Phil has a lot of experience getting the word out on issues in his
field (computing, privacy, social responsbility and technology), and
his advice, especially on using the Internet for such purposes, could
be helpful politically and practically in responding to attacks like
the one Ken has been describing against Whole Language pedagogies.
While I agree with Ken that we are all potential victims of such
attacks, and that we all stand to lose if narrow views of pedagogy
prevail politically, I also agree with Phil that some of us are
better positioned on any particular issue to speak out effectively.
Ken has already done this, of course. Dave Bloome wrote a very
scholarly and measured response to the the MIT 'Gang of 40' (that
name is not really meant to be inflammatory but humorous and
chiding, I think). The 'MIT' attack, was really quite authoritarian
narrow-minded and unprofessional, in my personal opinion. Perhaps
that's what too easily happens when scholars try their hand as
amateurs in the genres of political petitioning. Either that or
some people really are more arrogant than I imagine in thinking
their views unassailable grounds for public policy. Someday such
an example may be counted against the sort of closed consensus
academic politics (ala Latour's descriptions) of a discipline
which has happened in the field of theoretical linguistics in
some places. I think personal appeals to the signatories, and
careful responses like Bloome's, are likely to be more effective.
But I wonder about the effectiveness of sending Dave's well
written response, or something of the sort Ken might prepare,
to Newsweek or CBS? are their reporters accustomed to reading
our genres in ways that would have an impact on them the way
they do on us? or do we need a different sort of language for
more political kinds of communication? for entering into
policy debates rather than our own communities' theory debates?
I also found the Newsweek article, taken as a whole, to be
reasonably fair-minded in tone, though not necessarily based
on expertise in the area, nor really addressed to a theory-debate,
so much as reporting on a policy debate.
Ken's suggestion, of course, is that right-wing public relations
managers with considerable professional contacts, savvy, and
resources are orchestrating the present flurry of negative
or at least critical press on Whole Language as part of a larger
political strategy. I pretty well accept that there is a larger
political strategy, and that its PR machine has had some role
in all this, though how much isn't as clear.
As a community we
are not organized to take political action. Should we be? should,
say, _some_ (not necessarily all) professional organizations
collect dues and spend money to be able to make a dent in national
political debate? in legislative lobbying? in the mass media?
Collectively we have the resources to do this. We are a privileged
social caste with considerable capital of most of the necessary
kinds to wield political power. Our traditions disincline us to
do so, but that may not be to the advantage of society as a whole,
and those traditions may serve interests no longer our own.
Maybe we should consider taking such defensive action before a
political situation develops in which we wish we had done so.
JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU