MALE ATTITUDES TOWARD THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN

“I do not know the reason, but just as a saddle is not suitable for an ox, so learning is unsuitable for a woman.” – Erasmus

Introduction

Do modern women, now enjoying many new opportunities, fully appreciate the legacy of educational discrimination that has limited their sex for thousands of years? Do they know that from the time of the Greeks to almost the present, men generally have regarded women as uneducable and incapable of serious thought? 

When we look at “women’s place” in the educational scheme of things, we find that the vast majority of history’s most famous men utterly dismissing woman’s intellect and expressing the belief that educating females is dangerous. It was, they said, “Feeding more poison to the frightful asp.”

What follows examines male attitudes toward the education of women in Western culture across the centuries. Why do that? Because until very recent times at least, men made the educational decisions for both sexes. What is more, the famous and influential men quoted here played a decisive role in shaping and refining all of Western culture.

Want to know the actual status of women in any place at any time time? Just look at the  attitudes of men toward educating women, and truth will be revealed.

Classical Antiquity

The accomplishments of the Greeks, and Romans form the foundation of Western civilization. And their pedagogical practices established the foundations of contemporary schooling. So any history dealing with the education of women, must begin with them.

The Athenians are famed for adhering to Plato’s advice: “Follow the argument wherever it leads.” They forsook the almost universal practice of subordinating individuality to the collective and honored the duty advised by Socrates “to know myself.” But they also regarded women as mutilated males, unworthy of formal education.

Athenian women lived highly circumscribed lives of a distinctly subordinate character, and male attitudes toward them reflected this. As early as 850 B.C. Hesiod, a Greek poet and early scientific farmer, gave vent to opinions that echoed and reechoed throughout the history of Greece. In Theogony he observed, “Zeus, who thunders on high, made women to be an evil to mortal men, with the nature to do evil.” A hundred years later, the Greek elegiac poet and satirist Semonides of Amorgos also blamed it all on Zeus and women when, in his poetic essay Iambus on Women, he noted, ”the worst plague Zeus ever made-women.”

It was not just the early poets and satirists who gave vent to such negativity. Even the sober astronomer and mathematician Pythagoras (c. 585 507 B.C.) is said by scholars to have observed, “There is a good principle which created order, light, and man, and an evil principle which created chaos, darkness, and woman.”

Socrates (c. 470-399 B.C.) widely regarded as one of the wisest of men shared this vision of women. While he allowed that they could make a considerable contribution to society, and even advocated an expansion of feminine responsibilities, he still maintained in the Republic that, “All of the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man.”

Aristotle (c. 384-322 B.C.) who clearly intended no satire, went further in his proto-scientific treatise Generation o/ Animals, he declared that women were “mutilated males” and argued that the female character was “…a sort of natural deficiency.”

It is little wonder that even the progressive Athenians, who developed the first educational system stressing the importance of human, or at least male, individuality, spent little effort in the formal education of females. As Plato put it in the Meno, a woman’s virtue was “‘to order her house, keep what is indoors, and obey her husband.” Given such opinions, which were nearly universal in Athens, there was little perceived need for any but the most rudimentary education for women. What is more, because females were widely regarded as potentially or even inherently vicious, irrational, and untrustworthy, it was commonly held that their education was unnecessary, imprudent, counterproductive, even dangerous. As Menander (c. 343 291 B.C.) the Greek dramatist observed, “He who teaches a woman letters feeds more poison to the frightful asp.” (Fragments)

The Romans

It was the Greek genius to investigate the aims of life, and it was the Roman genius to govern and administer. The Greeks measured things in terms of harmony and proportion; the Romans measured things in terms of utility. Greek education favored the intellectual development of males; Roman education stressed male rights, duties, and obligations, particularly of the father. He ruled the family with absolute authority.

Roman women were generally more highly regarded in their role of wife and mother than their Greek counterparts. However, they were not permitted to be citizens of Rome and male attitudes toward them were basically similar to those of the Greeks. Titus Livy (c. 59 B.C. 17 AD.) the eminent Roman historian, exemplified this condescending when he observed in History, ”A woman’s mind is influenced by little things.” The Roman writer Publilius Syrus also expressed characteristic Roman sentiments when in Sententiae he stated, ”A woman who meditates alone, meditates evil.’‘ Lucius Anaeus Seneca (c. 4 B.C.- 65 AD.), philosopher, dramatist, essayist and tutor of Nero, expressed a similar though more comprehensive claim in Hippolyttus: ”When a woman thinks, she thinks evil.”

The Roman male’s attitude toward women’s education was modestly more charitable than that of the Greeks. The great importance of family life and the enormous authority of the Roman father, which included even the power of life and death over both wife and children, led a woman’s education to be largely a function of her home life. The mother personally reared and educated the younger children. Later in life, however, boys became the father’s responsibility.

As Rome developed into an empire, Roman education increasingly resembled that of the Greeks from whom they borrowed extensively. But until the fall of Rome, it never lost its predisposition for practicality and its reliance on the home; but in the end, the Roman family, debased by urban idleness and vulgar amusements, was no longer capable of doing that job.

In early Roman history, the woman’s only education was for her future role as wife and mother; but as the power and wealth of Rome grew, so did the boredom, leisure, affluence and formal education of many Roman women. By the second century B.C. it was possible for a woman like Cornelia, a celebrated Roman matron and mother of the great liberal tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Grachus, to have acquired a wide and detailed education that she utilized in teaching her 12 children — achieving remarkable results. Her fame, which derived primarily from the accomplishments of her offspring, did much to legitimize the formal education of wealthy Roman women.

Such a pedagogical metamorphosis was not popular with many Roman men. Decimus Junius Juvenal (c. 60 A.D.-140 A.D), Roman poet and satirist, appealed to this resentment when he reserved some of his sharpest barbs for educated women. For example, in his sixth satire he depicted the pedantic female thus:

“But of all the plagues, the greatest is untold;
The book-learned wide, in Greek and Latin bold;
The critic-dame, who at her table sits,
Homer and Virgil quotes, and weighs their wits,
And pities Dido’s agonizing fits.”

Satires

Like many Roman men, however, Plutarch acknowledged in Moralia that the formal education of women had some value. He wrote, “A woman who is studying geometry will be ashamed to go dancing and one who is charmed by the words of Plato or Xenophen is not going to pay attention to magic incantations.” But then he hastened to add that they must “‘develop this education in company of their husbands.”

