HUMBUG ABOUT SCHOOLS OF THE FUTURE?

 

Sixteen years ago an editorial in the New York Times promised that in 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  to America once told me that 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 know a woman who experienced 8 years of  relentless Catholic schooling conducted by 1950's era, take-no-prisoners nuns. Still, she remained largely ignorant and disregardful of Catholic doctrine." 

I asked how she preserved her ignorance, given many years of indoctrination. She explained that when she questioned what was being taught, she was either ignored or reproached. Ultimately, lacking any adequate explanations, she quit listening. "I just tuned them out!" she said. The result? Her triumphant ignorance of the "one true faith."

Pressed for details, the woman specifically recalled being taught it was a grave sin to save the life of the mother if it required sacrificing the life of her unborn child. Discomforted, she asked what if the mother had other children and a husband who loved and needed her? Her query was met with reproach. She found this totally unacceptable. She also remembered being taught that babies are born infected with original sin. She reasoned that this is totally wrong-headed, since babies are obviously totally innocent. By this time, though, she did not object to the teaching. But she was more determined than ever not to listen.

 

This is one way indoctrination falls flat. Done ham-handedly, it not only fails. but 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 responded that that this wasn't fair. She quoted John 14:6, in which Jesus reportedly said: “No man cometh unto the father but by me.” I said, "Yes, but that still seems unfair." She replied, coldly this time, that fairness had nothing to do with it. Adding crossly: “This is not a debating society. If you are unhappy with God's word, you can always leave.” 

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

Professors, teachers, parents and the general public 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 “learned” they actually remembered. Many, 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 demonstrated little applicable knowledge of what is typically taught in school. 

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

In my experience undergraduates, accustomed to forgetting almost everything they have "learned'" are not easily influenced by a biased lecturer. Unless, and this is important, the content of the lecture fulfills one or another of the psychological needs adolescents typically have. 

For instance, the need for certainty and self-esteem. Here they are very susceptible to the indoctrination of"Woke" professors who feed them a steady diet of theory that validates narcissism, entitlement, resentment and a sense of moral superiority. Lots of youngsters go for that!

I doubt my 46-years of experience with academic amnesia and disinterest is unusual. 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 of graduation. 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 they may enthusiastically 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 appear righteous. 

Yasser Arafat

Is it proper for professors to conduct class in a one-sided manner? Of course 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 is 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  atmosphere prevails and competing voices are silenced, that is when our Israeli expatriate mother should start worrying. So should the rest of us.

Are we there yet. Has "woke" indoctrination replaced reasoned discourse? Have competing voices been silenced.  In some academic departments, especially advocacy studies, the answer is "yes." In those right-thinking hot houses education has been smothered and indoctrination taken over. Professors have become Judas priests, the department has morphed into a Frankensteinian seminary, students have been converted into dogmatic true believers, and education has become a joke.

 

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.  

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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.

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 

2ND RATE TEACHERS: a national necessity

 

During the Obama administration Arnie Duncan, the Education Secretary, repeatedly charged that the nation's teacher preparation programs were second-rate. He said they attract inferior students and weak faculty. He added that colleges and universities use teacher prep programs as "cash cows," bleeding off the revenues they generate instead of investing in their improvement.

There's some truth in all of that. But at the same time Secretary Duncan was making these charges, he was praising alternative quickie routes into teaching. He had a novel "let's make it tougher by making it easier"strategy. Logic demands that if teacher education lacks rigor, it should be made more rigorous. Yet Duncan's favored quickie routes did the exact opposite. And he cheered on his boss for doing even worse. Obama, had the cahonnes to officially classify untrained interns as "highly qualified teachers." Why on earth did he do that? To make employing them as teachers (something California was doing a lot of) compliant with the No Child Left Behind Act. 

Had Duncan really been concerned about strengthening teacher preparation he would have declared war on weak state certification requirements, publicly denounced quickie routes into teaching, and shamed colleges and universities that exploit teacher education as cash cows. Moreover, had he really cared, he would have demanded the abolition of undergraduate teacher certification programs in favor of  professional graduate schooling modeled on the training that has been so successful in dramatically boosting Finland's educational ranking. He did the opposite.

Since Duncan things have deteriorated still further in teacher education. Given lousy teacher working conditions and whale feces low morale, it's little wonder that the pool of would-be teachers has shrunk dramatically. No one but a saint, and they are very scarce, is going to put a lot of effort into becoming a teacher when they'll likely end up underpaid, under-appreciated, scapegoated by conscience-free politicians, attacked from both the political left and right, "led" by weathervane administrators, and pilloried by ungrateful parents anxious to blame others for their own incompetence? No, unless these conditions change, it will be necessary to further reduce the requirements for entry into teaching. The nation's schools urgently need replacement cannon fodder because of the present short supply. 

