Monday, June 13, 2022

BARE BOOBS OR MURDER? what's best viewing for kids?


Remember Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction?” This momentary glimpse of her right boob, a pasty covering the nipple, created such a furor that Congress, the FCC and the Supreme Court all got involved. 

Complaints about the incident repeatedly emphasized that "children were watching!" So what? Why is a kid getting a brief glimpse of a nearly bare boob so upsetting when, by the time they complete elementary school, the average U. S. child has watched some 8,000 murders on TV. Yep, that's right, eight thousand! And we're not even counting movie murders or the killings depicted in electronic gaming.

Routinely exposing children to murder as entertainment generates little to no public protest. Yet a momentary glimpse of a boob get's the nation's bowels in an uproar? What in the world is one to make of that?  Who but a moral cretin, someone like Rev. Franklin Graham comes to mind, thinks that feigned murder of a fellow human is acceptable while a very brief glimpse of a boob, nipple covered, is mouth foamingly outrageous? Murder as entertainment generates a great deal of money for people who count? But in what other way is it beneficial — especially for children? 

Okay, kids know that TV, movie and electronic media murders aren't real.  Nevertheless, what are they learning by living in a culture where the staged depiction of murder is entertainment? Also ask yourself, what kid's learn about sexuality when a breast bared for a fraction of a second creates a national furor? Healthy that ain't.

Here's an actual incident that first got me thinking about this. One morning my wife and I were walking to our car when some young boys next door made believe they were shooting me. I know, boys often do that sort of thing. But let's broaden our view of it a bit. Suppose, instead of pretending to murder me, they had mimicked having sexual intercourse with my wife. Let's imagine they were pointing at her and thrusting their butts. Imagine how the boy's mother would have reacted if I informed her that her were doing that. She would have been mortified. But had I expressed concern about her boys were pretending to murder me, she would have thought me tetched. Why? How come kids mimicking a pleasurable act is utterly unacceptable, while mimicking murder is amusing? What sort of weird cultural values does this reflect? 

Most of what shapes a child's sense of right and wrong is caught rather than taught. By that I mean, kids absorb how to behave and what to value just by living in a certain environment. Now, what do you think they are absorbing by watching and playing at murder? Is this wise and worthy of their promise? And as for this puritanical attitude regarding human sexuality that they absorb, how wise is that? No wonder we've got all sorts of sexual deviants running about.

So, am I far out in left field on this? Or does what I'm saying make sense? Please comment.

To examine similar educationally related issues, see articles at www.newfoundations.net 

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL: schools reflect America.


Mirrors reflect reality with remorseless accuracy. Exercise, eat well, and the consequences are reflected in the mirror — flat belly, taut muscles, and all. Sit on your duff and gobble Twinkies? These consequences also are reflected with unflattering exactitude.   

Schools act as our nation's mirror. What's right or wrong with them, reflects what's right or wrong with America. Here's a vivid example. The U. S. has the most uneven distribution of wealth in the world. The Aspen Foundation reports that the wealthiest 1% of American families possess some 40% of that wealth. The bottom 90%, that's the rest if us, share less than 25%. One consequence is reported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. About 18% of all of America's children, a total of nearly 13 million or 1 in 5, live in poverty. That profoundly impacts the lives of these children. And schools reflect the consequences.

Consider also that more of our citizens per thousand are imprisoned than in any other nation in the world. In fact, the US Department of Justice says that in 2022 that includes 684,500 fathers of at least one minor child. We've also locked up 57,700 mothers of minor children. In fact the Annie Casey Foundation reports that more than 5 million American children, that's 1 in 14, has had a parent imprisoned at some point in their lives.

The destructive effects of these incarcerations flood into our classrooms with devastating effect. And this is especially true in the poorest school districts where teachers have inadequate resources and the children have more numerous major problems. In more affluent areas with financially secure, well-educated parents, more functional families, safer streets, a rich tax base and broader respect for learning, good school outcomes are much, much more likely. And, paradoxically, that's where teachers are better paid and have far more resources. It's a case of "them that has, gets," 

Let's also briefly consider how the quality of parenting fits in. Is quality parenting reflected in school outcomes? You might as well ask: "Is the Pope Catholic?" Of course it is. After all, the requirements for becoming a parent are distressingly lax. Consequently a host of people gain parental responsibility who simply can't, or won't, meet the mark. Many are far too stupid, selfish, cruel, frightened, impoverished, mentally ill, emotionally needy, foolish, addicted, ignorant, etc., to responsibly raise a child. And our schools reflect this melancholy reality every hour of the day. 

I know a first grade teacher who for years won many plaudits. Then she was hired to teach kindergarten in the School District of Philadelphia. She quit before the year was up to preserve her mental and physical health.  Her comment upon quitting was, "I don't know what I was supposed to be doing in there, but it sure wasn't teaching. Then added, "And I'm tired out caring more for other people's children than their parents apparently do." Hyperbolic and spoken in disgust? Sure. But there still is a strong element of truth.

Politicians find it expedient to interpret the situation differently. They maintain, some might even believe, that poor school outcomes are the fault of educators. Sometimes they are. But most of the time they aren't.

Let's reprise. Our schools mirror our nation. So if you are disturbed by what you see reflected in our schools, it is unlikely to be schooling's fault. And if you like what you see, don't give the mirror much credit either. 

Does that mean educators are essentially powerless and can do little or nothing to improve learning? Of course not. But what they can do is very limited when poverty, crime, lousy parenting, social disorder, dysfunctional families, etc., create an avalanche of problems, indifference, even opposition. 

