I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
- Winston Churchill
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
- Winston Churchill
“Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.”
-Winston Churchill
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
-Winston Churchill
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”
- Winston Churchill
“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
-Winston Churchill
“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
- Ronald Reagan
“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant: It’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
- Ronald Reagan
I have to say that you are really way off base here on the cause of our education system's woes. Laziness..yes. There are a myriad of problems, to be sure, but factory drones or socialists? No.
I think the problem you have, Kevin, is that you want schools to turn children into your type of drone. Do you know the one I am talking about? The kind that believe that we are in Iraq to protect our nation. The kind that think that the free market is something to be worshiped. The kind that believe that sick people...that poor people are only that way because they are weak and didn't take responsibility for themselves.
Imagine yourself a teacher...what will you say to the student that questions your view of Iraq? When that students produces evidence of the complete bullshit that Bush-Cheney have peddled, will you listen? Or will you "steer him or her in the right direction?" Would you allow free thinking in your class that challenges the very nature of your view of history? Would anyone else here? I have a hard time believing, based on your responses to me, that you would allow that sort of free thought.
What is terribly ironic is that for all of your talk of the evils of collectivism, you have formed a collective of like minded people here. People who also basically think, believe, and feel the exact same way. Is there anyone that disagrees with Kevin's position on education?
Anyone?
Prove me wrong. I'd actually feel relieved.
There isn't any conspiracy. Funny though that you poo poo those conspiracies that don't fit your belief system but say "Amen" to those that do. Instead, what we have, in most schools, is a tendency to show America for what it is...warts and all. As an educator, I am sorry that you don't want to hear it but I am going to tell the truth in my classes and not warp reality to fit an outdated ideology. We don't live in Pleasantville anymore. If you make the mistake of thinking that that ideology is communism or socialism, well...then you would be believing a lie that is being propagated by those who would stand to lose the most from ANY deviation for our current system..even a return to what most Democrats want which is real capitalism, as opposed to the oligarchy we have now.
The fact is that most teachers allow a completely free exchange of ideas in class. I have students of all stripes and respect them all. So do my colleagues. What really cracks me up about conservatives bitching about the education system is....none of them do a fucking thing about it....like...oh...I don't know...become a teacher!! Why? Well, they say it's because they would be in the minority but if you take a look at what a teacher makes for a salary, the reason, as to why we don't have more right leaning teachers, becomes evident.
Oh, and Hugh Hewitt on Michelle Obama? Mmm....yeah...nice bit of warped reality there....if you believe the drivel that Hewitt is spewing, you might as well go and get your head fitted for that foil hat and fall in line with the rest of the drones.
Actually Markadelphia, the origin of this particular line of criticism of education is none other than Karl Marx. He noted that the purpose of "education" in a capitalist system is to produce suitable inputs to the mode of production; to wit, a labor force that is taught to take the tasks assigned, to complete them and to not question authority (the teacher). You don't think that's a reasonable description of our system, of what NCLB set out to accomplish (wonderfully standardized outputs)?
Now, put our public school system in contrast with the ancient Greeks, or even medieval Catholics? The virtue of our system is that it is nearly universal, but the flip side of that is that it is geared to a lower common denominator.
Oh, and Hugh Hewitt on Michelle Obama? Mmm....yeah...nice bit of warped reality there....if you believe the drivel that Hewitt is spewing, you might as well go and get your head fitted for that foil hat and fall in line with the rest of the drones.
I listened to Hewitt this afternoon and heard the segment about M. Obama. He played clips of her speech at UCLA and then commented on them. You could hear for yourself what she said, how's that spewing 'drivel'?
I think the problem you have, Kevin, is that you want schools to turn children into your type of drone.
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far, away...
The daughter of a rather prominent jurist and I were in the same summer program. We had a political component, and a other concentration (mine was Chemistry). Several of the friends I made were in the suite with the daughter (who has since made rather a name for herself in D.C., including being the main person behind a (luckily squelched) bill that would have granted Disney the rights to your computer.)
One night, for some reason, I don't know why, my name came up.
"Unix-Jedi, what a fucking FASCIST!" she said.
My friends started dying laughing. "You mean the guy who wants EVERYBODY to have guns is out to seize power?"
Mark's comment reminded me of that episode.
Yeah, Kevin (and I) want "drones"... Who are responsible for themselves. And who.. will... act.. as.. individuals...
(It's not even worth pointing out that's the exact opposite of "drone"...)
Markadelphia, I find it ironic that you, who parrot the lines of your meme culture, allowing it to both masquerade as and substitute for free thought, and who has conclusively demonstrated for us on a near daily basis for the last year or so a near total inability to recognize or actually engage in critical thought, should assert your status as an educator as the basis by which we should not be concerned about our educational system.
I think this is the most deep and rich irony I've seen in years.
"You don't think that's a reasonable description of our system, of what NCLB set out to accomplish (wonderfully standardized outputs)?"
NCLB is a gigantic problem but in a different way. What NCLB has shown us, through the aggragate data we have collected since its inception, is that people learn differently and that certain ethnic groups as well as students of different financial means don't always test well. The only good thing about NCLB is the fact that we now have this data to point to that proves teaching styles have to be altereed. The lecture-test method of assessment is woefully outdated. Many students simply don't learn like that and trying to force them into the testing box, as NLCB does, is a giant mistake.
We need to adapt Gardner's multiple intelligence theory into a nation wide practice. If this happens, we will see many of the problems Kevin complains about go away.
"how's that spewing 'drivel'?"
I listened to the clip and was reminded of Bush 41's trip to the grocery in 1992. He was shocked to fine out hey had scanners to scan merchandise. Very out of touch. Hewitt is drivel for that same reason. He is completely out of touch with what goes on in certain parts of America. He also selectively edited her comments to make appear as a (gasp!) communist/socialist.
"a near total inability to recognize or actually engage in critical thought"
was reminded of Bush 41's trip to the grocery in 1992. He was shocked to fine out hey had scanners to scan merchandise. Very out of touch.
