Tag: Education

Quote of the Day

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From the Yuri Bezmenov interview which has been painstakingly transcribed (trust me, I’ve done transcription) by Useless Dissident:

(Ideological subversion is) a great brainwashing process, which goes very slow[ly] and is divided [into] four basic stages. The first one being demoralization; it takes from 15-20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years which [is required] to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposed to the ideology of the enemy. In other words, Marxist-Leninist ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged, or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism (American patriotism).

The result? The result you can see. Most of the people who graduated in the sixties, drop-outs, or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, [and the] educational system. You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them. They are contaminated; they are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind[s], even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other words, these people… the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To [rid] society of these people, you need another twenty or fifteen years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common sense people, who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.

—

The demoralization process in [the] United States is basically completed already. For the last 25 years…(this interview occurred in 1985) actually, it’s over-fulfilled because demoralization now reaches such areas where previously not even Comrade Andropov and all his experts would even dream of such a tremendous success. Most of it is done by Americans to Americans, thanks to [a] lack of moral standards.

As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him [a] concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he [receives] a kick in his fan-bottom. When a military boot crashes his… then he will understand. But not before that. That’s the [tragedy] of the situation of demoralization.

So basically America is stuck with demoralization and unless… even if you start right now, here, this minute, you start educating [a] new generation of American[s], it will still take you fifteen to twenty years to turn the tide of ideological perception of reality back to normalcy and patriotism.

Instead of 15-20 years, we’ve been at it since at least the 1950’s. But, as noted, the products are now the ones sitting in the places where the decisions about education get made, so changing the path we’re on would require tearing it all down and starting over from scratch.

Read the whole thing, or watch the segment I have posted. As I said, it fits all the available evidence.

Good job, UD. Thanks for all that hard work.

Kwoat of teh Dey – Edumakashun Edishun

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Victor Davis Hanson from Ten Random, Politically Incorrect Thoughts:

After some 20 years of teaching mostly minority youth Greek, Latin, and ancient history and literature in translation (1984-2004), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that ethnic studies, women studies—indeed, anything “studies”— were perhaps the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.

…

The K-12 public education system is essentially wrecked. No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy. This upcoming generation knows instead not to judge anyone by absolute standards (but not why so); to remember to say that its own Western culture is no different from, or indeed far worse than, the alternatives; that race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense; that global warming is manmade and very soon will kill us all; that we must have hope and change of some undefined sort; that AIDs is no more a homosexual- than a heterosexual-prone disease; and that the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs.

And yet we’re to believe that this is not indoctrination, but education in the skills of critical thought. Oh, and Dr. Hanson is what’s known as a primary source on this topic!

(h/t to Unix-Jedi from a comment yesterday.)

UPDATE:  Thanks to the herculean efforts of reader John Hardin, the original JS-Kit/Echo comment thread for this post is available here.

Thomas Sowell Channels Robert Heinlein

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From the fifth and final segment of the Uncommon Knowledge interview comes this snippet:

Thomas Sowell: I think before so many people went to colleges and universities, common sense was probably much more widespread.

Peter Robinson: Why is that? Why is that? Why is that? We keep coming back to higher education as a kind of pollutant in the American political system. That’s been a theme of our conversation. WHY? What’s going on?

Sowell: That’s, that’s a tough one. That’s my next book, which is about intellectuals.

Robinson: Oh really?

Sowell: Yes. Yes. But . . .

Robinson: What have you found, what conclusions have you reached so far?

Sowell: That all the incentives are for people who are intellectuals, in the sense in which I would define the term, to venture beyond what they are competent to do. That is, we know that uh, who’s the man at MIT, the linguist? Noam Chomsky.

Robinson: Noam Chomsky.

Sowell: We know the man is a landmark figure in the study of linguistics,

Robinson: Yes.

Sowell: But we would never have heard of him if he stuck to linguistics.

Robinson: True enough.

Sowell: We know that our wonderful colleague Mr. Ehrlich . . .

Robinson: Paul Ehrlich here at Stanford.

Sowell: . . . has a reputation in entymology, but we would never have heard of him if he had stuck to entymology. And so all the incentives are to go beyond what you are competent to deal with, and to just assume that because you are wonderful at this, that this makes you sort of a general philosopher-king.

Robert Anson Heinlein dubbed this “The Expert Syndrome,” stated thusly:

Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so.

The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.

American Exceptionalism

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There has been some discussion around the web on the topic of American Exceptionalism, brought about by the recent Q&A of Senator McCain at Columbia University. Dr. Sanity‘s piece is quite illuminating, as she includes a transcript of the question-and-answer session, and notes that the audience was completely silent during and after McCain’s answers. I would like to answer Judy Woodruff’s questions myself:

Woodruff: Senator, I want to come back to something you said earlier, I think you used the word exceptional and unique about being an American. On this 9/11, this special day, what — help us understand what you think it means to be an American. And I don’t mean that in the obvious way.

