In this issue:

• Inverted Parachutes
• The Algonquin Connection
• A Small Seed of Hope
• Poem on Illich's Shadow Work
• Disneyland Followup
• Filth
• Corrupting Teachers
• Teacher of Freedom
• Dracula at the Bloodbank
• J. Roby Kidd
• Publications & Conferences
• Womb-to-Tomb Schooling

INVERTED PARACHUTES

(EDITORS' NOTE: Recently we sent some of our materials to Reva Crawford, Membership Chairperson of the National Indian Adult Education Association and Director of the Adult Education Department of the Ramah-Navajo School Board In New Mexico. Here are her comments :)

The reading was a catalyst for a lot of anger and also brought those same kinds of feelings that I get from picking up a Vogue magazine. If you have never looked at a Vogue magazine, there are hundreds of pages of women wearing burlap bags, inverted parachutes, and other bizarre costumes, for which I would be arrested as a suspected deviant or transient if I wore them in any of the places where I have lived.

While I am not overly disturbed that women in New York City are paying thousands of dollars to wear inverted parachutes trimmed with antelope bones, the time warp presses painfully at being forced to consider the horrible plight of all our professional folk being coerced into taking a panoply of unwanted, unnecessary coursework. I find it a touch difficult to relate to those folks, when out here MCE means having to take yet another slot for training under CETA as a janitor, or getting one of those highly prized slots under the employment assistance program of the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) to train as a meat cutter.

You understand of course, that not only are there no meat processing plants on any Indian reservation that I know of, but that there is also no desire on the part of most of the inhabitants to leave the reservation and become isolated from their language, religion, and everything else that has any meaning. If they did leave, it is not likely that they would survive in the jungle of parachute wearers.

If you want one very simple piece of legislation which would halt MCE forever, just get a law passed which makes it illegal for those who have some education to get more until those who have none get some. My long experience tells me that rather than provide decent services to those who have none or less, they (that ambiguous "they" which I have no trouble at all defining) will drop continuing education requirements.

As for the concern with technology, I don't have enough experience to comment. When I was Director of Adult Education for Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma two years ago, only two of our seven class sites in five counties had indoor plumbing. If technology means indoor plumbing then you can count those of us in Indian country on the side of technology. I have one staff member who rides a horse to the highway and hitchhikes to work during bad weather. This past week as I was driving to my office I passed a child waiting on the highway to catch the school bus. His mother was on the other side of the fence on her horse, which I assume she used to get the child to a road where a bus could pick him up. If you ever get to any of our national parks, you probably won't find any Indians there on vacation camping. When you "camp out" every day in order to live, the experience loses a bit of its appeal. Give us Miami Beach any day.

When I go to town to get groceries (a round trip of 110 miles), I can always spot the Eastern liberal white folks who have come to the reservation to help the Indians for a year or two. They wear nothing but jeans and T-shirts or sweat shirts and usually wear backpacks. Little Indian kids probably think that a majority of white people are born with a deformed hump on their backs, so de rigueur is the backpack. The women have long hair and never wear makeup. Although I haven't visited any of their homes, meeting them by the vegetable counters, confirms that they live primarily on alfalfa sprouts, sunflower seeds, and herbal teas. Some of the positions they fill make them very necessary as we seldom get anyone through medical school or law school, but for the most part they would be a much bigger help staying home and writing letters to their Congressmen about the plight of the Indian. Indian people may not have much education, but they do know that if you are fortunate enough to have a decent job, then jeans and sweatshirts are what you wear to feed the cattle, and that alfalfa is what cows eat, not people.

I suppose that reading about hot issues, especially re: technology is a sort of a reverse deja vu. Being forty or so years behind the times should give us the opportunity to prepare for those problems and prevent a number of them. I hope someone can figure out how. I can't.