They demonstrated a scanner that could scan wrinkled, torn, or codes wrapped around a corner. As opposed to the scanner that was common, which couldn't handle anything wrong with the barcode
That's what he was surprised and happy to see - the new innovation they were showing off, you clueless driveler.
Instead, what we have, in most schools, is a tendency to show America for what it is...warts and all.
I don't have much problem with that, except the emphasis seems to be on the warts, without any effort to put such warts into their historical context. The end result being the "HATE AMERICA!" drivel demonstrated by an increasing portion of the population. For example, Susan Sontag, white intellectual:
"The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean Algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, and Ballanchine ballets don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history."
What is terribly ironic is that for all of your talk of the evils of collectivism, you have formed a collective of like minded people here. People who also basically think, believe, and feel the exact same way.
Right, all oh, twelve of us. I've warped their brains with my mad "Republican word manipulation" skilz! Now, go spend some time on DemocraticUnderground.com and tell me about "collectives of like-minded people."
Conspiracy? My "conspiracy" Markadelphia, simply requires people to not say anything when they realize that manipulation is occurring. It doesn't require black-masked ninjas to perform assassinations, or crews of demolitions experts to rig commercial buildings for controlled implosion in such a way that the workers in said buildings either never noticed the det-cord strung throughout their workspaces, or, more ominously, they're afraid to talk about it because of those ninjas.
Take Robert Bartley's quote about journalism:
The opinion of the press corps tends toward consensus because of an astonishing uniformity of viewpoint. Certain types of people want to become journalists, and they carry certain political and cultural opinions. This self-selection is hardened by peer group pressure. No conspiracy is necessary; journalists quite spontaneously think alike. The problem comes because this group-think is by now divorced from the thoughts and attitudes of readers.
Now replace "press corps" with "educators" and "journalism" with "education." I believe there are much the same influence and pressures involved. Teachers go into teaching for (mostly) one of two reasons - they can't get a job doing much else, or they want to change the world - mostly the latter. Who wants to "change the world"? Idealists. What's the most attractive idea in the world? That everything would be marvelous if we all just took care of each other. I believe Michelle Obama said words to that effect. Wait, let me look...
"We have lost the understanding that in a democracy we have a mutual obligation to one another. We cannot measure our greatness in this society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done.
"Before we can work on the problems we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken."
Perhaps they are. We're human beings, after all. But Rev. Donald Sensing identified the problem that I and my Borg Collective object to:
"(P)resent-day Republicans and Democrats are both big-government activists, they have a foundational philosophy that is the same:
America is a problem to be fixed, and Americans are a people to be managed."
Michele Obama and (one assumes) her husband, believe that Americans are broken and need to be fixed.
And Government is the tool to do the fixing. (That "castration v. wedgie" theme returns.)
Fuck that.
Again, the difference between your worldview and mine is that I want the world to be more fair by there being less top-down control, regulation, oversight, and interference from government. You want the world to be a level playing field, maintained by a government that keeps it that way with a daily steamrolling. Of course you don't see it like that, but I and the rest of my "collective" do.
The difference is, we've read the history and grasp it in a totally different way. We understand what increasing government power means, and it's never "more freedom."
We understand that when the people who believe their souls are fine are in control of the steamroller, we "broken-souled" people can never escape their "care." C.S. Lewis:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."
You want "equality." We want freedom. And we believe that Milton Friedman was right - A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.
Well, I don't agree. Most of my colleagues don't as well. At the same time, though, I am not hyper resistant to multi culturalism as many conservatives seem to be.
"twelve of us"
Try hundreds. You have five times the site traffic I do..returning visitors that is...
"they can't get a job doing much else, or they want to change the world"
Wow. You really need to spend more time with teachers.
"And Government is the tool to do the fixing"
I disagree. I think she is saying that WE need to do the fixing. We need to demand more of our government or less, if you are so inclined. This process the Obamas are talking about includes you Kevin. And all who think like you. This isn't about "Us vs. Them"...we're talking about a whole new ball game here and everyone should get a seat at the table...if they can take their blinders off. This includes liberals as well...especially them.
"maintained by a government that keeps it that way with a daily steamrolling"
Also wrong. And also not what the Obamas are saying...although there is steamrolling being done just not by the side you would expect...
And I agree with Friedman and so does Obama, I suspect. Obama sees the lack of freedom in this country as coming from the control that corporations have on this country, heavily assisted by Republicans. I hope we get to find out what an Obama presidency is going to be like. I think you will all be pleasantly surprised.
Since you brought up Friedman, what do you make of this line from Capitalism and Freedom?
"History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition."
Site traffic proves little. I've been blogging nearly five years now, and commenting longer. Again, see DemocraticUnderground.com concerning thought-collectives. Or FreeRepublic for that matter.
My sister is a teacher. Has been since 1981, in (I think) five different school systems. Some teachers are incompetent (they generally follow the Dilbert Principle and go into administration), some are dedicated to teaching, but the overwhelming majority of them lean Left - from mild to hard - and they influence the people around them. Like journalists, they're only "moderate" in terms of their profession. Compared to Joe and Jane Sixpack, they're leftist.
But they - like you - are the ones teaching the kids.
If government isn't the tool to do the fixing, then why is Obama running for President? Why does Michele Obama proclaim that he's the only candidate running that can heal our souls? If he can do that better some other way, why isn't he?
It IS very much "Us vs. Them," and people who think like I do are the "Them." We're the ones who believe that the Constitution was established to limit government power and restrict the ability of government actors to infringe on our rights and property. That kind of thinking is anathema to those who believe that "we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done" - and if we don't the government will make us sacrifice. (See Kelo v New London.)
WRT steamrolling, as I said, you don't see it the way we do. I think you're incapable of it. If things really go completely to shit here, you're going to be one of the people saying over and over, "What happened?" Or you'll be blaming people like me for being selfish bastards who wouldn't get with the program and forced them to do all those nasty things.
