WHEN IS IT SEXUAL HARASSMENT? looking at schools

"Somebody must have made a false accusation against Joseph K., for he was arrested one fine morning without having done anything wrong."

Franz Kafka, THE TRIAL

It's gotten to the point where a female wanting to "get back" at some male in authority, say a professor or principal, has a ready-made weapon at her disposal. All she has to do is denounce him for sexual harassment. But what counts as sexual harassment?  When, for instance, does a professor's or teacher's touching or sexual humor become sexual harassment?  Is it sexual harassment for a teacher or professor to treat female students different than males? If so, how different must it be? How about a department head or dean having a framed photo of his bikini-clad wife on his desk? Is a college or university supporting sexual harassment if their curriculum supposedly creates a "sexually hostile environment?" Is a college tolerating sexual harassment if a professor fails to stifle what some alleged aggressor says in class? 

For answers to these and similar question refer to:

  
• the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education
• federal and state case law
• state anti-discrimination agencies 
• criminal law enforcement agencies 

Better check them all, though.  

At the local level, definitions and policies are commonly set out in some sort of Supervisory Guide. Here the details really matter. Especially when you are the accused. 

I have one such collegiate "Guide" in front of me. It looks like standard boilerplate that probably is widely used. Anyway, it defines sexual harassment as: "Any unwelcome sexual attention, sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and any other verbal, visual or physical conduct of a sexual nature whenever:

• a.) submission to such conduct is made either explicitly, or implicitly, a term or condition of an individual's continued employment: or
• b.) submission to, or rejection of, such conduct is used as the basis for employer decisions affecting such individual; or
• c.) such conduct is intended to, or has the effect of, unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance;
• d.) such conduct has the purpose, or effect, of creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment."

Notice the Guide deals with implicit behavior, judgements as to motivation, judgements regarding reasonableness, determinations of purpose, etc. All  dangerously subjective. The Guide elaborates that comments like "you look nice today" are all right, if not repeated frequently. (But what counts as "frequent" remains undefined.) The Guide also notes that remarks like: "you look nice today in that tight or short (article of clothing)" are generally inappropriate and "may be" sexual harassment." 

But, then again, maybe not. It all depends on context and interpretation. For example, how is it determined that a glance was motivated by lascivious interest? And, more generally, who decides what is "sexually offensive?" or "inappropriate" to begin with? In each and every instance it is the complainant, then the institution's equivalent of an Affirmative Action Officer. 

This Guide chillingly advises, "If the conduct persists, or the harassed person is afraid for any reason to confront the harasser ... the individual should bring the problem confidentially to the attention of the Affirmative Action Officer. This officer ...will immediately investigate any such allegations of sexual harassment in as confidential a manner as possible."  

Secret denunciation followed by a "confidential" investigation? That's the same procedure the Inquisition employed.

To encourage covert denunciations, hesitant accusers are urged to "...bring the problem confidentially to the attention of the Affirmative Action Officer, without fear of any retaliation, humiliation or recrimination." The Guide even reassures those contemplating denunciation, "Retaliation in any form (emphasis added) against a complainant who has exercised his or her right to make a complaint under this policy is strictly prohibited, even if the investigation concludes that no sexual harassment has occurred, and will be cause for appropriate discipline, up to and including discharge."

 In other words, any vengeful and/or mentally imbalanced female can bring false charges and risk nothing. But anyone falsely accused risks dismissal if they don't take it lying down. An incentive for evil doing if there ever was one.

Note the wimpy rights of the accused. The Guide advises, "The alleged harassor will be given an opportunity to respond to the allegations, but ordered not to confront or retaliate against the complaining person concerning the allegations. When possible, neutral witnesses will be interrogated [again, confidentially]." Is there a different tone here? The alleged victim is encouraged, even prompted to denounce, while the accused has "an opportunity to respond," but ...".

What is the accused permitted to do in making this "response?" Pretty much what was permitted by the late Senator Joseph McCarthy during his anti-commie hearings. Unable to confront the accuser; never knowing what has been said about them during secret interrogations; not being permitted to question so-called neutral witnesses; being denied a record of the proceedings; the accused is permitted to deny the allegation — provided he's sufficiently docile and cooperative.