I read a newsmagazine last week which indicated that Reagan's economic program was in trouble. The article indicated that unemployment for Black males were up to some astonishing figure like 17%. Again, I had a little trouble relating. Unemployment on the Zuni Reservation during good times was 42%. Within two months last year, when only a few of the cuts in federal funding were implemented, that rate jumped to 62% and is probably over 70% now. Ramah Navajos enjoy an unemployment rate during good times of between 60 and 70%. It is currently above 80%. These reservations are not much different from others in the U.S. Why is it that there is concern about Black male unemployment rates reaching a figure which would be considered a blessing on any reservation in the country? Rhetorical question. Answer: There aren't enough of us to have a big impact at the ballot box and a lot of the country's undeveloped natural resources are on Indian lands. We are dumb, but not so dumb that we don't realize that the mining of coal and uranium washes away another resource which is even more precious, water. Since many of the tribes have opposed having mining companies come in and tear up the land, and leave the tribes with no water and very little in the way of recompense, then quiet cultural genocide is in order. Heaven forbid that white folks should be cold during the winter, or miss their trip to Miami Beach, just so tribes can maintain their right to tribal sovereignty mandated through treaties, laws, courts, etc.

I just realized that this letter makes it sound like I don't realize that what you are doing is important. I do. I have been to the city and seen the inverted parachutes a few times (i.e. at adult education conferences). The concerns you raise are all valid for a lot of folks. I guess as an optimistic cynic, I can't deal with the certainty of cultural genocide for Indians. It is hard to give up the idealistic philosophy that there is room in this country for diversity (cultural diversity, that is, not economic diversity).

There is one major issue in education which, if educators concerned themselves with it, they would have no time to plan or attend continuing education courses. That issue is cultural accountability in education. Acculturation, values, and attitudes are so closely intertwined with every facet of education that to reject the acculturation is to fail in the academics. There is no such thing as a culturally neutral classroom. Every time a teacher opens his or her mouth, values and attitudes come out. Every example used to teach addition, every illustration in every textbook, even the arrangement of furniture in classrooms is value laden. A child or an adult who does not accept those values will not make it through the education system. Therefore, in minority communities, those minority members who manage to get an education are often less than useless to the community from which they sprang.

We are often impotent when someone asks us to describe a culturally relevant education model. How can we? No one has ever seen one. When you are of a culture in which the idea of going to a special building with separate people called "educators" to learn is itself a foreign concept, how do you make that building and those educators culturally relevant? I am sure there are some ways. However, people laugh at me when I give talks at conferences and say that what we really need is money to fail with. I mean that. The public schools have learned every way of failing that there is. We need to be allowed to make mistakes too. But if we make mistakes we are those Indians who are misusing taxpayers' hard earned dollars. If education is synonymous with change (although that may be a strange way of saying that education is synonymous with making every one alike, and the change is from "deviant" to "normal"), then when are educators, or even those folks who claim a more sophisticated thought process than your everyday teacher, going to spend a little more time thinking about the awesome responsibility that goes with "changing" people?

Even Freire, whom I certainly respect as a major intellect for his ability to put brain power to practical use, has sidestepped some of the moral issues inexorably intertwined with education. Perhaps some of those peasants he has worked with won't be so happy twenty years from now to discover what they have left along the way on their road to economic equality. We still have communities where extended families are still in operation where people help each other. There are still a few tribes like the Hopis where a holistic lifestyle is still in practice where religion is not something which is practiced on Sunday and has no connection with the rest of life.

You might visit the Hopi reservation and find the Kachinas dragging a girl to the middle of the plaza to wash dishes all day long in front of everyone because she has mistreated her parents and has not done her share; or, a man being made to carry firewood all day long with an occasional lash of a Yucca frond because he was drinking and not taking care of his family. The BIA provides police there, but they are neither needed or respected for the most part. Religion takes care of it all. Education has changed that kind of holistic living on some reservations. Do you know what it has brought in replacement? Disorientation, fragmentation, rampant alcoholism, unbelievably high suicide rates. Those who survive the chaos through several generations will then emerge as white people with brown skins. Have you ever lived anywhere where half of the population at any given time was trying to do away with themselves (besides graduate school, I mean)? I have.

