Nested stages

["Marasigan . Vicente" <vic@pusit.admu.edu.ph>]

Hi, Larry et al.

Thank you for your interdoc and BCC reponses and for spending 4 hours
heaping thought after serious thought on the proposed Gameplan.

The one-liner that I select for discussng now is your thought about
the "nested stages of cognitive development."  It strikes me as the
positive side of Ivan Illich's negativist description of the present
educational system as promoting the fragmentation of society into 16
or more classes of DROPOUTS.

To heal this fragmentation, I do not know how those at the upper
stages can make themselves useful and intelligible to those who are
pleading with us to "keep it simple!"  During my 4 decades of
teaching, I have struggled to share my insights with many students, a
few of whom are now highly placed professionals.  But the great
majority have vanished into the slums, some are rehabilitated
convicts, others are non-rehabilitated drug addicts, etc....

What Gameplan can I offer to confront this agonizing experience?  This
is a far greater complexity than I can grasp.  Will the Y2K heal this
fragmentation with a wake-up call to educators?

Vicente Marasigan