Will this situation change during either a Trump or Harris presidency? Not likely. Trump, the founder of that film flam "Trump University," daily evidences life-long immunity to schooling. (Penn still owes us a an apology for gifting him that M.B.A.) And Harris evidences no concern whatsoever for improving teacher preparation, much less teaching itself. So let's just settle down and expect the worst. 

For more on Duncan go to: http://www.newfoundations.com/Clabaugh/CuttingEdge/Tinkering.html

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION? it's humbug and here's why

Teachers are urged to practice "multicultural education." They're told their classroom should be a rainbow where kids from multiple cultures each add a complimentary color. Advocates such as Professor Sonia Nieto, author of the popular Affirming Diversity, claim that "cultural, ... differences can and should be honored, respected, and used as a basis for learning and teaching." This prescription is based on two false assumptions. The first: all cultures are compatible. They aren't.  The second: all cultures incorporate the tolerance that a cultural rainbow requires. They don't. 

For instance, members of cultures little influenced by the enlightenment are likely to view multiculturalism itself with anger, fear and repulsion. Consider the Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam. (The retrograde dogmatic religious sect dominating Saudi Arabia and promoting that intolerance with vast amounts of oil money throughout the Muslim world.) Wahhabi true believers divide the world between good guys who subscribe to their version of Islam and Godless heretics. So how do the Wahhabi deal with unbelievers? They silence them. And if they must be flogged, jailed, even liquidated, to achieve that silence, so be it. How could you ever insert this intolerance into multicultural education without putting the whole enterprise in jeapordy?

Is this an exaggeration? In 2004 a Saudi royal study group found that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.'  Embarrassed by this finding by their own study group, high ranking Saudi officials promised to eliminate the cited intolerant dogmatism from their curriculum. But years later, when the Washington Post analyzed "reformed" Saudi religion texts, they found the self-same, intolerant preachments.  

Let's imagine someone like Professor Nieto teaching in Saudi Arabia while trying to follow her own multicultural prescription. Let's say she openly affirms the value of all religious views. What do you think her fate would be? And before you decide, consider that in 2005, a Saudi teacher cautiously suggesting that Jews and the New Testament could be viewed positively, was not only fired, but sentenced to 750 lashes and sent to prison. (He was eventually pardoned, but only following intense international protests.) 

If Professor Nieto actually "affirmed diversity" in a Saudi classroom  she would doubtless suffer for it. And since this cultural backwater is misogynistic and Professor Nieto is a woman, a severe outcome would be especially likely.  

Is Saudi Arabia unique? Is it an island of intolerance in a tolerant world? Of course not. Religious and related cultural intolerance is so common that tolerance is often a novelty. And this is especially true when believers subscribe to a religion that asserts that it, and only it, commands THE truth. 

Also, let's not forget that cultures sometimes define themselves, at least in part, by their rejection of, hatred for, and even aggression toward, other cultures. Palestinians rarely love the Jews. Armenians have serious reservations about the Turks. The Irish have a less than cordial attitudes toward the English. And let's not expect Native Americans to be grateful to the "white man" for ethnically cleansing them from most of the continent. As Simon and Garfunkel once sang: "The whole world is festering with unhappy souls. The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles. Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch. And I don't like anybody very much!"

Should a teacher actually set out to affirm diversity how should he or she deal with another culture's practice of, say, hating and persecuting homosexuals? (Some cultures even put them to death!) That murderous intolerance sure doesn't blend well in any imaginary cultural rainbow. What about pre-marital sex. That's a pretty common practice. But an Iranian couple accused of enjoying each other were sentenced to be buried up to their necks in sand, and stoned to death. Should any American teacher affirm that kind of diversity? 

There are cultures and subcultures that condone selling one's own daughter into prostitution, throwing battery acid in the face of girls who merely want to go to school, killing one's sister for "dishonoring" the family, hiring amateurs to carve out the clitoris of little girls with razor blades, forbidding female inclusion in a last will and testament, assigning women second rate legal standing, ad naseum. Should these differences be accepted, respected, and used as a basis for learning and teaching? Of course not. But advocates of multiculturalism either pretend such practices don't exist, or are too ignorant to be aware of it. At bottom, their prescription is simply more of the simple-minded happy talk that badly hampers serious educational discourse.

America is more of a salad bowl then a melting pot and, more of less, always has been. But that doesn't change the fact that there are some ingredients that will ruin the salad and render it uneatable.

