WHY NEUTER PROFESSORS?

 

I've worked as a day laborer, janitor, night watchman, store clerk, barber’s apprentice, Army officer, seventh-grade teacher and, for forty-six years, professor. and author. I was married for over half a century until my wife was torn from my side by Parkinson's Disease. Together we raised two children to happy, productive adulthood. Yet despite this lifetime of experiences and years of advanced study, I still was required to submit to anonymous "course" evaluations by callow, sometimes astonishingly ignorant, undergraduates each and every semester . 

The Barber's Cat

Had I been told to evaluate my professors when I was an undergraduate, I would have thought someone had taken leave of their senses. We were obviously green, relatively ignorant kids under the tutelage of full-scale adults who had accomplished and knew far more than we did. It was their job to do the evaluating, not ours.

Perhaps I knew my place better than most because of apprenticing in my Dad’s barbershop. It was in Altoona, Pennsylvania; then one of the world's largest railroad centers. Consequently the barbershop was heavily populated by no-nonsense railroaders who performed  dangerous, complicated, and highly skilled jobs for, what was then, the "Standard Railroad of the World." Many were also war veterans. 

In this very adult world I soon learned to keep my opinions to myself. Early on I once chancing an opinion  only to have a case-hardened customer remark that I reminded him of the barber's cat. When I asked what that meant, he said, "It means full of piss and wind." Everyone found that quite funny. Thereafter, I kept my opinions to myself. 

Keeping the "Customer Satisfied

Now, let's consider these so-called "course" evaluations. In imposing them our Provost claimed they would more accurately appraise instructional quality. He stressed that previous administrations (dating back well over a century) had to rely on word of mouth. Now the university would get a much more accurate picture. 

Faculty were also assured that "course" evaluation supported fairer tenure and promotion decisions. This, even though we were assured these were to evaluate courses, not professors. 

"Course" evaluations had more to do with finance than anything else. When a school suffers a shortage of applicants and/or cash, which ours was at the time, management focuses on cash flow. And improving cash flow requires keeping the student "customers" satisfied. Of course, what often keeps these "customers" satisfied is a good grade for minimal effort. That action usually  also boosts professor's "course" evaluation scores.

Across the centuries, higher ed administrators did not invite, much less require, students to take the measure of their betters. After all, at their incomplete stage of  development, many, probably most, student's were, and still are, incapable of exercising mature, dispassionate judgement — especially if they've earned a bad grade.

Anonymous Denunciations

Our "course" evaluations were also required to be anonymous. Students were instructed not to sign their name. This shield of anonymity increased the probability they would use the evaluation for retributive denunciation. That, in turn, undermined essential rigor and indirectly encouraged students to down-grade professors who required hard work and a willingness to experience the discomfort of serious thought. 

Plainly, students had no doubt who was grading them. We professors could only guess. We might have learned something useful had we been able to identify respondents. But given student anonymity, one could never know if a bad rating was fair, or mere retribution from some class-cutting dullard who truly merited his or her "F." 

I scored well on these evaluations, evidence my promotion to full professor. But I still found the process humiliating and degrading. My colleagues generally bore this disempowerment, in silence. I imagine most did that to avoid displeasing the authorities.

A degrading finale topped all of this off. On the last day of class professors were instructed to make no comments about the process. They were ti have a student distribute the evaluations, then leave the room.  Completed evaluations were to be deposited on the front desk, collected by the last student finishing, sealed in a provided envelope, and delivered to the department secretary. —only she had the necessary security clearance. Professors were never to touch them once they had been completed.

Excommunication

The collected evaluations were perused by an assortment of administrators, then returned to the examinee. He or she were expected to review them, benefit from the feedback, bind them for future reference, and record summative statistics on a spreadsheet. These statistics proved critical in any future tenure or promotion hearing. Denial of tenure was the academic equivalent of excommunication.  

A "Tenure and Promotion Committee" conducted the inquisition that determined the candidate's fate. Chaired by the Provost, this committee was staffed by highly domesticated faculty appointed by the Committee on Committees. If a candidate for tenure or promotion had weak statistics, or if the Provost Jesuitically hinted his disapproval, the candidacy was doomed. Naturally the professor be examined was not permitted to appear at his or her own inquisition. Representation was provided by the Department Chair.

I once asked the  Chair of the Committee on Committees why I was never selected to serve on this committee. That would have helped with my promotion. But  explained that I was "insufficiently attentive to administrative intent." She, by the way, was exquisitely sensitive to it and not long after became Dean of Arts and Sciences.

Of course professors are typically denied any opportunity to evaluate their chairs, deans, provost, or  president. I once asked our Dean, a lady with a a remarkable sensitivity to administrative intent, when faculty would be afforded the opportunity to grade her and her superiors? I stressed that professors were obviously better qualified to evaluate administrators than immature. inexperienced, sometimes appallingly ignorant, youngsters were their professors. Looking shocked and shifty, she muttered something about this being decided at some future date. That, of course, turned out to be never. 

 Why The Worm Can't Turn?

