A Spicy Maya Mocha
by cheri block
Please note: Part 1 of “What’s wrong with California Public Education?”
I walked by Stanford’s School of Education on Monday afternoon on my way to a class called The Politics of Humanitarianism.
Cynically.
I stopped at Coupa to have a coffee.
While sipping what can only be compared to a caffeine neutron bomb—a spicy Maya Mocha—(hooray for a Mesoamerican-named-drink-only-at-Stanford and other politically correct institutions), I ruminated on the terrible failure of American public education.
Even the rosy-cheeked professors up on the fourth floor of The School of Education with curious upward glances and pregnant pauses (during their lectures) had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that the East Palo Alto charter school sponsored by their own esteemed School of Education, had failed too.
The Maya Mocha had a pleasurable effect, so I ordered another and returned to my cold iron patio chair.
There I listened to the chipper chatter in an international flavor.
iPads aglow, computers on fire, brains churning out conversation about sustainability and Unitarianism—it all was so stimulating.
So, I had another Maya Mocha.
By then, critical mass had been reached.
So, what is wrong with public education? I asked myself, out loud. Action must be taken!
I picked up my briefcase, full of notes on the Bosnian crisis and a book by Sadako Ogata entitled The Turbulent Decade, and marched authoritatively up to the fourth floor of the School of Education to demand an answer from someone who, more than likely, had never taught a day in her life.
“May I see the Dean of the School of Education, pretty please?”
An average-looking woman behind the desk smiled a beige smile and said, “No.”
By then, the cumulative effect of 20 grams of pure caffeine, cayenne pepper, and chocolate, was well underway in a extra-hot fusion.
“OK, Miss Smarty-pants,” I yelled. “ I am sending you and all of the other stuffy ineffectual intellectual Professors of Education, Collaboration, and Constipation straight to the office. In other words, I am giving you a referral for your failure to produce anything other than published material.”
And with that pronouncement, I left and found my cold iron patio chair still in its place, waiting for my return.
That “average-looking” woman sitting behind that desk had NO idea who she was messing with when she said “no”! Let’s hear it for Maya Mocha! Maybe we all need some to get up our gumtion.
Of course that part was fiction, AK
You are darn awfully hard to contact. I’m actually responding to your very beautifully written piece on losing a parent, written in 2011. It touched me. I lost both of my parents in an 11 month period and am approaching the anniversary of my dad’s death in a week. He was the best of the best. My mom was too. I’m grateful every day for the parents they were, but I never imagined it would be this hard to face life without them. I miss them terribly. Anyway, as I the anniverary of my dad’s death approaches, I just want you to know that your words captured my heart. Thank you.
Dear Jan,
Thank you for writing to me and I am sorry I am so hard to contact. I do not have a Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin connection.
I am sorry to learn that you lost both of your parents in such a short period of time. I understand your pain and longing to talk to them just one more time. The anniversary of my father’s death approaches as well.
A writer writes for an audience and hopes every now and then, to “capture a heart”.
Your words to me mean a great deal. I wish you the very best.
At the risk of dispensing advice, I will share with you that as the years have gone by, the deep pain I felt over losing my father, has subsided. I have been able to cherish his memory instead of insisting (in my own mind) that he come back here.
wow, and I was still counting your CALORIES on 3 Maya Mochas….
…..“What’s wrong with California Public Education?”……..
Better to ask, what’s wrong with public education everywhere?.
A problem is that public education hasn’t responded adequately to the huge changes in society, particularly the huge changes in the way people now earn a living.
I suggest that the compulsory education of children should only be to the point where they can handle a job at the likes of a McDonald’s. So they should be able to add and subtract in order to give out the correct change, and be able to operate a cash machine or even a personal computer, and to write English well enough to compose a letter accompanying a job application.
This is because most jobs in the New Global Economy require skills no more complicated than needed to work at a McDonald’s. Consider the shop-assistants, waiters, salesmen and assorted hucksters, truck-drivers, window-washers, clerks, janitors, hot-dog stand operators etc, You don’t need rocket science to do what they do. You just need a grade 8 education or less. These jobs comprise 80% of all jobs in the New Global Economy.
