... the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.
It may not be deliberate. When you're the self-appointed representatives of the oppressed, you have a vested interest in keeping them oppressed. It may just be sub-conscious self-preservation. Then again, it may not.
... race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense ...
My dad teaches math/logic and psychology/philosophy in high school. Yesterday he tried an exercise with his psych/phil students. Part of the curriculum includes feminist thought, but he's turning it on its ear and watching how the kids react. He began by putting a notorious statement by uber-feminist Marilyn French on the board: "All men are rapists and that's all they are." No protests. He then writes: "All black men are rapists and that's all they are." Now he gets protests. Several students said that statement seemed bad; but as Dad pointed out, if the first statement is true, then the second statement is necessarily also true. It led to an interesting discussion. The next part was to turn the statement around. He wrote "All women are sluts and that's all they are" on the board. He was surprised when, not only were there no protests, but one female student raised her hand and said she agreed. That led to another interesting discussion.
He does this in his math/logic courses, as well. The math textbooks he's forced to use are infused with ideology so he takes advantage of it to give the kids a perspective they rarely get, which is distinctly non-PC. They talk about the free market, the existence of God, the elections, all in the context of math and logic. His students really get into it. They find it invigorating, because for once they are able to have a genuinely free discussion where the ideas actually conform to their sense of reality and the only judgement from the teacher is how well they argue their points. I can't help thinking that these kids are not only being educated, but liberated.
I tried a similar experiment once with a class. I asked if anyone in the class was a feminist. One or two people raised their hand. Then I asked if anyone believed in equal rights for women. Everyone raised their hand.
After that, I asked if anyone was liberal. No one raised their hand. I asked if anyone was conservative and about half the class raised their hand. Then I asked if anyone was moderate and the other half raised their hand.
The words "liberal" and "feminist" have been quite successfully demonized by the "left wing" media so much so that they are essentially four letter words.
As to the rest, it's a load of shit. So over exaggerated and divisive...basically typical of the drivel that comes from sites like this. The K-12 system is wrecked? All of it? Kevin, I know there is a big part of you that needs this to be true for whatever reason but I am surprised that you would take such a generalization as gospel.
Yes Mark, all of it. From Kindergarten all the way up.
When my father went to high school in the 1950's, he was learning English, Latin, Greek, Advanced mathematics, the hard sciences, all of it. Now, we're teaching basic algebra and remedial English in college.
Our publik skool sistim is broken, completely, utterly, and horribly broken. Period. End of story.
Dave, I started grade school in the 1950's, and I learned English, Spanish, chemistry, physics, electronics, mathematics, history, geography, civics, and government before graduating high school. At university, I tutored basic algebra and remedial English.
No, not all of it, as exhibited by Sarah's dad who teaches philosophy in high school. It's been a gradual process, Mark, moving mostly from the urban areas out into the suburban and then rural ones. Read RCOB again and see how Nina Burleigh reacted to the fact that her son wasn't getting indoctrinated in proper Leftist-think in that rural town of Narrowsburg.
So no, not all of it.
But obviously enough of it to have severely altered the zeitgeist of our nation, as amply demonstrated by Professor Hanson.
And Thomas Sowell.
And P.J. O'Rourke.
And Theodore Dalrymple.
And Dave Barry.
And . . .
Kevin, I know there is a big part of you that needs this to be true for whatever reason....
As Ronald Reagan used to so famously say, "There you go again!"
Observing reality is not the same thing as needing something to be true.
That's your department, Markadelphia, as DJ and Unix-Jedi and all the rest have so amply documented, illustrated, graphed, carved in bas-relief, and cast in bronze.
I'm back from my field job for five days, but I go back on Sunday. Like I said below, I'll possibly (hopefully!) get the next überpost up before I leave again.
But Prof. Hanson is smarter and more educated than you. You can't possibly know what you're talking about.
[/M-mode]
Sorry, I can't take anymore. I know, I should've thrown in a red herring or two and changed the subject at least once, but I, I just can't do that - not even as a simulation.