Here's the worst of it. The accused is found guilty if the investigator decides guilt is "...more likely than not." Forget "beyond a reasonable doubt." The accused simply looks more likely guilty than not. Who makes that finding? The investigator, of course. (Never mind that this person's job includes unearthing a "harasser" now and again.) And how much more likely? Will 51% do?

By the way, the complaintant is assured that all documents "will be expunged" from their record if they might have been "tainted" by the investigation. But should the alleged harasser be found innocent, there are NO guarantees that his/her personnel file will be similarly "expunged." How's that grab you?

Secret denunciations, clandestine hearings, immunity for traducers, the trashing of reasonable doubt, all are judged necessary to offset the purported victim's fear of retaliation. Of course, this encourages false charges from people who are just plain nuts or bent on revenging a just decision. Of course this inquisitional procedure is justified because when it comes to alleged sexual harassment, fairness and justice are needless encumbrances.

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

SCARCE STUDENTS = SICKLY STANDARDS

When I applied for college there were 3 applicants for every opening. The result was tough standards. For instance, to become a junior, every sophomore was required to pass the "Junior Standing Test." It measured our knowledge of the required core subjects taken during the first two years. 

Fail to pass the test, you could not become a junior. To attain that you had to retake the test until you passed. If you dropped out instead, t3 applicants were ready to take your place. This did wonders for standards.

Imagine administrators instituting a Junior Standing Test these days. More likely we'll find Polar Bears roaming the rain forest. Indeed, today's acute shortage of applicants causes far too many colleges to either fold, or trash meaningful standards and at least  flirt with a new guiding principle : "The customer is always right."

A new breed of professor multiplies this deterioration. These "woke," Neo-Marxist, true believers not only tolerate the absence of acceptable standards, they promote it. As a matter of fact, they reject the very idea or rigor, piously proclaiming to be still another form of oppression. While they're at it they also denounce reason and logic as "white" ways of knowing. Valuing a "right" answer also is out for them. They even throw Socrates in the hopper as just another white, male, chauvinist. In fact, these  "progressive" professors even scorn the  Enlightenment, as well as the whole of Western culture. Instead they assert that no culture is better than any other. So, for them at least, the culture of, say, Canada is no better than that of North Korea. Unless, of course, theymust decide in which culture they want to spend the remainder of their life..

If these Neo-marxist true believers kept this nonsense to themselves it might be tolerable. But, like true believers everywhere, they yearn to impose their beliefs on others. So their lectures quickly turn into sermons that rival the Bible pounding of Billy Graham. The trouble with that is, evangelization is most decidedly NOT their job. Professors communicate settled knowledge, pose intelligent questions, and lead penetrating discussions. In short, they teach. These new breed academics preach, then preach some more. 

They sermonize endlessly about the evils of capitalism and the West while simultaneously vitiating instructional quality, consigning competing scholarship to the dust bin and awarding passing grades willy nilly.And  they are selling their goofy gospel to impressionable students. They teach their classes with the same objectivity as Dr. Goebbels brought to the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. They are, in effect, Neo-Marxist missionaries promoting a profane, destructive, illogical and self-loathing faith. But their academic permissivenes keeps behinds in sea. And that wins administrative approval!

Yes, a distressing number of college administrators add more combustibles to this academic dumpster fire in order to retain as many tuition paying customers as possible. Preoccupied with meager enrollment and vanishing tuition revenue, they slyly promote slack standards and academic dereliction of duty under a variety of disguises. Their stated goals vary. But their actual goal is always the same? Keep seats filled. 

The worst of these policy makers even urge professors to "become the student's friend." Professors certainly owe each and every student fairness, courtesy and quality instruction. But they also have a non-negotiable obligation to sort the academic wheat from the chaff. That's why professors must NOT become a student's friend unless and until they are no longer responsible for grading them.  

