Opinion  of the Month

Learning  to Survive

By  Ewen and Gladys

What is the one thing  that all of the Survivors have in common other than  Surviving? Education. They've all had it, and, we assume,  that they can all read and write. After all, if they  can't, then what's the use of Charlie and co. Putting up  signs and telling people not to eat the fish? It's a  subject which is vaugely skirted round in the first  series, as we see Vic Thatcher in his wheelchair and the  kids in a makeshift schoolroom.

But what is he teaching  them? Consider the education that we've all had, all of  those subjects like algebra which we were sure we'd never  use again, because... Well, why? Because we were always  sure that there'ld be somebody else to use it for us. We  didn't need to study medicine because there'ld always be  a doctor. We didn't need to pay attention in Physics when  they talked about the generation of electricity because  there'ld always be a handy socket...

Suddenly, the Sickness.  The skills base shrinks to negligible levels. The power  stations stop working. Bread doesn't come from a  supermarket any more. There are practical skills that a  Survivor needs to learn, and the only teachers are other  Survivors, or trial and error. You learn how to catch,  butcher and cook a rabbit.

Fortunately, there are  still books around to consult, so you learn how to  recognise which mushroom is which. The point is, that as  long as somebody has written it down, you can learn how  to do it again. Putting together an engine is just simply  a matter of following instructions. Butchering and  preserving a pig is just a matter of finding the right  book. Delivering a breech-birth baby is just a matter of  finding a book on obstetrics.

So, what is Vic  teaching Lizzie and John in the schoolroom. Reading and  writing, sure, that goes without saying, but how ?  Learning is an interactive process. Those of you who have  kids, you teach them to read by reading along with them.  But for John and Lizzie, what books do you read along with them ? Especially as their frame  of reference has shifted from school, (which we know that  they remember) to living and working in a community  where, in the short term, their actual physical labour is  required to survive, and education becomes a luxury.  Remember, there are only possibly 10,000 people left in  Britain. That's about enough to generate the number of  kids for a small primary school.

Therefore, lets  consider how learning and education would change after  the disaster. Indeed, look what happens when natural  disaster or civil war hits a country. The first thing to  go are the schools, and of course this is what we are looking at in Survivorland. In  our world, you get a generation of kids that can't read  or write, but eventually, things sort themselves out and  the schools reopen and they're back on the path. But this  time, the schools aren't going to reopen, and the education and socialisation of the children are going to  fall on your own particular band of Survivors.

Lets assume that you  can teach the kids to read and write. Even the most basic  of settlements are going to have books around, and some  writing paper, until the paper runs out and then you're  back to making paper out of wood pulp and rags (There'll  be a book about it somewhere).

A lot of the basic  process behind learning to read and write are about  employing imagination, and as you're out of the frame of  reference that imagination can be employed in, that  technique becomes of limited utility.

Consider even this  century in the Western world. It's only really in the  last 60 or so years that universal education has become  the norm. Before that, there was basic elementary  education and further education was the priveledge of the  rich. Everyone else went out to work at 14, when they  were physically mature.

And that's what's going  to happen in Survivorland. There will come a point when  the contribution that a child can make to the community  will switch from being a "parasite" to being a  "contributor". We justify their parasitism by  education. So the "richer" communitites will be  able to have a greater "parasite/contributor"  ratio:- they'll be able to do without the physical input  of the kids and indeed of the teacher. So, in the first  instance, the kids will have to be contributors to  Survive.

Education for Greg and  Abby's group only became a factor when they had a  non-contributing adult to teach the kids. Eventually, the  teachers will be the older people, those whose physical  effort is of limited utility to the community. They  contribute then by teaching, by passing on their  knowledge and skills. But the knowledge of these teachers  is that of another world and another time, and their  memories of education and how to educate will be foreign,  almost alien to the Surviving kids. The teacher is having  to learn as many new skills as the pupils.

So here's what I see  happening. You're going to end up with what will  effectively be an apprenticing system. After a period of  basic education in reading, writing and basic  mathematics, the kids will go to a "master" in  a skill and be taught that skill by the practicioner. A  kid with an ability for math would be selected to be  apprenticed to the settlement's "engineer".  Abilites that would make themselves apparent during the  normal interaction of the kids with the rest of the  settlement would be encouraged. Even old Hubert would  pass on his skill in beast-herding. It's not something  that you can learn without a teacher.

But, as I've said, the  richer settlements will still be able to encourage a  greater level of education. People with skills and  knowledge to contribute would be encouraged to these  settlements and then eventually they're going to go back  to what will basically be a medieval state. There will be  these richer settlements that will turn into towns.  Centres of learning and specialisation will develop and  the interchange and synergism of skills will begin again.

