WTF is this … ?!?

It is stunning to me that this Kevin Jennings character is even allowed within 500 feet of any of our schools, never mind that he has been appointed to a ‘Safe Schools czar’ position, whatever the hell that is.

Breaking: Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Is Promoting Child Porn in the Classroom– Kevin Jennings and the GLSEN Reading List

Out of curiosity to see exactly what kind of books Kevin Jennings and his organization think American students should be reading in school, our team chose a handful at random from the over 100 titles on GLSEN’s grades 7-12 list, and began reading through.

What we discovered shocked us. We were flabbergasted. Rendered speechless.

We were unprepared for what we encountered. Book after book after book contained stories and anecdotes that weren’t merely X-rated and pornographic, but which featured explicit descriptions of sex acts between pre-schoolers; stories that seemed to promote and recommend child-adult sexual relationships; stories of public masturbation, anal sex in restrooms, affairs between students and teachers, five-year-olds playing sex games, semen flying through the air. One memoir even praised becoming a prostitute as a way to increase one’s self-esteem. Above all, the books seemed to have less to do with promoting tolerance than with an unabashed attempt to indoctrinate students into a hyper-sexualized worldview.

These are books targeted at children at the 7-12 grade level. There are also books meant for K-6. Oh, and another list of books for teachers. Awesome!

Go click and read. I dare you.

Jennings founded GLSEN. It’s his baby. And of all the people to pick for “Safe Schools Czar”, apparently, Obama thought this guy would be perfect.

Apparently all the actual child molesters were busy.

Maybe the media would like to dig into this story a bit. Even with the best possible shine applied, and the best possible motives assigned to all, it seems kinda sensational, no?

You can’t really call it “education” if you aren’t teaching enough facts

E. D. Hirsch, who wrote the bestselling book “Cultural Literacy” in the 1980s, seems to have been validated by education reform in Massachusetts over the last 15 years.

His belief—which I completely agree with—is that background facts are an important piece of the educational puzzle, especially as opposed to the popular practice of teaching reading and writing as skills, completely disconnected from the world around us, and from our history.

His Core Knowledge curriculum, for example, specifies:

… in English language arts, all second-graders read poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, and Gwendolyn Brooks, as well as stories by Rudyard Kipling, E. B. White, and Hans Christian Andersen. In history and geography, the children study the world’s great rivers, ancient Rome, and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, among other subjects.

Today’s high school and college students have great difficulty writing effectively, and comprehending what they read (ask any college or high school teacher). I’ll join Mr. Hirsch in blaming that on the fateful decision to abandon in the early school years both the emphasis on facts, and on reading great literature about real people and places from history.

Context matters. History matters. Knowing what came before us matters. And it all matters in very real ways, not just in being good at Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit.

Hirsch on educating the poor:

“Cultural literacy constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children,” Hirsch writes, and “the only reliable way of combating the social determinism that now condemns them to remain in the same social and educational condition as their parents. That children from poor and illiterate homes tend to remain poor and illiterate is an unacceptable failure of our schools, one which has occurred not because our teachers are inept but chiefly because they are compelled to teach a fragmented curriculum based on faulty educational theories.”

He’s right, and we know he’s right because we used to educate our children with more practical knowledge, as he advocates, and we didn’t have poor performance in our students that we see today.

But even though his system works, and he can prove it, Education schools have worked hard to discredit him. Hmmm. Whose interests are being served there?

Education schools have been experimenting on our children for decades, and it is not working.

More powerfully than any previous critic, Hirsch showed how destructive these instructional approaches were. The idea that schools could starve children of factual knowledge, yet somehow encourage them to be “critical thinkers” and teach them to “learn how to learn,” defied common sense. But Hirsch also summoned irrefutable evidence from the hard sciences to eviscerate progressive-ed doctrines. Hirsch had spent the better part of the decade since Cultural Literacy mastering the findings of neurobiology, cognitive psychology, and psycholinguistics on which teaching methods best promote student learning. The scientific consensus showed that schools could not raise student achievement by letting students construct their own knowledge. The pedagogy that mainstream scientific research supported, Hirsch showed, was direct instruction by knowledgeable teachers who knew how to transmit their knowledge to students—the very opposite of what the progressives promoted.

