Education

“Justice for the Nicholas Brothers”…Again

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Sometimes it all seems worth it.

Yesterday, late at night, I received an e-mail from a music teacher at a Catholic elementary school in Connecticut. He had introduced his young students to great musicians of the past, such as Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, and arouse their admiration and excitement when he showed them videos of The Nicholas Brothers. Recently he came upon my post on Fayard and Harold from 2012, and felt compelled to write me agreeing with my lament that such miraculous performers could be so forgotten today because of their marginalization by the film industry and society. He wrote…

“We have most definitely talked of racism but I now want to read the class your article and get the feedback. Your article is succinct and eloquent.  Your article assessment is sadly true. My goal is not necessarily to revive the Nicholas Brothers:  it is to kindle in each of the kids in the class the spirit of excellence that each of us has and to let nothing stop us from reaching the top.”
To be honest, I had forgotten about my post about remembering the Nicholas Brothers. I checked: the post has only been read by about a thousand visitors since I wrote it; if my objective is to keep the legacy of these amazing dancers alive, it’s probably time for a re-post.

At the Sun Valley Lodge, there is a television station devoted to playing the 1941 film “Sun Valley Serenade” on a loop. It is a genuinely awful movie, starring John Payne of “Miracle on 34th Street” fame, Norwegian ice skater Sonia Henie, and Milton Berle, although it does show the famous ski resort in the days when guests used to be towed around the slopes on their skis by horses. Last time I was in Sun Valley to give a presentation, I watched about half the film in disconnected bites, since I never can sleep on such trips. This time I finally saw the whole thing. At about 3 AM, as Glenn Miller was leading his band in the longest version of “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” in history, Fayard and Harold Nicholas suddenly flipped onto the screen, and “Sun Valley Serenade” briefly went from fatuous to immortal.

If your reflex response to that last sentence was “WHO??,” you are part of the reason for this post, and also in the vast and deprived majority of Americans. As I circulated among my future audience of lawyers and their spouses yesterday morning, happily informing them that the terrible movie playing around the clock in their rooms included the dance team called “the unforgettable Nicholas Brothers” in more than one tribute, I learned that none of them had any idea what I was talking about, and many of these individuals were old enough to have been able to see Fayard and Harold in a theater. The Nicholas Brothers were, you see, the greatest tap-dancers who ever lived, and the most amazing dance team that ever will be. Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On The Spring Valley High School Arrest

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

1. After a 48 hour review, Ben Fields, the school resource officer who was caught on camera violently flipping the desk of a disruptive South Carolina high school student, was fired for violating police department policy. Naturally, he and his lawyer claim otherwise, but that’s just posturing for the inevitable union challenge. He had to be fired for many reasons, including terrible optics and bad judgment. The worst of the defenses offered for his conduct was that the girl, treated like a professional wrestler by the much larger male officer, wasn’t injured. If true, that was pure moral luck: from the violent nature of the arrest, it is a miracle he didn’t break her neck. (The student’s lawyer claims that her arm is broken, among other injuries.)

2. The news media immediately declared this a racial incident. The New York Times, for example, began a report like this:

A white sheriff’s deputy in South Carolina was fired Wednesday after county officials concluded he had acted improperly when, in a videotaped confrontation, he dragged and then threw a female African-American student across a high school classroom this week.

I can find no evidence that race had anything to do with this incident, unless one accepts the Black Lives Matter assertion that the colors of participants in black-white confrontations prove that the white individual is a racist and the black individual is a helpless victim who has no racial biases whatsoever. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: “Fixing” “Elf Ears”

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

ears

6-year-old Gage Berger was being bullied by his first grade classmates because he had protruding ears, and was often derided as “Elf  Ears.” His Salt Lake City parents decided to address the problem here and now, before, they say, his self-esteem (I almost wrote elf-esteem…) was  permanently damaged, so they had his ears de-elfed to look like everyone else’s.

Now he’s bullying other funny-looking kids.

Kidding.

I hope.

But seriously, folks, the story has aroused a controversy over societal and medical ethics. Did the parents choose plastic surgery too early and for the wrong reasons? Is that how we want society to be, where bullies and critics can pressure individuals to conform to a narrow standard of acceptible appearance? Doesn’t this give them power? Does it not encourage bullying? Is a first-grader old enough to meaningfully weigh these issues? Isn’t this a choice he should make, when he’s old enough to make it?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for today is…

Was it ethical to clip Gary’s ears?

Continue reading →

More Nascent Totalitarianism In Middle School And College

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

voting

Does anybody care except the occasional blog? More specifically, has any Presidential candidate condemned these incidents?

At Everett Middle School in the Mission District in San Francisco:

Principal Lena Van Haren decided to withhold the results of the school’s Oct. 9 student council election for more than a week, because she felt the results weren’t diverse enough. She said that the school community needed to figure out how to have a more representative government. There were no Latino or black candidates chosen for the top four spots.“This is complex, but as a parent and a principal, I truly believe it behooves us to be thoughtful about our next steps here so that we can have a diverse student council that is truly representative of all voices at Everett,” she told parents in an e-mail Thursday.