So then, what about the other 20% of jobs? What about the engineers, doctors, nurses, mathematicians, computer-programmers, economists and scientists? Where will they come from?
From outside America, that’s where.
Why should the American taxpayer have to pay to produce scientists, doctors, engineers and their like, when they can easily be imported ready-made from beyond America’s shores?
Consider the current practice of America’s corporations in re-locating their manufacturing plants and service operations to third-world lands whose costs of labour are miniscule compared to those at home.
The captains of industry have learned that it’s cheaper, and therefore more efficient, to import goods than manufacture them at home. It follows that it’s cheaper and therefore more efficient, to import highly trained and educated workers than to produce them them in America.
Subjects like history, political science, geography, social studies, literature, foreign languages, music, painting, and other touchy-feely non-manly subjects, need no longer be taught in America’s schools. You don’t, for instance, need to know where Malawi is, or who Abraham Lincoln was, to work at McDonald’s. You just need some arithmetic, a knowledge of basic sentence construction, elementary computer skills, and some psychology – the better to use in persuading customers into consuming what is unhealthy for them, or otherwise don’t need. For class reading, students need read no more than the works of Donald Trump or Lee Iacocca.
The result would be more efficient use of schools, since they would no longer waste time and money teaching Arts and Humanities, an immersion in which also makes young people uppity. It isn’t a coincidence that a high percentage of militant union leaders and political agitators have been schooled in the Arts, History, or Political Science.
Education budgets under this plan, would be a quarter of what they are now. Americans would thus pay less in taxes, and so would keep more of their hard earned money to do with as they please.
Nothing would stop any American learning the higher skills or becoming educated in the Arts and Humanities. He would simply pay for it from his own pocket. No longer would his children be forced to learn all that Shakespeare, or all that Moliere, if he doesn’t want them to. If he wants them to, he himself would pay for it, not the hard-working taxpayers.
This wouldn’t mean the end of Harvard, Yale, UCLA, and the other hallowed institutions of higher learning. They would continue, but all their fees and revenues would come from the pockets of their students, or, more likely, the pockets of their parents.
Most of their students would likely be from outside America. But the entire costs of studying at an American university, regardless of nationality of the student, wouldn’t cost the hard-working taxpayer a nickel.
Implement this education plan, and American education, and not to speak of the Californian, would once again be the envy of the world.
This comment drips with irony throughout, Christopher. Or do you have a political alter ego?
Irony? Perish the thought.
God forbid! Heaven forfend! How could I ever have imagined such a thing?
Christopher,
If we implemented the radical, albeit practical, solutions that you propose here, only the privileged few would be able to write a comment with the background and coherent expression you employ!
You’ve ventured into so many arguable corners but perhaps the one that jumps out first is your assumption that just because, under your plan, we lowered the education piece of the big tax pie, we Americans would be paying fewer taxes. I respectfully disagree. That gap would be filled in immediately with one social program after another that would generate jobs for the growing state and federal governmental work force around the world. Hungry governmental mouths, always open, eating up the the individual’s retirement, savings, and mattress stuffing to make sure that 2500 meals are served at the senior center, paid for by the city. There is an economic balance between the individual and his government and we are out of it…
I hope other readers respond to your challenge here. Your comment is a blog post in itself.
“…….Your comment is a blog post in itself……..”
Actually, I copied and pasted almost all of it from a blog post I wrote some years ago!!
Shame on me for not reading it. I am just doing so much dang reading these days that my blog wanderings have stopped.
AND, you have left us hanging in your literary works here… where is “gratitude”?
no promised images of your great trips, three of which i recall promised photos.
Still, i am so happy when your latest work comes to my email!
I would not want to venture into the failures and foibles of public education in California or anywhere else. I would like to note that any photograph I have ever seen of a charter school’s graduation ceremony featured a bongo procession, a mime troupe, or both.
Well, I know you did teach for a spell, so you must have opinions. As for the description of charter schools’ graduations, yours gave me the best laugh I’ve had in a month. You are a very witty person.
Up here, we call that the «merchandising» of education. Big Business finances various Chairs with their names on them and teaching whatever skills the sponsors need for the time being. Soon, we may see the MacDonald’s Hamburger Faculty teaching the fine art of chopping beef and selecting same. In Canada, a hamburger has to be 100% beef to be labeled hamburger.
