are to the formal and final, and as physics is to metaphysics. By implication, some things are in tension, but everything is in balance.
Roberto Bolle
Balance is the composition of any system conceived, with reason, as a unity.
Tension is to balance as the material and efficient causes are to the formal and final, and as physics is to metaphysics. By implication, some things are in tension, but everything is in balance.
Roberto Bolle
Monday, March 9, 2009
Women
No one really knows the truth about them, so in a way they're like black holes or gnomes. However, I happen to have a small, tidy corner on the covered market of knowledge, and this post is a special display, sought for across oceans, inquired into on dark nights with fey friends, even wrested from the secret vault of wisdom.
Naturally, they'll deny all of it. But one would expect that, since they've always been skilled in the art of deception, which is the greatest weapon of war, and of course they're always ready to wage war.
It has to do with love, which is the old-fashioned word for 'relationships,' and with the perennial insoluble questions, do I love him? do I not love him?
But prior to the questions of love, there is a metaphysical event which transpires deep in a woman’s heart of hearts, a very sacred place where even she herself is not allowed but once a year, dressed in pure white linen, with bare feet, dripping in blood. (I wonder whether there may not be some fitting element of self-worship for woman, having to do with being the representative of Beauty on this mortal earth.) This temple is the seat of the will, and whenever she meets a man, a fundamental act of the will inclines her towards or away from the idea of love with him, whether she be conscious of it or no.
Absent this primitive allegiance of the will, she is incapable of falling in love with him, though he be the most admirable sort of person, and it's here she's sometimes forced to reply to suitors, "I don't know why, I'm just not interested." Yet from time to time the strength of his personality, the honour of his career, or the piety of his religion may work their effects upon her imagination, and he may eventually change her will.
Yet as long as she has a positive inclination, some far more important condition must be satisfied. It is difficult to tell what it is, since she may contentedly date a man for many months before realizing it herself. She must respect him for the greatness of his soul.
Greatness of soul is a tricky thing to understand, though everyone has a sense of it. Naming the thing sometimes provokes hostility - it appears to contradict the Christian virtue of humility. For the essence of greatness of soul is ambition. He (or she) loves glory. To be precise, greatness of soul is the habitual striving to do great and honourable deeds, together with the self-respect to seek deserved praise. After a few minutes in the presence of these people, we are aware of their power and might, we are often overcome with loyalty. Dr.Blackstock (Hillsdale College’s Provost) has a term for these people: princes of men. It is the secular equivalent of sainthood - though they likewise owe their excellence to grace, only through different channels.
They aim for high things, and they do not succumb to trouble. They write mellifluous poetry, they train up their children, they build sturdy houses, they make passionate love, they lay down their lives for their brother, heads turn when they enter a room, and under their rule regimes enjoy a golden age.
They are secure in themselves; they don’t cry for the attention that lesser people demand under lesser stress. They are content with their lot even though they be despised. They make sure never to stay in another man's debt. They believe in destiny, but they don't believe in inevitability.
When they fall in love, they are not gripped for long by stupor, and when they gain the affection of their beloved, they do not relax into a passive happiness, for they have enough common sense to know that she is not the beatific vision; not at all: they invite their love to be co-creator of the world they are making.
A woman can respect a man with such a soul, and, here is a hard thing: she probably won't be happy otherwise. Traditional aristocracies hate to marry down; this is the moral equivalent of marrying down. Still, you say, this doesn't explain why so many couples fall and stay in love, for few enough men and few enough women are capable of great deeds! Well, don't think of this in binary: there are grades, there are measures, there are backwaters and outliers. The postman may be further along than the speechwriter, and whatnot.
Yet through all the delightful complexity of it, the quality of greatness shines through the outward appearance, and a woman is able to recognize it, both in herself, and in her man. And when she sees a greater soul in a man than she sees in herself, she can fundamentally respect him.
Just so, a man can only fundamentally respect a woman who is greater than he, and probably won't be happy otherwise. But it turns out that though a couple each think of the other as higher than him or herself, that this is the operation of humility; really, they are equal. Consult your own experience. Do you not find that you have a similar degree of respect for each person in a happy couple? And do you not find that amongst couples that break apart, that you often had a much higher regard for one of them than the other?