I even know of a college president who recently required professors to conduct "whole life," not just academic, counseling. Besides scheduling classes and the like, they now had to inquire into each student's personal life. They were to ask things like: "Are you sleeping well?" "Are you suffering from digestive issues?" "Are you anxious?" "Is there recent trauma in your life?" Beside referring them to the Counseling Center, what is a professor supposed to do when such disturbances are revealed? Awarding a passing grade for failing work is one likely remedy. Plus, in this environment, students plainly see that fake traumas might pay off. Whining could well get them a passing grade for failing work. And, from a tuition starved administrator's point of view, that might well be good enough. 

Professors also have a big stake in keeping seats full. That's why they too are cutting corners. Especially when they teach a poorly subscribed major, lack tenure and years of service. For them it's no students, no job. For instance, I recall a professor of a meagerly attended Russian program pacing anxiously outside his classroom door ten of so minutes after class was supposed to begin. He would glance at his watch, then look up and down the hall, hoping a latecomer or two might supplement his sparse attendance. Of course those who did attend could probably count on a passing grade. 

No one wants an ignorant,  stupid, lazy or otherwise incompetent individual building our bridges, doing our taxes, teaching our children, performing our surgeries, and so forth. But disappearing higher education quality control makes such incompetents ever more likely. 

No Whining

Professors are not qualified to pry into student's personal lives. Besides, focusing on limitations and difficulties, rather than strengths and possibilities, undermines young people's resilience. Shit just happens. And it happens to everybody. So it is very unwise to encourage students to wallow in them. And let's not forget these new breed woke "progressives" have redefined a broad range of normal stressors and perturbances as traumatic. For instance, minor slights, even unintended ones, have been transformed into "micro aggressions."

Far better to urge them to suck it up and get on with life.  Emphasizing grievances and personal difficulties fosters whining, surrender, self pity, blaming others, looking for excuses. Every one of which undermines their human potential.

Rigor and student responsibility are what makes higher education "higher?" That is why earning a legitimate diploma requires students to perform at a relatively high level. Not just pay tuition. So it's a professor's non-negotiable duty to enforce high standards. When they fail to do so, diplomas become more and more worthless. Counterfeit might be a better word. This is a key reason why college degrees are losing credibility. And as the new breed professors extend their influence, these degrees grow increasingly valueless.

And here's one more thing to keep in mind. There are increasing numbers of female professors. And research reveals a strong gender bias in student's reaction to females that enforce high standards. The reaction is hypercritical. Students generally expect females to be more solicitous and sympathetic. Motherly, if you will. So female professors have to have more guts to enforce high standards. How many actually have that? I suspect it isn't very many. Especially considering the general lack of backup from tuition starved administrators.

Sorting and Grading

Sorting and grading college students is very unappealing. Nevertheless, it is an absolutely vital responsibility. "Woke" professors are prone to evade that duty. I even know one individual who says he simply cannot fail anyone.  "I wouldn't be able to sleep at night!" he says. (This same individual has male genitalia, but sometimes wears dresses to work.) Such dereliction of duty should cost this ersatz "professor" his job. Instead, his permissiveness improves his "course" evaluations and helps him win both promotion and tenure. 

Such dereliction of duty is tolerated, even encouraged, because administrators are more concerned about decreasing enrollment and unbalanced balance sheets than they are about quality education. Imagine suggesting to any of them, for example, that the school start requiring students to pass a final. summative test before granting them a diploma. Prepare to give the CPR!. It's bad enough that some uncooperative professors still require students to study and attend class.

What has come to be called "political correctness" is at the heart of this malignant nonsense. And many academics are self-righteous converts to this faith. In fact, some go to astonishing lengths to equalize everyone in a world where everyone is NOT equal in either ability or effort. Their loathing for the Western culture that separates them from Isis style barbarism is also remarkable. For instance, they assert with invincible assurance, that reason and logic are “white" and therefore bogus. So too are "objectivity" and" rationality," There's no need to require that sort of thing from students or oneself. Even getting the right answer, is a "racist" aspect of "white identity culture," They declare, "it's time to decolonize the curriculum!" In other words, it;'s time trash the most accomplished culture in human history --  Western culture.