They reacted furiously, indignantly and correctly, accusing her of tampering with a fair and free election. Her response was unethical, dishonest, rationalized, and idiotic.

“We paused to have a conversation. [You withheld the results.] I never, ever said we wouldn’t share the results or they weren’t good enough. [If they were good enough, why the need for a “conversation”?] This is middle school. It’s not a presidential election. [ It was supposedly an election for the student leadership of the school, and thus as close to a Presidential election as a middle school gets. What’s your point, that its OK to manipulate elections for lesser offices?] It was not about hurting democracy or putting diversity over democracy. [ Funny, it sure looked like that’s exactly what it was about.]

Then she said that she wanted to wait until there was a plan created with student input to increase diversity among student leaders, perhaps by adding positions.

The students apparently paid no attention to race and ethnicity in their voting. That’s the objective, isn’t it? The principal want to perpetuate group identification and divisions, even if the students have educated themselves to understand that neither should matter. Adding positions to make it easier to have token “diversity” makes a sham out of any election. What other brilliant solutions does this principal have? Special representatives of every race and ethnic group? Quotas? Giving minority groups bonus votes? Forcing minorities to run for the council? Forcing whites not to?

Schools have elections to teach them about democracy. This principal is teaching them that democracy and the will of voters must meet progressive agendas, or it is “wrong.” She’s also teaching them to lie. Withholding results sent a message that the students had done something wrong by not considering race and ethnicity as qualifications for office that should take precedence over skill and demonstrated ability. Her denials were obvious and made no sense.

This how the extreme leftist educational establishment indoctrinates students to progressively weaken our democracy. Responsible parents should not accept [Correction note: The “not” was inadvertently omitted in the initial post.]such transparently dishonest excuses for it. If this could happen, the entire school and school system needs to be overhauled.

At Wesleyan University… Continue reading →

Baseball, Moral Luck, And Ike’s Big Lie

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Ike

Dwight D. Eisenhower lied in  a signed pledge in order to play football as a West Point student. Had the false assertion been discovered, the Allied Forces would have had a different commander, and the Cold War would have been fought on the U.S. side by a …Adlai Stevenson, if not Herman Goering. Ike never mentioned his ethical and very uncharacteristic breach of military conduct in his memoirs, but the incident seems to have haunted him all his life.

President Eisenhower played the outfield for Class D Junction City, a professional minor league team, in 1911. Ike  used a false name—“Wilson”— to maintain eligibility for collegiate athletics. He was 20 years old and  hit .355,  but he wasn’t aiming for  the big leagues.  “I wanted to go to college that fall and we didn’t have much money,” General Eisenhower told the Associated Press in 1945. “I took any job that offered me more money, because I needed money.”

When Eisenhower joined the Army’s football program at West Point, he had to sign a form saying he was never compensated for playing a professional  sport. The assumption is that Ike signed, but the document has never been found. Had his lie been discovered whgile he was at West Point, he would have been kicked out of the Academy. Had the falsely signed document surfaced while he was President, it would have been a serious embarrassment for both Ike and the military.

My guess is that it was “lost.” Continue reading →

Ethics Corrupter Weekend, Part IV. How To Make A Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments
"I could only give you a B. If you want an A, you'll need to apply yourself..."

“I could only give you a B. If you want an A, you’ll need to apply yourself…”

Former Pennsylvania high school teacher Wesley Amy was convicted last week of changing the grades of female students in exchange for their nude pictures.

Amy was a State College High School teacher before he was charged with corruption of minors. Three female students testified that their teacher allowed them to cut classes and gave them high grades for no work as long as sent him nude photos. What a deal.

The arrangement was discovered when another teacher testified that when she took over Amy’s class, she found that some of the female students were receiving good grades without doing any documented work. The fact that this kind of untrustworthy species of teacher (and human being) flourishes in our schools is not news any more, but this is more sinister in some respects than the run-of-the-mill Mary Kay LeTourneau. Wesley Amy was still teaching these students; he was teaching them the sleazy ways of corruption, quid pro quo, short-cuts and fakery. Why should they care if their perv teacher gets off on their selfies? They’re getting great grades, and as their corrupting parents and others keep telling them, it’s not the education that matters, it’s the grades and the diploma. What’s the matter with this arrangement? Nothing, in their eyes. Listen to Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner, talk about how people do what you want them to do in you make it worth their while. They have, thanks to Mr. Amy, learned that corruption and bribery pays.

The prosecutor says the girls were brave to testify under the circumstances. What was brave about it? What would have been brave, and what would have proved that the previous decade of public schooling, not to mention the guidance of their parents, left them with at least the seed of understanding right from wrong, would be if they had reported their teacher’s offer five minutes after it was made.

