Perhaps it’s the end of the Lenten Season that has caused me to reflect back on an idea that I originally developed when I was an undergraduate. The idea that “existence denotes purpose,” now seems so self-evident to me, that it’s hard to trace the logic of the argument and why I believe this is an important, fundamental idea. I realize this is a self-indulgent post with little interest to most people, but, nevertheless, I think I will indulge myself.
To understand my argument, one must accept two premises. The first premise is sometimes called the "butterfly effect." The butterfly effect is an effort to put chaos theory into a narrative rather than a mathematical framework. Essentially, the idea is that every phenomenon (in a physical sense), no matter how small, causes another phenomenon, and that causes another, and so on and so forth. http://www.cmp.caltech.edu/~mcc/chaos_new/Lorenz.html http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-butterfly-effect.htm
This is important because, if we apply this idea (first applied to weather predictions) to human interactions, then every one of our actions influences others, which then causes them to act in ways that affect others, and so forth.
The second premise is that humans are bombarded with a near infinite number of stimuli every day. As infants, we have to learn to ignore most of these stimuli. Those children who fail to develop the ability to deal with the near infinite amount of impulses experienced by humans every day develop serious problems like ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder, tourettes, as well as other problems. http://www.minddisorders.com/Del-Fi/Executive-function.html http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=76838288
Putting these two ideas together, any stimulus changes us, even if infinitesimally. These changes are cumulative. Since we've trained ourselves to ignore most stimuli, these impulses go largely ignored by us. This doesn't mean that they are insignificant. For a very simple example: a king is walking in his garden when a rather annoying fly starts buzzing around his head. He can choose to ignore it, or he can choose to swat at it. If he chooses to smack at it, his peripheral vision is blocked, so he doesn't see the assassin. Two elements in this story are important. First, small stimuli may have significant consequences. Secondly, the actors in the story have free will to act or not to act.
Everyday, we are influenced by countless individuals. Even if we pass somebody on the interstate at a relative speed of 140 mph, if we sense that individual, they have, according to the butterfly effect, influenced us. Likewise, we influence countless individuals every day.
Therefore, to understand our lives, envision a long tunnel. Starting at the mouth of the tunnel is a straw. The straw is your life. As the straw, your life, moves down the center of the tunnel, a near infinite number of straws (other people's lives) and threads (stimuli) intersect your straw. From a different perspective, your straw, your life, intersects and influences countless other people's lives.
I must now introduce a third premise. One of the hallmarks of western civilization was the belief that humans were progressing inevitably towards perfection. Christians reflected this notion in religious terms. The idea was that our souls were progressing towards the infinite good found in God. The philosophes of the Enlightenment expressed the same idea in philosophical terms; seeking Natural Laws to ensure this progress. Even the Social Darwinists believed (in their own twisted way) that humans (at least those who were fit to survive) would progress, inevitably, toward perfection. Catastrophically, this core idea of western civilization was annihilated by the horrors of the trenches of the First World War and the unimaginable nightmare of the Holocaust or the Shoah of the Second World War.
I believe we need to regain this lost notion of perfectibility. As I mentioned in a previous post, “`Europe’ is Dead,” http://aspatula.blogspot.com/2008/02/europe-is-dead.html) the West has lost faith in all absolute ideas whether religious, philosophical, or political. As I’ve demonstrated here, the belief in progress towards perfection in the past was expressed in religious, philosophical, and, even, if rather dubiously, scientific terms. Therefore, an idea like progress toward perfection could be acceptable to a host of individuals, even if for different reasons. Further, this idea, in no small matter, would be a hopeful and inclusive one.
If we are progressing inevitably towards perfection, then it would seem that our lives are governed by fate. However, free will exists in this system. First, because we have to choose which stimuli to ignore and which to pay attention to, this choice is a first element of free will. Secondly, as we move down the tunnel, we have to have some way to make a decision among so many choices from the competing stimuli. There has to be some outside source of information to provide guidance. We feel this guidance when we feel "comfortable" about our choices. As long as we maintain a comfort level, we travel through the center of the tunnel, avoiding countless paths that keep us from the goal. But, ultimately, we can choose to feel comfortable or not, and we see people every day freely choosing to be uncomfortable. Thus, we have free will to choose to progress towards perfection or not.
If we accept a premise that was at the center of Western thought for centuries, the tunnel analogy becomes more clearly a journey towards perfection. While we can never achieve perfection, we can make progress. Our purpose in life becomes clear -- we exist to help others on the journey. All the lives we influence ultimately become part of the quest of the entire community to achieve our unrealizable goal. Thus, existence denotes purpose.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Environmental Idiocy
I know I'm an idiot because I think that historical evidence indicates that global warming has more to do with recurring fluctuations in the Earth's climate than does human production of "green house gasses" (primarily carbon dioxide) (http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html). I know that Niger Calder, "former editor of New Science" is an idiot for writing in "An Experiment That Hints We Are Wrong on Climate Change" in the Times Online that solar energy striking the atmosphere has more to do with global warming than green house gasses (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece). And I know that John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel is an idiot for pointing out the truth about Al Gore's global warming fraud (http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2008/20080303175301.aspx).
What really worries me, however, is how all of us can be such idiots as to ignore the very real damage we are doing to our environment. The continual dumping of pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and hormones into the water supply is a far more real and imminent danger to human life than any future global warming. Unfortunately, deformed frogs and transgendered fish don't get the hype that the eventual end of the world in flames seems to get with our media and our elected leaders.
The story began in 1995 when some school children in Minnesota discovered an abnormally high number of deformed frogs. Most had more than the required four limbs, while others were paraplegics. An underfunded research began into the cause of the mutated frogs (in fact, because of budget cuts, the Minnesota research was suspended for several years).
On 9 July 2002, Stentor Danielson reported in the National Geographic News in "Pesticides, Parasite May Cause Frog Deformities" that recent studies indicated that certain pesticides, including Esfenvalerate and Atrazine made frogs susceptible to a parasite called cercariae. These two pesticides are among the most common ones used in North America. According to Danielson's article, "`Atrazine-exposed frogs don't have normal reproductive systems,' said Tyrone Hayes, the leader of a team from the University of California at Berkeley. `The males have ovaries in their testes and much smaller vocal organs.'" We should care about these frogs because, according to Danielson, "Joseph Kiesecker who published a study on frog deformities in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes: "`amphibians are particularly sensitive to environmental changes that appear to be associated with the recent emergence of new diseases and resurgence of old diseases that infect humans.' Especially disturbing, he added, is that the concentrations of two of the pesticides that caused the deformities in frogs, Esfenvalerate and Atrazine, were low enough for the water to be considered safe for human consumption under Environmental Protection Agency standards. `Frogs may be a sentinel species that is warning us about the interplay between human-caused environmental change and disease susceptibility,' he said, adding: "`Hopefully, people will listen.'" (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/07/0709_020709_deformedfrogs.html)
In addition to Danielson's report, an article in the 25 September 2007 issue of Science Daily indicated that runoff from fertilized fields increased the number of snails infected with trematodes leading to deformities in the frogs (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070925130649.htm). See also, (http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12687-frog-deformities-linked-to-farm-pollution.html). As artificial fertilizers are used increasingly in the Third World, the spread of deformities among amphibians (“a sentinel species”) demonstrates the growing hazard to humans. Pesticides and their by-products also create hormone mimickers leading to a host of problems.