The lack of Greek may be impacting math scores. Greek symbols are commonly used as variables in higher courses; a lack of familiarity could hamper students.
I attended high school eight years ago. No one had trouble being called a "liberal" back then.
I will say that not knowing the Greek alphabet did slow me down a little bit in my science courses. Not much, because I could pick up the letters we were using, but some.
"I asked if anyone in the class was a feminist. One or two people raised their hand. Then I asked if anyone believed in equal rights for women. Everyone raised their hand.
"After that, I asked if anyone was liberal. No one raised their hand. I asked if anyone was conservative and about half the class raised their hand. Then I asked if anyone was moderate and the other half raised their hand."
Fascinating. Now here's an interesting question, how did those students define feminist, conservative, liberal and moderate? If they were using your definition of moderate, there may not have been a single actual conservative in the class.
Remember, Marky? You claimed to be the "most moderate person [you] know." Yet your stated positions put to the left of at least 90% of the population in this country, and more likely 95-98%, not to mention the spectrum of possible positions.
By that definition, anyone you would call a conservative could still be to the left of the actual center of the political spectrum. (That would be McCain and Bush.) A moderate would be someone to the left of Ted Kennedy. And a leftist in your book probably already works for the KGB.
So which definition was your class using? Your personal definition which is based only on your own naval gazing definition of "moderate"? Or one which takes the entire political spectrum into account?
"The words "liberal" and "feminist" have been quite successfully demonized by the "left wing" media so much so that they are essentially four letter words."
:::Sigh!:::
Mark, we've tried to explain this to you before, and you obviously didn't get it! (What good is a teacher who cannot learn?) We do not oppose those labels, we opposed the ideasdescribed by those labels. Your side chose the label "liberal" to describe a generalized set of beliefs which you hold. As your general definition of "liberal" became associated with those beliefs (one of which seems to be that you can change the thing itself by merely changing its label) we started making use of that label when opposing those ideas.
Simply put, we don't care what you call yourselves! You can call yourselves "liberals", "progressives", or "whosywhatsalogs," but as long as you hold on to the same reality defying and destructive ideas, we will continue to oppose you no matter what label you wear. (The same is true of the ideas currently defined as "feminism.")
And for todays reminder of questions Markadelphia is trying to dodge:
1) Which of our claims about Obama are undermined by rules of evidence?
2) You claimed we regularly quote Rush Limbaugh verbatim. If this is actually true, then cite some examples.
Sarah,
Give your father my thanks. It's obvious that he is one of the truly excellent teachers who actually understands critical thinking and how to teach it to his students. We need far more teachers like him.
"The words "liberal" and "feminist" have been quite successfully demonized by the "left wing" media so much so that they are essentially four letter words."
Okay Mark, if the media is so right wing, name the conservative in the media who claimed that all sex is rape, and the conservative in the media who claimed that all men are rapists.
Having trouble? That's because they weren't conservative and weren't in the media. They were self-appointed "feminist leaders". It's not the political right nor the media that has trashed feminism. It's the far left nutcases who insisted on casting themselves as its leaders, who did it to themselves.
Most women I know, including EVERY female in my family, is a staunch supporter of equality. But they will have no more to do with that brand of feminism than fiscal conservatives will have anything to do with Bush's agenda, for much the same reason: The *stated* goals don't match up with the actions being taken.
Give your father my thanks. It's obvious that he is one of the truly excellent teachers who actually understands critical thinking and how to teach it to his students. We need far more teachers like him.
Thanks, Ed. Unfortunately, most people like my dad would be too turned off by the public education system to teach. Dad says the system is almost completely corrupted -- most of his colleagues are like Mark. My dad came into teaching because he was a socialist back in the 1970s. A few years later he became a conservative, but stayed with teaching because it's a steady job and he enjoyed it. It's very difficult to attract teachers who are conservative and male, because it's a hostile leftist/feminine environment.
