Sustained forests; sustained profits
evolving since March 30, 1999
A unit of Lasting Forests
Sustained forests; sustained profits
evolving since March 30, 1999
Educators' Fiction
Life in a High-Tech Teaching-Learning Space
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The lights went on and the students filed out into "The Barn." No barn, this was a large space with alcoves, lounge chairs, and places for coats and other items. It was the before-and-after preparation room for students. Separate from the group space, it was essential to it. They were organs of the same body. Rather than roam the halls or squat on floors or in stairways awaiting a lecture, in this place the expected student behavior was either for quiet preparation before a lesson or, as now, the noisy aftermath.
John Rostock guided two students into The Barn with a light hand on their shoulders. He needed a break, but as they strolled he listened intently to a question, then a counter claim.
The large beams, rough wood, hanging tapestry and ferns, and sculpture gave the room a barn-like personality. The scatolgical sophomores had named it that for the post-lecture speeches, posturing,and debate. Officially it was the Alzo Memorial. Near one end of the space there were two small podia, that anyone could mount to ask a question, give an opinion, or make a counter claim about the previous lesson. The second could only be used for a reply or an argument. That was the only local rule that seemed to exist (other than clean up your own mess.) Anyone could speak, even at great length, even if no one was listening. The podia, either one, was relinquished to a new idea. Any violation of the rule about going on and on about the same idea was drowned out by people beating with wooden mallets on large suspended hollow columns. They weren't used often, but it was spectacular when they were! The noise could be heard all over campus. The violator was nullified, usually with some degree of humor, but otherwise it was a group social act. It said convincingly: talk if you must, but we shall not listen, and we shall not leave. You must, and if we bother others outside sufficiently because of you, then further action will be taken. The suspended columns were like primitive war drums and organ pipes.
Every Ides of March, at midnight a hooded group of half-naked student-savages incredibly and seemingly without practice played a newly written concert on these wooden columns.
Warren was on the podium now. He was a handsome youth, articulate, well groomed, with the bearing of an old-money family. He had, amazing to see, the intellectual ability of a locust post. He had somehow not understood the word void in the lesson and in the unusual workings of his mind had heard the word hope and they had been fixed as "...devoid of hope." He was trying to be polite and yet suggest that the professor had misread the situation, that students were not devoid of hope, and that he had read somewhere that hope was a human trait.
A pretty blonde girl beamed at him and touched his arm as he stepped down with a big grin. He made a sythe-like move of his fist that said "I guess I told him." Russ observed, wondering if there is any hope, but wondering if the pretty girl was as ignorant as Warren or perhaps sharp as hell with a very realistic view of her potential social and financial future with this handsome lad.
No one stepped to the other podium; they were too kind.
Karen, stepped up, obviously nervous. Months earlier, Rostock had told her that she must force herself to the podium. Group speaking ability must be learned in groups. She was forcing. "I was excited by today's lecture - I mean 'lesson' (laughter, related to recent harsh denial of the overgeneralization of that word.) I believe I perceive the needs for change. I'm not sure I agree with Dr. Rostock that there have been no educational changes . I guess I don't really care as long as there have been some good changes. I'm afraid he's going to recommend to us some massive amount of work we must do to get the needed changes and I'll tell you that I, for one, already have enough work. On the other hand, maybe we are the special group, maybe the only group that can cause the change.
"I thought I saw a little of me in several of the students of Rostock's little poem. I couldn't agree more that students should be the base of the educational system, but I'm having a hard time sinking my teeth into that. On one hand he says we are the problem but he's asking us to solve the whole big mess.
"I want to see the other parts of neodidactics that Rostock keeps hammering at, and I wish he had told us more of the other parts. I can't decide whether he's picking on students or really has hope for us. I'm anxious to hear more."
She was summarizing as he had told her to do until she gained confidence, but the delight in his face was surprising because she had been critical of the final part of the presentation. His delight was in that she had stepped beyond summary to a primitive recommentation. There was creativity emerging in the group space.