I think Freidman was right. Arms are a necessary condition for political freedom as well, but possession of arms is not sufficient in itself either.
I think we're going to get an Obama presidency, myself. I don't think Clinton can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat at this point, and if he runs against McCain, the cadaver will lose to the cult of personality.
Regardless of who wins the election in November, I expect no "pleasant surprises" of any kind.
I note that in all of your reply points, you managed to omit C.S. Lewis.
"we're talking about a whole new ball game here and everyone should get a seat at the table"
"The lecture-test method of assessment is woefully outdated"
Mark, you seem to believe that human nature has somehow changed dramatically, that you can just have governments do more without any problems of abuse of power or that people behave and learn differently somehow, what is your belief based on? I haven't seen anything more than it would be nice if this were so, therefore it is.
Take your answer in the comments above about your friend Rick and the laws acting in favour of larger companies, first it’s the Governor passing laws, then it’s a Republican legislature passing laws, and then we find out that the Democrats have controlled the senate for 35 years
What were you thinking when writing your posts? Was it a simple mistake that you thought your state was GOP run? Or was it along the lines of bad laws passed therefore it must be the Republicans fault so the first GOP man at state level that comes to mind is automatically the culprit, and when its pointed out that governors don't pass laws it still must be Republicans to blame so you claim the legislature was Republican controlled in the past and so therefore they must have done it even though they haven't controlled the senate since '73
You can hardly be surprised that most of the commentators hear aren't inclined to believe politicians when they say trust us, this time we are not going to waste trillionsbecome corruptabuse power, since your hand picked examples when examined closely disprove your own points.
My pet theory is that you're a fantasist who decided that it would be nice if every was equal and that the best way to get there is through government action, and it wouldn't be nice if that came with downsides therefore it doesn't. The only way you can square that circle is to dream up an excuse was to why the vast expansion of government power and spending over the last century or so hasn't made things perfect (the Republicans and the companies) or decide that human nature has changed so that the examples in the past of govt abuse of power where there were no Republicans to blame simply don't matter. Of course you need to protect your beliefs by blaming current problems like you friend Ricks troubles on companies/GOP because your philosophy cannot work if you draw the conclusion that the rest of us do and that underpins the US constitution that corruption/abuse of power is inevitable and the best way to limit it is to limit government itself. You simply cannot acknowledge that Democrats in power are as bad, so in your own example you have to overlook/forget that a democrat senate in your state passed the laws. You also support your philosophy by believing that there isn’t a downside to government power because things are bloody awful now so’ it can’t be any worse’ (I can’t find the post from a few weeks ago but I’m pretty sure that’s how you responded to my comment about Obama and the country holding hands and singing and making everything better). There was also that stuff about everyone being slaves – sure the overwhelming bulk of humanity over the past millennia have had life expectancies of 30, no medical care, no rights and under the control of their lords/masters without the ability to move/marry/worship another god, and that’s the lucky ones who weren’t worked to death on the local bigwigs bright ideas, but at least they didn’t have to put up with Bush or Cheney! After all if things are pretty good by historical standards then you’d have to admit that change could have a pretty big downside
"Take your answer in the comments above about your friend Rick and the laws acting in favour of larger companies, first it’s the Governor passing laws, then it’s a Republican legislature passing laws, and then we find out that the Democrats have controlled the senate for 35 years"
You really need to live in Minnesota to understand what I am talking about. Governor Pawlenty runs the show here and our State Congress can do very little against him or the power he wields. He has the backing of big business and does an excellent job of stopping any sort of liberal agenda.
And you are also way off base about your assessment of me but that's no surprise.....
"You really need to live in Minnesota to understand what I am talking about."
Remember kids, "You're not here, you CAN'T know."
...while this idiot professes to understand and know everything about every other state or government and its pitfalls and failures.
I'm a fairly recent (about a year and a few months) graduate from college. Fortunately I went for computer science, and not surprisingly, instructors of mathematics and engineering - you know, fields where you're expected to think and actually accomplish things - don't lean left, and when they do, it's not by much. I ran into a lot of "teachers" like you while traversing through public education and then in college.
You want my cold, pointlessly brisk and rude assertion of people like you?
You're fucking idiots. You're sitting there, in the education system (most likely one receiving a great deal of public funding), in the core of government and at the threshold of where every thinking or nonthinking (read: liberal) human being will pass through to be considered "job-ready" by others, and the best you can conclude is almost a word-for-word mantra of socialism for the past 100 years?
MFH0 - same experience here regarding college. You just don't find the Left-leaning hyperbias in the engineering professions that proliferates anywhere that subject matter is subjective, such as history or literature.
It seems subjects requiring logical thinking don't tend to attract socialists. Which is, of course, entirely unremarkable.
Oh, and Mark - the reason more people come to this blog than yours? It has nothing to do with brainwashing, and quite a bit to do with Kevin's mastery of language, and his insightful and oft amusing commentary - his blog is just a damn fine one to read. It is because, at heart, most US citizens are libertarians by default - it is simply that most of them have "pet" projects they consider to be exceptions. Libertarianism is political atheism, and, to paraphrase Dawkins, everyone is a libertarian on most subjects, some just go one political project further.
Mark, I'll buy the idea that our education system even ATTEMPTS to allow open minded debate when I see even ONE public school that has Logic and Rhetoric as required courses.
Hell, most schools are shaky on the 3 r's, much less teaching anyone to think critically and argue a point clearly.
For that matter, most schools, even most UNIVERSITIES, don't offer Logic or Rhetoric AT ALL.
Who is it that said, "A collection of facts is no more a theory than a pile of bricks is a house"? Having known a dozen or so teachers in my life, in California, Texas, Virginia and Utah, my impression has been that the public school system teaches facts, but neglects to teach people *how to think clearly*. Some teachers grumble about this, but their hands are tied. Most of them seem not to even notice.
The problem, as Kevin pointed out, is not in showing warts. We want to know what we did right and what we did wrong.