Yet this new breed even asserts, with a straight face mind you, that no culture is better than any other. So the culture of Isis is equal to the culture of, let’s say, France.  Of course if all cultures are equal, then no religion would be better than any other. Now let's imagine these de-colonizers making such a claim in a theocratic Muslim society, Iran for instance, or in the ISIS controlled region of the Muslim world. They would quickly be imprisoned; possibly even put to death. And so far as female professors who hold all cultures covalent are concerned, they are particularly dense. That's because they are endorsing cultures in which men routinely subjugate women an systematically deprive them of their most fundamental human rights. It’s titanicaly stupid for any woman to claim cultures are equal to Western culture.( Unless, of course, it's OK for other women to be subjugated, so long as they are not.)

Winning Souls to Silliness

In this wacky world these folks inhabit, individual responsibility has virtually disappeared. Child molesters, for instance, are no longer perverted pederasts. They merely are "minor attracted persons." Worse, these academic preach their faith as objective truth to naive adolescents. And since many adolescents long for simple answers to complex questions, they win souls to this silliness. 

This quasi-religious indoctrination even emboldens some students to inquire into the political reliability of all their professors, searching for signs of damnable heresy. Should one of them even mention, say, David Hume, they noisily demand the offending devil be purged. After all, it is their faith conviction that the world is in the clutches of an all-powerful, neo-colonial white male hegemony that smothers all that is just, good, true and beautiful. And administrators, intensely preoccupied with balancing the budget and preserving their well-paying jobs, cower in the face of such outrageous student conduct, consign academic freedom and intellectual rigor to the dust bin and even pretend they too are true believers in this blighted orthodoxy when they're merely fellow travelers.

 

The "Woke" and Chairman Mao

For some time now “students” have become converts of thought-police professors. And they subsequently patrol the campus looking to be offended. They are, in effect, inquisitors, junior grade. Instead of using college to create themselves, they let political evangelists do it for them. To "convert them” so to speak. And as converts, they eagerly find any contravening researched knowledge so offensive, emotionally troubling and dangerously heretical that it must be expunged.

What disappears in all of this is individual student agency and responsibility. They've been taught to evade all that. To believe that it is never they who fail to think, who refuse to listen, who rule out being in the wrong. It is always the "other." That's who is to blame! It's not hard to see how poisonous this is. 

In truth, "woke" culture is little more than a watered down version of Mao's "cultural revolution." Professors aren't being beaten, imprisoned, or murdered as they were in Mao's China. But they are subjected to name-calling, public ridicule, administrative muzzling, censorship and job loss. 

Worse, this politically correct zealotry that provokes a right-wing backlash that also threatens academic freedom, but from the opposite direction.  And guess who's caught in the middle?  

Conclusion

Of course DEI is tangled up in all of this as one breed of “woke” professors continue to try to combat racism with racism, prejudice with more prejudice, inequality with more inequality, etc. Yes, Trump and his MAGA republicans are busily expunging D.E.I. from government. Corporate giants are also backing away. But  in academe “wokeness," performative virtue and identity politics remain firmly in place. Actual, as well as fellow traveling, true believers still successfully denounce non-conforming colleagues as homophobic, racist, reactionaries. They often even can block articles they deem 'heretical' from being published in professional journals. This is why professors willing to risk being labeled a heretic are as proportionaltely scarce as collegiate applicants.

Yes, in higher education, the "woke" religion remains firmly in place. And the zealotry of its true believers remains undiminished. In consequence the intellectual and marketplace worth of a "higher education, "especially in non-STEM areas, is loosing value. What employer wants a blindly fanatic, judgmental college graduate, who knows little, can do less, and promises to be nothing but trouble?

 

In the final analysis, wokeness is having the same devitalizing impact on U.S. academic life that Marxism-Leninism had in the Soviet Union. And because it is coupled with the growing collegiate enrollment crisis, its impact is especially virulent. 

Worse, this quasi-religious zealotry and intellectual vacuity,  continues to coin new so-called "scholars" who substitute faith for reason and conviction for evidence. And they busily churn out ever more of the sort of pseudo-scholar evangelists who threaten higher education's very future. 