College administrators know perfectly well that granting professors the power to evaluate them would result in their disempowerment, just as "course" evaluations disempower faculty. So in this case, what's sauce for the goose is, indeed, gall for the gander. 

At our college we professors were also expressly forbidden from initiating any communications with members of the board of trustees. That meant, we were expressly forbidden any opportunity to evaluate administrator performance with their bosses. (You know, the ones who may be ignoramuses, but still are big givers.)

"Course" evaluations are part of the general disempowerment of teachers at all levels that, these days, is rendering them more and more impotent and less and less satisfied. Here's another instance: learning used to primarily be a student responsibility. Nowadays it's the teacher's.  In the School District of Philadelphia, for instance, teachers are held accountable for learning that fails to take place when a student doesn't even attend class, If a chronically truant fails to perform on standardized tests, the teacher still is blamed. After all, it's his or her job to "leave no child behind." Remember that humbug?  

Of course, this whole process was accomplished under the pretense that these were "course"evaluations. Hopefully that fooled no one. If it did, they weren't smart enough to be professors to begin with. 

Enough said.  

WHAT LIMITS SCHOOLS OF THE FUTURE?

 

Sixteen years ago an editorial in the New York Times promised that in the schools of the future:

• "students will use free internet applications to complete their classroom assignments on school-issued laptops that also substitute for text books"
• "educators will track students' academic growth with sophisticated software that allows them to better tailor lessons and assignments to each youngster's achievement level"
• "parents will use instant messaging to chat with teachers about their child's progress"

In a few schools all of this has been realized and more besides. But in many others a fundamental limitation is nullifying it all. What is this limitation? It's the kids, their parents, and the world they're growing up in. 

Youngsters still have to buy into schooling before technology can even begin to transform their schooling. And kids with all sorts of education-stultifying problems weren't buying into schooling before the advent of digital technology, aren't buying into it now despite the promise, and won't buy into it in the future. Similarly their parents have to be capable of at least mediocre parental performance. Many aren't. And, lastly, the neighborhood surrounding every school seeps in and greatly influences the educational process. regardless of the technology employed. 

This is especially true of schools that most urgently require transformation. Schools in our inner cities. Technology hasn't and won't transform these schools. They haven't become more successful delivering instruction. They aren't doing better communicating with parents or fostering their interest. And, with rare exceptions, they remain the same educational wastelands they were before the advent of the digital age.

Here is a brief tale that illustrates the point. A teacher I know well was trying to teach in a Philadelphia inner city middle school that was, indeed, technologically impoverished. Through some miracle one solitary classroom was equipped with brand new computers at every desk. One morning while classes were changing, two adolescent boys began chasing one another around the computer rich classroom. Soon they were leaping from one desktop to another, trampling keyboards and kicking over computers. Perhaps the boys had that intent before they even started chasing. We'll never know. In any event they wrecked utter havoc. There was no money to replace or repair the damage. The computerized classroom was defunct before its promise was even beginning to be realized. Why? Non technological problems triumphed. 

The two vandals were never positively identified, much less dealt with. Disorder was so rife in this school that this particular destruction just blended into the chaos. Whatever promise the new computers offered was lost to all. Students could not, as the Times article promised, "use free internet applications to complete their classroom assignments" had they even wanted to. Worse still, kids who actually wanted to complete their assignments were in relatively short supply. On nice days as many as a third of the youngsters were either hours late reporting for class, or failed to show up at all. And if a youngster did complete assignments they often attracted unwelcome attention from their worst classmate.

So far as teachers being able to "track student's academic growth with sophisticated software that allows them to better tailor lessons and assignments to each youngster's achievement level," that's not just impossible now, it will be in the future — at least at the secondary level. Teachers there are trying to teach upwards of 150 kids spread over five different periods, each with 30 or so kids. Keeping track of all 150 is impossible now and will be in the future. In fact, it will remain impossible so long as we organize public education on a factory-like, mass production basis in order to make it affordable. And we're not about to stop that economizing because tax payers, particularly those without school-age children, are already fed up with school taxes.

When it comes to "parents using instant messaging to chat with teachers about their child's progress," that pipe dream requires their parents to have the necessary technology, interest, sobriety, time and freedom from the thousand and one problems that poverty, broken homes, drug addiction, alcoholism and imprisonment brings. Good luck with that!

What is one to make of all this? That schools and school kids do NOT exist in a vacuum. The world surrounding the school intrudes into each classroom, mirroring the situations in which the school is submerged. IF those situations are dysfunctional so far as schooling is concerned, no amount of technological innovation is going to save that school from the consequences. If the school is submerged in a neighborhood of affluence, safety and functional families technological innovations only widen the gap.  

 

For more detailed realistic considerations of educational issues such as this, visit newfoundations.com AND/OR newfoundations.net

THE LIMITS OF INDOCTRINATION: nuns and woke professors

"I just tuned them out."

A worried Israeli émigré once told me her daughter’s Modern Middle East History professor — Jewish, but very woke — consistently condemned Israel. The mother worried that her daughter, born and raised in Israel, would come to despise the land of her birth. 

