Narnia: A Foray

.

I finally did something I should have done several years ago.

My friend and I watched The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the latest in the series of movies based on C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia.

Dawn Treader, though, on the face of it, a typical British children's adventure, has a number of twists that give it a lot of charm, especially if you're an insider to the mythology that Lewis had set up in the sequence of books that led up to Dawn Treader.  I don't know enough of the history of the series to be able to comment on the whole business, but between C. S. Lewis and the director of the movie, they have put together a movie which is very appealing, not least because of the casting of the young protagonists.  Edmund and Lucy this time find, to their dismay, that an annoying cousin has been dragged along, and to my surprise, this fellow becomes one of the most important elements in the story.

A central problem Lewis has to confront in the entire series (and even in other series of his books) is how individuals committed to non-violence have to choose to act in the face of desperate violence.  This echoed the quandary of so many enlightened British during World War 2, which was the setting in which Lewis's writing took place.  Lewis tries to resolve this in a way that would be understandable to a teenager, but perhaps does not quite succeed.  Still, not many authors have taken on this problem seriously; J. K. Rowling and Tolkien, in their different ways, have done so.  Their solutions, at both the literary and philosophical levels, has been to objectify evil, and distill it into a symbolic entity that must be destroyed, though this entity evolves, over the course of time, co-opting different individuals, each of whom must be defeated.

George Lucas, in his Star Wars stories, very deliberately portrays the evolution of the hero into the villain, surely a representative and symbolic process, largely missed by most young people who might have enjoyed the movies.  It is not that heroes always become villains; rather, it is that many villains did not start out as villains.

The actress who portrays Lucy was so appealing that her portrayal of the character prevented me from dismissing the movie (Dawn Treader) and moving on.  Eventually, my friend and I decided that this last movie probably made more sense to those who had seen the earlier ones.  So we decided to watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I must say that that first movie was amazingly effective, and made it clear that the first book was a complete and, in many ways perfect, little gem of invention, and the remaining books, though jolly adventures in their own ways, and clever allegories, suffered in comparison.  To be honest, having seen only the first and last movie, I can only say that Dawn Treader did not have the logical transparency that Wardrobe did, but paradoxically, the latter had the harder task of setting out the context for all the movies.  Nor did the acting in the last movie come close to what seemed the utter conviction of that of the first movie.  Lucy, in particular, was played brilliantly, by a young lady (Georgie Henley) who could scarcely have been older than ten.

Another Look at Organized Education

.

I was stunned---and pleased---to learn about the famous Ken Robinson (Sir Ken Robinson), a very clever and insightful educator from Britain.  This gentleman is famous for looking at education from the perspective of: is it out of date?

Is our system of education out of date?  Ken Robinson says it is.  He says a lot more.  He says:
* The present system of organized education came into being in the industrial age.  (I have to agree; look at this animation based on one of his talks.  I believe it sets out his thesis briefly and tellingly, and if you want to disagree with him, this is where you would start.
* The curriculum hierarchy and organization within academe (and most definitely in the high school curriculum) has been taken from the Renaissance.  (There are worse places it could have been taken from, but still, one gets the picture.)
* Mass education is based on the premise that all students learn at the same speed; in other words, the best way to classify them is by date of manufacture, clearly an idea borrowed from industry.  Ken Robinson strongly condemns this one-size-fits-all paradigm.  (I partially agree; see below.  Some things have to be taught in a regimented way, but it is a mistake to teach everything the way you teach math and English, for instance.)
* He says that there is far too much classifying of young children as ADHD---a synonym for "Easily bored in school."  He points out a number of factors why this should be so, and he is vehemently opposed to prescribing Ritalin (and other drugs) for the purpose of making children more adaptable to a class environment.  (Again, I partially agree; the diagnosis of ADHD is a little too easily arrived at.  There are most certainly environmental factors that can be adjusted to make young children perform better in classroom environments, and, at least in Elementary School, classroom environments must come to a compromise with the needs of modern, over-stimulated-by-the-media kids who are easily bored.)
* The Arts are greatly undervalued, while the Sciences and Mathematics, and the Languages and the Humanities are over-valued.  (This is true, but hard to avoid.  Since the community funds education, by and large, it can hardly be blamed for emphasizing utilitarian skills.  If a township is going to pay for the school with tax dollars, they're going to want the kids to learn spelling and figuring, so that the damn kids can at least work in the supermarket.  Parents, too, have a say in what subjects are taught in college.)

