Sisko should have come down harder on Keiko

[Photon]

When the incident happened at school w/ Winn.

We all know what kind of hypocrit that Winn was but Sisko's main objective was still to get Bajor in, and part of that is not pissing off alot of its citizens and religious leaders, even though it might mean bending some of your long-held, iron-clad beliefs.

Actually in the give and take between Mrs O and Winn, the orthodox Vedek came off as more agreeable than Keiko. Of course, Winn could have been faking it like she normally does, but Keiko's intractability was beyond the pale, even for a non-believer.

 

[scorpius1701]

There could have been more discussion of the school and its implications before it went up but i think Keiko was pretty reasonable about the whole thing considering she didnt have any qualifications to teach in the first place. She was teaching a science lesson about the wormhole. There were other aliens besides Bajorans in the school who were just as likely to complain about a religious aspect to the lesson. As a teacher, you know that theres always going to be somebody who doesnt like what youre doing and you just have to do the best you can. Besides, Keiko was right in that shes not a religious leader, Winn is. Winn is the one who should be handling that aspect of their lives. Besides, she just wanted to kill Bareil anyway.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

When the incident happened at school w/ Winn.

We all know what kind of hypocrit that Winn was but Sisko's main objective was still to get Bajor in, and part of that is not pissing off alot of its citizens and religious leaders, even though it might mean bending some of your long-held, iron-clad beliefs.

Actually in the give and take between Mrs O and Winn, the orthodox Vedek came off as more agreeable than Keiko. Of course, Winn could have been faking it like she normally does, but Keiko's intractability was beyond the pale, even for a non-believer.

I felt that way too--but then again, I come from a biased perspective.

I thought a third way would have been possible, too, rather than just calling them "wormhole aliens" and being done with it. This is similar to the problem I have in the real world with people thinking it has to be EITHER evolution OR creation. Why couldn't the Prophets be both what shows up on the sensors and (possibly) more than that? Why not go through the scientific findings regarding the Prophets, and then say that the Bajorans believe there is more to them than meets the sensors, without calling them a name like "wormhole aliens"?

Besides, you could make an argument that since the entities in the wormhole are sentient, and have accepted the name "Prophets," then that's what they ought to be called since that's what they want...and it would be rude to call sentient beings by another name just like it would be to walk up to somebody and call them one name when they told you they wanted to be called by another one. So you could just call them Prophets, say that's their name for themselves (whether or not you agree they really ARE), and explain that there are differing opinions regarding who they are.

 

[JNG]

I feel like Keiko and Winn were both being used to represent opposite ends of the argument and were both somewhat intractable and could have compromised better. Certainly anyone being rational about things would not have found it too hard to agree on "wormhole aliens, called by Bajorans a term that translates to 'Prophets'" or something along those lines.

I do think Keiko deserved more credit for the school...when I think about it, Keiko overall had kind of a hard road over the years.

 

[Navaros]

I do think Keiko deserved more credit for the school...when I think about it, Keiko overall had kind of a hard road over the years.

Why give credit for the school; the school was a failure. Keiko lost all her students IMO because she was way too angry & bitter, and unfit to teach. Exactly as demonstrated in ITHOTP and any & every other episode she ever appeared in. If she was more amiable instead of being a mean old battle-ax 24/7 then chances are she wouldn't have had so hard of a road IMO.

 

[Timo]

It's not as if her ways ever presented a problem to her students. It was their parents that she had to fight against. And that should really have been Sisko's job. Normal schools have their own well-established infrastructure to ward off the meddling parents, one that takes the weight off the teachie's slumped shoulders.

Let's remember why the school existed in the first place: there were kids aboard the station who didn't have access to the schooling back home. And the very reason they were up there and not down at the planet was that they were starfarer kids. The education they would most need would be the sort that would wean them of their provincial ways.

The Bajoran schooling system, which must have been re-erected at some point, could and should have catered for stationside teaching of the Bajoran ways. Keiko's school catered for a different need, for the interstellar rather than the national community.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Triskelion]

And yet no mention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster doctrine.

I think the whole argument typifies human arrogance. That people presume to make absolute arguments based on humanoid perspectives. But then I guess people need to cling to their central-role fantasies.

On either side, you have open-minded, deliberating people and people who believe they've got all the answers and are going to force it on you for your own damned good. It's not even a question of religion versus science, really. Perhaps they are even mutually exclusive domains, like Kirk v Picard.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

This episode was done during season 1, when DS9 was still sorta locked in that anti-religion TNG thing.

And while I agree with the OP, I think that was the reason why Sisko didn't come down on Keiko. Debunking Bajor's religion would have been A-okay in TNG - respect for faith was not a part of that whole super-diplomacy thing they were supposedly all about.

