ARE YOU SUFFICIENTLY SENSITIVE TO ADMINISTRATIVE INTENT?

I was an assistant professor aspiring to become an associate and had to prove my teaching, publications and service met the mark. My "course evaluations" were quite good. (Actually they are customer satisfaction ratings — but it is unwise to call them that.) My publications also met muster. The problem was my "service."

 

Why was that? Well in this institution "service" was chiefly defined as service on college committees. But despite my annually volunteering in writing for whatever committee slots were available, I received not a single one. 

Favored faculty got all the key committee assignments even when they didn't fill out the requisite areas of interest form. I filled mine out carefully. I indicated preferences but also noted I was eager to serve on any committee. Still, this resulted in zero assignments.

Absence from committee work would sink my prospects for promotion. So I decided to find out what was going on. Committee assignments were made by a faculty "Committee on Committees." This august body largely consisted of old boy faculty, many of whom were alums of the then single sex school. But the committee was chaired by a woman. What were her distinctive qualities? Knee crooking servility to the Roman Catholic order that owned and ran the school. 

When I requested an appointment with this woman, I was in no mood to genuflect. So, upon meeting with her I boldly declared that I had repeatedly volunteered for any available committee assignment year after year, but got nowhere. Other favored faculty got one assignment after another. What, I asked, was going on? Her reply? I had been determined "insufficiently sensitive to administrative intent." 

How to respond to that? I'm not recommending it, but here's what I did. I reminded this academic weather vain that my promotion was at stake. I told her that I had kept a careful record of all my futile efforts to volunteer. Then I indicated that if I failed to get promoted because of any alleged "lack of service," she and the other committee members would likely hear from my attorney.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

I never again had any trouble getting committee assignments. Although I continued to do my best to remain appropriately insensitive to administrative intent.  Promotion followed in due course.

Care to guess what subsequently became of this weather vane chair of the Committee on Committees? Want to wager on the brightness of her academic future? Well i wasn't long before she was appointed, perhaps "anointed" is a better word,  Dean of Arts and Sciences. 

Once in this exalted administrative office, she continued to utilize her finely-tuned sensitivity to the administrative intent. Unsurprisingly the consequences of her newly-acquired influence typically disadvantaged the very faculty whose interests she supposedly represented. Before her rise to power this gal was a professor of English, not meteorology. Nevertheless, she always knew which way the wind blew.

What can be learned from this story? 

1. That course evaluations actually measure customer satisfaction. 
2. That there is an irreconcilable, though unmentionable, tension between the interests of the administration and those of the faculty. 
3. That a surprising number of faculty are craven lick-spittles. 
4. That brown-nosing pays — at least in terms of promotion.
5. That one's alleged colleagues might not be collegial. 

What else, in general, can be learned from this? That there are covert academic realities reminiscent of the missing genitalia on censored human anatomical illustrations. Genitalia are obviously critical components of the human anatomy. Yet they frequently get “disappeared” on such illustrations. Worse, mentioning their absence is risky business. Similarly, the discerning know that academia is not what it claims to be.  However, joining in the pretense that it is pays off. ” 

Are there times to confront the academic equivalent of those anatomical illustrations, point to the blank crotch area and ask, “What the hell is going on here? Apparently there are. But when should one do that? Here is the answer. Only when you have more to lose if you keep pretending you don't notice the absence. 

This is a professionally dangerous maneuver. However, pulling the sheet off these covert realities can produce a sobering effect on academic power holders when all else fails. At the very least, it causes them to stop and reflect before messing with you further. But remember, breaking the silence will forever change your status both with the power holders and your colleagues. For good or ill, neither will ever view you, or treat you, in the same way again. 

IS THIS THE END OF IGNORANCE?

"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." Donald Miller

No one is ignorant anymore. Not in the view of the politically correct. They're just "low on information." Folks who didn't vote for Barrack Obama because he is a Muslim and born in Africa, for example, weren't ignorant, mentally careless cretins. They were just low on information. When Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed that a Rothschild-financed Jewish space laser deliberately ignited those devastating fires in California, she wasn't being a bigoted ignoramus. She was merely information deficient.

How deliciously nonjudgmental this is. No one is too lazy, dogmatic or emotionally needy to pursue actual facts. They simply are "less informed." It's like being left handed as opposed to right handed! There's no fault involved, no personal responsibility. They're just — that way. The politically correct refuse to accept the fact that ignorance is often an achieved trait. Sure, for the mentally deficient, ignorance is acquired. But what about the person of normal capacity who still adamantly insists on the patently ridiculous? For instance, that the condensation trails of planes flying at high altitude are actually "chemtrails" containing harmful substances released for sinister purposes. 