That is not what is happening.
What IS happening is that we are projecting on history what is acceptable or unacceptable today, and using that as an indictment of the people involved. What is almost always left out is the context.
For example: Huckleberry Finn is banned from schools because it has the word "nigger." Assuming, just for the sake of argument, that we agree that banning books is bad, it is worse than that. Huckleberry Finn, for all its warts of being politically incorrect today, was RESPONSIBLE for a shift in attitudes about former slaves. It changed America's attitudes about race relations. "Then I'll go to Hell then" was the boldest statement anyone could have made, and the fact that Twain was so brilliant as to have it come from the mouth of an innocent and naive boy, choosing right from wrong in a new way, CHANGED THE DAMN WORLD! There had never been anything that showed a former slave in a positive light. Not only is the book noteworthy for its exceptional literary merits, but it represents a major shift in American political thought and feelings about race.
Example 2: Washington never engaged in the cherry tree chopping episode. That does not alter the fact that he was honest to a fault. HE didn't make up the story.
Example 3: 3/5th Clause PROVES that the Founders thought slaves less than human. Bzzzt. Wrong. It was a brilliant bit of compromise which later allowed the North greater representation in Congress. Had they not done that, the South would have maintained a representative majority. The Founders did it for that reason, so that slave masters wouldn't have greater weight in voting. The Founders tried to eliminate the count of slaves in the census, since they were denied the vote, but the 3/5 compromise was better than a full count.
Example 4: Folks today say idiotic things like "we trained bin Laden." Yes, we did, as well as thousands of other soldiers in Afghanistan who were fighting against the USSR. We didn't have a "Train bin Laden squadron" whose sole purpose was to train him. It is exactly the same as we are doing now in Iraq--training their soldiers and giving them equipment. If a few of them later become terrorists, we didn't set out to train them AS terrorists.
Example 5: We FORCED Japan to engage in war with us because we had an embargo against them. Right. Yes. We did have an embargo. WHY DID WE HAVE AN EMBARGO? Because they had invaded China and were engaged in horrid acts of murdering and pillaging. The embargo was an attempt to get them to leave China. The Japanese chose to bomb us instead.
Just about everything is slanted to prove that Dead White Men were inherently evil/wrong so that we can dismiss the Constitution and everything they set out to do, always showing Americans as sinister rather than providing the context of why the action was taken or the decision made.
You cannot project the morals of today on the past. They weren't operating under those same morals, so judging them on it is wrong. In most cases, they weren't given a squeaky clean/moral choice and an evil/horrid one, and they chose the latter. They were choosing between "awful" and "worse than awful."
And there WAS collusion with the communists as well as American industrialists. The schools WERE changed in 1905 as part of a collaborative effort to turn out better factory workers. If teachers don't know that about their own profession's history, it just proves what Useful Idiots they've become.
Kevin,
Slight correction, however. That Dewey quote cannot be verified. It was used once (I believe) by The Skinny One, but no other source/attribution can be found.
Dewey did design the schools for the USSR, however, and wrote many essays about that experience. (The USSR later threw out his design because his model/approach turned out thugs and gangsters. Surprise, surprise. It is still the model we use today.)
And people wonder why conservatives are stereotyped :)
"his blog is just a damn fine one to read."
Well, I agree. The fact that he also started two years earlier than me when there were less blogs also has something to do with it.
"forcing us to do the fixing"
Yeah, I think you have missed the point here and I'm not sure I can illustrate it to you either....
Ms. du Toit,
Example 1: Agreed. We deal with the Huck Finn issue every year. My colleague, who teaches English, thinks it is the greatest novel ever written in America and anguishes over the fights that break out every year over it.
Example 2: Agreed
Example 3: Yep
Example 4: And this is where the cheese slips off the cracker...while you are correct in your assessment of example 5, our country is a different place today than it was in WWII. We are living, 45 years and counting, in an era of an unholy alliance between the corporate world and the defense department. Sure, there were some liars and unethical folks in our government in WWII but today...it's an institution. bin Laden was the product of a failed foreign policy and a complete lack of understanding of the region. We did "create" him and Al Qaeda and we are partly responsible.
It's not that all Dead White Men are evil/wrong...it's that they no longer completely reflect our culture, which has become more diverse over the last 20 years. It gets more diverse everyday. I think many Americans are threatened by this, for whatever reason, and the result becomes various groups vying for control over how our children are taught.
"If teachers don't know that about their own profession's history, it just proves what Useful Idiots they've become."
Well, actually we do. I think your grasp of the history of education is a little....off. I would recommend reading Chapter 5 of Kauchak and Eggen's Introduction to Teaching. Chapter Six also contains a section on Dewey. Here is a nice quote from that section
"Critics contend that pragmatism too strongly emphasizes student interests at the expense of essential knowledge. A conservative faction [of our country] blames pragmatism, with is educational counterpart, progressivism, for the decline in performance by American Students as compared to students in other industrialized countries.
Defenders of pragmatism, and Dewey, argue that the critics either misrepresent (gasp!) Dewey or don't understand him (double gasp!)
He saw clearly that to ask, "Which is more important: the interests of the child or the knowledge of the subject matter?" was to ask a very dumb question indeed. The teacher's task, for Dewey, was to create an interaction between the child's interest and the funded knowledge of the adult world."
Any good educator borrows from all four of the traditional schools of philosophy which feed into the four basic philosophies of education. Dewey is only a part of that.
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I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
- Winston Churchill
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
- Winston Churchill
“Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.”
-Winston Churchill
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
-Winston Churchill
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”
- Winston Churchill
“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
-Winston Churchill
“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
- Ronald Reagan
“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant: It’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
- Ronald Reagan
And that is all I have to say...
I have to say that you are really way off base here on the cause of our education system's woes. Laziness..yes. There are a myriad of problems, to be sure, but factory drones or socialists? No.
