TV Quote of the Day (‘The Simpsons,’ on the Ingredient Behind ‘Bart the Genius’)

[After cheating on an IQ test, Bart Simpson is assigned to a school for gifted and talented students. His father speculates on what led to this outcome and how it might be duplicated within the family.]

Homer Simpson [voice of Dan Castellaneta]: “Frosty Krusty Flakes are what got him [Bart] where he is today. It could be one of these chemicals here that makes him so smart. Lisa, maybe you should try some of these.”

Marge Simpson [voice of Julie Kavner]: “Homer!”

Homer: “I'm just saying, why not have two geniuses in the family? Sort of a spare in case Bart's brain blows up.” —The Simpsons, Season 1, Episode 2, “Bart the Genius,” original air date Jan. 14, 1990, teleplay by Jon Vitti, directed by David Silverman

Joke of the Day (Michael Palascak, on What He Should Have Learned As an English Major)

“I was an English major when I was in college. I didn't get a lot of job interviews, being an English major. I should have seen that coming. Foreshadowing.”—Stand-up comic Michael Palascak, Comedy Central special, Nov. 6, 2019

TV Quote of the Day (‘Cunk on Shakespeare,’ on School in The Bard's Day)

"School in Shakespeare’s day and age was vastly different to our own. In fact, it was far easier because he didn't have to study Shakespeare."—English actress and comedian Diane Morgan, with her favorite line as ill-informed interviewer Philomena Cunk, on the BBC mockumentary “Cunk on Shakespeare,” original air date May 11, 2016, teleplay by Charlie Brooker, Jason Hazeley, and Joel Morris, directed by Lorry Powles

Quote of the Day (Rose Horowitch, on College Students’ Fewer, and Slimmer, Books)

“Whether through atrophy or apathy, a generation of students is reading fewer books. They might read more as they age—older adults are the most voracious readers—but the data are not encouraging. The American Time Use Survey shows that the overall pool of people who read books for pleasure has shrunk over the past two decades. A couple of professors told me that their students see reading books as akin to listening to vinyl records—something that a small subculture may still enjoy, but that’s mostly a relic of an earlier time.”—American journalist Rose Horowitch, “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books,” The Atlantic, December 2024

I well remember the shock all over an English teacher’s face in my parochial high school in the mid-1970s when one of her students confessed that he’d never read a book all the way through. When she was finally able to recover her composure, she demanded to know how he’d managed to get through 11 years of elementary and secondary school without accomplishing what she saw as a basic educational task.

My high school classmate would have plenty of company these days. Rose Horowitch’s report from the current groves of academe begins with a student telling a teacher in the literary humanities course at my college alma mater, Columbia University—an institution considerably more selective than my high school way back when—that she, too, had never read a book cover to cover.

Columbia is hardly the only college facing this dilemma. Most of the 33 academics contacted by Horowitch related similar experiences.

So, what gives? The article offers several reasons for this, including:

*Electronic devices that compete for attention with apps such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

*New educational initiatives such as No Child Left Behind and Common Core that led to short informational passages that mimic standardized tests, rather than longer texts.

*Shifts in values rather than skill sets—i.e., students can still read long books, but they don’t want to.

*Jobs and extracurricular activities that sap the time they need to read in depth.

*Identity politics that makes young readers less inclined to tackle the thinking of writers far away in place and time.

*Grade inflation that doesn’t penalize students for failing to keep up with the course load.

I read with particular interest an admission by Andrew Delbanco, a longtime American Studies professor at the school, that, in now teaching a seminar on short works in American literature rather than a full survey course, he had dispensed with Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick in favor of the author’s Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, and “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”

For my American lit survey course back in the day, my class had to read these shorter works and the epic novel. Our professor urged us, if we had time, to get a jump on Melville’s stab at the Great American Novel: “It’s a long whaling expedition,” he joked.