I opined that most students of college age long ago learned to discount disagreeable instruction. For instance, I knew a woman who experienced 8 years of Catholic schooling conducted by 1950's era take-no-prisoners nuns. Nevertheless, she remained largely ignorant and disregardful of Catholic doctrine." I asked how she preserved her ignorance, given years of Roman Catholic indoctrination. She explained that when she questioned what was being taught, she was either ignored or reproached. Ultimately, she just quit listening. "I tuned them out!" she said. Hence her triumphant ignorance of the "one true faith."

 Pressed for details, the woman specifically recalled being taught that it was a grave sin to save the life of the mother if it required sacrificing the life of her unborn child. Disturbed, she asked what if the mother had other children and a husband who loved and needed her? Her query was met with a reproach. She also remembered being taught that babies are born infected with original sin. She thought it terrible to condemn newborns who are obviously innocent. By this time, though, she had learned not to object. 

This is one way indoctrination falls flat. Done ham-handedly, it can even provoke obdurate opposition. For instance, when I was ten or eleven I asked my Sunday school teacher what happens when people die without ever hearing of Jesus? (I was thinking of very remote areas, like New Guinea.) She replied matter-of-factly, "They go to hell." I said that this didn’t seem fair. She responded by quoting John 14:6 in which Jesus reportedly says: “No man cometh unto the father but by me.” I blurted out that this still seemed unfair. She replied coldly that fairness had nothing to do with it. Adding crossly: “This is not a debating society. If you are unhappy with God's answer, perhaps you shouldn't be here.” I decided she was right.

My usual Sunday school offering, 50 cents, bought 10 pinball games, not counting the free games I won, at a near-bye corner store. I played Sabbath pinball for several weeks. Then my mother found out. I thought I was in serious trouble. But when she heard what. happened, she granted absolution. Evidently she too thought it unfair for anyone to burn for eternity in hell on an ignorance rap. Eventually we both quit going to that church. Indoctrination can backfire. 

Professors, teachers, parents and the general public all tend to overestimate the durability and effectiveness of instruction. In my 46 years as a professor I taught thousands of undergraduates; and I was repeatedly astonished by how little of what they had previously “learned” they actually remembered. Many of them, for instance, found it impossible to simply convert their raw test score, say, 39 correct out of 50, to a percentage. Yet they'd ""learned" that in middle school. Similarly, most could not identify the combatants in World Wars I or II. Only a handful knew the decade of the Great Depression. Many could not find China on an outline map. One thought that France was our northern neighbor because, “people speak French up there.” Another opined that Heinrich Himmler must be the chap who invented that life saving maneuver for people choking on food. 

That famed lifesaver, Heinrich Himmler

These kids were college sophomores who easily mastered complex social media applications and identified every single Kardashian. Yet most of them manifested little applicable knowledge of what  is typically taught in school. 

Worse still, transforming these "students" instrumental interest in merely passing tests into an intrinsic interest in knowledge itself was very difficult. It was like trying to make a dog happy by manually wagging its tail. 

Such undergraduates are certainly not easily influenced by a biased lecturer. In fact, they are seldom influenced long-term by any instruction.

I doubt my 46-years of experience with academic amnesia and disinterest is unusual. In fact I’ll wager student ignorance of past instruction is quite commonplace. This is precisely why university administrators would rather fight rabid pit bulls barehanded than require undergraduates to pass a core subjects knowledge test as a condition for a degree. Merely mentioning such a procedure puts most of these educational "leaders" at risk of a myocardial infarction.

How is any of this pertinent to our émigré mother’s worries? Well, given the perishable nature of most school taught knowledge, it is unlikely that this politically correct pedagogue is going to convert her Israeli-born daughter to an anti-Israel stance. To be sure, his impassioned denunciations of Israel will probably motivate at least some students to admire Hamas, , when in a mob, eagerly shout "From the river to the sea!" But, even then, they are unlikely to be able to identify either body of water or to hold on to that view when it's no longer a popular way to look righteous. 

Yasser Arafat

Is it proper for professors to conduct class in a one-sided manner? Not when the issue is multi-faceted. But it’s not like these students are living in regimes where only one point of view prevails. And it is only in societies where just one point of view is permitted and all others silenced under penalty of death or imprisonment that indoctrination is likely to succeed in the long term.

Yes, it has become true that one-sidedness does prevail in some college departments where Woke has become the official religion. In fact in some colleges the administration actually tolerates, even endorses, this new dogma. Whenever this prevails, our Israeli expatriate should start worrying. So should the rest of us.

 

PROGRAMMATIC DEFINITIONS ARE TRECHEROUS: here's why

 

Here is a classic programmatic definition: "Abortion is murder." Why? Because if you accept the definition, you necessarily accept the program of action that goes with it. What program of action? Redefining induced abortion as an act of murder. It is NOT murder anywhere in America. Not even in states where abortion is outlawed after a certain term of pregnancy. 

"Abortion is murder" does not mirror ordinary usage. As evidence let's look at the two key words, "abortion" and "murder." The Medical Dictionary explicitly defines abortion as: termination of pregnancy before the fetus is viable. In the medical sense, this term and the term miscarriage both refer to the termination of pregnancy before the fetus is capable of survival outside the uterus. The term abortion is more commonly used as a synonym for induced abortion, the deliberate interruption of pregnancy as opposed to miscarriage, which connotes a spontaneous or natural loss of the fetus. 