Given a mountain of decisive evidence to the contrary, isn't such ignorance the believer's personal responsibility? Isn't he or she responsible for embracing such childish bullshit? Not from this politically correct point of view. For these more enlightened folk, there are no willful ignoramuses, no dogmatic true believers, no mental sloths. Such folks are just "information deficient." 

But wait, the very most politically correct have recently adopted an even less judgmental view. For them, ignoramuses are just "differently informed." Do they insist the earth is a mere 6,000 years old? That's fine! They're not wildly off by more than 4 billion years. That 6,000 year earth age is just as good as 4.6 billion. They merely are "differently informed." 

In their Alice in Wonderland world, no authority is superior to any other. If someone adamantly maintains that the earth is 6,000 years old, perhaps relying on the information provided by the late Bishop Ussher, that's fine. This 17th Century Church of Ireland prelate meticulously added the many generations of the Bible, cranked in all post-Biblical generations, and determined that creation took place at 6 pm, 23 October, 4004 BC. (He was a bit uncertain about the exact time of day.) 

Of course this humbug is thoroughly discounted by a mountain of scientific evidence! But that matters only if you accept the findings of science. In the painfully non-judgmental view of the politically correct, you simply are "differently informed." That's because no authority in the nuts view of the apologists for everything, no information is better than any other.

 
How far does this feverishly nonjudgmental delusion take them?  They end up in a world where truth and fact are inoperative. Where the scientific method is passé. Where the earth is actually flat if you think it is. But should they discover they have cancer, for example, you gotta wonder if they wouldn't take refuge in modern medicine rather than provably ineffectual folk cures.

So what are the implications of this metastasizing super "tolerance" for the processes and purposes of schooling? Don't even ask!

INTERVIEW WITH THE DEAD: JEFFERSON ON EDUCATION — natural aristocracy and race

Interviewer: Mr. President, the rules for this interview require us to speak only about education.

Jefferson: Yes, and I welcome it. All my life I championed public education, because only an enlightened people can support a democracy. That is why I tried to establish universal male education in tax-supported schools.

Interviewer: I understand you wanted to use schooling to create a “natural American aristocracy.”

Jefferson: Yes, I much prefer a natural aristocracy based on brains and hard work to a pseudo-aristocracy based on wealth. I envisioned a selection process in which every free child would get three years of local free primary education. Families could pay for more. The academically talented few would move on to grammar schools free of charge. Parents willing and able to pay could send their children too. Then the best half of the grammar school class would have the opportunity to study for three more years at university at public expense.

Interviewer: Did you imagine these people rising to positions of leadership in the democracy?

Jefferson: Absolutely. That was the point of the graduated system —to rake the geniuses from the rubbish.

 Interviewer: Why do you think your idea failed?

Jefferson: It was ahead of its time — although the Virginia legislature did approve my tax-supported university idea.

 Interviewer: But what of their failure to support your basic education proposal?

Jefferson: Elementary education is more important than university education. It is safer to have the whole male population enlightened than only a select few, as in Europe. Their decision to raise the apex of the pyramid without the foundation was a big mistake.

 Interviewer: You mentioned schooling only the male population. Why?

Jefferson: Women should be confined to a more rarefied and less contentious domain than men; and are properly excluded from public affairs, No effort need be made to educate them in any way that is not useful in their place as wives and mothers. Their interests should be chiefly housekeeping and childbearing.

 Interviewer: I see. You also said you championed public schooling for every FREE child. I assume that means you excluded slaves?

Jefferson: Yes I did. In my experience, black people are in reason much inferior. I never knew of a black person capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid. But despite the imbecility of blacks and their general lack of foresight, I always favored their emancipation and thought such would eventually become a law in Virginia.

 Interviewer: Imbecility and general lack of foresight?

Jefferson: Yes, for example, though they receive blankets very thankfully on the commencement of winter, when the warm weather returns they frequently cast them off, without any thought as to what may become of them, wherever they happen to be at the time, and then not seldom lose them in the woods or fields from mere carelessness.

 Interviewer: But your own records show that you only allowed them a blanket every three years and your overseers often failed to deliver those.

Jefferson: Well, no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I myself entertain and express on the grade of understanding allotted them by nature.

 Interviewer: But you owned black men who learned to be skilled coopers, painters, smiths, glazers, gourmet cooks, and so forth. Some were even capable of building you a carriage and making real your house designs. In fact it was you who pioneered in the industrialization and diversification of slavery with your gristmill, textile mill, nailery, coopering shop, tin-smithing operation, and so forth. Your estate at Monticello was utterly dependent on this black talent.

