My Utne Reader response is coming.

-- Anonymous, November 11, 1998

Answers

Mr. Lyle you need to improve your note taking so I have a resource to copy from.

-- Anonymous, November 11, 1998

Overall I agree with the general idea of the article, that people are not just educated in schools but they are educated everywhere. What I do not agree with, are the sources that Jon Spayde takes quotes from.

First, I do not agree that people are richer than others monetarily or in terms of life just because they are educated in the Humanities as Earl Shorris states in his book New American Blues (Norton, 1997). I do not enjoy the humanities nor am I well educated in the area of humanities. I do enjoy my life, my family and sports. Does this mean that my life is poor (I think not). There are many people that are very educated in the humanities that are very cynical of the world, I do not see pleasure in this.

Second, John Ralston., a Canadian historian, says that "it's an enormous error to believe that technology can somehow be the content of education." This maybe so, but if there is a 300,000+ shortage of computer technicians in this country (as experts say), then why not get a technical education and get a good paying job to support your family and community. He says that this technical training will be obsolete soon anyway. Mr. Ralston goes on to compare this type of training to printing, saying that people did not say that everyone needed to learn how to use the printing press when the Gutenberg was first invented. Using this logic would say that we also do not need to learn how to use the telephone or television. These maybe extreme opposite, but there is middle ground. I believe that many people can study to be computer technicians without being poor because they lack something else.

Miles Harvey, a Chicago journalist, claims that "The level of creativity and intellectual activity in this country would jump up if we had a four-day work week." What world does this guy live in, I ask myself. Most people I know would fish more, hunt more, watch more TV and drink more beer. How would this increase our creative and intellectual activity (can you say inverse variation)?

These arguments continue through the rest of this article. I do agree that we all can learn differently and from different things. As Jon Spayde says in his final paragraph, "There are as many ways to become an educated American as there are Americans."

-- Anonymous, November 29, 1998

Glenn Tracey responding to Mr. Lyle's review of "Learning in the Key of Life" by John Spade. UTNE Reader May-June 98.

I believe the author does address the issue of education with a rather unrealistic belief that our reward for learning from classical sources will make us happier in dealing with life's challenges. However the point I feel he is trying to make is that the technical skills which we can use to be productive do not provide enough self knowledge of the cultural heritages which produce our society. It seems that applying education to understanding people and the world around us is what he feels is missing in the "technical training" found at many trade schools and to a certain extent I would tend to agree. This does not mean once you have a certificate learning would end, but rather that by encouraging studies of the humanities in the curriculum it might stimulate interest in learning more about people and how they may respond to the problems of the human condition. Do we need this to be happy?

-- Anonymous, November 30, 1998