Education – Part III or so…
Sometime after he was elected President of the United States, George W. Bush enacted legislation that I believe constitutes the most overarching incursion into education that the United States has ever seen. NCLB – No Child Left Behind – has since influenced the educational landscape more than any other federal initiative with which I am familiar. So why isn’t George known as the “education President?”
Well, influential isn’t necessarily the same thing as supportive, effective, or energizing. NCLB has been the catalyst for some changes in education that will ultimately prove to be powerfully positive, I hypothesize, but the method and/or manner by which that ‘improvement’ has been coerced is appropriately considered dubious.
Here’s the biggest reason that NCLB and almost all of its subsequent implementations, on the national, state, and local level, reveal the stupidity of even some of the most educated and wise people in the business: when they went looking for a model for school improvement, the powers that be determined to use a business model – quality control – as the paradigm. Their thinking was that setting measurable standards, with reliable assessment mechanisms in place, would enable schools to identify the specific objectives, respond to performance gaps, and thereby prevent any and all children from falling behind as they wend their way through their public school years.
Sounds like a decent idea, right? Well, not really. I will tell why after one other major point. The other notable component of the proposed NCLB process was that systematic – read scientific – evaluations, adjustments, and safety nets would allow schools at the local level to implement correctives that would serve to ‘fix’ learning problems for individual students by resorting to identified ‘best practices,’ methods that have proven to be effective according to statistical analysis.
The problem with these two components is fairly simple: Schools are NOT businesses, and teaching is NOT a science. Having been in the education business for all of my adult life, and having often volunteered to utilize most of the school improvement initiatives that I have learned – at whatever point my district decided to promote them – I have concluded the opening statement to this paragraph in a certifiable truth.
The problem with the school as business model approach is that businesses have great control over the materials, approaches, and processes they use on their way to create whatever widget they are inclined to make. For the teacher, the collection of students assigned to him/her at any given point in time is not clearly controlled. Try this analogy. How effective can a manufacturing plant be if it has been contracted to make steel beams for a high rise without knowing the grade or quality of the raw metal ore that it will be using for the task?
The plant can test or diagnose the quality of the raw materials, and then determine the best process for creating the highest possible grade of steel. After all, the raw materials, once identified, aren’t going to change. Consequently, the most effective method for managing the classified raw material is going to be the same method employed the next time a batch of the same grade of material comes through the plant.
If you have been following the analogy, you already know where I am going with this, but if you know nothing about the role of the teacher, I will try to complete the comparison.
I have had students walk into my classroom with identifiable strengths and weaknesses. In many cases, directed efforts to maximize strengths and improve or eliminate weaknesses have predictable effects. However, the student him/herself is constantly changing. While strengths tend to remain strengths over time, external forces ‘create’ weaknesses that were not diagnosed earlier because they weren’t there!
I will be specific. I had a student once whose most noticeable strength was his ability to retain information. He was highly organized, very focused, and predictably capable of working with a high volume of content (information.) Then he lost his father to a terrible accident, and his change in temperament culminated in his longtime girlfriend’s decision to end their relationship. The boy’s state of mind was enough to disrupt his skill set. For a protracted period of time, he lost his ability to manage information effectively.
I contend that while few students have to manage the death of a parent, the daily trials and tribulations of life for an adolescent or young adult exert similar influences and therefore, similar effects. A good teacher notices a problem, provides emotional support, and may even implement some different methods to address the problem. No best practice will take the place of an alert, compassionate, and resourceful teacher.
The point here is that teaching has never been a scientific enterprise, even though scientific principles are of great value to the classroom teacher. The raw materials are not static, and the most effective processes for dealing with that raw material are therefore not scientifically predictable. Furthermore, no development of a best practices arsenal will guarantee that a teacher will know when, where, or how to select the most effective method of dealing with a student’s individual problem. Quite simply, despite the higher level administration’s desire to make schools function as businesses do, and despite the school innovators’ desire to make teaching function as science does, the two fundamental principles of the NCLB movement are fallacies. It would be nice if the fallacies were viable truths, but they are not.
In case I have been guilty of being obtuser [sic] than I intended, I will try to make this as simple as possible. A student will never be analogous to a shipment of iron ore, the raw material most necessary to the creation of high quality steel. Each year the teachers of the world try to diagnose the relative strengths and weaknesses of the student assigned to them. While the teachers’ diagnoses may be accurate when they are conducted, the student, since he is chronically evolving, can’t possibly follow a predetermined learning curve. Yes, once the number crunchers input volumes of data, trends and predictable patterns become apparent. Despite the fact that students do follow significant growth patterns collectively, the premise of NCLB is that No child, not one, will be left behind. If the reader has noted the analogy drawn through the last few paragraphs, s/he knows that there is going to be some behind leaving.
If the preceding paragraph didn’t make sense to you, I will try one other approach. If my class of thirty shows a predictable improvement in skill development or knowledge acquisition during the course of a year, that trend or general truth does not guarantee that one or two of the students will be on the same pace. In short, good scores by the mass of students will disguise the reported difficulties of the few who are not making gains. Therefore, so long as the testing mechanism or the benchmark for efficacy of various methods of instruction is determined by global statistical analysis, the process of “sciencizing” teaching is destined to fail.
Now, the gurus will tell the unsuspecting school administrators that ‘their’ program will create a series of safety nets, all scientifically tested and proven, that will ‘guarantee’ that a student who doesn’t benefit from intervention one will undoubtedly be corrected by intervention two, or by intervention three. The gurus are lying, and they know it. They are in the business of selling their programs. The districts who buy it are then trained in how to sell the same program, using the same fallacious reasoning employed by the consultants and gurus, with the promise that this program will help the administrators to create or develop ‘high performing’ or cutting edge schools.
The really insidious thing about the gurus’ collective programs is that they really are generally good ideas. The problem is rarely with the program itself. These guys have done their doctorates, and engaged in educational testing, and they are correct – usually – in selecting ideas that are viable and noteworthy. What the gurus and the district personnel never seem to consider is that EDUCATION CAN’T FUNCTION LIKE A BUSINESS, and TEACHING IS NOT A SCIENCE.
I taught high school English for more than twenty years, and I would like to think that I was an effective teacher. However, by the time I hit my tenth year or so, I happened upon a realization: For three or so of the twenty-some students enrolled in each section of my classes, I was an ideal teacher. No matter what I did, we clicked, the students learned, and I learned to love those students who validated my efforts. I also realized that for three or four of the students in each section, I was the least likely to be effective teacher. Nothing I could do, no best practice, was going to circumvent the fact that my technique, my personality, my approach, my person - all of these things - were barriers to the education of those three students. Therefore, I had little control over the success of six out of twenty-four or more students. The remaining eighteen were neither resistant to my efforts, nor inclined to benefit. In their cases, my effective deployment of best practices was the difference between educational success and failure. So the current trend is statistically defensible. Teachers should do the things that statistically stand to be effective for the majority of the students.
But I spent my last five years in the classroom experimenting with adjustments that might help me to reach the students who were disinclined to benefit from a year of instruction with me. I think I made some headway, but none of the practices that I adopted are significant components of any of the materials I have read. The reason is that my adjustments were all designed to deal with the identified personality conflict, the most consistently detrimental aspect to the education of those three or four students in each class.
For instance, adjustment number one was to interact in a positive way with any student I could identify as resistant to my natural approach. For some students, it was as simple of a gesture as saying ‘hello’ each day when they walked in the classroom. For those students who seemed to be put off by these exchanges of pleasantries, I would try to refer, without mentioning the name of the student, to a valuable idea, contribution, or response that the student had provided in recent classes. If neither of these approaches seemed to be productive, I might provide a positive evaluative comment for a parent on the interactive grade book on the website created to enhance parental communication. Finally, in some cases, I might add an encouraging comment on a graded assignment. In short, all of these efforts were designed to circumvent that my teaching persona never really came off as warm and fuzzy, and my lack of warm and fuzzy was a critical detriment to some of my students.
To be entirely truthful, I don’t know that any of these practices paid off. What I do know is that I was usually able to reduce the perceived animosity that the student felt toward me. If my teacher’s intuition was accurate, the student then had some energy left to direct toward English class. I should note here that those efforts mentioned immediately above are not innovative, and they are included as ‘best practices’ for teachers in general. The part that I like to think was different is that I particularly dedicated those efforts to the students I thought were reluctant to benefit from having me as an English teacher.
I should also add that in some cases, any effort I made seemed to antagonize the student, and I usually resigned myself to using one of the conventional interventions suggested by the gurus. I am happy to say that they were often effective.
So what’s the real lesson to be learned from my experiences? I think teachers, if the goal is to reform schools and learning, need to focus on the human side of the teaching/learning mechanism. The teacher can have an arsenal of best practices, and really truly know how to use them, but if s/he ignores the personal dimension, students will be left behind. It won’t really be the teacher’s fault, since the source of the barrier to education has little to do with methodology, curriculum, experience, expertise, or anything other than a globally human condition. Sometimes people don’t like other people, and sometimes those unlikeable people are charged with teaching the other person. There is a truth that will stick around and which will be true no matter which program your school district buys.
