MAGAZINE REVIEWSBack to school -- or not(Home Education, The New Yorker, Mother Jones, The Forward) by Seth Rogovoy WILLIAMSTOWN - Just in time for back-to-school, we look at several articles regarding trends in education. We also peruse a few focusing on the changing face of the labor movement. Home Education Last year, for the first time in the 73-year history of the National Spelling Bee, the first-, second- and third-place winners were all homeschoolers. Not only that: out of 248 participants, 27 spellers - about one out of nine - did not attend organized schools. These facts were not lost on the national media, which in the wake of the invasion of champion spellers who were homeschooled scrambled to find an angle. Surprisingly, the angles they chose were mostly negative. The contestants were portrayed as having been drilled in spelling at the expense of other subjects, as having been pushed into competitive spelling by pushy parents, and as even having “unfair” advantages over public-schooled children. This picture of homeschooled spelling champions as the spelling equivalents of East German athletes was entirely distorted, of course, and in the September/October issue of Home Education magazine (www.home-ed-magazine.com), Celeste Land sets out to rectify the distortion in “A Look at the Spelling Bee Champions.” Land visits several of the winners and draws a picture of their typical homeschool routine. Contrary to the critical portrait of the spellers as single-minded devotees to the art of spelling, she finds the homeschoolers engaged in an eclectic variety of studies and extracurricular pursuits. While a few of them do spend some dedicated time each day on spelling - including the (gasp!) study of Latin and Greek roots - some of them hardly pay any more attention to it than to various other subjects of study. Land also diagrams the bureaucratic hurdles that have been placed in front of homeschoolers wanting to take part in the contest, including several new rules that were adopted after homeschooler Rebecca Sealfon became the first homeschooler to win the national spelling bee in 1997. These rules make it more difficult, if not impossible, for homeschoolers to take part in the National Spelling Bee. In the same issue, an interview with the author of “Unjobbing: The Adult Liberation Handbook.” The New Yorker Speaking of not learning in school, in the September 11 issue of the New Yorker (www.newyorker.com), author Louis Menand takes on freshman composition class in “Comp Time.” In the guise of a review of a new writing guide, Menand’s essay is a wonderfully humorous, erudite look at the frustrations of trying to teach writing to the freshman hordes who come to college ill-equipped for the task. “The interesting thing about the organized effort to dispel the fog of superstition and anxiety about writing that many people bring with them to college is that it consists largely of the incantation of another set of superstitions, probably equally effective or ineffective, depending on the person who adopts them,” writes Menand. “It’s the classic missionary appeal: replace those bad rituals with these good rituals, and we guarantee salvation.” Menand takes to task many of the truisms of writing class: empty your head of your thoughts and organize them afterwards, write many drafts, jot down all your ideas in a notebook always conveniently at your side, write like you talk. All this advice he easily dismisses with the brush of a hand, suggesting “if you don’t have an intelligent idea in your head writing a stupid one down in a notebook is not going to help you.” In the end, Menand’s piece is really a gift to those standing in front of classes this season with the unenviable task of having to get students to write. In its entertaining, witty, and well-argued form, it is the perfect writing sample to give to students to read, analyze, discuss and respond to. Mother Jones In a post-industrial economy increasingly powered by high-tech workers, whither unions? Is the union model a relic of the blue-collar smokestack era, or can it be made relevant to the burgeoning Internet- and information-driven economy? Amy Dean thinks so, and in “Unions.com” in the September/October issue of Mother Jones (www.motherjones.com), Douglas Foster profiles the California activist working to unite low-tech and high-tech workers. Dean believes that the two seemingly unconnected classes of workers share enough common concerns to justify bringing them together under the old-fashioned banner of union solidarity. “Those who feel adrift and unprotected in the churning created by hyperspeed innovation, she believes, could create coalitions that cross income lines and job categories,” writes Foster about Dean. Dean is focusing her efforts in Silicon Valley and on employees of large corporations like IBM and Hewlett-Packard, where engineers, technical writers and quality-control inspectors -- the assembly-line workers of the New Economy - are likely candidates for unionization. The Forward Dean is not the only one storming the ramparts of high-tech unionism. The September 1 Labor Day issue of The Forward, a national Jewish weekly newspaper (on the web at www.forward.com), includes several reports on the changing face of trade unionism. One article, “Striking Actors Find Idleness Too Familiar,” looks at the ongoing strike of commercial actors, who are seeking expanded residual payments for commercials that appear on cable TV and the Internet. Currently an actor receives payment every time a commercial he appears in runs. The agreement, however, does not include the disputed areas of cable TV and the Internet. The advertising industry, which employs the actors, is not only opposed to expanding the residuals - it wants to do away altogether with the residual system and replace it with a one-time, flat-fee system. While actors might seem an unusual type to hit the picket line, reporter Sam Apple finds a populist spirit undergirding the strike. “This populist rhetoric is interesting, in part, because it feels more appropriate for a steelworkers’ than an actors’ strike,” writes Apple. “The largest story of this labor dispute may end up being more about the changing face of America’s unions than about the amount of money actors receive. Once the stronghold of factory workers and physical laborers, unions have gradually shifted to include more middle class and service-oriented professionals.”
Home Education: Box 1083, Tonasket, WA 98855, or 1-800-236-3278, or
New Yorker: Box 56447, Boulder, CO 80322-6447, or 1-800-825-2510, or
Mother Jones: Box 334, Mt. Morris, IL 61054, or 1-800-438-6656, or
The Forward: 45 East 33rd St., New York NY, or 1-800-849-1825, or
Next Article || Previous Article || Back
      Copyright © 1996 BerkshireWeb
|
