A Bit of Richard Mitchell for You!

Yesterday I spoke about a great writer on education issues, Richard Mitchell. As he has publicly stated that it is okay to plagiarize him but would appreciate a citation, here's little ditty from him about the inanities of certain role playing games which teachers thrust upon us. He discusses, succinctly and appropriately, The Lifeboat Game. You know, where the boat is too small for everyone, who gets tossed? Enjoy!

It's called the Lifeboat Game, which proves that school has its lighter side. The dull labors of math and grammar are offset by playful interludes of childlike chatter as to who shall live and who shall die.
The game provides a dramatis personae clearly differentiated by "socially significant" attributes: age, sex, ethos, calling, and other such contingencies by virtue of which a person is also a local and temporal manifestation. This is not one of the contexts in which educationists choose to warble paeans to "the uniqueness and absolute worth of the individual." (Inconsistency troubles them not at all; they are at war with the stationary.) In this case, the verdict must be relevant," conducive to "the greatest good for the greatest number," and the exclusive focus on accepted notions of "social usefulness" assures that a decision will be made. Another kind of inquiry--whether it is better to do or to suffer an injustice, for instance, or whether the common good is more to be prized than the good--would preclude decision and spoil the game, sending all the players back to the tedium of math and grammar. Schoolteachers, in any case, are usually kept ignorant even of the possibility of such inquiries, but they have been told all about self-worth and how to enhance it.
The children who "play" the game usually decide to dump an old clergyman, a man who is supposed to be prepared for that sort of thing--being fed to sharks by a committee of children, that is. A busty young country-western singer will be preserved. She has many long years ahead of her in which to maximize her potential and serve the greatest good by entertaining the greatest number. And she is supposed to be prepared for that sort of thing--being elevated to wealth and power by a very large committee of children.
What a pity that Himmler and Goebbels and all that crowd are dead. They'd make really neat resource persons for the Lifeboat Game. Well, there's still Rudy Hess, and we might even find Mengele.

Again, this is by Richard Mitchell, and it appeared in The Underground Grammarian of November 1982. I assure you educationists still think this drivel valuable.