Education

Guess the engineer.

This story describes an effort to get more females interested in the sciences.

On 2005's National Assessment of Educational Progress, high school girls trailed their male counterparts in scoring for nearly all science and math categories. Yet in elementary school, females scored similar to the boys in their classes.

Secondary teachers face the same conundrum every year: How to get girls interested in math and science beyond their elementary years.

If this is funded by a corporation that designs blouses with pocket protectors, who cares? But if it's our tax dollars, how does this kind of program serve the national interest? Are female designed bridges sturdier? Do female engineered servers have less down time? Really, why must we spend money to realize somebody's socialist fantasy?

If we do need more scientists, we should steer scholarships to useful college majors that lead to inventions and innovation from, say, "American studies."

Speaking of which: Is there any aspect of life that doesn't have to be a major in college?

These students studying American culture visited a brothel (I'm sure dad's thrilled to know where his tuition money is going.). Let's see the intellectual level of discourse:

Do you consider yourself a feminist?

Alexis: "Most women in this business wear the pants in the family."

Is there a certain look most men prefer?

Alicia: Every man wants something different. "There's all different kinds of girls."

Why aren't there brothels with male prostitutes?

Rivenburgh: Former Hollywood Madame Heidi Fleiss is trying.

Do you still give a military discount?

Rivenburgh: Yes.

What's the worst part?

Alicia: "Being confined, being cooped up. I have to be here 24 hours a day."

Fascinating! So, men prefer all kinds of girls (By the way, anybody who asks why there aren't brothels for women is either a fool or an American studies major [supply, demand, etc. Like the story above, such a question implies that all sex differences are social constructs.].)?

The brothel tour was a natural fit for a class that tells students "don't just study America -- live it," said Julio Rodriguez, the director of the college's American Culture Program.

How's that different from what 300,000,000 other Americans do? I "live" America. Can I get three units?

I wonder if we can train some of the hookers at the Chicken Ranch as engineers.

No, but it's over-rated. It's a subject I've groped around (here and here), but Adam Creighton puts some meat on my feeling-based skeleton here.

The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby

Sometimes I wonder if liberals live in the same reality I do. I was reading a review of The Age of American Unreason, a book by liberal author Susan Jacoby, that has as its central thesis: "Americans are increasingly knowledge challenged." The culprit, according to Jacoby, is religious fundamentalism:

The majority, however, are clouded by the author's quickly evident and sizable hang-up regarding a well-worn bogeyman: the powerful, united front of intolerant American fundamentalists bent on national control.

For Jacoby, Protestant fundamentalism, particularly in its resistance to the teaching of evolution in public schools, is intellectual enemy number one.

At times, Jacoby's tendency to place fundamentalist fingerprints all over American ignorance seems to blind her from the obvious. The disastrous aftermath of hurricane Katrina, she argues, illustrates "the abysmal state of public education" brought on in part by "religious fundamentalism."

Now, lets look at things logically- reasonably, even:

One could disprove any hypothesis claiming that the increase of X is responsible for the increase of Y- a positive correlation- with evidence that Y decreased even as X increased- a negative correlation, yes?

Well, is it logical to say that since 1950, say, that Americans have become more religious? More fundamentalist? We used to have prayer in school, for Heaven's sake! Church attendance is about the same as it's always been, but our culture is much more secular (If not, the ACLU has been a waste of money.). Look at a textbook from 1960 and one from today: Is the newer one more conservative or more liberal? Are teacher schools today more conservative or liberal? In the worst schools in the country, like those in Louisiana, are the school systems run by conservative Republicans or liberal Democrats? Has the California K-12 learning nosedive been because Southern Baptists control education policy? I'm sure a team of Pat Buchanan clones runs Detroit and Washington D.C. schools, right?

And evolution as the root of all stupidity is itself the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Assuming that kids do learn Creationism, why would that affect reading or math? What do you think has affected the low history knowledge amongst today's students more: multiculturalism or Creationism? Haven't social studies been the subject most affected by liberals over the last 40 years? Are private Christian schools much worse than public school?