How about the CocaCola Chemistry Chair issuing doctorate degrees in soda mixing?
Problem, here and elsewhere is that we want all for nothing and we have lost our sense of “Collective” responsibilty and accountability..
pubic eduction sux b/c the students have 2 many rites & teachers r 2 scared of bing sued 4 en4cing disiplin in the classroomz
I think disiplin has 2 esses.
funniee
And many people whose first language is not English speak and write better than many Americans. That says something, doesn’t it?
Yeah, and many women drive better than many men. Everything says something, but most of it makes no sense.
Don’t have much to say about the education department at Stanford, or public education, for right now, but I sure wish they had those Maya Mochas when I was there!! Just plain mochas with no artistry. (They did have Its Its in the little store behind the commons, however. Can’t get those down here. If you haven’t ever had one of those, indulge!! They still had ‘em last September when I was visiting. Best ice cream cookie ever!! No caffeine, but ample, tasty calories). Ah, the memories.
bogard,
Unlike the man I live with, I refrain from eating ice cream unless in a celebratory situation.
I know you two are in such good shape, both inside and out, that you do not concern yourself with calories, right?
Ah, but I do. I eat what I want but only half as much as I used to. That includes ice cream!!
State education, as we call it in England to avoid confusion with the ancient public schools such as Eton, Harrow and Rugby, has had a varied history since WW2.
Selection by examination at age eleven had long been the norm but in 1944 it became the means of admission to the new state County Grammar Schools for one in five children. These schools were day schools based on the style of the public schools and also the ancient grammar schools such as Newcastle and Manchester. Three or so months after arrival there was usually further selection for about one in five to the top stream and grooming for Oxford and Cambridge. Games were compulsory and had an order of precedence – rugby, cross-country, cricket and athletics. All were fiercely competitive and those who excelled reaped the reward, wearing special coloured ties according to their house or for the school teams. Life-long benefits came to all, of course. Gymnastics was emphasised but never competitive, tennis was available but frowned upon and soccer was simply unavailable and never mentioned. Sadly, despite my enthusiasm my prowess was minimal and the greatest height I achieved was to umpire cricket for the school, a matter of little significance despite the complexity of the laws and the need for a quick eye: contrary to popular belief, cricket is probably the fastest of games since everything important happens almost immediately after delivery of the ball.
These schools provided an opportunity for those lacking the financial means to obtain the the very best education available all the way to a first class honours degree from Oxford or Cambridge, since a large variety of scholarships was avallable, including the much-prized State Scholarship. It is interesting to note that the foundations of the old public and grammar schools had precisely the same purpose.
When the Labour Government was elected in 1964, it became inevitable that egalitarian ideology would prevail over excellence, for hardly anything was provided for those who were branded “failures” at eleven. Furthermore, the County Grammar Schools were perceived as elitist because those coming from a middle class background had the necessary encouragement from home to pass the examination at eleven. Moreover, children from working class families were expected to get a job at fifteen rather than enter the “sixth form” for two years’ preparation for examinations which led to university or other higher education. There is also no doubt that the injustice had serious social ramifications
So in due time selection at eleven and County Grammar Schools were all but abolished, though there are rare survivors, like my own school. Instead there appeared the dual-sex all-admitting “comprehensive” school where ultimately even internal selection was abolished and sport, particularly competitive sport, became virtually non-existent. Elitism was not eliminated, though, for the comprehensives with a middle-class catchment continued to provide a good education and discipline. My own children benefited from the local school. It was the inner cities and the anarchy within those schools and the politically motivated or in competent teaching staff unwilling or incapable of standing in loco parentis together with poor leadership, the removal of adequate sanctions, the political motivation of some teachers, acquired perhaps in training, or their security in incompetence that led to the parlous condition in some quarters of our system of state education.
The current Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has received much acclaim for his radical innovations encouraging freedom and diversity, handing responsibility back where it should be – with teachers, heads and parents – fought all along the way by Labour who are keenly aware of the sponsorship or support they enjoy from self-interested trades union, of which the teaching unions are the most formidable, since articulate, educated and middle class.