The Oxford Dictionary of English defines "murder" as: the unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by another. Of course, then, for abortion to be murder a fetus has to be thought of as a human being. But among theologians there is substantial disagreement on that matter.  Even the early church fathers thought that it was more wrong to abort a fully formed fetus than one that wasn't.  

t

Pope Francis declared abortion to be a "crime" even though in the United States, and in other Western nations, it isn't. So the Pope's definition is programmatic. If we accept the Pope's definition, we embrace the Roman Catholic program of action that is embedded in it. Redefining abortion as the capital crime of murder. 

Clearly the Pope's definition violates ordinary usage. Abortion is not a crime, at least not until a certain duration of pregnancy has passed. Nor do polls evidence a majority of Americans agree with the Pope that it is an "absolute evil." The Pope's violation of ordinary usage - and popular consensus - is what makes his definition programmatic. And that istroublesome because this linguistic maneuver delegitimizes debate and stifles discussion. 

Accept the Pope's definition and we need not wonder if a girl who has been raped by her father should have the option of abortion. If she and/or her mother choose that course of action, no matter how desperately they choose it, she/they are, by the Pope's definition are murderers who have chosen an "absolute evil." And, according to the Pope, this would be true even if the abortion were performed before the embryo was still and embryo - much less capable of independent survival outside the womb.

The practical force of programmatic definitions is that their acceptance has consequences far exceeding mere linguistic preference. Accept Pope Francis's definition, for example, and there is no room for argument or contrary evidence. The choice has been made for us. 

A handy, though by no means infallible, method of identifying programmatic definitions is the presence of adjectives such as “true “ or “real.” For example, "A true conservative is one who ...". You can fill in the rest. But those who offer programmatic definitions do not necessarily intend to deceive or slip us a linguistic Mickey. They might well believe that the meaning they propose is the only “true” or “right” one. 

Sincerity and good intentions, however, are not enough. To avoid being programmatic, definitions must mirror ordinary usage, stand against contrary evidence and surmount informed disagreement. Mere assertion will not do.

THE ENROLLMENT CRISES AND DERELICTION OF DUTY

When applicants are plentiful, collegiate administrators generally uphold standards. When applicants are scarce,  they don't. When I was an undergraduate, for instance, my college had three applicants for every opening. Standards were rigorous. For instance, students were subjected to a summative "Junior Standing Test."It measured measuring sophomore student's knowledge of the core subjects they ere required to take during their first two years. Fail this test and you failed to gain junior standing.  Imagine instituting a Junior Standing Test today. One with real teeth. It would never happen!  In fact, given the current acute shortage of applicants, the standard now approaches: "the customer is always right."  

An abundant supply of applicants fosters collegiate rigor. When applicants are scarce, rigor evaporates. And thriving in this permissive atmosphere is a breed of "professors" who, not only fail to impose rigor, they decry the very concept. They claim rigor it's a form of oppression. And that's only one of the many assertions they employ that castrates reason itself. Is that judgement too severe? Not at all. They claim, for instance, that reason and logic are mere "white" ways of knowing. Therefore, they are racist. There are, they vaguely assert, "other ways of knowing." Via the glands, one supposes.

These "woke" professors push such views with religious intensity. They are, in effect, evangelists for the new "woke" religion. And this pertains even though evangelization is emphatically NOT a professor's proper job. Real professors pose intelligent questions and communicate settled knowledge. They do not sell dogmatic political theology disguised as scholarship. 

Consider the Socratic method. It provides a time-honored method of thoughtful teaching that is far from doctrinaire. But, in service of their ideology, many  "woke" folks assert that Socrates was just another white, male, oppressor. Worse, they claim, with a straight face mind you, that no culture is better than any other. 

That means the culture of, say, Canada, is qualitatively covalent with the culture of North Korea. Don't they realize realize that this very assertion could prove fatal to them in North Korea? After all, their dumpy little  "Dear Leader" is orders of magnitude better than every other leader in the world. Moreover, according to them, their cultural practices are utterly without equal. The place is a veritable paradise.

Adding fuel to these "woke" professor's intellectual Dumpster fire, higher ed administrators — preoccupied with meager enrollments and vanishing revenue — too often support, even urge, the dereliction of duty of these "woke" types. Many, in desperate pursuit of enrollment, even join them in worshipping their "woke" religion. For example, many now urge professors to engage in "whole life," not merely academic, counseling. Professors are urged to ask things like: "Are you sleeping well?" "Do you have digestive issues?" "Are you anxious about anything?" "Is there recent trauma in your life?"