Perhaps Roman men were moved to accept the formal education of women in the hope that it would reinforce the rapidly weakening pedagogical role of Roman mothers. But the time when most upper class mothers played a key role in their children’s education was already past. In his Dialogue, Tacitus (c. 55 A.D. -118 A.D.) noted its passing when he lamented the disappearance of the age when: “Every citizen’s son was from the beginning reared, not in the chamber of a purchased nurse, but in that mother’s bosom and embrace, and it was her special glory to study her home and devote herself to her children.”

The fact that in later Roman history more and more women became educated must also be balanced against the reality that more and more Roman men were also being schooled. In fact, in terms of literacy, there is reason to believe that the proportion of literate women compared with literate men actually declined as Rome aged. Hence, it could well be that women were little better off educationally at the time of the fall of Rome than they were centuries before.

In any case, we know that ancient Greece and Rome were crucibles in which Western civilization was forged. The Greeks, though they had their goddesses and heroines and idealized certain aspects of femininity, defined woman’s role simply as wife and mother and gave little emphasis to her education. The Romans, probably because of their veneration of the family, had a higher regard for women, but still were grudging in their education; they viewed it either as a means of achieving a more effective mothering or as a relatively harmless diversion from licentious idleness. This is Western woman’s educational heritage.

The Middle Ages

The slow decay and final collapse of the Roman Empire saw Christianity emerge triumphant over its rivals. By 392 A.D. it was the only lawful religion of the empire. This triumph was very significant for women. Mithraism, the most vital of Christianity’s early rivals, totally excluded women from worship while Christianity did not. This meant, despite Paul’s admonition to Corinthians that women should “‘keep silent in churches,” early Christianity enjoyed their active participation. It also came to mean that with the cautious encouragement of leaders such as Gregory I (c. 540-604), the early medieval church benefited from the accomplishments of educated women such as Hild of Whitby, Leoba, Hildegard of Bingen, and Roswitha of Gandersheim.

As the initial revolutionary fervor of Christianity waned, however, a more reactionary attitude toward women asserted itself. The church, overwhelmingly masculine in terms of its power structure, became more and more cautious about women in general and their education in particular. As a result, the public activity of women declined, their place in the church receded, and their education became more and more problematic.

The Gregorian “reform” movement of the eleventh century severely discouraged women’s religious monastic orders. Phillippe of Navarre (1301-1343) voiced the attitude that likely spawned this “reformation” when he observed in Les quarter temps de l’homme, “One should not teach woman letters or writing unless she is a nun, because a woman’s reading and writing leads to great evil.”

Of course, the “reform” to restrict the monastic life had the effect of decimating female religious orders. In consequence the potentially literate nuns, cited as the exception to the rule by Phillippe of Navarre, were scarce. This, plus the negative attitude toward the education of laywomen, meant that educated women were rare.

It All Started With Eve

The growing distrust and hostility toward women paradoxically paralleled growth in the cult of the Virgin Mary. Her adoration was championed by influential figures such as Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 1153), and was a profoundly important part of the religious mysticism of the times. But initially it also was on the edge of heresy so far as conservative churchmen were concerned.

As the cult of Mary became more acceptable so did the notion that a woman’s worth hinged on her innocence. And it was claimed that confining women to the home was a way of shielding them from the avarice and corruption of the outside world and of preserving their precious purity. Because innocence requires ignorance, the formal education of women threatened to eliminate the very quality that allegedly gave them worth.

One wonders about the seriousness of such male motives even then. Perhaps it makes more sense to claim that, at bottom, the relegation of females, save the mystically virginal, to the periphery of the medieval church had to do with a fundamental distrust of women as women. Hence the denial of literacy to the vast majority of females had to do with it being unwise to empower those you distrust. It most assuredly had to do with the ascendency of male attitudes and values that might best he labeled Tertullianism.

Tertullian (c. 150- c. 230), a Roman Church Father of the time of persecution, regarded all women with hostility and suspicion — largely because of the connection he saw between femininity and sin. In De habitu muliebri he advised Christian women, “‘to act the part of a mourning and repentant Eve” in order to partially expiate the “ignominy” derived from being the “’cause and fall of the human race.” Lest he leave any doubt regarding woman’s sinful legacy Tertullion went on to say, “The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives on even in our times and so it is necessary that the guilt should live on also. You are the one is who opened the door to the Devil, you are the one who plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree, you are the one who persuaded him whom the Devil was not strong enough to attack. All too easily you destroyed the image of God, Man. Because of your desertion, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die.”

Tertullian had great difficulty reconciling views such as these with the role of women in Christian life. Indeed, his concern with the place of females in the church and in a man’s life, bordered on an obsession. Tertullian’s fear of and loathing for women was not that unusual for his time. And by the late eleventh century such negativity was even more common. The Roman heritage of grudging respect for woman as mother and wife had been partially supplanted by the notion that all evil started with Eve.

In this period of the Middle Ages, women’s access to the monastic life was deliberately restricted. Because monasteries were a primary source of formal schooling, this had a devastating effect on the educational and spiritual aspirations of women, which the growing cult of the Virgin could not undo.

Chivalry

The system of chivalry was to secular life what monasticism was to the religious, Open to a select few, it represented the primary alternative view of women during the Middle Ages. Here females fared somewhat better as far as male attitudes were concerned. The knight’s duties were to his God, his lord and his lady. In fact, the tradition of courtly love, in which the knight served an unattainable, highborn mistress, mirrored the growing religious adoration of the Virgin. In this context, women of the nobility enjoyed an unprecedented degree of both courtesy and deference. But the noble female’s role was still essentially passive and decorative while women of lesser social status could wait a very long time indeed for their champion. As a consequence, chivalry offered women no significant educational opportunities.

The Renaissance and Reformation

Throughout the waning centuries of the Middle Ages there was more and more accommodation of secular knowledge, particularly logic, in schooling. By the time of the Renaissance, it was clear that intellectual life was to be less restricted, less formal and much more abundant. Schooling took on new vitality and great mendicant schoolmen like Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus enjoyed both notoriety and success. Women, however, remained largely outside the scope of these changes. Erasmus of Rotterdam (1647—1536), the most famous of all the leaders of the new learning, evidenced the still prevailing attitude perpetuating this exclusion when he noted in Colloquia, ”I do not know the reason, but just as a saddle is not suitable for an ox, so learning is unsuitable for a woman.”

