Phil
>Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 11:58:00 +1000
>To: ematusov who-is-at UDel.Edu
>From: Phil Graham <p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au>
>Subject: RE: Campaign Against Public Schools
>
>At 18:04 14-05-99 -0400, Eugene wrote:
>>On the side of history, I think we should be a bit more critical about
>>celebrating compulsory mass education and eliminating illiteracy. I was
>>lucky enough to be raised (in part) by my print-illiterate grandma to
>>appreciate oral literacy (that I and generations after me are robbed from).
>>Greek poet Homer was not able to read and write.
>
Yes. But Homer, it seems, was many people and they held a knowledge
monopoly that reproduced for geenerations the notion of fate ruled by
God(s), the word of whom was the sole province of the few (as always). What
celebrations of the oral tradition often leave out, also, is that they are
as much technologies as writing and reading (ie they are forms of
technologised language, and therefore forms of social control). They have
their own trajectory. For instance, the homeric tradition was popularised
and democratised by the introduction of a new rythm in the oral medium of
ancient Greece: the iambic pentameter. This apparently allowed more
populist participation and suddenly almost anyone could "do" Homer (cf.
Harold Innis, 1950, Empire and Communication, Clarendon: London).
>
The potential usefulness of schools is most often squandered on making
"good", docile citizens who are made by being exposed to the "symbolic
violence" of the state, as you point out. Hence the types of histories and
literacies allowed in the school environment. Critical literacies and
histories are almost always shunned, as we have found in Australia.
>
>>I think it is not
>>overgeneralization that mass print literacy killed mass oral literacy to
>>very high extend. IMF schools are (deliberately) responsible for destroying
>>many traditional societies. Also schooled print literacy is a very peculiar
>>as we know...
>
I think it is also dangerous to be nostalgic about oral literacy which was
merely a less sophisticated way of maintaining past forms of social
relations of extortion (eg feudal, for instance). I'm not arguing with you,
Eugene, about the role of symbolic violence in destroying pristine
cultures. But, one of the clear benefits of print is that it did
effectively weaken (though it didn't destroy) the grip of the old Catholic
church. The Vatican has an important and permanent position on the boards
of the IMF, the WTO, the ILO, and the OECD. The US was once (before the
full development of Capital there) the most critically literate society in
the world (on a per capita basis). This is not, in itself, a bad thing and
is quite potentially a good thing. It may be the means of participation in
society and its governance. Thus, critical literacy should be encouraged.
>
>>snip ---
>
>>Majority schools (both public and private) are
>>nothing more than prison of minimum security for kids (although it is
>>getting more security every year specially for urban schools).
>
I think this is a bit harsh. Prisons are for punishing people. I'm not sure
that everyone who attends a school is there for punishment (correctional
attention in some cases, maybe), or even that they _are_ punished.
>>Viva schools -- no more child labor but ass abuse! Cynically speaking we
should combine together money for schools and for prisons in one budget.
>>What do you think?
>
I think that such statements diminish the severity of child and slave
labour, which, incidentally, are on the increase, and the hell and shame
that some children (who become adults) go through from not being literate.
Statistics (at least in Australia) show a high level of illiteracy and a
history of abuse as children (close to 70%) among prison inmates. My
experience with illiterate adults has shown me the intense shame, anger,
and anxiety that not being able to participate in society's main means of
communication (reading and writing) brings with it. Further, it degrades
the levels of child abuse that some people are subject to. Throwing around
epithets like "prison" and "child abuse", and mixing them up with
education, which ought to be (and in many cases is) an opportunity to
foster greater awareness, is quite dangerous.
We should be careful not to degrade education, but rather to improve its
quality.
What's the alternative?
Phil
Phil Graham
p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html
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"Another damned fat book, eh, Mr Gibbon? Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh,
Mr Gibbon?" - The Duke of Gloucester to Edward Gibbon upon the publication
of "Decline and Fall".
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