So ‘best practices’ are significant, but they DO NOT answer all questions, or even pretend to.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Teaching 101.5
Teaching 101.5
I had a conversation with a new teacher to whom I was offering some advice during his first week of teaching. [This teacher was thrust into service, as many new teachers are, without a great ‘feel’ for what goes on in high school. Yes, he had had his student teaching experience, and he had had his orientation, and he had had his appropriate dose of mentoring, but ‘feel’ cannot be packaged and bestowed upon the neophyte.] While trying to motivate his tenth graders to work on their writing, I suggested that he may want to do some of the same assignments he gives to his students. I proposed that modeling the process might give him a forum for explaining to students how he made some of his writing decisions and presentation choices.
After giving the advice, I thought that I should probably practice what I preach. Though I have regularly written with my students, and though I have found it to be a great method for fostering discussion of what constitutes good writing, I realized that I hadn’t employed the techniques in some time. As a result, I have created the following personal essay, and I think it complements some of the other pieces already composed.
And so, after a lengthy introduction, here is the subject worth considering and writing about: do we make an honest attempt to practice what we preach? As a long-time teacher, I am often telling students to do things a certain way, or to think about things as I say. Do I successfully demonstrate those same principles as often as possible? I try. In fact, after reflection, I think I try pretty hard, and that I often succeed in following most of my own advice. The connection here to the larger topic is that people, teachers included, often undermine their own efforts by demonstrating hypocrisy. This reluctance to do as they instruct is a prime example.
For instance, I tell students that attendance is critical. Like the Denver Broncos and the Buffalo Bills in the late 80’s and 90’s, I always show up. I don’t always win, but I have a pretty good track record for staying in the game. In checking my number of accumulated sick days, I find that I have missed fewer than two days per year throughout my career. Considering that I missed multiple days when my kids were being born, I would calculate that most years I miss one day or fewer.
I also tell kids that if they are going to do something, they should do the absolute best they can. In other words, regardless of the evaluative grade given by some outside source, the measuring stick for achievement is always relative to what a student could have done on his best day. If the effort has been there,days as far as ultimate performance is concerned, but I do manage to give a good effort a high percentage of the time.
So, do I generally live up to my own commandments? I try, and I think I often succeed. However, I also tell kids to set their goals high, and then exceed them, and I don’t know that I have stayed true to that. Life sometimes gets in the way. Yet I will maintain that I am rarely satisfied unless achievement exceeds expectations. Of course, that just makes me a grouchy old man.
Practice what I preach? I’ll keep on trying.
I had a conversation with a new teacher to whom I was offering some advice during his first week of teaching. [This teacher was thrust into service, as many new teachers are, without a great ‘feel’ for what goes on in high school. Yes, he had had his student teaching experience, and he had had his orientation, and he had had his appropriate dose of mentoring, but ‘feel’ cannot be packaged and bestowed upon the neophyte.] While trying to motivate his tenth graders to work on their writing, I suggested that he may want to do some of the same assignments he gives to his students. I proposed that modeling the process might give him a forum for explaining to students how he made some of his writing decisions and presentation choices.
After giving the advice, I thought that I should probably practice what I preach. Though I have regularly written with my students, and though I have found it to be a great method for fostering discussion of what constitutes good writing, I realized that I hadn’t employed the techniques in some time. As a result, I have created the following personal essay, and I think it complements some of the other pieces already composed.
And so, after a lengthy introduction, here is the subject worth considering and writing about: do we make an honest attempt to practice what we preach? As a long-time teacher, I am often telling students to do things a certain way, or to think about things as I say. Do I successfully demonstrate those same principles as often as possible? I try. In fact, after reflection, I think I try pretty hard, and that I often succeed in following most of my own advice. The connection here to the larger topic is that people, teachers included, often undermine their own efforts by demonstrating hypocrisy. This reluctance to do as they instruct is a prime example.
For instance, I tell students that attendance is critical. Like the Denver Broncos and the Buffalo Bills in the late 80’s and 90’s, I always show up. I don’t always win, but I have a pretty good track record for staying in the game. In checking my number of accumulated sick days, I find that I have missed fewer than two days per year throughout my career. Considering that I missed multiple days when my kids were being born, I would calculate that most years I miss one day or fewer.
I also tell kids that if they are going to do something, they should do the absolute best they can. In other words, regardless of the evaluative grade given by some outside source, the measuring stick for achievement is always relative to what a student could have done on his best day. If the effort has been there,days as far as ultimate performance is concerned, but I do manage to give a good effort a high percentage of the time.
So, do I generally live up to my own commandments? I try, and I think I often succeed. However, I also tell kids to set their goals high, and then exceed them, and I don’t know that I have stayed true to that. Life sometimes gets in the way. Yet I will maintain that I am rarely satisfied unless achievement exceeds expectations. Of course, that just makes me a grouchy old man.
Practice what I preach? I’ll keep on trying.
Education Foray 2
Education Foray 2
The following will attempt to elaborate further on a concept mentioned in the first installment on Education. That concept is somewhat damning of the educational establishment. Prevalent attitudes displayed by school personnel suggest a level of stupidity even among the highly educated. What I am referencing here is the educators’ ability to misconstrue academic rigor.
Perhaps one example will suffice. For years, teachers have heard about the importance of writing, in all disciplines, for all students. Many teachers have responded by trying to find ways for students to write MORE. I believe, however, after 20+ years as an English teacher, that writing is more like riding a bike.
Learners do need to write, and they do need to practice, but they really need to learn how to write well ONE TIME! My point is that volumes of poor writing don’t automatically lead to a higher performance, the same way that sitting on a bike for hours on end won’t naturally lead to quality riding. To be sure, practice will definitely help, but the practice should be more for the sake of practice than for the sake of assessment. If a person has written ONE THING extremely well during young adulthood, he or she will be able to write well forever. Of course, after periods of inactivity, s/he may need to scrape away the rust and regain the balance with a little bit of practice.
The preceding example may not seem to jibe with well-indoctrinated attitudes toward writing. Yet I will maintain that the students that I have taught have made their writing progress in big steps. The progress may have been facilitated by the multitudinous practice sessions, but when they ‘get it,’ the quality of the writing is altered forever. Therefore, my only conclusion is that the acquisition of quality writing skills comes in little epiphanies, which, after concerted practice, develop into observable huge improvements.
Take this for an example. A student, by accident, by trial and error, or by recognition in models, ‘sees’ a quality that he recognizes as valuable. Let’s just say that he decides that precise vocabulary makes his writing better. He then uses that particular method often and progressively more effectively, until one day his writing is enhanced by the perceptive use of that technique. This would correspond directly to the BIG STEP mentioned earlier. The improvement began when the student tried to adopt the desirable trait, but the noticeable improvement didn’t come until the student had had enough practice to use the approach well.
To be honest, I think that most learning works in this way. “Getting it” is the first step, and then practicing it until mastery is the next phase. Any student who has truly grasped the value of the appositive, or of the parallel element, will continue to use the technique, because it works. Therefore, the volume of writing assignments is NOT the critical issue. Presenting the material in such a way that the individual understands and is prompted to use the technique is the critical component.
This misunderstanding of the elements of academic rigor is the core of this discussion. Teachers are driven at times to justify their value by demanding rigorous performances from their students. The stupid part materializes when the teacher or administrator misconstrues the method by which rigor is measured. Which of the following describes a rigorous activity: a student composes a series of journal entries in response to three reading assignments; OR a student writes three pages of analysis that must demonstrate points of relevance among three different novels. In each case, the student will read three novels. In case number one, the teacher might require a one page journal entry for each chapter of a book. The student will cumulatively compose thirty or more pages of journal entries. In the other case, the student needs to write three pages. How could the second approach be the more rigorous one?
The answer is again simple. If the three pages of analysis require, via a rubric, a level of thinking and communicating that demonstrates higher level thinking skills, then three pages of meat is infinitely more rigorous than thirty pages of cotton candy. Perhaps that is a weak analogy, but I think I’ve made my point.
Maybe I can make a more visceral mechanical analogy. The journal assignment is analogous to asking a person to cover thirty miles in thirty days, with no demands on the elapsed time of each running session. Therefore, the student could complete his thirty miles by walking. At the end of the sessions, s/he might be in somewhat better shape than s/he would without the exercise, The three page analysis is then comparable to having the student run three miles in less than twenty minutes. S/he cannot meet the requirement, three miles in a limited time, without having done some preparation that requires sustained intensity. Walking a mile a day, for thirty days, is not as hard as training to run three miles in less than twenty minutes.
I think many teachers apply this misconception to their classroom practices. They assign thirty minutes of homework instead of fifteen, citing increased rigor as their aim. Or they require three projects when one will do. The level of required investment should be the measuring stick for academic rigor, not the number of minutes invested, not the number of pages read or composed.
In another manifestation of the disease, some teachers seem to believe that they need to have lower grades to ‘prove’ that they are challenging their students. That is absolute hogwash. All I would need to do to deflate the grades of my Honors English students over the years is to construct poor tests. I could ask questions that I knew I hadn’t covered well, or phrase questions in such a way as to promote confusion. Grades are also reflections of how well a subject is taught, how appropriately the material has been chosen for the course, and how well the test measures the skills and knowledge of the students. In other words, the grades themselves mean nothing.