Of course traumas ar now quite plentiful because these "woke" folks have redefined an entire range of normal stressors as  "traumatic." Unintended slights have even morphed into "micro aggressions." So now there's much personal angst for students to report. Some might even make up traumas because more intense whining will probably gain them a passing grade, 

What, pray tell, entitles professors to pry into student's personal lives? They aren't trained mental health professionals. Besides, what is a professor supposed to do about anything revealed, beyond sending them to the counseling center? It couldn't possibly be to ease up on grading and boost enrollment, could it? Besides, doesn't emphasizing personal complaints have the effect of undermining the subject's resilience? Don't suck it up and get on with the job! Don't consider that shit just happens. Feel sorry for yourself and look for excuses. 

Professors are also being urged to be the student's friend.  No, they should not be the student's friend. They are their teacher. Friend and teacher are very different roles and should not be confused. Otherwise, the teacher's role is easily compromised. 

Sorting and Grading

When I was an Army officer and failed to get something done, the only acceptable explanation was: "No excuse sir." That's the attitude that gets things done. With regard to rigor, it defines higher education. That's precisely why it's "higher." To qualify for a legitimate college diploma, students must meet rigorous standards. And it's a professor's job to apply them. Though there is one proviso. Research reveals gender bias in student's reaction to the enforcement of meaningful standards. Females are more likely to be penalized for imposing such standards. Culturally they are expected to be more solicitous. Motherly, if you will. So they need more sand to do the job right.

Sorting and grading students is unappealing. Nevertheless, it is an absolutely necessary aspect of college teaching. "Woke" professors who evangelize rather than teach, frequently evade this responsibility. I even know of one fellow who said he could never fail anyone. "Think of the damage this could do to their lives!" he says. Such dereliction of duty should cost these ersatz "professors" their jobs. Instead, it improves their "course" evaluations and greatly helps in winning promotion and tenure. 

Why is their dereliction of duty tolerated — even encouraged? Because administrators are far more concerned about decreased enrollment and unbalanced balance sheets than they are about quality education. That's why you'd give them a coronary should you suggest a final testing before granting any diplomas.

Political correctness is the theology that nourishes this malignant silliness. And many academics, most  commonly found in the softer disciplines, are self-righteous converts. Indeed, the lengths some will go in actualizing this faith are truly astonishing. For instance, reason and logic, these benighted souls claim, are "white." So are objectivity and rationality," In consequence, they do not trouble themselves with either. Even getting the right answer, or being able to express oneself in articulate English is just another racist aspect of "white identity culture,"  

They yowl that "it's time "decolonize the curriculum!" They even assert that no culture is any better than any other. Failing to recognize that should they express this same idea in a number of societies, Iran for instance, they might well be imprisoned.  Even possibly put to death.

Winning Souls to Silliness

In their politically correct world there's no individual responsibility, nor agency. For instance,  child molesters are no longer pederasts, but "minor attracted persons." Worse,  these academic evangelicals preach their dogmatic faith to naive adolescents. And since many of them long for simple answers to the complex questions of late adolescence, they win souls to this silliness. 

This quasi-religious indoctrination even emboldens some students to self-righteously investigate their professors for signs of heresy. Should one even mention, say, David Hume, brands the offending professor as someone to be purged. Emboldened by evangelical true belief, these converts denounce any professor they deem an apostate.  

Meanwhile administrators, preoccupied with balancing the budget, consign academic freedom and intellectual rigor to the dust bin. After all, there's  plummeting enrollment, and their own job security, to consider. A few of these "leaders" are even true believers. These are the ones who become half-baked Torquemada's, advising professors to be careful concerning which facts they present. Such coercion should be anathema in academe. Instead it is commonplace wherever and whenever political correctness rules. 

"Wokeness" and Chairman Mao

There now is a supply of "students" scouring the collegiate world looking to be offended. These same youngsters are the converts of true believing professors who have defined them as inquisitors junior grade. So, instead of using college to create themselves, these youngsters have let someone else do it for them. They find researched knowledge offensive, emotionally troubling, heretical, if it violates their conviction that the world is in the clutches of an all-powerful white male hegemony. 

What disappears in all of this is agency. The realization that one's choices and degree of effort really matters. It isn't that they fail to put forth the requisite effort. No, they're victims! The other is to blame! It's not hard to estimate how harmful such an attitude might be for their future. 

Here's the bare fact. The "woke" culture is just a domesticated version of Mao's "cultural revolution."  Professors aren't being beaten, imprisoned, or murdered as they were in Mao's China. But they are being subjected to name-calling, public ridicule, administrative muzzling, censorship and job loss. Worse still, politically correct zealotry has provoked a right-wing backlash that threatens academic freedom from the opposite direction.  Guess who's caught in the middle?  

Conclusion

President Trump is expunging D.E.I. from the federal government. Corporate giants are also backing away. But "wokeness," performative virtue and identity politics remain firmly in place. Actual, as well as ersatz, true believers still can successfully denounce non-conforming colleagues as out of date, homophobic, racist, reactionaries. They also block publication in most professional journals, should they deem a submission heretical. This is why professors who are willing to risk being "heretics," are in just as short supply as collegiate applicants. 

Yes, in higher education the "woke" religion remains firmly in place. Moreover, the zealotry of its true believers remains undiminished. Consequently, the intellectual and marketplace value of a so-called higher education, especially in non-STEM areas, is loosing its value. What employer wants a blindly fanatic graduate, who knows little, can do less, and promises to be nothing but trouble? 