 

WHY NOT CHEAT? it can pay off

 It often pays to cheat, so why not do it? There are two sorts of reasons. The first involves looking out for number one. The second, honor and character. Let’s examine both.

Looking Out for Number One
One reason not to cheat is that the potential costs too often outweigh the likely benefits. This is not a moral argument. The point here isn’t that cheating is wrong, though it generally is for reasons we will soon examine. It’s that cheating isn’t wise. It too often lacks serious forethought, an accurate estimation of the chances of getting caught and an accurate estimate of the consequences of detection.

Few things enrage actual, as opposed to pretend educators, more than cheating. Taking their professional obligations seriously, they take weighty counter-measures against cheaters. These include such things as:

• Double weighted zeros on the test or assignment
• An informative phone call to parents
• A letter of reprimand in the student’s permanent record
• Compulsory community service

• Course failure
• Expulsion from a program
• Expulsion from school

Another prudential reason for not cheating is that it stifles the development of the cheater’s own potential. Cheaters cheat themselves out of their own possibilities. As Oscar Lavant once observed: " It's not what you are, it's what you don't become." He's dead right. But cheating also involves what you are. Or, put another way, it defines what you really are. As Emerson noted; "As a man chooses, so is he." 

Another reason not to cheat is that it's particularly dumb to do so in subjects that are learned sequentially. Here cheating only postpones inevitable failure. Let’s say someone cheats his way through an introductory math or foreign language course. His or her lack of actual accomplishment typically catches up with them in the very next course. The same applies to many other subjects of that nature. The odds that cheaters can keep cheating their way through school get slimmer and slimmer as the cheater "advances." 

We see, then, that there are solid practical reasons not to cheat.

Honor and Character
The Ten Commandments offer one argument against cheating. The applicable commandment is: “Thou shalt not steal.” Since a cheater gets a grade they didn't earn, cheating is stealing. But Judeo-Christian values aside, deciding whether or not to cheat is a measure of character. And that's especially true if there is little to no chance of getting caught. That's the point of the U.S. military academies utilizing honor codes. So all would-be cheaters would be wise to remember that their character is their very essence. It's who they really are.

Cheating also produces unjust consequences. Justice requires that each person gets what he or she deserves. Deciding what people deserve isn’t easy. But that's not the case with cheaters. The cheater didn’t actually do the work. Their honest classmates did. Therefore, cheaters cheat every honest member of the class — including their friends. And it's particularly dishonorable to cheat one's friends.

Here is still another consideration. Ethical persons only choose an action if it would be okay for everyone in similar circumstances to do the same. Apply that to cheating. Imagine everyone cheating everyone. That would be disastrous. So, using the above standard, cheating is not okay. Imagine a physician who cheated their way through medical school now faced with saving someone from a potentially deadly disease they knew nothing about. How about architects who cheated their way through the instruction regarding how to build structures that won't collapse? Each of us repeatedly benefit from others who did not and do not cheat. We might even depend upon that with our very lives. 

Cheating also requires using others to get what we want. We behave without regard for their rights. The rights of the teacher and the other test takers, for instance. People aren't mere objects and should not be treated as if they are. Cheating requires doing just that. Therefore, it is wrong.

We also need to consider the total good and the total harm that will result from our action. With cheating the total harm typically outweighs the total good. Honest effort provides greater benefits to a greater number. Does that matter? If you're a decent human being it does.

Remember, though, cheating is only usually wrong. "Usually" because it matters why you are cheating and in what context you cheat. For instance, if you are an inmate in a concentration camp and cheating the guards would save your life of the life of another. In circumstances similar to this cheating is morally obligatory. 

Summary
We’ve seen there are two general kinds of reasons not to cheat. The first involves looking out for number one. In other words, being prudent.The second involves simply doing the right thing. The combined force of both these kinds of reasons suggests cheating is a bad idea. 

Trouble is, cheating can and does pay off. In fact, it often pays off handsomely, Consider the corrupt grifter politicians who frequently win public office. But such payoffs are only payoffs when they don't get caught and place no value on their own honor and integrity.  Psychological research reveals that when people have a chance to reflect on a moral issue, they are much more likely to behave in accord with their consciences. Give yourself that opportunity.

(This is an edited version of something originally written in 2009.)

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Why It's Unfair and Unwise

 

fairness — NOUN — impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination: 
Oxford Dictionary

The Supreme Court has ruled, 6-3, that it is unconstitutional for colleges to use race as a factor in admissions. Many worry that this will reduce the number of Black students and harm efforts to promote diversity via affirmative action. But other people are concerned about who affirmative action discriminates against .