Please read the whole thing. I’ve just barely scratched the surface here.

Frankly, it comes down to a debate between what the Founding Fathers wanted, and what today’s Ed schools want. Do we really have to ponder that question for long? I know I don’t.

The future of our children depends, at least in part, on our understanding of (1) why we are failing to educate our children adequately, and (2) how to address it. E.D. Hirsch seems to have a pretty good handle on it. Will he continue to be largely ignored?

Bill Ayers has more legitimacy in Ed schools than a genuine educator like E.D. Hirsch. This tells us a lot. And frankly, it makes me ill.

“Bolt the doors! The pre-schoolers are here!”

Apparently, some folks in a neighborhood not far from ours are easily distressed.

A group of neighbors near Park Boulevard and Hillside Avenue in Glen Ellyn are all up in arms about … a Montessori preschool in their neighborhood!

Yikes. What’s next? Gangs and drive-by shootings?

The main concern seems to be traffic. OK, so a few more cars come and go at the same times every day. How big can that “problem” get? It’s a Montessori pre-school, in a town with tons of stay-at-home moms. We’re not talking 200 kids here.

Ron Repking and his wife (name not given) own Diamante Montessori Preschool, and they bought a vacant church to house it in 2007. And it’s been a contentious battle ever since, with yard signs, lawsuits, and everything in between. When driving past the area, I’ve noticed the signs, and wondered just what they were all about.

Now I know, and I think it’s pretty lame.

Who knows, maybe some benefits accrue to the neighborhood from having young kids educated there, Montessori-style? Is that possible? Good kharma, and all that?

And even if the answer to that is “no”, and you have to put up with the auditory horrors of children squealing with delight now and again, we think you just might survive it. We really do.

And if you get supremely annoyed by a few extra cars cruising on public streets, to deliver and pick up children to/from a licensed school run by responsible adults, then maybe it’s time to lighten up a tad. Just a teensy bit.

Or, continue to push hard on an issue that no reasonable person sees your way.

Either/Or.

Links and Notes

The Wildcat formation is causing defensive coordinators in the NFL to do some adapting, and this article does a nice job of explaining the whys and wherefores.

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Golf legend Arnold Palmer turns 80 on Sept. 10th, and USA Today has a bunch of reader rememberances.

In reading them, it’s very easy to see how he got to be so popular: he went out of his way to engage people. Probably because he’s just a nice guy and a people person. You know who could stand to loosen up a little bit in that department? Tiger Woods. But then, he wouldn’t be Tiger Woods. He thrives on focus and drive, and those things are incompatible with being a people person.

Golf could really use a guy like Arnold Palmer right now. How many people started playing golf entirely because of Arnold Palmer’s charisma? It sure sounds like a lot, from reading those letters.

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One of my favorite bands, Steely Dan, played the Chicago Theatre last week. Monday night they played “Aja” in its entirety at the start, and then a bunch of their other great songs. Check out this set list:

1 Black Cow
2 Aja
3 Deacon Blues
4 Peg
5 Home at Last
6 I Got the News
7 Josie
8 Black Friday
9 Time out of Mind
10 Daddy Don’t Live in that New York City No More

11 Bodhisattva
12 Babylon Sisters

13 Show Biz Kids
14 Hey Nineteen
15 Dirty Work
16 Love is Like an Itching in My Heart (Supremes)/band intros
17 Do It Again
18 Don’t Take Me Alive
19 My Old School
20 Kid Charlemagne

Encore
21 Reelin’ in the Years

Color me bright green with envy. I’ve listened to most of these songs sooooo many times over the years, I know every solo, every chord change, every note and lyric. Except for the songs on Gaucho … never a big fan of that record.

My favorite Steely Dan records, in order:

1. (tie) Can’t Buy a Thrill and Aja
2. Royal Scam
3. Pretzel Logic
4. Countdown to Ecstasy
5. Katy Lied

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Locally, Chicago’s attempt to remake public housing has fallen somewhat short. So, to review, the Federal Government created the publc housing mess which helped destroy our cities, and then the city government has distributed that mess into the neighborhoods and suburbs, and done an inferior job at it, too. Maybe it’s time to bring sanity back to housing policy?