According to a story on Minnesota Public Radio from 1998, "Disappearing Amphibians: Frog Deformities May Warn of Human Risk," by Mary Losure, another distinct possibility for the frog deformities is the ability of some pesticides, especially retinoic, and some chemicals (like PCBs and Dioxin) to mimic hormones, not only creating deformities, but also decreasing fertility rates. Similar declines in fertility rates have been observed in other amphibians, birds, and reptiles. These are worrisome because as "developmental biologist David Gardiner of the University of California at Irvine says, `These hormone-signaling pathways have only evolved once, so we all share common signaling pathways, and certainly, when you look at the kind of hormones we have that control development in our bodies, are indistinguishable from the equivalent hormone in something like a frog.'" (http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/199806/04_losurem_frogs03/ )
Another disturbing trend is the increasing problem with interrupting fish reproductive cycles as well as a growing number of male fish becoming "feminized" (that is, either lacking or having poorly developed male sex organs). According to "Collapse of a Fish Population after Exposure to a Synthetic Estrogen," in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (21 May 2007), abnormally high levels of estrogen and estrogen mimics (mostly from the decomposition of certain pesticides) in a number of Canadian lakes led to the virtual extinction of one breed of fish within seven years (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/21/8897?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%28Collapse+AND+of+AND+a+AND+fish+AND+population+AND+after+AND+exposure+AND+to+AND+synthetic+AND+oestrogen%29&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT). Natural hormones, in particular estrogen, and hormonal mimics, particularly from pesticides, are the sources of much of reproductive maladies in a number of animal species.
The two major sources of estrogen in our water supply is the urine of cows treated with estrogen (http://thegreenguide.com/reports/product.mhtml?id=39) and in the urine of women taking birth control pills (http://www.insiderreports.com/storypage.asp?StoryID=20009617).
The ability of pesticides to mimic hormones, including estrogen, is behind male Florida alligators experiencing various sexual abnormalities (http://www.rgp.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v11n3/story1.html ).
We should care about the sex problems of amphibians, fish, and reptiles because there are disturbing links between the maladies experienced by aquatic animals and worldwide problems including testicular cancer and low sperm quality in human males (http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=609 ).
For an excellent overview of the problems caused by the various pollutants on the endocrine and reproductive hormones, see, "Our Stolen Future" (http://www.ourstolenfuture.com/index.htm). In addition, see the article by Ian R. Falconer, “Are Endocrine Disrupting Compounds a Health Risk in Drinking Water?" in The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (June 2006) which argues for the negative influence of estrogen mimickers (and, to a lesser extent, estrogen itself) in municipal water supplies (http://www.mdpi.org/ijerph/papers/ijerph2006030020.pdf).
If we put all these observations together, we must realize that pesticides, chemical pollutants, and hormones in the water supply are killing us far more quickly than moderately warmer summers. We might want to point this out to the government. In the meantime, you might want to adjust your own choices by eating more organic foods trying to eliminate pesticides and hormones from your diet. With three daughters, my wife and I have made the switch. In particular, we have switched to organic dairy products in an effort to avoid increased estrogen from the cows' milk. This is something we can control, or at least influence -- think about it.
What really worries me, however, is how all of us can be such idiots as to ignore the very real damage we are doing to our environment. The continual dumping of pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and hormones into the water supply is a far more real and imminent danger to human life than any future global warming. Unfortunately, deformed frogs and transgendered fish don't get the hype that the eventual end of the world in flames seems to get with our media and our elected leaders.
The story began in 1995 when some school children in Minnesota discovered an abnormally high number of deformed frogs. Most had more than the required four limbs, while others were paraplegics. An underfunded research began into the cause of the mutated frogs (in fact, because of budget cuts, the Minnesota research was suspended for several years).
On 9 July 2002, Stentor Danielson reported in the National Geographic News in "Pesticides, Parasite May Cause Frog Deformities" that recent studies indicated that certain pesticides, including Esfenvalerate and Atrazine made frogs susceptible to a parasite called cercariae. These two pesticides are among the most common ones used in North America. According to Danielson's article, "`Atrazine-exposed frogs don't have normal reproductive systems,' said Tyrone Hayes, the leader of a team from the University of California at Berkeley. `The males have ovaries in their testes and much smaller vocal organs.'" We should care about these frogs because, according to Danielson, "Joseph Kiesecker who published a study on frog deformities in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes: "`amphibians are particularly sensitive to environmental changes that appear to be associated with the recent emergence of new diseases and resurgence of old diseases that infect humans.' Especially disturbing, he added, is that the concentrations of two of the pesticides that caused the deformities in frogs, Esfenvalerate and Atrazine, were low enough for the water to be considered safe for human consumption under Environmental Protection Agency standards. `Frogs may be a sentinel species that is warning us about the interplay between human-caused environmental change and disease susceptibility,' he said, adding: "`Hopefully, people will listen.'" (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/07/0709_020709_deformedfrogs.html)
In addition to Danielson's report, an article in the 25 September 2007 issue of Science Daily indicated that runoff from fertilized fields increased the number of snails infected with trematodes leading to deformities in the frogs (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070925130649.htm). See also, (http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12687-frog-deformities-linked-to-farm-pollution.html). As artificial fertilizers are used increasingly in the Third World, the spread of deformities among amphibians (“a sentinel species”) demonstrates the growing hazard to humans. Pesticides and their by-products also create hormone mimickers leading to a host of problems.
According to a story on Minnesota Public Radio from 1998, "Disappearing Amphibians: Frog Deformities May Warn of Human Risk," by Mary Losure, another distinct possibility for the frog deformities is the ability of some pesticides, especially retinoic, and some chemicals (like PCBs and Dioxin) to mimic hormones, not only creating deformities, but also decreasing fertility rates. Similar declines in fertility rates have been observed in other amphibians, birds, and reptiles. These are worrisome because as "developmental biologist David Gardiner of the University of California at Irvine says, `These hormone-signaling pathways have only evolved once, so we all share common signaling pathways, and certainly, when you look at the kind of hormones we have that control development in our bodies, are indistinguishable from the equivalent hormone in something like a frog.'" (http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/199806/04_losurem_frogs03/ )
Another disturbing trend is the increasing problem with interrupting fish reproductive cycles as well as a growing number of male fish becoming "feminized" (that is, either lacking or having poorly developed male sex organs). According to "Collapse of a Fish Population after Exposure to a Synthetic Estrogen," in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (21 May 2007), abnormally high levels of estrogen and estrogen mimics (mostly from the decomposition of certain pesticides) in a number of Canadian lakes led to the virtual extinction of one breed of fish within seven years (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/21/8897?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%28Collapse+AND+of+AND+a+AND+fish+AND+population+AND+after+AND+exposure+AND+to+AND+synthetic+AND+oestrogen%29&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT). Natural hormones, in particular estrogen, and hormonal mimics, particularly from pesticides, are the sources of much of reproductive maladies in a number of animal species.
The two major sources of estrogen in our water supply is the urine of cows treated with estrogen (http://thegreenguide.com/reports/product.mhtml?id=39) and in the urine of women taking birth control pills (http://www.insiderreports.com/storypage.asp?StoryID=20009617).
The ability of pesticides to mimic hormones, including estrogen, is behind male Florida alligators experiencing various sexual abnormalities (http://www.rgp.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v11n3/story1.html ).
We should care about the sex problems of amphibians, fish, and reptiles because there are disturbing links between the maladies experienced by aquatic animals and worldwide problems including testicular cancer and low sperm quality in human males (http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=609 ).
For an excellent overview of the problems caused by the various pollutants on the endocrine and reproductive hormones, see, "Our Stolen Future" (http://www.ourstolenfuture.com/index.htm). In addition, see the article by Ian R. Falconer, “Are Endocrine Disrupting Compounds a Health Risk in Drinking Water?" in The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (June 2006) which argues for the negative influence of estrogen mimickers (and, to a lesser extent, estrogen itself) in municipal water supplies (http://www.mdpi.org/ijerph/papers/ijerph2006030020.pdf).
