The Leilani Reforms

I am actually very conservative. As far back as I can remember I identified with authority. I liked structure. The authority I knew as a child didn't constrain me it gave me the freedom to live openly and aggressively in my childhood world without horrible results. 

Not that there weren't problems, I should say, just no loss of limb. The benign structures of my family and milieu were good for me because I was incautious. Now, I didn't like the Beatles. How's that for conservative? I was disappointed in the girls who liked them. 

And the changes of Vatican II befuddled me. Why would anyone give up Latin and Gregorian Chant for a lot of instantly trite ritual and insipid, overly sentimental singing? Where was the respect? It all seemed rash to me and I was confused by the lack of continuity.

Art museums and banks and similar places impressed me, as cumulative results of something good, some frozen or stockpiled place and product of intelligent or creative or cooperative endeavor. My elementary school got a groovy nun somewhere in there, Sister Leilani. 

She had a vision. The students would work in little groups. It was all that mattered. Formal classroom instruction was considered passé. Other adults came to our school to see us sitting at tables in our beloved little groups. I, for one, didn't learn anything and played around.

The little groups were an end in themselves. Behold: the high school I had revered and looked forward to attending was Leilani-land on crack. In some classes, notably Freshman Algebra, they stopped teaching entirely in an attempt to get us to work at our own rate.

That was the new catch-phrase and buzz. My rate was zero. Stationary. They wouldn't fail you so I worked into the summer to complete the required units. Sophomore year I got into a structured geometry class for the losers who couldn't handle the new freedom.

I got a 99%. At registration, however, for my junior-year classes they were all closed. I left the scene feeling sick and transferred to the well-structured, forced-integrated, riot-zone public school in whose district I lived. I learned more there but we had several deaths.

Now you would suppose from this that I would condemn newfangled everything and love the Catholic fascists at Fox News but, no. I learned how dependent we are on circumstances and how determined our fortunes are by luck, so I want better circumstances for everyone.

That's exactly what the Fox News people don't want.