WHY ARE PROFESSORS BEING NEUTERED?

 

I've been a day laborer, janitor, night watchman, store clerk, barber’s apprentice, Army officer, seventh-grade teacher and, for forty-six years, professor. I was married for over half a century until my wife was torn from my side by Parkinson's Disease. And together we raised two children to happy, productive adulthood. Yet, despite this lifetime of experiences and years of advanced study, I was required to submit to anonymous "course" evaluations by callow, occasionally astonishingly ignorant undergraduates each and every semester . 

Had I been required to evaluate my professors when I was an undergraduate, I would have thought someone had taken leave of their senses. We were green, relatively ignorant kids. Clearly, evaluation was the job of the  professor, NOT us!

The Barber's Cat

 Perhaps I had a sense of place better than most adolescents because of apprenticing in my Dad’s barbershop. It was in Altoona, Pennsylvania — then one of the largest railroad centers in the world. The barbershop was  chiefly populated by no-nonsense, calloused men who made the Pennsylvania the "Standard Railroad of the World." Some were also battle hardened veterans of W.W. II and/or Korea. This was a tough environment for an unseasoned male adolescent.

I soon learned to keep my opinions to myself. Early on I once chanced a remark, only to have a case-hardened customer say I reminded him of the barber's cat: "Full of piss and wind." The shop filled with appreciative laughter. Thereafter, I kept my opinions to myself.

Now back to these so-called "course" evaluations. When our administration imposed them, they claimed they would help better measure course effectiveness. Previous administrations (dating back over a century) had never tried anything remotely like it. Perhaps these previous generations of administrators thought students were generally incapable of delivering fair, mature, accurate appraisals — especially if they'd just earned a bad grade. 

The Provost comforted us by pointing out that these new "course" evaluations would also support fairer tenure and promotion decisions. This despite previously assuring us that this process was solely meant to evaluate courses, not professors. 

"Money Makes the World Go Around"  

I think the introduction of these "course" evaluations was inspired by a collegiate financial crises. Like many colleges at that time, we were experiencing a shortage of applicants. So management was focused on the diminishing cash flow. And correcting that required, among other things, keeping our present "customers" satisfied. 

The most expeditious way to achieve that was grade inflation. But that could never openly be encouraged. However, by adopting these so-called "course" evaluations, faculty would probably cooperate for their own reasons. Namely, that inflating grades boosted professor's "course" evaluation scores. 

Want "students" to rate you highly? Give them better grades than they deserve. So grade inflation was a win-win for spooked school administrators as well as professors who now wanted good evaluations. What was lost in this Devil's bargain was fairness. Fairness for students who were actually doing quality work, and fairness for professors who stuck to reasonable standards. They both got screwed. Still anothe casualty was the value of the school's diplomas. Although that was long term and less noticeable.

Anonymous Denunciation

"Course" evaluations were completly anonymous. Students were sternly instructed not to sign their names. This anonymity encouraged students to down-grade any professors who demanded diligence and the discomfort of serious thought.  

And students knew who graded them. Professors could only guess. So none of ever knew if a bad evaluation was retribution from some class-cutting dullard, or an honest evaluation from a student whose opinion mattered. 

A particularly humiliating finale topped off this process. On the last day of class, we professors were told to just distribute the evaluations, then leave the room.  Students might, or might, not collude once the professor we were gone. Anyway, when finished students placed their completed evaluations on the front desk to be collected by the last student finishing. He or she then sealed them in the provided envelope, and delivered the sealed packet to the department secretary. Professors were not to touch them until they were officially returned to us some months later. Clearly, we weren't to be trusted.

Excommunication

The collected evaluations were perused by a succession of administrators, then, months later, returned to us. We were to review them, benefit from the feedback, bind them for future reference, and record summative statistics on a spreadsheet. Those statistics would prove critical in any future tenure or promotion hearings.  They were the equivalent of our professorial batting average. Except hits can be reliably tabulated. They either are or they aren't. Our "hits" were recorded by dozens of self-interested umpires.