Affirmative action is intended to foster diversity and improve opportunities for select minority groups and women. Assisting African-Americans is a primary intent because that community's disadvantages originated in the highly methodical evils of slavery and Jim Crow. Social injustices such as predatory lending, red-lining, pay discrimination and segregated schools are deeply rooted in this history and have done a great deal of damage. 

The intent of affirmative action is greater fairness. But life is unfair to many others whose identity is not revealed by skin color. Lots of people, not descended from slavery, a member of a selected minority, nor female, end up on the dirty end of life's stick. For them, affirmative action offers no remedy whatsoever. Indeed, in the zero sum game of life, the opportunities of those deemed unqualified for affirmative action are instead given to those who do qualify — superficially. In the real world, so many Americans are afflicted with such a wide variety of undeserved impediments that it is impossible to even identify them, much less redress their disadvantages. This is the fundamental flaw in affirmative action.

Affirmative action programs treat this vast population of unrecognized disadvantaged as if they don't exist. It rules them out at a stroke by mistakenly treating victimization as if it is a matter of a single criteria. For example, it presently doesn't matter if your loving Dad is a successful stockbroker and your caring mother a skilled heart surgeon. If you are African-American, a member of some other selected minority or female, you still qualify for affirmative action. But if you are white and your dad is a matter of conjecture and your mother a neglectful crack addict, you get no consideration whatsoever. That doesn't make sense. Inequality should not be dealt with in this single criteria selection way. To even approximate fairness, affirmative action must be awarded proportionate to the actual disadvantages suffered by each individual. And since this presents insurmountable difficulties, the very possibility of  fair affirmative action goes out the window.

Slavery and Jim Crow? 

A counter argument is that some handicaps are so damaging they demand special redress for the group involved. And many think the damages inflicted by America's slavery and Jim Crow racism, for instance, fit that description. We should never minimize the negative impact of literally having ancestors who were owned by another. Nor should we pooh pooh the systematic exploitation that followed. Still, it's been 6 generations since slavery and nearly 3 since Jim Crow was flushed down the toilet of history. Plus, and this is vitally important, many non African-Americans who came here seeking a better life endured slave-like situations when they got here. What's being done for their descendants?

"Slave-like situations?" Yes, slave-like situations. Let's look at a couple of examples. During 19th and at least half of the 20th Century, most coal miners were in slave-like situations. They performed the absolutely vital task of fueling the nation. But they endured truly awful, sometimes deadly, working and living conditions. They typically worked 10 hour days, six days a week in foul air under feeble light, hundreds of feet below ground. 

Many were badly injured, crushed to death, or incinerated by gas explosions. Moreover, all of them breathed clouds of coal dust that slowly clogged their lungs and left many of them fighting for breath. Indeed, "black lung" suffocated thousands. Many began working in this hellish environment as young as 9 or 10. (See photo below.) This is when slave children were also put to work. Plus they had to buy at inflated prices in the company store, and also rent their shabby homes from the company. Typically, at the end of the main street, there was a huge smoldering pile of mine waste, its sulfurous smoke fouling the air and turning all the structures in town a ghastly shade of yellow. If dad was killed in the mine, the company evicted his wife and kids. And, around 1900, coal miners endured all of this for what today amounts to about $4.50 an hour. 

if this unrelenting exploitation drove some miner to try to unionize and demand to be treated like a human being, the company fired him and evicted his family. If the collective had the courage to actually organize and go on strike, they were beaten, even shot down, courtesy of the state police, national guard, or even federal troops. What did the law do about coal company killings? Nothing. The law belonged to the coal kings and their allies, the steel and railroad barons. They "owned" coal country local and state governments as well as a host of judges. (For an epoch example of this check out The Battle of Blair Mountain.) No, these coal miners weren't slaves. But they lived and died in similar misery. In fact some slaves lived better if they enjoyed relatively privileged positions.

 I know people who grew up in these coal towns. In fact my next door neighbor did. And as she grew up she watched black lung smother her father. Her life was forever altered by her coal town experiences; and it wasn't for the better. Yet she is entitled to no affirmative action whatsoever. Be assured she would be if policy makers were even mildly interested in fairness.

How about the Irish immigrants who did the dangerous, underpaid, back-breaking work of building America's railroads, canals and tunnels — largely by hand? America's transportation infrastructure was chiefly built by their back-breaking labor. And they typically lived in wretched temporary work camps, labored 10 to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, died by the dozens from work-place accidents and contagious diseases; and were paid next to nothing for their trouble. Should they die of infectious diseases or be killed on the job, they were often buried in unmarked mass graves that are still being discovered to this day. 

To top it off, they and their families endured vicious attacks for being both Irish and Roman Catholic. The Thomas Nast cartoon, below, captures some of that nastiness.