Ultimately, the Renaissance did little to alter educational opportunities for women. This remained for the Protestant Reformation to accomplish. But make no mistake, Martin Luther (1463-1546) was no champion of women’s rights. Most of his attitudes simply echoed earlier prejudices. For example, in Table Talk he maintained that “[women] are chiefly created to bear children and be the pleasure, joy and solace of their husbands.” Citing anatomy, he even argued that women have broad hips, “‘to the end that they should remain at home, sit still, keep house and bear and bring up children.”

Despite his acceptance of these popular opinions, however, Luther articulated the revolutionary idea that the salvation of every human soul depended upon informed reading of the Holy Scriptures. This required the universal education of both sexes, and Luther’s advocacy of such a radical measure was ultimately communicated to the whole of the Reformation.

Because religion permeated the Protestant schools that evolved from Luther’s teaching, many believe that his reforms were strictly sacerdotal in intent, and that he would not have advocated literacy for women had it not been for the need to help them save their souls. The evidence, however, does not support such a view. Luther himself observed, “Were there neither soul, heaven, nor hell, it would still he necessary to have schools here below. The world has need of educated men AND WOMEN [emphasis mine], to the end that they may govern the country properly, and that the women may properly bring up their children, care for their domestics, and direct the affairs of their households.”

These remarks reflected the needs of the new social order that trade, commerce, and urbanization were bringing to European life. Luther understood his efforts to be for religious reform, but he was unwittingly helping to reform society as well.

Luther still relegated women to the kitchen and the nursery, but his remarkable call for universal literacy, to be accomplished by state compulsion if necessary, was direct and unapologetic. The educational genie was finally out of the bottle so far as women, and the common man, were concerned. And although change would be halting and fitful, there would be no going back.

The Modern Period

The early modern period saw little apparent change in the general status of women or in male attitudes toward them. This surface inaction concealed a quiet but profound social revolution set in motion fundamental changes, such as urbanization and industrialization in the socioeconomic foundations of European and American life. These changes would ultimately affect the opportunities not only of women but the great mass of humanity.

As noted earlier, the educational demands of the Protestant reformers fit the emerging needs of the new society. The chief practical result of the Reformation, so far as education was concerned, was the establishment of state sponsored schools motivated by the belief that it was the duty of the family, church, and state to provide every child, male and female, with an education. Admittedly, boys were usually first into such schools, but girls ultimately followed. For example, the Elector of Saxony established compulsory elementary schools for boys in 1580. Fully 144 years later, girls were permitted to attend.

By the mid-eighteenth century the basic education of females was becoming well established in more progressive countries. For example, Frederick II of Prussia (1712-1786), surnamed The Great, implemented school reforms that included compulsory education for boys and girls age six to fourteen. Similarly, Maria Theresa of Austria (1717-1780), a formidable female in her own right, inaugurated a system of popular public schools “‘to make both sexes good Christians, and industrious, intelligent and obedient subjects in the different orders of society.” Similar developments were also to be found in America.

Male attitudes proved to be an unusually durable obstruction and snare to women’s education, despite the above-cited developments and the more fundamental revolutionary fervor that was beginning to challenge the existing social order. For instance, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Germany’s greatest philosopher, was a lover of freedom and profoundly interested in moral questions. Nevertheless, his attitudes toward women were little different from those of classical antiquity’. In his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, Kant revealed his understanding of woman as an incomplete person when he declared, “‘man should become more perfect as a man, and the woman as a wife.”

His views regarding the education of women were typical of his age: “[Women] need to know nothing more of the cosmos than is necessary to make the appearance of the heavens on a beautiful evening a stimulating sight to them.” He also commented, “Even if a woman excels in arduous learning and painstaking thinking, they will exterminate the merits of her sex.”

Silver Dishes, Golden Apples

The belief that scholarship was deleterious to femininity was nearly universal in this age, despite the fact that women were sometimes being accepted into the lower levels of schooling. Even the poet Goethe (1749-1832), a man of nearly universal genius and exquisite sensitivity, was unable to transcend this limited view of women. Eckerman, in Conversations with Goethe, reveals this when he quotes the great man as saying, “We love things other than the intellect in a young woman. We love what is beautiful, confiding, teasing, youthful in her; her character, her faults, her whims, and God knows what other indefinable things, but we do not love her intellect.”

This view had its origin in the fact that Goethe, and the vast majority of other men of this age, regarded women as essentially passive. They were, as Goethe put it to Eckerman, “silver dishes into which we put our golden apples.”

Goethe’s curious metaphor reflected a fundamental male attitude toward women that was nearly universal at this time. It was most succinctly expressed by the dialectical philosopher Johan Gottlieb Fichte (1762 1814) in The Science of Rights, Fichte observed, ” [A woman’s] dignity requires that she should give herself entirely as she is [to her husband] and utterly lose herself in him. The least consequence is that she should renounce to him all her property and her rights. Henceforth, she has life and activity only under his eyes and in his business. She has ceased live the life of an individual; her life has become a part of the life of her lover.“

In the same work, Fichte asserted that, ”Woman . . . is especially practical, and not at all speculative in her womanly nature. She can not and shall not go beyond the limits of her feeling.” It is the ”shall not” phrase in that quote that is particularly instructive, for by this time some women were beginning to demand a life of their own, and even daring to express ideas as well as children. This new development was to provoke a reaction from many men that has lasted to the present. As women asserted themselves and sought broader horizons, it was education beyond their place or capacity that many men perceived to be the problem. In their view, more poison was being fed to the frightful asp.

A New Wind Blows

Regardless, there was a new wind blowing. To be sure, Fichte’s views were repeated in a thousand variations by some of the most famous men of modern history. Schopenhauer, Napoleon, Hegel, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Wagner, Proudhon, Spengler, Tolstoy, D. H. Lawrence, Freud, Jung, Kierkegaard, Hemingway, Marx, Heine and many, many other accomplished men publicly argued or privately expressed the view that women had limited capacity, suffered from incompleteness and general defects or that she wits uneducable or at lead incapable of genius. But every now and then a new masculine point of view was beginning to assert itself. For example, the great poet, novelist, and scholar Friedrich von Schlegel (1771-1829) sympathetically observed in his Athenaeum Fragments, “Women are treated as unjustly in poetry as in life. If they are feminine, they are not ideal, and if ideal, not feminine.”

