Hertzberg On Palin's Choice (Pro!)

Perfect, unless you are a right-wingnut-crusader type:

A Choice and an Echo

Via Andrew, here is Kathryn Jean (K-Lo) Lopez, head honcha of National Review Online, explaining why Governor Palin is her leader:

What is it about Sarah?

For many folks on the Right, she represented an influx of social conservatism in the campaign. All she had to do was arrive at the scene with her son Trig to demonstrate her pro-life bona fides. Some estimated 90 percent of Americans faced with the knowledge that they might give birth to a child with Down Syndrome wouldn’t have made the choice she and her husband, Todd, did to let the child live.

I detect some assumptions here. (1) Palin’s carrying Trig to term was a choice. (2) The choice was hers and her husband’s to make, not God’s or the government’s. (3) She deserves praise for having chosen the choice she chose.

But if Palin (and Lopez) were truly “pro-life”—if they truly believed that abortion, especially elective abortion in the first trimester, is murder or at least unjustifiable homicide—then having Trig was not a choice. It was a simple matter of obedience to God’s law, which is infinitely more sacrosanct than man’s law. Palin no more deserves praise for it than I deserve praise for not having lately gunned down any friends, colleagues, or strangers.

What this demonstrates is that even in the minds of anti-abortion zealots, abortion is now implicitly viewed in the same light as divorce: an unfortunate choice, a reprehensible choice, a choice that may even contravene the will of God, but still a choice. And, again implicitly, the choice that Sarah Palin had every right to make. In both directions.

This is why, even if Roe v. Wade is eventually overturned, it will always be legal to get an abortion somewhere in the United States of America.

Eat The Rich

Look at this:

Merrill Lynch & Co. paid its chief executives the most, with Stanley O'Neal taking in $172 million from 2003 to 2007 and John Thain getting $86 million, including a signing bonus, after beginning work in December. The company agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for about $50 billion on Sept. 15. Bear Stearns Cos.'s James ``Jimmy'' Cayne made $161 million before the company collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in June.

Now go read the whole thing.

What If There Were No Toys?

Kids used to play. Now they seem to compete with objects bought for them. It is disappointing. Here is a little ditty pointing out how kids morphed from imaginative to needy.

Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills

by Alix Spiegel

Morning Edition, February 21, 2008 ·

On October 3, 1955, the Mickey Mouse Club debuted on television. As we all now know, the show quickly became a cultural icon, one of those phenomena that helped define an era.

What is less remembered but equally, if not more, important, is that another transformative cultural event happened that day: The Mattel toy company began advertising a gun called the "Thunder Burp."

I know — who's ever heard of the Thunder Burp?

Well, no one.

The reason the advertisement is significant is because it marked the first time that any toy company had attempted to peddle merchandise on television outside of the Christmas season. Until 1955, ad budgets at toy companies were minuscule, so the only time they could afford to hawk their wares on TV was during Christmas. But then came Mattel and the Thunder Burp, which, according to Howard Chudacoff, a cultural historian at Brown University, was a kind of historical watershed. Almost overnight, children's play became focused, as never before, on things — the toys themselves.

"It's interesting to me that when we talk about play today, the first thing that comes to mind are toys," says Chudacoff. "Whereas when I would think of play in the 19th century, I would think of activity rather than an object."

Chudacoff's recently published history of child's play argues that for most of human history what children did when they played was roam in packs large or small, more or less unsupervised, and engage in freewheeling imaginative play. They were pirates and princesses, aristocrats and action heroes. Basically, says Chudacoff, they spent most of their time doing what looked like nothing much at all.

"They improvised play, whether it was in the outdoors… or whether it was on a street corner or somebody's back yard," Chudacoff says. "They improvised their own play; they regulated their play; they made up their own rules."

But during the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff argues, play changed radically. Instead of spending their time in autonomous shifting make-believe, children were supplied with ever more specific toys for play and predetermined scripts. Essentially, instead of playing pirate with a tree branch they played Star Wars with a toy light saber. Chudacoff calls this the commercialization and co-optation of child's play — a trend which begins to shrink the size of children's imaginative space.

