-=> Quoting Dan Triplett to Michael Martinez <=-
 DT> MICHAEL MARTINEZ Re: IVAN ILLICH RON MCDERMOTT 07-29-96
 
 DT> This is very interesting.  I'd be interested to know what specifically
 DT> you are referring to when you suggest that students learn only what is
 DT> of interest to them. Like what for example?  Let's say that I am 
 DT> teaching a class on writing.  I have 5 students who HATE to write, or
 DT> so  they say.  Should they be allowed to take another class?  What of 
 DT> history?  What of math?  
No, I think they should just take whatever they want.  If they hate to
write, given the choice, they probably wouldn't be there, which I think
is all right.  If you imagine a situation where everyone has the choice
on what they want to learn, and when they want to learn it, and where
it's very free-style opportunities, I can see people thriving in what
they do best and what they're interested in, much more so than now.  
Whoever has a skill to teach, can do so whenever they want.  Whoever
wants to learn it, can go find someone they like.
This is somewhat the case now, but it's very stifled, because funding
only goes to established schools, certification is needed, you need
to get your GED or graduate high school, etc etc...  The independent
person doesn't have much of an opportunity to either teach or learn
compared to what is possible if we abolish schools.
Illich is a very very incredible writer.  I have read three books of
his, and I'm starting two more right now.  Every time I get into one
of his books fresh, he amazes and suprises me.  After reading _Tools
for Conviviality_ and absorbed it, later on I would think I knew him
and what kind of approach he takes.  I thought I had his ideas
basically figured out.  
I started reading _Gender_ last night, and right away, he was telling me
things that I had never thought of before.  He's a very alive kind of
thinker.  Dynamic.  
Some other of his famous books which I haven't read are:
Toward a history of needs
Medical Nemesis
Celebration of Awareness
.
IT's sort of hard to understand him, especially in the first couple of 
chapters.  When I read his book, I don't understand it until I finish
it.  He has a tendency to throw out all his ideas right away, in the first
page, and the rest of the book explains and explains them.  He also
always defines his own words, the key words that he uses take on his own
meaning.  So that's another difficulty.  But by the end of the book, and
all the examples, you finally know what he's talking about.
You guy have to remember, the changes he would like to see in society
and what he finds wrong with the modern industrial world, are ideals.  It's
black-and-white stuff.  In advocating his ideas here in the echo, I'm
sure I come across sounding pretty radical too.  That's just the way
it sounds when your'e discussing ideals and perfect situations.  But
in practice  I don't mean to be so harsh towards school.  We're all doing
the best we can.
Supposedly, Illich is also an expert in Medieval History.  It says here on
the back of the cover, "born in 1926 in Vienna, Austria, and grew up 
in Europe.  After pursuing studies in the natural sciences, he obtained
degress in history, philosophy, and theology.
Illich has lived and worked all over the world: in 1950 as a parish priest
in New York City; in 1960 as founder of the Center for Intercultural
Documentation in Cuernavaca Mexico; for the past three years, as a lecturer
in medieval history in Gottingen and Berlin."
 DT> I know of students who have very little interest in much of anything. 
 DT> Without some form of guidance (you call it something else I guess)
 DT> these  kids would opt for learning nothing at all.
 
But how much does school change that?  Also, why do you want to change it?
The other thing is, this is quite typical of being young.  I'm sure many
of them will go through various different periods in years to come, which
at times will include interest in learning things.  Also, I'm sure they
are excited by and interest in _something_, it's just not the things
that school offers in its meat-and-potatoes curriculum.
 
School is fine for people who _want_ to be there.   But why should it
be obligatory?
 MM>Why should you provide a certificate of graduation to learn something
 MM>or teach something that you want?  It's ridiculous. 
 DT> Explain this?
 
It's discriminatory.  Your desire to learn isn't based on someone
else's certification of the authenticity of that desire.  Thus, the
opportunity to learn shouldn't be either.  Someone who wants to 
teach or share something is offering his own gift to the world.  There
shouldn't be someone else's constraints on that.  A bad or unethical
teacher doesn't need to be protected from the students by the
policy makers.  The students and the students' families and friends are
their own best judges.   Learning should be culturally endorsed, not
institutionally endorsed.
 DT> I've always wanted to be a brain surgeon.  I think it would be cool to
 DT> cut people's heads open and fix their brains.  But I didn't like the 
 DT> classes I had to take in college because I don't like being forced to 
 DT> learn things I don't have an interest in.  I just wanted to know how
 DT> to  operate on brains and they expected me to be able to read and
 DT> write!   What does the ability to read and write have to do with being
 DT> able to  cut a guys head open?
In a non-schooled society, you may attempt your hand at brain surgery
whenever you want.  But several things naturally provide the best
possible outcome:
1.  If you are a great surgeon somehow in spite of not learning to
read or write, no harm is done and people like you
2.  If you are a miserable failure and end up killing a couple of 
patients, you will quickly find yourself without any more patients 
and somebody will likely decide to make sure that you are punished.
This type of system is much better than a schooled-system, because
the outcomes are equally as good if not better, and it is a much freer
and fairer system.
 DT> I want to be a jet pilot too but I had to learn all this boring
 DT> aviation  stuff about how to know where I was by reading instruments
 DT> and stuff  like that.  I was even expected to know math and be able to
 DT> read with  proficiency.  All I wanted to do was fly.  It isn't fair!
There's plenty of good pilots around, especially from the older days,
who don't know math and never went to aviation school.  Crop dusters,
private pilots, etc..  
Let's say you don't need any schooling or certification to fly a plane.
If you're so stupid as to attempt it without knowing anything about it,
you'll probably kill yourself.  End of story.  No loss or harm to 
society.  If you kill a few other people too, well they had the choice
to fly with you.  If you lie to them about your abilities, that's the
chance they took.  They could have just as easily gone to another pilot
who they've actually _seen_ flying a plane, or they're neighbors
told them that he had flown them before and he's reliable.  It's word
of mouth.
It's a quickly self-limiting process.  Non-masechistic people aren't
going to continually return to an unsafe doctor or unsafe pilot.  And
word gets around on who's good and who's not.
Contrast that with the situation today.  Airline pilots flying drunk.
What's the difference, except that you don't _know_ he's flying drunk
because his certification and the power of the airline corporations
shield him from inquiry.
-michael
... AIDS IS NOT CONTAGIOUS
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 [NR]
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