And here I will tread cautiously, because it is in the power of these words to wound, so you must read them with salt and with caution of your own, but I have also seen that, in relationships between serious, honourable people, the woman is much more likely to break off the relationship than the man, and this may be because women generally are of greater worth then men. So that a great woman often finds that she does not recognize in her man a true equality of soul. Tragically, she cannot fundamentally respect him, and so, with him, she cannot be happy. (N.B. She never tells him so. Thus for the second time a man hears the dismal dismissal, "I don't know why, I'm just not interested.")
I'm far from explaining all love, its entwinings and unwindings, in this way. I merely explain what I believe to be a very important part of it. Take it or leave it.
Give me women, wine, and snuff,
Until I cry out, "Hold, enough!"
You may do so sans objection,
'Till the day of resurrection.
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be,
My beloved trinity.
~John Keats
Naturally, they'll deny all of it. But one would expect that, since they've always been skilled in the art of deception, which is the greatest weapon of war, and of course they're always ready to wage war.
It has to do with love, which is the old-fashioned word for 'relationships,' and with the perennial insoluble questions, do I love him? do I not love him?
But prior to the questions of love, there is a metaphysical event which transpires deep in a woman’s heart of hearts, a very sacred place where even she herself is not allowed but once a year, dressed in pure white linen, with bare feet, dripping in blood. (I wonder whether there may not be some fitting element of self-worship for woman, having to do with being the representative of Beauty on this mortal earth.) This temple is the seat of the will, and whenever she meets a man, a fundamental act of the will inclines her towards or away from the idea of love with him, whether she be conscious of it or no.
Absent this primitive allegiance of the will, she is incapable of falling in love with him, though he be the most admirable sort of person, and it's here she's sometimes forced to reply to suitors, "I don't know why, I'm just not interested." Yet from time to time the strength of his personality, the honour of his career, or the piety of his religion may work their effects upon her imagination, and he may eventually change her will.
Yet as long as she has a positive inclination, some far more important condition must be satisfied. It is difficult to tell what it is, since she may contentedly date a man for many months before realizing it herself. She must respect him for the greatness of his soul.
Greatness of soul is a tricky thing to understand, though everyone has a sense of it. Naming the thing sometimes provokes hostility - it appears to contradict the Christian virtue of humility. For the essence of greatness of soul is ambition. He (or she) loves glory. To be precise, greatness of soul is the habitual striving to do great and honourable deeds, together with the self-respect to seek deserved praise. After a few minutes in the presence of these people, we are aware of their power and might, we are often overcome with loyalty. Dr.Blackstock (Hillsdale College’s Provost) has a term for these people: princes of men. It is the secular equivalent of sainthood - though they likewise owe their excellence to grace, only through different channels.
They aim for high things, and they do not succumb to trouble. They write mellifluous poetry, they train up their children, they build sturdy houses, they make passionate love, they lay down their lives for their brother, heads turn when they enter a room, and under their rule regimes enjoy a golden age.
They are secure in themselves; they don’t cry for the attention that lesser people demand under lesser stress. They are content with their lot even though they be despised. They make sure never to stay in another man's debt. They believe in destiny, but they don't believe in inevitability.
When they fall in love, they are not gripped for long by stupor, and when they gain the affection of their beloved, they do not relax into a passive happiness, for they have enough common sense to know that she is not the beatific vision; not at all: they invite their love to be co-creator of the world they are making.
A woman can respect a man with such a soul, and, here is a hard thing: she probably won't be happy otherwise. Traditional aristocracies hate to marry down; this is the moral equivalent of marrying down. Still, you say, this doesn't explain why so many couples fall and stay in love, for few enough men and few enough women are capable of great deeds! Well, don't think of this in binary: there are grades, there are measures, there are backwaters and outliers. The postman may be further along than the speechwriter, and whatnot.
Yet through all the delightful complexity of it, the quality of greatness shines through the outward appearance, and a woman is able to recognize it, both in herself, and in her man. And when she sees a greater soul in a man than she sees in herself, she can fundamentally respect him.