I think the problem you have, Kevin, is that you want schools to turn children into your type of drone. Do you know the one I am talking about? The kind that believe that we are in Iraq to protect our nation. The kind that think that the free market is something to be worshiped. The kind that believe that sick people...that poor people are only that way because they are weak and didn't take responsibility for themselves.
Imagine yourself a teacher...what will you say to the student that questions your view of Iraq? When that students produces evidence of the complete bullshit that Bush-Cheney have peddled, will you listen? Or will you "steer him or her in the right direction?" Would you allow free thinking in your class that challenges the very nature of your view of history? Would anyone else here? I have a hard time believing, based on your responses to me, that you would allow that sort of free thought.
What is terribly ironic is that for all of your talk of the evils of collectivism, you have formed a collective of like minded people here. People who also basically think, believe, and feel the exact same way. Is there anyone that disagrees with Kevin's position on education?
Anyone?
Prove me wrong. I'd actually feel relieved.
There isn't any conspiracy. Funny though that you poo poo those conspiracies that don't fit your belief system but say "Amen" to those that do. Instead, what we have, in most schools, is a tendency to show America for what it is...warts and all. As an educator, I am sorry that you don't want to hear it but I am going to tell the truth in my classes and not warp reality to fit an outdated ideology. We don't live in Pleasantville anymore. If you make the mistake of thinking that that ideology is communism or socialism, well...then you would be believing a lie that is being propagated by those who would stand to lose the most from ANY deviation for our current system..even a return to what most Democrats want which is real capitalism, as opposed to the oligarchy we have now.
The fact is that most teachers allow a completely free exchange of ideas in class. I have students of all stripes and respect them all. So do my colleagues. What really cracks me up about conservatives bitching about the education system is....none of them do a fucking thing about it....like...oh...I don't know...become a teacher!! Why? Well, they say it's because they would be in the minority but if you take a look at what a teacher makes for a salary, the reason, as to why we don't have more right leaning teachers, becomes evident.
Oh, and Hugh Hewitt on Michelle Obama? Mmm....yeah...nice bit of warped reality there....if you believe the drivel that Hewitt is spewing, you might as well go and get your head fitted for that foil hat and fall in line with the rest of the drones.
Actually Markadelphia, the origin of this particular line of criticism of education is none other than Karl Marx. He noted that the purpose of "education" in a capitalist system is to produce suitable inputs to the mode of production; to wit, a labor force that is taught to take the tasks assigned, to complete them and to not question authority (the teacher). You don't think that's a reasonable description of our system, of what NCLB set out to accomplish (wonderfully standardized outputs)?
Now, put our public school system in contrast with the ancient Greeks, or even medieval Catholics? The virtue of our system is that it is nearly universal, but the flip side of that is that it is geared to a lower common denominator.
Oh, and Hugh Hewitt on Michelle Obama? Mmm....yeah...nice bit of warped reality there....if you believe the drivel that Hewitt is spewing, you might as well go and get your head fitted for that foil hat and fall in line with the rest of the drones.
I listened to Hewitt this afternoon and heard the segment about M. Obama. He played clips of her speech at UCLA and then commented on them. You could hear for yourself what she said, how's that spewing 'drivel'?
Not to Mark:
I think the problem you have, Kevin, is that you want schools to turn children into your type of drone.
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far, away...
The daughter of a rather prominent jurist and I were in the same summer program. We had a political component, and a other concentration (mine was Chemistry). Several of the friends I made were in the suite with the daughter (who has since made rather a name for herself in D.C., including being the main person behind a (luckily squelched) bill that would have granted Disney the rights to your computer.)
One night, for some reason, I don't know why, my name came up.
"Unix-Jedi, what a fucking FASCIST!" she said.
My friends started dying laughing. "You mean the guy who wants EVERYBODY to have guns is out to seize power?"
Mark's comment reminded me of that episode.
Yeah, Kevin (and I) want "drones"... Who are responsible for themselves. And who.. will... act.. as.. individuals...
(It's not even worth pointing out that's the exact opposite of "drone"...)
Markadelphia, I find it ironic that you, who parrot the lines of your meme culture, allowing it to both masquerade as and substitute for free thought, and who has conclusively demonstrated for us on a near daily basis for the last year or so a near total inability to recognize or actually engage in critical thought, should assert your status as an educator as the basis by which we should not be concerned about our educational system.
I think this is the most deep and rich irony I've seen in years.
I shall treasure it.
"You don't think that's a reasonable description of our system, of what NCLB set out to accomplish (wonderfully standardized outputs)?"
NCLB is a gigantic problem but in a different way. What NCLB has shown us, through the aggragate data we have collected since its inception, is that people learn differently and that certain ethnic groups as well as students of different financial means don't always test well. The only good thing about NCLB is the fact that we now have this data to point to that proves teaching styles have to be altereed. The lecture-test method of assessment is woefully outdated. Many students simply don't learn like that and trying to force them into the testing box, as NLCB does, is a giant mistake.
We need to adapt Gardner's multiple intelligence theory into a nation wide practice. If this happens, we will see many of the problems Kevin complains about go away.
"how's that spewing 'drivel'?"
I listened to the clip and was reminded of Bush 41's trip to the grocery in 1992. He was shocked to fine out hey had scanners to scan merchandise. Very out of touch. Hewitt is drivel for that same reason. He is completely out of touch with what goes on in certain parts of America. He also selectively edited her comments to make appear as a (gasp!) communist/socialist.
"a near total inability to recognize or actually engage in critical thought"
I treasure the irony of your statement, sir :)
was reminded of Bush 41's trip to the grocery in 1992. He was shocked to fine out hey had scanners to scan merchandise. Very out of touch.
They demonstrated a scanner that could scan wrinkled, torn, or codes wrapped around a corner. As opposed to the scanner that was common, which couldn't handle anything wrong with the barcode
That's what he was surprised and happy to see - the new innovation they were showing off, you clueless driveler.
Who's out of touch? You.
Irony isn't something you get out of the ground.
I treasure the irony of your statement, sir
Oy, you wouldn't know irony if you were sitting on a nine inch protusion of it.