I always thought that my grades should be skewed to the high end of the bell curve. If natural capacity can be represented by the bell curve, then the signal for the teacher’s contribution would be in moving all of his students up a standard deviation. Try to hang in with this. If the bell curve represents how the grades will be distributed naturally, then the teacher’s goal should be to improve upon that. Otherwise, the teacher is rendered inconsequential. The students arrive, the lessons are presented, and the grades are assigned. We all know that we have on occasion risen ABOVE our natural ability. Shouldn’t that be what the teacher is all about – giving students the tools and resources necessary to rise above their limitations?
In closing, I don’t want to give the impression that the other side of the coin is the answer. If teachers can create tests that encourage their students to score poorly, they can also create tests that inflate grades way out of proportion. The grades themselves are not the aim. Determining legitimate objectives, then devising methods by which all of the students will meet those objectives, is the aim. The grades that students earn are also grades that teachers earn.
The following will attempt to elaborate further on a concept mentioned in the first installment on Education. That concept is somewhat damning of the educational establishment. Prevalent attitudes displayed by school personnel suggest a level of stupidity even among the highly educated. What I am referencing here is the educators’ ability to misconstrue academic rigor.
Perhaps one example will suffice. For years, teachers have heard about the importance of writing, in all disciplines, for all students. Many teachers have responded by trying to find ways for students to write MORE. I believe, however, after 20+ years as an English teacher, that writing is more like riding a bike.
Learners do need to write, and they do need to practice, but they really need to learn how to write well ONE TIME! My point is that volumes of poor writing don’t automatically lead to a higher performance, the same way that sitting on a bike for hours on end won’t naturally lead to quality riding. To be sure, practice will definitely help, but the practice should be more for the sake of practice than for the sake of assessment. If a person has written ONE THING extremely well during young adulthood, he or she will be able to write well forever. Of course, after periods of inactivity, s/he may need to scrape away the rust and regain the balance with a little bit of practice.
The preceding example may not seem to jibe with well-indoctrinated attitudes toward writing. Yet I will maintain that the students that I have taught have made their writing progress in big steps. The progress may have been facilitated by the multitudinous practice sessions, but when they ‘get it,’ the quality of the writing is altered forever. Therefore, my only conclusion is that the acquisition of quality writing skills comes in little epiphanies, which, after concerted practice, develop into observable huge improvements.
Take this for an example. A student, by accident, by trial and error, or by recognition in models, ‘sees’ a quality that he recognizes as valuable. Let’s just say that he decides that precise vocabulary makes his writing better. He then uses that particular method often and progressively more effectively, until one day his writing is enhanced by the perceptive use of that technique. This would correspond directly to the BIG STEP mentioned earlier. The improvement began when the student tried to adopt the desirable trait, but the noticeable improvement didn’t come until the student had had enough practice to use the approach well.
To be honest, I think that most learning works in this way. “Getting it” is the first step, and then practicing it until mastery is the next phase. Any student who has truly grasped the value of the appositive, or of the parallel element, will continue to use the technique, because it works. Therefore, the volume of writing assignments is NOT the critical issue. Presenting the material in such a way that the individual understands and is prompted to use the technique is the critical component.
This misunderstanding of the elements of academic rigor is the core of this discussion. Teachers are driven at times to justify their value by demanding rigorous performances from their students. The stupid part materializes when the teacher or administrator misconstrues the method by which rigor is measured. Which of the following describes a rigorous activity: a student composes a series of journal entries in response to three reading assignments; OR a student writes three pages of analysis that must demonstrate points of relevance among three different novels. In each case, the student will read three novels. In case number one, the teacher might require a one page journal entry for each chapter of a book. The student will cumulatively compose thirty or more pages of journal entries. In the other case, the student needs to write three pages. How could the second approach be the more rigorous one?
The answer is again simple. If the three pages of analysis require, via a rubric, a level of thinking and communicating that demonstrates higher level thinking skills, then three pages of meat is infinitely more rigorous than thirty pages of cotton candy. Perhaps that is a weak analogy, but I think I’ve made my point.
Maybe I can make a more visceral mechanical analogy. The journal assignment is analogous to asking a person to cover thirty miles in thirty days, with no demands on the elapsed time of each running session. Therefore, the student could complete his thirty miles by walking. At the end of the sessions, s/he might be in somewhat better shape than s/he would without the exercise, The three page analysis is then comparable to having the student run three miles in less than twenty minutes. S/he cannot meet the requirement, three miles in a limited time, without having done some preparation that requires sustained intensity. Walking a mile a day, for thirty days, is not as hard as training to run three miles in less than twenty minutes.
I think many teachers apply this misconception to their classroom practices. They assign thirty minutes of homework instead of fifteen, citing increased rigor as their aim. Or they require three projects when one will do. The level of required investment should be the measuring stick for academic rigor, not the number of minutes invested, not the number of pages read or composed.
In another manifestation of the disease, some teachers seem to believe that they need to have lower grades to ‘prove’ that they are challenging their students. That is absolute hogwash. All I would need to do to deflate the grades of my Honors English students over the years is to construct poor tests. I could ask questions that I knew I hadn’t covered well, or phrase questions in such a way as to promote confusion. Grades are also reflections of how well a subject is taught, how appropriately the material has been chosen for the course, and how well the test measures the skills and knowledge of the students. In other words, the grades themselves mean nothing.
I always thought that my grades should be skewed to the high end of the bell curve. If natural capacity can be represented by the bell curve, then the signal for the teacher’s contribution would be in moving all of his students up a standard deviation. Try to hang in with this. If the bell curve represents how the grades will be distributed naturally, then the teacher’s goal should be to improve upon that. Otherwise, the teacher is rendered inconsequential. The students arrive, the lessons are presented, and the grades are assigned. We all know that we have on occasion risen ABOVE our natural ability. Shouldn’t that be what the teacher is all about – giving students the tools and resources necessary to rise above their limitations?
In closing, I don’t want to give the impression that the other side of the coin is the answer. If teachers can create tests that encourage their students to score poorly, they can also create tests that inflate grades way out of proportion. The grades themselves are not the aim. Determining legitimate objectives, then devising methods by which all of the students will meet those objectives, is the aim. The grades that students earn are also grades that teachers earn.
Education I
Education – Foray 1
In keeping with the general structure of these discussions so far, this installment will deal with our current American state of education in a more global way. Specifics will follow in later installments. However, the relevance of this topic to the title should be apparent. When it comes to education, almost everybody is stupid, at least for certain periods of time.
Now most people in America are in general consensus that the American educational system is in an awful state of disrepair. This consensus is accepted, despite the fact that it may not be true, and despite the fact that the whiners are the ones with the power to rectify the situation. Hmmm? What’s wrong with this overture? [I was going to use the hackneyed ‘what’s wrong with this picture,’ but ‘overture,’ in its musical context, is more appropriate.] The orchestra of stakeholders and constituents bemoan the current state of academic affairs, but they are really the ones who can make their local schools perform more effectively.
I will elaborate on this, but first I need to establish some important perspectives. If a coalition of people agree that the schools are the problem, and if the schools themselves agree to take some of the blame, (as they have by latching on to school improvement plans that hundreds of gurus use as mechanisms for the publication of articles, journals, and books on the subject,) then why haven’t any of the school improvement plans initiated a sustained, definitive wellspring of support - one that will continue to revolutionize the way that instruction is delivered, and skills and information acquired?
The answer is that the problem is not with the process, but with the clientele. Seriously, most school boards around the country are not being bombarded with stakeholders who are holding their feet to the fire to improve school performance. Most districts hold their board meetings in relative quiet and anonymity. Whether the perception is the truth does not matter; the fact that people don’t come to meetings to ask, implore, or beg for improvement speaks volumes.
MOST PEOPLE ARE HAPPY WITH THEIR SCHOOLS!
Think about that for one second. While most people agree that schools are failing the country and/or the state, few people believe that their own local school district is part of the problem. Remember the over-arching title of these discussions: Is Everybody Stupid! The preceding paragraph should answer the question.
Earlier, I made the comment that consensus says schools are failing, but those members of the consensus group, the group voice, are the very people who can spearhead systemic change. The real consensus is that the American educational system is underperforming, but MY SCHOOL isn’t part of the problem.
So why would most people count their own school systems as successful while simultaneously condemning the public school system in the whole. The answer is simple, and moves beyond the stupidity component. For people to recognize the problems with schools, they would also need to acknowledge the limitations and liabilities of their own children. What parents have really wanted from their local schools is a venue by which their sons and daughters can nominally qualify for the next level of education or training. They want their kids – on paper – to be accepted into college, or into the military, or into one of the many other higher education programs. They also want their children’s compilation of their educational resume to impose on their lives as little as possible. Therefore, educators are often inundated with helicopter parents who advocate for their children irrespective of ethics, morals, responsibilities, or justice. What too many parents want is the sheepskin, the report card, the SYMBOL of success. After all, if the sheepskin serves as a ticket to the next step, then the processes by which the person earned the ticket are meaningless.