At the same time there are Indian medicine men who can cure things that white doctors can't begin to touch. No, I don't mean spiritual healing where the person gets well just because he or she "believes" in the healer. Indian medicine men are not precursors of Oral Roberts. I know one medicine man who has a substance which will cause burns to heal from the inside out leaving no scars. Do you know any white doctor who can do that? It is all scientific, not hocus pocus, although most Indian medicine men know that healing is a joint process of the spiritual and the physical and they treat the two jointly.

See what you unleashed with the reading materials you sent? I apologize for the pages of sermonizing to the one group of people in the world who least need it. If it is any consolation, you should know that there are very few people to whom I could write such a letter as a healing process for myself through knowing that the people who received It would understand and accept. With you I get a double bonus. Not only do I get sympathetic and bright receivers, but I also get to break up continuous signals on continuing education.

THE ALGONQUIN CONNECTION

Some 30 adult/community educators and participatory researchers gathered in late January for a weekend of reflection on education, empowerment, and social change, at Camp Algonquin, near Elgin, IL. Coming from as far afield as Florida and Seattle, Arkansas and Toronto, there were men and women, urban and rural workers, Blacks, Hispanics, and whites, community and university educators.

In plenary sessions, workshops and informal conversations, participants explored a variety of questions, concerns, and issues and shared confusions. Freirean education, worker ownership, dealing with conflict, women's experience, people's culture, Latin American liberation struggles and the U.S., research and mobilization -- these and related topics were the focus of discussion, reflection, and the sharing of experience.

Despite the variety of themes, common threads were noted in the questions raised throughout the discussions: How do we link local and larger struggles and how do we foster solidarity in analysis, experience, and consciousness? Within the local context, how do we link the variety of issues, e.g. community, labor, feminist, and research Issues? How do we hold together and link the "personal" and the "political" -- how, for example, can we be faithful in the provision of childcare for conference participants and also in the analysis of intercontinental oppression? In what ways can we root education in community struggles -- and organizations? How do we bring educators and grass roots activists together?

Conflict -- and tension -- were subjects of discussion. If conflict within our organization can be utilized to foster positive growth, the question was raised as to how we can avoid the negative possibilities of fragmentation, distrust, and the diversion of energy. "All members of the group found conflict a difficult area, one which none of us (regardless of sex or cultural background) had been taught to deal with well." (All quotes are from workshop recorders' reports.) What is a "people's culture" and how does it relate to and differ from "mass" or "mainstream" culture? This was the theme of another workshop discussion. How can "people's culture" be used to foster educational and political work? "Understanding culture as it was, is, and can be, is a necessary part of a pedagogy of liberation. Educational work that attempts to offer people the chance to reflect on their own culture as something active and something they own can provide a powerful experience." (For this participant, sharing the meals, which were planned and coordinated by Hispanics in the Chicago contingent, was an important part of the cultural exchange and experience of the weekend.)

Within the context of the conference, a number of the women came together to explore how women can create a non-threatened space in which to share experience and memories. "From being strangers to each other we wanted to be come more than acquaintances; how we felt connected in real ways through common experiences as women, and divided by race, style, work, language, class roots, and ideas. Yet the energy of our mutual commitments and hopes began to emerge."

A significant session provided opportunities to hear about the situations of oppression in Central and South America from the direct experience of those who had lived there. Participants were moved by the commitment of Latin American brothers and sisters, as related for example by Tamara Sanchez Pena, a Bolivian exile now with the Latino Research Institute in Washington, D.C. The discussion following explored connections between what we see here In the U.S. and in Latin America. John Gaventa of Highlander, for example, reflected on the "second wave" of the corporate colonization of Appalachia. Others noted the role of adult education as part of the "soft side" of social control In the U.S. and the "numbness" which is part of the narcotic effect of the U.S. schooling. The issue of the increased racism evident in the U.S. and its connections to systemic oppression abroad and at home was also noted.