If we put all these observations together, we must realize that pesticides, chemical pollutants, and hormones in the water supply are killing us far more quickly than moderately warmer summers. We might want to point this out to the government. In the meantime, you might want to adjust your own choices by eating more organic foods trying to eliminate pesticides and hormones from your diet. With three daughters, my wife and I have made the switch. In particular, we have switched to organic dairy products in an effort to avoid increased estrogen from the cows' milk. This is something we can control, or at least influence -- think about it.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Random Bits of Idiocy
We're constantly told that we all need to learn Spanish because so many people in this country speak that language and we have no choice but learn it. Let's look at this proposition rationally. To become an American citizen, a person must learn English. So, logically, the only individuals not learning to speak English, the ones with whom we must communicate in Spanish, are illegal immigrants. Most studies indicate that there are approximately 5 million illegal immigrants in the US. However, a report from the Pew Hispanic Center in 2006 (http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=61) asserted that there were 12 million illegal immigrants in the US. There are approximately 300 million people in the US. Thus, we must all learn Spanish because 2-4 percent of the population does -- and they're technically criminals. This is idiotic. I chose to learn German and a bit of French and Spanish because I wanted to, not because I had to for no rational reason.
Next time you're at a mall or where there are a number of pre-teens and teen-age girls, notice how many are wearing shorts or sweats with something written across their ... well, their bums. Again, let's look at this practice logically and rationally. What is the point of wearing this clothing? The only reason to wear something like this is to get people to look at their behinds. Again, why? The only logical reason, as disturbing as it may sound, is for erotic or sexual titillation. If wearing these clothes is simply for flirtation, then can there be an "unwanted" sexual advance? Don't get me wrong; as the father of three daughters, I'm not condoning rape or any violent action under any circumstances whatsoever, nor am I saying that these girls deserve this unwanted attention. Rather, I'm asking what kinds of idiots buy these clothes for their girls?
Advertisers obviously don't listen to the songs they use in their campaigns. There was a commercial for Dr. Pepper during the football season where a lineman did a celebratory dance after scoring a touchdown to the tune of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9" (most people call this song "Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends"). This is one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite groups. The song's theme is a criticism of the commodification of life and religion. That is, the advertisement is the antithesis of the song. For another example, Gatorade has a commercial with an African-American basketball player walking down the street to the tune of "Walk on the Wild Side," by Lou Reed. This is another great song. However, it does include the lyrics, "and the coloured girls go doo, doo, doo, etc." Maybe not the best juxtaposition of words and images. And, of course, there is the memorable verse in the song about the transvestite performing oral sex. What idiot picked this song as an advertising tag line?
I saw George Carlin last night on HBO. George has become simply a pathetic, rambling, old coot. Sad, really.
Everything causes Global Warming. Well, everything except the natural fluctuation of the Earth's climate. If you want to get funding for some half-baked program, just claim that something that humans are doing causes global warming. On the 31 August 2007 episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher" (the überidiot), PETA representative, Ingrid Newkirk asserted that cow farts are a major cause of global warming (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1092228/). I guess we need to stop breeding cows. The ones we have now should be allowed to live out their lives in peaceful retirement in Boca. Idiots.
Of course, the answer to our energy problem is ethanol or the far cooler name, "biofuel." Unfortunately, reason and logic provide inconvenient truths. There are three logical problems with using ethanol as an energy source. First, ethanol is only cheaper than gasoline if you live in some place that grows a great deal of corn, like the Midwest. In addition, E85 fuel doesn't contain as much energy as gasoline, so a car running on E85 gets worse gas mileage, thus, it costs more to run (http://www.hybridcars.com/ethanol/benefits-drawbacks.html). Secondly, according to a study at Stanford University, E85 may pollute more than gasoline (http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/april18/ethanol-041807.html). Thirdly, biofuel production is "a total disaster" for third world countries who deforest their nation for dubious results, according to leading members of the United Nations and the European Union (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,530550,00.html). See a number of problems with biofuels at http://www.amlibpub.com/liberty_blog/2007/04/new-study-ethanol-bad-for-health-and.html. If we really want to go a long way to solving our automobile fuel problems, we should hire this guy: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/motorhead-messiah.html.
The writers' strike is finally over. I fully support the writers’ stance in the strike. They definitely deserve their fair share of the residuals from new broadcast abilities like podcasts and online replays. However, did anybody really miss the crap shows they put out? I watch one or two shows on NBC, CBS, and FOX. Does ABC still exist? I realize that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer, and "reality TV" like "American Idol" and "Survivor" admirably proves this. But, until the networks decide to start programming a few intelligent shows, they can expect to continue to loose market share to cable channels, video games, and movie rentals. (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article3279454.ece).
Next time you're at a mall or where there are a number of pre-teens and teen-age girls, notice how many are wearing shorts or sweats with something written across their ... well, their bums. Again, let's look at this practice logically and rationally. What is the point of wearing this clothing? The only reason to wear something like this is to get people to look at their behinds. Again, why? The only logical reason, as disturbing as it may sound, is for erotic or sexual titillation. If wearing these clothes is simply for flirtation, then can there be an "unwanted" sexual advance? Don't get me wrong; as the father of three daughters, I'm not condoning rape or any violent action under any circumstances whatsoever, nor am I saying that these girls deserve this unwanted attention. Rather, I'm asking what kinds of idiots buy these clothes for their girls?
Advertisers obviously don't listen to the songs they use in their campaigns. There was a commercial for Dr. Pepper during the football season where a lineman did a celebratory dance after scoring a touchdown to the tune of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9" (most people call this song "Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends"). This is one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite groups. The song's theme is a criticism of the commodification of life and religion. That is, the advertisement is the antithesis of the song. For another example, Gatorade has a commercial with an African-American basketball player walking down the street to the tune of "Walk on the Wild Side," by Lou Reed. This is another great song. However, it does include the lyrics, "and the coloured girls go doo, doo, doo, etc." Maybe not the best juxtaposition of words and images. And, of course, there is the memorable verse in the song about the transvestite performing oral sex. What idiot picked this song as an advertising tag line?
I saw George Carlin last night on HBO. George has become simply a pathetic, rambling, old coot. Sad, really.
Everything causes Global Warming. Well, everything except the natural fluctuation of the Earth's climate. If you want to get funding for some half-baked program, just claim that something that humans are doing causes global warming. On the 31 August 2007 episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher" (the überidiot), PETA representative, Ingrid Newkirk asserted that cow farts are a major cause of global warming (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1092228/). I guess we need to stop breeding cows. The ones we have now should be allowed to live out their lives in peaceful retirement in Boca. Idiots.
Of course, the answer to our energy problem is ethanol or the far cooler name, "biofuel." Unfortunately, reason and logic provide inconvenient truths. There are three logical problems with using ethanol as an energy source. First, ethanol is only cheaper than gasoline if you live in some place that grows a great deal of corn, like the Midwest. In addition, E85 fuel doesn't contain as much energy as gasoline, so a car running on E85 gets worse gas mileage, thus, it costs more to run (http://www.hybridcars.com/ethanol/benefits-drawbacks.html). Secondly, according to a study at Stanford University, E85 may pollute more than gasoline (http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/april18/ethanol-041807.html). Thirdly, biofuel production is "a total disaster" for third world countries who deforest their nation for dubious results, according to leading members of the United Nations and the European Union (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,530550,00.html). See a number of problems with biofuels at http://www.amlibpub.com/liberty_blog/2007/04/new-study-ethanol-bad-for-health-and.html. If we really want to go a long way to solving our automobile fuel problems, we should hire this guy: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/motorhead-messiah.html.
