LEARNING WHAT THEY LIVE: the hidden curriculum

John Dewey cogently observed that children learn what they live. Teachers can talk at youngsters about the virtues of democracy, for instance. But if they run a despotic classroom, the kids might easily learn to accept despotism, possibly even to desire it. Instead it might teach them to hate it. It all depends on individual personalities and circumstances. In either case, though, Dewey remains precisely right. Children learn what they live. 

 

It's hard to overemphasize the importance of this hidden curriculum. Lessons unintentionally taught that way can last a lifetime. For examplele, the person who taught me the most about tyranny and abuse of power was Miss Priest my fourth grade teacher. (Behind her back we kids called her: "Miss Priest, the big fat beast.") Feared by all, respected by few, this harpy extorted compliance via credible threats and actual violence. A ruler across the knuckles of my out-stretched hands brought me to heel, for example. 

Eventually she went too far. She held a youngster against a steam radiator until he became sufficiently compliant. His burns did not get her fired, as you might expect. But she was summarily transferred to another school. But not before she unintentionally taught me about the dangers of unchecked power. I learned that via what I lived. Miss Priest unintentionally taught me this lesson way, way back in 1950. But I have not forgotten.

Here's another example, drawn from these same 'good old days. This one concerns some Catholic parish schools of that era. In those unholy places there were overworked, under appreciated nuns who bullied, slapped and otherwise mistreated the children in their charge. I'm not sure what these nuns thought they were doing. Perhaps they intended to make 'better' Catholics. But they certainly weren't making most kids better Christians. In fact a lot of these kids actually learned that all the sacerdotal preachments about the redeeming value of love, mercy and forgiveness, was only talk. More generally, they also learned it's not what people say, but what they do that counts. A valuable lesson, to be sure. But definitely NOT included in the official curriculum of any parish schools.

Here's a final instance involving opposite circumstances than those that prevailed in Miss Priest's classroom. It's a sappily liberal "freedom, lack of oppression" classroom, where lax discipline makes learning impossible and safety problematic. It's where vast amounts of faculty and student time are spent trying to maintain at least a semblance of order and civility. Many students come away from this kind of experience distrusting freedom and longing for anything that will end chaos and maks things safe. In short, they learn to fear freedom and prefer  tyranny. 

Do children learn what they live? Count on it.  

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

AN "INDEX OF LEADING EDUCATIONAL INDICATORS"

Way too much is made of standardized test scores. The nation frets over them the way hypochondriacs fret over their bowel movements. Columnists and bloggers treat them as if they were Biblical. School officials anticipate their unveiling as a condemned man awaits execution. Parents hesitate to even look at their kid's results.Yet, even at their best,  standardized tests measure largely trivial things. They tell us nothing at all about schooling's actual impact on learning, about the ability to actually think critically, about what they are learning about a meaningful life, or even about the good, the true and the beautiful. 

Apologists say, standardized tests aren't perfect, but we need some measure of schooling's effectiveness.” Sure, but there already are readily available measures that offer a much better gauge. All we need do is summon up our courage and start identifying and monitoring them. Let's call these measures of schooling's success the "Index of Leading Educational Indicators." 

Here is a tentative list of such indicators. Keep in mind, it is provisional, requires development and is likely to step on a lot of sensitive toes.

• USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Here is a powerful index of schooling's effectiveness. Count the number of adults who regularly use Facebook, X or Instagram, where there is no responsible editorial oversight, and yet feel fully informed, and you measure just how badly schooling has failed. The information they rely on is clearly based on half-baked personal beliefs, nutty conspiracy theories, the alleged influence of aliens, crackpot alternatives to accepted research, and the like. Using this sort of thing as a source of reliable information is another measure of schooling’s success. 

• THE POPULARITY OF SHLOCK TELEVISION SHOWS

Count the dedicated fans of shows like "Ancient Aliens," "The Jerry Springer Show'" "Jersey Shore," " or "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo?" and you also are counting educational failures. The more numerous the viewers of this low-brow trash, the gloomier we should be about the nation's schooling outcomes. 

• CULT MEMBERSHIP 

Every Jonestown resident who willingly swigged lethal 'Cool Aid' represents a schooling failure. So do the men in David Koresh's cult who permitted Dave to sexually service their wives and daughters because, as Koresh patiently explained to them, he was the only man pure enough for the job. And what about the schooling of that Heaven's Gate crowd who had themselves castrated to conform with "Bo" and "Peep's" teachings, then "left their bodily containers" to rendezvous with a space ship concealed behind the Hale-Bopp comet. Enumerating the followers of such movements is certainly a measure of educational failure.

