We have previously discussed the rising anti-intellectualism in the GOP race from the rejection of basic science principles to the demonification of academics and higher education. Rick Santorum this week ramped up on the attacks on colleges and universities with a speech that seemed to call for voters to avoid supporting — or even attempting — college. Santorum appears to be proudly embracing the pledge of Will Rogers that “America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to the select few.”
Santorum explained to an enraptured audience in Naples, Florida how “the left” long ago took over universities to indoctrinate young people for the purpose of “holding and maintaining power.” It was all part of the plan of the liberal overlords, he suggested, and “we’ve lost our higher education, that was the first to go a long time ago.” Now, Obama is pushing college which Santorum portrays as a type of entry drug to liberalism:
“It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college,” said the former Pennsylvania senator. “The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making sure that there wasn’t one penny of government dollars going to colleges and universities, right? . . . If they taught Judeo-Christian principles in those colleges and universities, they would be stripped of every dollar. If they teach radical secular ideology, they get all the government support that they can possibly give them. Because you know 62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it.”
Santorum, therefore, called on true Republicans to stop giving money to colleges:
“I’ll bet you there are people in this room who give money to colleges and universities who are undermining the very principles of our country every single day by indoctrinating kids with left-wing ideology. And you continue to give to these colleges and universities. Let me have a suggestion: Stop it.”
It was a truly Palinesque moment of attacking those who would challenge GOP positions with facts or history. Now the race to the bottom is complete with a call to just say no to education and to embrace doctrine as truth. Of course, this is not a new idea. Mao Zedong launched a Cultural Revolution based on the same notions:
Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds, and endeavour to stage a comeback. The proletariat must do just the opposite: It must meet head-on every challenge of the bourgeoisie in the ideological field and use the new ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the proletariat to change the mental outlook of the whole of society. At present, our objective is to struggle against and crush those persons in authority . . . and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic “authorities” and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art, and all other parts of the superstructure . . .”
Now this is not meant to accuse Santorum of plagiarism: you would only learn about the Cultural Revolution in those colleges that he wants us all to avoid. I can deal with the re-education camps, but I am a bit afraid of what Santorum will select as his Little Red [State] Book. If it is Sarah Palin’s America by Heart : Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, I will be the first to turn in my colleagues hiding in the attic.
Source: CBS
Gene,
A big amen to your comment to OS’s Jesus/banker statement. Christians like Santorum would be shocked how Liberal Jesus was.
OS,
Correction accepted without reservation.
And a big amen to the Jesus/bankers statement.
Gene, a minor correction. I think that would be “bronze age” superstition, not “iron age.” Goes back a few years before the start of the iron age which began about 400 BC or so. The bronze age ran between about 1,300 BC to 400 BC, which is the time frame of the old testament, which the fundies seem to love so much, especially Leviticus.
That Iron Age guy, Jesus, was far too progressive for the fundies like Santorum. He talked about healing the sick, helping the poor, and feeding people who had no food. Can’t have all that socialized religion, y’know. And oh yeah, that Jesus fellow was a carpenter, and in those days that meant he would have had a set of muscles on him–he would not have been the effeminate man pictured in the old masters paintings. He tossed the bankers out of the Temple, on their collective asses. We could use a few like him now.
Pete,
I understand now! Thanks. Great clip from CSNY. I will never forget that day.
Michael,
I’ll call anyone anything I please, including a Jesus Nazi. Santorum’s position on abortion is founded entirely in his religious beliefs no matter his weak protestations to the contrary. His rationale for wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade? He told Piers Morgan that “[L]ife begins at conception and persons are covered by the constitution, and because human life is the same as a person, to me it was a pretty simple deduction to make that that’s what the Constitution clearly intended to protect.” That’s facile and specious legal logic. At the time the Constitution was written, and indeed throughout most of human history, a person wasn’t alive until they could survive outside their mother’s womb. Oddly enough, that’s the same standard applied in Roe v. Wade. The Constitution applies to living viable people, not speculative people. The Jesus Nazi went on to say, “I believe and I think that the right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless, in a very broken way, a gift of human life, and accept what God is giving to you.” Also an expression of his religious belief. An abhorrent and vile expression that totally disregards the life and dignity of women I might add. Rape is not a “gift from God” simply because an egg is fertilized. It’s a crime of violence and no woman should be forced to carry to term in that circumstance just so Ricky can feel alright with Jesus. The Constitution also says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. His attempting to force his religious beliefs on others via the mechanisms of law is unconstitutional on its face. If he has a problem with abortion? He shouldn’t get one. Otherwise, he should shut his festering pie hole and stay out of what is essentially a woman’s matter of faith, conscience and right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
He’s also blatantly hypocritical in being allegedly pro-life yet for the death penalty. That or he simply wants to play God himself. Given the egomania that drives most politicians, both options – hypocrite and delusions of Godhood – are not out of the question.