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Finally, Tony Woodlief writes about the quality of education today. I agree with everything he says there. We don’t home school, but I support and sympathize with many of those who do. And then we have this Education school lunacy. Do people realize what is going on under their noses? On their dime? To their kids? I really don’t think they do.

That “One Laptop Per Child” Thing? Yeah … It’s Not Working Out So Good

The hidden costs were a “nightmare”:

“OLPC promised a product, a sub-$100 laptop, it simply can’t deliver based on underlying economics of the computer industry. And it asks governments already unable to provide basic services to not just buy these laptops but pay to ship them from the factory in China, truck them throughout the countryside to the schools and then support and maintain them. The hidden costs were a nightmare.“

Laptops are nice and all, but rich Westerners don’t seem to comprehend the level of challenges that await them in trying to give money and stuff to poor people halfway around the world, who mostly need (a) clean water and (b) economic opportunity and (c) fewer thugs and crooks running their countries.

Is it really possible that the One Laptop Per Child people didn’t realize that parts of the world that struggle with disease, corruption, poverty, and oppression probably aren’t going to have good distribution channels for frivolous consumer goods?   I mean, really?

Have they been watching the news?  The families getting murdered by machetes, or living in refugee camps, or being starved to death by ruthless dictators, or dying of disease caused by lack of basic sanitation, or being oppressed and robbed by corrupt, evil dictators?

And in reaction to all this, the geniuses at OLPC figured “hey, what these folks need is laptops!“

Peeking Under the Education Rock

For Secretary of Education, Obama has nominated Arne Duncan, the current Superintendent of the Chicago Public School system.

Duncan apparently is a fan of charter schools, and for that he earns points with me. Another good sign: he is not completely in bed with the NEA.

But he implemented policies from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the project run by Bill Ayers, noted radical lefty loon and esteemed Education professor — but I repeat myself. The explicitly stated goal of this political organization was to filter all education through a radical political filter.

Some of us find this unsettling. Me, too.

Ah, you say, but a leader of a large public school system must often implement policies he/she is not supportive of, in order to trade this requirement from the NEA against that requirement from the budget, vs. yet another from the school board. Note that the only group not explicitly represented here is students.

So, yes, it is more or less a political position, where you must find common ground and provide leadership to lead competing interests to a place where all are reasonably satisfied.

But the fact that an idea as outlandish as politicizing students can be traded back and forth like just another bargaining chip is precisely the point. Not that long ago, you’d have been disregarded as a nut if you stood behind such an idea; now, people look, shrug, and say, “big deal”.

That is not progress. Science is the pursuit of objective truth, not social justice. And anybody who perverts it by teaching social justice under the guise of Science is doing a disservice to the students, their parents, the community at large, and eventually, our entire country, by turning out people who can’t think their way out of a paper bag.

To quote from one of Ayer’s education textbooks (i.e, where they teach the teachers):

The marriages between capitalism and education and capitalism and science have created a foundation for science education that emphasizes corporate values at the expense of social justice and human dignity.” The alternative? “Science pedagogy framed around social justice concerns can become a medium to transform individuals, schools, communities, the environment, and science itself, in ways that promote equity and social justice. Creating a science education that is transformative implies not only how science is a political activity but also the ways in which students might see and use science and science education in ways transformative of the institutional and interpersonal power structures that play a role in their lives.”

This “social justice” agenda has, according to the American Thinker piece above, “become de rigueur and a condition of hiring”.

There is a great speech by Albert Brooks in the movie “Broadcast News”, about how the Devil will use flash over substance to lower our standards, in order to gain influence:

“He will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance. Just a tiny bit.”

Education would be one of those standards that is important, no?

Via Cassy Fiano.

Kids Need P.E.

Florida has decided to mandate 30 minutes of continuous physical education for all students K-5.

The stated goal is to fight obesity, and that is an obvious and desirable way to help get there.