The writers' strike is finally over. I fully support the writers’ stance in the strike. They definitely deserve their fair share of the residuals from new broadcast abilities like podcasts and online replays. However, did anybody really miss the crap shows they put out? I watch one or two shows on NBC, CBS, and FOX. Does ABC still exist? I realize that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer, and "reality TV" like "American Idol" and "Survivor" admirably proves this. But, until the networks decide to start programming a few intelligent shows, they can expect to continue to loose market share to cable channels, video games, and movie rentals. (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article3279454.ece).
Saturday, February 23, 2008
"Europe" is Dead
“Europe” is dead. That is, the culture that was the mixture of Grecco-Roman, Germanic, and Christian cultures is dead. This is the culture that gave the world the ideas of freedom, liberty, and equality. It is dead, because it sowed the seeds of its own destruction with the Enlightenment. There are two sides to the Enlightenment – faith in the perfectibility of humankind (as seen in the writings of Montesquieu and Smith) and profound doubt in our perfectibility (as seen in the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau). For decades, the side of the Enlightenment that had faith in humanity looked like it had succeeded. Faith in the inevitability of human progress towards perfection successfully replaced Christian (and, to a lesser extent, Jewish) faith in God among most intellectuals. Thus, faith in one absolute goal had replaced another. There was something as equally unchanging about faith in human progress as there was about faith in an unchanging supreme being. Like most cultural assumptions, this faith in human progress trickled down from the educated bourgeoisie to the lower bourgeoisie, and, eventually, to the working class. Thus, once again, Europeans had a shared culture with freedom, liberty, and equality being assumed parts of human progress towards perfection.
But the First World War changed that. The slaughterhouse that was the war proved to most intellectuals that humans were definitely not progressing towards perfection. This was a fundamental break in Western Civilization. The people of 1919 have more in common with us than they did with the people of 1913. The few intellectuals (outside the Catholic Church) who still believed in the inevitability of human progress had to abandon that ideal after the next war with the unimaginable cataclysm of the Holocaust. As during the Enlightenment, the ideas of the intellectuals trickled down to the rest of society creating, once again, a common intellectual outlook. The result, today, is that fewer than 20 per cent of European Christians identify themselves as strongly religious. Thus, the two sources of faith, one religious and the other secular, were removed from European culture. As it turns out, faith is what supported “Europe.”
Without Christian or Jewish faith and without faith in the perfectibility of humans, what was left? People could have faith in governments or political parties, but those are not constant. People could have faith in themselves, but, since individuals grow and change over time, this too was not constant. People could believe in some form of Existentialism, but this ends up believing in nothingness or simply believing in oneself. Either way, this is not permanent.
It turns out then that what held “Europe” together was faith in something permanent or absolute; whether it was God or progress is immaterial. “Europe” is dying because it has lost faith.
Now, faith is not always the best idea. Unfortunately, one group still maintains faith. Radical Moslems (and the overwhelming majority of Moslems who tacitly accept their views) have an apocalyptic faith in the restoration of the Caliphate. One day, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East will be reunited in the empire created by the Prophet in the 7th century. In this Moslem utopia, there is no room for freedom, liberty, and equality. These are seen by Moslem intellectuals as a Western (read, “European”) disease that has led to immorality. Likewise, the Western concept of progress is seen by these men to be equally immoral.
Today, “Europe” has no answer to this assault on freedom, liberty, equality, and progress. Instead, with nothing to believe in themselves, with no faith, they are caving in to the faith of the Moslems. They have no response, because any positive response would be, in their minds, culturally insensitive. Everybody has a right to their views, because nobody is wrong (except those who hold to the outmoded ideas of the Enlightenment or the Judeo-Christian culture that has been the bedrock of “Europe”). Just how far today’s European intelligentsia has been willing to divorce themselves from their own past is seen in the monstrosity known as the EU Constitution. So as not to offend the Moslems and agnostics, the story of Europe contained in the Constitution deliberately and maliciously excluded Christianity as an influence on the creation of “Europe.” The Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent statements that Britain must make room for sharia law (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7237863.stm) that treats non-Muslims, dhimmi, as second-class citizens and women as chattel is just the latest, egregious example of cultural suicide. More disturbing, from my point of view, is the Dutch Catholic charity, Vastenaktie, calling Lent the “Christian Ramadan” in an effort to reach Dutch youth (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/12/wlent112.xml). This goes beyond relativism to degraded pandering. The best book on this suicidal tendency of cultural relativism in Europe is the book by Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within.
Thus, “Europe” is dead – a hopeless muddle of cultural and intellectual relativism. The radical Moslems and their legions of supporters will establish the Caliphate, because most Europeans have no faith to stop them. The Moslems have faith in the creation of their utopia and the Europeans are passively accepting it, because they have nothing worth fighting for. Culturally (and, for that matter, demographically) the Europeans are passively wasting away under this Moslem onslaught.
Why should we worry in the US? Like it or not, we are a European culture. America was founded by students of the Enlightenment. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution are the greatest achievements of Enlightenment thought and practice. Moreso than France in 1789, the US proved that the ideas of the Enlightenment were not simply theoretical, but could be put into practice. We should worry, because if we loose faith – in democracy, pluralism, equal rights, freedom -- “America” will die just as surely as “Europe” will die. When some groups are more equal than others, when some have freedom of speech and assembly and others don’t, when immigrants refuse to become assimilated, then the inevitable result is the Balkanization of the U.S. and the end of the idea of “America.”
We’re idiots if we don’t fight to keep the ideas and ideals that have made the US the living embodiment of the very best precepts of the Enlightenment.
But the First World War changed that. The slaughterhouse that was the war proved to most intellectuals that humans were definitely not progressing towards perfection. This was a fundamental break in Western Civilization. The people of 1919 have more in common with us than they did with the people of 1913. The few intellectuals (outside the Catholic Church) who still believed in the inevitability of human progress had to abandon that ideal after the next war with the unimaginable cataclysm of the Holocaust. As during the Enlightenment, the ideas of the intellectuals trickled down to the rest of society creating, once again, a common intellectual outlook. The result, today, is that fewer than 20 per cent of European Christians identify themselves as strongly religious. Thus, the two sources of faith, one religious and the other secular, were removed from European culture. As it turns out, faith is what supported “Europe.”
Without Christian or Jewish faith and without faith in the perfectibility of humans, what was left? People could have faith in governments or political parties, but those are not constant. People could have faith in themselves, but, since individuals grow and change over time, this too was not constant. People could believe in some form of Existentialism, but this ends up believing in nothingness or simply believing in oneself. Either way, this is not permanent.
It turns out then that what held “Europe” together was faith in something permanent or absolute; whether it was God or progress is immaterial. “Europe” is dying because it has lost faith.
Now, faith is not always the best idea. Unfortunately, one group still maintains faith. Radical Moslems (and the overwhelming majority of Moslems who tacitly accept their views) have an apocalyptic faith in the restoration of the Caliphate. One day, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East will be reunited in the empire created by the Prophet in the 7th century. In this Moslem utopia, there is no room for freedom, liberty, and equality. These are seen by Moslem intellectuals as a Western (read, “European”) disease that has led to immorality. Likewise, the Western concept of progress is seen by these men to be equally immoral.
Today, “Europe” has no answer to this assault on freedom, liberty, equality, and progress. Instead, with nothing to believe in themselves, with no faith, they are caving in to the faith of the Moslems. They have no response, because any positive response would be, in their minds, culturally insensitive. Everybody has a right to their views, because nobody is wrong (except those who hold to the outmoded ideas of the Enlightenment or the Judeo-Christian culture that has been the bedrock of “Europe”). Just how far today’s European intelligentsia has been willing to divorce themselves from their own past is seen in the monstrosity known as the EU Constitution. So as not to offend the Moslems and agnostics, the story of Europe contained in the Constitution deliberately and maliciously excluded Christianity as an influence on the creation of “Europe.” The Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent statements that Britain must make room for sharia law (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7237863.stm) that treats non-Muslims, dhimmi, as second-class citizens and women as chattel is just the latest, egregious example of cultural suicide. More disturbing, from my point of view, is the Dutch Catholic charity, Vastenaktie, calling Lent the “Christian Ramadan” in an effort to reach Dutch youth (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/12/wlent112.xml). This goes beyond relativism to degraded pandering. The best book on this suicidal tendency of cultural relativism in Europe is the book by Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within.
