Steve Trinward Steve Trinward is "Soul Proprietor" of Trinwords.Com (wordsmithing and editing services) and a contributing editor for Rational Review. SUPPORT OUR
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Steve goes back to
school A funny thing happened to me on the way to writing this month’s column: I had to deliver a speech about the libertarian approach to Higher Education, with very little (essentially no) preparation time, and no resource materials upon which to rely. Briefly, our LP of Tennessee Gubernatorial nominee, Ray Ledford, Jr., had been invited to join three other candidates for the seat to address the Tennessee Higher Education Summit held at David Lipscomb University a few weeks ago. Since it was the only such invitation Ray had received to stand in the same venue with the GOP and Democrat primary-winners (along with the leading Independent candidate, Rev. Ed Sanders), he jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, the morning of the Summit speech, Ray woke up with a digestive ailment which pretty much kept him bedridden for that day. He called me to see if I could stand in for him, and read his speech, if he sent it as an e-mail attachment. I reluctantly agreed, as both a local Nashvillian and an LP official (as newly elected Libertarian National Committee Region Seven Representative, I could at least claim to have SOME purpose up there…). I got the transmission about five minutes before I had to leave to make the opening of the day’s events. Even though I was not scheduled to speak for another two hours or so, it would be poor form to stumble in during the Main Event that would precede my time at the podium. It would be a showdown debate between former Nashville Mayor Phil Bredeson and Congressman Van Hilleary, the two major rivals for the Governor’s seat. (As I found out when I got there, tardiness would have been a double faux pas, since the seats they had reserved for Ray and his entourage were in the FRONT row, right opposite Rev. Sanders and his supporters.) Problem was, although the file itself was rather large, it turned out the speech itself was only about a page long (Ray is a man of very few words), while I would have a 15 minute slot to fill when my time came. As I drove across town I began to think of ways to expand those few paragraphs… and realized I had no hope of doing so coherently with only an hour or so to prepare, and no resources to fall back on. So I did what any good libertarian would do: I thought about what I would say if it were MY speech! Once I got to the auditorium, I sat in my front-row center aisle seat, listening with one ear to the opening debate, while rapidly forming some outside the box ideas for consideration by whatever audience would remain when my turn came. I heard ex-Mayor Phil, babbling on about his great experience in running a major city (nearly into the ground, under the combined heels of Bud Adams and his Houston Oiler/Tennessee Titans juggernaut, the Gaylord Entertainment Group and Dell Corporation – all of whom got ‘sweetheart deals’ from Bredeson, which are still costing Nashvillians money). I heard Congressman Van, extolling the virtues of his anti-income tax stance (which he had never once shown in the three years of the pitched battle against the imposition of such a tax, either by his physical presence at any of the rallies and protests, or by a clearly written statement of support for the cause). Yawn! Time to write… I listened, as I took a few notes; then I began to list some of my own ideas about education (Note: I raise them here and now as a spur to further discussion, not as a specific prescription for the “way out”…): 1. First I incorporated the LP platform’s advocacy of dollar-for-dollar tax credits for anyone assisting in the education of ANY child, whether or not related by blood or other consideration. That was easy; the one piece of resource material I did have was some copies of the new four-color LP brochure, which delineates this position perfectly; all I had to do was read it. So much for the specifics of “what would you do?” Now for some deeper thinking. For instance, what is one of the biggest differences in education now, versus how it was when this old warrior was going through the system, back in the enlightened ages of the mid-to-late Sixties? 2. How about what they CALL things? I quickly scribbled down what I hoped would be my “quotable sound byte”: “Back when I was going to school we had kindergarten, primary and secondary school … and then over here there was high school. Today we have K-12 education. I shudder to think how this trend might continue, until college gets swallowed up in the same web, and it becomes K-16!” I considered adding the “grad school” level, and making a K-18 ladder, but decided that was overkill. 