But there may be other benefits as well.  The evidence I’ve seen shows that the kids will also learn more, behave better, and generally have a better school experience because of this new policy.  Which means teachers and administrators can spend more time doing their jobs, instead of dealing with the fallout of antsy, hyperactive kids who don’t get a chance to blow off steam during the day.

Hey, maybe now we could work to bring back dodgeball …

Um, Excuse Me? Question? About Mr. Ayers …

Yeah … Um, He’s a Nut

I’ve been reading alot about Bill Ayers lately, and the lack of interest in his career continues to amaze me.

Especially since it is pretty clear that a current candidate for U.S. President has a long, close association with the guy, despite lame attempts to spin it as “just a guy in the neighborhood”.

I’m not as dumb as I look, you know.

But, Mayor Daley says we should forgive and forget, right? Sure, and we should, as soon as Ayers abandons his radical anti-American posture, and stops trying to radicalize and politicize our children from his perch within the education establishment. Bonus points if you then wonder, “how does a nut like that end up in the education establishment?”

It is what it is. Ayers was a radical, and is still a radical, and Obama has been working closely with this guy for over 10 years, and probably much longer than that. And what were they working on? Politicizing our children.

If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, guess what? Duck!

I have much, much more here: Some Radicals from the 1960s are Still Radicals in the 2000s (can also be found via a link on my Essays page). Other people cover this in much more detail, and I recommend clicking on the links for more information.

This Explains ALOT

Every once in a while, I read a news story that is so dumbfounding, so ridiculous, so unbelievably filled with morons and tomfoolery, that I have to read it multiple times to even understand what is going on. And with a second reading, and sometimes even a third, and as I finally begin to understand it, my horror at what I’m reading, my pure stunned amazement, my anger at idiotic bureaucratic incompetence, grows by leaps and bounds.

Today, we have “State gets do-over on ISAT scoring; wide swings in results prompted retabulation” by Stephanie Banchero in the Chicago Tribune.

Illinois education officials made the unprecedented decision Friday to rescore the state’s nearly 1 million elementary school math and reading exams after outside auditors determined the scoring process was seriously flawed.

They hope that regrading the exam will temper the wild swings observed in the preliminary results of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) taken by 3rd- through 8th-graders in the spring. Initial scores revealed inexplicable fluctuations of up to 10 percentage points over last year.

The do-over means test results for some students and some schools will increase. Others will decrease.

The state has not publicly released individual student and school results yet, so parents and educators won’t notice the changes. State education officials said the annual school report card will still be released on time Nov. 1.

“These are high-stakes tests, and we have an obligation to get them right,” said Christopher Koch, state superintendent of education. “We have to be able to stand by these scores and ensure they are accurate.”

The Tribune first reported the questionable results last week, raising doubts about the reliability of a testing system used to rate schools, apply federal penalties and put children in summer school.

Dozens of states have had testing difficulties nearly every year since the No Child Left Behind Law required them to test students more often.

OK, time out. What is so complicated about scoring tests? Right answers get a point, wrong ones don’t. Right?

Oh, no. Not even close.

Creating and scoring a state achievement exam is a complicated process that involves complex calculations. Not every question carries the same weight, for example, and each year’s exam is scored just a bit differently from the previous year.

“Complicated process”. “Complex calculations”. Weighted questions. And the cherry on the sundae: “each year’s exam is scored just a bit differently from the previous year”!

That’s just great.

So do all these layers (a) add to, or (b) subtract from, the ability to measure student achievement in an accurate way? I think I know the answer to that one, and it isn’t complicated, or complex, or weighted, or scored differently from one year to the next.

In my world, answers to test questions are either right or wrong. There really isn’t supposed to be lots of wiggle room in there. Unless, of course, they’re using essay questions on these tests.

Hahahahaha! That’s a good one. Essay questions. You crackin’ me up!

The problem this year can be traced to the decision to use a new version of the exam, state officials said.

The ISAT is developed by combining state-created questions with those taken from the national exam called Stanford 10. This year, the state used a new version of the national exam.

When it came time to score the test, the state picked the formula the testing company used. It turned out to be the wrong one, state officials said.