Thus, “Europe” is dead – a hopeless muddle of cultural and intellectual relativism. The radical Moslems and their legions of supporters will establish the Caliphate, because most Europeans have no faith to stop them. The Moslems have faith in the creation of their utopia and the Europeans are passively accepting it, because they have nothing worth fighting for. Culturally (and, for that matter, demographically) the Europeans are passively wasting away under this Moslem onslaught.
Why should we worry in the US? Like it or not, we are a European culture. America was founded by students of the Enlightenment. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution are the greatest achievements of Enlightenment thought and practice. Moreso than France in 1789, the US proved that the ideas of the Enlightenment were not simply theoretical, but could be put into practice. We should worry, because if we loose faith – in democracy, pluralism, equal rights, freedom -- “America” will die just as surely as “Europe” will die. When some groups are more equal than others, when some have freedom of speech and assembly and others don’t, when immigrants refuse to become assimilated, then the inevitable result is the Balkanization of the U.S. and the end of the idea of “America.”
We’re idiots if we don’t fight to keep the ideas and ideals that have made the US the living embodiment of the very best precepts of the Enlightenment.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Doctorates for Idiots
So you've got an EdD. Well, bully for you, Dr. X. Say you're a "doctor" huh? Say your degree is exactly equivalent to my PhD? Really? Let's take a look at a few programs granting doctor of education (EdD) degrees or educational specialist (EdS) degrees. Keep this in mind as you compare and contrast degrees. For my PhD in history, I had to take two days of comprehensive exams, pass two foreign language exams, and write a 475-page dissertation. These are typical requirements for liberal arts doctoral degrees.
A random pool of universities that offer EdDs in the social sciences include: University of South Carolina, University of Florida, University of Alabama, University of Georgia, Illinois State University, Portland State University, Missouri State University, and Syracuse University. None of these programs requires any foreign language expertise. South Carolina and Illinois State do not have a comprehensive exam as a requirement. In discussions with individuals who have earned an EdD, the so-called “comprehensive” exam involves regurgitating a series of buzzwords that real teachers know are meaningless. I personally know persons who have received a graduate-level grade of “A” for a course on making bulletin boards. Looking at their libraries, the typical EdD “thesis” is between 100-200 pages long. Keep in mind, a typical education thesis has 10 pages of literature review, the 100 surveys administered to 12th graders about their feelings on each other, 10 pages of number crunching, and a one-page conclusion. The end result is a 121-page thesis.
The EdS degree is even more laughable. Looking at the University of Tennessee, University of Florida, University of Alabama, University of Georgia, Michigan State University, and Missouri State University, the typical program simply involves about 30 semester hours of graduate education courses (presumably, including the bulletin-board class). Once again, they have no foreign language requirement. Most have something they call a “comprehensive” exam. Tennessee offers a thesis option and Georgia requires a “student portfolio.” None of the others has a thesis requirement.
The EdD degree was invented years ago to give school principals a raise. After a couple years of taking some night and weekend classes, they got to tack "Dr." in front of their name and, voila, they got a raise. This degree was not meant to be a bona fide doctorate. Now, Colleges of Education are churning out legions of lazy, slack-jawed idiots who have taken a host of meaningless, vacuous courses. Some college deans now hold this degree instead of a PhD in their substantive field. This means that an EdD in social studies, who has never written anything longer than a term paper and who has had as little as three graduate courses in history, can control the lives of men and women who have more training and aptitude than he can possibly imagine. Why would a university administration appoint somebody without real academic credentials to lead a college within the instituion? Obviously, because somebody with no support from his faculty, in fact, whose faculty hold him in total disregard, is the perfect toady for the administration.
I never heard of EdS degrees until a few years ago when somebody who was working on one told me that they were replacing PhD degrees with these more rigorous degrees in specialized areas. Look at the requirements -- the EdS degree was invented for people who couldn't satisfy the intellectual rigors of pursuing an EdD degree.
Obviously, the only reason to enroll in one of these programs is to ensure oneself of a raise without doing any real work. If a person wanted actually to master the material, he or she would put forth the effort to earn a real doctorate.
Every time I talk with anybody at any other university, they typically refer to the College of Education and its denizens as "those idiots in Education" or words to that effect. The universal opinion of academics is that holders of EdDs are idiots. Graduate education programs turn out hordes of incompetents who then pollute the undergraduate education programs throughout the nation. It's sad that the individuals who should be most concerned with education actually know the least about the topic. Instead, they spend their time featherbedding their courses with form over substance. They tell my students that, when writing a research paper, "a little plagiarism is alright." Thus, the entire educational system in this country is being rotted from within.
The cold hard fact is that you, Dr. X, and your degree, are a joke. Even the people in Anthropology and American Studies think you're a joke. Perhaps you realize that everybody thinks you're an idiot. Perhaps that's why you insist that everybody always call you "Dr. X." Even among colleagues who call each other by their first names, you steadfastly refer to everybody as "doctor" expecting to receive the same appellation in return. You introduce yourself at parties and other gatherings as "Dr. X." This would be pathetic and needy if not for the cold hard fact that you are an insufferable bore.
Dr. X, you're an idiot.
A random pool of universities that offer EdDs in the social sciences include: University of South Carolina, University of Florida, University of Alabama, University of Georgia, Illinois State University, Portland State University, Missouri State University, and Syracuse University. None of these programs requires any foreign language expertise. South Carolina and Illinois State do not have a comprehensive exam as a requirement. In discussions with individuals who have earned an EdD, the so-called “comprehensive” exam involves regurgitating a series of buzzwords that real teachers know are meaningless. I personally know persons who have received a graduate-level grade of “A” for a course on making bulletin boards. Looking at their libraries, the typical EdD “thesis” is between 100-200 pages long. Keep in mind, a typical education thesis has 10 pages of literature review, the 100 surveys administered to 12th graders about their feelings on each other, 10 pages of number crunching, and a one-page conclusion. The end result is a 121-page thesis.
The EdS degree is even more laughable. Looking at the University of Tennessee, University of Florida, University of Alabama, University of Georgia, Michigan State University, and Missouri State University, the typical program simply involves about 30 semester hours of graduate education courses (presumably, including the bulletin-board class). Once again, they have no foreign language requirement. Most have something they call a “comprehensive” exam. Tennessee offers a thesis option and Georgia requires a “student portfolio.” None of the others has a thesis requirement.
The EdD degree was invented years ago to give school principals a raise. After a couple years of taking some night and weekend classes, they got to tack "Dr." in front of their name and, voila, they got a raise. This degree was not meant to be a bona fide doctorate. Now, Colleges of Education are churning out legions of lazy, slack-jawed idiots who have taken a host of meaningless, vacuous courses. Some college deans now hold this degree instead of a PhD in their substantive field. This means that an EdD in social studies, who has never written anything longer than a term paper and who has had as little as three graduate courses in history, can control the lives of men and women who have more training and aptitude than he can possibly imagine. Why would a university administration appoint somebody without real academic credentials to lead a college within the instituion? Obviously, because somebody with no support from his faculty, in fact, whose faculty hold him in total disregard, is the perfect toady for the administration.
I never heard of EdS degrees until a few years ago when somebody who was working on one told me that they were replacing PhD degrees with these more rigorous degrees in specialized areas. Look at the requirements -- the EdS degree was invented for people who couldn't satisfy the intellectual rigors of pursuing an EdD degree.