Like the miners, these immigrant laborers were no one's property. But in terms of disrespect, exploitation and wretched living conditions, they might as well have been. Why, then, is there no discussion of affirmative action for their progeny? Does their ancestor's suffering, which often rubbed off on subsequent generations, merit no consideration whatsoever? No it doesn't.

Other groups suffered, some continue to suffer, similarly appalling mistreatment. Jews, for instance. They came here to escape merciless persecution and outright murder in Czarist Russia. But when they got to this promised land they encountered still more persecution. Anti-semitism haunted them. Until the 1960's, for instance, there were signs in some luxury Palm Beach Hotels that read, "NO JEWS, NO DOGS,"  And Jews ranked with Blacks as key targets of the KKK. Jews are not included in affirmative action. How come? 

Then there are Asian-Americans. Throughout American history people from Asia have been excluded, discriminated against, endured violence and were even prevented from becoming American citizens. Laws were also passed to keep them from voting or owning land. Now, instead of receiving favor under affirmative action, they're often discriminated against in college admissions because they would be disproportionately successful if they wreceived equal treatment. Should we call this "disaffirmative action?" 

The list of America's blameless victims is long. The eligible for affirmative action list is much, much shorter. That's patently unfair.

Other, Less Obvious Victims

Many other Americans also have gotten (Some continue to get.) the dirty end of life's stick through no fault of their own, But they escape nearly everyone's attention. Here are a few examples of a long, long list of folks afflicted by unmerited handicaps that are utterly ignored when it comes to affirmative action:  

    Appearance

Aristotle observed, "Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction." Research proves him right. For instance, in a study entitled "What Is Beautiful Is Good," researchers from the American Psychological Association documented a phenomenon they referred to as the "physical-attractiveness stereotype." Investigators showed photographs of attractive, average, and unattractive people to university undergraduates. The students were asked to rate the people in the photos on various personality traits and behavioral tendencies, based solely on their appearance in the pictures. 

Compared to unattractive people, attractive people were assumed to possess a higher number of positive traits. The students consistently rated them as confident, strong, assertive, candid, warm, honest, kind, outgoing, sensitive, poised, sociable, exciting, and nurturing (Dion, Berscheid, and Walster 1972). And the physical-attractiveness stereotype is robust. Research has repeatedly proven its existence in different experimental settings. (Feingold 1992). 

Should we have affirmative action programs for the unattractive? After all, they may well suffer more unfair treatment than, say, a physically attractive African-American. 

    Obesity 

Overweight is a characteristic that attracts discrimination and unfair treatment. Research shows overweight people are often perceived as lazy, unintelligent, slovenly, and unattractive (Grover, Keel, and Mitchell 2003). Several studies demonstrate that such negative attitudes toward obese individuals contribute to discrimination in the work place. Specifically, obese people are not hired as often as people of normal weight (Roe and Eickwort 1976); are less likely to be promoted (Larkin and Pines 1979); and often report being discriminated against by managers and peers (Rothblum, Brand, Miller, and Oetjen 1990). 

Should we have affirmative action programs for the obese? Wait, you say, a person is fat because they eat too much. Unlike skin color, it's something they can and should control. But is it? Not for everybody. Research demonstrates there is a genetic component in many cases of obesity. Nevertheless they are discriminated against on the basis of this often acquired, rather than achieved, characteristic. Obesity and Genetics, Office of Public Health Genomics, CDC  Now, ask yourself, just how is being born with a propensity for obesity different from being born African-American? 

    Short Stature 

Height, particularly in men, is another physical attribute associated with negative stereotypes and discrimination. A 1992 study by researchers from Michigan State University demonstrated that short men are often judged inferior to tall men in several personal attributes. People tend to judge taller men as more socially attractive, higher in professional status, more masculine, more athletically inclined, and more physically attractive than short men (Jackson and Ervin 1992). Similar studies have found that short men often experience discrimination in professional settings. For example, short job applicants are not hired as often as taller applicants (Bonuso 1983); short employees earn less, on average, than taller employees (Loh 1993); and short political candidates lose elections more often than taller candidates (Gillis 1982). 

How about affirmative action programs for shorties? Ridiculous, you say? Maybe not. Might a 5'4" white male actually be more disadvantaged than a 6'4" black male, all other things being equal? And it's even more likely that a short, unattractive, obese white male might well be considerably more disadvantaged than a tall, handsome, slim, black man. How should affirmative action handle that?