Sam Fraze had stood in The Barn after Rostock's lecture. He had endured Warren's pointless remarks from the podium, stared intently at the curves under the blouse of the pretty blonde, tried to create an image of what she must really look like. He was operating at several levels, one hormone driven, the other fired by Alternative 16. This was the most tangible and powerful part of the lesson, he felt, and he wanted to get into a discussion of it. He was reluctant to get things started, partially because the idea was new to him and he hadn't learned that questions are as legitimate parts of conversations as are pronouncements. He was worried about what Rostock would say, what shy Karen would say, and he still had residual manners that prevented the bluff, body language, and bravado that would have assured him the next opportunity at the podium. Karen had stepped up before him and he watched her with an interest that had grown for a year. His interest in her black eyes and what-seemed-biologically-impossible small waist diverted his thoughts from her presentation. He was caught a little by surprise when she did not even mention Alternative No. 16, the notion of suing the university to redress some of the unfairness, inequity and seeming consumer fraud. He moved to the podium and as he took the first step, the chimes sounded to start the next part of Rostock's lesson.
The Free
"Rustock, you dumb son of a bitch! What in the hell are you trying to do now? Never in my goddddd...dammed life have I ever heard of such a dumb trick! What are you up to? Do you want trouble? Do you like trouble? I just can't believe I heard what I did! Sue the university! Sue teachers! What in hell..!!?
"Good morning, Pete," Russ interrupted. He had just gotten into his office. It was a bit before 8 am, as he customarily came to work and he was still standing before his desk thumbing through a stack of unopened envelopes when Pete Spring knocked and simultaneously wrenched the door handle and burst in.
Pete Spring had gotten a PhD after several years experience as an engineer. He had done a dozen years of productive teaching and research. It was all very applied research. That, along with an obscenely large protruding belly, a dirty untrimmed mustache that was occasional browned by his reversion to tobacco chewing, and his unscholarly use of the language of the King's navy (reported to nameless parents and hapless authorities by untold numbers of unnamed students) put him at odds with his former administrators. Productive, respected among engineers, almost loved by 10 percent of every class, he found he was stalled as associate professor with little chance for advancement to "full professor." Given minor or no raises, left behind in the dust of a dozen frisky young faculty who could barely pump gas, professional slights (real or imagined), and having a sense of aging faster and faster in a shunning environment caused Pete to apply for and get an associate dean's position at the present university.
Here he was now, seven years later, having pushed the mass of paper needed to get the Didactron built, and was more frustrated than ever. He was an engineer without a project, a teacher without a class, an administrator without budget controls. As a father he was only tolerated; his high school-aged children had been extracted from their peer-places for the move and they had not forgiven him. At night he took showers; he could no longer tolerate a bath because of the feeling it gave him that his body may have united with the water and would, as he watched, swirl down the drain.
Russ liked Pete and perhaps the long conversations, the wine excesses, and the many lunches together had made the morning scene more tolerable than it might have been. Russ expected the attack, but not for a few days. Word had traveled fast.
Pete hadn't rehearsed. At seven o'clock that morning he had gotten a call from a professor attending Rustock's lesson. He had dressed and if he had not fought with his pin-curled wife about use of the car that day, he would have had more time to collect his thoughts...and emotions.
"You dumb son of a bitch!" he repeated. How can you be so damned smart and so dumb at the same time? Those little bastards out there may sue us. Some are rich enough, some are mad enough, some have the balls. One of these days it will happen and you'll get your ass fired and I'll have to be the sorry fuck that has to do it and then I'll not be able to live with myself and if I can survive the pile of paper and lawyer-shit and dean-cock and...geeeeezus! How could you be so dumb?!
"What in hell do you really think can come of this?" He was slowing, but not much. "What are you doing, playing games, like a head on highway stunt to see who swerves first? How can you be so dumb? What's the fun? Have you really blown out the bag? What can you expect to come of this? You dumb son of a bitch, this is no game -- for you or me. We can get our ass sued and big and win or lose it will cost plenty in time, money, and fees -- and geeeezus."
He hung his head, shaking it. Sitting on the chair edge, hands on knees, he was a father at a funeral.
"The university is in real financial trouble already. The endowments are in a shambles, the student enrollments are unpredictable, the support bases are managed by piss ants, and you want us sued! How can you be so dumb?!"
