*****************************************************************************
George Bernard Shaw:
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind
******************************************************************************
Bill, Owen
Both Willis and B&G take the activity system to task don't they. My problem when this discussion arises time and again is there IS this problem of resistance by these boys and girls. It seems the problem is NOT the resistance perse rather that what has caused it in the first place.
Maybe failure is inevitable and in that case resistance is simply saying one will not take their beating lying down.
I mean if the task is simply to make the boys and girls less resistible that does NOT seem to take us far. It seems what would be needed is not the lack of resistance but its expansion into something different that does not promote failure for the individual but also changes the system somewhat.
As far as the ruling class is concerned I am not at all convinced by the assertion they do not control schools. Some local examples
1) An lower working class school had to wait two extra years to get school windows replaced, so middle / upper middleclass schools could get the newest computers in their classrooms.
2) A lower working class African American community advocated a new elementary school in their community. Although 2/3 of the students came from this community the school was instead put in an upper middle class community in which 2/3 of the students would be bussed everyday. One would wonder how one could have community / parental involvement when children are bussed 2 plus miles a day.
3) An middle/upper class (where the professors kids go) school concerned with test scores fights to lessen desegregation policies, so current working class and minority students can be bussed to other schools. This school later became nationally recognized as a community of learners school".
4) As part of a prevention / intervention strategy most schools with a substantial working class population had 4 year old kindergartens. A parent from an upper middleclass school threatened to sue the district so next year 4 year old kindergarten will exist no more.
I guess I would be interested in others reading of B&G (our newest capitalists) and how it relates to class interests.
Nate
At 09:03 PM 6/18/01, you wrote:
Somehow, Martin, it would seem as if Willis' work does not counter the claims
by B&G. The bottom line -- that the working class 'lads' fail -- seems
consistent with what B&G claim are the experiences of success and failure that
become the internalized seives through which classes separate from each other.
That the boys actively participate -- themselves making the decision to fail --
is perhaps one the details of the processes through which people enact and
constitute society.
It's also not to say that these patterns are deterministic -- they are not
without exception. The exceptions are throughout us.
Perhaps B&G take us part way to a better understanding -- it's not as though a
"ruling class" controls curriculum and runs schools -- I did not read that into
SCA at all -- but that everyone makes it happen, and in the processes of
separation, what happens benefits some much more than others. This gives the
former additional resources which, in turn, feed back to support and sustain
the processes of inequality.
I have noted a curious twist with the Raymond study, however. I think it has
to do with a small town and a real practice and ideology of being a community,
plus government funding.
=====
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Spot the hottest trends in music, movies, and more.
http://buzz.yahoo.com/
Nate Schmolze
http://members.home.net/schmolze1/
schmolze1@home.com
*****************************************************************************
Albert Camus (1957):
An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have
to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.
*****************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 01 2001 - 01:01:34 PDT