Talk: Education (1983: Doomsday)

I disagree with the assessment of the priority of education in the survivor "nations" -- especially if basic education is what we have in mind. In places where survivors flourished, education would be a priority to preserve civilisation and return to "normal" as soon as possible. I have built on this premise in establishing the Republic of Piedmont. In the upstate of South Carolina there were several schools with dormitories filled with students from all over the USA and other nations of the world. School was in session, and the emergency government (cut off from the rest of the world) would bet on this diversity in the universities to preserve not just the society of the upstate, but of the whole world. SouthWriter 18:48, January 21, 2010 (UTC)

Good point. I guess I was more thinking about the MSP where the chaos there led to a decline in education. Feel free to change my edits. Mitro 19:06, January 21, 2010 (UTC)

I began to respond to your new article with a tirade, but I have just started over. I see that you are grasping at trying to understand how the public education system would be affected by the destruction of major population centers and breakdown of a centralized system. However, even in the past decade, after thirty years in existence, the US Department of Education has not been able to establish "national standards." The states are different, and the "control" of the education is still in the local school boards. And if the truth be told, it is usually pretty well open to individual teachers to teach in "their own way" as long as they "produce" a good "product." The "professional educators" are very seldom voted "teacher of the year"!

You state that survivor state school systems would be lacking "experienced administrators." Why would that be the case? As the systems became autonomous, the only thing that would change is that the administrators in place would not be fired. As they began to age -- dying or retiring -- there would always be experienced teachers who had been "administrating" their own classes for years. The ability to be an "administrator" is a gift -- the root word means "to serve." Many "principals" were first teachers.

If there was a case in which a town survives that had lost its school due to consolidation with a larger city (to which they bussed their children, for instance," home schooling would undoubtedly catch on. This would not be a "bad thing" in a survivor community, for the skills for surviving would necessarily be taught -- reading, writing and arithmetic, of course, would be taught as they have been from ancient times on. Most parents would be literate and would want their children to be as well. Teachers would be sought out if the parents could not get the children to learn these things on their own. But most importantly, trades and skills would be taught. Farmers, mechanics, and others would take on apprentices. The Mennonites and other religious groups have survived for centuries in just this way.

I wonder where you get your ideas of home schooling in the south if you assume that there would "significant differences" between what girls and boys would be taught. If, as you mention in the next paragraph, you mean that girls would be taught home economics and boys would be taught shop, then you are probably right. That is a case of basic differences between boys and girls -- both their tendencies and their actual latent skills. The loss of these classes to modern education, along with the almost total loss of apprenticeships and mentoring, has lead to a deterioration of competent homemakers and craftsman in today's society. The basic education -- reading, language skills, math and science -- are taught to both girls and boys alike. In a totally unregulated society, of course, some parents might chose to concentrate on different areas with boys and with girls, but the "women's lib" philosophy is not a "right" -- boys and girls are different (and not just in body parts).

But in most places that survived, the school system would remain in a state of suspended animation -- not changing much from what was working at the time. As new school boards were elected, of course, reforms would be tried as they always will be. Some reforms would work, and other would fail. The old rule of "survival of the fittest" would most certainly be in affect in these autonomous systems.

When it comes to new higher education, it is not the "need" for research that drives most colleges. Most students are just in need of guidance in specializing their interests. The old books and supplies would do just fine for most things. Studies in literature would not suffer as long as the libraries stood, and the basics of math and physics do not change, and neither do the other sciences. As the need arose, if the isolation of survivor states continued long enough, there would be local innovations as the needs arose. Scientists teaching in the universities would seek the input of the brightest students, ideas would come. As the saying goes "necessity is the mother of invention." If you recall history Thomas Edison was not the only one working on creating an electric light. Alexander Graham bell almost did not get the patent for the telephone. And until recently Marconi got credit for "inventing" radio, though Tesla did most of the work. Even Einstein launched his ideas from the work of others!

I know that this is not Wikipedia, but if I may suggest a new policy, perhaps we need to begin to insist on outside links to support our divergences and projected assumed states of affairs. An article such as yours, making a lot of undocumented assertions, would be more believable if it had at least a reference to an essay somewhere as to the direction something has, or should, have gone.

I hope this long "monologue" has not disintegrated into a "rant." I erased my first three paragraphs to prevent that. Go over your article, and insert some links to support your assumptions. Beware of your point of view when presenting what you suppose would be the present with 27 years of interrupted past. Work through a logical projection on HOW it would get to where it is today (not necessarily in a written narrative, but at least in your mind). You are doing a good job, Just probably taking on more than you can handle! SouthWriter 05:03, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

:::What Mitro and SW are describing probably both happened, in different places. After all, generalizing about the entire world is always tricky.