By the mid-nineteenth century these once scarce masculine sentiments had become more widespread. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American clergyman, essayist and philosopher, mirrored this transformation in his own life. As a young man he confided in his Journal, “Women should not be expected to write or fight or build or compose scores; she does all by inspiring men to do all. She is the requiring genius.” Years later Emerson came to appreciate a very different reality. In fact, he was moved by what he regarded as the unfairness of man’s limitations of women that he angrily declared in that same Journal, ”If women feel wronged, they are wronged.”

A more measured and erudite denunciation of traditional male attitudes toward women could be found in the work of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Mill, an English philosopher of great accomplishment, anticipated much of what was to come with his measured denunciations of male excesses. In his famous work The Subjection of Women he argued that, “The social subordination of women stands out an isolated fact in modern social institutions; a solitary breach of what has become their fundamental law: a relic of an old world of thought and practice exploded everywhere else.”

Mill saw male attitudes toward the education of women as disingenuous. He believed that they were simply dishonest apologies for what amounted to slavery. In The Subjection of Women he states, “All men . . . desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected to them, not a forced slave, but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favorite. They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, to maintain obedience, on fear, either fear of themselves or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purposes.”

By the late nineteenth century the flood of social change was beginning to run in a direction congenial to a more charitable view of women and this was producing educational reform. Already male radicals, such as the French painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), had abandoned measured criticism such as Mill’s for vitriolic denunciations of those who opposed a broader, empathic understanding of woman’s role. As Gauguin put it in The Writing of a Savage, “Woman, who is after all our mother, our daughter, our sister, has the right to earn her living. Has the right to love whomever she chooses. Has the right to dispose of her body, of her beauty. Has the right to give birth to a child and to bring him up without having to go through a priest or notary public. Has the right to be respected just as much as the woman who sells herself in wedlock (as commanded by the church) and consequently has the right to spit in the face of anyone who oppresses her.”

The Twentieth Century

By the onset of the twentieth century women were, in the more industrialized parts of the Western world at least, universally enrolled in basic education and even making inroads into those last bastions of male elitism- higher education. The first coeds had come upon the scene some 60 years before with dire predictions of disaster. Despite feelings that the higher education of ladies was a creature of “wild fanaticism,” in 1841, Oberlin College graduated Mary Kellogg, the first American woman to earn a bachelor’s degree by completing identical requirements to those of the men. Since then, many women have followed and the Republic has survived.

By the l920s it was not only reform minded males who had been won to woman’s cause. Even curmudgeonly critics such as H. L. Mencken had joined them. While Mencken remained convinced that ”woman is at once the serpent, the apple and the bellyache,” he was equally certain that the men who would limit them were insufferable numbskulls. As Mencken put it in In Defense of Women, “That it should be necessary, at this late stage in the senility of the human race to argue that women have a fine and fluent intelligence is surely eloquent proof of the defective observation, incurable prejudice, and general imbecility of their lords and masters.”

The strident cried of male reformers were one thing, but the derisive sneers of men like Mencken were quite another. They reflected a growing consensus that women were intellectually capable and quite able to master even the highest of higher education.

Reluctantly, the more virulent reactionaries began to pull in their horns. Meanwhile, spurred by the explosive growth of the public schools and the need for inexpensive and relatively docile teachers, the trickle of women into higher education turned into a flood. Like their ancient Roman forebears, opportunity came in terms of nurturance in the form of an extension of the role of mother; but it came nonetheless.

Of course, some men would cling to the bitter end to arguments based on gender. But the facts were that the dire predictions of males like Professor Charles Davis of the U.S. Military Academy that the higher education of women would ‘ ‘ . . . introduce a vast social evil . . . a monster of social deformity ” had been proven dead wrong.

The last word on this subject should come from a woman. Perhaps thinking of the sort of comments recorded in this essay, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the battle hardened campaigner for woman’s suffrage cogently remarked, “Man has quite enough in this life to find out his own individual calling, without being forced to decide where every woman belongs.” If the history of woman tells us anything, it is that Stanton was dead right.

_________

The author wishes to extend special thanks to Leonid Rudnyztky, Professor Emeritus of Foreign Languages and Literature at La Salle University. He and the author collected thousands of quotations, many used in this essay, from famous men who struggled, unsuccessfully, over the centuries to define woman.

  

THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT CRITICAL THINKING

"Every real thought about every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other." 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table. (1858), 5

There are more than 16,000 school districts in the United States. And nearly all of them boast that they develop ‘critical thinking.’ Click on any of their mission statements and you will find affirmations such as this from the Lordstown Ohio School District: “We believe in the development of critical thinking skills.”  

But imagine what would happen if critical thinking skills actually were effectively taught? Suppose at least some of the youngsters begin skillfully scrutinizing things that really matter. Things like common customs, moral principles, and religious beliefs. In other words, imagine they critically examine the values that direct our lives and define the good, the true, the beautiful? They would certainly be thinking critically. But would educators who encouraged this receive hearty congratulations? Or would they have to flee a rampaging mob of angry, torch-wielding villagers?

Critical thinking is not mere logic chopping. "These are the premises” and “this is the conclusion,” sort of thing. That kind of ‘critical thinking’ is largely toothless. Real critical thinking involves systematically considering those deep assumptions that the vast majority take utterly for granted. And real critical thought also carefully considers basic written authorities, such as the Bible, the Torah and the Constitution.  It also questions the bona fides of the authorities charged with interpreting them. Priests, preachers rabbis, and judges for instance. Are they biased? Are they accurately informed? Are they morally corrupt? Are they of sound mind?  Such considerations really matter because such authorities commonly interpret written authority for the rest of us.

Some argue it isn't necessary to tackle sensitive issues. They say that by making youngsters more aware of crucial thinking skills, they will, sooner or later, bring these tools to bear on the deep assumptions and basic authorities that govern their lives. But there are ample reasons to think they won't. Not usually, anyway. Too many factors, such as the psychological and emotional turmoil, as well as the fear, that critical thought provokes, block this transfer of learning. If you want students to really think critically, you must provide them with direct, well focused and vitally important opportunities to do so. 

The trouble is, if educators were to do this, they had better be prepared to find another job. And we're assuming  teachers are actually capable of critical thought themselves, much less communicate it to students. Most probably aren't.

Plus there are real problems when it comes to parents. How tolerant are they going to be when their kids come home asking unsettling questions? Consider what it takes to qualify for parenthood. Getting pregnant, or making some female pregnant, and a resultant birth. That's about it. With such bare bones qualifications it's quite obvious that there must be plenty of parents who are dumb as rocks, need the emotional reassurance of true belief untroubled by thought, and so forth. And a half-baked complaint from a  group of aroused parents, even those of obviously limited intellect, can and does result in book banning and/or a teacher firings. All it takes is a spineless, or true believing, superintendent and/or some opportunistic or closed minded aspiring politicians on the school board.

