Debbie was out of town last night so I snuck off to see the new Star Trek movie, “Into Darkness.” In keeping with full disclosure, I am a Trekker. I love Star Trek. When the TV series premiered in 1966 my family would gather around the tube and watch each episode together. In 1966 we were escalating our involvement in Viet Nam and the military draft was in place, LBJ was President, the civil rights movement for minorities and women triggered protests and violence, a sniper shot and killed people from the UT tower, and the hippie movement was well underway: an anti-establishment, pro free love and pro drug use sub culture that has had lasting impact on our country. We were one year away from Woodstock and the mini-skirt was the rage. Yes, 1966 was a challenging year. Into this context premiered Star Trek.
The original Star Trek series and each subsequent spin-off began with the phrase, “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Star Ship Enterprise. Its five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” Wow. This was something positive, a glimpse of a future that could be ours. The crew of the Enterprise was fully integrated, not just with all flavors of humans but with aliens as well. Women held key positions throughout the leadership structure. This was the first truly multi-cultural TV series, and included in the series was the first televised kiss of a white man and a black woman when Kirk kissed Uhura.
And the technology! Wow. Each member of the crew had a communicator that was a hand held device capable of calling anyone almost anywhere. The science officers carried hand held computers that could provide a wealth of information at the touch of a finger. Each ship had replicators so that whatever you wanted could be assembled and dispensed. They had warp drive, the ability to transcend the speed of light, they had transporters, the ability to deconstruct anything at the atomic level, transmit that code elsewhere and re-assemble the structure. Many of the far-fetched technologies have become reality and we now take for granted cell phones, computers, tablets, Internet, microwave ovens and even 3-D printers. None of those gizmos existed in 1966 and the developers of each credit Star Trek for the inspiration to create.
But to me the most profound philosophical component of the Star Trek series and all the subsequent series and movies, was the Prime Directive. This directive set the ground rules for the exploration of the universe. This directive can be found in the Articles of the Federation, Chapter I, Article II, Paragraph VII, which states:
“Nothing within these Articles of Federation shall authorize the United Federation of Planets to intervene in matters which are essentially the domestic jurisdiction of any planetary social system, or shall require the members to submit such matters to settlement under these Articles of Federation. As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the normal and healthy development of alien life and culture. Star Fleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship, unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation.”
I have oft wondered what life on this planet would be like if we had the equivalent of the prime directive for the various nations and cultures here. Perhaps fodder for a reflective exposition.
So much for my justification and sentimental attachment to Star Trek. The newest episode is JJ Abrams continuous re-write of the original series complete with Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, Scotty, Chekhov and Sulu, all played by a new and young cast. Love it. The following may include some spoilers, so for fellow aficionados you may want to skip the next paragraph if you have yet to see the movie.
Early on in the show Kirk gets in serious trouble for violating the Prime Directive. His motives were heroic. His intentions were pure. But, he violated the Prime Directive and paid the price. This is a young Kirk, a potentially great Star Ship Captain, but still impulsive, bold and indifferent to rules he does not like. Star Fleet mandated painful consequences for such a violation. Bureaucracy, it seems, exists even in the idealized world of Star Trek.
All the above was the wind up. Here’s the pitch. Should public education adhere to the equivalent of the Prime Directive?
I am not sure we have a choice. Our mission is in fact in direct opposition to the Prime Directive. Our mission is to take what the majority in our culture define as essential learnings, behaviors, knowledge and skills and intentionally transmit and impart those attributes to every kid who walks in the door. It does not matter what their culture is. It does not matter what their belief system is. It does not matter where the kid and his or her family are on the cultural evolutionary scale and the cultural values scale and the socioeconomic scale. We are directed to impart from our bureaucratic pinnacle the State Legislature and TEA. In fact, we are held accountable via a high stakes test to see if we have sufficiently altered the existing student culture and values and knowledge on a yearly basis. Wow. This is the antithesis of the Prime Directive. We are sanctioned if we do not successfully violate the Prime Directive.
It is the disappearance of the equivalent of the educational Prime Directive as espoused in Star Trek that has forever altered public education in this country. There was a day when the local community and the local Board were clearly in charge of what was taught and what the variables of success were to be and how they were to be measured. Districts adopted their own curriculum. Districts set their own calendars. Districts decided how to evaluate teachers. Districts decided whether to put emphasis on academics or athletics, band or Ag, college readiness or career development. All of that is gone. The decision to set all those goals, parameters, measures and outcomes at the state level have robbed the local public school culture of the reality that they are a local school culture. (It remains amazing to me that the folks who set these standards are not educators. At least the Prime Directive was developed by Star Fleet officers.) I want to stand and scream that one size does not fit all, but I am held accountable for our ability to ensure that false rubric.
We have just finished the last round of high stakes state accountability tests. I know principals and teachers who are losing sleep awaiting our outcomes. I know kids who were sick to their stomachs prior to taking the test. I see our schools totally modified the schedule and priorities to prepare kids for the re-take if they did not pass the first time. We have abandoned what we care about most to achieve what the state, our equivalent of the Federation of Planets, cares about most. We are to standardize each kid’s learning and ability to prove they have learned. Regardless of their culture, their ethnicity, their income, their family values, our community values, we must interfere and intervene with state mandated prescriptions.
Yes, Captain James Tiberius Kirk. I am sorry you were punished for violating the Prime Directive. Take some comfort in that I will be punished if I do not.
Live long and prosper.
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