In the areas directly affected by WW3 (i.e., most of the USA and Europe), Mitro's assessment is probably pretty accurate, though maybe it could do with some re-wording. Education would certainly not become "less important" - on the contrary, it would become even more urgent, since populations where only small percentages had worked in agriculture would suddenly have to learn a whole new skill set. The difference is what SW pointed out: education would move away from academics and toward practical knowledge and survival. In the better-run survivor communities, systems were put in place in order to teach the people en masse. I can imagine teams of former factory and office workers put to work plowing the south field. As time went on, children would indeed go back to learning these skills from their parents, as indeed children have done for 99% of human history.

As for the more formal institutions of learning, however, I don't think we'd see the continuity that SW suggests. Not in most places, anyway. The biggest reason? Population transfer. By 1980 a majority of Americans, at least, lived in suburban communities of some kind. Almost none of these communities would be economically viable anymore, and the people would gradually have to leave until the population density was again low enough to grow food for local consumption. By the mid- to late-90s, we know that most Americans were living a more medieval (or at least traditional agrarian) existence. They lived in walled settlements of various sizes and made a living fairly close to the land. Such rapid changes to society would not allow many schools to continue functioning as they had. In some places, yes. As a teacher, if I ended up in a survivor community that still had a building with textbooks, I might be able to convince enough people to pay me to teach academics to their students and continue with my former profession. But you'd probably see many places where adademics was relegated to a status it had in the past: kept to some sort of elite (OK, basic literacy, math, maybe civics would probably be taught to everyone), and not considered a full-time occupation for most kids.

As for gender and other issues, that probably depends on the culture of each place.

Now in larger survivor states such as Australia, Brazil, etc., you would see a lot more continuity, and education would be interrupted by the loss of contact with the wider world. But we know that research and all that would continue. 66.99.52.100 17:15, January 25, 2010 (UTC) (Benkarnell)

Thanks, Ben. What happened to your signature?

Anyway, I will at least defend what I write about upstate South Carolina. We were not agrarian, but there was (and is) a lot of land for cultivating. I think, to survive, we would have utilized the schools to maintain a culture close to what it was in 1983. We would have retrofitted electronics to pre-1960's technology, but we would have survived. Agriculture would have become a MAJOR industry, of course, but I don't think we would have reverted to ninetenth century standards. Education in sustenance farming would have been big, I think, at least until contact was made with Blue Ridge.

It does seem, however, that the timeline as written so far does require that the EMP's be far more effective than they may have been. There was still a lot of technology that did not depend on solid state electronics in those days. It was in such things as stoves, refrigerators, etc. that depended on simple switches. As soon as a power grid could be restored using older technology to regulate it, life could continue. But that is for another discussion page.SouthWriter 18:29, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

I will defend SouthWriter's ideas, at least for the larger survivor states. I believe it is likely that not all surviving regions would be able to rebuild and maintain such a high standard of living. I also believe that if at all possible that people used to a 1980s-standard of living would eventually want to move past mere survival and rebuild as much of their former way of life as possible. This includes education, culture, sports, media, music, religion, etc. Life would be simpler but not necessarily down to the bare basics.BrianD 19:07, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

When I edit from work, I don't usually log in. (I should clarify that due to the recession I'm a substitute teacher, and have quite a bit more down time than a full-timer.) I agree that keeping electronics in working order would have been a very high priority in many places and would have also been something to teach in the schools. Maintaining the cultrue would as well... but it would have to compete for the time of adults and children with practical concerns. It would be the rare survival community, I think, where I could find full time work as a history or civics teacher; same goes for teachers of higher math and a lot of science that woudln't have immediate practical value. Same also with a lot of the language arts, IMO: in our culture and economy, being a competent writer is a survival skill. In much of the US *there*, probably not so much. This changes, of course, with the complexity of the society. A large, modern-ish state like West Texas that still has industry, bureaucracy, and an intelligentsia would be worlds away from the city- (or village-)states in most of the old USA. 66.99.52.100 19:10, January 25, 2010 (UTC) (Ben again)

Wow my edits produced a lot of discussion (which is a good thing). I can't reply to each individual point at the moment, but let me clarify that my ideas came from discussion with a few of my teacher friends about what it would be like to teach in post-Doomsday North America. I'm not a teacher myself so my ignorance might be slipping through, however, feel free to make your own edits as well. Hopefully we can come to a consensus about what education would be like post-Doomsday.Mitro 22:06, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

I would like to add that even with West Texas (and Vermont for that matter) there was a period of time where survival was paramount, and things like education were set aside. Only when it was apparent that the society would survive was attention diverted to areas like education that would help the society as a whole survive and grow. BrianD 22:44, January 25, 2010 (UTC)