The truth is, "wokeness" is having the same devitalizing impact on U.S. academic life, that Marxism-Leninism had in the Soviet Union. Worse still, because it is coupled with a growing collegiate enrollment crisis, its impact is especially virulent. Unfortunately, this quasi-religious zealotry and intellectual vacuity, will probably have Toyota-like durability. It very probably will continue to attract an abundance of "scholars" who yearn to substitute faith for reason and conviction for evidence.

 To further examine these and similar issues, visit www.newfoundations.com

ARE MOST AMERICANS EDUCABLE or merely trainable?

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I'm not sure about the universe." 

Albert Einstein

“Essential questions” are intended to guide instruction and help students discover the big ideas that constitute the core of a topic of study. Let's apply this methodology to education itself. What is the most essential question we can ask about it? How about this: how many Americans are truly educable?

What’s the difference between being “educable” and “trainable?” Let’s stipulate that for a person to be “educable” they must be “capable of being improved in ways that depend on accurate information, logical reason and deep understanding.” A trainable person, in contrast, is incapable of being improved in these ways.

Have you ever wondered if many Americans are educable in any deep and abiding sense? A great deal of human misery is preventable if people could be taught to think effectively, listen closely, weigh facts accurately, and carefully consider alternative points of view. But failure to achieve these skills is commonplace — as is the misery and folly such failures. Why? Perhaps because most Americans, like most humans everywhere, are just not capable. 

Lack of Capacity and/or Interest 

 For education to be a cure, much less a cure-all, the majority must be capable of, and sufficiently interested in, gaining the requisite hard-won reason and understanding. Are most Americans up to that? Maybe not. 

Consider the long-standing popularity of P.T. Barnum’s observation that “There’s a sucker born every minute.”  Ponder the durability of H.L. Mencken’s dictum that “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” Perhaps such observations are so durable because they reflect fundamental reality? After all, half of the American people really are dumber than the other half - at least as measured by IQ tests. And, as Martin Luther King Jr., observed, "While you can fix a lot of things, you cannot fix stupidity."

Such an opinion is heretical to Americans bought up on our culture's nearly obligatory optimism regarding schooling's possibilities. Such a consideration is not even acknowledged by educational "leaders" be they principal, superintendent of schools, or Secretary of Education. Nevertheless, there is a large amount of evidence that supports this pessimistic view. Consider, as one of many examples, that many Americans continue to either deny or ignore that we humans are heating the globe to a catastrophic level. And they persist in this folly despite overwhelming objective evidence that climate change is real and growing ever more serious. 

Also consider how many humans trot off to slaughter every time someone decides America should give a war. Instead of learning from repeated previous slaughters, we humans continue to enthusiastically divide ourselves into pseudo-species, carefully nurture distrust and hatred toward one another, adopt beliefs that render others inferior to ourselves and then, sooner or later, join in still another horrific mutual slaughter of our fellow beings that is utterly foreign to any “lesser species.” For instance, fully fifteen million people were killed and twenty two million wounded in World War I. Yet just nineteen years later homo sapiens (man the thinker?) got himself into a far worse slaughter: WW II, This second ghastly tribute to human folly cost, maybe, 60 million people their lives and loosed hellish suffering on many more. Does any of this sound like the behavior of a species that is educable, i.e. “capable of being improved in ways that depend on reason and understanding?”

How come years of compulsory schooling has failed to cure this blindness?  Is it that their education was inadequate? Is it because a substantial number are unable to grasp the depth and urgency of the problem because they lack the brain power? Or, is it because of the many other educational impediments we'll soon mention?

Denying Readily Apparent Facts

The fact is many homo sapiens displays a peculiar reluctance, or inability, to employ reason and understanding even when the truth is readily apparent. The Harris Poll reported, for instance, that despite repeated official reports that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, the belief that Iraq possessed such weapons increased substantially after the war was over and evidence to the contrary was in.

That’s right, despite massive and widely publicized evidence to the contrary, the number of Americans who thought that Iraq possessed such weapons prior to Operation “Enduring Freedom” actually went up as evidence to the contrary became widely known. As a matter of fact, in February of 2005 only 36% thought Iraq was so armed; but in July of 2006 fully 50% believed they were. Does that sound like a conviction that grew out of widespread capacity for reason and understanding?

To be fair, those who changed their mind about those weapons of mass destruction might have done so out of an unconscious desire to rationalize their own original enthusiasm for the war and/or to justify the tremendous costs it has generated. In short, what seems to be evidence of public credulity might just be people being human, all to human. But that still leaves us wondering why the species is so very eager to cling to the mindless tribalism, hatred and the organized murder we call warfare? Is that evidence of Homo sapiens' educability?

Campaign Ads

One can also profitably consider the success of political campaign strategies based on the principle that most of us are fools. In the recent presidential election, for instance, swing state Pennsylvania's citizens were bombarded by an unprecedented and unrelenting multi-million dollar TV ad blitz that offered little but unsophisticated attack ads. Why so many of that kind? Because ads like that work and work well. Does their success suggest there is a great deal of deep thought going on out there?