A "Tenure and Promotion Committee" conducted the inquisition ultimately determining a tenure or promotion candidate's fate. Chaired by the Provost, this committee was staffed by thoroughly house trained faculty, appointed by a similarly cooperative "Committee on Committees." I once asked the  Chair of the Committee on Committees why, in spite of my years of satisfactory service, I had never been selected to serve on this critical committee. She explained that I was "insufficiently attentive to administrative intent." This woman, by the way, was exquisitely sensitive to it. In consequence, she soon became Dean of Arts and Sciences.

Anyway, this Committee on Committees  was very powerful. They were, in effect, the Inquisitors. And the professor being examined was not even permitted to appear at his or her own inquisition. Representation was provided by their Department Chair who might or might not like the candidate.  Should a candidate have weak statistics, or should the Provost jesuitically hint disapproval, the candidate's chances were doomed. 

Predictably, professors were denied any opportunity to evaluate their chair, their dean, the provost, or the president. I once asked our new Dean, the same lady with remarkable sensitivity to administrative intent, if faculty would ever be afforded the opportunity to grade her and her superiors? I stressed that professors were obviously better qualified to evaluate administrators than immature. inexperienced youngsters were their professors. She muttered uncomfortably that this would be decided at some future date. That date, of course, turned out to be never. 

Administrators know allowing professors to evaluate them will result in their disempowerment in the same way "course" evaluations disempower faculty. Moreover, at least at my college, professors were also expressly forbidden from initiating any communications with members of the board of trustees.  

A Final Word 

"Course" evaluations effectively disempower professors. They commonly are introduced during times of low enrollment to keep bodies in seats and help balance the budget. In the short run, this buys time. In the long run, it is the road to ruin. 

How many institutions of higher education are doing this right now? Far, far too many. What will it yield? Inferior education and embarrassingly incompetent graduates. Is there any way to forestall it? Not really. The law of supply and demand is at work and the results are not happy ones. 

Enough said.  

HUMBUG ABOUT SCHOOLS OF THE FUTURE?

 

Sixteen years ago an editorial in the New York Times promised that in schools of the future: "students will use free internet applications to complete their classroom assignments on school-issued laptops that also substitute for text books," "educators will track students' academic growth with sophisticated software that allows them to better tailor lessons and assignments to each youngster's achievement level, "parents will use instant messaging to chat with teachers about their child's progress."

In a few schools all of this has been realized and more besides. But in many others a fundamental limitation is nullifying it all. What is this limitation? It's the kids, their parents, and the world they're growing up in. 

Youngsters still have to buy into schooling before technology can even begin to transform their schooling. And kids with all sorts of education-stultifying problems weren't buying into schooling before the advent of digital technology, aren't buying into it now despite the promise, and won't buy into it in the future. Similarly their parents have to be capable of at least mediocre parental performance. Many aren't. And, lastly, the neighborhood surrounding every school seeps in and greatly influences the educational process. regardless of the technology employed. 

This is especially true of schools that most urgently require transformation. Schools in our inner cities. Technology hasn't and won't transform these schools. They haven't become more successful delivering instruction. They aren't doing better communicating with parents or fostering their interest. And, with rare exceptions, they remain the same educational wastelands they were before the advent of the digital age.

Here is a brief tale that illustrates the point. A teacher I know well was trying to teach in a Philadelphia inner city middle school that was, indeed, technologically impoverished. Through some miracle one solitary classroom was equipped with brand new computers at every desk. One morning while classes were changing, two adolescent boys began chasing one another around the computer rich classroom. Soon they were leaping from one desktop to another, trampling keyboards and kicking over computers. Perhaps the boys had that intent before they even started chasing. We'll never know. In any event they wrecked utter havoc. There was no money to replace or repair the damage. The computerized classroom was defunct before its promise was even beginning to be realized. Why? Non technological problems triumphed. 

The two vandals were never positively identified, much less dealt with. Disorder was so rife in this school that this particular destruction just blended into the chaos. Whatever promise the new computers offered was lost to all. Students could not, as the Times article promised, "use free internet applications to complete their classroom assignments" had they even wanted to. Worse still, kids who actually wanted to complete their assignments were in relatively short supply. On nice days as many as a third of the youngsters were either hours late reporting for class, or failed to show up at all. And if a youngster did complete assignments they often attracted unwelcome attention from their worst classmate.