The reaction was about as predicted, and the only thing he was sorry about was that the proposal had upset Pete. He knew it would.
"Pete, let me try to..."
"You dumb son of a bitch; you can't explain this one! This is the craziest of them all, and you've had some crazy ones. I'll listen to your shit about health and learning, about pills to enhance learning. We may not have a perfect system but ...geeeezus.... to sue us! Why? What for? What grounds? To punish us? What will we do? Who can do what we do better? What can be done? What must we stop doing? Who will we pay? Why in hell did you really suggest we be sued?"
He had about run down. The anger had cooked off all of the questions and frustration and now he was tired and It was only 8 a.m.
Russ began "I really don't think anyone will take me seriously, in this bunch do you know anyone who is likely to make such a move. I've recommended plenty of similar actions, but none has been acted on."
"Yeah, but this one has the stuff. It's specific, real, fashionable, and there are a world of people out there seeking revenge. There's a fulcrum and a lever -- hell you can move the whole world!"
"If I'm wrong, then I'm still right, for moving the world of education is what is needed and is exactly what was intended. You see..."
"Don't lecture me. Who in hell do you think you are? Who gave you special insight? 'Moving'...in what direction? 'Wrong'...by what criteria? Whose standards? God damn you god-players are all alike. You create some little mess, two fuckers in a garden, and then you go off and leave them to work it out. You're creating a big mess here and you'll go off and leave it to me or some other sorry bastard to work out. This one cannot be worked out; you've created a big fucking mess and you just hope it will work out. Hope--that's all. You dumb son of a bitch! How could you be so dumb?
"Smart guy. Answer this one." He walked over to the window and pointed down into the conventional university courtyard. "Look at that red head. He doesn't give a shit...about anything except what's between his legs. He carries books to remind himself he's a student and in case his daddy ever shows up for a visit. His daddy sent him here to go through the longest imitation of any club in the world. He doesn't know why he's here, he doesn't care; all he wants is out, not what is here. He sees this place as where a big ass union card called a diploma is printed. He's going to pick it up on the same day he gets papers to a new sports car and he'd rather have the latter -- and he doesn't even know why and doesn't care and doesn't even know that there is a question of 'why?'
"What the hell are you doing getting started a sue-us campaign? For that guy? There are thousands like him.
"Look at that poor creature sitting by the tree. She's a psychological mess as you can tell from her hair, figure, skin, bearing, and clothes. They sent her here to get a husband, and that's what she wants to do, and that's all. But she doesn't know how and we won't help her, and she can't help herself. My God, don't blame us for that failure! Don't sue us because we didn't hatch out a swan from that poor bundle. She'll not join your god damned suit. She's trying to survive, get along, stay out of the way. What in hell do you really want?"
"Pete, I have an appointment to tape some material for a TV strip I'm making in half an hour. I knew you'd be here eventually, but not this soon. I'd love to know who called you about the idea but I'll not ask. I know you're concerned and I appreciate that and I am especially glad you came to me directly. We have to talk this thing through. I can't even reduce your anxiety in half an hour, much more explain my rationale. Being as straight as I can, first, I don't think anyone will act (for the same reasons so many people complain about doctors and there are so few successful malpractice suits). I know that is not a good argument but it is one part. Second, I think the threat of suit is very powerful. Many things are settled out of court. I don't think things have to go so far as to 'the settlement'. I think we can get our university educational act together in a thoughtful, carefully designed way and disarm our opponents. I'm glad you acknowledged them a few minutes ago. Nevertheless, if we do not create a new, highly effective educational system) then we will be subject to suit...and should be sued! As long as we use tax money for education or as long as we charge for an education, then there should be an accounting. We cannot evaluate the maximum values of an education as we would for some some inventor or discoverer of some vaccine, but we can certainly ascertain the minimum which should be received or engaged per unit investment. I'm saying some universities -- in fact the entire educational system -- are engaging in false advertising, shoddy workmanship, outdated practice and profession, inefficient work, and most important -- as we ye discussed many times --we're ineffectual. We don't know many of our goals, and those that we do know we don't achieve very well.