3. Then I thought about the other thing that concerned me most about the education process: the lockstep nature of it all: “Once upon a time, when someone wanted to learn how to do something,” I noted, “the answer was to find a craftsman with that particular skill, and serve as his apprentice.” One observed and asked questions, I reminded them, until one was capable of performing the task on one’s own, and then it was a matter of either hiring on as the craftsman’s paid assistant, or setting up one’s own shop. “Now it seems,” I concluded, “that unless one has gotten the knowledge through some formalized classroom setting, with an accredited teacher and a fancy tuition bill, it is considered worthless!” I noted how very few people I’d encountered in recent years were willing to use self-driven, informal education methods (translation: find a book on the subject, seek a mentor or tutor, ask plenty of questions, then figure the rest out yourself!): “If you tell them to teach themselves, they claim they need to sign up for a course, instead! What happened to doing your own research?” 4. The fourth item I had jotted down was in many ways the most important: the need to become self directing, instead of merely a product of the system, and how what I dubbed “educatus interruptus” might solve at least some of that problem.. “I tell almost every young person I meet these days, when they tell me they haven’t really the foggiest idea of what they would like to learn when they go to college, to consider the alternatives. ‘What makes you think you need to go directly from high school into college?’ I ask them. ‘Why not take a year off in between, get some job you don’t entirely hate to do, and spend the time figuring out what you’d like to study or learn more about?’ “For most of them,” I noted, “this question has never even been asked -- by their parents, their teachers or even their guidance counselors. This is to me one of the greatest tragedies this consolidation of education into one endless tracking system has brought about!” 5. Finally, as an overall discussion topic, I brought in the whole issue of whether there was a “right to higher education,” or whether we had made it just one more entitlement in the program, one more thing which a shrinking economy and a responsible state governmental structure could ill afford to fund to the level at which it had become accustomed in recent times. “Why is there a justification for public subsidies to those choosing to seek out specialized knowledge,” I asked, “knowledge which can only enhance their own lives, and which is therefore seemingly of value to them, enough to warrant their paying for it themselves? “What 'right' do people have,” I asked, “to impose obligations on others to support them, while pursuing something can only benefit their own lives, and thus should be their own responsibility?” There was a schmooze break after the main event debate, and I took the opportunity to speak with Sanders about a possible joint event with Ray over the ensuing weeks, to the benefit of both. He seemed amenable. I was then careful to avoid most of the spread they had laid out, in preparation for my own moment in the spotlights. When it came my time to speak, I began with Ray’s words, and then added my own, as clearly and simply as I could do so. Not many people seemed to be listening, but I muddled through anyway. I then listened as Rev. Sanders presented some rather well-considered ideas about making education about facilitating learning and growth, and frankly I was almost ready to consider voting for the guy… when he closed off the last two minutes of his allotted time with an impassioned pitch declaring how none of his programs could be accomplished, without imposing… a graduated state income tax! (I reaffirmed my intention to vote Libertarian… or not at all!) After the whole thing was over, I went up to Sanders and complimented him on MOST of his speech. “I did have problems with one part…” I began, seeking to draw him into the larger issue: a State Assembly that has been pissing away every dollar it can steal from the taxpayers for decades, which until they began to show at least SOME aptitude for frugality, it might not be so good to give them another free source of revenue. I was all set to deliver, not a strictly libertarian argument (which I pretty much knew wouldn’t fly with this populist preacher), but a purely practical one. “I know just which part that was,” he said grimly, then turned to his gaggle of groupies and ignored further discussion. I waited a moment, then shrugged my shoulders and walked away. I did get approached by a very sweet young lady, who was here from Haiti and attending a local college, with the intention of graduating and returning to her home turf – in order to help reform the educational fiasco in that country. She said she’d found my comments intriguing and thought-provoking, and very much in line with her own concerns. She thanked me for making them, handed her disposable camera to a bystander… and had her picture taken with me! (I was so fum-flustered, I completely forgot to give her one of the Libertarian Party brochures in my briefcase. Doh!) All in all it was an interesting afternoon! |
