Why Johnny Can’t Read Now; An Elegy

[James Warren]

Why Johnny Can’t Read Now; An Elegy

https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2023/03/why-johnny-cant-read-now-an-elegy.html

[Mike Spencer]

James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:

> Why Johnny Can't Read Now; An Elegy
>
> https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2023/03/why-johnny-cant-read-now-an-elegy.html

Ha.

The last time I taught The Scarlet Letter, I discovered that my
students were really struggling to understand the sentences as
sentences -- like, having trouble identifying the subject and
verb. -- Amanda Claybaugh, Harvard

I think my cohort grew up on a cusp in several ways. We were too
young to be of the WWII genertion and too old to be boomers.
The boomers engenderd a frenzy of school (and later, university)
construction. A similar franzy of expansion of "education"
departments led to a marked decline in what it took to become a
teacher.

My high school may have been far from the mean but it was indicative.
Severl of my teachers were beyond usual retirement age. One was 80
who had taught there his whole career. His elder brother died the
previous year after also teachig there his whole life. It was
possible to take Latin for 4 years. (I only kept track of two
classmates who did that. One had assumed, mistakenly, that he was
destined for Harvard and died in his 50s after becoming a wolrd class
eccentric. The other is now an emeritus professor and world class
authority on ancient Greek drama.) My 70+ y.o. chemistry teacher, a
native Greek speaker, had taught Greek there for many years and
complained grumpily that the school board had discontinued it only a
couple of years before.

In the 11th grade, Mr. Purcell announced, "Last year, I taught you
grammar. You failed to learn it. So I'm going to teach it again."
And he did.


--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

[lucr...@florence.it]

On 14 Mar 2023 16:39:20 -0300, Mike Spencer

He wouldn't be allowed these days :) None of mine would be either,
quick flip across the hand with a cane if you were lucky, otherwise on
the bum and far harder.

[HRM Resident]

Mike Spencer <m...@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:

>
> The last time I taught The Scarlet Letter
>

Unverified trivia: I am trying to figure out where I got this or
if it's true. Still, I seem to remember when they shot the Shelburne
portion of that movie, Demi Moore stayed in one of the local hotels.
After they left, some guy was said to have bought the bathtub from
the room she stayed in and installed it in his home. Why? So he could
bathe in the same tub Demi Moore had used. This sounds absurd, but I
heard that at the time.

>
> My high school may have been far from the mean but it was indicative.
>

It was the same in the 1960s here. You learned, or you failed.
Grammar was important. This had all changed by the 1990s when my kids
went to school. It's far different than the 1990s today. Whether or not it
is any better or worse is hard to say.

Most of us think things were better when we were in our prime. By
us, I mean any generation. WW I, The Depression and WW II
notwithstanding, most of my ancestors said things were better when
they were 20-30 than when I was 20-30. I find myself saying the same
thing now.

--
HRM Resident

[James Warren]

'Twas always thus.

[Mike]

HRM Resident <hrm...@gmail.com> writes:

> Most of us think things were better when we were in our prime. By
> us, I mean any generation. WW I, The Depression and WW II
> notwithstanding, most of my ancestors said things were better when
> they were 20-30 than when I was 20-30. I find myself saying the same
> thing now.

The 50s & 60s were in fact different in many ways. Readily available
jobs, inexpensive higher education, technical spin-off from WWII and
momentum in science, medicine and tech, antibiotics, high taxes on
mega-incomes, income disparity reined in, other spin-offs of the New
Deal. Things that never existed before and have been eroded or
demolished by multiple factors in the last 40 years.

My father, born in 1895, thought the post-war era was pretty damn
good despite having assorted specific bones to pick with some of the
trends. He landed in France hours after the armistice was signed in
1918 and marched across France -- an understatement to call it a "sobering
experience" -- to help occupy Germany, thought the 20s were pretty good
but saw them crash into depression and WW II revisit 1914 with bells
on. He had an interesting life but I think felt the 60s were as good
as it gets.

[HRM Resident]

Mike <m...@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:

>
> My father, born in 1895, thought the post-war era was pretty damn
> good despite having assorted specific bones to pick with some of the
> trends.

Mine was born in 1904, the youngest of 8 kids, so I guess I heard
pretty much the same. Three of them moved to Reading (outside Boston,
I'm sure you know the place,) got married and only came back for the
occasional visit. In the roaring 20s, they had a wild time, I gathered.

The only thing I remember them saying in the 60s was "This can't keep
up forever." I thought it would and they were just being
pessimistic. But by 1985-1990, I realized they were right.

Unrelated, your post is back to your first name again.

--
HRM Resident

[lucr...@florence.it]

On 16 Mar 2023 01:25:13 -0300, Mike <m...@bogus.nodomain.nowhere>
wrote:

I believe that to be true, it's not just that in looking back to ones
youth it seems better. I am worried that the turbulent times now are
similar to what the 20s started to be and look where that led. The
politics of hate can't lead anywhere nice :( Keep thinking of 'Those
who forget their history are doomed to repeat it' :(

[James Warren]

You're right LB. The US is at a critical point. It can topple into authoritarianism and
fascism or become a more social democracy. The next decade
may decide which it will be.