Just so, a man can only fundamentally respect a woman who is greater than he, and probably won't be happy otherwise. But it turns out that though a couple each think of the other as higher than him or herself, that this is the operation of humility; really, they are equal. Consult your own experience. Do you not find that you have a similar degree of respect for each person in a happy couple? And do you not find that amongst couples that break apart, that you often had a much higher regard for one of them than the other?
And here I will tread cautiously, because it is in the power of these words to wound, so you must read them with salt and with caution of your own, but I have also seen that, in relationships between serious, honourable people, the woman is much more likely to break off the relationship than the man, and this may be because women generally are of greater worth then men. So that a great woman often finds that she does not recognize in her man a true equality of soul. Tragically, she cannot fundamentally respect him, and so, with him, she cannot be happy. (N.B. She never tells him so. Thus for the second time a man hears the dismal dismissal, "I don't know why, I'm just not interested.")
I'm far from explaining all love, its entwinings and unwindings, in this way. I merely explain what I believe to be a very important part of it. Take it or leave it.
Give me women, wine, and snuff,
Until I cry out, "Hold, enough!"
You may do so sans objection,
'Till the day of resurrection.
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be,
My beloved trinity.
~John Keats
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Tests, Tests, Tests
If you are a highschool or college student, when was the last time you took an academic test? Probably last week. And what are you doing now? Probably reviewing for a test. If you are a highschool or college professor, what are you doing now? Probably preparing or marking a test. I will tell you outright, I think this near-ubiquitous pedagogic crutch a feeble procedure and a misuse of time.
What is it that a highschool aims to teach? It is no revolutionary thing to say that it aims to train up strong, active minds which take delight in truth and beauty, and in the process introduce them to some of the most important ideas, names, languages, and literature that nourish our cultural discourse. Young minds may be brilliant or may be dumb, but nearly all of them are capable of forming some attachment, some love, to a science, to a period of history, or to an author. This sort of intellectual desire ought to be encouraged wherever it is found, and allowed to flourish. Some day it may become a real academic excellence; perhaps it may lead to related studies; more than likely the pure experience of intellectual love will prepare the student to throw the weight of his mature mind into an honourable and serious labour, political or academic (and I mean political in the largest sense of the word).
How does the well-meaning test assist this purpose? Generally speaking, it forces a student to review the material he has copied down from the lectures and his textbook; in college, it even forces him to think independently on the meaning and significance of the material. Without a test, without the incentive of a good grade and the embarrassment of a bad one, most students wouldn't give a second thought to the material. Even the best of them must be led gently but firmly towards knowledge.
Yet precisely what command of knowledge does a test demand? To be specific, memorized facts and regurgitated analysis. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with regurgitated material. Were it not for regurgitated food, in fact, the worldwide bird population would have died off shortly after the fifth day of creation, for lack of means to feed the chicks. However, it is an essential point of regurgitation that the food doesn't stay in the belly of the parent, but is cast into the gullet of the chick, or in our case, the pages of the bluebook. Regurgitated information does not nourish the mind. Information from one science does not shape the information of another. All is kept tightly preserved in boxes of the memory labeled 'upcoming exam'.
The existence of mid-terms in college is hard enough. At the Academy, the highschool history students take an exam almost once every two weeks. These are usually preceded by a review day, where the professor quizzes the students and fields their questions. The year is split into three terms, such that in each term, the children take several miniature tests and a comprehensive exam at the end. The effect on most of these students I conceive to be a tendency to forget what was learned in all previous terms but the present, and I observe the same in college, that very few remember what they studied so hard for in previous semesters. The best of them perhaps remember in the spring what they learned in the fall.
Now, this is not in itself problematic. Isn't the aim of education not a memory for facts (and here I included regurgitated analysis in my definition of 'fact'), but appreciation of principles, and a delight in knowledge? Yes indeed, but facts are a means to that knowledge. Constant testing constantly empties out those facts and restarts the new term with new facts, so that no comprehensive idea is built up. Any enlargement of the mind is accidental and infrequent.
