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.