Obviously, the only reason to enroll in one of these programs is to ensure oneself of a raise without doing any real work. If a person wanted actually to master the material, he or she would put forth the effort to earn a real doctorate.
Every time I talk with anybody at any other university, they typically refer to the College of Education and its denizens as "those idiots in Education" or words to that effect. The universal opinion of academics is that holders of EdDs are idiots. Graduate education programs turn out hordes of incompetents who then pollute the undergraduate education programs throughout the nation. It's sad that the individuals who should be most concerned with education actually know the least about the topic. Instead, they spend their time featherbedding their courses with form over substance. They tell my students that, when writing a research paper, "a little plagiarism is alright." Thus, the entire educational system in this country is being rotted from within.
The cold hard fact is that you, Dr. X, and your degree, are a joke. Even the people in Anthropology and American Studies think you're a joke. Perhaps you realize that everybody thinks you're an idiot. Perhaps that's why you insist that everybody always call you "Dr. X." Even among colleagues who call each other by their first names, you steadfastly refer to everybody as "doctor" expecting to receive the same appellation in return. You introduce yourself at parties and other gatherings as "Dr. X." This would be pathetic and needy if not for the cold hard fact that you are an insufferable bore.
Dr. X, you're an idiot.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Teaching Our Kids to be Idiots
The Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, is taking her traveling snake-oil show on the road to sell the American public on “No Child Left Behind” if Congress doesn’t act soon to reauthorize this abysmal failure. While the whole idea behind NCLB is laudable – holding failing schools accountable for short-changing our children – the actual result of the policy has made education, if anything, worse.
One of the problems behind NCLB is that states set their own criteria for success. While this is better than arbitrary national standards which are too inflexible to take into account local differences and needs, the state standards are just as inflexible and often absurdly low. For example, the school in which my wife teaches serves an increasing number of Hispanic students, many of whom don’t yet speak or write English. These kids have to take exactly the same tests as the English-speaking kids. I am definitely not in favor of bilingual education, but when a kid comes into the school with no background in English, and two weeks later he or she has to take a standardized test, nobody’s interests are being served. In addition, in the Tuscaloosa (AL) City School system, in an effort to cut costs, special needs kids have been moved into the regular schools. A sixth grader who reads at the first-grade level is not served by taking a standardized test tailored for sixth graders.
In high school, the problem with NCLB is far worse. At this level, students are expected to perform at a certain level on standardized tests in various subjects. These are usually called “Exit Exams.” Students have their entire high school career to pass these tests. According to a report by the Center on Education Policy entitled “Choices, Changes, and Challenges: Curriculum and Instruction in the NCLB Era,” (http://www.cep-dc.org/_data/n_0001/resources/live/07107%20Curriculum-WEB%20FINAL%207%2031%2007.pdf ) over 80% of the schools reporting stated that they had changed the curriculum “to put greater emphasis on tested content.” That is, they are teaching to the test. There is no pedagogical theory to justify this – actually, the opposite is true.
Once they’ve passed a test in a given subject, students are home free. The result of this absurd system is that high school teachers spend four years teaching to the tests. Students are expected to memorize a list of factoids. To ensure that they will pass these tests, their entire day is spent going over and over these factoids. (See Richard Garlikov’s argument at http://www.garlikov.com/teaching/exitexam.htm#text1). Any activity that does not contribute to this memorization is abandoned. Thus, schools are dropping art, music, and foreign languages at least in part because there are not exit exams in these subjects and because school districts don’t want to spend money on these “unnecessary” courses (for example, see, “A Retreat from Foreign Languages?” by Patrik Jonsson in The Christian Science Monitor, 29 October 2002).
By the time these kids graduate from high school, they know everything on these exit exams. Of course, if they passed the test in 10th grade, they’ve forgotten most of it. However, they do not know how to read or think for themselves. This point was brought staggeringly home to me the other day when nobody in my Western Civ class knew the three inalienable rights contained in the Declaration of Independence – even after I’d spotted them “life.” Upon further questioning, this was not part of their history exit exam in 10th grade.
An entire generation is being ruined by NCLB. Because students are taught simply to pass a multiple choice test, they are not taught to think or to reason. They are simply taught to do what they are supposed to do. This is inherently authoritarian. More to the point, when they come to college, they are singularly unprepared for the rigors of college education. My colleagues at the university where I teach, as well as those I know who teach at other institutions, have noticed a precipitate decline over the last two years in the ability of our students to do college work – these are the first students to graduate after four years in high school under NCLB. They can’t read and they surely can’t think.
There are many groups responsible for this failure. One obvious group is the teachers who go along with this educational charade. But, to be fair, they risk loosing their jobs if they have the temerity to try to enrich their students’ education beyond the simplistic tests used to measure the success or failure of NCLB programs.
Teachers’ unions are more culpable. I’m not anti-union by any stretch of the imagination (as evidenced by the numerous arguments I’ve had with my father on this one), but teachers’ unions have a duty to protect the educational integrity of the classroom, not just make sure teachers get raises (which most of them do deserve). Very simply, teachers’ unions have a moral duty to ensure all of our students are educated, but often fail (see former Secretary of Education Rod Paige’s op-ed piece in Business Week “The Debate Room” on 9 August 2007 where he writes, “But the brutal fact we must recognize is that there is a tremendous difference between the desires of the teachers and the desires of the union. Teachers’ unions have little or zero incentive to change. Their power and desire for control make it unlikely they will back even the most moderate efforts to bring accountability and results to our schools”).
School boards, both state and local, must shoulder a great deal of the blame for the idiocy of NCLB. The state school board mandates the benchmarks for success under NCLB. Often, these are absurdly low (like leaving out the US Declaration of Independence). For another example, according to an article in the Reno Gazette Journal by Ray Hager on September 27, 2002, Nevada high schoolers could pass the reading comprehension portion of their exit exam by reading at the fourth to eighth grade levels.
Then, the school boards bombard the schools with literally tons of paperwork to prove the teachers are doing what some bureaucrat decided they should be doing in the classroom. More time is spent filling out this paperwork than in actually teaching. The benchmarks for success are most often determined by multiple-guess tests. To ensure that the students are prepared to pass the test (not actually knowing anything, just able to pass the test), the local school boards spend thousands of dollars to buy computer programs to teach the teachers how to teach to the test. The perfidy of this situation should make you want to vomit.
Colleges of Education also must accept a significant share of the blame for the complete misery caused by NCLB. These faculty, theoretically, should know and understand the value of education as a means of preparing all students to lead productive and fulfilled lives as good citizens. Instead, all too often, they are more concerned with maintaining the status quo and perpetuating their standing as educational mandarins. My good friend over at http://politicalman.blog-city.com has referred to the “Iron Triangle” of Colleges of Education, teachers’ unions, and school boards working together to ensure an unchanging mortal lock on education; broaching no interference from outside sources – like parents.