Keep in mind, most politicians will say or do nearly anything to get elected. And that ultimately results in some ridiculous school-related legislation. In some states, for instance, classroom consideration of a topic that might distress a student, possibly even make them feel guilty for, say, being white, is now legally verboten. This style of thought-policing is popular with right wing elements of the broad masses and politicians who push it in order to benefit at the polls. Plus the  left-wing "woke" crowd has their own list of topics that must not be critically considered.

Let's face it, in a society as diverse as ours it's nearly impossible to critically consider a wide range of topics in school. Teachers can't possibly encourage critical thinking about anything that matters without it being seriously upsetting to at least some parents and any scheiskopfs on the school board. 

Serious thought is, by its very nature, unsettling. That's the price we must pay to actually grow up. But far too many Americans have never paid that price and, intellectually, remain children. In consequence, they will vehemently discourage teaching anything even vaguely resembling critical thinking. So, while most school districts boast that they teach critical thinking, the relative absence of school-related turmoil testifies that they don't.

 

SCHOOLHOUSE, FUNHOUSE, MADHOUSE

Some schools more closely resemble funhouses, or madhouses, than schoolhouses. Supplies are scarce, texts are tattered, buildings are are often still polluted with asbestos, fountains might spew leaded drinking water, bullies rule the hallways, teachers are at continual risk of assault, principals take the side of the kids in any conflict with teachers; and a whole bunch of youngsters who should be in school, aren't. For instance, the public schools in Philadelphia have a district-wide daily absentee rate of 33%. Yep, one third of them are missing on any given day. Many who do show up are an hour or more late. And some of them can be seen loitering just outside the school — a few openly smoking joints.

It is plainly nuts to hold teachers accountable for failing to teach kids who aren't there. Nevertheless, it happens every time high stakes standardized tests are given. Plus many kids who are physically present, are emotionally and/or intellectually absent. Instead of focusing on learning, they focus on where their next meal is coming from, if they will end up homeless, if their putative father is in prison again, if Mom will be "entertaining" still another guy tonight, if she will get dangerously high, if she will pass out drunk in her own puke, or will end up beaten half to death by an abusive "boyfriend." 

Other kids are so petrified of being assaulted, even killed, by a gang, they can't think straight — much less study. Even more are too depressed and/or angry  to give the slightest damn about school. Still others make far too much money standing sentinel for drug dealers, or peddling drugs themselves, to regard school as anything other than a place to go to raise disruptive hell or take refuge from bad weather. Are we surprised, then, that sixty five percent of these Philadelphia "students" fail to achieve proficiency on the Commonwealth's high stakes tests? Let's hope we're not.

Of course educators are typically blamed when kids score this badly. Opportunistic politicians even demand that teachers stop leaving kids behind? In the Bush II era, federal politicians even passed a law they hypocritically titled "No Child Left Behind." This is where the funhouse kicks in.  Demanding that teachers leave no child behind is as realistic as demanding that physicians leave no patient unwell.

In the funhouse/madhouse schools of this "other America," things are so chaotic that learning and teaching always teeter on the edge of impossible. And this is especially true when administrators cravenly fail to back teachers in matters of order and discipline. That's when schools really degenerate into truly scary places. Especially for any small, sensitive, smart youngster who really wants to learn. In fact, very few, no matter how smart or determined, can teach, or learn, in the midst of the chaos that then ensues. Yet school "management" typically still fosters the pretense that teaching and learning are taking place. Worse, teachers are expected, even coerced, to join the charade. Should they resist and demand the truth, the administration will almost certainly decide they are at fault.

Engulfed in chaos, kids who want to learn, are demoralized, disheartened and eventually give up. But a surprising number of teachers continue to put up with the chaos and try to teach. Why? Some are close to retirement. Others are so demoralized they've assumed the prone position. A few have bought the teacher "accountability" nonsense and blame themselves. Then there are all those divorced women who desperately need the income. There are a lot of reasons why these folks tolerate the intolerable. But holding their feet to the fire while simultaneously ignoring anything and everything that makes teaching impossible, is damnable.   

It's not as if these impediments to learning are invisible. Most of the impediments that make these schools madhouses could not be more obvious. Yet few, if any allowances are made for the teachers. Instead our politicians piously and pusillanimously demand that teachers produce positive results. Remember the "Every Student Succeeds Act?" That's the preposterous nonsense that followed the equally farcical "No Child Left Behind Act." Such nonsensical legislation blithely ignores the most elemental reality. 

Educators should never be held accountable for things beyond their control.  As my life-hardened Granny used to put it, "Ya can't pick boogers with gloves on." There is no surer way to demoralize and embitter a caring teacher than to expect them to pick boogers in the mittens circumstances require them to wear. Indeed, there is no better way to quickly drive the best and the brightest completely out of teaching. And that is precisely what is happening.

Where does this leave us? With an acute shortage of qualified teachers, that's where. Instead, we fill the ranks with whatever cannon fodder can be dredged up. And many of them will also be gone in no time. This is no way to prepare America for tomorrow. But our political "leaders" are so busy posturing, lying, quarreling, playing "gotcha' and biting each other in the ass, that this looks like be the best we can do. If so, shame on us!

 

A TRULY ESSENTIAL QUESTION: are many Americans actually educable?

"Against stupidity the very Gods strive in vain."

Schiller, The Maid of Orleans (1801)

“Essential questions” guide inquiry. They help students discover the big ideas. They get to the core of a topic. Let's apply this methodology to education itself. Here is an essential question concerning education. Are many Americans actually educable? 

 What do we mean by "educable?" Special educators have long made a distinction between being “educable” and merely “trainable?” Let's use that distinction. An "educable" person is one who is “capable of being improved in ways that depend on reason and understanding.” A "trainable" person is incapable of that type of improvement. (In these "kinder" days we probably have euphemisms that mean the same thing. Let's stick with tradition.)

Schooling as a Panacea

It must be widely believed that the majority of Americans are educable, because schooling is commonly regarded as the answer, or at least an answer, for a multitude of problems. Here are a few: culturally integrating immigrants, increasing national competitiveness, eliminating racial injustice, controlling sexually transmitted diseases and preparing kids for the world of work. This assumes the recipients are capable of such improvement and, if so, that they are willing to make the effort. But assumption is said to be the mother of all screw-ups.