If Susan jacoby isn't counter-reality enough, what about Planned Parenthood? Reacting to the news that 1 in 4 of our daughters has an STD, they said:

...education is key to preventing sexual activity or sexually transmitted diseases in teens. "If someone comes in with concerns, we not only want to treat them for their sexually transmitted infection, but we want to educate them so they never have to come back for that issue again," said Hobbins.

Again, do you think more girls had STDs in 1960 or today? Did girls in 1960 have more sex education and access to condoms than today's demure teens? It seems, quite logically to me, that the more schools implicitly encourage girls to have sex, the more they will and the more STDs they'll get. Yet, PP, on a logic diet, won't touch a plate of simple statistics seasoned with a dash of reasoning.

The liberal response to failure: The only reason that our solutions have the opposite intended effect is because we haven't done it enough.

Somebody from the state of California visited my class today and asked me if I was doing any teaching. Well, she wondered if I knew the acronym or program abbreviation that accompanied each student and how I "differentiated instruction." Essentially, this person gets paid $100,000 to walk around with a clipboard and annoy people.

I consider her presence a profound insult, for it assumes that if the state (cat) doesn't go to schools, the school staff (mice) would just lounge around and show videos.

The primary offendees aren't even the teachers: The state bureaucracy thinks that the parents are too stupid to vote for responsible council members or walk around themselves and make sure somebody's teaching. The principal and the teachers, in turn, don't care about the students or the parents- only about the state inspectors. Let me put it another way: State bureaucrats care more about the children of Huntington Park then their parents, their teachers, or Huntington Park's residents.

Let's say it were true- that everybody in Huntington Park neglected the students. What would the state do? If parents don't care and the school can't find teachers who do, the jig's up, no?

One of the things that bugs me as a taxpayer but love as an employee are intersession courses. It's my high school's summer school. If kids don't pass their classes in the regular school year, the district pays, at great expense, for them to take it over. It doesn't add anything to their education since they already covered the material- it's a complete waste of money. On the other hand, it allows teacher to make some extra money.

Anyways, there's an intercession class in my room during my free period. The teacher is very good and cares about teaching, but the way she teaches poetry is interesting from a political point of view.

First, she tells children that poetry is boring because most of it is by "dead white guys" and that they can't relate to it. Now, isn't that kind of limiting? I can relate to people not of my demographic because I think there are some human feelings and emotions that are universal. Furthermore, does that mean that white men shouldn't read works by black, Hispanic, or Indians? What does she think that students can relate to? A poem about a Bronx ghetto that talks about going to jail, Iran-Contra, Da Nang, "trickle-down" economics wherin "the government gives money to corporations," and other political (Michelle Obama's version) concepts that makes young people angry.

Second, in explaining similes and metaphors, she explains how people used to think they were "superior" to animals and implies that we now know better.

One of the reasons I don't read modern poetry and, I think, some students don't like it, is that it's formless and a "way to express emotions" as most students responded when the teacher asked them what it was. Who cares, then?

Anyways, just venting.

Dennis Prager interviewed a woman who says her eighth-grade son's teacher decided to take his class to hear Angela Davis, communist criminal, speak. The lady in the interview mentioned that she didn't know about Davis, but learned about her from this post on Hip Hop Republican.

Makes you feel good about American education, although most American students would probably think that Sherlock Holmes is a Mexican gangster.

Report: 1 in 4 Britons Think Winston Churchill Never Existed:

One in four Britons don't believe wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill existed, according to a recent survey.

Churchill is compared to Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh, seen by many survey respondents as a mythical person, the London Daily Mail reported Monday.

The survey, conducted with 3,000 respondents to test their general knowledge, reported other historical figures such as Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, Cleopatra and the Duke of Wellington were made up for books and films, the Mail reported.

The survey, by UKTV Gold, also found that Sherlock Holmes was a real person.

Young Britons under 20 lack a basic historical education according to the survey results, historian Correlli Barnett told the Daily Mail.

"This suggests a complete lack of common sense and respect for our greatest heroes of the past," Barnett said.