Political opposition has become largely sloganised now, and it is at this level that elections are won or lost. Thus it may be that Michael Gove’s reforms will never be allowed to run their course and state education will revert to its decline to free-for-all mediocrity, or worse, and all that means for human dignity.
Wow Richard,that third to last paragraph is a doozy!
to the line phrase “their security in incompetence” i would add “security in indifference” and this phrase can be applied to any large enough system.
i would not pretend to know the solution to our failing school situation in the U.S. but when people begin to think they will not be “sent a referral” or called out for their individual complacency it causes problems for everyone.
Go Cheri (fiction or otherwise)!! Looking forward to Part 2.
what disturbs me most is by failing to educate this current generation and/or my son’s generation, we condemn ourselves to consequences of more ignorant policy decisions by these new group of “uneducated lot”.
intelligence and ignorance are NOT the same. only one generation ago, my grandfather and father had no idea that education would unlock the intelligence DNA that was dormant in our family but never able to thrive for lack of an education.
Hi dafna,
Always refreshing to have your point of view, as well as your ability to state it, back on the blog. I know I haven’t finished several stories or posted pictures: you are correct and have that razor-sharp intellect and memory to remind me that I have been remiss. Too much reading and writing for school this last several quarters, as well as my other responsibilities. I love to write for my blog but haven’t made the time. I hope all is well with you.
hi cheri,
i hope you took it as a compliment that i miss the conclusion to your stories and the lovely photography.
as far as clearly stating my point, thanks! i can focus sometimes. really the compliment goes to richard, since my comment was more of a “pete and re-pete”. although, the story about our families dormant intelligence DNA is all mine.
imagine how many “sleeper” genius (plural?) we may have in the U.S. that will remain undiscovered for lack of an education
i agree with you cheri, it seems to be a sad truth that things must often get worse before they get better. it seems as if “broken” and “sick” are relative terms to most people.
Yes! I took it as a compliment dafna. I appreciate the encouragement. I know I haven’t finished the Gratitude story or posted pictures. I recently took some delightful pictures of a rural county fair. Those are going up soon. We all need to smile, right?
Doozy? Such language! And in this respectable company.
Is this polemic a blog post too? What power do the teachers’ unions have in state government? I do believe that until our current system crashes and burns, to some degree, that no change will happen. Here, the unions are too strong and after all, the function of the teachers’ union is to protect the teachers, not the students and the quality of their education. Andreas Kluth was, I have to believe, thinking about the decline of California Public Education (even though I am sure he would have sent his children to a private school) when he was wooed, or requested, that the Economist send him back to Germany.
It’s in my DNA to compete with Christopher and where possible to provoke his apoplexy. So I must take care, as a guest on your blog, not to expand on the subject of trade unions. It could spoil the party.
No doubt Mr Kluth has weighed the prospects of success and failure in California and found them both impostors.
Based on the comments so far, the quality of taxpayer-funded education, once excellent, would seem to have gone downhill, continues to go downhill, and will go yet further in this unhappy direction unless Something Is Done.
While it might be nice to have taxpayer-funded education that’s once again excellent, the question I ask is: excellent for what?
I suggest (and most humbly so) that there’s no longer a need for excellent taxpayer-funded education because there are no longer the jobs for excellently-educated young people to go to.
Consider how it was in the 1950s and 1960s in America, just as an example. There were jobs galore then, that needed educated brains, most of which had to be American-educated.
Today, on the other hand, most jobs needing educated brains have been re-established overseas. Those still remaining in America can be done by brains imported already-educated.
This state of affairs isn’t because those who run corporate America are any more wicked now than they were in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s just that the technology has changed. While the American-educated brain was once the best means for corporate America’s profits, the foreign-educated brain is now the best means.
As for corporate America, the point has been made by certain knowledgeable people, that most of the big corporations are no longer really “American”. Rather, they’re global networks that design, make, buy, and sell things in wherever in the world it’s most profitable.
Hence corporate America no longer has any loyalty to America. It just needs lower taxes, fewer regulations, and less public spending, which would include less spending on education.
Since what corporate America (or corporate anywhere, for that matter) wants, it usually gets, taxpayer-funded education will likely continue in its present unhappy direction.