• SUPERMARKET TABLOID SALES

The sales figures of these grotesque gazettes provide a far more valid measure of educational progress than anything ETS could dream up. I'm talking about those papers that headline things like "WOMEN COMMITS SUICIDE IN DISHWASHER!", or "HALF BOY, HALF DOLPHIN WASHES UP ON BEACH!" Tabloid sales figures are an inverse measure of educational progress.

•  THE POPULARITY OF FLIM-FLAM TELEVANGELISTS 

The income figures of bunko artist TV preachers, available from the IRS Tax Exempt Branch, are a sure measure of schooling's effectiveness. The more money Bible pounding bunko artists make, the less well our schools are doing. Consider the sacerdotal chap who supposedly lapses into "trances" while conducting worship services. The Holy Spirit then uses this pastor's vocal apparatus to speak directly to the congregation. The "Reverend" claims he has no idea what the Spirit says. He has to ask the congregation after he regains consciousness. The amount of money sent to guys like this should be monitored carefully, because it is an inverse measure of schooling effectiveness.

•  THE APPEAL OF FORTUNE TELLERS AND PSYCHICS

Imagine visiting a store-front psychic or fortune teller to decide who and when you should marry, if the one you love, loves you, or how to make a distant person think of you. People seriously do this. And it is a telling measure of schooling's ineffectiveness. Besides, if these individuals really can see into the future, why aren't they rich? Think of their unique  investment opportunities? 

• THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER LIST

It’s encouraging when people who have attended our schools read books at all. But the quality of the books on this best-seller list are a measure of  schooling's success or failure. A few years back, for example, millions of folks found it plausible to consider that God may have secretly constructed his own seek and find word game in the Holy Bible. For these folks, schooling was definitely a failure.

• THE QUALITY OF ELECTED OFFICIALS

Politicians in the mold of Marjorie Taylor Green provide irrefutable, if unintentional, proof that the schools, at least in their district, aren’t getting it done. We should keep tabs on this. When a majority of our politicians engage in logical reasoning, rely on factual  knowledge, are trustworthy, and unassociated with preposterous prevarications and posturing for the media, we’ll know our educational system is doing a better job.

WHAT ABOUT NON-SCHOOL FACTORS?

This Index of Leading Educational Indicators would be more powerful than anything the likes of the Educational Testing Service or Psychological Corporation could possibly contrive. But you are thinking that schools are not exclusively, even mainly, responsible for the presently dismal state of affairs that this index would probably reveal. You're reasoning that many people simply lack adequate intelligence; and that others are too lonely, angry, scared, or what have you, to learn much of anything worthwhile. 

To that I say, "so what?" Educators aren’t chiefly responsible for present-day standardized test scores either. All sorts of non-school factors interfere. Nevertheless, teachers still get blamed by everyone from pissed off parents to the U.S. Secretary of Education. The point is to blame someone. And it might as well be teachers because they haven’t shown either the ability or the inclination to fight back. They just cringe and take it. 

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

WHAT IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT? focusing on schools

 

 

"Somebody must have been telling lies about Joseph K.; he knew he had done nothing wrong, yet he was arrested one fine morning."

                                                                                                                          Franz Kafka, THE TRIAL

If a woman wants to "get back" at some man, say a professor, she has a career-destroying weapon at her command. Simply falsely denounce him for sexual harassment. But what counts as sexual harassment? Defining it isn't easy. But this very vagueness makes it a handy weapon, for vengeance, or profit. 

Let's just look as the world of education. When, for instance, does a professor's or teacher's touching become sexual harassment? How differently may a teacher or professor treat female students before it morphs into sexual harassment? How about a professor having a framed photo of his bikini - clad wife on his desk? Is that sexual harassment? Is a college or university nurturing sexual harassment if their curriculum allegedly creates a "sexually hostile environment?" Is a college tolerating sexual harassment if a professor fails to stifle what some male student says about women in class?

For confusing input about these and similar issues, 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 if you are the accused. 

I have one such collegiate "Guide" in front of me. It looks like it was derived from boilerplate that must be 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."