Ken Robinson's main interest is Arts Education.  He sees modern education as a vast machine to destroy creativity in young people.  He defines creativity as the ability to have ideas that have value.  In the absence of a better definition, one has to admit that this is a good one.  Finally, the biggest statement Robinson makes:

* Mass education at present is geared towards the skills of yesterday, while nobody knows what the future will bring.  (The industrial analogy is obvious.)  He feels that a curriculum that, instead of stifling creativity (with Ritalin, perhaps) actually encourages and develops it, is the best strategy for organized education.

Ken Robinson's ideas are far-reaching, and each person ---most of all, each parent--- must decide for him- or herself how far he or she can espouse Ken Robinson's principles.  Perhaps it is time for schooling to be split into two parts: a traditional regimented schooling for part of the day, in which traditional skills are imparted, and a highly individualized schooling for the rest of the day, based on the child's interests, the family's financial resources, and special opportunities available in each locality.  At least this second part should involve parents; they can join the student in the lessons, or be part of the instruction package.  Wouldn't it be interesting to see little Katie Jane's mother (or grandmother) showing the class how to make a gingerbread house for the holidays, or a videoclip for YouTube?

However we may deplore mass-production, in some ways it makes possible our standard of living.  Nobody would want to pay for a hand-crafted automobile, for instance.  But we buy mass-produced food very reluctantly, simply because we can't afford something home-grown, or we don't know how to make a cheesecake, for instance.  So a realistic approach to a better system of education has to be based on compromise.

The founding fathers, it seems, had anticipated that a one-size-fits-all education system will not succeed in a highly diverse new republic, with citizens with highly individualistic tendencies.  In the 18th century already, it must have been clear that the liberal education that the founding fathers (for the most part) must have enjoyed, could not be foisted mutatis mutandis on the people.  I have said that a liberal (college) education was intended for the landed gentry, who did not have to work for a living.  This class has dwindled, as a proportion of the population, but it still exists.  (Instead of working, though, they have to worry for a living.  They're condemned to forever look anxiously over the shoulders of their investment advisors.)

At any rate, Ken Robinson is a breath of fresh air in the heated education debate.

Archimedes

Our Very Own Recession / Depression

.

Most of us are too young to remember the Great Depression of 1929; in fact, I am too young myself.  But my friends recall hearing stories about those times.  Sure, there was lots of suffering, but many of the stories are about people doing things for their neighbors.

One of my friends was the child of one of several brothers who ran a business that made fittings for homes.  Once the Depression spread to California, their factory had hardly any orders to fill; people were not building, so there was no need for doors and windows and what have you.

The plant employed a couple of dozen men at its height.  The owner called a meeting and told them that, seeing as how there was no income, salaries could not be paid.  Rather than lay them off, he kept them on as wageless workers.  They continued to make their product as long as they had the raw materials, and then looked for other products they could manufacture, though I don't quite know how they sold the stuff.

There was an active barter economy; people would grow food at home, and sell it or trade it for other items they could use.  People starved, but managed to remain alive, at least in some parts of the US.

Certainly, these were pioneers, and children of pioneers, and hardy folk.  The degree of hardship dismayed them--it certainly was no walk in the park, and all in a day's work (as it might have been for their ancestors); but one gets the impression that there was far less whining back then.

In the present recession or depression, though unemployment is high (around 10%) it is lower for people with a college education.  I would guess that people with general degrees, e.g. in the social sciences, the arts, or the sciences or mathematics are probably fairly employable.  In contrast, if you have a very specific training, say such as a degree in fashion design, you are probably a little harder to place.  The important things to be able to do are: quickly understand what your employer wants, and be able to cope with minor problems that can be solved with simple ingenuity and common sense.  A knowledge of common computer software, basic accounting principles, a spreadsheet, a word-processor are all useful.  The ability to write a grammatical letter to a customer or a client, to put together a report --on paper or PowerPoint-- to be able to design a poster, or an advertisement for a new receptionist!  Not everyone out there can do this sort of thing, especially kids whose major efforts at "writing" have to do with writing cryptic remarks to their friends with e-mail.  They'll probably have to wait around ten years until their prospective employers are comfortable with their writing style.

In other words, we will have to back away from insisting on a go-it-alone kind of lifestyle, and be prepared to give help and get help, and work at unfamiliar jobs.  A huge first step is to get the youngest members of our families comfortable with *any* sort of job.  Kids used to do paper routes all the time.  But that sort of after-school job is looked down upon, these days, by some of the snootier kids in our neighborhoods.