Jefferson: Yes, thank you for reminding me of the many instances of respectable intelligence in that race of men. But learning a trade is different than managing one’s own life. In the 1770’s when the Quakers freed slaves the experiment failed miserably and it soon became obvious that they had set free a parcel of lazy, worthless, Negroes. Brought from their infancy without necessity for thought or forecast, negroes are by their habits rendered as incapable of children of taking care of themselves and raising young. In the meantime they are pests in society by their idleness, and the depredations to which this leads them. The march of emancipation takes time. Just abandoning persons whose habits have been formed in slavery is like abandoning children.

 Interviewer: Perhaps they simply were too valuable to be set free. Your own calculations reveal how financially essential slavery was for maintaining Monticello’s profitability. And that Quaker experiment you label a failure actually proved successful. What is more, while in Philadelphia, you must have observed its prosperous community of free black Americans who had clearly mastered literacy, marketable skills and independent living.

Jefferson: Well I heard the Quaker experiment was an abject failure. And I am still waiting to find a natural aristocrat among the men of this race. It is not their condition but nature which has made them inferior. They are equal to whites in memory, but in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.

 Interviewer: Do you recall, while you were Secretary of State, receiving a lengthy letter and a complex Almanac containing much astronomic data both written by a free black man named Benjamin Banneker? In the letter he tried to persuade you to stop publishing statements about the alleged inferiority of blacks, made a persuasive case for there being only one human family and scolded you and the other framers of the Declaration of Independence for hypocritically tolerating the “groaning captivity and cruel oppression” of his brethren.

Jefferson: Yes, I recall both, and frankly I think Banneker had help in developing the astronomical calculation for that almanac. So far as his letter is concerned, it shows him to have a mind of very common stature indeed.

 Interviewer: Let’s turn to the hundreds of black children you owned, worked, used as collateral and sold for profit over your lifetime. How were they educated?

Jefferson: Most of the boys worked at my forge learning to turn iron rods into nails.

 Interviewer: Yes, I read that the labor of the nail boys provided completely for the maintenance of your family.

Jefferson: It was a profitable enterprise.

 Interviewer: Were the boys returned to their mothers at the end of the day?

Jefferson: No. Those who worked at the forge lived there. Initially I housed my slaves without regard for family ties. Later I allowed families to live together, but only until the children were put to work.

 Interviewer: Was it difficult to teach children to forge nails?

Jefferson: Slaves of any age can often be a burden, and these boys were no exception. It took a stern hand to keep them in line. I recall my son-in-law complaining that the overseer was whipping the small ones. The 10, 11 and 12 year olds did not take kindly to beginning work an hour before dawn, so the overseer whipped them for truancy.

 Interviewer: When you learned of this, did you stop the whippings?

Jefferson: I abhor that sort of thing. But some people require vigor of discipline to make them do reasonable work. Besides the small ones had to be kept busy; and building their character required them to be policed. So far as the overseer is concerned, I could never find a man who fulfilled my purposes as well as that fellow. I recall him asking that his pay be based on nail production, and when I agreed production soared.

Interviewer: Were the nail boys taught to read and write?

Jefferson: No, they were taught to forge nails. But the most diligent could ultimately expect to be trained as artisans and not become common field slaves.

 Interviewer: What about the slave girls you owned? Were they taught?

Jefferson: Yes, from age 10 to 16 they learned to spin and weave; then most of them, the least skilled, would go into the ground.

 Interviewer: When you were a young man you championed emancipation. But as your estate became more elaborate, your lifestyle more opulent and your slaves more plentiful, your ardor for emancipation cooled. In fact, when you became secretary of state, vice president and twice president you not only failed to use your great authority try to end slavery, you actually promoted its establishment in the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Was there a connection between your dimming enthusiasm for emancipation and the increasing weight slavery gave your pocketbook?

Jefferson: No, not at all. I favored emancipation all my life, but came to realize that it had to be very gradual in order to lessen the shock which an operation so fundamental could not fail to produce. Besides, American slaves were better fed and clothed than England’s workers and labored less.

 Interviewer: Throughout your lifetime you repeatedly expressed an abhorrence of race mixing. Yet Jeff Randolph, your grandson, reported that you had a parallel mixed race family living on the mountain. He also said you refused to comment on the resemblance between yourself and the Monticello slave children being brought up as house servants.

Jefferson: This interview is supposed to be about education; and I think we should bring it to a close.

 

Interviewer: Thank you Mr. President.

 

Jefferson’s actual quotes were used in the construction of this “interview.” While minor modifications were made to adapt them to fit this format, his thoughts and sentiments remain intact and as expressed. 