This might sound okay at first. But the Guide deals with implicit behavior, judgements as to motivation, and judgements about reasonableness, determinations of purpose, etc. All are dangerously subjective. The Guide does elaborate somewhat. Comments like "you look nice today" are all right, if not repeated frequently. But what counts as "frequent?" That 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." Then again, maybe not. It all depends on context and interpretation. 

And who does this interpretion For instance, who determine's that a glance was motivated by lascivious interest and using what criteria? 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 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 employed by the Inquisition,  the KGB and the Gestapo!

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. This an incentive for evil doing if there ever was one.

Note the rights of the accused. The Guide advises: "The alleged harasser 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 anyone they please, while the accused only has "an opportunity to respond." But they have to make sure they take it lying down.

What is the accused permitted in making this "response?"Essentially what was permitted by Torquemada in one of his auto de fe's. Forbidden from confronting their accuser; never knowing what has been said about them, or by whom, during secret interrogations; not being permitted to question so-called "neutral witnesses;" being denied a record of the proceedings; the accused is permitted what? To deny the allegation — provided he's sufficiently docile and obliging while doing so.

And here's the worst of it. The accused is guilty if the investigator decides that guilt is "...more likely than not." How much "more likely" is sufficient? That depends on the investigator. Forget "beyond a reasonable doubt." And never mind that the investigator's job depends on unearthing a "harasser" now and again. 

By the way, the accuser is assured that all documents relating to her accusation(s) "will be expunged" from her record because they might have been "tainted" by the investigation. However, if the alleged harasser is found to be innocent enough, there are NO guarantees that his personnel file will be similarly "expunged." 

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. Naturally, this encourages false charges from females bent on revenge, looking for other personal advantages, or who are just plain nuts. But the cause is thought to be so very urgent, that fairness and justice are needless encumbrances that must be discarded. What this all comes down to is egregious inequality pretending to be its opposite.

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

SCARCE ENROLLMENT EQUALS DIMINISHING STANDARDS: eroding collegiate quality

When I applied for college admission, way back in 1958, there were 3 applicants for every opening. That resulted in the school imposing seriously tough standards. To attain the rank of junior, for instance, sophomores had to pass the "Junior Standing Test." It measured their knowledge of the required subjects taken during their first two years. Fail and you remained a sophomore. To become a junior you had to retake the test until you passed. And remember, there were 3 applicants waiting to take your place. 

Imagine current administrators instituting a Junior Standing Test. More likely to find polar bears inhabiting the rain forest. Nope, today's acute shortage of applicants causes many administrators to quietly shelve meaningful standards and, instead, adopt a new guiding principle: "The customer is always right."

A new breed of alleged professors compound this slippage. These "woke," Neo-Marxist, true believers not only tolerate this decline in standards, they actually encourage it. Indeed, they reject the very idea of rigor, piously proclaiming it is just another form of white male oppression. They even denounce reason and logic, valuing right answers, the Enlightenment, and the whole of Western culture — asserting that no culture is better than any other. One wonders, given that questionable assertion, how they come to denounce the Western variety? 

If these dogmatic, true believing "professors" kept this nonsense to themselves, it might be merely amusing. But, like true believers everywhere, they insist on imposing, their beliefs on others. In consequence their lectures rival the sermonizing of Billy Graham. And they do this even though evangelization is most decidedly NOT in their job description. 

Professors communicate settled knowledge, pose intelligent questions, and lead penetrating discussions. In other words, they teach. These new-breed academics only preach, then preach some more. They lecture with the same one-sided bias Dr. Joseph Goebbels brought to the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. 

They function, in effect, as missionaries promoting a profane, destructive, illogical and self-loathing faith. They sermonize endlessly about the evils of capitalism and the West, while simultaneously perverting instruction, consigning scholarship to the dust bin and awarding passing grades to students who can barely read. Worse, they sell their goofy gospel to impressionable students who are still wet behind the ears. This is potentially dangerous.

However, their academic permissiveness keeps behinds in seats. That wins tacit, even active, administrative approval. Indeed, a distressing number of collegiate administrators actually add 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. I know a college president, for example, who recently required professors to conduct "whole life," not merely academic, counseling. Besides scheduling classes and the like, they now are to inquire into each student's personal life. They are to ask things like: "Are you sleeping well?" "Are you suffering from digestive issues?" "Are you anxious?" "Is there recent traumas in your life?" 