[lucr...@florence.it]

I'd rather it not be but I don't see too much evidence of more social
democracy. Did all I could in my time, marched everywhere with the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) which I see is stirring again
and even that was friendly. The police would say 'Now come along you
ladies, you know I have to move you over to there, how about we just
do it' and we would jeer a bit but do it. Recently the English police
were asking for the right to strip, search, jail demonstrators without
cause!!

We used to know when countries added nuclear weapons, but not anymore
so CND didn't work.

Also worked hard against S Africa on the anti apartheid trails. Well
apartheid is mostly gone, a few wealthy blacks live in gaited
communities along with the whites and the rest still exist meagerly in
Soweto, just as they always did.

I end my days feeling there is not much hope.

[James Warren]

I marched in a few protests too in the late 60s. I think
those did some good. The tide began to turn in the 80s
when all us boomers god rich and wanted to keep it
for ourselves and get even richer and went to the
dark side. This upcoming generation may change things
yet again, not by marching, but by ignoring us and setting
up a new world according to their liking.

That being said, it could also all go to shit if the minority
of fascists seize control and impose an authoritarian
Christion theocracy before they finally croak.

[Mike]

HRM Resident <hrm...@gmail.com> writes:

> Unrelated, your post is back to your first name again.

Transitioning to a new installation of Slackware Linux 15.0, still
shaking out config details and bugs. Long and somewhat onerous
project. Getting X to work with a new monitor to do well with movies
but also render text large enough for old eyes. Reverting distro
print manager to old software, same for outgoing email management.

Running the two systems side by side but now the new one is the
default system. Lessee... right, my "finger name" is Mike on the new
system. Have to change that.

An oddity (obvious in retrospect, of course) is that a 19" 4:3 monitor
renders larger text than a 19" 16:9 wide-screen monitor. I'm using a
borrowed 16:9 LCD. It's fine for movies but barely OK for text. A
script invoking xrandr(1) will shift screen mode/res between 3 16:9
resolutions but isn't entirely satisfactory. Got to buy a 24" or
larger monitor. A further complication may be that a new monitor has
to support VGA or DVI-D as my newish computer doesn't have an HDMI
connector.

I also haven't figured out why the new system automatically discovers
my router and sets a default route so that the machine effectively
goes on-line at boot time. I prefer to have a guarantee that I'm
off-line until I execute a "route add default gw..." command.

And why does M-X execute in emacs -nw as M-8? I think I've omitted
invoking loadkeys(1) in /etc/rc.d/rc.local.

Not that you wanted to know all of that, just to indicate how many
details have to be isolated and attended to in a new system.

[lucr...@florence.it]

On Thu, 16 Mar 2023 13:58:28 -0700 (PDT), James Warren

Glad to know someone else tried to protest the system :)

>
>That being said, it could also all go to shit if the minority
>of fascists seize control and impose an authoritarian
>Christion theocracy before they finally croak.

Spare us from Christians - I see some Texan ones are trying to make
it illegal to sell abortion pills anywhere in the USA!! Always so
avid to make sure there are no abortions but against handing out any
financial assistance to monthers with babies whose father don't
contribute anything! No wonder you know who felt so at home there!

[HRM Resident]

Mike (Spenser) <m...@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:
>
> Not that you wanted to know all of that, just to indicate how many
> details have to be isolated and attended to in a new system.
>

Building systems can become a drudgery. We have a mental list of a
dozen or two things that need to be configured or changed from
the default. I don't think I ever built a system without forgetting one
or two.

Bigger monitors are better. Some people use flatscreen TVs! I think
a 27-inch 16:9 is the best. I am pretty sure you can get a HDMI --> VGA
or HDMI --> DVI adapters for $10-15. If you want one, email me and we
can do it the same as the last item.

You mentioned movies . . . has your Internet been improved so you
can stream video or watch YouTube?

--
HRM Resident

[HRM Resident]

lucr...@florence.it and James Warren write:
>>
>>I marched in a few protests too in the late 60s.

>

> Glad to know someone else tried to protest the system :)
>

A pair of hippies! Did you both "Turn on, tune in, drop out"
for a while? I wanted to, but my father told me to go get a job and
that I could hang out with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan once I was paying my
own way. No Woodstock for me! :-(

--
HRM Resident

[James Warren]

For me neither. I was a straight shooter: no booze, no weed, no speed. :)

[James Warren]

And no psychedelics! :)

[lucr...@florence.it]

On Fri, 17 Mar 2023 09:37:15 -0300, HRM Resident <hrm...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Wasn't a hippie lol Too busy being a mum.

I am ashamed of one march - it was for antiapartheid and the RN
cricket team were playing a South African team. My husband was on the
RN team but I stayed with my group and we brought a cricket game to a
halt (remember cricket is sacred to the English!) as we marched
through. I had the kids in the stroller and just prayed they wouldn't
notice David in particular and call out 'Daddy" ! Thankfully they
didn't, David claimed he crouched behind someone ;)