    Personal Life Situations

Whom do you think is more disadvantaged, an African-American raised by loving parents in an intact family or a European-American with an absent father, a drug addicted mother and little love for the child? How about a female "person of color" who lives in a Palm Springs mansion, whose caring dad is a bank president, and whose loving mother owns her own accounting firm vs. a male white kid in Nowhere, West Virginia whose invalided coal miner dad is slowly being suffocated by black lung and whose mother is profoundly depressed? ,

The point here is that there is a lot more to one's life situation than skin color. And these factors can be absolutely crucial for determining who is disadvantaged and should get a compensatory break. Clearly we should have affirmative action for people who have had damaging life experiences growing up, such as having an abusive parents. Why? Because it surely makes them unequal. But how can the obviously severe handicap of a dysfunctional family be accurately measured? This sort of thing is often hidden deep among all the other family secrets. Affirmative action completely ignores such often devastating handicaps. And to the extent that it does so it is profoundly unfair.

    Other Factors Plus Reverse Discrimination

How about being poor. Isn't that an unfair disadvantage?  Whether you are white, brown or black, the color that matters most in America is green. The "long green." Consider the issue of obtaining equal justice under the law? In court we get the justice we can afford. Rely on a court appointed attorney and you are far more likely to serve time even if you didn't do the crime. Contrariwise, if you did the crime but can pay for a dream team of clever barristers, there's a good chance you will get off. (Remember the O.J. Simpson trial?) But does affirmative action right all the wrongs spawned by poverty? It doesn't even try; and that too is profoundly unfair.

There also are other less dramatic factors to consider. Research indicates, for example, that people with red hair, especially men, are stereotyped as "clownish" and "weird" (Heckert and Best 1997). Negative stereotyping that is based on language and dialect (i.e., Southern accents, etc.) also is a common occurrence (Anisfield 1972). Even children who wear brand-name clothing and shoes are judged "popular," "wealthy," and able to "fit in with their peers," compared to children whose parents can't afford name brands (Elliot and Leonard 2004). 

Advocates of affirmative action have an ethical obligation to also apply compensatory measures to any persons who are handicapped by things they didn't cause and can't control. Yet only a very small proportion of life's victims presently qualify for fair share treatment. Why? Largely because the neglected disadvantaged lack the political muscle to successfully file a claim. They're too disadvantaged to even be considered for special treatment.

Worse still, the victims of reverse discrimination typically pay the most immediate costs of providing others with special benefits. Then, to make matters worse, many of these victims also must endure workplace "sermons" on hidden bias by pious affirmative action "evangelists" who are well paid to chide them, like errant children, for their prejudices. Their resultant anger and resentment set them up for exploitation by glib, grifting demagogues like Donald Trump. 

Remember, benefits usually are limited in number. So when you give someone a special advantage, you place others at a special disadvantage. In the U.K., affirmative action is tellingly called "positive discrimination." That helps clarify the fact that if you positively discriminate in favor of persons A, you must negatively discriminate against persons B and C if the contested resource is finite. How does that serve fairness?

Stigmatization

Stigmatization is another negative outgrowth of affirmative action. The experience of present-day Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is illlustrative. PBS's "Frontline" reports that Thomas owes his rise from Pin Point, Georgia to the Supreme Court to affirmative action. It got him into Yale Law School. But because of affirmative action, his presence there was questioned by fellow students. Many thought he was incapable of achieving entry on his own. They perceived him as a token presence who had not fairly won the right to attend. Years later that memory still gnaws at Thomas.

When Thomas graduated from Yale Law he failed to receive the accustomed job offers from prestigious law firms, PBS reports that he also regards this as a consequence of affirmative action. He thinks  it caused prospective employers to shy away from hiring him and discount his considerable capabilities and accomplishments. (One imagines that's a key reason why he expresses opposition to affirmative action in his court decisions.)

So far as affirmative action is concerned, stigmatization goes with the territory .

Agency

 Affirmative action also subtly undermines any sense of personal agency. With the eager help of politically correct professors, some minority college students, have mastered all of the grievance rhetoric. They can rattle off the current palaver about "the tyranny of "white cisgendered males," for instance. With others to blame for everything they may fail to read their assignments, or even learn how to paragraph. They don't see themselves as responsible in any degree for their own life situation. They see no connection between lack of effort and failure. It's all the fault of "the system." So their job is to sit around griping and bellyaching until "the system" is fixed. Good luck with that!

The Importance Principle

One last, but very important, thing. The more important something seems to be, the less appealing affirmative action is. We shy away from applying affirmative action to anything that really matters to us. 