But commercialization isn't the only reason imagination comes under siege. In the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff says, parents became increasingly concerned about safety, and were driven to create play environments that were secure and could not be penetrated by threats of the outside world. Karate classes, gymnastics, summer camps — these create safe environments for children, Chudacoff says. And they also do something more: for middle-class parents increasingly worried about achievement, they offer to enrich a child's mind.

Change in Play, Change in Kids

Clearly the way that children spend their time has changed. Here's the issue: A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids' cognitive and emotional development.

It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.

We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning says, the results were very different.

"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."

Sad because self-regulation is incredibly important. Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn. As executive function researcher Laura Berk explains, "Self-regulation predicts effective development in virtually every domain."

The Importance of Self-Regulation

According to Berk, one reason make-believe is such a powerful tool for building self-discipline is because during make-believe, children engage in what's called private speech: They talk to themselves about what they are going to do and how they are going to do it.

"In fact, if we compare preschoolers' activities and the amount of private speech that occurs across them, we find that this self-regulating language is highest during make-believe play," Berk says. "And this type of self-regulating language… has been shown in many studies to be predictive of executive functions."

And it's not just children who use private speech to control themselves. If we look at adult use of private speech, Berk says, "we're often using it to surmount obstacles, to master cognitive and social skills, and to manage our emotions."

Unfortunately, the more structured the play, the more children's private speech declines. Essentially, because children's play is so focused on lessons and leagues, and because kids' toys increasingly inhibit imaginative play, kids aren't getting a chance to practice policing themselves. When they have that opportunity, says Berk, the results are clear: Self-regulation improves.

"One index that researchers, including myself, have used… is the extent to which a child, for example, cleans up independently after a free-choice period in preschool," Berk says. "We find that children who are most effective at complex make-believe play take on that responsibility with… greater willingness, and even will assist others in doing so without teacher prompting."

Despite the evidence of the benefits of imaginative play, however, even in the context of preschool young children's play is in decline. According to Yale psychological researcher Dorothy Singer, teachers and school administrators just don't see the value.

"Because of the testing, and the emphasis now that you have to really pass these tests, teachers are starting earlier and earlier to drill the kids in their basic fundamentals. Play is viewed as unnecessary, a waste of time," Singer says. "I have so many articles that have documented the shortening of free play for children, where the teachers in these schools are using the time for cognitive skills."

It seems that in the rush to give children every advantage — to protect them, to stimulate them, to enrich them — our culture has unwittingly compromised one of the activities that helped children most. All that wasted time was not such a waste after all.

(And some suggestions:)

Your Questions on Kids & Play

Organizing play for kids has never seemed like more work. But researchers Adele Diamond and Deborah Leong have good news: The best kind of play costs nothing and really only has one main requirement — imagination.

Here, they answer your questions about play.

Better Ways to Play
Self-regulation is a critical skill for kids. Unfortunately, most kids today spend a lot of time doing three things: watching television, playing video games and taking lessons. None of these activities promote self-regulation.

We asked for alternatives from three researchers: Deborah Leong, professor of psychology at Metropolitan State College of Denver, Elena Bodrova, senior researcher with Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning, and Laura Berk, professor of psychology at Illinois State University.

Here are their suggestions:

Simon Says: Simon Says is a game that requires children to inhibit themselves. You have to think and not do something, which helps to build self-regulation.

Complex Imaginative Play: This is play where your child plans scenarios and enacts those scenarios for a fair amount of time, a half-hour at a minimum, though longer is better. Sustained play that last for hours is best. Realistic props are good for very young children, but otherwise encourage kids to use symbolic props that they create and make through their imaginations. For example, a stick becomes a sword.

Activities That Require Planning: Games with directions, patterns for construction, recipes for cooking, for instance.

Joint Storybook Reading: "Reading storybooks with preschoolers promotes self-regulation, not just because it fosters language development, but because children's stories are filled with characters who model effective self-regulatory strategies," says researcher Laura Berk.