So what’s the solution? Simply put, educators need to help the stakeholders be less stupid, or narrow-minded, or limited in regard to the components of a high school education. Schools need to develop ways to encourage students and their parents to EXPECT MORE from the SCHOOLS and from their CHILDREN. The skills and the information are the most important things, not the report cards and the honors and the distinctions. Quite clearly, the push has to be toward raising the aspirations of parents and students, and toward allowing teachers to demand quality from their charges. And teachers have to stop confusing volume or conformity with quality or academic rigor. The next installment on Education will address this issue more precisely.
In keeping with the general structure of these discussions so far, this installment will deal with our current American state of education in a more global way. Specifics will follow in later installments. However, the relevance of this topic to the title should be apparent. When it comes to education, almost everybody is stupid, at least for certain periods of time.
Now most people in America are in general consensus that the American educational system is in an awful state of disrepair. This consensus is accepted, despite the fact that it may not be true, and despite the fact that the whiners are the ones with the power to rectify the situation. Hmmm? What’s wrong with this overture? [I was going to use the hackneyed ‘what’s wrong with this picture,’ but ‘overture,’ in its musical context, is more appropriate.] The orchestra of stakeholders and constituents bemoan the current state of academic affairs, but they are really the ones who can make their local schools perform more effectively.
I will elaborate on this, but first I need to establish some important perspectives. If a coalition of people agree that the schools are the problem, and if the schools themselves agree to take some of the blame, (as they have by latching on to school improvement plans that hundreds of gurus use as mechanisms for the publication of articles, journals, and books on the subject,) then why haven’t any of the school improvement plans initiated a sustained, definitive wellspring of support - one that will continue to revolutionize the way that instruction is delivered, and skills and information acquired?
The answer is that the problem is not with the process, but with the clientele. Seriously, most school boards around the country are not being bombarded with stakeholders who are holding their feet to the fire to improve school performance. Most districts hold their board meetings in relative quiet and anonymity. Whether the perception is the truth does not matter; the fact that people don’t come to meetings to ask, implore, or beg for improvement speaks volumes.
MOST PEOPLE ARE HAPPY WITH THEIR SCHOOLS!
Think about that for one second. While most people agree that schools are failing the country and/or the state, few people believe that their own local school district is part of the problem. Remember the over-arching title of these discussions: Is Everybody Stupid! The preceding paragraph should answer the question.
Earlier, I made the comment that consensus says schools are failing, but those members of the consensus group, the group voice, are the very people who can spearhead systemic change. The real consensus is that the American educational system is underperforming, but MY SCHOOL isn’t part of the problem.
So why would most people count their own school systems as successful while simultaneously condemning the public school system in the whole. The answer is simple, and moves beyond the stupidity component. For people to recognize the problems with schools, they would also need to acknowledge the limitations and liabilities of their own children. What parents have really wanted from their local schools is a venue by which their sons and daughters can nominally qualify for the next level of education or training. They want their kids – on paper – to be accepted into college, or into the military, or into one of the many other higher education programs. They also want their children’s compilation of their educational resume to impose on their lives as little as possible. Therefore, educators are often inundated with helicopter parents who advocate for their children irrespective of ethics, morals, responsibilities, or justice. What too many parents want is the sheepskin, the report card, the SYMBOL of success. After all, if the sheepskin serves as a ticket to the next step, then the processes by which the person earned the ticket are meaningless.
So what’s the solution? Simply put, educators need to help the stakeholders be less stupid, or narrow-minded, or limited in regard to the components of a high school education. Schools need to develop ways to encourage students and their parents to EXPECT MORE from the SCHOOLS and from their CHILDREN. The skills and the information are the most important things, not the report cards and the honors and the distinctions. Quite clearly, the push has to be toward raising the aspirations of parents and students, and toward allowing teachers to demand quality from their charges. And teachers have to stop confusing volume or conformity with quality or academic rigor. The next installment on Education will address this issue more precisely.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Religion?
Is There Anybody Up There - Or At Least Within Shouting Distance?
Everyone knows the wise old advice never to discuss religion or politics in mixed company. Everyone also knows that the most enjoyable conversations you will ever have involve discussions of religion and politics in mixed company. Truths like these are part of the reason that human beings are prone to ignore all forms of advice, and even of wisdom. Furthermore, if any of this drivel sounds like wisdom to you, reread all of it again, skipping every fourth word. These thoughts are random observations reduced to simplest form, sort of like a math skill you worked on in fifth or sixth grade.
So we’ll start with the obvious. Virtually every great civilization has been built around human recognition of a higher force in the world. They have called the force by a plethora of names, and with a bevy of incarnations and imagined shapes. To my knowledge, however, God has never been named Hollingsworth, and he or she or it has never resembled a gas grill. Other than that, almost anything goes. Therefore, thus, and hence, there must be a god. The collective consciousness of millions and millions of people can’t all be wrong.
Perhaps this little analogy will work for you. Most of the people you run into in the literature field agree that Shakespeare was a great writer. Why should you or I tend to believe this? How could all those people be wrong? It’s as simple as that. If there is no God, then generations have been duped by an incredible far-reaching and well-orchestrated scam. What are the chances of this? Careful study of people reveals that you cannot randomly collect fifteen people who will agree on any one thing. Try it. Ask a group of fifteen people the color of the sky. We all know that it’s blue, but some one crazy in the group will undoubtedly call the sky azure, or gray, or some other shade that only women and gay men can distinguish. (I mean, what the hell are taupe, mauve, magenta, and fuchsia? If you know the answer to these questions, read the last sentence over again.) Yet that same group of people will probably concede the existence of some higher force in the world. (And by the way, I intend no offense to the gay men of the world. I merely have noted that many of them care about distinctions in color, and I personally don’t.)
So God isn’t dead, at least as far as I know. And though I can’t prove it, I’m more certain of this than the idea that the universe as we know it is some grand accident. We humans are compelled to procreate, to raise our young, to provide for families. Our ability to do so for a number of millennia is an accident?
On the other hand, we have earthworms. Earthworms are food, and aerators. They perform various other functions in the ground that help things to grow, which provides food for herbivores, and materials for building and clothing and so on. They are also still the best bait for catching sunfish, bass, catfish, and your little brother’s trousers.
So these things are true, more or less. But all around us, scientists, naturalists, biologists and the like, find unique harmony and equilibrium and symbiotic relationships between unrelated organisms. Are all these interrelationships incidental, or evolutionary? Is it possible that all of the organisms that didn’t perform some complementary function for another organism became extinct? If so, then where did all those now extinct organisms come from in the first place?
I suppose the simplest way to put it all is this: I am convinced that there is a God, in the most basic way, because the accident theory doesn’t ring true for me. Everywhere I look, accidents cause disorder, devastation, and destruction. Why on this humungous scale would an ancient cosmological accident result in order and interconnectedness? In the end, the accident theory just doesn’t make sense. Maybe there’s somebody out there who can give me a workable analogy to explain how this one giant mistake wrought such a beautiful world, but I doubt it.
So there is a God. If you choose not to believe, then you ought to come up with some workable theory besides the accident concept. If there is a God, or a higher power, then what is it, or he, or she? The only thing that makes sense to me is that God is the force that gives things life.
A human being is composed of all sorts of materials, and elements, and water, but should we dump these things in proper proportions into a giant tub, we would not generate life. So life is the thing, the inexplicable thing, which animates. The force, mystics and philosophers have told us, (though I never fully trust them,) that the force is the same for all living things.
Believing in this force, or this God, is not so hard. Think of it merely as a substitute for the accident that binds or unites all things. God does not need to have a face, though many religious people put a face on their respective gods. What follows the faith in a higher force is the important part.
So What Does Any of This Have To Do With ME?
It seems fitting that I admit at this point that I consider myself a practicing Catholic, although I am pretty sure that I need more practice. But before you write me off as a zealot, or as some heretical Catholic spouting new-age mumbo jumbo, let me put things simply. I would like to be relatively serious here while I explain about the practicing parts of life.
Church is a place to go as part of a routine, so that you have the opportunity to think about all the things that you have no time to consider in the normal course of the week. Church is a place for philosophy, for reflection, and for resolution.
At Church, the readings from the Bible, and the recitation of prayers, and the homily or sermon, and the celebration of the Mass, and the celebration of Communion: these are all designed for one basic purpose. During all these parts of the service, a person has a chance to hear of a firm, fixed, complete philosophy. I don’t care if someone I meet is Jewish, or Protestant, or Muslim, or Hindu. I am a Catholic simply because I was raised to be a Catholic. Sure, when I was little, I teased my Protestant friends about praying to the one true Catholic God, but I don’t feel certain that my religious organization has a monopoly on wisdom, faith, or salvation. Catholicism is the philosophy that I think I know. Any 2000 year old philosophy will probably do for the rest of you.
In the course of the Mass, while I am being reminded of the philosophy, I get a chance to check and to measure my faith with my acts. If the service or the sermon reminds me to be kind to others, and I haven’t been, I get a chance to consider and reflect on where I am and where I am going.
For instance, their Creator has endowed my young kids with the ability to infuriate me. They do so in various ways, such as asking me to rebuild a bicycle the minute I get in the door from work. When the church service preaches kindness, and I reflect on the arc and distance of my child’s free-fall through the living room as a consequence of his untimely request, I get the opportunity to reflect on the advisability of my behavior. In other words, I might refrain from hurling the boy who picks a bad moment to ask a favor.