In the concluding session, participants agreed that such gatherings are important for mutual support, nurture, and stimulation among adult educators but that we also need to promote regional contacts and networks, through which we can maintain an ongoing dialogue and build links between different struggles and constituencies. Tensions were recognized between men and women. Latinos, blacks and whites, community educators and university researchers. "There are differences among us; how we see our work as educators and in our overall views and politics. These differences and resulting tensions are difficult, sometimes painful, but we can make them positive. Let's learn from our differences, see where we can agree, where we can't. But the debate Is Important." Yet despite such differences and perhaps because of such tensions participants came away from the conference with a sense of renewed energies and greater solidarity, if not political clarity about the strategic tasks facing us -- at least as this participant observed the process. A steering committee was, incidentally, selected to coordinate planning for a future national meeting. Those interested in the final report of the conference should contact Tom Heaney (3838 H. Greenview, Chicago, IL 60613). (By Art Lloyd)

A SMALL SEED OF HOPE

Did the early April "23rd Annual Adult Education Research Conference" in Lincoln, Nebraska point to some hopeful signs for the future? Amidst a smaller group and in a much more modest setting than last fall's national adult ed conference at Disneyland, there was more emphasis on critical views of the field, both historically and conceptually, and more willingness on the part of several presenters to speak in personal knowledge autobiographical terms.

One highlight was a talk by Charlotte Morgan, a professor of Black Studies, who said that Black and poor people should be critical of the developing lifelong schooling system because it is keeping them down and that they should be more willing to consider setting up their own alternatives.

Copies of the proceedings containing all 49 papers presented may be available from the Coordinator, Mary Jane Even, 61 Henszlik Hall, University of Nebraska Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588 0349. Whatever it costs. it's worth it just to get, among others, Dave Williams' "9.5 Theses on Adult Education Research in America -- Apologies to Luther." Inquire also about the availability of the papers from the Pre Conference on Historical Research in Adult Ed. The one by Amy Rose from LaGuardia Community College on "The History of Adult Ed: Questions of Context and Utility" resulted in more sparks and arguments than any other during the four days of almost endless talk. (By John Ohliger)

POEM WRITTEN AFTER A GROUP DISCUSSION OF IVAN ILLICH 'S BOOK SHADOW WORK

long hours watching waiting numb slowly dumb
to dialogue quietly paralytic for no one and
anything - a shadow work warrior caught deftly
in varicose veins taught as the reins of the apron

upon midriff, fat upon flesh upon bones

upon the tile floors, shining, reflecting, the sunlight

the lamplight the dimlight of cats' eyes, solarium lives...

oared for kept for wept for by warriors of chieftains of mega machines

In shadows, dusty corners, proscenium hallways which echo back
emptinesses, waitings, watchings, slowly numbing to no one and
anything unaware of lightness and darkness and purply silhouettes
the shadow work warrior quietly forgets and dreams without sleeping

cries, wretched sorrows, prophetic lamentations drowned
in drugs of the doctors of the domestic wards, tears
between vacancies leave, rivers of blood gently trickling
limbs barely breathing, lips mouthing liturgies silent
writhing the words across floors for the buffing,
mirrors for the enigma,
movements for the long hours,
waiting; watching caught deftly.

By Margaret Armstrong

Shadow Work is available in paperback for $5.95 from Marion Boyars, Inc., 99 Main St., Salem. NH 03079)

DISNEYLAND FOLLOWUP

In the last issue we reflected on some of the awful moments at last fall's national adult ed conference at Disneyland and carried a long letter from Sudie Hofmann with her wry comments. Hayden Roberts ( University of Alberta Extension, Edmonton, Canada T6G 2G4) wrote: "I was very interested to read the comment by Sudie Hofmann. I had written a short comment for my colleagues [ED NOTE: ask Hayden for it, it's excellent], which was in the same vein, and I had expressed my criticism and frustration to Budd Hall.