I suggest we learn a lesson from England, and administrate highschool tests far less often, perhaps once a year, for several reasons:
1) The difficulty of holding in the memory such a vast volume of facts forces the student to develop a facility for ordering his acquired facts according to principles, for using parts of other studies to reinforce his memory of this one, and in general to cultivate precisely what we wish for.
2) The allegiance to GPA as a measure of intellectual success, and consequent cutting of corners and the habit of studying to the exam, diminishes, as does the opposite tendency to become inoculated against its authority. Believe me, the frightful difficulty of a once-yearly exam creates near awe about it.
3) It frees up immense amounts of time both in class and out for both teacher and student, to get on with the business of learning. It doesn't at all preclude the potential to review past material from time to time, and even to take informal tests. In fact, a wise teacher will do so. But the mood of the review changes, from being servile to being liberal. I think this is the real meaning behind the contemporary concern that kids become 'stressed' and 'over-worried' at having to take so many exams.
In the meantime, kids can be tested in far more fruitful ways. There should be frequent competitions for prose and poetry memorization, for written essays, for artistic creativity, just as there already are in sports. Achievement shouldn't be mechanized and economized into a number or a letter. It should be honoured as a particular and glorious production of a thriving mind, just as it truly is in the adult world. There is very little competition in exams, because they are by nature private. But competitions of production are by nature public. And kids - especially the boys - are far more inspired by public honour than they are by private self-respect.
There are several counter-arguments that I haven't the time or space to recite or refute. I would also like to stress that nothing is further from my mind than lampooning the wisdom and the deliberate thoughtfulness of schools and professors who do administrate frequent exams. However, I state the general case as seems to me to complement a complete pedagogy, and I'd like you, my sweet reader, to comment on this and debate with me and the other readers. I know much of what I blog is obscure, but I've no doubt you have at least briefly thought about this particular issue before, it being so near to your heart, as it were.
What is it that a highschool aims to teach? It is no revolutionary thing to say that it aims to train up strong, active minds which take delight in truth and beauty, and in the process introduce them to some of the most important ideas, names, languages, and literature that nourish our cultural discourse. Young minds may be brilliant or may be dumb, but nearly all of them are capable of forming some attachment, some love, to a science, to a period of history, or to an author. This sort of intellectual desire ought to be encouraged wherever it is found, and allowed to flourish. Some day it may become a real academic excellence; perhaps it may lead to related studies; more than likely the pure experience of intellectual love will prepare the student to throw the weight of his mature mind into an honourable and serious labour, political or academic (and I mean political in the largest sense of the word).
How does the well-meaning test assist this purpose? Generally speaking, it forces a student to review the material he has copied down from the lectures and his textbook; in college, it even forces him to think independently on the meaning and significance of the material. Without a test, without the incentive of a good grade and the embarrassment of a bad one, most students wouldn't give a second thought to the material. Even the best of them must be led gently but firmly towards knowledge.
Yet precisely what command of knowledge does a test demand? To be specific, memorized facts and regurgitated analysis. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with regurgitated material. Were it not for regurgitated food, in fact, the worldwide bird population would have died off shortly after the fifth day of creation, for lack of means to feed the chicks. However, it is an essential point of regurgitation that the food doesn't stay in the belly of the parent, but is cast into the gullet of the chick, or in our case, the pages of the bluebook. Regurgitated information does not nourish the mind. Information from one science does not shape the information of another. All is kept tightly preserved in boxes of the memory labeled 'upcoming exam'.
The existence of mid-terms in college is hard enough. At the Academy, the highschool history students take an exam almost once every two weeks. These are usually preceded by a review day, where the professor quizzes the students and fields their questions. The year is split into three terms, such that in each term, the children take several miniature tests and a comprehensive exam at the end. The effect on most of these students I conceive to be a tendency to forget what was learned in all previous terms but the present, and I observe the same in college, that very few remember what they studied so hard for in previous semesters. The best of them perhaps remember in the spring what they learned in the fall.
