fridcy, October 19, 1979
daily nebresken
Author chang
WASHINGTON-You may not remcm
bcr Neil Postman's controversial book of a
decade ago: Teaching as a Subversive
'Activity."
No matter. It was all a mistake in the
first place, he now admits. Well, he doesn't
quite admit that he was wrong, only that
the time-and his views-have changed. His
new book is "Teacher as a Conserving
Activity."
es views, supports
traditional education
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The earlier book, co-authored with
Charles Weingartner, was heavily into edu
cation "reform." More electives. More,
freedom. More openness. More individual
ization1 of instruction. More tolerance in
such matters as grammar.
Now he's pushing such traditional values
as careful speech and writing and even
dress codes.
What happened?
"Fifteen years ago," Postman told the
New Times in a recent interview, "it
seemed to me that the schools needed to
be innovative because culture-its politics
and social ideas-was not keeping pace with
technological change. So the schools had to
serve as a spark for change. They needed to
do things like add more subjects to the cur
riculum." "WE SUCCEEDED IN opening up the
schools, but since then the impact of tele
vision and the other communications
media have forced change at a much more
rapid rate than even I thought possible
IS years ago. The changes have come fast
and furious. Now schools face a different
situation."
It wasn't so much that he was wrong
back then, you see. It's just that times have
changed. Television, you know.
Postman should come off it. Television
and "the other new media" weren't the
culprits, then or now. The problem is a
mistaken view of what the public schools
can and should do.
Education-public education most es-pecially-should
be a conservative enter
prise. Its central purpose is (or should be)
to preserve the common themes, the tradi
tional values, of the society and to con
serve a common body of knowledge..
When the rest of society is in flux, as it
was at the time of Postman's earlier book,
it becomes more important, not less, for
the schools to stay on track.
JAZZ MUSICIANS WILL understand
what I mean. The essence of jazz is innovation-improvisation.
But if the horn men
are to be free to take flights of improvisa
tional fancy, the bassist or the drummer
somebody -must hold the line.
DUE IN PART to the influence of
writers like Postman, we have children en
gaged in historical criticism who never
learned grammar and spelling. We have
children who are choosing from a dizzying
array of "electives" before they are old
enougii to know the necessaries. And the
(MM?
Continued from Page 4 '
. Projecting into the future, allow me to
allude to the November meeting and some
other student government concerns. In the
November meeting there are four (and pos
sibly five) issues of student concern. First,
the question of a $2 student fee increase
will be posed to the regents for the funding
of the student union utilities. I feel that a
student fee increase at this time would be
unwise.
Another item on the November agenda
will be a proposal to implement a program
aimed at the training of graduate teaching
assistants. This program would entail teach
ing techniques and language enhancement.
Hopefully, with the small amount , of
dollars needed for a T.A. training program
we can improve the quality of undergrad
uate education. Much credit is due to the
ASUN Senate for initiating this idea.
Two more items will be brought up in
November: the proposed Alumni Center
and a change in the Speakers Policy. Much
has been said and written about the
Alumni Center proposal. The posture we
will take is that a new Alumni Center is
needed but not at the expense of students.
- This issue of funding political and ideo
logical speakers via mandatory student fees
will be regenerated in November.
, Another item I wish to inform you of
pertains to the hours of the libraries on
campus next semester. The library staff has
moved that, due to budgetary deficiencies
they will close campus libraries one hour
earlier Sunday through Thursday and en
tirely on Saturday. ASUN feels this is an
atrocity. We will go to extremes to combat
this proposal.
' BudCuca
ASUN President
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Pope
result is that we are raising up a generation
of children who know neither the new or
the old.
To return to the music analogy, it seems
to me that it is the peculiar role of the
schools (and of the . homes) to do two
things: to conserve the accumulated know
ledge of theory and technique and to keep
thumping out the rhythm that makes
improvisation and innovation possible.
Seek ye first a thorough grounding in
the traditional and the innovative shall be
added unto you.
Postman, to his credit, seems finally to
understand that, though only dimly.
Continued from Page 4
In the same vein, the sanctity of human
life, of which the pope spoke eloquently, is
clear as long as we don't define life. Again,
science has upset order: It has enabled us
to save the most handicapped, the wound
ed, and to extend "life" in the form of
breathing. We are forced every day to make
very human decisions about what life is. Is
pulling the plug "euthanasia" or ensuring
a "natural death"?
We have, to a certain degree, displaced
nature in our attempt to soften its rule.
Today, biomedical sciences are the great
est challenge since astronomy. In the 17th
century, it was heresy, a burnable offense,
to say that the earth was hot the center of
the universe, but just a planet that cricled
around the sun.
IN BRECHT famous play about
Galileo, an old cardinal gasps: "Mr. Galileo
transfers mankind from the center of the
universe to somewhere on the outskirts.
Mr. Galileo is therefore an enemy of man
kind and must be dealt with as such."
"I've done a turnaround on the question
of standard dialect he told the Times.
"Back in those days,-1 had the idea that a
school should encourage diversity and var
iety on the ground that society was not
doing that."
"Now it seems to me that many of our
institutions-religious, economic, policital
encourage diversity and variety. So one
valuable function of the schools today is to
teach some standard language that could
then act as a unifying force for all the
children in school."
Welcome back, Postman.
(c) 1979, The Washington Pott Company
Even his pope, Urban VIII, a man edu
cated in science, allowed Galileo to be
arrested by the Inquisition. As the head of
the Church he had to defend harmony.
If astronomy violated the order of
heaven and earth, today biomedical sci
ences, like technology, change the human
place in the balance of nature.
At the very end of Brecht's play, the
pope cries, "I do not want to hear the
battle cries: "Church, Church, Church!!
Reason, Reason, Reason!" Eventually
those battle cries died down: The earth
moved around the sun and the Church
accomodated.
Unless we are willing to go back to a
world in which people give birth to eight
children to ensure the survival of two, in
which death was often swift and arbitrary,
or willing to accept a world in which
nature eventually rules again through
famine, we have to accept birth control.
Surely, on this issue, too, the Church will
accomodate.
(c) 1979, The Boston Globe Newspaper
Company The Washington
Post Writers Group
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