Kevin, don't be fooled. The school offers philosophy only because it's another opportunity to indoctrinate. The curriculum is junk. My father is putting his career on the line by teaching it the way he is. But he's got one more year until retirement, so who cares? Throw caution to the wind. Every time I talk to him he laughs about how this could be his last day on the job. All it takes is one parent to complain to the principal, and he's toast.
What I appreciate about my dad's style, as opposed to Mark's, is that he wants the kids to draw their own conclusions. He teaches them about meaning, context, and definitions, not labels. He trains them to use logic, and then refuses to let them squirm out of any uncomfortable implications (e.g. if all men are rapists, then all black men are rapists). A substantial portion of students' grades are based on the quality and depth of questions they ask in class. It's an excellent evaluation tool, because a student doesn't fully understand something until he can ask meaningful questions about it. No question is off-limits, as long as it shows evidence of process instead of regurgitation.
Mark, that's what you do when you want your students to be free-thinkers, and you are fully confident in your own ideology to let it stand up to scrutiny. You provide the context and let students draw their own conclusions -- that's education. What you do is indoctrination.
After that, I asked if anyone was liberal. No one raised their hand. I asked if anyone was conservative and about half the class raised their hand. Then I asked if anyone was moderate and the other half raised their hand.
Maybe they're smarter (and more honest than you), Mark.
If you're in the room, and you ask them that, and they judge themselves as "far to the right of you", even at a young age where almost all kids register as liberal (even if most call themselves "moderate"), maybe, just maybe you ought to go sit down and consider exactly how your kids see you.
"Education is kind of like a sexually transmitted disease. It makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs, and then you have the urge to pass it on."
- Terry Pratchett, "Hogfather"
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2008/11/quoat-of-teh-dey-edumakashun-edishun.html (17 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
... the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.
It may not be deliberate. When you're the self-appointed representatives of the oppressed, you have a vested interest in keeping them oppressed. It may just be sub-conscious self-preservation. Then again, it may not.
... race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense ...
My dad teaches math/logic and psychology/philosophy in high school. Yesterday he tried an exercise with his psych/phil students. Part of the curriculum includes feminist thought, but he's turning it on its ear and watching how the kids react. He began by putting a notorious statement by uber-feminist Marilyn French on the board: "All men are rapists and that's all they are." No protests. He then writes: "All black men are rapists and that's all they are." Now he gets protests. Several students said that statement seemed bad; but as Dad pointed out, if the first statement is true, then the second statement is necessarily also true. It led to an interesting discussion. The next part was to turn the statement around. He wrote "All women are sluts and that's all they are" on the board. He was surprised when, not only were there no protests, but one female student raised her hand and said she agreed. That led to another interesting discussion.
He does this in his math/logic courses, as well. The math textbooks he's forced to use are infused with ideology so he takes advantage of it to give the kids a perspective they rarely get, which is distinctly non-PC. They talk about the free market, the existence of God, the elections, all in the context of math and logic. His students really get into it. They find it invigorating, because for once they are able to have a genuinely free discussion where the ideas actually conform to their sense of reality and the only judgement from the teacher is how well they argue their points. I can't help thinking that these kids are not only being educated, but liberated.
I tried a similar experiment once with a class. I asked if anyone in the class was a feminist. One or two people raised their hand. Then I asked if anyone believed in equal rights for women. Everyone raised their hand.
After that, I asked if anyone was liberal. No one raised their hand. I asked if anyone was conservative and about half the class raised their hand. Then I asked if anyone was moderate and the other half raised their hand.
The words "liberal" and "feminist" have been quite successfully demonized by the "left wing" media so much so that they are essentially four letter words.
As to the rest, it's a load of shit. So over exaggerated and divisive...basically typical of the drivel that comes from sites like this. The K-12 system is wrecked? All of it? Kevin, I know there is a big part of you that needs this to be true for whatever reason but I am surprised that you would take such a generalization as gospel.
Yes Mark, all of it. From Kindergarten all the way up.