Of course, political propagandists know how to play on emotions such as fear of the unknown, the alien and the complex. Moreover, the simplicity they offer is beguilingly attractive to a public that has to reach conclusions based on imperfect information and deliberate disinformation. Maybe that, rather than widespread intellectual ineffectiveness, is why the general public remains so exploitable and so oblivious to many urgently important issues. Let’s hope so. But don't put any money on it.

The Media

Evidence of a widespread ineducability is not confined to the repetitive insanity of war, assaults on the environment, or crass political chicanery. Consider, the quality of the media. More specifically, let’s consider infomercials or “paid programming.” 

Multiplied millions of dollars are spent buying TV time to peddle bogus nostrums, physical and spiritual, and many, many more millions are realized in consequence. Psychic hotlines generate fortunes for their bogus operators even though they have absolutely nothing but hot air to sell. Omega 3 fish oil is successfully huckstered as a cure for an impossible range of maladies and tens of thousands have been convinced that purging their bowels will have the same beneficial effects on their body that emptying a full sweeper bag can effect for s clogged up Electrolux. Ka-ching$!

Also consider how dozens of televangelists of dubious background and motive, repeatedly and successfully conning the public on TV by means of such obvious scams as packets of “miracle spring water,” or dollar green colored “prosperity prayer cloths” allegedly conveying magical pecuniary powers. “Pastor, right after I got your prayer cloth a thousand dollars mysteriously appeared in my bank account. Praise God!”

The fact is there is a small army of prosperity “pastors” on TV convincing tens of thousands of financially desperate people that giving generously — to the pastor, of course— will not only eliminate some benighted fools financial troubles but prompt a ten-fold return on their “offering.” One oily, but particularly persuasive, televangelists lives in a multi-million dollar California beach front mansion and flies to world-renown resorts in his business jet. Years back I even saw one of them wheedling still more money out of the faithful so he could buy an even bigger business jet —the price tag was nine million dollars! Let’s pump this sacerdotal bunko artist full of truth serum then ask him about the educability of the average American. Can you guess what he would say?

Media Programming

Ponder also the generally appalling quality of media programming both cable and broadcast. Broadcast TV, for instance, is still the same cultural wilderness it was in 1961 when FCC Chairman Newton Minnow invited us to:

“…sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you--and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western badmen, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials--many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom.”

Newton was right on target until he got to that very last sentence. Since TV bored him, he concluded that the broad masses must also be bored. But Minnow failed to consider that shows remain on the air by virtue of their ratings. TV content is a function of the public tuning in or tuning out. Hence the generally mindless quality of TV programming is an indirect index of widespread public preference for drivel. Network executives long ago learned that they pan the most gold by designing a preponderance of their shows for people of limited capacity and less sophistication — i.e. the general public.

Radio programming is similarly selected via public popularity. So what do the masses tune to? Well here in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, home to almost 6 million people, it is unlikely to be classical music because the one commercial station that played it switched to soft rock. Philadelphians can listen to hip-hop, dance, country, soft rock, hard rock, pop/rock, stupidly one-sided right wing “talk” shows and endless gassing about sports, but the likes of Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn are out so far as commercial radio is concerned. Why? The broad masses weren’t tuning in. Evidently the broad masses prefer Rap to the Ode to Joy. And keep in mind that even greater desolation exists in the hinterlands where semi-literate pastors read God’s mind for the masses while country music grinds on endlessly in cacophonous concert. That is nearly all there is in the media heartland.

Do the happenings on social media give the lie to this argument? No, it reinforces it several orders of magnitude. The truly dumb entries on X, for example, offer overwhelming evidence of massive, breathtaking, shitheadedness that dominates much of social media.

Too Dumb, Too Scared, Or What?

To be fair, no one knows for sure how many people are deeply disgusted with this media garbage. And many people might have far better discernment if they had more knowledge to work with. American schooling helps little here. It is woefully inadequate when it comes to the arts and the discernment they can develop and it shies completely away from anything that might help kids see through bogus divines. As a matter of fact, by the time budget cuts slash “frills” from the curriculum, high stakes testing takes its share and the self-appointed censors finish off anything that might trigger thought, the curriculum is a cultural wasteland par excellence. Perhaps, then, we should beware of blaming the victim for the wasteland’s results.

All of these oblivious folks are not lacking in native intelligence. Sure, many are too dumb to know better. But many others are smart enough but lack their lack of intellectual training and knowledge prohibits their putting their intelligence to skillful use. This variety of blindness COULD be cured by a well-designed and implemented education provided if other things aren't weighing their intelligence down. But these "other things" often do. 

People are rendered uneducable for a wide variety of reasons other than stupidity. They may be too scared, too slothful, too unloved, too mentally or physically ill, too preoccupied with meeting primal needs, too angry, too substance dependent, too distracted, too bent down in soul wasting misery, too little in awe of the power of nature, to be educable. Any one of these causes, plus a number of similar factors, can block, or seriously impede, critical thinking even when it's vitally necessary.

What Proportion?