In response to our suggestion that perhaps more modest non-organizational meetings might be held on a regional basis, Mike Havercamp (620 Wilcox Pkwy, Clare, hi 48617) said, "I would be willing to assist in organizing regional meetings where folks can discuss and even develop strategies concerning social, political, personal, and spiritual issues. I know some people in Michigan who would welcome such experiences. Let me know what I can do to help."

Gordon Godbey ( Penn State University, Rackley Bldg., UMIV PK, PA 16802) comments: "In lieu of having grand national meetings which are increasingly too expensive, can we not take a lesson from that great adult educator, the Ayatollah Khomeini, and use audio tapes? If we can build a network of listening centers for 'the faithful' around the country, tapes of people with ideas could be circulated, and perhaps commentary tapes could follow them up."

Meanwhile, Phyllis Cunningham at Northern Illinois University and her cohorts Jack Ross and Lyn Peterson are nearing completion on the alternative resource guide they are preparing with names, addresses, and information on various non-establishment adult ed groups as the first step to better interaction.

FILTH

In the January Issue we ran a cartoon by Tuli Kupferberg in which an adult educator asks, "Want to enroll in this Assertiveness Training Seminar? It's only $345.00." "NO: FUCK OFF," was the reply from the potential student, to which the adult educator responded, "I guess you don't need it." Paul E.W. from Longwood, FL wrote us, "There may be some reason for filth, but I have never been able to find it. If that alleged cartoon represents your group, please count me OUT." We sent his note to the artist who replied, "Dear PEW. I realize the words (and I'm sorry I have to repeat them here again): "Assertiveness Training Seminar," may offend some people. But in order to get rid of such filth, we have to talk about it. Don't you think?"

CORRUPTING TEACHERS

Tom Heaney (3838 N. Greenview, Chicago, IL 60613) writes that he had received permission to teach a course for Northern Illinois University on Adult Learning for Empowerment: The Pedagogy of Paulo Freire in the Chicago Urban Skills Institute (part of the Chicago City College system). But "the class was thrown out of the building because they didn't want such matters discussed in their building where their teachers could be corrupted."

The class continued under university sponsorship elsewhere. You might write Tom for his well-prepared seven-page bibliography for the course.

TEACHER OF FREEDOM

Alexander Meiklejohn: Teacher of Freedom. Edited with a biographical study by Cynthia Stokes Brown. Paperback available for $9.95 from Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, Box 673, Berkeley, CA 94701.

Less than a block away from our Basic Choices nook in the wall office, set incongruously amidst the goliath concrete splendor of official looking university buildings, stands an old wooden house named after Alexander Meiklejohn. Here, looking like the beleaguered outcast it is, resides the University of Wisconsin Integrated Liberal Studies Program, the indirect descendant of the Experimental College founded by Meiklejohn in 1927.

The College was founded on the notion -- as strange today as it was then -- that the goal of education is not the production of specialists, trained professionals, or efficient consumers, but rather the encouragement of sustained and critical thinking about the essential problems of society, as a preparation for doing something about them. The curriculum was built around the theme of the social division between rich and poor, and took the form of an indepth study of Athenian civilization the first year and then contrasting It with American civilization the second. Gone were the paraphernalia which brings satisfaction to the souls of administrators and makes of education a "well lubricated meaninglessness": grades, courses, departments, lectures, exams. Instead discussion groups, tutorials, individual projects, and a common living area contributed to the "fellow ship of reasonableness."

Naturally the trustees of the university forced its closing as soon as they realized what was really going on, whereupon Meiklejohn took his ideas westward, opening in 1934 an even more radical experiment In adult education the San Francisco School for Social Studies founded on the premise that "all is not right with capitalism" and that, therefore, alternative political systems such as socialism and communism merit serious consideration. Soon Meiklejohn and his colleagues had Bakery Wagon Drivers and International Ladies Garment Workers engaged in spirited discussions of Plato, Marx, Dewey, and the leading social controversies of the day.