I didn’t, by the way, cut and paste this rather long comment from something on my own blog, as I’d done in another comment. But, y’know, I might just do the opposite with this one, and so cut and paste this comment and post it on my own blog!!
Your irony has a steam vent, Christopher!
Not everything has a single point. That would be too one-dimensional. Are you not a little harsh on businesses, big and small? Profit is not necessarily their sole aim. Where does Bill Gates fit into your scheme?
Gifted teachers are simply those who inspire the liberating force of hard work and excellence. The task is to find them and allow them to do it.
@Richard – ”…..Are you not a little harsh on businesses, big and small? Profit is not necessarily their sole aim. Where does Bill Gates fit into your scheme?…….”
In the midst of all morally questionable states of affairs you will always find oases of good. In addition to Bill Gates you could also add the likes of Warren Buffet, who has said that rich men like him should pay far more tax than they do.
But, does the existence of these oases of good justify the morality of the system in which they operate?
In the days of slavery there were some good and kind slave-owners whom their slaves loved. Does this mean that slavery shouldn’t have been abolished?
Our views are shaped by personal experience. For the most part, I found that business men and women were, just like anyone else, simply trying to make their way in a world of hazard and disappointment, punctuated by the odd moment of relief and satisfaction. What characterised them was a tendency to blame themselves for any misfortune rather than someone else and then to pick themselves up and carry on regardless. One needs to handle generalisations with caution. There is no reason to suppose as a general proposition that education funded by business is, of itself, flawed – it is the quality of the people behind it that counts.
Small business, in particular, is far less profitable than often assumed and one often finds there a dedication to service and good works well beyond the hope of enrichment. So I do not accept that the decency I identify is the exception rather than the rule, the oasis rather than the desert. If that were the case the system would not work at all. I assert that success is more likely a result of the observance of good, moral practice than opportunism.
I wonder about the days of slavery of which you speak. In R v Knowles, ex parte Somersett, in 1772, Lord Mansfield said:
The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.
The case concerned a negro who had been forced aboard a ship in the London Docks. Under a writ of habeas corpus he had been brought before Lord Mansfield where it was argued he was a slave and that the writ did not extend to him. Lord Mansfield held otherwise and released him. That was the established position in 1772 which you so readily question. The Common Law did not recognise slavery and so it did not exist in England under the Common Law, although there were specific laws which legalised it elsewhere in the Empire.
@Richard – ”…….The Common Law did not recognise slavery and so it did not exist in England under the Common Law…….”
How, then, do you account for the fact of approximately 15,000 slaves in England?
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that Lord Mansfield’s opinion of slavery in his ruling on the Somersett case, that ”….It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it……”, would have made him eager that these 15,000 slaves be freed. However, he was so worried about the economic consequences this would have for English slave-owners, that he tried to persuade Somersett’s owner to release him, so to avoid a lot of legalistic fuss and to allow slavery to continue unimpeded.
In fact, slavery was making so many Englishmen so rich that it wasn’t until 60 years after the Somersett case that the British government saw fit to abolish slavery throughout the Empire.
Makes ya think, don’t it?
OK, I should have said slavery was illegal under the common law because of the presumption of freedom. What’s my punishment – banishment to the Gulag?
We should not be too hasty in our condemnation of the English – generalisations should be treated with caution. What of Magna Carta, the Lollards, the Levellers, the Petition of Right, Wilberforce, the early trade unions, the suffragettes, Habeas Corpus and, not least, the Common Law itself? The sacrifice is immense and we are all, daily, beneficiaries of this heritage . Makes ya think, don’t it?
Many contemporaries of the English slave “owners” were fulsome in their condemnation of slavery. We must not forget that Africans were sold by Africans to the slave traders and that slavery was accepted in classical times without demur. Slavery still exists today and is a hideous reflection on modern times and values.
”……One needs to handle generalisations with caution…….”
I agree. But generalisations are needed so that the Big Picture of anything may more clearly be seen, or that the underlying principles of any system may more clearly be discerned, the better to detect the obfuscations if its ideological defenders.
In the matter of Business and Corporations, there is a big difference between the small business and the corporate behemoth. One needs only to invoke words like “Enron” or “Barclays Bank”, or “Wall Street”, to get a better feel for the operating morality of the corporate behemoth.