What proportion of the American population is rendered uneducable by one or more of these various causes? Is it, say 10%? According to the US Department of Education, that is the approximate population of Americans who qualify for special education. How about 76%? That's the percent of people who try to get into the U.S. military but fail to qualify. Is it somewhere in between and if so where on the continuum? You decide. 

But one thing is certain. Education, however well conducted, has strict limits. Schiller was right when he observed: "With stupidity the Gods themselves struggle in vain." When we add a host of alternative obstructions such as those just listed, it's enough to have a seriously negative impact on our species future on this tiny planet that is our only home.

 To further examine these and similar issues, visit www.newfoundations.com 

TESTING THE CANDIDATES: spotlighting the unqualified

 

Here we shortly after the presidential election and a lot of us could still use more actual information about the candidates. We could easily add more vital information in future elections. Offer each candidate the opportunity to take a battery of standardized tests on subjects such as the U.S. Constitution, Federal law, American history, basic economics and climate science, then publish each and every one of their scores. Should they refuse to take the test, make their refusal VERY public.

Donald Trump would have had to take such a test battery and have his scores made public knowledge OR publicly turn down the opportunity. Kamala Harris also would have the same opportunity to take them, have her scores reported or publicly decline. My guess is well-qualified candidates would take the opportunity while ignorant blowhards and clever bullshitters would not. Voters could still choose those who decline, to be sure, but their refusal would provide voters with useful information.

Why not require such tests? Because the Constitution sets the criteria for candidates and such an additional requirement would necessitate a Constitutional amendment. But we certainly could offer each candidate the opportunity and make the offer very public. It would function much like the debates. Except that bullshit doesn't fly on an objective test.

A professional testing corporation such as the Educational Testing Service to devise these tests. It's fun to imagine possible questions. I'm imagining serious questions involving knowledge relevant to future duties. But I can't resist adding a few that I would like to ask:

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Given an enormous federal budget deficit, which of the following would be best?

a. borrow still more money 

b. cut taxes for the middle class 

c. cut taxes for the super rich 

d. spend only what is taken in 

2. If an attractive female intern offers oral sex, a male public official should: 

a. quickly agree before she changes her mind 

b. make sure she doesn't keep the dress afterwards

c. politely decline 

d. ask her what she means by "sex." 

3. Should our schools decide to emphasize “good character,” the best person to exemplify such character would be: 

a. J. Edgar Hoover 

b. Richard Nixon 

c. Bill Clinton 

d. none of the above 

4. If a terrorist attack on the U.S. originates in country A, the best U.S. course of action would be to: 

a. turn the other cheek 

b. invade country C 

c. invade country B 

d. none of the above

5. The Second Amendment is predicated on the necessity of :

a. self-defense

b. maintaining a well-regulated militia

c. preserving a viable small arms industry

d. none of the above 

TRUE FALSE:

6. With the exception of James Buchanan, every U. S. President played par golf

7.  Mexico is actually paying for "the wall," but in small, discreet installments

8.   James Madison, the man behind the US Constitution, barred any and all Christian elements from that document.

9.  During the Trump administration, Denmark really did have Greenland up for sale

 

10. The Bill of Rights contains a total of 12 rights

Alright, enough of this whimsy. We might also want to test all potential appointees to key administrative offices. These could be required by law. Attorney General or Secretary of Defense, for example. The tests would be keyed to the anticipated areas of responsibility. For instance, every aspiring state Secretary of Education would have to pass the same battery of tests required of aspiring teachers. If we use Pennsylvania as a model, for example, the candidate would have to pass separate NTE tests in Reading, Writing, Listening Skills, Mathematics and Principles of Teaching and Learning. We might also want to add a content specialty test in their college major -- aspiring secondary educators have to take one of these. We could even also require standardized tests in Elementary Education Content and Curriculum. After all, officials in the Department of Education tell teachers at every level what to do. 

 

Of course, in any test of aspiring politicians or potential office holders, cheating will be an especially significant problem. Safeguards are absolutely required. At a minimum we must have different forms of the test in order to eliminate would-be candidates from copying each other's work. We also must put the tests under the tightest possible pre-use security.  Remember we're usually dealing with would-be politicians and their minions!

That, in broad outline, is the plan. But it needs filling in. That’s where you can help. Tell us what you think. Should aspirants for and holders of public office take standardized content area tests? If so should we also measure wisdom, rectitude, practical knowledge, sexual predilictions, or what? Additionally, should we test just once, or test longitudinally every year that the person is in office? (Longitudinal testing has the obvious advantage of measuring whether or not the subject is learning while “serving” and/or declining mentally) 

 You might like to suggest specific test items. They need not be multiple choice or true/false as exemplified in this commentary. Any type of questions typically found on standardized tests are welcome. Short answer, etc, Rush your comments and suggestions to the Worm Turns Foundation. org, or post them here. 

P.S. I also suggest asking them to publish their college transcripts. These folks are asking to be hired by us. So it certainly is appropriate to look into their academic record. (Donald Trump threatens Penn with legal action if they ever release his.)

 To examine like issues, see articles at www.newfoundations.com