So far as teachers being able to "track student's academic growth with sophisticated software that allows them to better tailor lessons and assignments to each youngster's achievement level," that's not just impossible now, it will be in the future — at least at the secondary level. Teachers there are trying to teach upwards of 150 kids spread over five different periods, each with 30 or so kids. Keeping track of all 150 is impossible now and will be in the future. In fact, it will remain impossible so long as we organize public education on a factory-like, mass production basis in order to make it affordable. And we're not about to stop that economizing because tax payers, particularly those without school-age children, are already fed up with school taxes.

When it comes to "parents using instant messaging to chat with teachers about their child's progress," that pipe dream requires their parents to have the necessary technology, interest, sobriety, time and freedom from the thousand and one problems that poverty, broken homes, drug addiction, alcoholism and imprisonment brings. Good luck with that!

What is one to make of all this? That schools and school kids do NOT exist in a vacuum. The world surrounding the school intrudes into each classroom, mirroring the situations in which the school is submerged. IF those situations are dysfunctional so far as schooling is concerned, no amount of technological innovation is going to save that school from the consequences. If the school is submerged in a neighborhood of affluence, safety and functional families technological innovations only widen the gap.  

 

For more detailed realistic considerations of educational issues such as this, visit newfoundations.com AND/OR newfoundations.net

THE LIMITS OF INDOCTRINATION: of nuns and "woke" professors

"I just tuned them out."

A worried Israeli émigré  to America once told me that her daughter’s Modern Middle East History professor — Jewish, but very woke — consistently condemned Israel. The mother worried that her daughter, born and raised in Israel, would come to despise the land of her birth. 

I opined that most students of college age long ago learned to discount disagreeable instruction. For instance, I know a woman who experienced 8 years of  relentless Catholic schooling conducted by 1950's era take-no-prisoners nuns. Nevertheless, she remained largely ignorant and disregardful of Catholic doctrine." 

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

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

 

This is one way indoctrination falls flat. Done ham-handedly, it not only fails. but it can even provoke obdurate opposition. For instance, when I was ten or eleven I asked my Sunday school teacher what happens when people die without ever hearing of Jesus? (I was thinking of very remote areas, like New Guinea.) She replied matter-of-factly, "They go to hell." I said that that wasn't fair. She responded by quoting John 14:6 in which Jesus reportedly says: “No man cometh unto the father but by me.” 

I said that this still seemed unfair. She replied, coldly this time, that fairness had nothing to do with it. Adding crossly: “This is not a debating society. If you are unhappy with God's word, perhaps you shouldn't be here.” 

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

Professors, teachers, parents and the general public tend to overestimate the durability and effectiveness of instruction. In my 46 years as a professor I taught thousands of undergraduates; and I was repeatedly astonished by how little of what they had previously “learned” they actually remembered. Many of them, for instance, found it impossible to simply convert their raw test score, say, 39 correct out of 50, to a percentage. Yet they'd ""learned" that in middle school. Similarly, most could not identify the combatants in World Wars I or II. Only a handful knew the decade of the Great Depression. Many could not find China on an outline map. One thought that France was our northern neighbor because, “people speak French up there.” Another opined that Heinrich Himmler must be the chap who invented that life saving maneuver for people choking on food. 

That famed lifesaver, Heinrich Himmler

These kids were college sophomores who easily mastered complex social media applications and identified every single Kardashian. Yet most of them demonstrated little applicable knowledge of what is typically taught in school. 

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

In my experience undergraduates are not easily influenced by a biased lecturer. Unless the content of the lecture fulfills one or another of the psychological needs adolescents typically have.  In fact, they are seldom influenced into long-term maturity by most instruction.

I doubt my 46-years of experience with academic amnesia and disinterest is unusual. In fact I’ll wager student ignorance of past instruction is quite commonplace. This is precisely why university administrators would rather fight rabid pit bulls barehanded than require undergraduates to pass a core subjects knowledge test as a condition for a degree. Merely mentioning such a procedure puts most of these educational "leaders" at risk of a myocardial infarction.

