Boy, Kenneth Clark takes me back a bit! Pleasantly of course....wonder if
his BBC videos are still available? A few others of similar ilk now return
to mind.....Bronwoski...

Jp showing his age

-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Wirt Atmar
Sent: Sunday, 5 June 2005 2:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: More Evolution

John writes:

> Geez Wirt, you're startin to sound like GWB!

There are things that Bush says -- although I'm sure that he didn't write
them -- such as "the soft bigotry of low expectations" that I deeply agree
with.


>  No raging...just arguing constitutional law.

I still believe that you're missing the point.

To let your daughter wear a shirt like that I consider to be a basic
abrogation of your parental responsibilities, and to defend her actions so
vigorously
sends her the completely wrong message.

But even more importantly, beyond the fact what one family considers
appropriate and another doesn't, there is nothing "democratic" or
"constitutional"
about being a student. I taught for ten years in publicly supported state
university, New Mexico State, with my students' ages ranging from 17, just a
few
years older than your daughter's, to "kids" in their early thirties, people
who
had just finished their doctorates.

What I said and did in my classroom was law. Although I never kicked a kid
out of class for what he wore, simply because it was never necessary, I did
ask
kids to leave for talking, for reading newspapers in class, for being late
and
for sleeping. Their speech wasn't constitutionally protected; they were to
sit there and be quiet, as much as a courtesy to their classmates as
anything,
but primarily to engage in a dialog, but one where they were silent partners
in
that dialog.

Nor did I grade on the curve. Requiring work of sufficient quality for a
particular grade made it possible for everyone in class to get an "A," but
it also
made it possible for everyone to flunk the class. One of the stories I told
at the beginning of a great number of my classes was that of Kenneth Clark's
comment regarding mediocrity. If you exist day-to-day in the midst of
mediocrity, you not only become so inured to it that it seems normal, you
begin to see
graded shades of it, and that was the reason that Clark felt compelled to
return to the Acropolis every so often, simply to reset his appreciation for
what
was truly excellent and what was merely mundane.

I not only believe in the "soft bigotry of low expectations," I very deeply
believe that people rise to the level of expectations that you put before
them,
and I was always impressed with what the kids could accomplish if you
demanded it of them. And I am sure that it impressed them too.

Wirt Atmar

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