And DS9 took a while to get away from that mentality and give a certain amount of respect to people of faith.

Eventually they did, and I believe that was a good thing. But we are talking about a season 1 episode here, and they weren't quite there yet.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

It's not as if her ways ever presented a problem to her students. It was their parents that she had to fight against. And that should really have been Sisko's job. Normal schools have their own well-established infrastructure to ward off the meddling parents, one that takes the weight off the teachie's slumped shoulders.

That does help...though if a teacher steps over the line, it can still fall back on them. I could cite some examples from this year of such "backfires" in the U.S. public schools, a couple of them on religious matters. Let me know and I'll post links.

But you're right about parents sometimes getting in more of an uproar than kids--but that's because parents are sometimes more cognizant of the implications of what's being taught. (I except older kids from this; by the time you're a teenager, you get some analytical ability.)

Let's remember why the school existed in the first place: there were kids aboard the station who didn't have access to the schooling back home. And the very reason they were up there and not down at the planet was that they were starfarer kids. The education they would most need would be the sort that would wean them of their provincial ways.

Hm...I think exposing students to diverse ways would be a good objective--but the idea that one must wean kids of their ways comes a little too close to cultural indoctrination. Simply teaching children that there ARE other ways out there, and that they ought to be respected, is enough.

The Bajoran schooling system, which must have been re-erected at some point, could and should have catered for stationside teaching of the Bajoran ways. Keiko's school catered for a different need, for the interstellar rather than the national community.

This would make great sense by the later seasons--kind of like how we have public and religious schools in the States. Only trouble is, re-establishing the infrastructure probably would've taken awhile, since I suspect the Cardassians would've deliberately disrupted it during the Occupation. So in the interim, I think a certain sensitivity to that fact would've been a good idea.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

On either side, you have open-minded, deliberating people and people who believe they've got all the answers and are going to force it on you for your own damned good. It's not even a question of religion versus science, really. Perhaps they are even mutually exclusive domains, like Kirk v Picard.

LOL, "open-minded." I've come to think of that as one of the greatest lies ever. People are not "open-minded" unless their minds are so empty that they can't hold a consistent view from one minute to the next. Most of the people who are the loudest proponents of "open-mindedness" are some of the most opinionated people on their side of the political spectrum that you could possibly find.

 

[Triskelion]

No doubt! But I mean in a zen way. Inquiry, open to experience, and also, serving truth rather than dictating it and looking no further. I've seen it on both sides of the fence, just as surely as intolerance and the seizing mind.

Let me interject a favorite poem of mine:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of "Spiritus Mundi"
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"


Serve truth.

 

[Jeri]

Keiko could have solved the problem with an ordinary individual by being a little less clinical and a little more diplomatic; but with Winn it wouldn't really have mattered what Keiko said.

Winn was intent on creating an incident; her confrontation with Sisko later on the promenade proved that: even with the eminently reasonable Sisko, Winn still managed to twist his words into a nasty indictment.

Keiko could have made herself look better in front of the parents perhaps, but it wouldn't have mattered at all in the overall scheme. The plot would go on.

 

[PhoenixIreland]

Keiko could have solved the problem with an ordinary individual by being a little less clinical and a little more diplomatic; but with Winn it wouldn't really have mattered what Keiko said.

Winn was intent on creating an incident; her confrontation with Sisko later on the promenade proved that: even with the eminently reasonable Sisko, Winn still managed to twist his words into a nasty indictment.

Keiko could have made herself look better in front of the parents perhaps, but it wouldn't have mattered at all in the overall scheme. The plot would go on.

She did try to strike the right tone when she said that the wormhole aliens are called prophets by the bajorins, it was only when Winn tried to have her teaching flat earthism as fact that she got catty, and rightly so.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I'm not sure the series ever definitively ruled on whether the Prophets' status was "flat-earthism" or not; the way I saw it, it was left to the viewers to decide whether the Bajorans were right or wrong.

 

[Josh_Lyman]

I think Keiko was a good character and a nice person.

I do think Keiko deserved more credit for the school...when I think about it, Keiko overall had kind of a hard road over the years.

Why give credit for the school; the school was a failure. Keiko lost all her students IMO because she was way too angry & bitter, and unfit to teach. Exactly as demonstrated in ITHOTP and any & every other episode she ever appeared in. If she was more amiable instead of being a mean old battle-ax 24/7 then chances are she wouldn't have had so hard of a road IMO.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Personally, I think Keiko was rather one-dimensional the way she was written...seems like we rarely got a chance to see her when she wasn't going off on Miles about something.

 

[Sheliak]

Let me interject a favorite poem of mine:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of "Spiritus Mundi"
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

Blasphemy!