She cites the classic example of Watty Piper's The Little Engine That Could, in which a little blue engine pulling a train of toys and food over a mountain breaks down and must find a way to complete its journey. The engine chants, "I think I can. I think I can. I think I can," and with persistence and effort, surmounts the challenge.

Encourage Children to Talk to Themselves: "Like adults, children spontaneously speak to themselves to guide and manage their own behavior," Berk says. "In fact, children often use self-guiding comments recently picked up from their interactions with adults, signaling that they are beginning to apply those strategies to themselves.

"Permitting and encouraging children to be verbally active — to speak to themselves while engaged in challenging tasks — fosters concentration, effort, problem-solving, and task success." — Alix Spiegel

Tolerance And Diversity: Trouble?

Here is an essay (from the Council for Secular Humanism) about some pitfalls one encounters in the "diversity/tolerance" pedagogy. I agree with most of it, though some of you may find it a bit too critical. In my classroom I have seen how exposure does not necessarily impart good feeling about others. My take on diversity is like my take on most things; you must be smart enough to see the forest for the trees.

Doubts about Celebrating Diversity
By Kenneth R. Stunkel

We like to believe that colleges and universities are unique sanctuaries for critical inquiry and mostly logical thinking and that academics resist unexamined, foolish beliefs as a professional responsibility. As an example of how shaky these assumptions have become in an atmosphere charged with political correctness, I cite my own university. A statement from the president's office has put faculty and students on notice that all beliefs are to be acknowledged and respected, and that "socially constructed" differences are to be acknowledged and celebrated. Well-meant as all this may sound, apparently, no one thought out the implications of these injunctions, had doubts about their wisdom, or raised objections. This essay attempts to do all three by focusing on an irrational, unhealthy phenomenon in higher education that has become insistent and pervasive. American pluralism and egalitarianism have merged with identity mania, the self-esteem movement, and postmodern indeterminacy to produce a seemingly fine, idealistic notion—a celebration of differences between peoples and cultures. Diversity as a celebration must not be confused with diversity as a redress of historic inequities through just representation of women and minorities in the public life of opportunity, work, and study. Nor is it about enjoying a harmless variety of taste, style, demeanor, or aesthetic experience, as when people unlike one another in small ways (as most people are) assemble to hear an African poet or to sample cuisines at an international food festival. And on the most trivial level, the issue is not fashion anomalies like students wearing rings in their noses, eyebrows, and tongues.

The Cult of Differences

At issue is a sometimes overt but more commonly hidden assumption that differences are better and more fundamental than similarities. The idea is not new. The first theorist and champion of incommensurable cultural diversity was Johann Gottlieb Herder, who flourished near the close of the eighteenth century and argued for cultural nationalism and the accepting of differences based on a common heritage of language and custom. In the Middle Ages, nominalists and realists debated whether individual things are more real than any similarities they may share. The tension between differences and similarities is my theme as well, but what I have in mind is an inflated status for ethnicity, not physical differences of race or gender, which are unavoidable and given. Ethnicity implies traditions, beliefs, and practices rather than the anthropology of physical appearance or differences of reproductive anatomy. Academic paeans to ethnicity claim that cultural differences between groups merit spontaneous admiration. The questionable premise is that traditions, beliefs, and practices in all their ethnic and historical profusion self-authenticate their claims to truth, beauty, and goodness. Not only must all the "voices" be heard, whatever they come up with must be treated with respect, since no voice has less or more significance than any other. From this hyper-tolerant perspective, it is not good enough in a pluralistic society to cultivate forbearance or to be content with provisional civility extended to differences of belief, experience, and cultural background. Open-ended diversity is thrust upon us as a positive object of obligatory good feeling. Acceptance of differing outlooks, behavior, habits, customs, and values must be enthusiastic to ward off intolerance and confirm difference as virtue.

