In today's NYT: "Educators Try to Tame Japan's Blackboard Jungles":
"Up until now, Japan was a society in which children obeyed
adults, but this relationship between children
and adults is no longer workable,
because the system was built around the idea that by
doing well in school you could enter a good company,
and having lifetime security," said
Naoki Ogi, an education expert. "Over the last 10 years,
however, Japan hasn't found a way out of its
economic depression, and from the
children's viewpoint, the academic record-oriented
system has collapsed. Moral values are collapsing, too.
"So children feel they have no one they can trust,
no adult society they can look up to."
This strikes me as far more the canary-in-the-coal mine than
the long familiar disciplinary problems in American schools.
This is real deconstruction, not some foppish Philosophy
Professor pretending that words don't mean anything (except
for his tenure and perks, of course).
Here seem to be children who can thematize the terms of
the social contract, and judge that the other side is not going to
fulfill its part.
I always thought William Golding's second rate novel that
won him an entirely undeserved Nobel Prize (when substantive
writers like Broch and Musil never got one!) -- I always thought that
_Lord of the Flies_ was cr-p. Somewhat in proof of that,
we read it in high school English class (and were tested on it,
of course).
I still think Golding's novel was of little value.
If someone wants to write a novel about children that
would have real substance, here, as last, is the topic.
Maybe Mr. Golding could redeem himself? But probably
Kenzaburo Oe(sp?) would have a better chance of
succeeding.
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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