This happened recently, and I have concluded that there should be no throwing of children. I also may reflect on the times that I have been surly, gruff, sarcastic, or downright nasty to my wife. I don’t know about you, but there are few things in the daily routine of life that might provoke the recognition of these basic human errors.
Thirdly, and most practically, having reflected on my behaviors, I am given the chance to resolve to do better. Sure, I will probably over time resort to engaging in the same unacceptable behaviors. However, the alternative, not going to church, not reflecting or resolving, I will most assuredly continue most of the dumb things I do. In the end, church provides the attendee a chance to fine-tune his philosophy, to evaluate his behavior, and to resolve to fix things a bit.
Do people really need to do these things all the time, once a week or more? To be honest, I think most people do. I spoke with a friend recently, who bemoaned the lack of time and attention he had spent on his kids recently. The conversation came up because I was talking about taking the kids to Church that morning.
“You do a lot more things with your kids than I do,” he said.
“Then do more,” I said.
“I just don’t have the time,” he replied.
“Are you stupid?” I asked.
He said, somewhat surprised by my lack of tact, “Huh?”
“You feel it’s wrong to spend so little time with your kids, but you won’t make any resolution to do better. Only stupid people see something wrong and accept it. Normal people figure out ways to get what they want.”
“What business is it of yours?” he snarled.
“Two things here.” I told him. “You brought it up. And you made me feel sorry for you and your kids. As soon as you put it in front of my face and engage my sympathies, it is my business. Only stupid people would feel bad about something and not say anything.”
“You’re right,” he said, "you going to go play hoops next Sunday?"
DIGRESSION: I feel compelled to say that the conversation related above is pretty true to form. However, you should also know that the other participant and I have been friends for more than ten years, and he is truly a responsible, loving dad. He felt guilty because he is a good dad. I and other men are sometimes guilty of speaking too bluntly, especially to one another, but in this case, the other father and I were pretty comfortable with it.
I don’t know for sure if the man resolved to do better about spending time with his kids, but I do know that my visit to my friendly neighborhood house of God had caused that conversation. And I sincerely believe that hearing my blunt opinion was a good thing for him. He may have been secretly offended, and he may have tuned me out, but if someone he respects gives similar advice, then the chance for a resolution on his part increases.
Church can do that.
Now there are more opinion, ideas, and benefits to regular Church attendance, but they pale by comparison to these basics. Perhaps I’ve been too superficial here, but I think that you’ve gotten the amount of philosophy that normal people can deal with in one sitting. We should find something to believe in simply because the alternative is uncertainty to the highest degree. It also makes new problems interesting. You can check with your minister what the official answer is to a problem, and then you have one firm idea on how to act. You may not do it, but at least you have a starting point for your deliberation. Three or four visits to church might even give you enough time to figure it out for yourself.
And for those of you who protest that you need no pre-packaged philosophical crutch against which to evaluate your ideas and behaviors --- I say this: isn’t it awfully presumptuous of you? You think that the collective knowledge and wisdom of the ages doesn’t apply to you? A "yes" answer would make you one of the stupid people.
I don’t think you need any particular church or God or ‘ism’ to govern all aspects of your life. But you ought to have a place, a ritual, an operator’s manual at your disposal - and a flawed memory of what you learned in catechism class is not the answer. First of all, it’s out of print, and second of all, you didn’t really get it when you learned to recite it.
So Religion Is A Crutch - For Weak People?
Former pro wrestler and former governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, is a common sense type of guy. I kind of like the fact that he isn't the standard politician. And I believe his 'no nonsense' approach to governing will result in more good than bad for his constituents. But he made a name for himself recently by calling religious-minded people nasty names.
Jesse said that religious people were weak, and cowardly, and that they used religion as a crutch. I say, "Of course, you big dope." Philosophy, and faith, and hope are always the things that people fall back on when they are afraid, or powerless, or temporarily frustrated. The people who rely upon their faith aren't weak and cowardly, or less than stalwart at every moment. Their faith is the weapon of choice when they suffer weakening or strength-sapping setbacks. More importantly, the philosophy they follow is one of the reasons they raise their children well, treat their neighbors kindly, and make the world a more pleasant place.
The problem is that non-religious people have fewer weapons than religious people do. Sure, one can say that non-religious people learn to rely on themselves, but they resort to a stock of weapons that are bad news for most Minnesotans.
No, I am not maintaining that religious people never resort to crime. Of course they do sometimes. However, people with no philosophy, no religion, no faith: they resort to guns and knives much sooner, and with more malice than their counterparts. The weapons of choice when faith is not in the arsenal are brute strength, chicanery, and deceit.
And yes, there are plenty of hypocrites and zealots. The churches have no monopoly on these psychoses. Some NRA members are zealots and hypocrites, as are some pro athletes and entertainers. Don't bother to blame hypocrisy and zeal on religion. These failings are human; there is no escaping them.
The reason it seems that religion breeds these deviants is that religious zealots and hypocrites use their false faith as a platform and as an excuse. Since pro sports do not embody a philosophy, an athlete is hard-pressed to lean upon his organization to justify his excesses. However, some recent idiotic athletes have tried.
Everyone knows the wise old advice never to discuss religion or politics in mixed company. Everyone also knows that the most enjoyable conversations you will ever have involve discussions of religion and politics in mixed company. Truths like these are part of the reason that human beings are prone to ignore all forms of advice, and even of wisdom. Furthermore, if any of this drivel sounds like wisdom to you, reread all of it again, skipping every fourth word. These thoughts are random observations reduced to simplest form, sort of like a math skill you worked on in fifth or sixth grade.
So we’ll start with the obvious. Virtually every great civilization has been built around human recognition of a higher force in the world. They have called the force by a plethora of names, and with a bevy of incarnations and imagined shapes. To my knowledge, however, God has never been named Hollingsworth, and he or she or it has never resembled a gas grill. Other than that, almost anything goes. Therefore, thus, and hence, there must be a god. The collective consciousness of millions and millions of people can’t all be wrong.
Perhaps this little analogy will work for you. Most of the people you run into in the literature field agree that Shakespeare was a great writer. Why should you or I tend to believe this? How could all those people be wrong? It’s as simple as that. If there is no God, then generations have been duped by an incredible far-reaching and well-orchestrated scam. What are the chances of this? Careful study of people reveals that you cannot randomly collect fifteen people who will agree on any one thing. Try it. Ask a group of fifteen people the color of the sky. We all know that it’s blue, but some one crazy in the group will undoubtedly call the sky azure, or gray, or some other shade that only women and gay men can distinguish. (I mean, what the hell are taupe, mauve, magenta, and fuchsia? If you know the answer to these questions, read the last sentence over again.) Yet that same group of people will probably concede the existence of some higher force in the world. (And by the way, I intend no offense to the gay men of the world. I merely have noted that many of them care about distinctions in color, and I personally don’t.)
So God isn’t dead, at least as far as I know. And though I can’t prove it, I’m more certain of this than the idea that the universe as we know it is some grand accident. We humans are compelled to procreate, to raise our young, to provide for families. Our ability to do so for a number of millennia is an accident?
On the other hand, we have earthworms. Earthworms are food, and aerators. They perform various other functions in the ground that help things to grow, which provides food for herbivores, and materials for building and clothing and so on. They are also still the best bait for catching sunfish, bass, catfish, and your little brother’s trousers.
So these things are true, more or less. But all around us, scientists, naturalists, biologists and the like, find unique harmony and equilibrium and symbiotic relationships between unrelated organisms. Are all these interrelationships incidental, or evolutionary? Is it possible that all of the organisms that didn’t perform some complementary function for another organism became extinct? If so, then where did all those now extinct organisms come from in the first place?
I suppose the simplest way to put it all is this: I am convinced that there is a God, in the most basic way, because the accident theory doesn’t ring true for me. Everywhere I look, accidents cause disorder, devastation, and destruction. Why on this humungous scale would an ancient cosmological accident result in order and interconnectedness? In the end, the accident theory just doesn’t make sense. Maybe there’s somebody out there who can give me a workable analogy to explain how this one giant mistake wrought such a beautiful world, but I doubt it.
So there is a God. If you choose not to believe, then you ought to come up with some workable theory besides the accident concept. If there is a God, or a higher power, then what is it, or he, or she? The only thing that makes sense to me is that God is the force that gives things life.
A human being is composed of all sorts of materials, and elements, and water, but should we dump these things in proper proportions into a giant tub, we would not generate life. So life is the thing, the inexplicable thing, which animates. The force, mystics and philosophers have told us, (though I never fully trust them,) that the force is the same for all living things.
Believing in this force, or this God, is not so hard. Think of it merely as a substitute for the accident that binds or unites all things. God does not need to have a face, though many religious people put a face on their respective gods. What follows the faith in a higher force is the important part.
So What Does Any of This Have To Do With ME?
It seems fitting that I admit at this point that I consider myself a practicing Catholic, although I am pretty sure that I need more practice. But before you write me off as a zealot, or as some heretical Catholic spouting new-age mumbo jumbo, let me put things simply. I would like to be relatively serious here while I explain about the practicing parts of life.