Instead, what we have, in most schools, is a tendency to show America for what it is...warts and all.
I don't have much problem with that, except the emphasis seems to be on the warts, without any effort to put such warts into their historical context. The end result being the "HATE AMERICA!" drivel demonstrated by an increasing portion of the population. For example, Susan Sontag, white intellectual:
"The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean Algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, and Ballanchine ballets don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history."
What is terribly ironic is that for all of your talk of the evils of collectivism, you have formed a collective of like minded people here. People who also basically think, believe, and feel the exact same way.
Right, all oh, twelve of us. I've warped their brains with my mad "Republican word manipulation" skilz! Now, go spend some time on DemocraticUnderground.com and tell me about "collectives of like-minded people."
Conspiracy? My "conspiracy" Markadelphia, simply requires people to not say anything when they realize that manipulation is occurring. It doesn't require black-masked ninjas to perform assassinations, or crews of demolitions experts to rig commercial buildings for controlled implosion in such a way that the workers in said buildings either never noticed the det-cord strung throughout their workspaces, or, more ominously, they're afraid to talk about it because of those ninjas.
Take Robert Bartley's quote about journalism:
The opinion of the press corps tends toward consensus because of an astonishing uniformity of viewpoint. Certain types of people want to become journalists, and they carry certain political and cultural opinions. This self-selection is hardened by peer group pressure. No conspiracy is necessary; journalists quite spontaneously think alike. The problem comes because this group-think is by now divorced from the thoughts and attitudes of readers.
Now replace "press corps" with "educators" and "journalism" with "education." I believe there are much the same influence and pressures involved. Teachers go into teaching for (mostly) one of two reasons - they can't get a job doing much else, or they want to change the world - mostly the latter. Who wants to "change the world"? Idealists. What's the most attractive idea in the world? That everything would be marvelous if we all just took care of each other. I believe Michelle Obama said words to that effect. Wait, let me look...
"We have lost the understanding that in a democracy we have a mutual obligation to one another. We cannot measure our greatness in this society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done.
"Before we can work on the problems we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken."
Perhaps they are. We're human beings, after all. But Rev. Donald Sensing identified the problem that I and my Borg Collective object to:
"(P)resent-day Republicans and Democrats are both big-government activists, they have a foundational philosophy that is the same:
America is a problem to be fixed, and Americans are a people to be managed."
Michele Obama and (one assumes) her husband, believe that Americans are broken and need to be fixed.
And Government is the tool to do the fixing. (That "castration v. wedgie" theme returns.)
Fuck that.
Again, the difference between your worldview and mine is that I want the world to be more fair by there being less top-down control, regulation, oversight, and interference from government. You want the world to be a level playing field, maintained by a government that keeps it that way with a daily steamrolling. Of course you don't see it like that, but I and the rest of my "collective" do.
The difference is, we've read the history and grasp it in a totally different way. We understand what increasing government power means, and it's never "more freedom."
We understand that when the people who believe their souls are fine are in control of the steamroller, we "broken-souled" people can never escape their "care." C.S. Lewis:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."
You want "equality." We want freedom. And we believe that Milton Friedman was right - A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.
Bravo, Sir Kevin, Bravo!
Encore! Encore!
See why I keep him around? ;)
I've always understood your motives, Kevin. I've never understood his.
That's because he's an "idealist without illusions."
"The white race is the cancer of human history"
Well, I don't agree. Most of my colleagues don't as well. At the same time, though, I am not hyper resistant to multi culturalism as many conservatives seem to be.
"twelve of us"
Try hundreds. You have five times the site traffic I do..returning visitors that is...
"they can't get a job doing much else, or they want to change the world"
Wow. You really need to spend more time with teachers.
"And Government is the tool to do the fixing"
I disagree. I think she is saying that WE need to do the fixing. We need to demand more of our government or less, if you are so inclined. This process the Obamas are talking about includes you Kevin. And all who think like you. This isn't about "Us vs. Them"...we're talking about a whole new ball game here and everyone should get a seat at the table...if they can take their blinders off. This includes liberals as well...especially them.
"maintained by a government that keeps it that way with a daily steamrolling"
Also wrong. And also not what the Obamas are saying...although there is steamrolling being done just not by the side you would expect...
And I agree with Friedman and so does Obama, I suspect. Obama sees the lack of freedom in this country as coming from the control that corporations have on this country, heavily assisted by Republicans. I hope we get to find out what an Obama presidency is going to be like. I think you will all be pleasantly surprised.
Since you brought up Friedman, what do you make of this line from Capitalism and Freedom?
"History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition."
Aren't you an admirer of Chomsky?
Site traffic proves little. I've been blogging nearly five years now, and commenting longer. Again, see DemocraticUnderground.com concerning thought-collectives. Or FreeRepublic for that matter.
My sister is a teacher. Has been since 1981, in (I think) five different school systems. Some teachers are incompetent (they generally follow the Dilbert Principle and go into administration), some are dedicated to teaching, but the overwhelming majority of them lean Left - from mild to hard - and they influence the people around them. Like journalists, they're only "moderate" in terms of their profession. Compared to Joe and Jane Sixpack, they're leftist.
But they - like you - are the ones teaching the kids.
If government isn't the tool to do the fixing, then why is Obama running for President? Why does Michele Obama proclaim that he's the only candidate running that can heal our souls? If he can do that better some other way, why isn't he?
It IS very much "Us vs. Them," and people who think like I do are the "Them." We're the ones who believe that the Constitution was established to limit government power and restrict the ability of government actors to infringe on our rights and property. That kind of thinking is anathema to those who believe that "we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done" - and if we don't the government will make us sacrifice. (See Kelo v New London.)
WRT steamrolling, as I said, you don't see it the way we do. I think you're incapable of it. If things really go completely to shit here, you're going to be one of the people saying over and over, "What happened?" Or you'll be blaming people like me for being selfish bastards who wouldn't get with the program and forced them to do all those nasty things.