"After all your kind words, I hate to leave so quickly but I've had this TV appointment for two weeks and must keep it. Can we visit after lunch? Say 1:30? And he walked out, leaving Dean Spring alone in a lighted office that was not his own.
Chapter 4 - The Shop
Helen Starity was awkwardly twisted over her lounge chair, chin forward, hand counting the points she was making on her fingers. She chopped at each finger for emphasis in a peculiar way. Leaning forward, shifting, she yanked at her skirt because of the way it moved as she made various points. It kept getting in the way of the conversation. There was not a trace of immodesty; the skirt, like a troublesome eyelash, was there and needed tending. When discussing her alternative educational system, she was asexual. She was incarnate enthusiasm. There was no woman present, only the embodiment of a concept, a living force, a movement. She never let a person look away from her dark eyes. They tracked the center point of a person's brain. She would lean down, move around to keep the other person's eyes fixed by hers. In a distracting way she would touch a person s arm, partially from habit, partially because of the touching-feeling family from which she came, and partially because she knew the effect of the touch. No one knew if she had studied it, few cared. It was a much too personal contact ... but pleasant. It was a risk but part of her confidence. It was possibly misinterpreted but in the context of her enthusiastic being it was as devoid of sex as her closeness. She never got too close to a person. She never invaded their face-volume, but she was always close and reached to touch. She was an incredibly beautiful person but that she ignored, for that was for others to observe and handle as beauty requires. She avoided detracting from that beauty. However, she did nothing to enhance her allure because she had no extra time for what might be the result. She was completely involved in her concepts and work. A family had been raised, children were in successful jobs, and a husband was busy with his own career. Her appearance was designed so that it did not get in the way of who she was and her ideas.
She had joined the Didactron under one of the several relations that cannot be readily diagrammed on an organizational flow chart. The Director has several such charts to use with various observers, but he had seen very early that there are invisible lines or connections among people in organizations and that those lines rarely correspond to those drawn between boxes on an organizational chart. These are the lines that determine success or project failure.The lines usually represent many flows or prescribed communication channels, but they are for the simple-minded organizational people that populate agencies and university administrations. The comprehension of an organization is much like that enjoyed by a physiologist of the endocrine system -- the idea of a temporary, massively complex, dynamic set of interactions, thresholds, shunts, and feedbacks that challenge people to graph them but deny satisfaction with the results. Helen was part of the Didactron system in a role hard to graph. On the faculty, not 'approved' by them, she was paid from an auxiliary fund that was from an endowment for a perpetual challenge grant. She was at once an independent agent, a voting faculty member, contributing to faculty research programs through money-making activities, and responding to a challenge-grant environment by operating a not-for-profit educational group.
She was locked in discussion on the uncomfortable lounge chairs, chairs she promised herself would not remain in this allegedly-optimal discussion environment. Allen had been captured by her. He no longer heard passersby; he ignored everything -- her ideas were 'the only.' He discovered, as he listened, that she worked her intellectual magic, not by polemic but a positive creature description. She combined this with a set of assertions that were intuitively realistic.
She described to Allen how her shop worked. It was no longer labeled by the faculty or by director as experimental. The edge of her voice told without elaboration that it had been labeled experimental too long. The idea was simplicity itself. First, everyone should only be
taught they want to learn. Second, no one wants to learn what they already know. Third, they should pay for what they learn in relation to the benefits they derive from
having learned. They laughed away number two - recounting the duplications and overlaps in courses and the experts that were always in some classes - people who knew more and could teach it better than the instructor - people who enrolled in classes to gain "credits" for agency and corporate promotions.
When she had hammered these out: (1) what they want to learn
and (2) pay for what they learn, she launched into her conversation mode. Her excitement was heightened by the challenges of new questions, of more thoughtful responses, and the quizzical looks at unexpected places and the smiles of pleasure as the viewer partook of the asthetics of the concept. Her success was acknowledged by each grin that was generated by a creative insight as she told of The Shop. Her joy was in the encounter and its bewildering complexity, the improvisations on her theme, the discovery and the fear of the defeat if a flaw was to be discovered. She compared discussions of The Shop to handling poisonous snakes.