For converts to this doctrine of good feeling about differences, the more differences the better and all differences are equal in a spirit of radical democracy. Without an abundance of diversity, sanctified by parity, there would be no cause for revelry. A dictionary (Merriam-Webster's) defines the word celebrate along a continuum from the sacred ("to perform a sacrament") to the secular ("to hold up or play up for public notice"). A generic slant on celebration suggests a receptive attitude in which all sense of discomfort about differences is sponged away. Doubt about the value of diversity is tantamount to outright intolerance, hateful perversity, or lamentable backwardness. If any fragment of difference should provoke indifference, dislike, outrage, skepticism, or resistance, the suspicious party may face quarantine for sensitivity therapy or slip into disrepute as a reactionary. Despite these risks of dissent, I invite some reflection on the pitfalls and limitations of celebrating diversity.

The Price of Ethnicity

However one may react to various cultural practices and beliefs, it is not self-evident that diversity is either good or bad, which holds for similarity as well. Good judgment about what is desirable or not requires historical and social context and invites cautious reflection about consequences. Non-Western traditions have viewed social and cultural differences as little more than blunt facts of life, inviting exclusion, repression, or degrees of accommodation. Celebration has never been an issue. In many countries with an ethnic mix, plain, old toleration ("live and let live") is something of a miracle. Consciousness of kind, however minor the criteria for better or worse, is the mortar that binds people into cohesive groups, until education or wider perspectives crack the mold. Such bonds have the functional purpose of promoting social harmony. Should ethnic differences intervene with consciousness of kind, the outcome might be harmless enough, but it can also be disastrous. Who can argue credibly that diversity has been good for Hutu and Tutsi, Albanian and Serbian, Israeli and Palestinian? At the right historical moment, relatively unimpressive differences of tradition, perception, and interest have triggered mutual persecution and slaughter, with no sense of a common humanity that ought to take precedence over narrow tribal or ethnic identities. The historical reality is that differences have seldom been acknowledged and tolerated, much less celebrated.

The contemporary prevalence of ethnic and tribal conflict suggests it is unrealistic, irrational, and dangerous to embrace difference as an absolute good. Unqualified diversity can be as oppressive as unqualified uniformity. A decision about where to draw the line normally occurs in practice rather than theory. Nevertheless, some obvious antinomies come to mind. A patriarchal status system in which rights are gender specific, for example, is incompatible with a gender-neutral system of equality before the law. Where a gulf between competing values is less dramatic and more bridgeable, to want celebration on top of judicious, humane accommodation invites caution. Sharing the same country and history does not prevent nasty conflicts between secular and orthodox Jews in Israel. Irish Protestants and Catholics present the same spectacle of minor differences adding up to serious conflict. Across the globe, there are peoples sharing the same land and history who are eager to kill one another, like Muslims and Hindus in Kashmir, or Muslims and Muslims in Iraq.

Cultural differences can proliferate with no thought whatever of common interests. A spectacular example at hand is in Indonesia, where one tiny island out of some 17,000 (called Alor) has 140,000 people divided into fifty tribes, speaking nearly as many tongues in seven language groups. Agreement on anything touching the common good is understandably difficult. Imagine a school system in Alor trying to be "ethnically sensitive" while also laboring to impart a shared foundation of knowledge, goals, and commitments. The sensible option in modern pluralistic societies is to ask how much and what kinds of difference to accommodate before consensus becomes impossible and the social order devolves into an incoherent sheet of sand. Much the same can be said for multicultural curricula in schools and colleges, which have overwhelmed any sense of standards and coherence in many places. Eagerness to promote and vindicate diversity is usually indifferent to the social unity needed to keep a school system or a curriculum afloat.

Irreconcilable Values

Celebration of diversity in general makes it difficult to stand for anything in particular. Postmodernists, who claim that truth, meaning, and reality fluctuate with the rise and fall of individual and group perspectives and interests, exploit messy historical facts of irreconcilable or warring differences. Allegedly, no impartial viewpoint is available (a caveat that logically must include postmodern doctrines) to judge the adequacy of "stories" or "narratives" by which minds and bodies are connected to the world. A consequence of unlimited pluralism as a higher good is the demolition of shared purpose in a common world that nullifies any plausible idea of universal human rights. When a bill of particulars is requested, inclusive diversity clashes with familiar notions of impartial justice, fairness, compassion, and rationality. An appeal to human rights assumes the existence of needs and interests embedded in a human identity that takes precedence over lesser identities defined by narrow categories of race, class, gender, and ethnicity.