I think Freidman was right. Arms are a necessary condition for political freedom as well, but possession of arms is not sufficient in itself either.
I think we're going to get an Obama presidency, myself. I don't think Clinton can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat at this point, and if he runs against McCain, the cadaver will lose to the cult of personality.
Regardless of who wins the election in November, I expect no "pleasant surprises" of any kind.
I note that in all of your reply points, you managed to omit C.S. Lewis.
Interesting datum, that.
"we're talking about a whole new ball game here and everyone should get a seat at the table"
"The lecture-test method of assessment is woefully outdated"
Mark, you seem to believe that human nature has somehow changed dramatically, that you can just have governments do more without any problems of abuse of power or that people behave and learn differently somehow, what is your belief based on? I haven't seen anything more than it would be nice if this were so, therefore it is.
Take your answer in the comments above about your friend Rick and the laws acting in favour of larger companies, first it’s the Governor passing laws, then it’s a Republican legislature passing laws, and then we find out that the Democrats have controlled the senate for 35 years
What were you thinking when writing your posts? Was it a simple mistake that you thought your state was GOP run? Or was it along the lines of bad laws passed therefore it must be the Republicans fault so the first GOP man at state level that comes to mind is automatically the culprit, and when its pointed out that governors don't pass laws it still must be Republicans to blame so you claim the legislature was Republican controlled in the past and so therefore they must have done it even though they haven't controlled the senate since '73
You can hardly be surprised that most of the commentators hear aren't inclined to believe politicians when they say trust us, this time we are not going to waste trillionsbecome corruptabuse power, since your hand picked examples when examined closely disprove your own points.
My pet theory is that you're a fantasist who decided that it would be nice if every was equal and that the best way to get there is through government action, and it wouldn't be nice if that came with downsides therefore it doesn't. The only way you can square that circle is to dream up an excuse was to why the vast expansion of government power and spending over the last century or so hasn't made things perfect (the Republicans and the companies) or decide that human nature has changed so that the examples in the past of govt abuse of power where there were no Republicans to blame simply don't matter. Of course you need to protect your beliefs by blaming current problems like you friend Ricks troubles on companies/GOP because your philosophy cannot work if you draw the conclusion that the rest of us do and that underpins the US constitution that corruption/abuse of power is inevitable and the best way to limit it is to limit government itself. You simply cannot acknowledge that Democrats in power are as bad, so in your own example you have to overlook/forget that a democrat senate in your state passed the laws. You also support your philosophy by believing that there isn’t a downside to government power because things are bloody awful now so’ it can’t be any worse’ (I can’t find the post from a few weeks ago but I’m pretty sure that’s how you responded to my comment about Obama and the country holding hands and singing and making everything better). There was also that stuff about everyone being slaves – sure the overwhelming bulk of humanity over the past millennia have had life expectancies of 30, no medical care, no rights and under the control of their lords/masters without the ability to move/marry/worship another god, and that’s the lucky ones who weren’t worked to death on the local bigwigs bright ideas, but at least they didn’t have to put up with Bush or Cheney! After all if things are pretty good by historical standards then you’d have to admit that change could have a pretty big downside
"Take your answer in the comments above about your friend Rick and the laws acting in favour of larger companies, first it’s the Governor passing laws, then it’s a Republican legislature passing laws, and then we find out that the Democrats have controlled the senate for 35 years"
You really need to live in Minnesota to understand what I am talking about. Governor Pawlenty runs the show here and our State Congress can do very little against him or the power he wields. He has the backing of big business and does an excellent job of stopping any sort of liberal agenda.
And you are also way off base about your assessment of me but that's no surprise.....
"You really need to live in Minnesota to understand what I am talking about."
Remember kids, "You're not here, you CAN'T know."
...while this idiot professes to understand and know everything about every other state or government and its pitfalls and failures.
I'm a fairly recent (about a year and a few months) graduate from college. Fortunately I went for computer science, and not surprisingly, instructors of mathematics and engineering - you know, fields where you're expected to think and actually accomplish things - don't lean left, and when they do, it's not by much. I ran into a lot of "teachers" like you while traversing through public education and then in college.
You want my cold, pointlessly brisk and rude assertion of people like you?
You're fucking idiots. You're sitting there, in the education system (most likely one receiving a great deal of public funding), in the core of government and at the threshold of where every thinking or nonthinking (read: liberal) human being will pass through to be considered "job-ready" by others, and the best you can conclude is almost a word-for-word mantra of socialism for the past 100 years?
Heh.
MFH0 - same experience here regarding college. You just don't find the Left-leaning hyperbias in the engineering professions that proliferates anywhere that subject matter is subjective, such as history or literature.
It seems subjects requiring logical thinking don't tend to attract socialists. Which is, of course, entirely unremarkable.
Oh, and Mark - the reason more people come to this blog than yours? It has nothing to do with brainwashing, and quite a bit to do with Kevin's mastery of language, and his insightful and oft amusing commentary - his blog is just a damn fine one to read. It is because, at heart, most US citizens are libertarians by default - it is simply that most of them have "pet" projects they consider to be exceptions. Libertarianism is political atheism, and, to paraphrase Dawkins, everyone is a libertarian on most subjects, some just go one political project further.
This thread warms my soul.
(Welcome to the Collective! - Ed.)
"The kind that think that the free market is something to be worshiped"
Yes, Virginia, it IS us versus them.
He just doesn't understand, and no amount of pipe-hitting upside the head is going to do any good.
Mark, I'll buy the idea that our education system even ATTEMPTS to allow open minded debate when I see even ONE public school that has Logic and Rhetoric as required courses.
Hell, most schools are shaky on the 3 r's, much less teaching anyone to think critically and argue a point clearly.
For that matter, most schools, even most UNIVERSITIES, don't offer Logic or Rhetoric AT ALL.