"You trade time for all this motivation crap" she explained, not at all reluctant to condense an idea. "You wait. Time is the problem and it won't go away. So since I cannot beat it, I use it. Motivation means I want the students to do what I want when I want them to do something. When It is time to study history I want to motivate them to study history now, because now is when I must teach. Here, our shop says screw motivation. Wait for it! It is costly and we are ineffective at it. Wait until someone is ready. You may have to wait a long time. So who knows how long, or knows what the right time to learn is? No one. So you wait. Who really cares? There are enough things to do to respond to those who are ready -- more than we can handle.
"A person hears someone describe the excitement of a former period in history and contends it is identical to the present and if we knew more about it we could avoid the identical problems others have faced and solved. Thus, the desire is created to compare, to test the assertion, to see what went on a way back when, and to avoid a problem. History is studied when the time is right, when the motivation is real. We don't jam history down their throats or in other directions. We wait. There is time.
"The timing is only part of the first promise. The major part is that only the historical period in question Is taught. That is what they wanted to know, all they asked for, and all they were motivated to learn. You stop It there! Every professor I've known to tell everything he or she knows about something and everything related to it in any way. That is his motivation, not the students, and in our shop we carefully tailor what we teach to what is stated as that which is to be learned. If in the process new challenges or new desires emerge, that is all to the good. This expansion is part of the operation, but too much can be wasteful and all of this pointing to related topics and peeking under the rugs of knowledge are both frustrating to the students -- entropy producing..., and wasteful of our teaching time."
She went on describing how a popular lad had admired a piano player at a party and came to learn piano, how one adolescent wanted to learn amorous French, how another learned French prior to going on a vacation, and how another realized it part of his long term quest to become a part of the diplomatic corps as an agent of peace. One came to learn welding. One woman came to learn how to change an auto tire having had the need and having been fortunate enough to secure assistance quickly. An engineer came for new programming skills. A manager came for a new fast algorithum for selecting an optimum route. A dairyman came for new marketing techniques. She could cite abundant examples and the emphasis was always on: because they wanted to learn. They wanted to change their behavior. "No more reluctance, no more motivation, no more disciplinary problems, no more force feeding," she would intone.
"Well what about...?" was always the reply in any of these conversations. She had analyzed it as a behavioral trait, a page out of an animal behavior textbook, like anus sniffing, ruff spreading, or foot stamping. It was all very natural, predictable, and inate to the Homo sapiens species. It was a pre-formed set of mouth movements and a finger raised that implied that the present condition is safe, secure, and the clear message of "let there be no unnecessary change." She had learned not to grin when she saw the gestures, but had a file in which she tallied the observations among the encounters. It had become boring and she wondered if she would ever try to describe the behavior in a journal article.
"Well what about the public school program?"
"Fuck the public school program!" was her uncontrolled response. She had tried to learn how to subdue her emotional outbreaks. She had heard it too much from her brothers, husband, and Dean Spring. Now she just surrendered to them. This was a bad question about an irrelevant subject and one she never knew how to answer in a conversation. She had even tried to write and memorize a calm response, but had failed first in the writing, then in the answering.
"Just fuck it. It already eats up more money than any society can afford. It creates hostile citizens. It separates families. It creates and augments incurable social problems, denies ethnic and social uniqueness. Most importantly it cannot and never will be able to accommodate the range of innate mental ability among people and then overlays on this diversity the antagonisms and duplicity of social groups, racial groups, and worse...economic groups and expects somehow something good...whatever that might be...to emerge. It has clearly failed except in group sports and, even for those,I contend that in my shop my teams in any sports will outcomplete 90% of physically equivalent teams anywhere in the world!"
She described The Shop.
It deadens the curiosity of individual children in making them learn what they do not desire, cannot be attracted to, or are now unlikely to be motivated to learn. Its presently highly scheduled and learning patterns are neither scheduled, regular, uniform among children, or predictable. Flexibility is imperative; primary schools are largely inflexible; therefore primary schools are educationally fallacious.
She dug in, for here the concepts of her shop seemed more controversial. Depending upon to whom she was talking, she launched either her "this is the essence of capitalism and the free market" attack or also her "rational humans respond to benefits and costs" attack, a kind of psycho-economics argument.