Besides referring them to the Counseling Center, what is a professor supposed to do when a student's alleged difficulties are revealed? Awarding a passing grade for failing work is the most likely remedy. Of course in this environment, students quickly realize that faking trauma pays off. They know that whining could well get them a passing grade for failing work. And, from a tuition starved administrator's point of view, phony kvetching is acceptable so long as it's not too obvious.  Of course they never will will admit that.

The worst administrators 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.  

Sadly, professors also have a big stake in keeping seats full. Their job is at stake. So a lot of them are also cutting corners. And that is especially so if they teach a poorly subscribed major, and/or lack tenure, or seniority. No students, no job. 

I recall a professor of a meagerly attended Russian language 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. Only a few ever did. But you can  bet those few who did could count on a passing grade even if they attended irregularly.

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 current 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 an individual's limitations and difficulties, rather than strengths and possibilities, undermines their resilience. They should helped to understand that bad things happen. And, sooner or later, they happen to everybody. What matters is how you deal with them. So it is unwise to encourage students to wallow in their difficulties. ar better to urge these youngsters to suck it up and get on with their life.  Emphasizing grievances and personal difficulties fosters whining, quitting, self pity, blaming others, looking for excuses, etc.. Every one of which undermines their potential — should they have any to begin with.

And let's not forget that these new breed, woke "progressives" have redefined a broad range of normal stressors and perturbances as 'traumatic." And those who have experienced them are told they are "survivors." And, for good measure, minor slights, even unintended ones, have been transformed by the woke into "micro aggressions."

Rigor and student responsibility are what makes higher education "higher?" So earning a legitimate diploma requires students to perform at a legitamatly high level. Not just pay tuition. And it's a professor's non-negotiable responsibility 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. As the new breed professors extend their influence, degrees grow even more valueless. Students trained by them have been lapping up the rhetoric of narcissism, entitlement and resentment and become certain of their own moral superiority. Consequently, they are not much good at anything that is worthy of effort.

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. And that means female professors have to have more guts to enforce high standards. How many actually have such fortitude? I suspect it isn't very many. Especially considering the general lack of backup from tuition starved administrators.

Sorting and Grading

Grading college students is very unappealing. Nevertheless, it is an absolutely vital responsibility. "Woke" professors are prone to evade that burden. 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 that helps him win both promotion and tenure. 

Such dereliction of duty is tolerated, even surreptitiously encouraged by administrators because they 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. You will have to give them CPR, should you suggest that! It's bad enough that some professors still require students to study, learn and attend class.

What has come to be called "political correctness" is at the heart of this malignant tactic to preserve budgetary soundness. It's financially convenient that many academics have become self-righteous converts to this faith. In fact, some go to astonishing lengths to equalize everyone, in a world where people are NOT equal in either ability or effort. Their loathing for the Western culture that separates their host society from barbarism is also remarkable. Remember, they assert with invincible assurance, that reason and logic are “white" and therefore bogus. So too are "objectivity" and" rationality," Even getting the right answer, is a "racist" aspect of "white identity culture," They even declare, with absolute confidence, mind you, that "it's time to decolonize the curriculum!" Of course, that curriculum supports and reflects the very culture surrounding and sustaining them.

This new breed even asserts, with a straight face mind you, that no culture is better than any other. The culture of Isis is equal to the culture of, let’s say, France.  Of course, if all cultures are equal, then it follows that no religion is better than any other. They are all relative. So now let's imagine these de-colonizers making such a claim in a theocratic Muslim society, Iran for instance, or ISIS controlled regions of the Muslim world. How long would it take before these fools were imprisoned; possibly even put to death? 

And so far as female professors who hold all cultures covalent are concerned, they must be particularly dense because they are underwriting cultures in which men routinely subjugate women and systematically deprive them of their most fundamental human rights. It’s titanicaly stupid for any woman to claim those cultures are equal to Western culture.

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 is now firmly in place. And, despite the impact of the Trump presidency, 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! Only now, students rate the professors! 

The Barber's Cat

 Perhaps my sense of place was better than most adolescents because I apprenticed 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 whose labors 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; and 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 approving laughter. Thereafter, I kept my opinions to myself.

Now let's get back to these so-called "course" evaluations. When our administration imposed them, they claimed these evaluations would help better measure course effectiveness. Previous administrations (dating back over a century) had never tried anything remotely like it. I think 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