Church is a place to go as part of a routine, so that you have the opportunity to think about all the things that you have no time to consider in the normal course of the week. Church is a place for philosophy, for reflection, and for resolution.
At Church, the readings from the Bible, and the recitation of prayers, and the homily or sermon, and the celebration of the Mass, and the celebration of Communion: these are all designed for one basic purpose. During all these parts of the service, a person has a chance to hear of a firm, fixed, complete philosophy. I don’t care if someone I meet is Jewish, or Protestant, or Muslim, or Hindu. I am a Catholic simply because I was raised to be a Catholic. Sure, when I was little, I teased my Protestant friends about praying to the one true Catholic God, but I don’t feel certain that my religious organization has a monopoly on wisdom, faith, or salvation. Catholicism is the philosophy that I think I know. Any 2000 year old philosophy will probably do for the rest of you.
In the course of the Mass, while I am being reminded of the philosophy, I get a chance to check and to measure my faith with my acts. If the service or the sermon reminds me to be kind to others, and I haven’t been, I get a chance to consider and reflect on where I am and where I am going.
For instance, their Creator has endowed my young kids with the ability to infuriate me. They do so in various ways, such as asking me to rebuild a bicycle the minute I get in the door from work. When the church service preaches kindness, and I reflect on the arc and distance of my child’s free-fall through the living room as a consequence of his untimely request, I get the opportunity to reflect on the advisability of my behavior. In other words, I might refrain from hurling the boy who picks a bad moment to ask a favor.
This happened recently, and I have concluded that there should be no throwing of children. I also may reflect on the times that I have been surly, gruff, sarcastic, or downright nasty to my wife. I don’t know about you, but there are few things in the daily routine of life that might provoke the recognition of these basic human errors.
Thirdly, and most practically, having reflected on my behaviors, I am given the chance to resolve to do better. Sure, I will probably over time resort to engaging in the same unacceptable behaviors. However, the alternative, not going to church, not reflecting or resolving, I will most assuredly continue most of the dumb things I do. In the end, church provides the attendee a chance to fine-tune his philosophy, to evaluate his behavior, and to resolve to fix things a bit.
Do people really need to do these things all the time, once a week or more? To be honest, I think most people do. I spoke with a friend recently, who bemoaned the lack of time and attention he had spent on his kids recently. The conversation came up because I was talking about taking the kids to Church that morning.
“You do a lot more things with your kids than I do,” he said.
“Then do more,” I said.
“I just don’t have the time,” he replied.
“Are you stupid?” I asked.
He said, somewhat surprised by my lack of tact, “Huh?”
“You feel it’s wrong to spend so little time with your kids, but you won’t make any resolution to do better. Only stupid people see something wrong and accept it. Normal people figure out ways to get what they want.”
“What business is it of yours?” he snarled.
“Two things here.” I told him. “You brought it up. And you made me feel sorry for you and your kids. As soon as you put it in front of my face and engage my sympathies, it is my business. Only stupid people would feel bad about something and not say anything.”
“You’re right,” he said, "you going to go play hoops next Sunday?"
DIGRESSION: I feel compelled to say that the conversation related above is pretty true to form. However, you should also know that the other participant and I have been friends for more than ten years, and he is truly a responsible, loving dad. He felt guilty because he is a good dad. I and other men are sometimes guilty of speaking too bluntly, especially to one another, but in this case, the other father and I were pretty comfortable with it.
I don’t know for sure if the man resolved to do better about spending time with his kids, but I do know that my visit to my friendly neighborhood house of God had caused that conversation. And I sincerely believe that hearing my blunt opinion was a good thing for him. He may have been secretly offended, and he may have tuned me out, but if someone he respects gives similar advice, then the chance for a resolution on his part increases.
Church can do that.
Now there are more opinion, ideas, and benefits to regular Church attendance, but they pale by comparison to these basics. Perhaps I’ve been too superficial here, but I think that you’ve gotten the amount of philosophy that normal people can deal with in one sitting. We should find something to believe in simply because the alternative is uncertainty to the highest degree. It also makes new problems interesting. You can check with your minister what the official answer is to a problem, and then you have one firm idea on how to act. You may not do it, but at least you have a starting point for your deliberation. Three or four visits to church might even give you enough time to figure it out for yourself.
And for those of you who protest that you need no pre-packaged philosophical crutch against which to evaluate your ideas and behaviors --- I say this: isn’t it awfully presumptuous of you? You think that the collective knowledge and wisdom of the ages doesn’t apply to you? A "yes" answer would make you one of the stupid people.
I don’t think you need any particular church or God or ‘ism’ to govern all aspects of your life. But you ought to have a place, a ritual, an operator’s manual at your disposal - and a flawed memory of what you learned in catechism class is not the answer. First of all, it’s out of print, and second of all, you didn’t really get it when you learned to recite it.
So Religion Is A Crutch - For Weak People?
Former pro wrestler and former governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, is a common sense type of guy. I kind of like the fact that he isn't the standard politician. And I believe his 'no nonsense' approach to governing will result in more good than bad for his constituents. But he made a name for himself recently by calling religious-minded people nasty names.
Jesse said that religious people were weak, and cowardly, and that they used religion as a crutch. I say, "Of course, you big dope." Philosophy, and faith, and hope are always the things that people fall back on when they are afraid, or powerless, or temporarily frustrated. The people who rely upon their faith aren't weak and cowardly, or less than stalwart at every moment. Their faith is the weapon of choice when they suffer weakening or strength-sapping setbacks. More importantly, the philosophy they follow is one of the reasons they raise their children well, treat their neighbors kindly, and make the world a more pleasant place.
The problem is that non-religious people have fewer weapons than religious people do. Sure, one can say that non-religious people learn to rely on themselves, but they resort to a stock of weapons that are bad news for most Minnesotans.
No, I am not maintaining that religious people never resort to crime. Of course they do sometimes. However, people with no philosophy, no religion, no faith: they resort to guns and knives much sooner, and with more malice than their counterparts. The weapons of choice when faith is not in the arsenal are brute strength, chicanery, and deceit.
And yes, there are plenty of hypocrites and zealots. The churches have no monopoly on these psychoses. Some NRA members are zealots and hypocrites, as are some pro athletes and entertainers. Don't bother to blame hypocrisy and zeal on religion. These failings are human; there is no escaping them.
The reason it seems that religion breeds these deviants is that religious zealots and hypocrites use their false faith as a platform and as an excuse. Since pro sports do not embody a philosophy, an athlete is hard-pressed to lean upon his organization to justify his excesses. However, some recent idiotic athletes have tried.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Taste in Absentia
Taste in Absentia.
Television and popular culture are based on one infallible truth: the average person is excessively stupid and accepting. Each year millions of people spend inordinate sums of money on entertainment. They buy music, videos, video games and other things produced under the banner of entertainment. They take in movies, and they sit glued to television or computer monitors, or in-home theaters. All of this occurs with a continual increase in the number of items purchased and the number of performances attended. Still, every year the average person complains about the dearth of quality in entertainment options.
Even more, the ‘pushing of the envelope’ has increased the hype and lowered the quality of most entertainment productions. Creativity has been abandoned; quick fixes wrapped in sleaze and tastelessness can more than compensate for poor style, content, and skill. Want to lower production values? The answer is simple; forgo scriptwriters, actors, and anything even remotely artistic. Instead, recruit ‘real people,’ place them in ‘unreal’ scenarios, and through the wonders of editing, audio enhancement, and cutting edge camera work, create the illusion of drama under the pretense of reality TV.
So why do I like music, TV, films, and games? Simply put, when good artistic expression rears its head, I am just as rapt as the next guy.
Let’s take a case in point – popular music. I defy you or anyone you know to go to the music store and purchase an original music CD or tape that has more than three great songs on it. The rules state that the options must be limited to music released in the past year, and compilations and film soundtracks don’t count.
What do you find? You discover that 99% of the offerings have a maximum of three well-produced and well-conceived songs. The others are filler material hastily thrown together to get the CD on the market as quickly as possible. And studio execs don’t care that the play life is limited. They’ll repackage three songs they held back from the last CD, polish them up, throw in some more filler garbage, and people will continue to buy them.
I listen to the radio pretty regularly, and I hear some good songs there everyday. But, when I listen to the CD’s my wife or kids buy, I am ashamed at the trash I’ve allowed into my home. Of course, I can’t be so hard on my wife and kids; based on radio exposure, they’ve been duped into believing the entire album, tape, or CD is similar in quality to the radio songs.
I have not listened widely to rap artists, but I suspect they are the worst offenders, primarily because rap music is so popular now, as it has been for the past few years. My kids bought two rap artist’s efforts in the past year. Three good songs are on each disc, and a cesspool of tasteless, distorted, virulent slime has been added to the recipe.