Lack of Education or of Educability?

A great deal of trouble could be avoided if people thought more deeply and effectively about what they are doing and why they are doing it. But they don't. That sort of deep reflection is relatively uncommon.  Is the failure to do so a consequence of poor schooling, or a widespread lack of basic capacity and/or inclination. After all, in order for schooling to be a cure, much less a cure-all, the majority of humans must be capable of sufficient reason and understanding to be improved by that means. Oh, and they also must also be willing. 

Suppose this is not the case? Suppose a great many, perhaps a majority, lack either the raw material, or the inclination? That they are uneducable in any deep and abiding sense. Is this overly pessimistic? Perhaps it is. But consider the long-standing popularity of P.T. Barnum’s observation that “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Ponder also the durability of H.L. Mencken’s dictum that “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” Perhaps these and many similar observations remain current because they are deeply rooted in reality. Remember, 50% of Americans are, by definition, below average in intelligence. And a sizable number of folks have little or no inclination to think deeply and effectively, even when they have the ability to. Should you doubt that, just look closely at human behavior.

This line of reasoning stands in sharp contrast to the optimism associated with schooling. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence to support such pessimism. For instance, fifteen million people were killed and twenty two million wounded in World War I. Yet nineteen years later Homo sapiens (man the "thinker") got himself into WW II — a far worse slaughter. This ghastly tribute to human folly cost 60 million lives and loosed hellish suffering on many, many more. Does 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?” 

And we persist in our folly even in this thermo-nuclear age in which a single warhead can an eradicate up to 880 square miles. There are up to 12 warheads on a MIRV (multiple warhead, independently-targetable, reentry vehicle). Nevertheless, we continue to divide ourselves into pseudo-species, nurture distrust and hatred toward one another; and depend for survival on a policy that tacticians label MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). By the way, those MIRV missiles will take just 20 minutes to get here.

Oblivious to the Truth

Homo sapiens displays a peculiar reluctance and/or inability, to employ reason and understanding even when the truth is  readily accessible. The Harris Poll reports, for instance, that, despite the fact that absolutely no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq, the belief that Saddam possessed such weapons actually increased after the war was over and the evidence was in. 

That’s right! Despite massive and widely publicized evidence to the contrary, the number of Americans who thought that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction actually increased after Operation “Enduring Freedom” was over. As a matter of fact, in February of 2005 only 36% of Americans polled 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 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 generated. What seems to be evidence of public credulity just might be people being human, all too human. But that still leaves us wondering why the species is so eager to cling to the mindless tribalism, hatred and the organized murder we call warfare? Shall we reference that predilection as evidence of Homo sapiens' educability?

Campaign Appeals

On a less global scale one can also profitably consider the success of political campaign strategies based on the principle that people are easily fooled. In Pennsylvania, for example Senator Rick Santorum cut down challenger Bob Casey’s very substantial lead by means of a $3.5 million TV ad blitz that repeatedly referred to Casey as “Bobby.” That tactic was employed to make him seem juvenile and inconsequential. Casey countered with an equally unsophisticated attack ad. The plain truth of the matter is that ads like this work and work well. Does that suggest there is a great deal of thought going on out there? Doesn't it follow that if there were those kind of attack ads would backfire? But they don't.

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 considerations. Let’s hope so. But I doubt it.

The Media

Evidence of a widespread  lack  of educability 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, consider infomercials or “paid programming.” Multiplied billions of dollars are spent buying TV time to peddle bogus nostrums, physical or spiritual. And many, many more billions in profits are realized in consequence. Psychic hotlines generate handsome incomes for their bogus operators even though they have nothing but hot air to sell. Omega 3 fish oil is successfully huckstered as a cure for an impossible range of maladies, especially cognitive decline. And tens of thousands of viewers have been convinced that purging their bowels will have the same beneficial effects on their body that emptying a full sweeper bag accomplishes for a clogged Electrolux.

Also consider how dozens of film flam televangelists of dubious background and baser motives, repeatedly and successfully con the public by means of such obvious scams as selling them tiny packets of “miracle spring water.” It cures all maladies, physical and spiritual. Or your contribution can buy a “prosperity prayer cloth” that allegedly conveys magical money raising powers. “Pastor, right after I got that prayer cloth a thousand dollars mysteriously appeared in my bank account. Praise God!”  

The fact is there is a small army of "prosperity pastors” convincing tens of thousands of financially desperate people that giving generously of what little they have — to the pastor, of course— will not only eliminate their financial woes, but prompt a ten-fold return on their “offering.” One oily, but particularly persuasive, televangelists who lives in a multi-million dollar California beach front mansion and flies to world-renown resorts in his private jet, recently wheedled still more millions of dollars out of the faithful so he could buy an even bigger jet! It seems he is fearful of getting into an "aluminum tube" that is surely populated by an assortment of demons." Let’s pump this sacerdotal bunko artist full of truth serum then ask him to estimate the educability of the average American. Can you guess what he would say? Maybe: "There's one born every minute."

Ponder also the generally appalling quality of media programming in general. TV, for instance, is still the same cultural wilderness it was way back 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 these "boring" 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 similar. For instance, what kind of music do the masses tune to? Well here in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, home to almost 6 million people, it sure isn't classical music. Years ago the one commercial station that played it switched to soft rock. Philadelphians can listen to dozens of frequencies and find 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? Because the broad masses aren’t tuning in. Evidently they prefer drivel like rap, with its melody and harmony free, basely vulgar, doggerel verse. Even greater desolation exists in the hinterlands where semi-literate pastors read God’s mind for the masses and country music grinds on endlessly in cacophonous concert. That is nearly all there is in the heartland.

To be fair, no one knows for sure how many people are deeply disgusted with this media garbage. But 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 far more than its share off time, 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. Some Americans are clearly educable. But our schools shy away from trying to develop it. It's politically dangerous.

Of course, in these "modern times'"we also have to consider the quality of social media content. Here are a few examples: You can learn that a Jewish space laser was employed to set those disastrous California brush fires. That contrails from high flying planes are spraying people with harmful chemicals. That fluoride added to drinking water, toothpaste and mouthwash poison our bodily fluids. That ancient aliens shaped the development of contemporary culture. That Donald Trump won the 2020 Presidential election. That the earth is actually flat. That specific crystals possess magical healing properties, That vaccines cause autism, That the moon landing was a hoax. That shape-shifting reptilian aliens control the world. That the positioning of celestial bodies influences personal traits and life events. That wi-fi signals cause significant health issues. And so it goes, on and on. Does the popularity of this deranged drivel testify to human educability?