Again, Christopher, one must be cautious of condemning whole banks and systems because of aberrations which afflict the economic world as a whole – individuals, small businesses, large corporations, public institutions and governments alike. There is a universal departure from rational behaviour as far as money is concerned and a delusional image of its relation to value. It is value which gives money meaning, not money that creates value.
Some, of course, mistakenly hope this confusion, cleverly handled, can fuel the economic motor, end exploitation, cure all ills, redistribute wealth to the poor and advance the progress of all humanity. The shadow of that fallacy has even cast itself over this discussion about the decline of our public-funded schools.
You appear to be saying in so many words that the behaviour of the big financial houses – behaviour which has led to the current world economic malaise – is merely an aberration, and is therefore not the normal behaviour of big financial houses. This seems an example of a generalisation.
If all this is indeed what you’re saying, how do you know this?
In the matter of money and value, I suggest that in the public sphere, money enables value to be put into practice.
Is not the annual national government budget, stated in dollars (or pounds), simply a statement of national values – a statement of what the government, in the name of the people, thinks is important, and to the realisation of which the resources of the nation will be put?
Hence if any nation puts high value on good public education, enough of the peoples’ taxes (money) will be directed to this end to bring it about.
I speak honestly of my experience of human nature as it reveals itself in business, as you do yours. A few misbehave spectacularly but I should not wish to see the many penalised by overreaction for political advantage. In the same way, I should not wish to see the residents of a whole street on trial for a single murder on the basis only of their address. I admit a sense of shock when I learned some forty years ago that my bank regularly placed my cheque account on the far east money markets overnight to feather its own nest, but by and large my bank has always served me reasonably well. That shock was not as intense as my annoyance at governments who squander my tax to carry out their ill-formed schemes and pursue their prejudices.
The free market is a cruel place, and that is why we have laws to prevent a free-for-all market. Those laws need to be minimal to enable buyers and sellers to decide what price to attach to goods and services. That price is the nearest we can get to a measure of value and is decided constantly by everyone. Both big banks (often in a culture artifically created deliberately by government) and big government interfere with the process, as does making money ot of money, but I infinitely prefer the living democracy of the market place to governments telling me what i should spend and how I should spend it. What i spend is after all earned by displaying my wares with others so buyers can compare and choose for themselves what to buy and how much to pay; a world of hard work, hazard and disappointment punctuated by occasional relief and satisfaction.
… And I suggest that it is the clouding of those principles in our schools that has led to the decline of public-funded education.
Christopher and Richard,
Please forgive me for not weighing in during this stimulating discussion. I am trying to finish a policy paper for Dr. Morris. I am also trying to read about 200 pages about Kosovo.
I’m slipping, guys! I can’t keep up with all of this intellectual stimulation.Thanks for your vigor. I love it. I’m a lucky blogger, indeed.
Nothing like posting a blog and then abdicating responsibility.
Write out a hundred times:
EXCUSES WILL NOT AVAIL ME
and have it on my desk first thing tomorrow morning accompanied by a drawing of three elephants complete with howdahs and maharajahs.
I can do the drawing. Elephants, along with horses, are my specialty.
@ Imagemots: “……. we may see the MacDonald’s Hamburger Faculty teaching the fine art of chopping beef and selecting same…….”
McDonald’s does already have it’s own university, Hamburger University.
Coca Cola has a university too, called Coca Cola University on Wheels.
I’ll guess that other corporations have their own universities too. This may be the start of something big.
I have a dream of a world where corporations will offer all children and all young people everywhere, all their primary and high-school education, and all their college and university education, for free. In return, students would have only to wear uniforms with advertisements for the corporations’ wares.
I have a dream today…………
I shudder at the thought, not of so called free education but of a business driven one and the uniforms? Perish the thought.
OK. i have a very strong opinion on these “private sector” schools that promise to “skip the stuff the student doesn’t need” (like basic arithmetic and basic grammar) and focus only on giving their client targeted skills for the job they seek.
Paul, there is a special place in hell reserved for these “schools”. that’s my strong opinion. probably the strongest language i have ever used on a blog.
I’m honored that you used it here!