The world is and always has been a playground for incompatible, mutually hostile value systems. Mormons would be practicing polygamy openly as part of their religion if they had not emerged as a minority in a monogamous society. The Taliban in Afghanistan was persuaded by religious conviction to dispatch adulterous women by stoning them to death. In Morocco and Iran, a Muslim who converts to another faith is severely punished. There are still societies in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa that accept and practice human bondage, the favorite commodities being women and children. How are such cultural practices to be evaluated simultaneously from the perspective of human rights and the blanket imperatives of diversity?

Should an ethnic attachment to astrology be included as a legitimate discipline in college curricula because politicians and bureaucrats in India submit decisions bearing on public issues to readings of the stars? Should tribal shamans be licensed to practice "alternative" medicine? In postmodern jargon, is not one scientific or medical "narrative" as good as another? Japanese identity is still defined markedly by a code of duty and obligation to a group, and the Japanese are notably ethnocentric, acutely aware that someone is a foreigner (gaijin). The Western preference, traceable to the eighteenth century's Enlightenment, is for liberty and expression of the individual in a spirit of tolerant cosmopolitanism. Are both options to be celebrated equally without a murmur of skepticism? Lewis Mumford argued that all cultures and civilizations can be judged by a simple criterion—to what extent are autonomy and unimpeded development of the person respected and nurtured? In other words, do beliefs and practices of a culture enhance possibilities of human life or diminish them? If such a standard resonates, where does that leave Islam with regard to the status of women?

Learning about the "Other"

Ideological pluralists assume that education is the royal path to happy as well as peaceful diversity. Let us better understand other peoples and cultures, goes the argument, so that non-Western "voices" are heard impartially and all identities surface to stand as equals. In secondary and higher education, this belief has been codified as doctrine, but is loaded with impediments. Any teacher wanting a curriculum to mirror diversity faces an insuperable and value-laden problem of selection. Some five thousand ethnic groups are scattered across some two hundred nations, and America hosts around ninety ethnic enclaves. In educational venues, which are to be represented or left out, since no one has time or knowledge to include all of them? If differences are equal, what is the principle of choice? Is not choosing one over the other arbitrary bias and discrimination? And where in a course of study does one find relief from ethnic exposition and celebration to address priorities like reading and writing, geography and mathematics, history and science?

The root fallacy is to think that mere exposure to unfamiliar cultural traditions will promote sympathy and understanding. It may or may not, depending on depth of exposure, a recipient's aptitude, and what ends up being understood and assimilated. Toleration in the ethnic domain is not an inevitable result of understanding. Really knowing the ways and thoughts of non-Western cultures, as opposed to brushing against sanitized versions of them, may have the opposite effect and stimulate dislike. Whatever an individual takes away from cursory reading, group confessionals, show-and-tell sessions, or field trips is likely to be shallow, ephemeral, and misleading. Even if a modicum of interest results from selective exposure, it does not follow that understanding has been achieved.

Every cultural tradition has a grim, murky side that discourages celebration. Censorship of the bad stuff to avoid offending someone invites deficient understanding and later disillusionment. The more some of us understand the social basis for the widespread African practice of vaginal mutilation of young girls to protect their virtue, the more we dislike and oppose it. The Muslim practice of secluding and controlling women is hard to tolerate much less celebrate. Some teachers indirectly praise Aztec culture because it was "victimized" by predatory Europeans, but conveniently ignore brutal Aztec imperialism in old Mexico. An appreciation of Aztec temple architecture is shallow without an understanding that thousands of people had their hearts cut out at the top in religious ceremonies that culminated with bodies tumbling down the steep steps. Full understanding of what the structures were used for makes appreciation more difficult and ambiguous. Indeed, a full understanding that Aztec practices centered on propitiation of bloody, improbable deities might well induce disgust and alienation.