For a detailed treatment of Jefferson and his slaves see: Henry Wiencek. Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York (2012). 

For extensive bibliographies on Thomas Jefferson, race, and slavery, see “Thomas Jefferson and Slavery,” Monticello.org, The Thomas Jefferson Foundation.

 

 

HOW ABOUT AN EQUAL EDUCATION AMENDMENT?

 

Every American child's educational opportunities are, in large measure, determined by their zip code. Why? Because education spending varies dramatically from school district to school district and from state to state.

When the "No Child Left Behind Act" became law; and when the "Every Student Succeeds Act" replaced it, Congress and the President were just feeding the voters humbug. Instead of demanding the transparently impossible, they should have addressed these funding inequalities. 

Sure, "throwing money" at schools won't necessarily make them better. Still, you usually get what you pay for. Besides, how many times have you heard that "throwing money" argument directed at defense spending or paying to get star professional sports players? Seldom, I'll wager. That argument is primarily used to obscure  just not spending any more money.

 Outrageous inequalities in per-student spending persist from district to district and state to state. Federal politicians are well aware of this. But they, in essence, say, never mind that. Just, make sure every student succeeds. That no student is left behind.  That level of hypocrisy is breath taking — even for politicians.

Federal tinkering minimally addresses some of the most grotesque inequality. But more than a century of widespread persistent inequality suggests that only a constitutional amendment would apply the consistent and persistent pressure necessary to actually correct this situation. Such an amendment would bring federal judicial scrutiny that would pack the legal muscle necessary to insure compliance. 

What would an Equal Education Amendment look like? It might read something like this:

EQUAL EDUCATION AMENDMENT 

Section 1. Equality of Educational opportunity under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of race, sex, income or place of residence. Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Would an equal education amendment have sufficient support in Congress? That seems doubtful. Would the required two thirds of the states ratify it? Probably not. But just raising the issue of such an amendment would focus needed attention on the inequities. 

 Who would oppose such an amendment? In a MAGA dominated House and Senate, there would be abundant opposition. What would be their stated grounds? Probably that an equal education amendment would establish excessive federal control over what are properly state and local matters. Never mind that in the Bush years Republicans took the lead in the most massive federal infringement of state and local control of schooling in our history. The No Child Left Behind Act and its successor. But that was then, this is now. 

Of course the most vociferous opposition would come from whoever benefits from the present inequalities. The more advantaged states and communities would forfeit advantage. And you can bet both voters and their representatives would oppose that. 

Only the federal government commands the necessary resources to provide every child in the nation with equal educational opportunity.  At least as that is defined by per-child spending. But to pull that off federal legislators and the Whitehouse would have to rearrange priorities pretty dramatically. 

That gets us to the main advantage of putting an Equal Education Amendment on the table. It forces hands and reveals agendas. It puts an issue out there that most politicians want to dodge. The question is, what is more important, providing every child with equal educational opportunity, or serving interests they are presently beholden to? It’s high time that we ask that question. But don't hold your breath for an honest answer. 

There is, however, one other consideration. Extra financial resources for economically disadvantaged schools might be throwing good money after bad. Why think that kids who often fail to take advantage of present opportunities, will take advantage of better ones? A lot of kids in financially disadvantaged school districts are truant a good portion of the time, are openly dismissive of the opportunities presently provided, and make life miserable for any classmate who takes learning seriously. People will ask, why pay more for that? Isn't that a good question? 

INTERVIEW WITH THE DEAD: FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE ON EDUCATION

 This “interview” is composed of actual quotations found in a variety of sources. While minor modifications were made to fit this venue, Nietzsche’s thoughts and sentiments remain unaltered. 

Interviewer: Herr Nietzsche, how long since you left us?

Nietzsche: I died in the late summer of 1900; but my strength of mind died in early January of 1889. I was in Turin and saw a coachman flogging a prostrate horse. I rushed to the poor beast and collapsed with my arms around its neck. They had to carry me home. This was the very moment when I lost the last of my sanity. Diving ever deeper into madness for ten long years was all that remained.

One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. This proved impossible for me.

Interviewer:You must have suffered?

Nietzsche: Yes I did, although what really raises one’s indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of it. We would like our suffering, and our entire existence, to have a point. But human life is inexplicable, and without meaning: a fool may decide its fate. Death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all.

Interviewer: It was long thought that your madness and death were caused by syphilis. Medical experts now think it probably was not.

Nietzsche: Now that my enemies have to change their opinion, they will charge my account heavily for the inconvenience I have caused them.