Oh my GOD. The formula used to score the test just “turned out to be the wrong one”!

Come on now, who hasn’t used the wrong formula to score a test before? Scoring tests is, like, hard and stuff!

The result: dramatic fluctuations up and down in the math and reading scores. The state’s grade school science exam did not change this year, and preliminary scores were in line with previous exams.

Koch said state officials and the testing company immediately began looking into the problem when it was detected in late June. The state also asked two independent test auditors to investigate at a cost of about $20,000.

“They both came to the same conclusion, so I felt confident we knew what the problem was,” Koch said.

David Hakensen, a spokesman for the state’s testing company, Pearson, said the firm agreed with the decision to rescore the exam.

“I know you are trying to point fingers,” Hakensen said, “but this isn’t anybody’s fault. A standard methodology was used. Now, we have agreed to use a different one.”

So a standard methodology was used. Hmmm. That’s just great.

Hey, just brainstorming here … what about using the right fricking answers?!

It’s so evil and diabolical, it just might work!

I’ve got another crazy idea, maybe they should try this as a test question: When “experts” in education testing can’t even figure out how to score the tests, how can we, as taxpayers who pay for all this, have any confidence that the results are telling us anything useful? Explain, without using words like “methodology”.

Still, Pearson said it will pick up the cost of rescoring the exam.

Pearson has made numerous scoring errors in the past. The company gave more than 4,000 students lower scores than they deserved on the SAT college entrance exam two years ago and produced a flawed answer key that lowered student test scores on a different exam in Arizona.

I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that this testing company is not the sharpest tool in the shed. And since this is Illinois we’re talking about, a healthy suspicion about corruption and under-the-table deals is always a good idea.

Bob Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, said Pearson is ducking its responsibility in Illinois.

“They are supposed to be the testing experts,” said Schaeffer, whose non-profit group has been critical of over reliance on standardized tests. “And you would think they would have flagged the flawed methodology before the scores got out.”

In Illinois, results have been delayed and riddled with errors, but this is the first time that serious miscalculations were made in scoring.

These people are educating our children.

But relax, it shouldn’t be a problem, really. They’re from the government, and they’re here to help us!

No Gold Star For You

Q: How many Ed school professors does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: It doesn’t matter!

I’ll clear up this “math wars” thing in ten words or less: kids have to both understand it and get the right answer.

OK, eleven words. Who’s counting?

It isn’t complicated. Teach kids what they are doing, and how to do it, and test them to make sure then can do it.

Ohio St. Athletics is a Medium Sized Business

In case you were wondering, the budget for Ohio St. athletics is $109M.

One hundred and nine million dollars to fund amateur athletics. Can you say “conflict of interest”? Knew you could.

But don’t you fret — the athletes don’t get a single dollar of that action, at least as far as you know, so their amateur standing is untarnished. Had you worried there, didn’t I?

At Ohio State and many places like it, the money flows from the fans, alumni, boosters, gamblers, TV networks, and advertisers, to the schools, conferences, NCAA, stadiums, hotels, bars, restaurants, airlines, escort services, and bookies.

Nary an athlete in sight, during all this cash changing hands. Wink, wink.

Making Good Kids Into Criminals

Because we all know how often criminals use their clever cover as an “honors student, choir singer and former football player who spends half the day training to be a firefighter” to hide their evil, secret plans to use a flashlight with a two inch blade on it to kill students and teachers by the truckload.

Student charged for bringing tool into high school

If there is a reasonable case to be made that this young man, Christopher Berger, represented a threat of any kind, I’d really like to hear it.

The charge states that “[the] defendant endangered the bodily safety of other students by leaving a knife unsupervised in the cafeteria.”

How so? Is our existence that perilous, our society that much of a powderkeg, that leaving an everyday, multi-tool type of gadget with a 2 inch knife blade on it, unattended, in a jacket in the cafeteria, can be considered a threat to anybody’s safety?

Sorry, but I find that ridiculous on its face.

And this kid seems to have earned a good reputation over the years. That has to count for something, all else being equal.