So if you got a problem with me calling him a Jesus Nazi for wanting to force his religion upon others using the mechanism of government? That’s entirely your problem. It’s my 1st Amendment right to be able to call ’em like I see ’em. That’s what I’m in charge of, slick. And what I see in Santorum is a religious zealot campaigning on a desire to breach the Doctrine of Separation of Church and State by forcing his beliefs upon others. Just because he chooses to live by a code dictated by iron age superstition doesn’t give him the right to force those beliefs upon others.
Tony,
I’m not suggesting that children should never be tested. I see the problem being that prepping children to take tests is becoming the focus of our educational system–to the detriment of truly educating children. It’s the belief that a paper-and-pencil test can tell you everything you need to know academically about a child and his educational progress that troubles me.
A well-rounded education includes exposure to art and music and literature and field trips–as well as science and history and writing and reading and spelling and geography. We must teach to the “whole brain”–not just teach the subjects that can be objectively tested by multiple choice questions.
As an elementary teacher, I dealt with the whole child. I didn’t consider myself a social worker. If you know a child has a parent who is terminally ill…if you know the child has severe learning problems…if you know a child’s parents are going through a bitter divorce… if you sense a child may have problems at home, you need to understand what impact such things may have on a child’s ability to concentrate in the classroom and achieve academically. Children learn best in an environment where they feel safe and valued–not in an environment where they feel they will be constantly evaluated on what they can and cannot do/what they know/do not know. They learn best when they feel their teachers have confidence that they CAN learn. Educators who have an understanding of human nature, a love of children, and who “know their stuff” are by far the best teachers. Children do not learn in a vacuum. There are many intangibles that have an impact on how and what children learn.
I never assumed a child could not learn because he/she scored well below grade level on standardized tests. My students knew I cared about them and had high expectations for ALL of them. Most strove to meet my expectations.
Spindell said; “Literally billions have been spent to dumb down the American public. School boards taken over by no-nothings have revised the curriculum to homogenize the teaching of history. Budget cuts mandated by conservative officials have destroyed the concept of teaching Civics, a subject that always included a firm grounding in the background and principles of our Constitution. Geography, which grounds students in the layout of our world gets thrown away. Now fifty+ years later we have an electorate uneducated about how our nation is supposed to be run. Ignorance is indeed bliss for the ruling elites and they want to keep it that way.” Com’on man, this generation of parenting or lack thereof, has done enough to “dumb down” the majority of today’s kids, without the help of government. I do agree, that we have an uneducated electorate. It goes back to the lack of parenting. Our schools aren’t suppose to be the begin-all and end-all of our kid’s education. I do half way agree with Santorum. We should stop giving taxpayer dollars to the elitest colleges and ramp up the programs at secondary and community colleges. There is an agenda towards education of our youth and it comes from both sides. Which one is worse is anybody’s guess. Oh yea, Gene H, WTF are you supposed to be in charge of; calling Rick or anyone for that matter, a Jesus Nazi. Now dimwitted, he may be.
Michael,
You seem to think I meant my statement as a broad generalization. It was actually a statement of the facts as I know them. There has been a determined campaign to dumb down America, led by the Koch Brothers, John Birch Society and some Fundamentalist Christian Groups. As for “bad” parenting it is always easier to blame the victims.
@Elaine: You have to look at the students a teacher is assigned. Where were they academically when they entered her room? How much progress did they make in the course of the year?
No argument from me, except that progress must be defined.
