Education

Well Yes, This Phenomenon Was Inevitable and I’ve Been Predicting It For Decades…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

In a New York Times op-ed (that’s a gift link, getting you past the pay-wall: You’re welcome!), a writing professor from Southern Methodist University reveals his epiphany regarding why today’s college students generally don’t read books. He writes in part,

Nationwide, college professors report steep declines in students’ willingness and ability to read on their own. To adapt, instructors are assigning less reading and giving students time in class to complete it.

It’s tempting to lament the death of a reliable pathway to learning and even pleasure. But I’m beginning to think students who don’t read are responding rationally to the vision of professional life our society sells them. In that vision, productivity does not depend on labor, and a paycheck has little to do with talent or effort. For decades, students have been told that college is about career readiness and little else. And the task of puzzling out an author’s argument will not prepare students to thrive in an economy that seems to run on vibes…

Once students graduate, the jobs they most ardently desire are in what they proudly call the “sellout” fields of finance, consulting and tech. To outsiders, these industries are abstract and opaque, trading on bluster and jargon. One thing is certain, though: That’s where the money is….All in all, it looks as if success follows not from knowledge and skill but from luck, hype and access to the right companies. If this is the economy students believe they’re entering, then why should they make the effort to read? For that matter, how will any effort in school prepare them for careers in which, apparently, effort is not rewarded?

Duh. You just figured this out, did you?

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I Don’t Know Who Wrote This, But It Is Unethical, Insidious, and Wrong:

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

A usually astute and beneficent friend of long-standing posted that on Facebook recently.

I’d love to know what Marxist Ethics Corrupter wrote it, so I can hold him or her up to the derision, contempt and shunning such a sinister argument deserves. The obvious smoking gun in the statement is “what society needs to know.”

Who determines what society needs to know? Current public schools, administrators and teachers have concluded that society needs to know that the United States was based on slavery, that its Founders were villains, that U.S. is currently a racist nation that citizens “of color” cannot succeed in without special assistance, that sexual identify is fluid and that socialism is the only morally defensible form of government.

None of that belongs in a public school curriculum. Public school exists to teach skills and critical thinking: it should no more be teaching political cant than religion. The totalitarian who issued that poison above is advocating indoctrination, and worse, indoctrination by people who I don’t know, trust, or believe have the education, perspective or intelligence to decide what “society needs to know.”

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On the Bight Side, at Least the Coach Didn’t Order Them To Jump Out a Window…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I guess I understand how this could happen, but I don’t want to.

Student cheerleaders at Evans Middle School in Lubbock, Texas displeased their cheerleading coach by doing the “wrong cheer,” whatever than means, and she disciplined them by ordering the girls to do “bear crawls” and “crab walks” for miles on an outdoor track when in was nearly 100 degrees in Lubbock and the temperature on the track was well over a hundred. Some of the girls became sick under the sun, all of the cheerleaders ended up with first and second degree burns on their hands and knees, and at least one had to go to a burn center.

When they complained that the track was painful, the coach reportedly said that she didn’t care, and to keep crawling. Parents are furious, naturally, and the evil teacher has been placed on leave (she should be prosecuted—Special query for Humble Talent: Would it be unethical for me to add, “and should be shot”?), but what bothers me is that none of the girls had the sense, character and courage to refuse to accept the cruel punishment, and when the coach said that those who didn’t “crab walk” on the hot track would jeopardize their “cheer careers” (Remember, this is Texas, aka. Bizarro World), at least one girl—we would call her a “leader”—didn’t say, “Well take this cheer and shove it, I’m out of here!,” stop crawling, and walk away on her feet. Movie fans of the original “Carrie” will recall that the protagonist’s chief foe refused to do push-ups as her gym teacher’s punishment for mocking her vulnerable classmate in the shower. That character is a jerk, but she is a gutsy jerk.

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Comment of the Day: “‘Good Discrimination’ At Northeastern, Boston College and the University of Chicago”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Yet another Comment of the Day on the recent post about elite colleges discriminating against white students for the offense of being white. The first is here.

I love when a commenters who hasn’t appeared here for a long time re-enters the fray with brio. Finaldi last commented almost exactly three years ago. Here is Finaldi’s Comment of the Day on ‘Good Discrimination’ At Northeastern, Boston College and the University of Chicago:

***

In our public elementary schools, there there has been a long history of district-level programs that funneled money, staffing and resources toward discriminatory programs, including funding positions for mentors, teachers and administrators explicitly reserved for, say black men to be paid to mentor black boys. Program might entail much fist-bumping and a trip to a ball game, plus bonus admonitions to be this way or that, or not to be this way or that, and some branded sports swag.

The stated goals of such programs are to raise performance, correct discriminatory practices or bring opportunity where none existed. In reality, they are siphons and typically of poor quality, or poorly run. And I have lost count of how many times I’ve been tapped to help “brainstorm some ideas” for content, or help design, recruit, or support in some other (unpaid and unrecognized) way.

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Oh, Great. It’s Bad Enough That Harvard Is Woke and Incompetent, But Its “Ten Minute Rule” Proves That The University Is Now Stupid As Well

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I at least expected my thoroughly disgrace alma mater to always maintain some vestige of intelligence, as misapplied as it frequently has been lately.

Guess not.

