From “Teaching As A Subversive Activity” by Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner ( Penguin Educational Specials: 1969) pp. 48 – 50.

Pursuing Relevance

Picture this scene: Dr Gillupsie has grouped around him several of the young resident surgeons at Blear General Hospital. They are about to begin their weekly analysis of the various operations they have performed in the preceding four days. Gillupsie nods in the direction of Jim Kildear, indicating that Kildear’s cases will be discussed first:

GILLUPSIE: Well, Jim, what have you been up to this week?

KlLDEAR: Only one operation. I removed the gall bladder of the patient in Room 421.

GILLUPSIE: What was his trouble?

KILDEAR: Trouble? No trouble. I believe it’s just inherently good to remove gall bladders.

GILLUPSIE: Inherently good?

KILDEAR: I mean good in itself. I’m talking about removing gall bladders qua removing gall bladders.

GILLUPSIE: Oh; you mean removing gall bladders per se.

KILDEAR: Precisely, Chief. Removing his gall bladder had intrinsic merit. It was, as we say, good for its own sake.

GILLUPSIE: Splendid, Jim. If there’s one thing I won’t tolerate at 51 Blear, it’s a surgeon who is merely practical. What’s in store next week?

KILDEAR: Two frontal lobotomies.

GILLUPSIE : Frontal lobotomies qua frontal lobotomies, I hope?

KILDEAR: What else?

GILLUPSIE: How about you, young Dr Fuddy? What have you done this week?

FUDDY: Busy. Performed four pilonidal-cyst excisions.

GILLUPSIE: Didn’t know we had that many cases.

FUDDY: We didn’t, but you know how fond I am of pilonidal-cyst excisions. That was my major in medical school, you know.

GILLUPSIE: Of course, I’d forgotten. As I remember it now, the prospect of doing pilonidal-cyst excisions brought you into medi ­cine, didn’t it?

FUDDY: That’s right, Chief. I was always interested in that. Frankly, I never cared much for appendectomies.

GILLUPSIE: Appendectomies?

FUDDY: Well that seemed to be the trouble with the patient in 397

GILLUPSIE: But you stayed with the old pilonidal-cyst excision, eh?

FUDDY: Right, Chief.

GILLUPSIE: Good work, Fuddy. I know just how you feel. When I was a young man, I was keenly fond of hysterectomies.

FUDDY (giggling): Little tough on the men, eh Chief?

GILLUPSIE: Well, yes (snickering). But you’d be surprised at how much a resourceful surgeon can do. (Then, solemnly) Well, Car ­stairs, how have things been going?

CARSTAIRS: I’m afraid I’ve had some bad luck, Dr Gillupsie. No operations this week, but three of my patients died.

GILLUPSIE: Well, well have to do something about this, won’t we? What did they die of?

CARSTAIRS: I’m not sure, Dr Gillupsie, but I did give each one of them plenty of Penicillin.

GILLUPSIE: Ahl The traditional ‘good for its own sake’ approach, eh, Carstairs?

CARSTAIRS: Well, not exactly, Chief. I just thought that penicillin would help them get better.

GILLUPSIE: What were You treating them for?

CARSTAIRS: Well, each one was awful sick, Chief, and I know that Penicillin helps sick people get better.

GILLUPSIE: It certainly does, Carstairs. I think you acted wisely.

CARSTAIRS: And the deaths, Chief?

GILLUPSIE: Bad patients, son, bad patients. There’s nothing a good doctor can do about bad patients. And there’s nothing a good medi ­cine can do for bad patients either.

CARSTAIRS: But still, I have a nagging feeling that perhaps they didn’t need Penicillin, that they might have needed something else.

GILLUPSIE: Nonsense! Penicillin never fails to work on good patients. We all know that. I wouldn’t worry too much about it,Carstairs.

Perhaps our Playlet needs no further elaboration, but we want to underscore some of its points. First, had we continued the conversation between Dr Gillupsie and his young surgeon, we could  ­easily have included a half dozen other ‘reasons’ for inflicting upon children the kinds of irrelevant curricula that comprise most of conventional schooling. For example, we could have had one doctor still practising ‘bleeding’ his patients because he had not yet discovered that such practices do no good. Another doctor could have insisted that he has ‘cured’ his patients in spite of the fact that they have all died. (‘Oh, I taught them that, but they didn’t learn it.’)

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MY COMMENT …..exactly the same scenario can be used regarding teaching within the church. How effective is the teaching in your church? Is it relevant to YOUR life?