How is any of this pertinent to our émigré mother’s worries? Well, given the perishable nature of most school taught knowledge, it is unlikely that this politically correct pedagogue is going to convert her Israeli-born daughter to an anti-Israel stance. To be sure, his impassioned denunciations of Israel will probably motivate at least some students to admire Hamas. When in a mob they may enthusiastically shout "From the river to the sea!" But, even then, they are unlikely to be able to identify either body of water or to hold on to that view when it's no longer a popular way to look righteous. 

Yasser Arafat

Is it proper for professors to conduct class in a one-sided manner? Not when the issue is multi-faceted. But it’s not like these students are living in regimes where only one point of view prevails. And it is only in societies where just one point of view is permitted and all others silenced under penalty of death or imprisonment that indoctrination is likely to succeed in the long term.

Yes, it has become true that one-sidedness does prevail in some college departments where "woke" has become the official religion. In fact in some colleges the administration actually tolerates, even endorses, this new dogma. Whenever this  atmosphere prevails and competing voices are silenced, our Israeli expatriate mother should start worrying. So should the rest of us.

 

PROGRAMMATIC DEFINITIONS ARE TRECHEROUS: here's why

 

Here is a classic programmatic definition: "Abortion is murder." Why? Because if you accept the definition, you necessarily accept the program of action that goes with it. What program of action? Redefining induced abortion as an act of murder. It is NOT murder anywhere in America. Not even in states where abortion is outlawed after a certain term of pregnancy. 

"Abortion is murder" does not mirror ordinary usage. As evidence let's look at the two key words, "abortion" and "murder." The Medical Dictionary explicitly defines abortion as: termination of pregnancy before the fetus is viable. In the medical sense, this term and the term miscarriage both refer to the termination of pregnancy before the fetus is capable of survival outside the uterus. The term abortion is more commonly used as a synonym for induced abortion, the deliberate interruption of pregnancy as opposed to miscarriage, which connotes a spontaneous or natural loss of the fetus. 

The Oxford Dictionary of English defines "murder" as: the unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by another. Of course, then, for abortion to be murder a fetus has to be thought of as a human being. But among theologians there is substantial disagreement on that matter.  Even the early church fathers thought that it was more wrong to abort a fully formed fetus than one that wasn't.  

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Pope Francis declared abortion to be a "crime" even though in the United States, and in other Western nations, it isn't. So the Pope's definition is programmatic. If we accept the Pope's definition, we embrace the Roman Catholic program of action that is embedded in it. Redefining abortion as the capital crime of murder. 

Clearly the Pope's definition violates ordinary usage. Abortion is not a crime, at least not until a certain duration of pregnancy has passed. Nor do polls evidence a majority of Americans agree with the Pope that it is an "absolute evil." The Pope's violation of ordinary usage - and popular consensus - is what makes his definition programmatic. And that istroublesome because this linguistic maneuver delegitimizes debate and stifles discussion. 

Accept the Pope's definition and we need not wonder if a girl who has been raped by her father should have the option of abortion. If she and/or her mother choose that course of action, no matter how desperately they choose it, she/they are, by the Pope's definition are murderers who have chosen an "absolute evil." And, according to the Pope, this would be true even if the abortion were performed before the embryo was still and embryo - much less capable of independent survival outside the womb.

The practical force of programmatic definitions is that their acceptance has consequences far exceeding mere linguistic preference. Accept Pope Francis's definition, for example, and there is no room for argument or contrary evidence. The choice has been made for us. 

A handy, though by no means infallible, method of identifying programmatic definitions is the presence of adjectives such as “true “ or “real.” For example, "A true conservative is one who ...". You can fill in the rest. But those who offer programmatic definitions do not necessarily intend to deceive or slip us a linguistic Mickey. They might well believe that the meaning they propose is the only “true” or “right” one. 

Sincerity and good intentions, however, are not enough. To avoid being programmatic, definitions must mirror ordinary usage, stand against contrary evidence and surmount informed disagreement. Mere assertion will not do.