SCHOOL SCIENCEAND

MATHEMATICSVOL. LXXII _______APRIL, 1972__________ WHOLE No. 636

C^dlto^ l^aae

Pants Full of Snakes and Bottles of Whiskey

The Editor recently recalled a story his father told about twobrothers in the mill town of Cohoes, New York. Both were over sixfeet tall and weighed in excess of 250 pounds, the first a result ofheredity, and the second, a result of prodigious appetites for caloricfoods and alcoholic gases, liquids and solids. The two settled downsomewhat after the age of 40, both marrying women who matchedthem inch for inch and pound for pound and in fondness for caloricfoods, although the wives took dim views of their spouses drinkinghabits. Notwithstanding, both Uncle George and Uncle Harry, asthey were affectionately known in the community, occasionally wenton wild benders that would cause a lumberjack out of Calgary toblanch. On these occasions one or both w^ould get the delirium tremensand my father would be called to salvage what might be left. On onesuch occasion, after an exceptionally compulsive day, Uncle Georgebecame convinced that his pants were full of fairly active snakes.Uncle Harry become equally convinced that full bottles of whiskeywere floating around the room. My father was called to provide succorfor the two who were unable to move from beds on which they hadfallen on opposite sides of a bedroom. Uncle Harry was the first tospeak, to wit:"The snakes crawled up his legs into his britches on the way home. When I

got in the room I just didn’t have it in me to pull them out. Whenever I sawthem stick their heads out, I tried to grab them but I couldn’t make it.’^

My father tactfully did not mention that on one other occasion UncleGeorge was plagued by a digestive system inhabited by scurrying

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rodents and that Uncle Harry had given little help then.My father then went to Uncle George who despite his size had a

heart of marshmallow and who on such attention, burst into tears andgave this testimony:"Poor Harry! There were full whiskey bottles floating in the air all over the

room and he didn’t have the legs to get up and get them. It was the most patheticthing I have ever seen. I tried to grab some for him, but they kept floatingaway."

The modern academic counterparts of Uncle George and UncleHarry are some of those in the "education industry" known as "per-formance contractors" who agree to take over the education of stu-dents, usually at the elementary or junior-high-school levels, at a cer-tain price per head and by using modern learning technologies andbehavior theory, produce astonishing learning increments.Many of these contractors are manufacturers who produce ap-

pliances that won’t work, and others market toys that must be as-sembled with instruction sheets that are incomprehensible. However,as they viewed the wave of moppets that needed to be educated overthe past two decades, they drank the heady wine of Piaget and Gagneand partook of the bread of Bloom and Skinner. Their supping atthese tables produced academic delirium tremens and they had hal-lucinations of grandeurs they could accomplish. Like Uncle Georgeand Uncle Harry, they were unable to seize the snakes or bottles ofwhiskey, and hence, hired test experts from testing organizations toidentify the elusive livestock and glassware. This was somewhatamazing considering the invective that had been hurled at theseorganizations for producing invalid tests. But, apparently the bubblehas been broken. Many articles that have appeared recently in news-papers citing "high sources in the Office of Education" indicate thatthe results fell short of predictions and in many cases were less thanwould have been accomplished if the students had come through thetraditional classroom. Thus, the contractors did not collect the priceper head.

Hopefully, which unfortunately never happened to Uncle Georgeor Uncle Harry, educational technology in the sense described here,will be consigned to a detoxification unit followed by treatment andrehabilitation. Hopefully, the good can be salvaged. No one wishesto defend the efforts of American education for being completelysuccessful, or in some cases, successful at all. However, one mustrecognize that any increments of learning are accomplished by"blood, sweat, and tears," not by imbibing the "summer wine" ofperformance contractors.

GEORGE G. MALLINSON. Editor