The story is the same for most movies and TV shows. When people complain about the poor quality of television, I have mixed feelings. Having grown up in the 70’s, I can conclude that some of the best television ever made is being produced today. The problem is that so many of the offerings are horribly bad. Lost, the CSI enterprise, The Office, and a number of other shows are excellent programs, even if they are not all programs that I will go out of my way to catch, and given that I don’t have to with the wonders of DVR and On Demand. Yet the industry must be lucrative and cost efficient, so many of the better shows are placed into head-to-head battles. The public doesn’t stop watching TV at other times, when the crappy shows are on. The general public is stupid. They have been trained to watch TV, and, dammit, they’re gonna do it. How else does one account for the existence of Jon and Kate Plus 8, The Real World and Survivor idiocy, the various rip-offs of the ‘talent’ programs from Britain, whether they focus on dancing, singing, or other abilities. These shows turn life into a competition, and Americans are especially keen on competition. However, my wife and millions of others are rabid fans of shows where the competition is fabricated, and the outcome is predetermined.
Now I know that fans, executives, and players will strongly maintain that the shows aren’t rigged, but while the outcomes may not be 100% predetermined, the voters are led to vote for the contestants that stand to maintain the highest buzz after the intolerable finale episode. Moreover, the shows themselves are edited, modified, and cut into parts so that the smallest amount of footage can be stretched over the highest number of episodes. How do I know this, you may ask, if the shows are insults to my intelligence? Well, unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to dissuade my wife and kids from turning them on. I fought with them for a few years, left the room during the most insipid programs, but eventually had to learn to tolerate the program being on the air while I worked on the computer or read a book. The only alternative was to spend less time with my family, and I wasn’t willing to do that.
So what do I want? I want the general public to hurry up and lose patience with ALL the reality, faux competition programs. I’d like them to realize just how infantile and manipulative the programs are. I’d like them to stop being duped into believing that these programs present anything even remotely akin to true drama.
Have I been ranting? Quite possibly so, but I believe I have reason to rant. With a bit of time for TV watching, radio listening, and movie reviewing, I could probably find cause to work up to a serious rave to go along with my rant.
Television and popular culture are based on one infallible truth: the average person is excessively stupid and accepting. Each year millions of people spend inordinate sums of money on entertainment. They buy music, videos, video games and other things produced under the banner of entertainment. They take in movies, and they sit glued to television or computer monitors, or in-home theaters. All of this occurs with a continual increase in the number of items purchased and the number of performances attended. Still, every year the average person complains about the dearth of quality in entertainment options.
Even more, the ‘pushing of the envelope’ has increased the hype and lowered the quality of most entertainment productions. Creativity has been abandoned; quick fixes wrapped in sleaze and tastelessness can more than compensate for poor style, content, and skill. Want to lower production values? The answer is simple; forgo scriptwriters, actors, and anything even remotely artistic. Instead, recruit ‘real people,’ place them in ‘unreal’ scenarios, and through the wonders of editing, audio enhancement, and cutting edge camera work, create the illusion of drama under the pretense of reality TV.
So why do I like music, TV, films, and games? Simply put, when good artistic expression rears its head, I am just as rapt as the next guy.
Let’s take a case in point – popular music. I defy you or anyone you know to go to the music store and purchase an original music CD or tape that has more than three great songs on it. The rules state that the options must be limited to music released in the past year, and compilations and film soundtracks don’t count.
What do you find? You discover that 99% of the offerings have a maximum of three well-produced and well-conceived songs. The others are filler material hastily thrown together to get the CD on the market as quickly as possible. And studio execs don’t care that the play life is limited. They’ll repackage three songs they held back from the last CD, polish them up, throw in some more filler garbage, and people will continue to buy them.
I listen to the radio pretty regularly, and I hear some good songs there everyday. But, when I listen to the CD’s my wife or kids buy, I am ashamed at the trash I’ve allowed into my home. Of course, I can’t be so hard on my wife and kids; based on radio exposure, they’ve been duped into believing the entire album, tape, or CD is similar in quality to the radio songs.
I have not listened widely to rap artists, but I suspect they are the worst offenders, primarily because rap music is so popular now, as it has been for the past few years. My kids bought two rap artist’s efforts in the past year. Three good songs are on each disc, and a cesspool of tasteless, distorted, virulent slime has been added to the recipe.
The story is the same for most movies and TV shows. When people complain about the poor quality of television, I have mixed feelings. Having grown up in the 70’s, I can conclude that some of the best television ever made is being produced today. The problem is that so many of the offerings are horribly bad. Lost, the CSI enterprise, The Office, and a number of other shows are excellent programs, even if they are not all programs that I will go out of my way to catch, and given that I don’t have to with the wonders of DVR and On Demand. Yet the industry must be lucrative and cost efficient, so many of the better shows are placed into head-to-head battles. The public doesn’t stop watching TV at other times, when the crappy shows are on. The general public is stupid. They have been trained to watch TV, and, dammit, they’re gonna do it. How else does one account for the existence of Jon and Kate Plus 8, The Real World and Survivor idiocy, the various rip-offs of the ‘talent’ programs from Britain, whether they focus on dancing, singing, or other abilities. These shows turn life into a competition, and Americans are especially keen on competition. However, my wife and millions of others are rabid fans of shows where the competition is fabricated, and the outcome is predetermined.
Now I know that fans, executives, and players will strongly maintain that the shows aren’t rigged, but while the outcomes may not be 100% predetermined, the voters are led to vote for the contestants that stand to maintain the highest buzz after the intolerable finale episode. Moreover, the shows themselves are edited, modified, and cut into parts so that the smallest amount of footage can be stretched over the highest number of episodes. How do I know this, you may ask, if the shows are insults to my intelligence? Well, unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to dissuade my wife and kids from turning them on. I fought with them for a few years, left the room during the most insipid programs, but eventually had to learn to tolerate the program being on the air while I worked on the computer or read a book. The only alternative was to spend less time with my family, and I wasn’t willing to do that.
So what do I want? I want the general public to hurry up and lose patience with ALL the reality, faux competition programs. I’d like them to realize just how infantile and manipulative the programs are. I’d like them to stop being duped into believing that these programs present anything even remotely akin to true drama.
Have I been ranting? Quite possibly so, but I believe I have reason to rant. With a bit of time for TV watching, radio listening, and movie reviewing, I could probably find cause to work up to a serious rave to go along with my rant.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Political Correctness
Now, I realize that many of the preceding presentations have addressed the issue of political correctness in one way or another. Nevertheless, I think that PC needs to be discussed overtly.
In simplest terms, political correctness, or adherence or avocation thereof, is a sure sign of stupidity. Now, I must be careful in stating that political correctness is not the same as common courtesy. Racial, ethnic, gender epithets, or any form of name-calling designed to attack a group of people is not acceptable. The type of political correctness I am referring to involves people’s refusal to address issues, or their soft peddling of responses. I suppose I am in a sense differentiating between maliciously motivated actions and intentions, and mere words.
Perhaps we should start with a less controversial example, and then build up to the strongest of opinions, and therefore the things that really piss people off. Somewhere about a generation ago, firemen became firefighters, with the theory being that the language itself created prejudices that influenced the perception that women could be firemen. I will concede that words create perceptions, and therefore that words can be instrumental in changing the way that people behave and think and such. However, did we really need to have that period where all the compound words that ended in ‘men’ were replaced by ‘person?’ I mean, seriously. Couldn’t a busboy still be a busboy even if she were a female? What was the benefit in the increase in the number of chairpersons, and committee persons, and longshorepersons?
Okay, the longshoreperson label never really caught on, but why not? I contend that the sheer idiocy of the ‘man’ to ‘person’ exchange became obvious when we came to words like longshoreperson.
Perhaps a bit more volatile of a term will help to illustrate my point. I understand completely why the word ‘nigger’ is inappropriate in conversation. The original coining of the term and its earliest usage was intended to denigrate a race of people. Consequently, using the term, even when no offense is intended, is careless, tactless, and wrong. Quite simply, the baggage that the word carries precludes its effective use. What I don’t understand is the adoption of that same word by contemporary Black Americans, or African Americans or persons of color. You see, I intended no offense there at all; I honestly don’t know what is currently the acceptable term of address. The component of political correctness to which I object is this very example. If I were a person of color who was using the term in the context of addressing a friend of mine who is also a person of the same color, then the term becomes some sort of an inside term of endearment.
Bear with me for a second. What if the law enforcement officers of the world decided, capriciously, that their exclusive term of address for other law enforcement officers was ‘pig’? In the squad car or the squad room, they could inoffensively call each other ‘pig’ without fear of offense taking. After all, it would just be a buddy calling a buddy a name. Such things happen everyday. Now suppose that a whole bunch of singing policemen sold millions of songs in which policemen call other policemen pigs? When the general population hears the disparaging term on the radio or on their pirated downloads to their ipods, will they also be able to use the term to address the policeman who pulls them over for speeding? Will the policemen be offended, not reasoning that the offensive term has been revived by the very people the term is meant to denigrate?
Hopefully, you are starting to follow my reasoning. Political correctness is a cowardly business that can often prevent people from saying what they really mean. For fear of choosing the potentially offensive term or phrase, they adopt some circumlocution that muddies the informational waters.
Having saved the most recent example for last, let me go on record as saying the backlash and subsequent firing of Don Imus for saying ‘nappy headed ho’s’ among other stupid things, is illustrative of my position. Don Imus is a shock jock. That is, he was hired and has been gainfully employed for a long time expressly because he says politically incorrect things. He doesn’t lack the sense to avoid the offensive; he is being paid to find it. The game, on his end, is to walk the tightrope between rattling the cage and grabbing the bird by the neck and thrashing its brains out on the rec room floor.