But it’s parents who must shoulder most of the blame for the failures of education in general and for NCLB in particular. Too many parents look at K-12 education as simply baby sitting (if teachers were paid the same as babysitters, they would make a small fortune). Their total involvement in their children’s education involves asking them if they’ve finished their homework and voting against school taxes that might adequately fund the local schools. By their actions (or inactions), parents tell their children that education is unimportant and what they do in the classroom has no real bearing on their lives. I believe most parents want their children to have a better life than they did, but they refuse to see that education is the key. Apparently, they believe that the teachers have some magic wand to open their kids’ heads and dump in the smartness. It is every parent’s responsibility to be actively involved in their kid’s education. This means reading their homework, going to PTA meetings, and, when necessary, questioning what their kids are taught in school. If their kids are being taught the same material for years, they are the ones who are going to have to stop it. If their kids are not prepared for college, or, more importantly, not prepared for a cultural and political life in the US, they have to take the initiative to stop it. Because the teachers, the unions, the school boards, and the Colleges of Education are not going to alter the situation. There have been many articles written on the importance of parental involvement for improving children’s lives, but one of the best is by Dr. Karin Suesser at http://www.momscape.com/articles/school-success.htm
Active involvement by parents in the education of their children is the best solution to the problem of failing education in this country. Another solution is programs of reading and writing across the curriculum. Instead of wasting time teaching students how to simply regurgitate what they were told to say on a multiple-guess test, reading and writing exercises actually teach students the all-important abilities to reason and to think critically and independently. All courses can easily incorporate reading and writing as part of their teaching. A former student of mine uses reading and writing to teach math at the high school level. I’ve had the pleasure to teach two of his students at my university. They were, naturally, two of the brightest and most inquisitive students it’s been my pleasure to teach. See the essay, by Alice S. Horning “Reading Across the Curriculum as the Key to Student Success” Across the Disciplines, 4 (14 May 2007) http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/articles/horning2007.cfm
Essentially, it comes down to will. Do parents have the will to take an active role in the education of their children? Does the “Iron Triangle” have the will to prepare adequately their pupils to be active citizens?
This last question may be the most important, because, ultimately, poorly educated students become poor citizens. They can’t think for themselves and they lack critical reasoning skills. NCLB teaches them simply to go along, unquestioningly and uncaringly with what they are told. They become drones who can be easily manipulated by political, cultural, and spiritual leaders to believe anything these powers want them to believe. Instead of being ruled by reason and their intellect, they are manipulateable and malleable. They can, and do, support anybody and anything in which they believe rather than know. They are the perfect generation for authoritarian leaders.
We’re idiots if we don’t change this.
One of the problems behind NCLB is that states set their own criteria for success. While this is better than arbitrary national standards which are too inflexible to take into account local differences and needs, the state standards are just as inflexible and often absurdly low. For example, the school in which my wife teaches serves an increasing number of Hispanic students, many of whom don’t yet speak or write English. These kids have to take exactly the same tests as the English-speaking kids. I am definitely not in favor of bilingual education, but when a kid comes into the school with no background in English, and two weeks later he or she has to take a standardized test, nobody’s interests are being served. In addition, in the Tuscaloosa (AL) City School system, in an effort to cut costs, special needs kids have been moved into the regular schools. A sixth grader who reads at the first-grade level is not served by taking a standardized test tailored for sixth graders.
In high school, the problem with NCLB is far worse. At this level, students are expected to perform at a certain level on standardized tests in various subjects. These are usually called “Exit Exams.” Students have their entire high school career to pass these tests. According to a report by the Center on Education Policy entitled “Choices, Changes, and Challenges: Curriculum and Instruction in the NCLB Era,” (http://www.cep-dc.org/_data/n_0001/resources/live/07107%20Curriculum-WEB%20FINAL%207%2031%2007.pdf ) over 80% of the schools reporting stated that they had changed the curriculum “to put greater emphasis on tested content.” That is, they are teaching to the test. There is no pedagogical theory to justify this – actually, the opposite is true.
Once they’ve passed a test in a given subject, students are home free. The result of this absurd system is that high school teachers spend four years teaching to the tests. Students are expected to memorize a list of factoids. To ensure that they will pass these tests, their entire day is spent going over and over these factoids. (See Richard Garlikov’s argument at http://www.garlikov.com/teaching/exitexam.htm#text1). Any activity that does not contribute to this memorization is abandoned. Thus, schools are dropping art, music, and foreign languages at least in part because there are not exit exams in these subjects and because school districts don’t want to spend money on these “unnecessary” courses (for example, see, “A Retreat from Foreign Languages?” by Patrik Jonsson in The Christian Science Monitor, 29 October 2002).
By the time these kids graduate from high school, they know everything on these exit exams. Of course, if they passed the test in 10th grade, they’ve forgotten most of it. However, they do not know how to read or think for themselves. This point was brought staggeringly home to me the other day when nobody in my Western Civ class knew the three inalienable rights contained in the Declaration of Independence – even after I’d spotted them “life.” Upon further questioning, this was not part of their history exit exam in 10th grade.
An entire generation is being ruined by NCLB. Because students are taught simply to pass a multiple choice test, they are not taught to think or to reason. They are simply taught to do what they are supposed to do. This is inherently authoritarian. More to the point, when they come to college, they are singularly unprepared for the rigors of college education. My colleagues at the university where I teach, as well as those I know who teach at other institutions, have noticed a precipitate decline over the last two years in the ability of our students to do college work – these are the first students to graduate after four years in high school under NCLB. They can’t read and they surely can’t think.
There are many groups responsible for this failure. One obvious group is the teachers who go along with this educational charade. But, to be fair, they risk loosing their jobs if they have the temerity to try to enrich their students’ education beyond the simplistic tests used to measure the success or failure of NCLB programs.
Teachers’ unions are more culpable. I’m not anti-union by any stretch of the imagination (as evidenced by the numerous arguments I’ve had with my father on this one), but teachers’ unions have a duty to protect the educational integrity of the classroom, not just make sure teachers get raises (which most of them do deserve). Very simply, teachers’ unions have a moral duty to ensure all of our students are educated, but often fail (see former Secretary of Education Rod Paige’s op-ed piece in Business Week “The Debate Room” on 9 August 2007 where he writes, “But the brutal fact we must recognize is that there is a tremendous difference between the desires of the teachers and the desires of the union. Teachers’ unions have little or zero incentive to change. Their power and desire for control make it unlikely they will back even the most moderate efforts to bring accountability and results to our schools”).
School boards, both state and local, must shoulder a great deal of the blame for the idiocy of NCLB. The state school board mandates the benchmarks for success under NCLB. Often, these are absurdly low (like leaving out the US Declaration of Independence). For another example, according to an article in the Reno Gazette Journal by Ray Hager on September 27, 2002, Nevada high schoolers could pass the reading comprehension portion of their exit exam by reading at the fourth to eighth grade levels.
Then, the school boards bombard the schools with literally tons of paperwork to prove the teachers are doing what some bureaucrat decided they should be doing in the classroom. More time is spent filling out this paperwork than in actually teaching. The benchmarks for success are most often determined by multiple-guess tests. To ensure that the students are prepared to pass the test (not actually knowing anything, just able to pass the test), the local school boards spend thousands of dollars to buy computer programs to teach the teachers how to teach to the test. The perfidy of this situation should make you want to vomit.
Colleges of Education also must accept a significant share of the blame for the complete misery caused by NCLB. These faculty, theoretically, should know and understand the value of education as a means of preparing all students to lead productive and fulfilled lives as good citizens. Instead, all too often, they are more concerned with maintaining the status quo and perpetuating their standing as educational mandarins. My good friend over at http://politicalman.blog-city.com has referred to the “Iron Triangle” of Colleges of Education, teachers’ unions, and school boards working together to ensure an unchanging mortal lock on education; broaching no interference from outside sources – like parents.