When my father went to high school in the 1950's, he was learning English, Latin, Greek, Advanced mathematics, the hard sciences, all of it. Now, we're teaching basic algebra and remedial English in college.
Our publik skool sistim is broken, completely, utterly, and horribly broken. Period. End of story.
Dave, I started grade school in the 1950's, and I learned English, Spanish, chemistry, physics, electronics, mathematics, history, geography, civics, and government before graduating high school. At university, I tutored basic algebra and remedial English.
The K-12 system is wrecked? All of it?
But Mark! VDH is a primary source!
No, not all of it, as exhibited by Sarah's dad who teaches philosophy in high school. It's been a gradual process, Mark, moving mostly from the urban areas out into the suburban and then rural ones. Read RCOB again and see how Nina Burleigh reacted to the fact that her son wasn't getting indoctrinated in proper Leftist-think in that rural town of Narrowsburg.
So no, not all of it.
But obviously enough of it to have severely altered the zeitgeist of our nation, as amply demonstrated by Professor Hanson.
And Thomas Sowell.
And P.J. O'Rourke.
And Theodore Dalrymple.
And Dave Barry.
And . . .
Kevin, I know there is a big part of you that needs this to be true for whatever reason....
As Ronald Reagan used to so famously say, "There you go again!"
Observing reality is not the same thing as needing something to be true.
That's your department, Markadelphia, as DJ and Unix-Jedi and all the rest have so amply documented, illustrated, graphed, carved in bas-relief, and cast in bronze.
Hey, welcome back, Kevin! We missed you!
I'm back from my field job for five days, but I go back on Sunday. Like I said below, I'll possibly (hopefully!) get the next überpost up before I leave again.
Twelve-hour days suck.
[M-mode]
I tried a similar experiment once with a class.
WHAT? You experimented on your students?
As to the rest, it's a load of shit.
But Prof. Hanson is smarter and more educated than you. You can't possibly know what you're talking about.
[/M-mode]
Sorry, I can't take anymore. I know, I should've thrown in a red herring or two and changed the subject at least once, but I, I just can't do that - not even as a simulation.
The lack of Greek may be impacting math scores. Greek symbols are commonly used as variables in higher courses; a lack of familiarity could hamper students.
I attended high school eight years ago. No one had trouble being called a "liberal" back then.
I will say that not knowing the Greek alphabet did slow me down a little bit in my science courses. Not much, because I could pick up the letters we were using, but some.
"I asked if anyone in the class was a feminist. One or two people raised their hand. Then I asked if anyone believed in equal rights for women. Everyone raised their hand.
"After that, I asked if anyone was liberal. No one raised their hand. I asked if anyone was conservative and about half the class raised their hand. Then I asked if anyone was moderate and the other half raised their hand."
Fascinating. Now here's an interesting question, how did those students define feminist, conservative, liberal and moderate? If they were using your definition of moderate, there may not have been a single actual conservative in the class.
Remember, Marky? You claimed to be the "most moderate person [you] know." Yet your stated positions put to the left of at least 90% of the population in this country, and more likely 95-98%, not to mention the spectrum of possible positions.
By that definition, anyone you would call a conservative could still be to the left of the actual center of the political spectrum. (That would be McCain and Bush.) A moderate would be someone to the left of Ted Kennedy. And a leftist in your book probably already works for the KGB.
So which definition was your class using? Your personal definition which is based only on your own naval gazing definition of "moderate"? Or one which takes the entire political spectrum into account?
"The words "liberal" and "feminist" have been quite successfully demonized by the "left wing" media so much so that they are essentially four letter words."
:::Sigh!:::
Mark, we've tried to explain this to you before, and you obviously didn't get it! (What good is a teacher who cannot learn?) We do not oppose those labels, we opposed the ideas described by those labels. Your side chose the label "liberal" to describe a generalized set of beliefs which you hold. As your general definition of "liberal" became associated with those beliefs (one of which seems to be that you can change the thing itself by merely changing its label) we started making use of that label when opposing those ideas.