I mean, people who live in Canada, who live in Mexico, around the world feel special about their country, so what is it that’s different about being in America? Are Americans better than people in some of these other countries? We hear the term “exceptionalism” about the United States.

No, Judy, American’s aren’t “better than people in some of those other countries,” Americans are the people of all those other countries. That’s what makes America exceptional. From the perspective of political freedom, where else but in America can an Austrian immigrant become governor of a state with a Gross State Product so high it places seventh worldwide behind Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and China, but ahead of Spain, Canada, India, South Korea and Mexico? Where else but in America could a second-generation Indian immigrant become a governor? Where else but in America can people come, work hard, and achieve a life that in their country of origin would represent unimaginable wealth? What other country is so attractive that people literally risk death in the deserts and oceans to reach it? And they come here, by and large, not to wall themselves off in enclaves of their own kind, but to be Americans.

America is exceptional, Judy, because America is the combination of all the peoples of the world, many of whom made a conscious choice to become Americans, and many more are the immediate descendants of such people. Look at the last Olympic games. Review just some of the names of American medal winners: Liukin, Liezak, Torres, Vanderkaay, Zagunis, Kai, Rodriguez, Taurasi, O’Reilly, Ah Mow-Santos, Haneef-Park, Nnamani. Those are all AMERICAN names, Judy. Don’t you think that’s exceptional?

McCain’s reply was still very good:

MCCAIN: I do believe in American exceptionalism.

And I think it was best articulated by our founding fathers. But I also think that my hero, Teddy Roosevelt, expressed it very well, and other leaders throughout our history.

We’re the only nation I know in the world that really is deeply concerned about adhering to the principle that all of us are created equal and endowed by our creators with certain rights. And those we have tried to bring to the world. And we have not so much militarily, but through example, through leadership, through economic assistance.

Look at what we did for Europe after World War II, look at the continuous efforts we make throughout the world. Look at the efforts we’re making to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa. There’s a lot more America can do.

And I love these other countries, and I’m not trying to denigrate them. But I know of no other country in the world with the generosity of spirit and the concern for fellow human beings than the United States of America, and I think that goes back to our very beginnings.

And I think it goes back to our national makeup. We are all those other nations, often the best of them.

Woodruff presses:

WOODRUFF: Does that make America better than these other…?

MCCAIN: I think it makes us exceptional. I think it makes us exceptional in the kind of citizenry we have and the kind of service and sacrifice that we are capable of.

And I mean that in no disrespect to any other nation, our close and unique relationship with the British. I have — I’m not trying to in any way denigrate any other nation, but it doesn’t in any way diminish my pride in the history of this nation, which has literally shed our blood in all four corners of the earth many times in defense of someone else’s freedom and have tried to further the principles of freedom and democracy everywhere in the world. I think we’re dedicated to that proposition. And, frankly, I think we’ve done a pretty good job.

And nobody so much as applauded.

Them’s Fightin’ Words!

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Margaret Soltan, author of the blog University Diaries is a professor of English at George Washington University, and a contributor at Inside Higher Ed. I first became aware of Professor Soltan when she began a (currently) 10-part series about learning about, for want of a better term, America’s love affair with the gun. I think Dave Hardy was the original link. Professor Soltan is, insofar as I can tell, not a particularly atypical academic, but her willingness to explore one of America’s gun cultures is unusual, and I was (and still am) supportive of that effort.

However, her most recent two posts at Inside Higher Ed have punched my buttons. The first, Charles Murray on Elites is an example of the kind of thinking that, IMHO, typifies the “liberal elite,” and I told her so. Checking back today to see if there had been a response to my initial comment (there had) I also noted that she had put up a new post, Palin Fire. That one really lit me off.

Instead of posting something long here today, I penned two more comments; one for the Charles Murray piece, and another, briefer one for the Palin piece.

I am endeavoring to remain civil, but this example of blind, blithering elitism by a member of the academic intelligentsia, one of Thomas Sowell’s “Anointed,” really yanks my chain.

If the exchange continues, it should get interesting.

Justice Kennedy on Education

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C-SPAN covered the July 31 Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference where Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy spoke. The video is available here (RealPlayer). Orin Kerr linked to it because Kennedy discusses, briefly, the Heller decision, but this part is what caught my attention, starting at about 28 minutes in:

We went at the request of the State Department to Poland, and I asked as I always do if I could please meet with the faculty at the law school. So we met the faculty of the law school in Warsaw, and, um, they told me ahead of time that I couldn’t address the students because it was the second or third week in September and the students were not to come until the following week, which disappointed me. But they had the faculty meeting, so that I could talk about curriculum and meet the faculty.