Conclusion

I've saved the best for last. What about our destruction of the very environment that sustains us? With happy oblivion we are rapidly destroying the basis of our species very existence. It might well turn out that homo sapiens, “man the thinker,” will ultimately prove too dumb to live.

There is no need to extend these considerations. The evidence is plain. There is an abundance evidence of widespread vulnerability, gullibility, wishful thinking and willful ignorance among humanity's broad masses. What shall we make of this? Is it evidence of a deeper, fundamental immunity to everything that depends on reason and understanding? Or is it the consequence of a species in which innate stupidity, wishful thinking and "faith" ultimately triumphs? You decide. 

FROM "WRESTLE MANIA" TO SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: sadly, it fits

The role of U.S. Secretary of Education is often occupied by secular clones of scamming televangelists. They lack training, experience, common sense and moral virtue. But they do possess a couple crucial skills. They are tub thumping bullshit artists and absolute masters of deception.   

The Reagan administration provides a  example. Like Trump currently, Reagan promised to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Once in office, however, he went dropped that when public schooling unexpectedly gained national attention. He still cut federal spending on education by half. But politically he now needed to look like he was "fixing" public education. 

That's a key reason why he appointed William F. Bennett as his Secretary of Education. A huckster blowhard of preposterous proportions, Bennett was a carnival barker in both style and intent. His unrestrained "the sky is falling" statements and gross over-simplifications quickly and repetitively made major news. Many took them seriously. After all, he was Secretary of Education and must know the facts. Any way, Americans came to believe that much was wrong with our schools. So wrong, in fact, that they were making our nation internationally uncompetitive. Although the Reagan administration was hard at work fixing things

This is not the place to detail Bennett's demagoguery.  Let's just recount an incident that captures the noxious essence of his humbug. Under his Secretary of Education title, Bennett wrote an article appearing in the November 1988 Readers Digest. In it he praised a particular school principal's ludicrous method of allegedly reforming a "troubled inner-city Washington, D. C. school." "On the very first day," wrote Bennett, "this remarkable educational leader," this "no-nonsense principal, assembled the student body and ... with practiced eye, chose 20 chronic troublemakers to enforce order and put an end to chaos." According to Bennett, putting the school's miscreants in charge worked like magic! Order was restored and education proceeded apace!

Can you imagine? The school is chaotic and the principal's solution is to put the trouble-makers in charge! Even a Secretary of Education should recognize such a policy is just plain nuts. But Bennett was not interested in the multifaceted and highly complex nature of actually managing disorder. He was shoveling bullshit for political purposes. Offering simple solutions to the simple minded. 

This is just one example of Bennett repeatedly politicizing his position with carnival-barker effectiveness. He also repeatedly beat up on the National Education Association  — back then an innocuous, empty pleading organization that was still trying to emulate the American Medical Association. Charging that that this then ineffective organization was a major cause of what he alleged to be national school decline. He repeatedly pointed to it as the chief villain.  

Why did Bennett single out the NEA when school problems were, and still are, clearly linked to far more complex social and economic issues? He trashed it because the union favored the Democrats and opposed the Reagan administration's education policies — especially the draconian cuts in spending. Bennett's job was to confirm the anti-union biases of Reagan voters and he did that well. What he failed to do was offer one ounce of genuine leadership.

Enough about Bennett. Let's turn to Arnie Duncan, President Obama's Secretary of Education. Like Bennett, Arnie was utterly unqualified. He lacked knowledge of education policy, curriculum design, research on learning, on human growth and development, ad naseum. Plus he had never taught. Despite his utter lack of qualifications, he had previously served as CEO of the Chicago public school system from 2001 - 2008. How did he get such a job with zero qualifications? Can you spell P O L I T I C S? But he did have that one vital skill that serves any Secretary of Education. He really could dish out the shit. He was skilled at looking like he knew what he was talking about. 

Unlike Reagan, Obama increased Federal education funding by an extra $100 billion. But Duncan was similar to Reagan's choice of Bennett, in that his chief skill was bullshitting.  Here's is an example of Arnie at work. During the preceding Bush administration a federal education law, "No Child Left Behind," had been enacted. This preposterously optimistic law stipulated that in the future only "highly qualified" teachers would be permitted to teach." In fact it specifically ordained that "to teach math, science, social studies, the arts, reading or languages, candidates must have obtained a long-term teaching certificate, and demonstrate subject matter knowledge by either obtaining a college major in the subject, by passing a test in the subject taught." 

That's got teeth, right?  Ah, but wait! Federal lawmakers inserted the following at the very end: "...or by some other means established by the state." A last minute castration! It allowed states to dodge all of the supposed rigor. They could substitute whatever feeble humbug that suited them. And that's exactly what they did. 

Were federal legislators surprised states did that?? Hardly! They wanted to look tough, but simultaneously allow the same laxity that has characterized teacher education since its inception. Why have teacher licensing standards historically been feeble. Money! Higher standards means having to pay more to attract and retain teachers. You pay more, you get more. But that means raising taxes. That can be unwise politically.

Curiously, California initially failed to take advantage of this No Child Left Behind escape clause. And that meant the state faced an immediate shortage of highly qualified teachers. But President Obama quickly came to the rescue. He waived his executive order wand and declared that wanna-be teachers still in training were, in fact, "highly qualified?" At that time lots and lots of apprentices were filling in as full-time teachers in California. But now, thanks to Obama, these rank amateurs were instantly transformed into masters of the art. California's shortage of "highly qualified" teachers was over. 

Did Secretary Duncan complain when Obama transformed apprentices to master craftsmen with the stroke of a pen! Nope, not a whimper came from Arnie, even though he earlier professed great concern about weak-kneed teacher education. Now it was OK if teachers were as unqualified as he was.

Eventually a federal judge ruled that Obama's evasion violated the No Child Left Behind "highly qualified" requirement. Congress quickly corrected that. With a straight face these federal law makers piously legislated that the classification "highly qualified" included those who weren't. Arnie went along with that too. By then his expressed concern about inadequate teacher preparation had totally evaporated.