Simply put, we don't care what you call yourselves! You can call yourselves "liberals", "progressives", or "whosywhatsalogs," but as long as you hold on to the same reality defying and destructive ideas, we will continue to oppose you no matter what label you wear. (The same is true of the ideas currently defined as "feminism.")
And for todays reminder of questions Markadelphia is trying to dodge:
1) Which of our claims about Obama are undermined by rules of evidence?
2) You claimed we regularly quote Rush Limbaugh verbatim. If this is actually true, then cite some examples.
Sarah,
Give your father my thanks. It's obvious that he is one of the truly excellent teachers who actually understands critical thinking and how to teach it to his students. We need far more teachers like him.
"The words "liberal" and "feminist" have been quite successfully demonized by the "left wing" media so much so that they are essentially four letter words."
Okay Mark, if the media is so right wing, name the conservative in the media who claimed that all sex is rape, and the conservative in the media who claimed that all men are rapists.
Having trouble? That's because they weren't conservative and weren't in the media. They were self-appointed "feminist leaders". It's not the political right nor the media that has trashed feminism. It's the far left nutcases who insisted on casting themselves as its leaders, who did it to themselves.
Most women I know, including EVERY female in my family, is a staunch supporter of equality. But they will have no more to do with that brand of feminism than fiscal conservatives will have anything to do with Bush's agenda, for much the same reason: The *stated* goals don't match up with the actions being taken.
Give your father my thanks. It's obvious that he is one of the truly excellent teachers who actually understands critical thinking and how to teach it to his students. We need far more teachers like him.
Thanks, Ed. Unfortunately, most people like my dad would be too turned off by the public education system to teach. Dad says the system is almost completely corrupted -- most of his colleagues are like Mark. My dad came into teaching because he was a socialist back in the 1970s. A few years later he became a conservative, but stayed with teaching because it's a steady job and he enjoyed it. It's very difficult to attract teachers who are conservative and male, because it's a hostile leftist/feminine environment.
Kevin, don't be fooled. The school offers philosophy only because it's another opportunity to indoctrinate. The curriculum is junk. My father is putting his career on the line by teaching it the way he is. But he's got one more year until retirement, so who cares? Throw caution to the wind. Every time I talk to him he laughs about how this could be his last day on the job. All it takes is one parent to complain to the principal, and he's toast.
What I appreciate about my dad's style, as opposed to Mark's, is that he wants the kids to draw their own conclusions. He teaches them about meaning, context, and definitions, not labels. He trains them to use logic, and then refuses to let them squirm out of any uncomfortable implications (e.g. if all men are rapists, then all black men are rapists). A substantial portion of students' grades are based on the quality and depth of questions they ask in class. It's an excellent evaluation tool, because a student doesn't fully understand something until he can ask meaningful questions about it. No question is off-limits, as long as it shows evidence of process instead of regurgitation.
Mark, that's what you do when you want your students to be free-thinkers, and you are fully confident in your own ideology to let it stand up to scrutiny. You provide the context and let students draw their own conclusions -- that's education. What you do is indoctrination.
It all makes me appreciate that there likely wasn't a better time or place to be born, all things considered, than the middle of Oklahoma in 1953.
After that, I asked if anyone was liberal. No one raised their hand. I asked if anyone was conservative and about half the class raised their hand. Then I asked if anyone was moderate and the other half raised their hand.
Maybe they're smarter (and more honest than you), Mark.
If you're in the room, and you ask them that, and they judge themselves as "far to the right of you", even at a young age where almost all kids register as liberal (even if most call themselves "moderate"), maybe, just maybe you ought to go sit down and consider exactly how your kids see you.
"... maybe, just maybe you ought to go sit down and consider exactly how your kids see you."
I've addressed this before, U-J, wondering if "laughingstock" would be a proper description.
"Education is kind of like a sexually transmitted disease. It makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs, and then you have the urge to pass it on."
- Terry Pratchett, "Hogfather"
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>