Before student group-sponsored speakers at the college are allowed to begin, the following official statement from the administration must now be read to the audience:

“A quick note before we begin—Harvard University is committed to maintaining a climate in which reason and speech provide the correct response to a disagreeable idea. Speech is privileged in the University community. There are obligations of civility and respect for others that underlie rational discourse. If any disruption occurs that prohibits speech the disrupters will be allowed for up to 10 minutes. A warning will be issued to all disturbers at the 5-minute mark explaining that the protesters are disrupting the event and ask them to stop. Any further disruption that prevents the audience from adequately hearing or seeing the speakers will lead to the removal of the disrupters from the venue.”

Brilliant.

How smart do you have to be to figure out what’s wrong with this? Let’s see:

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Ethics Dunce: The University of Kansas [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

No, what’s insane is for anyone to watch that video and misunderstand the clear meaning of what lecturer Phillip Lowcock said. I doubt anyone did misunderstand him. This manufactured scandal is conservatives acting like political correctness-addled progressives.

“[If you believe] guys are smarter than girls, you’ve got some serious problems. That’s what frustrates me,” Lowcock says in the video. “There are going to be some males in our society that will refuse to vote for a potential female president because they don’t think females are smart enough to be president. We could line all those guys up and shoot them. They clearly don’t understand the way the world works.”

And he clearly doesn’t understand how university administrators work in age of The Great Stupid. They are weenies. They sacrifice common sense and principles to avoid conflict.

I have read conservative piranha claiming that he said that any man who didn’t vote for Kamala Harris should be shot. No, he said that thinking that women aren’t smart enough to be President is an idiotic reason not to vote for a woman, and they “should be shot” means that such ignorant bigots are useless and a blight on the culture, which isn’t that far off the mark. Now, thinking Kamala isn’t smart enough to be President is something else, and completely reasonable, but Lowcock didn’t say that.

As for “Did I say that? Scratch that from the recording. I don’t want the deans hearing that I said that,” it’s obviously a joke, not a serious cover-up. His tone is humorous. I’ve been a stage director long enough to know when a line is not intended to be taken seriously.

Any conservative social media troll or university administrator who seriously thinks Lowcock’s comment was anything but facetious exaggeration and completely benign should be shot.

I wish Lowcock would stand his ground and refuse to be sacrificed to the God of Perpetual Offense, but he’s already groveling. This is how the censors break you: it’s like Winston Smith having the hungry rats at his face. No job is worth surrendering one’s self respect to save.

‘Good Discrimination’ At Northeastern, Boston College and the University of Chicago

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Why did it take four years for someone’s head to explode over this? Well, as they say, if it’s new to you, it’s news, and this is new to me.

Campus Reform reveals an earlier report by The Chicago Thinker showed that student-run debate organizations at Northeastern University and Boston College co-hosted the American Parliamentary Debate Association’s  “inaugural BIPOC tournament” and explicitly prohibited white students from competing. Huh. Why would this make sense? Whites are too articulate? Too quick on their feet and skilled in rhetorical flair, are they? This is the equivalent of prohibiting black basketball players from competing in an all-white tournament; after all, as the movie says, “White Guys Can’t Jump.” The existence of such a discriminatory tournament is an insult to non-whites.

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A Visit to Football’s Bizarro World

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Sure, I guess in a crazy system where universities pay students to play football for them, this story makes sense, sort of.

The star starting quarterback for UNLV, Matthew Sluka is quitting the team after UNLV’s first 3-0 start in 40 years. He says he will sit out the rest of the season because the school hasn’t ponied up the $100,000 he says he was promised by an assistant coach before committing to the school this offseason.

Ah, remember those quaint old days when college football heroes devoted their passion and athletic talents to winning for team, the school, and fellow students? Today instead of “Win one for the Gipper,” it’s “Show me the money.” Tell me again why we let educational institutions run professional football and basketball teams stocked with phony students who usually graduate, if they graduate, having learned nothing but how to talk to their accountants?

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Ethics Quiz: The Offensive… Wristband?

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Apparently a biological male who “identifies as female” plays on the Plymouth Regional High School girls’ soccer team in New Hampshire. When the team played its regional rival Bow High School, some Bow parents, protesting the presence of the player whom they regarded as a danger to the born-female players on the Bow team, wore wristbands like the ones above as a silent protest. The Bow High athletic director had told concerned parents before the contest that “in the wake of a federal judge’s ruling that the term ‘girl’ includes males who identify as female,” he felt he was powerless. (He’s a weenie. If he agreed with the parents, he could simply have his team refuse to play the Plymouth team, accept the consequences, and raise the issue.)

When the parents’ “XX” bands appeared at the game, school officials stopped the soccer match, ordered the parents to remove the wristbands, and even “issued [a] police-enforced ‘No Trespassing order’” against two parents who refused.

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From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: ‘Nah, Pro-Abortion Fanatics Haven’t Lost Their Minds’

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I presume I don’t have to explain all of the ethics alarms pinged by this amazing tale from academia….

An event this week at Arizona State University, “Jenny Irish’s HATCH: A Speculative Future for Reproductive Rights” held both in person and via Zoom, featured Irish, an English professor at ASU, and Professor Angela Lober, director of the Academy of Lactation Programs [ Wait, WHAT???] at ASU’s Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation.

Professor Lober began the one-hour moderated discussion by stating that she “got into this space because the United States hates women and everything the female body does.” Okaaaay—that’s certainly not “misinformation”…or inflammatory. Lober went on to say a “lack of financial incentives in breastfeeding and maternal-child health care” was proof of this hostility and showed that economic interests often override health concerns.

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