Alexander Meiklejohn: Teacher of Freedom is a collection of essays by this remarkable philosopher activist together with a well-wrought biographical study. At a time when professional educators everywhere are ducking for cover and are concerned mainly with protecting their share of the shrinking budgetary pie, the words of this wise and good man return us to the fundamental questions of education at every level: What good is knowledge that does not lead to philosophical understanding? What good is understanding that does not lead to social justice and freedom? (By Vincent Kavaloski)

DRACULA AT THE BLOODBANK

Writes Paul Ilsley (501 Beloit, Forest Park, IL 60130), co-author of Recruiting and Training Volunteers (New York: McGraw Hill, 1981): "Hope that you expect little more than a managerial guidebook. For what it is intended to be (and compared with the other books in the series) we have little to feel guilty about. The publishers took liberties with the title and, in spite of our persistent protests, used their own. Other than that they didn't change anything.

"Did I tell you that a copy was sent to President Reagan? Naturally any president, or even a dictator for that matter, embraces voluntarism well both in theory and in practice. Your President's most recent blatherings have certainly lived up to that claim. In any case, it was a good idea to send him a copy. Yet it shouldn't be surprising that he is encouraging the corporate sector to spearhead the American voluntary effort. In my view this is like asking Dracula to take charge of the blood bank.

"The first agenda item for many voluntarists has been to look for 'reasonable' ways to certify professionalism. Already a plan has been implemented to accredit volunteer coordinators at the state level even though the plan was introduced on an associational basis. A separate idea from the same association, The Association of Volunteer Administrators, certifies volunteer expertise. Certifying volunteers has to be, as Mike Collins once exclaimed, the ultimate absurdity.

"At any rate, while all this is going on, the President has appointed a blue ribbon com mission on voluntarism which will take a good look at federal legislation on voluntarism and charitable contributions.... For voluntarism the new federal involvement means two steps forward and three steps backward."

Paul has also sent an insightful one page statement on "technicism" and the five ways it is embraced by adult educators. For him the main characteristic of technicism is "bending human reason so that efficiency and utility dominate the search for social goals." Wish we had space for it, but you could write him for it. Reminds us of Jack London's essay review of Malcolm Knowles' Modern Practice of Adult Education in the Fall 1973 issue of the quarterly Adult Education which said the book "conveys a kind of technicism."

J. ROBY KIDD

We mark the recent passing of the great Canadian adult educator, J. Roby Kidd. It doesn't seem quite appropriate to mourn because his friendly vigor lives on in so many ways, notably the international council for adult education. Gordon Selman echoed Kidd’s creative spirit when he said at the memorial service in Toronto, "Roby is probably already organizing the heavenly hosts into study circles. I can see him now discussing how to start the project with a group sitting around a table that includes Grundtvig, Lindeman, Mansbridge, Corbett, & Coady." Those wishing to express their sympathies are asked by his family to send contributions to "The Roby Kidd Memorial Fellowship," c/o ICAE, 29 Prince Arthur Ave., Toronto, Canada M5R 1B2.

PUBLICATIONS & CONFERENCES

Leonard Freedman, Head of UCLA Extension, used to bristle scornfully at the low and obfuscating level of the adult ed jargon terms "meeting needs" and "long felt needs." Some adult educators once presented Freedman with a long felt roll of weather-stripping for his efforts. Now Christian Bay, author of Strategies of Political Emancipation, is making a valiant effort in his book and in two recent articles to clarify the word "needs" and to take it out of the hands of market-maddened adult educators. The two articles are the best we've seen on the problem: "Human Needs, Wants, and Politics: Abraham Maslow, Meet Karl Marx" (Social Praxis. Vol. 7, Nos. 3/4, 1980, pp. 233 252) and "Self Respect as a Human Right: Thoughts on the Dialectics of Wants and Needs in the Struggle for Human Community" (Human Rights Quarterly, 1982, pp. 53 75). If you can't find them send us a buck for each one and we'll mail them to you.

Another dollar will get you the new 255 item 28 page annotated bibliography Radical Ideas in Adult Education by John Ohliger. It's keyed to 17 ideas such as "All people want to learn" and "Education is never neutral."