They didn’t, though.

It was too good a deal to pass up.

___________________

Graphic: Riverfront Times

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts, and seek written permission when appropriate. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work or property was used in any way without proper attribution, credit or permission, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.

Beating The Naked Teacher Principle: The Provocatively Clad Bodybuilding Teacher Principle.

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

min jensen

It is important to remember that the The Naked Teacher Principle   doesn’t state that pre-college teachers who allow themselves to be seen on the internet in states of undress likely to arouse the lust of their students should and must be fired—though most of them should be—but that they have no legitimate complaint if they are. Teachers who must command respect, serve as role models, and of course, teach, should not permit themselves to become pin-ups and peep-show stars for their students. At very least, they owe their employers and their students’ parents advance notice.

Mindy Jensen, a Utah middle school teacher,  has a second (or perhaps first) career as a bikini model and fitness competitor. She came under the  cloud of The Naked Teacher Principle the usual way: a student was surfing the web and cried out: “Holy crap! That’s my teacher, and she’s HOT!”  The news (and images) spread around the community and student body quickly. Parents called the Instagram photos “pornographic” and demanded that Jensen be dismissed. The school gave her an ultimatum: take down the photos, make her account private, or get sacked.

Jensen made the Instagram account private, then changed her mind. . Explaining her decision, Jensen told ABC Utah,  “Why am I taking this picture off, I get comments and messages that it’s inspirational to them and these women like my story. If I put it to private, it’s not going to reach these people that might need and understand me.”

The school has since backed down,  opting instead to hold training sessions for  parents on teaching kid to be careful on the Web—you know, like avoiding hot photos of their teachers. (Good luck with THAT.)

I think several features of this episode on The Naked Teacher Principle spectrum led to this result. In 2014, in this post about whether the NTP applies to non-teaching bodybuilding mothers, I raised the issue of bodybuilding teachers on the web, and posited this photo as an example for discussion: Continue reading →

On “Political Correctness,” “Micro-Aggressions” And Word-Banning…

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Just words

  • First, some of the Social Justice Warriors who sometimes have valuable input (but not on this issue) here decided to attack the contention that Democrats, Progressives, and their allies comprise the only side of the political spectrum that openly favors word banning to suppress thought and speech, are “Orwellian” when they do this. They must have skipped this part of “1984”in Junior High:

’How is the Dictionary getting on?’ said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.

‘Slowly,’ said Syme. ‘I’m on the adjectives. It’s fascinating.’

He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.

‘The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,’ he said. ‘We’re getting the language into its final shape — the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words — scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.’

I wonder if “alien” was one of those words?” Continue reading →

Worst Ethics Quiz Ever

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

 lifeboat test

A teacher in the Hillsborough County School District gave students a “Lifeboat Quiz” asking students to choose who lives and dies during a hypothetical sea disaster.

They were told 15 people need to be saved but there was only room for nine people on the boat. They then had to choose among options including “the black guy,” “the Hispanic woman,” “the pregnant woman, ” and also Barack Obama , Donald Trump, and, uh, Justin Bieber.

The students were 11; this was the 6th grade in the Giunta Middle School in Riverview, Florida . A mother of one of the students turned this into news by claiming the test was racist—she knew the magic word, all right. It’s not racist at all. What it is is incompetent and inappropriate. Naturally, the debate has been immediately detoured into issues like diversity, which have nothing to do with what’s wrong with the test. I could imagine an excellent teacher steering the discussion of a lifeboat dilemma into a useful general discussion of bias and ethics. I cannot imagine anyone who would think this quiz could support such a discussion being skilled enough to teach such a lesson.  If the teacher told students that their choices should consider diversity quotas, she should be fired. What are the odds, do you think? Continue reading →

University of California at Berkeley Law’s “Critical Mass” Policy: Segregating Classes In Order To Integrate Them

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments
OK, that's enough of you in THIS section...

OK, that’s enough of you in THIS section…

This is an example of how diversity and affirmative action ideology brings devotees to madness.

In an effort to create a more positive experience for underrepresented-minority students,

The University of California Berkeley School of Law has instituted what it calls  a new “critical mass” policy. As in many law schools, first year students are divided into smaller sections, or “mods,” in which first-year law students take their classes. This year, the administration juggled the composition of the mods to have  more underrepresented-minority students in all but one, in order to create a “critical mass.” To reach critical mass in the other mods,  one mod had to be stripped all of black students. Berkeley Law Dean Sujit Choudhry sent an email to the law school community explaining that the policy is intended to create a more positive experience for underrepresented minorities by grouping them together to create that critical mass.

In setting political districts, this technique is called gerrymandering, and is widely considered racist. Removing all the black students from one section and placing them all in another, super-comfy, all-black section would be called apartheid. Yet this ultra-liberal university has convinced itself that manipulating class composition by race is a benign policy.

Wow.

What else have they convinced themselves of? Let’s see: Continue reading →