But it’s parents who must shoulder most of the blame for the failures of education in general and for NCLB in particular. Too many parents look at K-12 education as simply baby sitting (if teachers were paid the same as babysitters, they would make a small fortune). Their total involvement in their children’s education involves asking them if they’ve finished their homework and voting against school taxes that might adequately fund the local schools. By their actions (or inactions), parents tell their children that education is unimportant and what they do in the classroom has no real bearing on their lives. I believe most parents want their children to have a better life than they did, but they refuse to see that education is the key. Apparently, they believe that the teachers have some magic wand to open their kids’ heads and dump in the smartness. It is every parent’s responsibility to be actively involved in their kid’s education. This means reading their homework, going to PTA meetings, and, when necessary, questioning what their kids are taught in school. If their kids are being taught the same material for years, they are the ones who are going to have to stop it. If their kids are not prepared for college, or, more importantly, not prepared for a cultural and political life in the US, they have to take the initiative to stop it. Because the teachers, the unions, the school boards, and the Colleges of Education are not going to alter the situation. There have been many articles written on the importance of parental involvement for improving children’s lives, but one of the best is by Dr. Karin Suesser at http://www.momscape.com/articles/school-success.htm
Active involvement by parents in the education of their children is the best solution to the problem of failing education in this country. Another solution is programs of reading and writing across the curriculum. Instead of wasting time teaching students how to simply regurgitate what they were told to say on a multiple-guess test, reading and writing exercises actually teach students the all-important abilities to reason and to think critically and independently. All courses can easily incorporate reading and writing as part of their teaching. A former student of mine uses reading and writing to teach math at the high school level. I’ve had the pleasure to teach two of his students at my university. They were, naturally, two of the brightest and most inquisitive students it’s been my pleasure to teach. See the essay, by Alice S. Horning “Reading Across the Curriculum as the Key to Student Success” Across the Disciplines, 4 (14 May 2007) http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/articles/horning2007.cfm
Essentially, it comes down to will. Do parents have the will to take an active role in the education of their children? Does the “Iron Triangle” have the will to prepare adequately their pupils to be active citizens?
This last question may be the most important, because, ultimately, poorly educated students become poor citizens. They can’t think for themselves and they lack critical reasoning skills. NCLB teaches them simply to go along, unquestioningly and uncaringly with what they are told. They become drones who can be easily manipulated by political, cultural, and spiritual leaders to believe anything these powers want them to believe. Instead of being ruled by reason and their intellect, they are manipulateable and malleable. They can, and do, support anybody and anything in which they believe rather than know. They are the perfect generation for authoritarian leaders.
We’re idiots if we don’t change this.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Learning for Idiots: The Sham of Online Education
The 21 January 2008 edition of _U.S. News & World Report_ contains glowing, uncritical articles about the glories of an online college education. Gone are the days when only diploma mills like University of Phoenix (which proudly advertises that it is "`customer-oriented'"), ITT Tech, Nova, and others provided meaningless courses and degrees. Now, even established universities have succumbed to the allure of easy money from idiots seeking a golden ticket to fame and fortune.
The purpose of a college education is to gain a better life. Anybody who tells you that you go to college to get a job is either a sociopath or a liar trying to steal your money. As the numbers of students entering college began to decline and, for state universities, as state governments started cutting back on funding for higher education, to make up for declining funds, universities started marketing themselves to prospective students. Instead of focusing on what universities have always done -- preparing the next generation through helping them develop critical reasoning skills -- universities started lying to prospective students telling them they would get a good job by coming to their school. This marketing approach to education has only worsened and become more absurd with online education. The result is a sick miasma called "Student Consumerism."
Presciently, in 1997, George Cheney, Jill J. McMillan, and Roy Schwartzman, in "Should We Buy the `Student-as-Consumer' Metaphor?" in _The Montana Professor_ addressed the pitfalls of student consumerism and pointed out the problems with the commodification of higher education. While their article pertains to "bricks-and-mortar" classrooms, their argument applies, perhaps better, to the online experience. Three of their points fit particularly well to online education:
"the student-as-consumer metaphor actually distances students from the very educational process which is supposed to engage them"
On-line education both literally and figuratively distances students from the educational process. Obviously, there is no physical, human contact between the teacher and the students and none among the students. There is no spontaneous interaction, no nurturing, and no growth by both the students and the teacher, which is, in its truest sense, a symbiotic relationship. Secondly, reducing the process of education to simply a way of achieving a degree or a job perverts the entire purpose of education, to improve the lives of everybody involved.
"the provision of momentary customer satisfaction should not be confused with providing a high-quality educational experience or with ongoing educational improvement"
The entire point of online education is near immediate gratification. There is no desire to learn, simply to get through the course as soon and painlessly as possible to get the degree. Once the degree is acquired, the presumed raise or improvement in status will probably not be forthcoming. Talk about buyer's remorse. They have a meaningless degree, and their lives have not been improved one jot. They are made to feel like idiots.
"much can be lost in the translation of contemporary business-management fads to the experiences of higher education"
This is perhaps their most salient (unintended) argument against online education. The understood purpose of online education is to get a job. Students buy an online education. But, as the authors of this article rightly note, "Education, by contrast, is process oriented in that it ideally seeks to train people to continue to educate themselves." To put this another way, the purpose of a college education is not to get a job, the purpose of higher education is to "learn how to learn." There are no standards. Online instructors are typically paid by how many students they have in their courses. If they challenge the student-consumer, he or she, seeking the path of least resistance, will take the intellectually vacuous course, simply to get the "A." Entire colleges and departments within universities have built up their student numbers with this method. The teacher with high standards is punished and the students are short-changed.
If you simply want the possibility of getting a job, then, by all means go to technical school. If, on the other hand, you want a better life, go to a university and actively participate in your own education.
Don't be an idiot.
The purpose of a college education is to gain a better life. Anybody who tells you that you go to college to get a job is either a sociopath or a liar trying to steal your money. As the numbers of students entering college began to decline and, for state universities, as state governments started cutting back on funding for higher education, to make up for declining funds, universities started marketing themselves to prospective students. Instead of focusing on what universities have always done -- preparing the next generation through helping them develop critical reasoning skills -- universities started lying to prospective students telling them they would get a good job by coming to their school. This marketing approach to education has only worsened and become more absurd with online education. The result is a sick miasma called "Student Consumerism."
Presciently, in 1997, George Cheney, Jill J. McMillan, and Roy Schwartzman, in "Should We Buy the `Student-as-Consumer' Metaphor?" in _The Montana Professor_ addressed the pitfalls of student consumerism and pointed out the problems with the commodification of higher education. While their article pertains to "bricks-and-mortar" classrooms, their argument applies, perhaps better, to the online experience. Three of their points fit particularly well to online education:
"the student-as-consumer metaphor actually distances students from the very educational process which is supposed to engage them"
On-line education both literally and figuratively distances students from the educational process. Obviously, there is no physical, human contact between the teacher and the students and none among the students. There is no spontaneous interaction, no nurturing, and no growth by both the students and the teacher, which is, in its truest sense, a symbiotic relationship. Secondly, reducing the process of education to simply a way of achieving a degree or a job perverts the entire purpose of education, to improve the lives of everybody involved.
"the provision of momentary customer satisfaction should not be confused with providing a high-quality educational experience or with ongoing educational improvement"
The entire point of online education is near immediate gratification. There is no desire to learn, simply to get through the course as soon and painlessly as possible to get the degree. Once the degree is acquired, the presumed raise or improvement in status will probably not be forthcoming. Talk about buyer's remorse. They have a meaningless degree, and their lives have not been improved one jot. They are made to feel like idiots.
"much can be lost in the translation of contemporary business-management fads to the experiences of higher education"
This is perhaps their most salient (unintended) argument against online education. The understood purpose of online education is to get a job. Students buy an online education. But, as the authors of this article rightly note, "Education, by contrast, is process oriented in that it ideally seeks to train people to continue to educate themselves." To put this another way, the purpose of a college education is not to get a job, the purpose of higher education is to "learn how to learn." There are no standards. Online instructors are typically paid by how many students they have in their courses. If they challenge the student-consumer, he or she, seeking the path of least resistance, will take the intellectually vacuous course, simply to get the "A." Entire colleges and departments within universities have built up their student numbers with this method. The teacher with high standards is punished and the students are short-changed.
If you simply want the possibility of getting a job, then, by all means go to technical school. If, on the other hand, you want a better life, go to a university and actively participate in your own education.
Don't be an idiot.
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