A tour of my school yielded the following number of pictures of:

George Bush (without something derogatory underneath): 0
Winston Churchill: 0
George Washington: 0
Ronald Reagan: 0
Dwight D. Eisenhower: 0
Jose Marti: 0
Bill Clinton: 0
Anybody associated with religion: 0
Audie Murphy: 0
Army Reserve anniversary: 1 (my class)

OK, number of pictures of anti-American murderer, nation impovrisher, psychopath, deadbeat dad, would be world-enslaver, Che Guevara: 1 (below)

I had previously confused "The Prince" with the fairy tale "King and King" about a king and his...ummm...king. I wonder if there's a gay Rapunzel in the works.

The above book display in my school's high school library prompted this post. My friend Chris pointed out some errors, however, so I fixed them up and here it is again:

In California schools, there's a push to mainstream homosexuality.

Democrats in the California legislature continue to pass laws requiring schools to teach students about homosexuality and have homosexual representation in history books (not that there's anything wrong with that).

A recent law prohibits gender bias.

All schools, even in supposedly "macho" communities like Huntington Park have gay-strait alliance clubs.

This isn't really a criticism or an opinion. I'm just reporting on the situation. Knowledge, awareness, accuracy, and all that good stuff.

King & King by Stern Nijland

I'll even make the following neutral, objective arguments: Gay people are citizens too and deserve recognition. And, since they probably don't utilize the school system as much as the non-gay population while paying the same amount in taxes, they're a net-gain for schools.

Other arguments include reducing prejudice against 3-5% of our population and, according to the argument in the Guardian article referenced, the accurate reflection of reality.

As for the clubs, if that's how children want to organize themselves, OK.

Rainbow High by Alex Sanchez

I can argue for the books' exclusion as well: As I mentioned one sentence ago, people want to include gay books because they reflect reality. But, is children's literature meant to reflect reality or to inspire proper behavior and form societal values? Unless explicitly condemned (and I'm not saying that homosexuality should be in a public school), anything talked about becomes condoned de facto and lots of things exist that we don't want to necessarily condone. I'm sure you can come up with your own examples. Some who hold heterosexual marriage as the ideal only wish for their children to consider such a relationship.

Anyways, again, these things are complicated and neither point of view, in my opinion, can be dismissed.

This is an article about California grammar school literature in 2010. Excerpt:

Read more »

A nothing in thought.

What I like best about L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is his ability to bring people together. Just today in downtown L.A., I spent a good twenty minutes with a 19-year veteran teacher from Jordan high school- a woman with whom I'm sure I'd disagree with over many issues- laughing at the mayor.

She told me how Villaraigosa went to Jordan and artfully dodged any substantive questions (He must have picked that up from campaigning with Hillary Clinton), a good strategy on his part considering that his plan to take over LAUSD schools is idiotic.

Villaraigosa wants to take over schools from LAUSD. To do what? Nobody knows- not even him:

Specifics of how schools will operate under Villaraigosa's partnership will be worked out on individual campuses, the mayor said. Responding to numerous questions from teachers, he said repeatedly that he wants schools to come up with their own solutions and make decisions on curriculum and budgets independent of the central bureaucracy.

Sorry to cut in, but isn't it weird how the people who want to expand federal funding for education are the same ones who deride a "central bureaucracy?"

"The specific plan," Villaraigosa said to parents at Roosevelt, "is going to be developed and created by you in the schools."

Huh?

"I want to take over the schools at great expense and with considerable disruption so that you can come up with a plan."

Or, maybe he has a secret strategy: A television reporting magnet? Perhaps he thinks that statues of him in the cafeteria will inspire students to achieve.

Walk with me a little: Let's say he succeeds and places Jordan under his thumb. What does he want to do that hasn't already been tried a gazillion times before or that requires his unique, sage, guidance: Fire teachers? Fat chance. School uniforms? Whoopee!

Besides its sheer folly, Villaraigosa's fool's errand is profoundly insulting. He assumes that nobody else: parents, school board members, teachers, principals, etc. cares about education quite as much as he does- that only he can save the children. Does your mayor care more about your kids than you do?