I finished reading this article right after listening to a podcast on the English novelist Anthony Powell, who created a 12-novel sequence chronicling more than four decades in 20^th-century life, A Dance to the Music of Time. Powell’s style is not daunting, and believe it or not, readers years ago managed to plow through most, if not all, of this work.

But it’s inconceivable to me that many readers today will make it through just one of his novels, let alone all of it.

It should also be said courses in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) have made the appeal of humanities course offering mass immersion in reading less lucrative.

That high school classmate of mine, for instance? He entered the armed forces, where he learned computer sciences—and ended up making considerably more money, after he left the military, than fellow high school graduates who took the time to make it through one long book after another.

(The image accompanying this post, if you haven't guessed it from the guy with the long hair, is a relic from a bygone era, in more ways than one. It shows a Shimer College student reading John Stuart Mill's On Liberty under a tree on the school's original campus in Mount Carroll, IL. The photograph was published in the school's 1973-1974 catalog. I hope that this seminal work of political science, at any rate, continues to be read in its entirety, but I’m not betting on it.)

Quote of the Day (Douglas Coupland, on College Teaching as a Nerve-Racking Form of Public Speaking)

“One form of public speaking not usually recognized as such is teaching. I’ve had a few experiences in educational situations and they’ve been worse than flies crawling over my face. I don’t know if it’s me or what, but having to speak to college students is like having to address a crowd of work-shirking entitlement robots whose only passion, aside from making excuses as to why they didn’t do their assignments, is lying in wait, ready to pounce upon the tiniest of PC infractions. You can’t pay teachers enough to do what they do. Having been in their shoes, even briefly, has converted me into an education advocate. Double all teaching salaries now.”— Canadian novelist, designer, and visual artist Douglas Coupland, “Observations: Getting Off the Stage,” originally printed in The Financial Times, Dec. 5-6, 2015, reprinted in Bit Rot: Bit Rot: Stories + Essays (2017)

The image of Douglas Coupland that accompanies this post was taken Mar. 17, 2022, in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, by the Wylie Agency of New York City.

Quote of the Day (Herbert Kohl, on 'Knowing and Caring About’ Students)

“Knowing and caring about your students is not merely an academic matter but is essential to shaping learning for them and a challenge to take them into your life and fight for survival and growth as if they were your own children...I believe that one key to making sustained changes is finding teachers who care about their students and are willing to become personally involved with their lives. The craft of teaching can develop; the love it requires cannot be legislated or trained.”— American progressive educator, author, and social activist Herbert Kohl, The Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching (1988)

The image accompanying this post shows James Franciscus as the title character of the vintage series Mr. Novak—the type of passionate educator that Herbert Kohl has in mind in this quote.

This drama series began in the fall of 1963, and high school English teacher John Novak is just the kind of young idealist who would have been summoned to service by John F. Kennedy. The show’s brief run—only two seasons—hurt its chances for syndication.

Too bad. Even with network censors who scrutinized every syllable of its dialogue, the series managed to take a realistic look at topics such as cheating on exams, dropouts, substance abuse, racial and religious prejudice, and political extremism.

I suspect that more than a few viewers were inspired to enter the profession by watching Mr. Novak and principals Albert Vane and Martin Woodridge battle to bring their students through all these troubles. What incentives would those eyeing the profession possess today when it has become such a political football? 

Quote of the Day (Christopher Lasch, on Education, Persuasion and Democracy)

“If we insist on argument as the essence of education, we will defend democracy not as the most efficient but as the most educational form of government, one that extends the circle of debate as widely as possible and thus forces all citizens to articulate their views, to put their views at risk, and to cultivate the virtues of eloquence, clarity of thought and expression, and sound judgment.”— American historian and social critic Christopher Lasch (1932-1994), The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (1994)

Quote of the Day (Sean Decatur, on Separating the Sciences From the Humanities)