Why should the teachers who are willing to work with the most challenging students be castigated if those students don’t test as well as others?
They shouldn’t.
I am not completely ignorant in this field either; I see my sister every week, she taught the GT program at a local public elementary school for 15 years, and we discussed the problem with schools frequently.
I do not accept the idea that kids should not be tested or teachers should be protected from objective measures of performance. If they are, it creates a free rider problem: It is relatively easy for a teacher to make kids feel good without teaching them anything, because kids are kids.
Teaching is not parenting, and although teachers (and judgers) do have to make allowances for emotional and cognitive deficits, and most really care about their kids, the job is not daycare, nanny, psychologist or life coach, and those aspects cannot take over the job: They are done in service TO the job, which is teaching them academic skills, not social skills or repairing them emotionally.
I am not sure what you mean by a “well-rounded” education, that seems too fuzzy to define to me, I prefer to focus on the core that can be tested, and has to be part of whatever you think is well-rounded. Learning has consequences, it produces ability or skill or understanding. If it is all amorphous self-understanding and getting along with others, the job has not been done: The job is to teach arithmetic, not self-confidence.
I am not judging kids, I am judging teachers: If their kids cannot pass the core, objective tests, then something is wrong, the teacher is not teaching. She cannot choose to become a social worker instead of a teacher, and when the “social worker” role overwhelms the teacher role for some kid, the kid should be removed from school and turned over to a professional, until such time as they are emotionally competent to return.
You are right, kids are not automatons, that is why we need a human to teach them.
Tony,
Teachers in the early elementary grades are rarely subject specific. I taught all academic subjects.
There are many things that cannot be discerned about a child’s academic progress and growth from a paper and pencil test–or just one kind of test. We’ve become a nation so focused on testing children and trying to compare them–as well as one teacher to another and one school system to another that we’ve lost sight of what a well-rounded education should be for our children.
Children are individuals with their own personalities, aptitudes, interests. They are not little automatons. Many come from happy homes where there is a lot of enrichment; some are not so fortunate. Some arrive at school scarred by their life experiences. It should be the mission of educators to look at these children as individuals and to do their best to meet their needs and to help them progress–academically, socially, and emotionally…and to open their minds and help spark their imagination and their interest in learning.
BTW, you have to look at the students a teacher is assigned. Where were they academically when they entered her room? How much progress did they make in the course of the year? One has to consider the teachers who get more than their share of children with discipline and learning problems and emotional issues. Not all classrooms of children are created equal. Why should the teachers who are willing to work with the most challenging students be castigated if those students don’t test as well as others?
I just love utopias. It is unfortunate that we can’t produce them.
As Elaine points out, there are people who control; and that includes parents who have demands which must be met. Teaching students in this way* is fine, but there are external content-oriented tests which must be passed also.
And demand for “good grades” will not cease, regardless. So the teachers in conflict avoidance mode will be forced to adapt to keep their jobs.
Show me I’m wrong, please.
* The most enjoyable learniing experiences for me are just this type of situations. Figuring it out for yourself, instead of just cramming it by rote on the pile.
Again, Santorum tells it like it is.
Hurrah!
I think privatization would be a disaster, but an overhaul of goals and means would be welcome.
I do believe in standards of achievement or skill. If that means teaching to a test, then so be it, but the test content should vary every time, so that it is impossible to teach the answers, and only possible to teach the skill.
I do not even think varying the tests is that hard to do: Just have teachers chosen by lottery to contribute questions, and other teachers chosen by lottery to rank the difficulty of those questions, and perhaps the importance of those questions to that topic whether they are difficult or not, and put together a test of questions that can grade the skill of the student, and the skill of their teachers, and take actions based on that. Perhaps even once a month, for three reasons:
1) If something is wrong we can catch it in time to fix it,
2) Frequent testing reduces the stakes of the testing, so there are no high-stakes tests at the end of the year that can hold a student back,
3) The kids will get used to it from an early age and won’t be intimidated by it.
So I believe in giving teachers the freedom to choose their style and presentation, but it has to produce results. If their fellow third grade history teachers think they suck (based on the testing they approved) then we can look at the tests for that class and see what is going wrong, we can investigate the problem and prevent those kids from being educationally deprived.
