Big Bird & Beyond charts the growth of the Children's Television Workshop and Sesame Street,which marked the start of the Markle Foundation's struggle to make quality programming a part of everyday media presentations. This coverage of the foundation which nurtured such programs explores how media for education was developed and marketed. Recommended for any involved in media studies.

There was an expressed interest in my previous reaction to Boyer's criticism of Ayn Rand's Howard Roark of the Fountainhead. Boyer and Lee imply that Rand's novel provides a disservice by presenting the architect (Roark) as "hero" rather than "team player" (Boyer / Lee, page 8). The two constantly suggest that self-interest should always be overridden by "greater obligation" to the client and society at large. While many of their concerns are reasonable, by suggesting that there exist a "greater obligation" they imply that there is a conflict between social and self-benefit. What they do not understand is that a person can practice architecture for selfish reasons alone, i.e. monetary benefit and self-expression without a conflict of interest provided the architect uses reason to make decisions and design his/her code of ethics. The idea is this as inscribed on John Galt's power facility in Rand's Atlas Shrugged: "I SWEAR BY MY LIFE AND MY LOVE OF IT THAT I WILL NEVER LIVE FOR THE SAKE OF ANOTHER MAN, NOR ASK ANOTHER MAN TO LIVE FOR MINE" Rand, page 675). No social obligations, there exists only capitalism in its purest form, where decisions are based on efficiency, mutual benefit, and most importantly reason. People are hired and fired every day based on such pure idealism. Leeches and Liars do not survive long in this system.

To accept a "greater obligation" would place value in socialist ideals-beliefs that have consistently destroyed nations since Marx spewed them forth. It may be that those value judgements that a society or group have are similar to your own, but there should never exist a forum of individuals making these decisions for everybody-we call those people bullies. This contagion of thought leads those who would listen into a world where all people deserve the same right to happiness and prosperity irrespective of what they produce for themselves. If I had one wish I would ask that we all be "shiny happy people holding hands" (R.E.M., Shiny Happy People), but such thinking is non-productive. Marx unleashed a world where those who would use their minds and bodies for production are punished and those that would be spoon-fed are rewarded.

Objectivism is a philosophy first presented by Ayn Rand in the 1940's and 50's. In Rand's Fountainhead, the architect as "hero" is not an idea that is in direct conflict with public prosperity. It presents a man who is capable of identifying the bullies, the leeches and liars. He exists as an architect hidden behind the "team player", Peter Keating-the man who eventually learned that he could not look at his own face in the mirror without shuddering. In a later book by Rand, Atlas Shrugged, she solidifies those ideas in Heroes like Francisco, Hank, Ragnar, Dagny, and John Galt. These industrialists, people with passion, accepted no excuses, never broke their word, and did not play by socialist rules, for there is a better way-their way. Their minds provided reason devoid of contradiction, where morally gray thought and socialist ideals are nil.

Most of what the Boyer / Lee report outlines is very reasonable. I agree with Lee and Boyer's ideas of more liberal, flexible, and integrated curriculum, tying studios to "real life problems", "acknowledging the curriculum as one phase in life-long learning", and "educating architects for a sustainable environment". These are all logical and valid visions of the future. Nonetheless, I have a big problem with "replacing the "architect as hero" model with "architect as team player". To become a "team player" is to accept decisions that do not coincide with one's own. As I stated in my February 3rd essay: "My self interests should never be "overridden by some greater obligation" to a client or society because the A.I.A. (a forum of lawyers), has defined the "right" and "good" in its code of ethics (Pressman, p. 49)." I intend to practice architecture and live under my own Objectivist ethic; the idea is that if I do not believe something, it will not be presented until I do.