“In contemporary discourse around education policy and curricula, some feel an irresistible urge to separate the sciences from the humanities, even giving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics its own acronym (STEM) and in many cases placing this clustering in opposition to the ‘liberal arts.’ This is ahistorical—the core of scientific thinking has been an essential part of the liberal arts in their original, ancient forms (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and logic were all considered essential education for free citizens). But, beyond this, separating STEM disciplines from the liberal arts denies the fundamental reality that the effective practice of science depends on the effective communication of scientific ideas, which in turn depends on the skills shaped by the study of the humanities and arts. And in turn the work of a citizen (the ultimate outcome of a liberal arts education) requires comfort and facility with scientific concepts in order to understand the world around us.”— Sean Decatur, President, American Museum of Natural History, “Finding Common Ground for Lifelong Learning,” The Key Reporter, Fall 2023

Movie Quote of the Day (‘The Affairs of Dobie Gillis,’ on a Subject on the Minds of Many College Males Shortly)

Advisor [played by Donald Elson]: “What subjects would you like to study?”

Dobie Gillis [played by Bobby Van]: “Well, I don't rightly know.”

Advisor: “What are you interested in?”

Dobie: “Women.” — The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953), screenplay by Max Shulman, directed by Don Weis

This post is for a friend of mine (AND HE KNOWS WHO HE IS!!!) whose favorite subject was women when he entered college five decades ago—and it remains so to this day.

The Affairs of Dobie Gillis turned out to be a diverting surprise when I came across it a couple of weekends ago on TCM. I had heard of (but was way too young to watch when it originally aired) the TV sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. The show, which ran from 1959-1963, starred Dwayne Hickman as the title character and a pre-Gilligan’s Island Bob Denver as his beatnik friend, Maynard G. Krebs.

In the movie musical, Dobie was played by Bobby Van, who enjoyed a busy career on the big screen, television, and the stage without ever achieving the level of stardom that his dancing talent deserved, while his fresh-faced, funny girlfriend was played, in her ingenue stage, by Debbie Reynolds—who certainly did achieve celebrity.

I didn’t expect The Affairs of Dobie Gillis to be Singin’ in the Rain or The Band Wagon, let alone the stage and screen musical classics later brought to life by Van’s onscreen friend Bob Fosse, Cabaret and Chicago. But it transported me to a time and place in which the biggest crisis was Reynolds’ klutzy experiment in a chemistry class.

And that, during these last fevered weeks in American history, couldn’t have been more welcome.

Quote of the Day (John Lanchester, on Education, Economics, and Democracy)

“It would be a disaster for democracy if this divide [by educational level] were to become permanently entrenched. Democracy depends on an informed electorate; it depends on argument, and that in turn depends on having enough in common to be able to argue. Bankers and the financial elite can’t just talk to each other as if nothing has changed; as if the little people are just going to accept that they can’t follow the big words, so the rich should just keep running things in their own interest. The experts need to set terms for the debate that everyone can understand. So yes, when it comes to economics, language matters.” —British journalist and novelist John Lanchester, “On Money: How Economic Gobbledygook Divides Us,” The New York Times Magazine, Nov. 6, 2016

Quote of the Day (P. J. O'Rourke, on How America Remembers and Teaches History)

“We cannot, as a nation, know where we're going unless we know where we've been, even if I'm not exactly sure what I mean by that statement. Should we barrel down the highway to the future with our eyes glued to the rearview mirror? Should we keep in mind that if we forget history, we’ll end up repeating it, per that famous quote of Santayana? Yet consider the way history is taught these days: A survey of history students probably would show that they admire Santayana's genius but hope his next CD won't be just a remake of Supernatural with different vocalists.”— American humorist P. J. O'Rourke (1947-2022), “I Sing of Fizzy Fluid Retention,” The Atlantic, November 2007

Quote of the Day (Jacques Barzun, on ‘The Need for a Body of Common Knowledge’)