If you hurry we'll throw in a copy of an article that Ralph Brockett just ran across and sent us: "Afterlife Long Learning: Next on the Higher Education Agenda" (Journal of Thought, Vol. 17, No. 1, 1982, pp. 15 16), by Daniel L. Wick, which says that hard-pressed "student recruitment personnel should institute down-reach and up-reach programs to let dead students know of the new educational opportunities available to them. (Preliminary estimates indicate that the ratio of down-reach to up-reach programs will be approximately 10,000 to 1.)"

If you want a much more complete (and at times as humorous) look at possible future agendas, get the Future Survey Annual, 1980 - 1981, edited by that top flight curmudgeonly futurist bibliographer Michael Marten. It abstracts almost 1,500 recent books and articles in a very concise and readable style. $25 from World Future Society, 4916 St. Elmo Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814.

Hundreds of alternative future paths to New Age education, technology, health, world peace, and other fundamental concerns are listed regularly In a periodical that the Buttedahls from Vancouver called to our attention. It's Turning Point and it's explicitly non-dogmatic. Write James Robertson, 9 New Road, Ironbridge, Shropshire, England TF8 7AU.

For 13 years the Media/Adult Learning section of the Adult Education Association (USA) has raised basic issues about media in adult ed in its newsletter Media/Adult Learning. The special Winter 1981/82 issue carries a complete review of those years ("Is J. Edgar Hoover a Virgin?" by John Ohliger) plus nine other articles covering the spectrum of opinion from establishment to radical. $2.50 from John Hortin, College of Education, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506.

Have you recently suffered from insomnia because your head is reeling with questions dealing with participatory research? Then relax, fall asleep, and wake up the next morning refreshed in the knowledge that the journal of the International Council for Adult Education, Convergence (Vol. 14, No. 3, 1981) is devoted exclusively to this topic.

Also consider the ICAE's conference "Towards an Authentic Development: The Role of Adult Education," to be held October 25 29. For further info on both write ICAE, 29 Prince Arthur Ave., Toronto, Canada M5R 1B2.

While you're writing ICAE ask for the March issue of REAP, the quarterly newsletter of their Participatory Research Group. It's completely devoted to "Women & Unions: Past, Present and Emerging Politics."

Workplace democracy and worker ownership is the focus of the newsletter of the Center for Community Self Help Changing Shifts. It's filled with practical success stories. Write PO Box 3259, Durham, NC 27705. (By John Ohliger and Tim Turner)

WOMB TO TOMB SCHOOLING

Larry Vershuur (Early Childhood Cooperative, PO Box 80974, Lincoln, ME 68501) writes that there are bills in the legislative hopper in Nebraska "to create a [state] monopoly over early childhood programs." The Lincoln Star says that one state Senator "suggested that school attendance should be compulsory after age three [and that this] would help public schools reverse declining enrollments by creating a new population to serve."

A letter from the Wisconsin Association of Parent Teachers (Rt 3, Box 84, Shell Lake, WI 54871) states that the state Department of Public Instruction "has launched a three pronged attack on all private schools in Wisconsin."

The proposed rules and legislation would have the greatest effect on parents who want to teach their children in the home and community.

Punishment in Ethiopia

From a very reliable source that needs to remain anonymous, a 33 page paper detailing the beatings, fines, and imprisonment that Ethiopians are subject to who decline to join the mandatory adult literacy program. The paper notes that even after these punishments Ethiopians must participate and claims that MCE is used for "pacification" there. In 1980 the UNESCO general conference in Belgrade hailed this MCE program and called for "an international appeal for financial and material support in Ethiopia."

A six page paper from Roger Boshler at the University of British Columbia: "John Condliffe Confronts Captain Kirk: A New Zealand Perspective on MCE During World War I." The first treatment we've seen of opposition to MCE with in the military.

