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Find more Kappan articles in the The Coriolanus Syndrome Mr. Campbell was beginning to hate those science teachers who handed out vocabulary lists to be memorized the day after "Nova" had aired another stunning show that none of them had watched, let alone thought to share with their students. It was just another symptom of his latest problem: the Coriolanus Syndrome. YOU'RE angry, you know, most of the time." I immediately moved just one step below the panic button. I'm told that most men, with the exception of Woody Allen, avoid discussions about emotional states, especially when the other discussant is one's wife, who is almost always correct in her evaluation. "I am?" "Yes, you are." "I haven't noticed any change." "You never do. It's more like rage than anger." I had to accept her diagnosis, even though I tried to resist. I thought these symptoms might simply be side effects of my lifelong affliction with Socrates Syndrome -- i.e., my predilection for asking questions no one wants to hear. Lately I had been asking more of these questions and had been ignored even more than usual. For example, this past week in a committee "Let's Raise Academic Standards" meeting, everyone agreed that education majors needed more math. I quietly pointed out that most science education majors already took a number of calculus courses that they would never use and that those in other majors had selected their specialties in order to avoid taking more math whenever possible. I placed myself in that latter group and admitted that I had not wanted to take more math courses since I was 14 and yet had been forced to do so for 10 more years, after which I promptly and purposely forgot all of it. Immediately, a severe oxygen shortage developed in the room as everyone simultaneously sucked in a deep breath. When the atmospheric balance was restored, and while my colleagues' minds were foggier than usual, I asked what I thought was a reasonable question. "And all this talk of writing longer research papers . . . why? Even here at the university only a very few people write such papers, and even fewer people read them. I don't know any schoolteachers who write 'papers' except when they're forced to by us." I was immediately banished from the committee. Now that should have given me a clue as to my new problem, for I had long ago accepted an inevitable consequence of my affliction: I would either be ignored and remain obscure or risk becoming famous and pretty certain to meet an unpleasant end, as had Socrates, Jesus, Gandhi, Galileo, and JFK, to name a few of the better-known Socrates Syndrome sufferers. I opted for obscurity and thought myself very clever for having chosen one of the most obscure careers I could find -- teacher education. Nobody pays any attention to anything we say -- even our own students, for they know reality, while we talk about schools that exist only as fantasies in the fading memories of senior citizens. I took my new symptoms seriously and decided to do a Web search on them: rage; anger; disdain; disbelief; growing intolerance; rejection of being a reasonable guy; refusal to pretend, lie, cover up, ignore, inflate, be "philosophical," sigh and exclaim, "Oh well that's the way it is . . . why bother . . . it's not a big deal . . . it all goes in cycles . . . why should I worry over it." The cross-references that emerged were interesting. See Holden Caulfield, Howard Roark, Voltaire, Moses. And then my combined symptoms merged into a frightening warning flashing across the screen: See Coriolanus Syndrome! Movie-style flashbacks invaded my consciousness -- a line lodged in my storehouse of literary trivia from the Shakespeare play, about the noble Roman who was told he was "too absolute," his nature "too noble for the world rabble." But surely I was not so afflicted, so filled with disdain for that "rabble"? "That's you," my in-home therapist proclaimed, after she heard the enumeration of Coriolanus Syndrome symptoms. The character who gave the syndrome its name was accused thus: "You have not indeed loved the common people." The word contempt appeared frequently in the play, and I denied its applicability just as frequently. But I did admit, even to my rationalizing self, that my patience was ebbing. There was indeed a slow erosion of forbearance, less suffering of so many fools. I had further to admit to being increasingly less amusing and to being seen more as a direct threat. No one laughed when I offered to write a formal declaration of surrender to our accrediting agencies and the Educational Testing Service. My argument that they already ran our program, determined what we did, and in effect stopped all innovation and significant change brought no amused chuckles but instead the Reaganesque response, "There you go again." There was much eyebrow raising and irritated sighing. I returned from a day spent visiting a high school, enraged and depressed after watching lesson after lesson filled with the memorization of trivia, mindless assignments, incessant testing, and "covering the material." When I thought about the teachers -- going on and on about the cell, DNA, and labeling the parts of a flower, while on the Discovery Channel real scientists, their voices choked with emotion, described how their life's work was in danger of extinction (the last panda, eagle, songbird, elephant, rhino), I despaired at the whole business of what we have mislabeled education. I was indeed beginning to hate those science teachers who handed out vocabulary lists to be memorized the day after "Nova" had aired another stunning show that none of them had watched, let alone thought to share with their students. I couldn't wipe out the memory of that history teacher who, after returning with her class from a special showing of Schindler's List, asked, "Any questions? No? Fine; let's review for our test on the Gilded Age." Hypocrisy, which I had once accepted as normal human behavior, now elicits ever more scathing responses from me. When one professor suggested that we raise our standards by requiring a 3.0 grade-point average before we allow students to student teach, I made a formal motion that we not only do it but that we require