Well, halfway through the meeting, somebody comes in and says “Oh, Justice Kennedy, we forgot. Our entering law students are here today for an orientation and they want to hear you.” Now, these are basically High School seniors, just entering the University, and um, there’s maybe ninety of them in the room, they speak excellent English – Polish is a secret language anyway. (Laughter) So went out, “I’m Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court here to tell you about the Constitution. . .” and, uh, they know that I solicited questions at the outset, and asked to be interrupted, and uh, as I was talking about the Federal structure, and the structure of the national government. And a student raised her hand and said “Now, the President checks the Congress, and the Congress checks the President, what is it that checks the courts?” Very good question, so we talk about that.

There’s a discussion I’d have liked to listen in on.

And then another student says “Now federalism, you think federalism is very important, but, you know a lot of money goes to Washington and then goes back to the states with conditions on it. Doesn’t that undermine the sovereignty of the states?” (Kennedy shows a stunned look to the audience, drawing laughter.)

So, I, I, g-go on with this, and I, the discussion is very good. A third student raises. . . I think it was a lady, raises her hand and says “Were Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinions all popular when he wrote them?”

And I said, “Wait a minute.” (Laughter) I said, “You’ve, you’ve planned this, Das ist ein schwindel, this is a trick!” (More laughter) Um, and they said “No, no, you don’t understand! We’ve been trying to design our Constitution for fourteen years, and we’ve studied American legal and American Constitutional history since the fourth grade.”

(My emphasis.) Get your attention? It got mine.

It gets better.

I told Mary afterwards, I said “If I’d had that class at Princeton or Duke or Stanford,” I said, “I would’ve come home and told you ‘It’s a great class!'” I said, “These are High School students!” So we told the same story that night at the dinner where the Provost was. He said, “Well, it’s, it’s. . . That’s true. But the other thing they didn’t mention; we can’t say anything good about the Communists – they wrecked us for probably a hundred years – but there was one fallout of what they did. If you wanted to be a doctor, an architect, an engineer, a physician, you didn’t have the opportunity to go into that profession, so you went into teaching. And for fifty years we had the best teachers in the world, and you’ve seen the product.”

Here we get the George Orwell Daycare Center and High School seniors who wouldn’t recognize the Constitution if someone burned a copy in front of them.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

For over 80 years, teacher education in America has been in the grip of an immutable dogma, responsible for endless educational nonsense. That dogma may be summed up in the phrase: Anything But Knowledge. Schools are about many things, teacher educators say (depending on the decade)—self-actualization, following one’s joy, social adjustment, or multicultural sensitivity—but the one thing they are not about is knowledge. Oh sure, educators will occasionally allow the word to pass their lips, but it is always in a compromised position, as in “constructing one’s own knowledge,” or “contextualized knowledge.” Plain old knowledge, the kind passed down in books, the kind for which Faust sold his soul, that is out. – Heather Mac Donald, Why Johnny’s Teacher Can’t Teach, The Burden of Bad Ideas

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

I came here from the former USSR as a child of eight. I attended first and second grades in the Ukraine. In those two years, I studied a foreign language (French), could write compositions in cursive and did algebra. When I came to the United States, I came to third grade. We were cutting out shapes from construction paper and learning how to tell time by looking at little drawings of clocks. I didn’t start learning a foreign language until seventh grade! In other words, education today and yesterday sucks dog schlong! – Nicki Fellenzer, It’s About Choices, at The Liberty Zone

I wonder what she’d have to say about The George Orwell Daycare Center?

But, But, a College Education is an ENTITLEMENT!

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Mostly Cajun writes about the career opportunities in Louisiana. Read the whole thing, but here’s the key graph:

Entry level positions in many local industries start at twenty bucks an hour. Somebody with a skill and who’s willing to do construction work is valuable. E&I techs (if you have to ask, you ain’t one) do over $30/hour. The downside is that these jobs aren’t the kinds that made the stuff of network sitcoms. You won’t be worrying about suits and ties.

Calcasieu School Board Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Pat Deaville says there are many vocational classes and that they are adding more. But he says many parents resist the idea that their child might not need a four year degree. “Your child, we’re not saying that he shouldn’t go to college but, we have jobs that range from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars, and they don’t go to college, they can be making by the time they’re 20, 21 years old.”

Yep! Hundred K a year, with a couple of years experience and a two-year associate degree or a certificate from a vocational school. Sort of puts that Masters in Medieval Lit. in perspective, doesn’t it?

Indeed.