So to be blunt, I don’t think Don Imus should have been fired, and I don’t think that the public outcry should have been able to twist the short hairs of the radio execs. I think those execs should have been able respond to the public umbrage by saying, “Don Imus says stupid things. That’s why hundreds of thousands of people tune in daily. We don’t like what he said, and we don’t condone his opinions or his delivery. He is being paid to entertain people, and for some reason, the current public taste embraces the abhorrent things he says. So shut up. We ain’t firing him. He’ll be back on the air in the morning, and if you think he is crossing the line, stop listening to his program, you dopes.”
Had the radio execs responded in such a way, the outcry would have grown exponentially for about three days. Then, when the same radio people repeated their position a few days later, the outcry would have dwindled to a whimper.
Now, don’t get me wrong, though I generally despise the litigious nature of our culture, I think the offended basketball players had every right to accuse Imus of slanderous or damaging remarks that could adversely affect their status in life. However, I think the judge who heard that case should have said, “Look, a public figure said a stupid thing on the radio. Each of you, so far as I have seen, carries herself with a degree of dignity and class that further exposes the stupidity of his comments. Why not continue to show the fool what a dimwit he is by being above the whole thing?”
The negative characterization, in fact, had little true damaging effects on the character or public perception of those young ladies. Why did the girls lower themselves by accepting the public viewpoint? In effect, the public lived down to the standard thrust upon it, and the ‘victims’ followed suit. Our current culture has established a set of items that are presumed to offend, and everyone waits for the signal to feign offense.
Here’s the simple point. Most political correctness is false in every way. If black people call each other by the ‘n’ word, in what they say is proper context, then the word isn’t the source of the offense. If the word isn’t the source of the offense, then the offense emanates from the speaker. That is, the offended person or group is offended because the speaker hasn’t the right to traffic in a term that has been historically and traditionally offensive. In other words, the victims feel offense because they are supposed to, not because they feel any genuine offense. Hence, the political correctness issue is almost always grounded in pretext, presumption, and falseness.
I don’t have a reliable test for these issues, but I wish I did. So, let’s invent a test using an example of relatively harmless political correctness. I was once chastised for referring to middle-aged women that I work with as ‘girls.’ They should be considered as ‘women’, or ‘ladies’ I was told. However, when I said to my seventy-year-old grandmother and two or her friends, “How are you girls doing today?” they giggled well, like girls, and thought it was cute. In two contexts, each with women older than thirty, I was supposed to know whether reference to them as girls was offensive or not.
So the test is this: if the speaker has to guess about the propriety of a particular term, then the problem is not with the speaker, but with the listener. If there is not definitive intention to offend inherent in the derivation of the term, then there is no offense. Using this test, the ‘n’ word is verboten, and that’s ok with me. But it’s verboten in ALL public discourse, even if the speaker and the listener are complicit in adopting acceptance of the term in their own private context. In short, if it’s wrong, it’s wrong. If one has no definitive reason to know that it’s wrong, it’s not wrong. How’s that?
In simplest terms, political correctness, or adherence or avocation thereof, is a sure sign of stupidity. Now, I must be careful in stating that political correctness is not the same as common courtesy. Racial, ethnic, gender epithets, or any form of name-calling designed to attack a group of people is not acceptable. The type of political correctness I am referring to involves people’s refusal to address issues, or their soft peddling of responses. I suppose I am in a sense differentiating between maliciously motivated actions and intentions, and mere words.
Perhaps we should start with a less controversial example, and then build up to the strongest of opinions, and therefore the things that really piss people off. Somewhere about a generation ago, firemen became firefighters, with the theory being that the language itself created prejudices that influenced the perception that women could be firemen. I will concede that words create perceptions, and therefore that words can be instrumental in changing the way that people behave and think and such. However, did we really need to have that period where all the compound words that ended in ‘men’ were replaced by ‘person?’ I mean, seriously. Couldn’t a busboy still be a busboy even if she were a female? What was the benefit in the increase in the number of chairpersons, and committee persons, and longshorepersons?
Okay, the longshoreperson label never really caught on, but why not? I contend that the sheer idiocy of the ‘man’ to ‘person’ exchange became obvious when we came to words like longshoreperson.
Perhaps a bit more volatile of a term will help to illustrate my point. I understand completely why the word ‘nigger’ is inappropriate in conversation. The original coining of the term and its earliest usage was intended to denigrate a race of people. Consequently, using the term, even when no offense is intended, is careless, tactless, and wrong. Quite simply, the baggage that the word carries precludes its effective use. What I don’t understand is the adoption of that same word by contemporary Black Americans, or African Americans or persons of color. You see, I intended no offense there at all; I honestly don’t know what is currently the acceptable term of address. The component of political correctness to which I object is this very example. If I were a person of color who was using the term in the context of addressing a friend of mine who is also a person of the same color, then the term becomes some sort of an inside term of endearment.
Bear with me for a second. What if the law enforcement officers of the world decided, capriciously, that their exclusive term of address for other law enforcement officers was ‘pig’? In the squad car or the squad room, they could inoffensively call each other ‘pig’ without fear of offense taking. After all, it would just be a buddy calling a buddy a name. Such things happen everyday. Now suppose that a whole bunch of singing policemen sold millions of songs in which policemen call other policemen pigs? When the general population hears the disparaging term on the radio or on their pirated downloads to their ipods, will they also be able to use the term to address the policeman who pulls them over for speeding? Will the policemen be offended, not reasoning that the offensive term has been revived by the very people the term is meant to denigrate?
Hopefully, you are starting to follow my reasoning. Political correctness is a cowardly business that can often prevent people from saying what they really mean. For fear of choosing the potentially offensive term or phrase, they adopt some circumlocution that muddies the informational waters.
Having saved the most recent example for last, let me go on record as saying the backlash and subsequent firing of Don Imus for saying ‘nappy headed ho’s’ among other stupid things, is illustrative of my position. Don Imus is a shock jock. That is, he was hired and has been gainfully employed for a long time expressly because he says politically incorrect things. He doesn’t lack the sense to avoid the offensive; he is being paid to find it. The game, on his end, is to walk the tightrope between rattling the cage and grabbing the bird by the neck and thrashing its brains out on the rec room floor.
So to be blunt, I don’t think Don Imus should have been fired, and I don’t think that the public outcry should have been able to twist the short hairs of the radio execs. I think those execs should have been able respond to the public umbrage by saying, “Don Imus says stupid things. That’s why hundreds of thousands of people tune in daily. We don’t like what he said, and we don’t condone his opinions or his delivery. He is being paid to entertain people, and for some reason, the current public taste embraces the abhorrent things he says. So shut up. We ain’t firing him. He’ll be back on the air in the morning, and if you think he is crossing the line, stop listening to his program, you dopes.”
Had the radio execs responded in such a way, the outcry would have grown exponentially for about three days. Then, when the same radio people repeated their position a few days later, the outcry would have dwindled to a whimper.
Now, don’t get me wrong, though I generally despise the litigious nature of our culture, I think the offended basketball players had every right to accuse Imus of slanderous or damaging remarks that could adversely affect their status in life. However, I think the judge who heard that case should have said, “Look, a public figure said a stupid thing on the radio. Each of you, so far as I have seen, carries herself with a degree of dignity and class that further exposes the stupidity of his comments. Why not continue to show the fool what a dimwit he is by being above the whole thing?”
The negative characterization, in fact, had little true damaging effects on the character or public perception of those young ladies. Why did the girls lower themselves by accepting the public viewpoint? In effect, the public lived down to the standard thrust upon it, and the ‘victims’ followed suit. Our current culture has established a set of items that are presumed to offend, and everyone waits for the signal to feign offense.
Here’s the simple point. Most political correctness is false in every way. If black people call each other by the ‘n’ word, in what they say is proper context, then the word isn’t the source of the offense. If the word isn’t the source of the offense, then the offense emanates from the speaker. That is, the offended person or group is offended because the speaker hasn’t the right to traffic in a term that has been historically and traditionally offensive. In other words, the victims feel offense because they are supposed to, not because they feel any genuine offense. Hence, the political correctness issue is almost always grounded in pretext, presumption, and falseness.
I don’t have a reliable test for these issues, but I wish I did. So, let’s invent a test using an example of relatively harmless political correctness. I was once chastised for referring to middle-aged women that I work with as ‘girls.’ They should be considered as ‘women’, or ‘ladies’ I was told. However, when I said to my seventy-year-old grandmother and two or her friends, “How are you girls doing today?” they giggled well, like girls, and thought it was cute. In two contexts, each with women older than thirty, I was supposed to know whether reference to them as girls was offensive or not.
So the test is this: if the speaker has to guess about the propriety of a particular term, then the problem is not with the speaker, but with the listener. If there is not definitive intention to offend inherent in the derivation of the term, then there is no offense. Using this test, the ‘n’ word is verboten, and that’s ok with me. But it’s verboten in ALL public discourse, even if the speaker and the listener are complicit in adopting acceptance of the term in their own private context. In short, if it’s wrong, it’s wrong. If one has no definitive reason to know that it’s wrong, it’s not wrong. How’s that?
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