Interviewer: Some experts think that your illness caused the extraordinary spurt of creativity you experienced shortly before your breakdown.

Nietzsche: Quite possibly it did; and that illustrates why you have to be careful in casting out your demon. You might exorcise the best thing in you.

Interviewer: The prime reason I requested this interview was to have you comment on the present state of education — particularly in the United States. Where would you like to begin?

Nietzsche: Let’s begin with the elemental fact that there are two different types of people in the world: those who want to know, and those who want to believe. There is no point in trying to educate the later, though educators keep trying.

Interviewer: But beliefs are the basis of faith.

Nietzsche: Faith is not wanting to know what the truth is.

Interviewer: What about the curriculum? Do you agree with what is being taught these days?

Nietzsche: Of course not. Haven’t you noticed, for example, that when school money runs short music is typically sacrificed? How ridiculous! Life without music is a mistake.

Love too has to be learned. Yet that isn’t in the curriculum; and where one can no longer love, there one should pass by.

Then there is dancing. Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?

None of this is encouraged in school, which means school days are lost days. We all should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. To dance is to be out of you — larger, more beautiful, and more powerful. This is power, this is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.

A real education facilitates this kind of taking and helps people regain the seriousness that they had as a child at play.

Then there is the penultimate goal of education, which should be to teach people how to fly. Anyone who would learn to fly one day must first learn to walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying. Those you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall faster.

Interviewer: Don’t schools at least strengthen community?

Nietzsche: No, they just strengthen tribalism; and the individual should always struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.

Anyone who tries this will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Interviewer: Is that the kind of truth that kids should be exposed to?

Nietzsche: Truths are illusions that we have forgotten are illusions.

Interviewer: But earlier you said that believers do not want to know the truth; and that presupposes truth exists. Aren’t you contradicting yourself?

Nietzsche: Only idiots fail to contradict themselves three times a day. But what is truth but a lie agreed upon or illusions that we have forgotten are illusions? That, my friend, is the essential truth.

Interviewer: Business people are frequently consulted on the way U.S. schools are run. Some business billionaires have even spent billions to shape schooling to their liking. What do you have to say to them?

Nietzsche: I would say this. Business people – your business is your greatest prejudice. Diligent in business, but indolent in spirit. Content with your inadequacy, and with the cloak of duty hung over this contentment. That is how you live, and that is how you want our children to live!”

Interviewer: What about the way U.S. schools are organized and operated?

Nietzsche: I’ve got a list:

• First, most schools are run by the state and everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.
• Second, all schools label their occupants. First grade, second grade, emotionally disturbed, honors, and so on. Yet what labels us negates us.
• Third, schooling takes up too much of an individual’s time. Whoever does not have two-thirds of the day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a student.
• Fourth, schools are all about doing what others tell you to do. Nothing destroys a person more quickly than to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure – as a mere automaton of duty. It is here that we learn to labor at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.
• Fifth, digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of vitality and health. Disobedience also is healthy — it is the nobility of slaves. Yet it is precisely these things that get you in trouble in school. He who obeys, does not listen to himself!
• Sixth, scholarship is overrated. Behind a remarkable scholar we not infrequently find an average human being, and behind an average artist we often find a very remarkable human being. Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence, and that is precisely why it is given little attention in school.
  
  

Interviewer: From what you said about government you probably don’t like public schools. What, then, do you make of the rapid growth of Christian schools?

Nietzsche: In truth, there was only one Christian and he died on the cross. What is more, in Christianity neither morality nor religion comes into contact with reality at any point. Finally, there is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

Interviewer: For several decades politicians have been trying to reform schooling. What do you make of that?

Nietzsche: A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies. That is what their school reforms are based on. Plus, there are terrible people who, instead of solving a problem, bungle it and make it more difficult for all who come after. Whoever can’t hit the nail on the head should, please, not hit at all. Do you think these would-be reformers are hitting the nail on the head?

Interviewer: What of the standardized tests that now dominate U.S. public education?

Nietzsche: Chasing after test scores readies students to chase after money and material possessions. Living in a constant chase after gain compels people to expend their spirit to the point of exhaustion in continual pretense and overreaching and anticipating others. Virtue has come to consist of doing something in less time that someone else.

They remind me of monkeys. Watch them clamber over one another and push one another into the mud. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness — as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne. Mad they all appear to me, these over ardent and clambering monkeys. Foul smells their idol, the cold monster. Foul, they smell to me altogether, these idolaters.

Interviewer: Well. so much for materialism! We are nearly out of time, so allow me this last bold question. How would you sum up your life?

Nietzsche: Was that a life? Well then, once more!