a perfect 4.0. Then we could retire early or look for new jobs as our college closed down. I was totally ignored, for these keepers-of-the-gate actually believe that all these scores and numbers are valid as criteria for determining who will be responsible for teaching the next generation of Americans. The fact that few of them could meet their own criteria is ignored. They have indeed come to believe that the National Teachers Examination means something more than a source of revenue for the Educational Testing Service. And apparently it never occurs to them to raise their teaching standards. I've tried for years to master their survival traits: remaining quiet in all discussions so as to appear thoughtful and deep, all the while chewing on the end of one's spectacles or pipe, the perfect disguise for the mediocre who haven't a clue or any real interest. Other surefire strategies -- demand a return to the basics, the way things used to be, good old book learning, and lots of homework. At parent meetings there are always some, most often fathers, who take this stance. I respond, "Fine. Let's really get back to those good old basics. I'll drive with you in your car to the nearest garage, where the mechanic will remove your automatic transmission, radio, air conditioner and heater, defroster, tape deck, bucket seats, windshield wipers, and turn signals. You'll feel good sticking your arm out in the rain and snow to signal for a turn while reaching around to wipe the dirt off your windshield. At your home I'll remove your microwave and remote control (a good old 12" black-and-white set with three snowy channels on for fours hours each evening is certainly adequate, and you can see football highlights at your movie theater in a couple of weeks), and let's replace that central heating and air with a good old basic coal furnace. The exercise of hauling coal and ashes will be good for you. Now, that's getting back to basics." "See; you're angry and filled with disdain," my personal therapist proclaims, and I'm not even in repose on a couch but pouring a glass of wine. "You're not nice at all, not even reasonable, just absolute and uncompromising." She is, as always, correct. I can no longer bring myself to beg, convince, cajole, plead, or even be patient. "We need more math." "What for, for what purpose -- what work?" "Everybody should take two years of a foreign language." "Why? When and where will everybody use it? Do you believe it 'trains the mind,' a notion disproved almost a century ago? And have you ever tried to have a conversation in Spanish or French with someone who has had two years of the language?" "Everyone needs a solid academic college education." "For what? To sell cars; repair VCRs; tend to the sick and dying; direct a movie; produce a television show; cut a CD; drive a bus, cab, or truck; book a tour? Education, yes -- but term papers, science laboratories, lectures, notes, and courses taken just in case one might need them?" "Children need to learn more writing, science, literature, math, reading -- more of everything. They don't know enough." "No. Learning more is neither the problem nor the goal. True understanding -- connecting and making sense of information and integrating it into a coherent picture of reality -- is what they need to achieve. Sitting in rows of desks listening, filling in worksheets, and choosing the 'correct' answer from four possibilities are almost totally useless skills in our information society. And getting 80% right in our modern world gets you fired, not promoted." These are not Socratic questions but rather Coriolanus Syndrome symptoms. I no longer patiently seek to convince and argue; I simply state, unequivocally, what I feel should be straightforward and obvious. Even more devastating, I cannot bring myself to do another strategic plan, devise another restructuring, write a new curriculum, or study the latest national standards. I can't even justify flying to some exotic city to attend yet another conference where the famous seek to inspire and entertain and the less famous stand in front of their meeting rooms like hookers with their hot transparencies and overheads at the ready, enticing and seducing us to sample their latest research, soon-to-fail reforms, and meager successes. Nor can I read yet another journal article about old/new approaches to reading across, under, over, and all around the curriculum, which is always being rewritten, revised, and mostly reworded to include the newest "in" phrases. The accrediting agency reports have broken my bookshelves and injured several students, which is the most impact they've ever had. Every night I ask forgiveness from all those acres of trees that have given their lives for curriculum revision. Every day I observe the young file into classrooms to watch adults perform their pitiful stand-up routines, which are nowhere near as good as those on MTV and Comedy Central. Even the exuberance, excitement, and freshness of youth, which have made a life of teaching so rewarding, are now distorted by the reality of the schools we have created by our obsession with "academics." When once public schools introduced the young to serious music, now, if there is any music at all, it's the show band with dancing girls all rushing about the playing fields in amazing configurations and blaring out second-rate performances of third-rate tunes. A cello player is as rare as a quiet place to read and think, for our schools are a bedlam of noise, announcements of candy sales and pep rallies, slogans and warnings everywhere -- a monument to poor taste. Instead of joyous, happy places for the young, these places where the young spend so much of their lives are now grim and serious in their pursuit of academic redemption. The main office is overflowing with rule breakers, those who refuse to memorize and fill in worksheets or who simply cannot sit quietly, listening and doing as they're told for six or more hours. Walking the halls, one is struck by the monotony of droning, lecturing teachers frantically covering material that is absolutely inappropriate in the general education setting of a high school. These teachers are pale imitations of their own college teachers, who were in turn shadows