Perhaps you can remember the George W. Bush and Barack Obama era, when school reform was all the rage and the federal government wasted billions of dollars on mandatory testing and other largely worthless school "improvements." As a matter of fact, many of these 'reforms' actually functioned as bureaucratic distractions from the central task of schooling children. 

In retrospect it seems as if these reformers were buying new mirrors because they weren't  satisfied with what the existing mirrors reflected. That's like someone changing mirrors in hopes it will improve their looks. Are our politicos aware that this is what they've been doing when they meddle with our schools? The dumb ones probably do not. But even the dumb ones know that appearance matters more than reality when you're playing politics. And they also know that Barrack Obama was not even half serious when he officially ruled that folks in-training to be teachers were already "highly qualified." ("Highly qualified" was a standard that the No Child Left Behind Law required. But left undefined, the requirement turned out to be meaningless.) 

Obama actually did this with a straight face; proving that the former president is an accomplished liar. Fortunately, Trump and Biden have shown less enthusiasm for federal meddling with our public schools than Obama and his immediate predecessors. Of course Trump and most other republican politicians favor turning public education over to the private sector. The trouble with that 'reform' is the resultant charter schools don't do any better than their public counterparts in raising student achievement. Charter schools too are simply mirrors.

If any  'public servant' really wants to improve school outcomes, here's some of the things they would have to do: 
1. reverse the growing disparity between the rich and the rest of us
2. stop locking up parents without regard for what that does to their kids 
3. start offering free, high quality, parent training (plus follow-up support) to anyone who wants it.
4. inact national health care, so the poorest among us can afford to be well. 

Accomplish things like thes above and school results will improve. But there's little chance that any of them will actually happen. So we will keep thinking, as well as pretending, that the problems we see in our schools are pedagogical, when they really are far more than that.

For more on this see www.newfoundations.com/Clabaugh/CuttingEdge/PSMirror.htm  

Saturday, June 4, 2022

FEEDING THE MONSTER: "woke" professors nourish MAGA


Many of today's colleges feature strident demonstrations of "woke" self-righteousness. Self-appointed inquisitors on the faculty demand that speakers be canceled and fellow professors fired should any harbor an opinion, different from their faith. Immature, censorious students inspire and/or join in these inquisitions. Then craven, opportunistic or fellow true believing administrators not only fail to squash this intolerance, they frequently cave in to it. 

It's hard to imagine more repulsive, ill-advised behavior on the part of any faculty, students or administrators. It is outrageously out of place in any institution of higher education that absolutely depends for its very existence on freedom of inquiry. Moreover this modern day zealotry is totally crazy when it occurs at a public college or university because their sanctimonious extremism undermines government funding by drastically weakening already shaky public confidence in higher education. 


Remember, attacks on higher education can pay big political dividends, particularly if you're a MAGA politician. The Pew Foundation found that two-thirds of today's Republicans already have only “some” or “little” confidence in colleges as institutions. Indeed a lot of them have come to believe that higher education is little more than “woke” indoctrination. And today's"woke" shenanigans inject this political monster with growth hormones.  


Republican-led defunding has already devastated the aspirations of lower income kids who want to go to college. Higher education is getting less and less affordable. For example, in 1958 I was only able to afford college because government funding covered, on average, 75% of public higher ed costs. Now, after 60 years of paring down, average public funding of comes to 25%.  


We can thank Ronald Reagan for modeling this tactic. As Governor of California, Reagan ended free higher ed tuition for California residents; demanded 20% across the board cuts in higher education funding; repeatedly slashed college construction funds for state campuses, and imperiously declared that the state “should not subsidize intellectual curiosity.” (Something largely absent in Reagan himself.) 


While he was at it, Reagan, and Republican legislators also slashed funding for California’s basic education. These cuts ultimately resulted in overcrowded classrooms, deteriorating schools, more poorly paid teachers and, of course, increased local taxes. Nevertheless, Gov. Reagan was reelected despite the fact that California's public education system has never fully recovered from his despoliation.


When he was governor. Reagan took particularly advantage of the anti-Vietnam war movement by vitriolicaly denouncing student peace protests. Whenever these students demanded an end to this ill-conceived adventure, Reagan was scathing in his criticism. He called the anti-war activists “brats,” “freaks,” and  “cowardly fascists.’ (Reagan, himself, spent WW 2 safe and sound in Hollywood making Army propaganda films.)



In summary, when Ronald Reagan became governor, California’s basic and higher educational systems were probably the nation’s best. When he left, they weren’t. Subsequently, in his two terms as U. S. President, 1981 to 1989,  Reagan continued his now time-then tactic of criticizing educators and slashing public education funding. In fact at Reagan's urging a Republican congress cut that federal spending on education in half. When he entered office, federal funds paid 12% of the nation’s public schooling bills. When he left they were paying just 6%. 


The Republican campaign against public education that Reagan prototyped exploits America's historic distrust of learning and the learned. But the current extremism of the strident “woke” crowd creates an unprecedented opportunity for right wing politicians to enact more censorious legislation, foster know-nothing parent's distrust of their kid's teachers, further cut financial support for “government schools, and so forth.” 


“Woke” extremists doubtless see themselves as righteous  crusaders for all that’s holy. Knights errant in a irreproachable crusade for justice. There's no question that some of the injustices they seek to cure are real. But Trump style demagogues are hoping and praying that these zealots just keep on doing what they’re doing. The opportunities this creates for them are priceless.