As easily as we forget how little we know, we're even better at forgetting what children don't know.

Imagine a child who spends her life at cocktail parties. Her mother carries her on her hip the first few months, pushes her in a special party stroller the next year or two, then allows the child to wander among the adults as a toddler, picking up snippets of conversation.

She's develop a cute cocktail personality, might even comment on the stock market, on derivatives, on the price of petroleum. She could rattle off an opinion on the financial melt down and tsk the current administrations health plans as she downs her third Shirley Temple of the evening.

Like most folks in the room babbling on about the same things, she's know near nothing. So long as the cocktails keep coming and voices keep humming, no one notices, no one cares.

Sometimes I feel like were training our children for one long cocktail party....

I cannot compete with cocktail parties. Cocktail parties numb the cortex and feed the limbus. A good party makes everyone feel good just to feel good. There's a reason the pretty folks thinking pretty thoughts drink pretty drinks.

pssst....Ethanol.

Children, of course, cannot easily use ethanol to numb their thoughts, but we've provided plenty of tools that work about as effectively--iPods, Vidego 28s, and iPAQs take your child places that exist only in human imagination.

The human imagination is truly a wonderful gift, but it pales next to the life outside your window. Or inside your window. Even on your skin or your rug.

I just had to have the new iPhone 3GS
with its native-voice recognition system
...do you have one?

So we "invest in our economic future by providing the high-quality education our kids need to compete in the global economy."

Oh, yes, Arne said that, mmm, that handsome devil,
I saw him say that on CNN, marvelous man,
We do need to protect our 401ks.
'Scuse me while I freshen up my glass.

A good science education might just be incompatible with Arne's aims.
A decent education might get some children to question our assumptions.

.

Science education promotes a living democracy by helping to create citizens capable of critical thought and healthy skepticism. I may be naive, but I believe that's why public schools exist, to maintain a functional citizenry, not necessarily to provide more effective workers for Citigroup or Microsoft or Abbot Laboratories.

Did you hear? It was all worth it!
He's going to be an executive
at a Fortune 500 company!

If anyone can show me Arne equating public education with maintaining democracy (as opposed to economic standing) I'd be much obliged. Thank you .

***

Biology is, of course, the study of life. Life depends on energy.

A tiny portion of the energy thrown off the sun gets absorbed by Earth, and living things use it to live. Much of it is stored in sugars and fats--sunlight is not constant.

Some of the stored energy remains as fossil fuels. Our current economy depends on folks consuming more than they need and using more energy than the sunlight now provides.

A child well-versed in biology might even ask if a global economy based on modern capitalist principles can be sustained.

You won't, however, see that asked on a mandatory state test given to comply with the That-Which-Is-No-Longer-the-NCLB Act.

***

I cannot compete with an iPod, but that's OK, I serve a different purpose.

If I yank off the iPods and tell a child to study DNA because it will be good for her (or at the least threaten withholding her high school diploma if she refuses to bend to my curriculum), I might be able to sneak her past our state biology exam--a cocktail's party view of biology may suffice to get the diploma but see below.

If I truly ignite her curiosity, though, watch out. A thinking animal can wreck a good cocktail party--there's a reason Socrates was served hemlock instead of a highball.

Thinking animals started this American experiment back in the 18th century. The experiment depends on a truly educated, interested citizenry. I'm not convinced Arne wants that, and that may drive me to drink.

Bartender!

(I know I am not being fair, and some fine people are working
under impossible odds to create a decent state exam,
but I think the multiple choice selective response format
precludes producing a good science test.)


The painting is A Bar at the Folies-Bergere by Edouard Manet, 1882.