Now, this is not in itself problematic. Isn't the aim of education not a memory for facts (and here I included regurgitated analysis in my definition of 'fact'), but appreciation of principles, and a delight in knowledge? Yes indeed, but facts are a means to that knowledge. Constant testing constantly empties out those facts and restarts the new term with new facts, so that no comprehensive idea is built up. Any enlargement of the mind is accidental and infrequent.
I suggest we learn a lesson from England, and administrate highschool tests far less often, perhaps once a year, for several reasons:
1) The difficulty of holding in the memory such a vast volume of facts forces the student to develop a facility for ordering his acquired facts according to principles, for using parts of other studies to reinforce his memory of this one, and in general to cultivate precisely what we wish for.
2) The allegiance to GPA as a measure of intellectual success, and consequent cutting of corners and the habit of studying to the exam, diminishes, as does the opposite tendency to become inoculated against its authority. Believe me, the frightful difficulty of a once-yearly exam creates near awe about it.
3) It frees up immense amounts of time both in class and out for both teacher and student, to get on with the business of learning. It doesn't at all preclude the potential to review past material from time to time, and even to take informal tests. In fact, a wise teacher will do so. But the mood of the review changes, from being servile to being liberal. I think this is the real meaning behind the contemporary concern that kids become 'stressed' and 'over-worried' at having to take so many exams.
In the meantime, kids can be tested in far more fruitful ways. There should be frequent competitions for prose and poetry memorization, for written essays, for artistic creativity, just as there already are in sports. Achievement shouldn't be mechanized and economized into a number or a letter. It should be honoured as a particular and glorious production of a thriving mind, just as it truly is in the adult world. There is very little competition in exams, because they are by nature private. But competitions of production are by nature public. And kids - especially the boys - are far more inspired by public honour than they are by private self-respect.
There are several counter-arguments that I haven't the time or space to recite or refute. I would also like to stress that nothing is further from my mind than lampooning the wisdom and the deliberate thoughtfulness of schools and professors who do administrate frequent exams. However, I state the general case as seems to me to complement a complete pedagogy, and I'd like you, my sweet reader, to comment on this and debate with me and the other readers. I know much of what I blog is obscure, but I've no doubt you have at least briefly thought about this particular issue before, it being so near to your heart, as it were.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Kyrgyzstan (yes, one of those)
The US lacks decent supply routes into Afghanistan (it's landlocked, remember); meanwhile, President Obama has already begun to order many more troops moved into the region, which is still suffering heavily from Taliban attacks. One route goes through the Khyber Pass from Pakistan, but in recent months Pakistan has become more tolerant of the Taliban organization which has set up in the northwestern villages, so that route is coming under heavy attack. The only major airbase supply route is in the northern country of Kyrgyzstan, called Manas (after a legendary national hero who united the tribes against the Mongol hordes),
It appears that the Russians offered the Kyrgyzstanis a $2.15 billion package earlier this year to kick the Americans out of Manas airbase. No doubt they will use this as leverage in negotiations against the missile shield in Eastern Europe. At the same time, it seems that Mr. Obama, in a formerly secret letter to President Medvedev, has offered to give up the missile shield in return for Russia abandoning its nuclear financial and technological aid to Iran.
This seems the height of folly. It swaps a temporary setback for Iran (which will continue to press forward in nuclear technology with or without Russia's help) in return for a permanent setback for the US (which will leave Europe undefended from long-term future Iranian attacks, Russian attacks, or anyone else's attacks). In consequence it shows Russia that underhanded power-politics works, that the US is weak and irresolute, and perhaps most importantly of all, it injures the trust that we have earned in Eastern Europe, which depends upon us to keep the Russians in check; when we show our ignorance of Russian diplomatic methods and the absence of backbone, they will begin to transfer their trust to the EU. NATO itself may be threatened (I know that already France and Germany are in major disagreement with the US about policy, for instance over inducting Georgia into the alliance system).
Considering this background, it seems that leaving the airbase just as we are doing is part of the same weakness of will and blinkered foreign policy focusing exclusively on the immediate problems in Iran and Afghanistan.