Because if it doesn’t mean anything, that removes one more incentive for a kid to walk the straight and narrow.

It seems to me that we need to be a little bit more careful when we make policies and laws, and make sure we aren’t creating problems instead of fixing them.

Education Means Learning, You Know, STUFF

This USA Today editorial, Our view on education: Cut the knowledge deficit, discusses a new book Tested by Linda Perlstein.

Turns out, stripping our kids’ education of all meaning and content has poor side effects! Who knew?

The editorial proposes the Core Knowledge curriculum by E.D. Hirsch as a fix. If that name looks familiar, yes, he’s the guy that wrote Cultural Literacy.

This would be, generally speaking, the same curriculum tossed overboard by our leading lights in the education field, in favor of diversity and tolerance and and post-modern relativism, and all that other related hoo-ha.

And so everything old … is new again.

Highway Driving Protocol

Having recently returned from a long driving trip, I’m reminded yet again that many drivers are oblivious to highway driving protocol. Or, they flat out ignore it.

Either way, they are causing trouble.

So to reiterate: the right lane is for cruising, and the left lane is for passing. Please allow me to elaborate on how this affects you.  And therefore, of course, me.

IF YOU … find yourself in the left lane, going the same speed as the traffic in the right lane, get over into the right lane. You are clogging things up.

IF YOU … are intent on cruising in the left lane and never, ever, moving into the right lane, here’s an idea: just stop yourself. Get with the program. The world doesn’t exist to serve your needs.

IF YOU … are intent on enforcing speed limits, by driving the speed limit in the left lane, on the assumption that the world needs your vital input and voluntary enforcement on this issue, just don’t. Nobody elected you, nobody appointed you, you have no legal or moral authority in these matters, so please just stop.

IF YOU … never knew any of this before, well, now you know.

Say it, out loud, three times:  Right lane traffic is for cruising, left lane traffic is for passing.

When all drivers obey these simple rules, highway traffic flows much better.

And don’t bring that “but then you’re speeding, and that is dangerous” argument ’round here.  Going 75 or 80 on highways designed for that speed is not dangerous.  Especially when that is the de facto speed limit.

Also, highway driving is unique, for two main reasons.

It is by far the safest type of driving. The odds of getting into an accident are so low, per mile driven, that to deliberately choose to drive 70 instead of 80, or to pass at 71 instead of 75, because of safety concerns, is like spitting into the ocean. There just isn’t much that can go wrong on a highway (other than a blowout – and if you don’t know what to do when that happens, you better not drive on highways at all, because panic and overreaction can get you just as dead at 45 mph as 75).

It is also the simplest type of driving. You go straight, you stick to one speed, and that’s it. Nobody pulls in front of you from a mall parking lot, nobody jams on their brakes to turn left. No stoplights, no islands, no new lanes appearing and then disappearing. No railroad crossings, no school zones, no crosswalks. No kids on bikes, no runners, no skateboarders. It’s just you, the road, and the other traffic, all headed the same direction, for miles and miles.

So within these constraints, speed is not much of an issue, within reason, and assuming that the driver is paying attention and is alert, and the weather is good, and the car itself is in good working condition (brakes, tires, and steering).

Of course, if you’re driving in the South, speed is always an issue. Everybody goes faster and faster, until they all have to jam on their brakes at the same time and narrowly avoid a 75 car pileup. Instant death is always just a moment away.

I drove the length of Georgia both directions in 2004, with my whole family in a loaded van, and had to panic stop 3 or 4 times. From 80 mph.

Good times!

But that is another issue. My point is that drivers who ignore lane usage protocols, whether out of ignorance or vanity, cause other drivers to react to them unnecessarily, which is always rude and can be dangerous. Blending in with the flow of traffic is the single most important thing you can do on the highway.

Thanks for your attention to this urgent matter.

Sincerely, Your Friend, But Seriously, Stop Driving Like a The World Owes You Something,

Jeff

It’s Time for Some Probing Questions

Just over the last two days, we see two more reports of school shootings narrowly averted: see Suburban Student Charged In Possible Murder Plot and Teens Arrested In Alleged School Massacre Plot. I know nothing about these particular cases other than what is noted in these stories, and I don’t choose them for any particular purpose, other than (a) they are there today, and (b) I have some questions that I think need to be asked.