“The need for a body of common knowledge and common reference does not disappear when a society is pluralistic. On the contrary, it grows more necessary, so that people of different origins and occupation may quickly find familiar ground and as we say, speak a common language. It not only saves time and embarrassment, but it also ensures a kind of mutual confidence and goodwill. One is not addressing an alien, as blank as a stone wall, but a responsive creature whose mind is filled with the same images, memories, and vocabulary as oneself. Otherwise, with the unstoppable march of specialization, the individual mind is doomed to solitude and the individual heart to drying up.”— Columbia Univ. teacher, historian, educator, cultural critic and administrator Jacques Barzun (1907-2012), “Of What Use the Classics Today?” (1987)

Quote of the Day (Sir Francis Bacon, on the Differences Between History and Poetry)

“Because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy [i.e., poetry] feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed Providence.  Because true history representeth actions and events more ordinary and less interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and more unexpected and alternative variations.  So as it appeareth that poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality and to delectation.  And therefore, it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things.  And we see that by these insinuations and congruities with man’s nature and pleasure, joined also with the agreement and consort it hath with music, it hath had access and estimation in rude times and barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded.”—English philosopher, scientist, essayist, and statesman Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), The Advancement of Learning (1605)

Quote of the Day (Charles Dickens, Showing Why Students Hate Math Word Problems)

“Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, ‘If I go into a cheesemonger’s shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present payment’ — at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time, when…I have a slice of bread to help me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest of the evening.”—English novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1850), David Copperfield (1850)

It's been nearly 50 years since I read David Copperfield, and with this novel so teeming with incidents and characters—and similarly lengthy Charles Dickens works I have read since—this particular episode involving the title hero, his wicked stepfather, and the latter’s only-slightly-less villainous sister had long since receded well back into my memory.

Then, about two weekends ago, as if in answer to one of my viewing prayers, TCM ran the wonderful 1935 adaptation of Dickens’ semi-autobiographical classic, produced by David O. Selznick and directed by George Cukor. It’s a model not just of terrific casting (W.C. Fields, most prominently, as Wilkins Micawber), but of editing a sprawling novel down to its essentials in just two hours of running time.

This scene stood out for me. David’s humiliation and fear on the page are not only captured but heightened on the screen, with fast cuts among David, his anxious mother, her goading sister-in-law, the smooth suitor turned household tyrant, and the whip that the latter carries and shortly uses on his stepson.

In addition, there’s a short addition of dialogue that I think would have further pained audiences that first saw this in movie theaters.

Right after Murdstone (played by Basil Rathbone, captured here in despicable perfection with Freddie Bartholomew as David and Elizabeth Allan as Mrs. Copperfield) mentions a “halfpenny each,” he continues, “And if I sell half of them at six pence-halfpenny, twenty at five pence, and use the rest myself, do I make a profit or loss?"

“Profit or less” would have been uppermost on the minds of Depression-era youthful moviegoers. Imagine them trying to quickly do this sum in their heads, floundering, and wondering how their inadequacy with this math might have contributed to their own failure to barely stay solvent.

Even now, the scene has a kind of horror for kids today, I think—not so much for the beating David endures at the hands of Murdstone (so sadistic that an unnerved Rathbone required several takes to get it right), but for what leads to it. The question is all too close to those word problems not only in algebra tests but also in standardized math tests taken by high school students of the postwar era.

Those of us who don’t recall those word problems with a shudder chuckle at jokes we’ll occasionally come across about them. (For instance, from Charlie Brown’s sister Sally in “Peanuts”: “Only in math problems can you buy 60 cantaloupes and no one asks what the hell is wrong with you.”)

“I have in my heart of hearts," wrote Dickens of the novel closest to him, "a favorite child and his name is David Copperfield." Let nobody forget that math was among the multiple traumas endured by this beleaguered orphan—and by no means the least.

(For more about Dickens’ pungent feelings and writings about math and education in general, try Brittany Carlson’s November 2020 blogpost for the Dickens Society.)

