Over at the Steve Hoffman forum, David Schwartz just linked to an interview with Geoff Emerick, who engineered the Beatles’ records from Revolver on. It’s a fascinating interview, both for Beatles fans and for those like me who think about school as a learning environment and wonder how best to tune and present that environment.

I read Emerick’s remarks and I’m struck by how odd and perplexing human situations can be. Those wacky EMI engineers standing around holding their breath as the four-track machine was gingerly hoisted over the threshold and brought into the control room. No need! Wearing ties and keeping your shoes polished. How does that help? Rolling off all the bass on the Beatles’ singles so the Dancettes and Close-N-Plays of the world won’t mistrack, while Motown got big, beautiful bass on their classic 45s. And yet those same wacky engineers insisted on recording on virgin tape, and their tape formulation has held up beautifully over all these years, so that the best rock-n-roll band ever sounds just as fresh today as they did in 1963. And those big, behind-the-times mono speakers enforced a certain discipline on the engineer and producer that made the stereo sound even better (even if the mix was inferior, as it often was).

Human creativity is such a complex ecology. You’d think that taking out all the wacky stuff and nonsensical, idiotic practices would give us a better environment in which to create, but it’s never that simple. The hard part and the crucial part is assembling the team within the environment. Perhaps the team is the environment. What then to do about the wacky stuff?

I apologize for these ramblings, but I’m fascinated by the complexity of these questions and situations, and I’m struck by the mischief that’s been generated over the years by the many simple answers we offer to complex educational questions. From the whole-language vs. phonics debate to the back-and-forth on cultural literacy and standards-based learning, the goal seems to be to identify the antigen and eliminate it, rather than to weave a complex text as alertly, sympathetically, and creatively as possible. Why should this be, when the results are so patently failing us and our students?