"Here's the deal," she said, her eyes holding Allen. He would not get a canned argument, for he was a much more global thinker. "You want to learn something. You come to our shop. You pay a start fee then a unit fee, for example for using video, attending a lecture, ur gaining access to a computer unit workbook. You are evaluated whenever you desire, usually at the computer terminal, at a modest fee. When you achieve a satisfactory score, one satisfactory to your standards, you stop.
From the time of your last evaluation within The Shop the major positive changes occur and are noted. These are assessed to be the results of The Shop. For the next 6 years, the school receives, based on the contract at the time of registering for the educational units, 10 percent of your salary increase. For example, you are making $10,000. You come to The Shop to learn'splocking or any particular thing. You pay $500 and go through the experience in the Didactron. A year later your salary increases to $11,500. You
pay us $150 in the first year and in the next 6 years or a total of $1050. There may be other increases due to other factors; The Shop only wants credit for what it achieves. In most cases, for initial gains exceeding $500 we return half of those fees as each annual payment is received.
"Notice what is happening. The teacher wants the student out as soon as possible both to lower teaching costs as well as to start using the results of what is learned for profitable purposes. Both gain. There is a partnership formed and both work for increased gains. The better the teacher, the higher the rewards, for they are based on a percentage of the gain."
"What if a student learns that he is not cut out for some subject or loses interest?"
"That goes on all the time! It is one function that some claim in liberal education institutions. They want their students to explore broadly so they may find the right niche in life. The initial fee protects the school from loss; the student is not penalized further because there are no monetary gains; and new educational programs may be explored. If the student is 'turned off' very early by the subject matter, the costs will reflect this. There are several cross-currents here that make it an extremely rich educational environment. The students are self-oriented; the teachers are motivated both for efficiency and excellence; the student is encouraged both by teacher and increased fees; 'sufficient' knowledge can be tested at any time - both in the class or in the workaday world. If either shows limitation, a new or additional program may be scheduled."
Allen frowned. "I can understand this will work for something like auto repair or brick laying but I cannot understand how it works for human nutrition or Shakespeare."
Simple, in our human resources group you can pay a pretty hefty sum for instruction (guaranteed to save money in the household) with a 3-year payback), or else you can pay a much lower amount and then pay small amounts annually over 10 years based on a health and well-being score computed for the entire family. The score is based on the materials learned about, nutrition, age, sex, weight and environmental factors. This program is highly subsidized because it returns benefits to The Shop in many ways and over more years."
"What about the Shakespeare problem? Making money from knowing Shakespeare is tough to believe.", said Allen.
"Not so, and we have enough students to prove it. Years of elementary students to the contrary, Shakespeare is pretty sophisticated stuff. We've treated this complex writing, allowed it to be treated, as if it were a two-dimensional slice of life. When the executive or homemaker has a chance to take a deep breath and look around, they often notice the richness of Shakespeare -- in a conversation, in quotations, and in their slogans about 'the well-read person.' Then they become interested and it is then that courses are available and invaluable. We see our school gains in the salary of the executive (just like I described a few minutes ago), in longer life, which just has to be correlated with that higher quality of life alleged for years, as resulting from education. We also anticipate additional educational investments based solely on the pleasure derived from the expansions experienced by our students in such educational encounters.
"Well, it is interesting, but..."
"Of course it is interesting. Its working! I have the most exciting and excited group of teachers and students you have ever seen. I have teenagers with 60 year olds; I have 4 year olds and 30 year olds learning to read in the same class. They're after knowledge when they're ready and willing to pay a fair market price. These are the keys. If the teaching is no good you stop, or else you relax, for you know no additional gains will be made for the bad teaching you encounter.
"The monies for the school are used to pay costs, then the teachers share 30% of the profits generated by their teaching units, 30% by all units collectively (this builds team work and reduces the boom-and-bust interest in some topics); and 40% is used for doing studies and developing improved teaching materials and methods."
Allen Karr didn't know it, but he was being interviewed by Helen. She had been told he was an excellent teacher and raw meat for her school. She was thinking about the conversation later that evening and noticed her own finger pointing as she thought "Well what about...?" She didn't grin.
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