Quote of the Day (John Henry Cardinal Newman, on Education as Preparation for the World)

“Why do we educate, except to prepare for the world? Why do we cultivate the intellect of the many beyond the first elements of knowledge, except for this world? Will it be much matter in the world to come whether our bodily health or whether our intellectual strength was more or less, except of course as this world is in all its circumstances a trial for the next? If then a University is a direct preparation for this world, let it be what it professes. It is not a Convent, it is not a Seminary; it is a place to fit men of the world for the world. We cannot possibly keep them from plunging into the world, with all its ways and principles and maxims, when their time comes; but we can prepare them against what is inevitable; and it is not the way to learn to swim in troubled waters, never to have gone into them.” —Roman Catholic theologian, educator, and essayist John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), “Duties of the Church towards Knowledge,” in The Idea of a University (1852)

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ With Barney’s Foolproof Method for Remembering Dates Like 1776)

[Barney explains his revolutionary system for remembering famous dates, such as 1776.]

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts]: “The first number... is one.”

Sheriff Andy Taylor [played by Andy Griffith]: “Yeah.”

Barney: “Now, that's easy to remember 'cause that's the first number in the alphabet.”

Andy: “Yeah.”

Barney: “Now, the second number... is... you just remember... lucky... seven.”

Andy: “Lucky seven.”

Barney: “See? Now you got one and seven.”

Andy: “Yeah.”

Barney: “Now, what's the third number? Seven. Now, that's easy to remember 'cause you just remembered seven, see?”

Andy: [chuckles] “Yeah, that's right. Yeah.”

Barney: “Now, you got one, seven and seven.”

Andy: “One and... two sevens, yeah.”

Barney: “Now, what's the last number? All right, here's how you remember that: What's one... from... seven?”

Andy: “Six.”

Barney: “Six.”

[They laugh]

Barney: “1776.”

Andy: “Yeah, that's good.”

Barney: “Yeah, it works out, too.”

Andy: “Wouldn't it be just as easy just to go ahead and remember 1776?”

Barney: “Well, if you want to do things the easy way, you're never gonna learn anything!” —The Andy Griffith Show, Season 3, Episode 23, “Andy Discovers America,” original air date Mar. 4, 1963, teleplay by John Whedon, directed by Bob Sweeney

TV Quote of the Day (‘Yes, Prime Minister,’ on Education as a Key Election Issue)

Prime Minister Jim Hacker [played by Paul Eddington]: “I think education is extremely important. It could lose me the next election.”

Sir Humphrey Appleby [played by Nigel Hawthorne]:” Ah! In my naivete, I thought you were concerned about the future of our children.”

Hacker: “Yes, that too. After all, they get the vote at 18.”— Yes, Prime Minister, Season 2, Episode 7, “The National Education Service,” original air date Jan. 21, 1988, teleplay by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, directed by Sydney Lotterby

Quote of the Day (Evelyn Waugh, on a Modest Applicant for a British Teaching Vacancy)

“‘But I don’t know a word of German, I’ve had no experience, I’ve got no testimonials, and I can’t play cricket.’

“‘It doesn’t do to be too modest,’ said Mr. Levy. ‘It’s wonderful what one can teach when one tries. Why, only last term we sent a man who had never been in a laboratory in his life as senior Science Master to one of our leading public schools. He came wanting to do private coaching in music. He’s doing very well, I believe. Besides, Dr. Fagan can’t expect all that for the salary he’s offering. Between ourselves, Llanabba hasn’t a good name in the profession. We class schools, you see, into four grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School and School. Frankly,’ said Mr. Levy, ‘School is pretty bad. I think you’ll find it a very suitable post. So far as I know, there are only two other candidates, and one of them is totally deaf, poor fellow.’” —English novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), Decline and Fall (1928)

Though Waugh’s satiric novel takes place roughly a century ago, in post-WWI Wales, Mr. Levy could have made quite a bit of money as a contemporary brand consultant, employment counselor, or politician with that statement, “It doesn’t do to be too modest.”