I do not want to mandate style or lesson plans, but the same tests would show us who is outstanding, and we could film them and provide their fellow teachers with examples of what works, so the system can be improved.
Finally, various forms of comparative analysis on the same tests will help us identify which teachers are cheating; it leaves signatures in the variational analysis of the distribution of grades and correlations of answers, so those teachers can be investigated.
For the same reason, the proctor for the monthly exams in each class should be randomly assigned from the pool of teachers, except no teacher can proctor their own class (or subject, if teachers are specialized). That will not eliminate cheating by collusion but it will reduce cheating.
So because of that I do not think the state should determine the content of the curricula, I think the teachers teaching the subject should determine the standard in this kind of lottery-selected panel or jury, but I do think the testing should be mandatory and teachers and schools held accountable for the results.
Tony,
There are many teachers whose idea of education is not just memorization and regurgitation. I know that from experience–having worked with dozens of them. My daughter also had a number of outstanding teachers who helped impart knowledge–but also gave students plenty of opportunities to create, to explore, and to discover things for themselves.
That said, I do think public school teachers are being increasingly pressured to teach to state-mandated tests by the “powers that be.” Some of our politicians and harshest critics of the public educational system in this country would love to see it privatized.
Perhaps we should not be teaching either one!
My favorite classes have always been with teachers that recapitulate discovery, and that works in mathematics, chemistry, geometry and trigonometry, biology, physics, geology, paleontology, evolution, and even to some extent art, history and other disciplines. Even language: The most effective language learning programs recapitulate how toddlers pick up language.
We can do the same thing for particle physics: You do not have to just TELL kids that light has a speed limit, you can present the mystery, and guide them to the solution. We already know where the missteps occurred, the dead ends, so we can skip them or gloss over them, and even the kids that might suggest them can be applauded: They are saying the same thing as the world experts of the late 1800s!
Kids (and people) learn when they have to make decisions, and can be wrong. Memorization teaches them nothing, recapitulation teaches them by making them the discoverer.
That is what we do for evolution, as well. We don’t have to tell them and demand they remember: Darwin started out religious, categorizing God’s animals, and the evidence convinced him otherwise. We may not be as clever as Darwin, who blazed a trail into the unknown, but the trail he left is there, paved, and with signposts, it can be compressed to just the relevant stepping stones.
We do not have to teach them received knowledge, what we should be teaching is not the theory of evolution handed down by Darwin, but the evolution of the theory of evolution, the real-world observations Darwin made, and the puzzles that Darwin solved, in order to get there. If you show them the trip, the children can understand the destination.
If all you ask them to do is memorize trivia and regurgitate dogma, they do not believe anything, because none of it is really supported by anything but authoritarian assertion. Then because their rationality is going to develop anyway, encouraged or not, they will think (rightly) that their time is being wasted and they are prisoners waiting out their sentence, doing as little as possible to prevent getting set back. Then the compliant will go to college, but with the same attitude of serving time.
I’d honestly prefer to teach a third as much in any topic and have them know it, from first principles to grand conclusion, than continue this empty charade of “education” that is really just memorization and regurgitation.
I was lucky, I was only a child during WWII. But when Joseph McCarthy spoke from his hearings; I heard the voice of Hitler again.
Roy Cohn played the prosecutor to McCarthy’s screaming judgements.
But the sweet voice of reason, in the form of Welch, the defense attorney for the Army, who spoke in his gentlemanly Southern-accented tones.
Guess who won?
I had heard enough of the voices of authority since the second grade, standing in front of the principal, Myrtle B. Underwood, as my kindly teacher Mrs. Ward presented the bill of indictment. There weren’t any years when those scenes weren’t repeated and those accusations heard by a pair of unruly, disruptive, defensive ears.
In SOTUS Obama said (roughly): There is no one in this chamber who does not remember a teacher who has made a guiding……..etc.
Yes, there were two,. And in spite of the thunder of other teachers’ voices, the few words of encouragement were heard. Most important of all: they were not words of wisdom chosen for my ears. Rather simple encouragements to follow my own interests and talents.