The important thing is  to develop in that first new generation of Survivors an  appreciation of the importance of education. Because with  the basic skills it is possible to recreate anything for  which there is a set of instructions. Just as a finishing  point, think back to the final scene of H.G. Wells's Time  Machine. When everybody notices that the hero has  taken three books from his bookshelf to go and try to  rebuild a civilisation in the future. The last line is  "I wonder which three books he took?".

Which three books would you take to Survivorland?

Ewen

"The key to the  whole future's in libraries..." "Why? So they  can make the same mistakes again?"

This exchange between  Greg and Paul in Revenge definitely got my  attention - but what would you expect from a person who's  made a career out of ferreting out information and  teaching people how to ferret out their own? Nice to know  us librarians might not necesssarily be out of a job  after the Death.... or would we?

Ewen suggests that  plenty of education is the one thing all Our Heroes seem  to have - true enough, though I wouldn't want to hazard a  guess at what Hubert's reading level is:)

Other than literacy and  perhaps some creative problem solving skills, precious  few of them had anything practical included in their  education in the way of survival skills - Greg and  possibly Hubert being the exceptions, though I doubt  Hubert learned his best tending at agricultural college.

Whatever they lack in  practical skills, they do have the ability to look up.  Fine as far as it goes, and theoretically possible. Two  things come to mind right away:

The distribution of  reading comprehension abilities in the folks at the  Grange may not be a representative sample of the whole  surviving population and how are they going to find the  books with the survival instructions in them?

One of the things the  series was criticized for was making it seem initially as  if survivors were primarily middle class. Even making the  assumption all/most middle class folks have formal  education, those of us in the ed business know within this group there are  bound to be a great deal of variety in learning styles.  Translated into English, that means that within a middle  class group of approximately equal educational  background, there are bound to be a significant number  who owe their educational success not to their actual  reading abilities but to their middle class problem  solving and social skills. An extreme example of this would be the dyslexic who manages to get  through high school finding a variety of other ways to  absorb material even if they can't read a word. Such  problem solving skills would theoretically be useful  after the Death, but even the best survivialist library  wouldn't help if your ability to read isn't there.

The other worry I would  have is where are they going to find all the books with  the information to help them survive. Few of the  libraries I've worked in each had very much in the area -  a couple in this one and a couple in that one, but few  comprehensive collections. Going to a large centralized  collection, most probably in in urban area, presents its  own hazards. Someone made a bonanza selling how to live  off the land books in the mid-seventies, but they were  mostly worse than useless. (I know, because a lot of them  are gathering dust on my shelves at home).

Actually, if you take  the back to the land books of the mid-seventies and  compare them to the getting-into-computers books that  sell by the pound at American bookstores, you'll find  that what they both have in common is their lack of  solid, reasonably written and easily comprehended  directions!

So what about the  future-what have Lizzie and John or even the Eagle from A  Little Learning got in store for them? Ewen's  description of basic literacy being gotten in the home  settlements is almost certainly the way it would have to  be. Most kids would probably get basic literacy skills  even allowing for the variety of levels in  "teaching" skills amongst the adults and  "learning styles" amongst the kids. Down the  road apiece, however, is what I'd be most worried about.

Ruth has either 3.5 or  4.5 years of medical training depending on the episode,  there are "3 or 4 A level chemistry students"  with Dr. Miele at Wellingham, and "a few O level  science students in the London community" - few  enough available now, but what about the next generation?  Some with scientific/technical/whatever abilities will go  undiscovered because their talents aren't recognized in  their home communities. Others with aptitudes will fall  through the cracks due to geographic distances between themselves and higher level  training opportunities. I fear a loss of talent that  Survivor Land can ill afford.

Printed matter never  has been entirely about being practical - literature is  also for dreaming, hoping, speculating, planning  possibilities and yes, just plain fun. Lizzie and John  will most probably continue to have people around them  that will communicate a love of reading/literature for  its own sake: we see Ruth and Arthur Russell reading  aloud to them at various times. It's the generations  after that I'm more worried about - will new books get  printed to replace deteriorating older ones? A world with  no reading for the pure pleasure of it is not a place I  care to imagine. Even the ever practical Greg says  "If it's not about more than mere survival, then  what's the point?" Indeed.

As for my choice of  what three books to bring, that sounds like a whole other  rant, but here's my candidates for the short list:

l. The SAS Survival  Manual (or an early Boy Scout Handbook, whichever is  available)

2. Paperback version of  Shakespeare's works (and a pair of good sturdy glasses to  help when you go blind trying to read the small print.)

3. Redwall by  Brian Jacques-because it is hopeful, poetic, realistic,  moral, optimistic and a ripping good tale, even if it is  about rodents:)

Gladys