Enough of Arnie. Let's turn to Betsy DeVoss, Secretary of Education during Trump's first term. How much training in education did she have? Zero. How much teaching experience? Zero. How much education did she experience in public school where 90% of Americans send their children? Zero. How much had she and the rest of her family donated to Republican causes? Forbes reports about $200 million dollars in 2017.  That's 200 million reasons why, having always attended private conservative Christian schools, having long demanded deep cuts in federal education spending, having enthusiastically championed privatizing public schools through vouchers, and after boldly boosting the for-profit college industry despite their student loan default rate being 6 times higher, she still ended up U.S. Secretary of Education. 

Was Ms. DeVoss a bullshitter similar to the two cited above? Perhaps not. She may just have been manifesting true belief in the religious fundamentalism that requires acolytes to give up critical thinking. Perhaps that is how she came to be a billionaire free market advocate of unrestrained materialism, while simultaneously worshipping the emphatically anti-materialistic, Christ Jesus. "Where your treasures are, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21.

Despite her ability to embrace contradictions, Ms. DeVoss was clearly out of her league as Secretary of Education. To even get the job, Vice President Pence had to cast the deciding vote, given the 50-50 tie in the Senate. (Perhaps I should add that she did somewhat redeem herself by summarily quitting the Trump circus after the canard inspired Capital riot.)

That gets us to Linda McMahon, President Trump's present Secretary of Education. Yes, this is non-other than the pro-wrestling promotor who, with her husband Vince, made multiple millions transforming a vulgar farce into something even more so. What are her educational qualifications? Pretty much the same as Betsy De Voss's. That is, donating a big gob of money, in this case more than $10 million, to elect Mr. Trump. To be fair, though, selling  primitive crudity floating on a sea of bullshit is well within the range of skills commonly expected of a Secretary of Education.

Predictably, she doesn't know much of anything about education. But Trump may have actually been attracted by Ms. McMahon's pedagogical ignorance. He profits from such ignorance. After all, he founded and presided over his very own phony institution of higher education. He modestly called this film-flam: "Trump University." 

This so-called university had a short life. And its governmentally forced closure was punctuated by a court-ordered $25 million settlement reimbursing over 6,000 former students who paid up to $35,000 for instruction Trump's "university" failed to deliver. Trump also paid a $1 million settlement to New York State for operating an unlicensed educational institution. Clearly, Trump knows a talented pedagogical bullshitter when he sees one. And if he needs a reminder, he can just look in the mirror. 

Why this series of pedagogical incompetents being appointed to what might be viewed the top educational job in the nation? Well, for one thing the U.S. Department of Education is largely unnecessary. Most of what really matters can be better handled by other federal agencies, the states or local school districts. The feds chief talent is impeding instruction by generating burdensome rules and requiring reams of paperwork. In short, their chief accomplishment is getting in the way. So an incompetent bullshitter filling the top executive position compliments the character of the organization.

Here's a key factor underlying all of this. Most alleged "education" problems have their origin outside of schools. Take, for instance, the frighteningly large number of parents who are unqualified for the job. That fact is plain to even casual observers. Of course, no politician in their right mind will acknowledge this reality. The common pretense is that parents always know what's best. Some, of course, do. But others are too stupid, imbalanced, busy, selfish, addicted, sick or distracted to do the job. Still others are unloving, neglectful, or abusive for elusive reasons. But acknowledging any of this reality takes politicians where they do not want to go. 

Even the best teachers cannot cancel out the deep personal and social problems spawned by parental incompetence and/or neglect. But from a typical politician's point of view, it's far better to pretend this political third rail doesn't exist. That's why approving a series of no-nothing bullshitters and political hacks as Secretary of Education isn't that big a problem. In fact it sets smoke screens of simple-minded panaceas and misplaced blame for a problematic situation that defies easy remedy. 

And if some complete ignoramus, rather than a bullshitter,  is chosen for the job, so much the better. So long as he or she naively, but sincerely, endorse panaceas and misplace blame, the charade will  persist. In fact, naive, misguided sincerity might make a simple-minded "leader" all the more convincing.

Any chance of a truly competent expert being appointed as Secretary of Education? I don't think so. They might acknowledge and discuss realities that few of us want to confront. For instance, that a lot of parents are incompetent and incapable. And that the effects of this reality often overwhelm whatever educators try to do. Speaking this truth is not the way to get a President reelected. Better to appoint a convincing bullshitter.

 

LEARNING WHAT THEY LIVE: the hidden curriculum

Years ago John Dewey tellingly observed that children "learn what they live." Teachers can gabble on and on about democracy, for instance. But if they run a despotic classroom, the kids learn to adjust to despotism. Possibly they even learn to need big brother. Dewey was precisely right. Children learn what they live. 

 

It's hard to overemphasize the importance of this "hidden curriculum." It is powerful yet often overlooked. Lessons unintentionally taught in this way can last a lifetime. For instance, the person who taught me the most about tyranny and abuse of power was my fourth grade teacher, Miss Weast . (Behind her back kids called her: "Miss Weast, the big fat beast.") Feared by all, this angry woman extorted compliance by means of threats and violence. A ruler across the knuckles of an out-stretched hand, for example. 

Eventually, she went too far. As punishment she held a youngster against a hot steam radiator. His relatively minor burns did not get her fired, as you might expect. She was quickly transferred to another school. But not before she had unintentionally taught me about the abuse of power. I learned this lesson many years ago. But it remains vivid.

Here's another example. This one concerning some Catholic parish schools of the 1950's. In that era, a number of overworked and under appreciated nuns bullied, slapped and otherwise mistreated the children. The little girl next door to me, even though she was never touched herself, developed severe school phobia in consequence. I'm not sure what these nuns thought they were doing. Making 'better' Catholics, perhaps. But they certainly weren't making better Christians. The kids actually learned that the sermonizing about love, mercy and forgiveness, was all talk. Plus they learned that it's not what people say, but what they do that counts. Valuable lessons, to be sure. But NOT part of the official curriculum.

Here's a final instance involving an entirely different circumstance than that which prevailed in Miss Weast's, classroom. I occasionally visited inner city schools that were chaotic. The turmoil was so bad it made learning impossible and safety doubtful. Those in charge evidently lacked the power and/or will to impose meaningful consequences for even the grossest misbehavior. As a result the bullies ran wild.

What did youngsters learn while enduring this chaos? That bullies rule? That might makes right? That there is no point in even trying to learn? Take your pick. Certainly, not much else.  Do children learn what they live? Count on it.  

To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com