What Michio Kaku says is self-evident in its nature: the world is 6 billion; we are 350 million. So if the premier minds of the world are drawn here; and some remain, then they will dominate at least in numbers. And so has it been for over fifty years.
Whoops, I just got my water bowl kicked over and my dog biscuits taken away. I got yelled at for disclosing the Dogalog program. I may not be back on this Blog. Then you will have to Blogalog on your own.
There was a rather strange music group in the 70’s whose song was :
We dont need no education…
We dont need not thought control….
All in all, its another dip in the road…
All in all, its another dip in the road…
***
They were pictured on the tube and were robotic.
Education for humanoids is somewhat like dog training school. Repetitive, reward for doing it right, chastised for doing it wrong, validation, castigation, punishment. Sit Fido, Sit!
Owners who insist on Sit Fido, Sit, are the same way with their kids. Catholic Nuns who employ the ruler to whack you when you can not spell right are not the brightest humanoids on the block.
Those who can, Do.
Those who can’t, teach.
Those who can’t teach, teach teachers.
The word Principal is not the same as a person who has principles. The word “pal” on the end is an oxymoron. A principal is never the kid’s pal. He/she is the most self centered soul on earth. Think about the totem pole. The cant do anything themselves so they try teaching. They cant teach so they try to teach teachers. They dont teach teachers they boss them around and beat up on the students. When the Revolution comes they will be the first to go.
University or college level schooling is dramatically different than High School. The student is elevated to a next tier of adulthood. One can be 18 or 81 or anywhere in between. There is a phrase at the kennel where I used to get locked up on weekends by my humanoids. “Hire A Teenager–While They Still Know Everything” In other words a teenager is not the best candidate for learning, listening, or having an open mind. College is more effective on someone over 22. Ex Army types can be more attentive in class. A subsidized kid is less attentive than one who has paid his/her own way.
The Penn State situation has not been discussed in this comment blog today. The football thing is quite odd. Here we have a state which as a matter of policy puts a sport institution on a pedestal which is higher than the goal of higher knowlege. Vast amounts of money are dedicated to the football and sports culture. We are competing with the likes of Ohio State. Why not compete with China in math and science? Why not compete with Ohio in math and science? The song might provide the answer:
We Dont Need No Education,
We Dont Need No Thought Control….
The Penn State (it is becoming State Penn) culture puts so much prominence on the “program” that they are quite willing to overlook a child rapist in the center of it. The parallels with the Catholic Church are astounding. Football is a faith. When something is “Faith Based” one must say that with a Southern accent between bites of fried chicken. When something is Faith Based then there is no questioning of the content of the stated proposition or Belief. The value of a so called college education is premised on this kind of Faith Based premise. People who graduate from Penn State are “Educated”. Even if they can not read or write very well and their math and science ain’t so good. They can Talk The Talk better than the plumber or electrician. Mommy and Daddy work hard to pay for college so that they can Talk The Talk.
Daddy was an electrician and made a good living but sonny boy is gonna be a Teacher. Then he can teach other kids to Talk The Talk. Mommy and Daddy have come up in the world by virtue of the family having joined the ranks of the Talk The Talkers. At Daddy’s memorial service at grave site it will be mentioned that he put his kids through college.
Whether you are a dog or a humanoid, its the same thing. Good boy Fido.
Thats just me a dog talking so you can disregard this if you are not a dog.
Someday I will let you in on how it is that I can type on this computer or talk into the thing that makes the type on the screen. Kinda like Dolphins who talk. Funded by the NSA. Dogalog is what they call it.
DonS re: C. Wright Mills
Thanks. And in the hope it helps other, I cite Wikipedia about his book.
Quote
The Power Elite (1956) describes the relationship between the political, military, and economic elite (people at the pinnacles of these three institutions), noting that these people share a common world view:
the military metaphysic
a military definition of reality;
possess class identity
recognizing themselves separate and superior to the rest of society;
have interchangeability
they move within and between the three institutional structures and hold interlocking directorates; cooptation / socialization socialization of prospective new members is done based on how well they “clone” themselves socially after such elites.
These elites in the “big three” institutional orders have an “uneasy” alliance based upon their “community of interests” driven by the “military metaphysic,” which has transformed the economy into a ‘permanent war economy’.
Unquote
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