The image accompanying this post shows Jack Whitehall as Paul Pennyfeather (the prospective teacher in the above quote), in the 2017 BBC-1 adaptation of Decline and Fall, which, as a picaresque comedy of a naif hurtling from one disaster to another, has reminded many of Voltaire’s Candide.

Quote of the Day (Abraham Flexner, on Education’s Importance in Cultivating Curiosity)

“Curiosity, which may or may not eventuate in something useful, is probably the outstanding characteristic of modern thinking. It is not new. It goes back to Galileo, Bacon, and to Sir Isaac Newton, and it must be absolutely unhampered. Institutions of learning should be devoted to the cultivation of curiosity and the less they are deflected by considerations of immediacy of application, the more likely they are to contribute not only to human welfare but to the equally important satisfaction of intellectual interest which may indeed be said to have become the ruling passion of intellectual life in modern times.”— American educator Abraham Flexner (1866-1959), “The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge,” Harper’s Magazine, October 1939

Essay: COVID-19 and the School Reopening Crisis

“For schools, COVID-19 is a new crisis stacked on top of a very old one. Funding for public education has dropped precipitously since the Great Recession: In 2015 more than half of states were spending less per student than they did in 2008. Many of the equity issues that [Donald] Trump and [Secretary of Education Betsy] DeVos cite in their push to reopen schools are long-standing, exacerbated by funding schemes that tie school resources to the local tax base and by segregation. Both are political choices; neither will be resolved simply by reopening schools this fall. Other choices loom on the horizon as the virus decimates state revenues. The pandemic may have reminded Americans of how much they need schools and teachers. It’s also made it clear that the country is a long way from making them a priority.”— Zoe Carpenter, “Back to School? We’ve Squandered Our Chance to Reopen Safely,” The Nation, Sept. 7/14, 2020

A teacher friend of mine from the Midwest told me several weeks ago that, though schools refer to “remote” or “distance” learning, the correct phrase might be “crisis education.” I don’t envy the task that she and her colleagues face this year.

As with so much else that has happened in 2020, COVID-19 has created one more burden on a society buckling under the strain. It has not only magnified issues of inequality long latent in U.S. public schools, but has now put the safety of teachers at cross-purposes to lower-wage service workers who lack the luxury of supervising their children’s online learning while working remotely themselves.

Politicians blew their chance of extricating America from Stage 1 of the pandemic, so we are now seriously contemplating putting in harm’s way thousands of teachers nationwide that we profess to value.

My teacher friend will face a different half of her students each day. That was supposed to decrease children’s exposure to the virus, anyway, if not teachers’, but the plan doesn’t look like it’s working. It’s only a week into the school year, and already half a dozen students have tested positive for the virus at both the elementary and secondary levels.

Anyone pressing for an immediate school reopening should remember this: according to a U.S. News and World Report article from this past May, nearly one-third of U.S. public school teachers are over 50—the demographic group that in our educational institutions, by virtue of the “co-morbidities” of this age segment, will run the greatest risk of severe infection.

Imagine that: parents oblivious to the possibility of America’s most experienced educators being decimated by a new disease whose after-effects are still not completely known. If you ask me, that’s a new form of age discrimination. Is that really the best way to run our schools?

Adult advocates of reopening are also ignoring an enduring, age-old reality: youths’ propensity for risky behavior. Are they forgetting what they were like as teenagers? Do they really think that their children will magically stop drinking, taking drugs, or congregating in mass groups—the type of misbehavior most likely to spread the virus?

We are already seeing the consequences of hasty school reopenings. As of when I wrote this post,  this map and database maintained by the National Education Association and volunteers shows that 3,615 American schools and campuses had reported COVID-19 cases from July 16 to September 18, resulting in 11,712 cases, 1,246 possible outbreaks—and 43 deaths.

Americans have long prided themselves on being an exceptional people. But this year, we are an object of pity and fear to the rest of the world on the spiraling consequences when ignorance and orneriness replace reason and calm in public debates. They are the kind of “substitutes” we should never allow in schools.