of their graduate school professors, who never truly cared about teaching but only about their research. They all appear to believe that they are interesting and that their students should be interested in what they have to say, including anecdotes about their spouses, their children, their personal likes and dislikes. The whole place reeks of imitation food being prepared. The walls of our secondary schools are covered with banners proclaiming the approaching titanic struggle on the playing fields -- "Maim! Destroy! Kill! Snuff Out!" We are back in ancient Rome at the coliseum and the games, complete with nubile girls in skimpy costumes and hulking heroes posturing in the hallways, an impressive preparation for life in the Information Age. The classrooms are perfect imitations of television's "Jeopardy" (or is it the other way around?), and the strains of tired musicals of the 1940s filter through all this as adults pretend that Oklahoma and Guys and Dolls are theater. The content "being covered" is beside the point, for it is the imprint of how people live in this place for 12 years that we see realized in our society. The success of this hidden curriculum is most impressive. It is as if all that time devoted to the study of history, literature, science, and the arts never happened. I never see people camped out overnight to purchase tickets for the symphony, theater, or ballet. I cannot find "Nova," "Masterpiece Theater," or "Nature" among the top 25 television shows or conceive of John Updike and Anne Tyler selling as well as Sidney Sheldon and Danielle Steel. I don't even know anyone who reads poetry. Try to have a conversation with any high school (or even college) graduate about Rembrandt, Beethoven, Philip Glass, or the latest piece in the Atlantic. Half of the population rejects evolution, the daily newspapers have extensive sections devoted to astrology, and everywhere, in all the media, is evidence of our obsession with sports. We worship the players, intone the scores, and pay rapt attention to the endless, insipid interviews with anyone connected with the games. There is always money for a new stadium, but our schools have to hold bake sales, and students show up at my door raising money for a trip to Washington. Television mirrors our high academic standards with its sitcoms, mindless talk shows, alien abductors, snotty kids, and Neanderthal heroes who kill hundreds in the course of one movie. No one mentions any of this in any of our restructuring meetings. When I proposed at one of these intense meetings that a top priority of the university should be to graduate an intellectual, I was met with absolute disdain. I experience the same thing when men who, learning that I'm from the Pittsburgh area, insist on Man Talk -- "How 'bout those Steelers?" -- and I reply that I have no idea how they're doing and really don't care. At that point, my manhood is sliced away, and I am dragged off as a disgusting traitor to my sex, my country, and the American Way. As we debate the merits of longer school days, year-round schools, nine-period days so we can get in more math and cut music, art, and physical education, I cannot help but point out how ugly and sterile our schools are, how devoid of grace, beauty, thoughtfulness, commitment to something larger than one's own appetites, and a vision of a better society. When, out of sheer exhaustion and irritation, the Standards Raisers sigh, "All right, you tell us what our schools should be," the Socrates/Coriolanus Syndromes recede a bit, the out-of-step different drummer emerges, and I begin to ramble, "Oh, of course, they should be places where the young are happy and engaged with something of real interest -- a combination of EPCOT Center, the aquariums in New Orleans and Baltimore, "The Domes" in Milwaukee, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, the San Diego Zoo, and the Everglades and Grand Canyon national parks, staffed by those impressive park rangers and people like Mr. Rogers and Mr. Wizard, Marty Stouffer, Carl Sagan, Yo-Yo Ma, and the staffs of Central Park East High School and the Children's School of Carnegie-Mellon University. Add a bit of our modern shopping malls with their fountains, gardens, displays of mixed generations, lovers of all ages, young families -- our new Main Street. Then there should be experience with serious theater and music, not pop imitations -- quiet places for thinking, reading, inventing, designing, tinkering, imagining, and fantasizing. Study halls should be replaced with video theaters showing the Discovery Channel, A&E, C-Span, CNN, PBS, Learning, History -- all those excellent cable channels. And everywhere there should be artists, writers, athletes (replace "gym" with a spa and trainers), poets, musicians, actors, computer hackers -- in other words, people who do things, not talk about them. And there should be a true community of adults and young people exploring how the world works and how to live one's life, coffee-breaking together, hiking, biking, creating a video production, an exhibit, researching -- together . . ." "Wait just one minute!" I am interrupted by a surge of anger and resentment. "What about academics?" "Where they belong, at the graduate level for about 20% of students." "How do we determine grades, promotion, class rank?" "You don't! Those things have nothing to do with education." "But what about hard work, competition, courses, credits? Who passes and who fails?" "Same reply." "You would have us undo the entire system." "Exactly! It is no longer appropriate or useful. It is a horse and buggy rambling down a dirt road in a Third World society, without meaning or direction, simply doing what it has always done and pretending to change. We have a responsibility to enculturate our young people and prepare them for the world they must face -- not the comfortable and familiar world we cling to." The meeting room fills with insecurity, fear, and resentment toward both the message and the messenger. They proclaim my eternal banishment, and I respond as did Coriolanus: DAVID CAMPBELL is chair of the Department of Educational Studies, California University of Pennsylvania, California, Pa.
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