VIEWPOINTS
rOfTOBIAt S OPINIONS HTIfRS TO THf (Dll OR
■ OUR OPINION: The top
priority of the country
should be education
The Oregon educ alien
system seems to be trapped
on a rotter coaster of posi
tive reforms, such as the
proposed prepaid tuition
[engrain. but more common
y. negative drawbacks, such
as the recent layoffs in
Springfield's School District
19
In an attempt to cut $3
million from nest year's
budget, th« district laid off
22 of its employe*** Unfor
tunately. most of the
younger, more enthusiastic
teaching staff, counselors
and librarians have been the
ones predominantly targeted
by the cut, leaving the older
and more experienced
teachers in tneir solid posh
Notts.
Though theta cut* proba
bly could have bmn made
in either aspects of the dis
trict, less violently impact
ing people's lives, the
bottom line is that the dis
trict should not have to cut
such a large amount from
their budget
In Oregon and the rest of
the United States, three
never seems to be any
money for education any
more. Whenever money is
needed in other areas, funds
are removed from the educa
tion system. We, as Ameri
cans and Oregonians,
should not only be fright
ened, hut screaming for
these repeated cuts to stop.
But budget cuts are not
the only dilemma that
schools across the country
are facing.
There is a current crisis in
major cities nationwide con
cerning a shortage of teach
ers. Though one could say
that is * good thing because
nil of these recently unem
ployed Springfield torn her*
can run to Portland and get
Hiti*. the problem is much
more involved, threatening
the qualify of education in
these cities (But with our
nation* priori tie* focused
on everything else but edu
cation. it ia no surprise that
the quality of education
anywhere is declining.)
Certain areas are suffering
from theae shortages more
so than others. The vital
area* that desperately need
time her* are special educa
tion. bilingual and minority
education, math and sci
ence These are the area*
where uncertified teachers
are being hired to fill the
gap
Thi* sort of bottom-feed
ing is not only unaccept
able. but completely unfair
to student* Imagine what
the outcome would have
been if you had been taught
two of the hard***! classes of
your academic career — ad
ana* and math — by a
teacher that was even mom
confusing and incompetent
than the one you remember
having Imagine being a
recant transfer student from
a non-English speaking
country, relying on an edu
cate who has never learned
how to manage a classroom,
let alone a classroom of stu
dents who do not speak
English.
Inner city schools have
enough deficiencies without
the problem of weak teach
ing staffs With recent sur
veys finding that 77 percent
of major city school districts
hired uncertified teachers
because of shortage*, one
thing is evident: America
desperately needs to get its
priorities straight and stop
neglecting education,
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Cultural custodians could be charlatans
'■T • TVre til living in • so-called post
m /l / mixiern age that nobody, not even
1/ */ the mind* who came up with the
V V Ubei, can define Pont mod«rm*m
made it acceptable hit pranroaidentlai Bill Clin
too to play hi* m> on MTV and for g»oto politi
cal journalist* to wrtte about ail the drag* (bay
took on the campaign trail. (I explain* why piaa
Uj clothing and kiwi *al*d» ara chk. why camp
la art and why fslafel tastes batter in London
than it d<»M in Lebanon it has given us esciiing
new way* to read fane Kyra without war actual
ly reading fane Eyre It show* ua how language
works, or rather. Kow it doe* not. It even
explains rasas and fra all why woman aacratly
envy petdtea.
Postmodernism rap bead common sense with
deconstruction, post structuralism and a host of
five syllable 'isms that make contemporary
learning an adventure, if not a fut (scale safari,
fust when we thought ww knew all the tight
books to read, we re faced with anti-books, or
book* about books, or books that tell us books
> turn dhMtsi
Fortunately fur all the students, academician*
and chefs who don't know their aignifW from
tbeir signified. a New York University profeasor
has 'Stomped forward to assure us that ye*, it is
all buliaiitL
Whan NYU physicist Alan Sokal hoaxed the
editor* of the prestigious critical Journal Social
Test by lioiitn* them to publish hi* nonsense
essay. "'Tran**rm*ing the Boundaries Toward a
Transformative ifomumeutiui erf Quantum Grav
ity.“ (Soria/ Text MTJ ha mad* a statement
about ac-.atlam.ia too rude to print
Sokal* essay it a sampling of tha moat abauni
quotation* he could gamer bom tha Ho* and
taut* of prominent contemporary thinker* He
include* lengthy footnote* and a couple hun
dred bibliographic reference* citing big name*
in post-modern theory.
The tlttjf’l underlying goal, apart from
ridicule, is to ***«rt that trendy theories have
turned academia into a cerebral free-for-all In
which buoword* are more convincing than
logic The drive to dismantle old mode* of
thinking, Sokal impliea, ha* resulted in *loppy
thinking What scholarly Mandat'd* remain in a
culture in which Rusanne i* a mote acceptable
subject for study than Descartes?
Had one*, according to Sokal
Social Text is the lean-Paul Geultier of schol
arship (t is the printed equivalent of a cappuc
cino (neve If it were a person, it would be
someone you hated but wanted to know A
band. Smashing Pumpkin* It is a clearinghouse
of postmodern ideas built in a very nice neigh
borhood
The subjects it discusses (that is to say. dis
courses on) are a* faddish and novel as kiwi sal
ads. Even though the editors privately thought
Sokal'* article we* “hokey.“ they printed it as a
genuine critique They accepted it because It
quoted all tha right people, bolstered the pre
fifi
When pseudo scholarship passes for the real
thing one has to wonder who is willing or
able to delect double-talk
---99
vailing viewpoints, and was submitted by an
author with the correct credentials
If that's all it takes to get published these
days, who's to say that all the articles and anti
books being assigned in Universities aren’t gags,
toot When respected scholars “in the know”
don't even know when one of their own is blow
ing smoke, how are students to know? A worst
case scenario is that some of these scholars do
know that what they're espousing is junk, but
generate more of it anyway
0 P! H10 N
ror a society that cant teem
to come up with anything new.
reinventing the old ha* given
everyone something to think
•bout Pont modern theories
began by showing how litera
ture tan be "creatively mis
read" to reveal coded
meanings They have since
learn applied to everything
hum haute cuisine to quantum
mechanics There are no limits
lo where«reativ» misreading, misinterpreting,
«nd misleading out take on* If* a fascinating
held because H'« Lawless If# jmpular because
»S’« an intellectual gam* Kant Kierkegaard and
Descartes ware good, but they never gave any
on* ili« tool* to deconstruct Spam at analyze
!*m«* Bond
Unfortunately, it ha* also made it possible for
•omebody such m Sokal tnconvincingly “mi*
mad" established law* of physical reality When
useudo scholarship passe* for the real thing one
hru to wonder who is willing at able to detect
double talk
The men and women who contribute to Social
Text are typically lop-notch professor* at lead
ing turner*inn* The editor* them*elve* are
established brain* And one of the publisher*.
Stanley Fi«h, ha* written article* used all over
the country lo train undergraduates in the art of
misreading These are the custodian* of our cul
ture Or are they, as Sokal suspect*, the charla
tan*?
According to the father of post modernism.
Stria* linguist Ferdinand do Saussut*. a *rgmftet
it smoke, and a *igtufted t* fir* If you are ever
trapped in a fit*, fust yell. Signified' Signi
fied'" and sesvrai damn cultural construct* will
appear to test yaur physical reality with gender
neutral. non hegemonic water
Santa Sherwood, a motor mafonng in faumahsm
and English, is a columnist for the Emerald,
E-mail cheendtglodstone uaregon.edu