8221; (ZMM – Pirsig 206)Pirsig, a theorist as well as a rhetorician would see the approach as the right idea. Students should be faced with challenges that require demonstration of understanding as well as some demonstration of quality. I know that stating Pirsig feels students need to demonstrate some effort towards quality is reaching, but I think that is what he is truly looking for students (his in particular) to be able to understand and demonstrate. I feel that this is what you are trying to establish with us as students in your class as well. Flaws are found in this methodology of education, Pirsig sees that students need to be taught Quality but, “…how are you to teach something that isn’t premeditated? It was a seemingly impossible requirement.” (Pirsig 176) Struggling with this concept leads one to believe that students must develop a sense of Quality based on what they feel. There is no prescriptive method to teach students to produce Quality. Pirsig’s major problem with this whole concept is that he does not have a true understanding of Quality, and rightfully so. How is one supposed to determine Quality?Here’s how Pirsig (in my eyes) might respond to Carolyn Rude; students should be introduced to methodology in order to make valid attempts but the “answers” are to be derived from students applying effort to a goal, Quality. Phaedrus’ experiments with his students produced astonishing results, creating a student that had a grasp on the idea that “…there were no longer rules to rebel against, not ultimates in themselves, but just techniques, gimmicks, for producing what really counted and stood independently of the techniques – Quality.” (Pirsig 208) The students that took this and ran with it demonstrated true education and in Pirsig’s (as well as Phaedrus’) eyes had achieved the goal, Quality.Part II:“Every art and...
