Education

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.