It seems to me that when we hear about these, we aren’t going far enough with the questions as to why? What is different today? I went to school from 64-77, and I don’t ever remember hearing one such story. The whole idea was so foreign – bringing guns to school to kill unarmed kids? Who would do such a thing?

Yet, here we are. Something is different. It just isn’t normal to have that much disaffected and rebellious rage bottled up inside of our young boys. Sure, teenaged boys are known for this, to a point. But nothing as violent and widespread as what we’ve seen over the last 10 years or so.

I don’t have the time or energy to dive too deeply into this right now, but I’ll put forward a theory that I’ve read others (can’t remember who right now) put out there, regarding boys and school.

Careful With Those Modifiers

Via my weekly PBS newsletter:

Alexander Hamilton
Monday, May 14, 2007

One of the most controversial men of his age, Alexander Hamilton was a gifted statesman brought down by the fatal flaws of stubbornness, extreme candor, and arrogance. His life and career were marked by a stunning rise to power, scandal, and tragedy. He had one of the most notorious love affairs of any public figure in American history, and met his death in a startling act of political violence – the famous duel with Aaron Burr.

But his contributions as a statesman survive. As first Secretary of the Treasury during the tumultuous early years of the republic, Hamilton led the transformation of the young country into a commercial and industrial powerhouse. He was the one founder who had a vision, not of what America was, but of what it could become.

This two-hour American Experience tells the story of the underappreciated genius who laid the groundwork for the nation’s modern economy – including the banking system, Wall Street, and an “opportunity society” in which talent and hard work, not birth, determined success.

Broadcast Date: Monday, May 14, 2007

Web site Launch Date: May 10, 2007

Sounds interesting, and I’ll definitely try to watch/tape it. But what is up with this: “He was the one founder who had a vision, not of what America was, but of what it could become”? Are you s-e-r-i-o-u-s?

The one founder who had a vision of what America could become? Nobody else had a vision?

Ooops

OK, all you teachers out there, listen up.

High on the List of Things You Should NOT Do at Work is have sex. In the principal’s office. With the principal.

On video.

How To Tell When You Are Officially Screwed

A good indication is when lawyers and school administrators start deciding what clothes can be worn by “free” people living in a “free” country.

“Diversity”, as in “Not Diverse At All”

If you have kids who will ever attend high school or college, but you don’t worship at the Altar of Diversity, you might want to look into this new documentary “Indoctrinate U” by Evan Coyne Maloney (trailer here, official site here).

My own (oldest) son is a college freshman, but he has a pretty healthy BS detector. He doesn’t like people telling him what to think, without some evidence and logic to back it up. Can’t imagine where he gets that from. I’ve warned him, though, that when others hold power over you, you have to pick your battles pretty carefully. We’ll see what happens.

College is supposed to be about embracing the power of ideas, and debating them, warts and all. If we wanted to just brainwash them into believing that Diversity and Tolerance are the big ideas from which all other good things flow, we could do that ourselves, and for quite a bit less than $40k per year.

Hell, even children’s books, movies, TV shows, and music are loaded with these PC messages today. Are we really that concerned that by the time they get to college, after all that brainwashing they’ve already endured, we must continue the charade of pretending that everybody is always the same, everywhere? That little girls are just as likely to grow up to become a fireman as a little boy? That females are drawn to math and science equally with boys? That blacks are represented proportionally in the sciences the same as in the NBA?

Please, just stop yourselves. You’re only fooling the gullible and naive.

When I was in college, one of the philosophy courses I took required as part of the final an essay question on whether affirmative action was justified or not. I answered that it was not, for two reasons: (1) morally, if it was wrong to discriminate in the past against this group, then it is just as wrong to discriminate in the future against that one, and (2) from a utilitarian viewpoint, basically, how do you know when you’re done punishing those you want to punish? I have to wonder, today, if this same argument would get me an F, given this university climate of enforced diversity.

(via Dr. Helen)