Professional sports provide a trivial, but telling, example. Just 25% of NFL players are European-American, 58% are African-American. The NBA's situation is even more dramatic. Here a remarkable 73.2% of the players are African-American.  Yet Blacks make up just 12% of the U.S. population. These imbalances seem to demand affirmative action. But there is no discussion of applying it. Why not? Because adopting  affirmative action requires selecting players who are less talented. And that's where we call a halt. Racial equity be damned. We want our team to win; and actuating  affirmative action virtually insures that they won't.

The importance principle applies to other jobs as well. Jobs where results are at a premium. Suppose, for instance, you're an airline passenger flying through heavy turbulence when your pilot announces: "This is your Captain speaking. I want to give a big shout out to Eagle Airlines affirmative action program for getting me in this pilot's seat." Would you be glad to hear that? Similarly, shall we select our heart surgeons via affirmative action? How about structural engineers who design the structures we depend on? I don't think so!

But affirmative action is readily applied when selecting folks for less 'important' jobs. Jobs  like teaching, for instance. Here, competence should trump everything else just as it does in the NFL or NBA. But it doesn't.

Conclusion

Affirmative action is both unfair and unwise. Unfair because it awards favor illogically and incompletely. Unwise because it undermines personal agency and promotes stigmatization. But once you start affirmative action, it's awfully hard to call it off  — even when you should.

What, then, is to be done? End affirmative action and boldly embrace the prescription that Martin Luther King, Jr. presented on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  Focus exclusively on the content of individual character and the achievements that are manifestations of that character. Nothing more, nothing less. Some claim that advocating a racially blind prescription is, in itself, racist. That's a doublethink distortion if there ever was one.

--GKC

PREPARING STUDENTS TO MEET ACTUAL WORKPLACE EXPECTATIONS

School "leaders" make a show of concern about students being prepared to "meet the expectations of the workplace." Truth is, most aren't. But not for the reasons "leadership" typically fusses about.

 

In reality things like a graduate's math skills, or reading level, are of marginal concern. What really matters is getting students ready to meet the REAL expectations of the workplace. That means educators must make sure the kids are prepared for things like this:

1. Working for ever-smaller portions of the profits while corporate chieftains make ever-more  preposterous amounts of money. (Elon Musk just 'ate' $48 BILLION in one bite.)

2. Being discarded like 4-day-old leftovers when it serves 'corporate' interests.

3. Seeing the corporation's future compromised by senior staff focusing only on quarterly reports.

4. Having their jobs shipped overseas whenever it benefits the corporate bottom line.

5. Watching their health benefits shrink.

6. Discovering their pension funds have evaporated.

7. Being unable to take the time to pee.

8. Being over-supervised, but utterly uncared about.

9. Lacking the resources to do their job, while senior staff get far more than they need.

10. Never being asked, but always being told, how to better do their job.

Preparing students for the likes of the above will, in fact, be far better preparation to "meet the expectations of the work place." Not every workplace. But far, far too many.

RAISING TEENS: finding that elusive balance

 

Raising a teen is a challenging proposition. And a prime reason is the parental tendency to overestimate how much of their control remains. Parents tend to base their judgements about that on past experience.  A past in which they had a high degree of control. But that control slips away in ways which are not always obvious. And even when they are noticed, parent's tend to underestimate the degree of loss. That can have disastrous results. Here's a tale illustrating this point.

My wife and I watched neighboring parents try to deal with their daughter's adolescence. Both rather rigid, church going conservatives, they foolishly tried to maintain the same control or her that they had when she was younger. But as they did so the girl persisted in doing things they disapproved of. They then tried even harder to enforce the rules. But, impelled by social pressure and hormonal secretions,  the girl rebelled even more. When they urged her to study more, she studied less. When they forbid her to drink she got hammered — and smoked marijuana in the bargain. When they forbade her to ever see a boy friend again. she clandestinely did so anyway. When she repeatedly phoned the same forbidden boyfriend, they confiscated her cell phone. She secretly secured another.  That the young man was African-American, she white, intensified the rebellion.

The struggle climaxed when the girl became pregnant to the very boy her parents had forbidden. Worse, the boy turned out to be abusive, punching her in the stomach upon learning she was pregnant. The girl didn't tell her parents. But she did brake off the relationship, set the cops on her abuser and secretly secure an abortion. (Something her parents also would have forbidden — had they known.)   

This control struggle produced bitterness and estrangement between parents and child. The costs of their over-zealous parenting far exceeded the benefits. Yet the parents remained relatively oblivious of the fact that modern teens have a great deal of control over their own lives. They simply couldn't grasp that the degree of control they sought was inappropriate, counter productive and well-nigh impossible to enforce. Instead they blamed modernity.