MCE Fiction

"Don't Sell the Army Short" is the title of a one-page article by Thomas Doherty (3613 Spenser Lane, Madison, WI) In the Feb. 11th issue of Newsweek. It begins, "There is a story by Donald Barthelme about a man of 35 who was sent back to sixth grade. He had made too many mistakes in life and so had to be re-educated." The short story, at the same time funny and frightening, is called "Me and Miss Mandible," and can be found in two collections by this renowned modern fiction writer. Come Back, Dr. Caligari ( Boston: Little, Brown, 1964. $3.95 in paper) and his latest. Sixty Stories. Its original title was "The Darling Duckling at School."

Three items of interest in recent issues of Lifelong Learning: The Adult Years. In the January 1982 issue Darrell Petska's excellent "Adult Education for the Year 2000" includes among its five possible scenarios one in which "Adult education is big business, if somewhat grim, because learning by mandate has taken hold....Classes are a fact of life." In the March issue Adult Education Association (AEA) President Wendell Smith writes: "AEA has taken the stand that continuing education should be elective...[But] I think it is clear that some adult learning will always be motivated by extrinsic forces." In the same issue there appears an official one-page "AEA Publications List." Though it lists material published many years ago it does not include the AEA Task Force Report on Voluntary Learning which strongly criticized MCE. Why not? There is a brief item on the next page that says, "Due to the demand for this report, reprints were published, and they are now available. $4.00 for AEA members, $5.00 for non-members. Send prepayments to AEA/USA, 810 18th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006." (By John Ohliger)

MCE BRIEFS A letter from Robert Verner ( 2000 W. 32nd Ave., Denver, CO 80211), an attorney who has just been suspended after 30 years of practice for refusing to take MCE. Verner sued over the suspension, lost at the first trial and is appealing. He seeks contact with others (one good contact is Ana Dale, 6108 S. Kimbark, Chicago, IL 60637, who is "creating a resource file on MCE for lawyers").

Verner asks, "When a judge (e.g. the ones ruling on MCE challenges) can potentially earn MCE seminar and teaching fees approaching or exceeding his salary, do we not invite corruption?" The same question re: conflict of interest is raised by a dental hygienist, Carol Mac Kenzie ( 38 Upland Rd., Waltham, MA 02154). In a very well done 5-page paper: "MCE will be the biggest money maker [for dentists] since the gold crown. Many of the courses for hygienists will be offered by dentists and naturally they will be pocketing the profit." Dentists control MCE for hygienists in her state, and because she has been unable to find support for opposing them she has decided to let her license go. She also points to sexism involved in the employment of hygienists by dentists. Dave Williams ( 2816 Nevada St., Manhattan, KS 66502) at Kansas State University has just presented a research paper pointing to the possibility that MCE reduces the general desire for self-direction when measured on something called the "Rotter Scale." Dave has also sent us newspaper clippings adding two more groups to the over 70 now covered by MCE, shoplifters and prison guards. Handgun owners are another.

SECOND THOUGHTS is a newsletter designed to raise fundamental questions about the meaning of education. How can education: Enhance human freedom and participation? Expand the frontiers of individual and collective research and action on matters of substance? Contribute to a more just and democratic society?

SECOND THOUGHTS serves a network of persons raising basic questions about mandatory continuing education (MCE), professionalization, and other issues related to social control.

It is published by Basic Choices, Inc., a Midwest Center for Clarifying Political and Social Options, 11S1 University Ave., Madison, VI 53715, (608) 256-1946. It is also a project in values clarification of Madison Campus Ministry. Members of the group are John Hill, Vincent Kavaloski, David Lisman, Art Lloyd, Sue Lloyd, Mark McFadden, John Ohliger, Vern Visick, and Chris Wagner.

This issue is mainly due to the efforts of Margaret Armstrong, Reva Crawford, April Hoffman, Beth Horning (Newsletter Press), Paul Ilsley, Vincent Kavaloski, Tuli Kupferberg (Vanity Press), Art Lloyd, John Ohliger, and Tim Turner. Thanks for last minute help on the January issue to Ann Marie Fabishak, Phil Kaveny, Mark McFadden, and Kurt Sommer.

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