Now, it may be IN FACT that allowing Russia to exercise dominance of Central Asia is the most prudent policy, because it may satisfy its imperial ambitions in the medium-term, thus keeping pressure off of Eastern Europe. Also, China is interested in expanding its power, and may clash with Russia (both nations apparently have been conducting joint wargames with the Asian countries, including special-forces operations). But this outlet for Russian ambition would be made terribly dangerous if China and Russia were to form an Asian alliance. Someone should figure out the likelihood of this event.
But I think it more prudent, as a rule of course, to show Russia that they cannot exert control over this region, or anyother, most especially with such obvious ploys like the one over Manas, in which absolutely no Russian interest is served except that America is hurt. In fact, Russia is hurt by it also. When a militaristic state can only afford an (openly acknowledged) military budget of $50 billion, $2.15 billion as a diplomatic bribe hurts a lot. If they end up paying it, but their purpose is nevertheless totally defeated, they lose money and face. That ought to be our goal.
This is far and away the best analytic article (and short, too) that I have found on Manas, and asserts the Americans can find cheaper supply routes elsewhere. But we should not only find cheaper supply routes. We should secure so many of them that we show Russia to be impotent in regards to our foreign policy.
Though the article gives the right solution, it glosses over the central problem: Manas is not about supply routes, but about politics with Russia. I think the best analogy is to think of Russia building a blockade in our path. If we can blow up the blockade, great. If we can go around it more cheaply, and come out stronger than ever, better.
It appears that the Russians offered the Kyrgyzstanis a $2.15 billion package earlier this year to kick the Americans out of Manas airbase. No doubt they will use this as leverage in negotiations against the missile shield in Eastern Europe. At the same time, it seems that Mr. Obama, in a formerly secret letter to President Medvedev, has offered to give up the missile shield in return for Russia abandoning its nuclear financial and technological aid to Iran.
This seems the height of folly. It swaps a temporary setback for Iran (which will continue to press forward in nuclear technology with or without Russia's help) in return for a permanent setback for the US (which will leave Europe undefended from long-term future Iranian attacks, Russian attacks, or anyone else's attacks). In consequence it shows Russia that underhanded power-politics works, that the US is weak and irresolute, and perhaps most importantly of all, it injures the trust that we have earned in Eastern Europe, which depends upon us to keep the Russians in check; when we show our ignorance of Russian diplomatic methods and the absence of backbone, they will begin to transfer their trust to the EU. NATO itself may be threatened (I know that already France and Germany are in major disagreement with the US about policy, for instance over inducting Georgia into the alliance system).
Considering this background, it seems that leaving the airbase just as we are doing is part of the same weakness of will and blinkered foreign policy focusing exclusively on the immediate problems in Iran and Afghanistan.
Now, it may be IN FACT that allowing Russia to exercise dominance of Central Asia is the most prudent policy, because it may satisfy its imperial ambitions in the medium-term, thus keeping pressure off of Eastern Europe. Also, China is interested in expanding its power, and may clash with Russia (both nations apparently have been conducting joint wargames with the Asian countries, including special-forces operations). But this outlet for Russian ambition would be made terribly dangerous if China and Russia were to form an Asian alliance. Someone should figure out the likelihood of this event.
But I think it more prudent, as a rule of course, to show Russia that they cannot exert control over this region, or anyother, most especially with such obvious ploys like the one over Manas, in which absolutely no Russian interest is served except that America is hurt. In fact, Russia is hurt by it also. When a militaristic state can only afford an (openly acknowledged) military budget of $50 billion, $2.15 billion as a diplomatic bribe hurts a lot. If they end up paying it, but their purpose is nevertheless totally defeated, they lose money and face. That ought to be our goal.
This is far and away the best analytic article (and short, too) that I have found on Manas, and asserts the Americans can find cheaper supply routes elsewhere. But we should not only find cheaper supply routes. We should secure so many of them that we show Russia to be impotent in regards to our foreign policy.
Though the article gives the right solution, it glosses over the central problem: Manas is not about supply routes, but about politics with Russia. I think the best analogy is to think of Russia building a blockade in our path. If we can blow up the blockade, great. If we can go around it more cheaply, and come out stronger than ever, better.
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