Teens from functional homes with realistic teen limits usually avoid doing things that might seriously embarrass or disappoint their parents. But this is something the adolescent, not the parent, must choose to do. Remember too, parental advice can be as unrealistic as Arab advice to rainforest dwellers about surviving sandstorms. Remember too, teens often ignore even the best parental advice. As a German proverb reminds: "Everyone knows good counsel except those that have need of it." 

Parents must keep in mind too that teen brains are incompletely developed. Cognitive development is still ongoing.  This mental immaturity, especially when accompanied by new hormonal surges, can result in risky behavior. That quite properly worries parents. But trying too hard to eliminate teen risk-taking is risky too. The trick is learning when, and how much, to loosen control. Finding that elusive balance. That's the trick. And that is much, much more difficult than properly folding a fitted sheet.

PUBLIC SCHOOLING AND THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS: why ed 'leaders' seldom lead

 

I came across a flyer that a Muslim group was distributing to public school administrators. It described urgent “problems” facing Muslim school students and outlined what school administrators must do about them. Here is an excerpt:

“In view of the teachings of Islam, Muslim students in your school should not be required to:
(1) sit next to the opposite sex in the classroom,
(2) participate in physical education, swimming or dancing classes. (Alternate meaningful educational activities should be arranged.)
(3.)  attend coed physical education and swimming classes. (These should be held separately for boys and girls in a fully covered area — no glass doors or windows without curtains.)
(4.) have opposite sex physical education instructors.
(5.) wear swimming suits that fail to cover all the private parts of the body down to the knee.
(6.) take group showers — they should be provided with separate and covered individual shower facilities
(7.) participate in plays, proms, social parties, picnics, dating, etc. that require free mixing of the two sexes,

It isn’t only conservative Muslims who demand special accommodations. Every distinctive group is prone to demand one or another form of special attention. For instance, conservative Christians, including former ex-President George W. Bush, demand that the school curriculum pay special obeisance to creationism and abstinence-only sex education. (The later is also called the ignorant ostrich approach.) Some black parents urge that schools strip allegedly racist novels, such as Huckleberry Finn — something most have obviously never read — from the curriculum. The more reactionary  Evangelicals demand the elimination of school Halloween celebrations because they allegedly provide Satan and his minions with access to kid's souls. Italian-Americans insist that youngsters still be taught that Columbus discovered America, even though he clearly didn't. Polish-Americans would have Thadeus Kusiusko immortalized in the curriculum but German-American's prefer Baron von Steuben. So it goes, ad infinitum.

Collectively, there is an astounding range of expectations that public educators are expected to satisfy. Of course, the chances of accomplishing any of this in any comprehensive way are zilch. But when school authorities keep trying, as many of them do, bad things happen. Specifically, the elimination of all critical thinking and the boundless expansion of special interest buncombe.

In his classic, “Tragedy of the Commons,” Garrett Hardin argues that free access to common resources brings ruin. The classic example is an open access public commons where everyone in the community is permitted to graze his or her animals. To preserve this commons, all participants must refrain from overgrazing it. If even one user insists on adding more animals than the commons can support, this pasture will ultimately be ruined.

In short, restraint by all is absolutely required. Trouble is, it is seldom achieved. Since it is in each individual's short-term interest to put more than their fair share of grazing animals onto the common land; and since the long run is somewhere in the distance, perhaps beyond any one abuser's lifetime, the land is, in fact, ruined.

The nation’s public schools are similar to Hardin’s public commons in that they are an open access resource. School instructional time, time for individual children and space in the curriculum are the collective equivalent of the forage in Hardin’s pasture. So when special interest groups fail to restrain themselves, they are “overgrazing” our public schools by placing excessive particularistic demands on them. 

Even the intellectually limited, many school board members for instance, should recognize that infinite accommodation is impossible given finite resources. Yet too many of them, along with an assortment of politicians and their minions, repeatedly try to accommodate all sorts of special pleaders. The result is a down the rabbit hole with Alice world where even those who recognize that there are limits, act as if there are none. 

For public schooling to be viable, everyone has to limit his or her demands and adopt an ethic of restraint. When all cooperate in this, everyone gains. Unfortunately, any participants who, out of moral obligation or naiveté, moderate their demands while others don't, lose out. So it's logical to keep pressing for one's particularistic demands even though benefits would be greatest if all restrained themselves. In game theory this is called the "prisoner's dilemma."

If, as is likely, mutual restraint fails to materialize, school administrators have two alternatives. They can (1) continue to pretend there are no practical constraints on accommodation and reduce public education to ever-shifting and mutually incompatible priorities; or (2) start saying “NO!” to special pleading. Given elective school boards and superintendents who must pay obeisance to them, odds are it will be the former.

To examine this issues further, see http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Conjecture.html