Who is it that said, "A collection of facts is no more a theory than a pile of bricks is a house"? Having known a dozen or so teachers in my life, in California, Texas, Virginia and Utah, my impression has been that the public school system teaches facts, but neglects to teach people *how to think clearly*. Some teachers grumble about this, but their hands are tied. Most of them seem not to even notice.
"And Government is the tool to do the fixing"
I disagree. I think she is saying that WE need to do the fixing.
What was that part near the end about forcing us to do the fixing???
The problem, as Kevin pointed out, is not in showing warts. We want to know what we did right and what we did wrong.
That is not what is happening.
What IS happening is that we are projecting on history what is acceptable or unacceptable today, and using that as an indictment of the people involved. What is almost always left out is the context.
For example: Huckleberry Finn is banned from schools because it has the word "nigger." Assuming, just for the sake of argument, that we agree that banning books is bad, it is worse than that. Huckleberry Finn, for all its warts of being politically incorrect today, was RESPONSIBLE for a shift in attitudes about former slaves. It changed America's attitudes about race relations. "Then I'll go to Hell then" was the boldest statement anyone could have made, and the fact that Twain was so brilliant as to have it come from the mouth of an innocent and naive boy, choosing right from wrong in a new way, CHANGED THE DAMN WORLD! There had never been anything that showed a former slave in a positive light. Not only is the book noteworthy for its exceptional literary merits, but it represents a major shift in American political thought and feelings about race.
Example 2: Washington never engaged in the cherry tree chopping episode. That does not alter the fact that he was honest to a fault. HE didn't make up the story.
Example 3: 3/5th Clause PROVES that the Founders thought slaves less than human. Bzzzt. Wrong. It was a brilliant bit of compromise which later allowed the North greater representation in Congress. Had they not done that, the South would have maintained a representative majority. The Founders did it for that reason, so that slave masters wouldn't have greater weight in voting. The Founders tried to eliminate the count of slaves in the census, since they were denied the vote, but the 3/5 compromise was better than a full count.
Example 4: Folks today say idiotic things like "we trained bin Laden." Yes, we did, as well as thousands of other soldiers in Afghanistan who were fighting against the USSR. We didn't have a "Train bin Laden squadron" whose sole purpose was to train him. It is exactly the same as we are doing now in Iraq--training their soldiers and giving them equipment. If a few of them later become terrorists, we didn't set out to train them AS terrorists.
Example 5: We FORCED Japan to engage in war with us because we had an embargo against them. Right. Yes. We did have an embargo. WHY DID WE HAVE AN EMBARGO? Because they had invaded China and were engaged in horrid acts of murdering and pillaging. The embargo was an attempt to get them to leave China. The Japanese chose to bomb us instead.
Just about everything is slanted to prove that Dead White Men were inherently evil/wrong so that we can dismiss the Constitution and everything they set out to do, always showing Americans as sinister rather than providing the context of why the action was taken or the decision made.
You cannot project the morals of today on the past. They weren't operating under those same morals, so judging them on it is wrong. In most cases, they weren't given a squeaky clean/moral choice and an evil/horrid one, and they chose the latter. They were choosing between "awful" and "worse than awful."
And there WAS collusion with the communists as well as American industrialists. The schools WERE changed in 1905 as part of a collaborative effort to turn out better factory workers. If teachers don't know that about their own profession's history, it just proves what Useful Idiots they've become.
Kevin,
Slight correction, however. That Dewey quote cannot be verified. It was used once (I believe) by The Skinny One, but no other source/attribution can be found.
Dewey did design the schools for the USSR, however, and wrote many essays about that experience. (The USSR later threw out his design because his model/approach turned out thugs and gangsters. Surprise, surprise. It is still the model we use today.)
Connie:
Thanks for the update!
"You're fucking idiots. You're sitting there..."
"it IS us versus them"
And people wonder why conservatives are stereotyped :)
"his blog is just a damn fine one to read."
Well, I agree. The fact that he also started two years earlier than me when there were less blogs also has something to do with it.
"forcing us to do the fixing"
Yeah, I think you have missed the point here and I'm not sure I can illustrate it to you either....
Ms. du Toit,
Example 1: Agreed. We deal with the Huck Finn issue every year. My colleague, who teaches English, thinks it is the greatest novel ever written in America and anguishes over the fights that break out every year over it.
Example 2: Agreed
Example 3: Yep
Example 4: And this is where the cheese slips off the cracker...while you are correct in your assessment of example 5, our country is a different place today than it was in WWII. We are living, 45 years and counting, in an era of an unholy alliance between the corporate world and the defense department. Sure, there were some liars and unethical folks in our government in WWII but today...it's an institution. bin Laden was the product of a failed foreign policy and a complete lack of understanding of the region. We did "create" him and Al Qaeda and we are partly responsible.
It's not that all Dead White Men are evil/wrong...it's that they no longer completely reflect our culture, which has become more diverse over the last 20 years. It gets more diverse everyday. I think many Americans are threatened by this, for whatever reason, and the result becomes various groups vying for control over how our children are taught.
"If teachers don't know that about their own profession's history, it just proves what Useful Idiots they've become."
Well, actually we do. I think your grasp of the history of education is a little....off. I would recommend reading Chapter 5 of Kauchak and Eggen's Introduction to Teaching. Chapter Six also contains a section on Dewey. Here is a nice quote from that section
"Critics contend that pragmatism too strongly emphasizes student interests at the expense of essential knowledge. A conservative faction [of our country] blames pragmatism, with is educational counterpart, progressivism, for the decline in performance by American Students as compared to students in other industrialized countries.
Defenders of pragmatism, and Dewey, argue that the critics either misrepresent (gasp!) Dewey or don't understand him (double gasp!)
He saw clearly that to ask, "Which is more important: the interests of the child or the knowledge of the subject matter?" was to ask a very dumb question indeed. The teacher's task, for Dewey, was to create an interaction between the child's interest and the funded knowledge of the adult world."
Any good educator borrows from all four of the traditional schools of philosophy which feed into the four basic philosophies of education. Dewey is only a part of that.
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