There is a price for understanding other cultural traditions: investment of time and effort, an immersion in chores of hard study that contemporary students resent and evade. Submission to historical settings and absorption in difficult texts are unavoidable conditions for real understanding. The imperfect but attainable attitude of suspended judgment supported by deep knowledge is sine qua non. Alien terms must be mastered. Islam cannot be understood without the Qur'an or Hinduism without the Vedas, nor can words like Sharia, jihad, Shi'ite, karma, Shaivite, and puja be ignored. Convictions and teachings in either case are not grapes plucked effortlessly from a vine, and complications abound. Quite apart from barriers to understanding ways of thinking associated with Confucian China or Buddhist Thailand, life and ideas in the West can be as mystifying in some historical periods as anything gleaned from the anthropologist's notebook. Medieval scholasticism and Renaissance kabbalism, at least in my experience, mystify and befuddle students as much as Hindu Vedanta or the Daoist yin and yang.

Humanity versus Ethnicity

If the idea of universal human rights is taken seriously, then an excess of conflicting social and cultural differences become impediments to their realization. The sociologist Karl Mannheim observed long ago that no society could expect a shared system of coherent values without a process for their creation, dissemination, reconciliation, and assimilation. Such a process in American institutional life, particularly higher education, has been notably weak; it has also been rejected outright by an assortment of ideologues in the past quarter century. The task for American democracy is to secure and sustain an accommodation between diversity and the shared beliefs and commitments that define a society and a nation. If a tradition of universal human rights transcends local ethnic traditions, ethnic diversity without limits or interference will have to yield.

A plausible aim of enlightened education is to lift people above their parochial roots to a larger view of the world, to help them transcend limitations of birth and upbringing, to hasten their liberation from shuttered windows of race, class, gender, and ethnicity. Diversity ideology supplies instead a melancholy determination of schools, scholarship, and public rhetoric to herd people more deeply into a cul-de-sac of glorified particularity. Another aim of good education is critical thinking, which was once a distinguishing mark of the academy. The fate of that ideal is ironic and bizarre. On the one hand, criticism has become a form of intellectual suicide in which "theories" like deconstruction and social construction set out to level everything in sight and end with self-immolation on their own dead-end premises. On the other hand, academic multiculturalists insist that questioning beliefs, values, and practices of the "other," whatever they may be, much less rejecting them, is "insensitive" and "intrusive." Criticism is tantamount to intolerance.

A rare spirit of criticism was codified in the Enlightenment, which flourished only once before in the Greek world, from the sixth to the fourth centuries b.c.e. Its goals were to expose errors and make way for unexpected truths. In our postmodern euphoria, radical pluralists deny the existence of truths that make us free (while, of course, claiming or implying that a truth has been enunciated). Truth is rejected as a form of bondage, because it implies whatever may be true is true for all. The present surrogate for truth is diversity. It is sad that a quintessentially European ideal like diversity is in conflict with the ideal of criticism, which requires argument and evidence to support any belief. On Enlightenment premises, all views and ways of life cannot be admitted as equals. No belief or practice, however sacred or wedded to group or individual self-esteem, is immune from examination. It is intellectual and moral cowardice to refrain from responsible criticism on the ground that offense may be taken. The discomfort of being offended is a consequence of living in a complex world while holding questionable or unsupportable beliefs. It is also a risk associated with getting a decent education and growing up (no more Tooth Fairy). It is an inevitable consequence of encountering points of view and ways of life that cannot or do not want to be reconciled. Indiscriminate "celebration" is incompatible with critical thinking.

No matter how one cuts it, tension and conflict will surface when incompatible value systems confront issues of belief and action in public life. The best hope lies in selective accommodation of differences guided by modest expectations anchored to a core of shared convictions sheltered by common sense and open to criticism. These realities about diversity are widely evaded and denied in higher education, where a dreary scene of identity seeking is being played out in exclusive, solipsistic groups, each claiming a unique version of meaning, truth, and reality, each contributing to an impenetrable social babble, all of it stoutly defended by uncritically idealistic academics—but also by campus zealots and block wardens on the lookout for heresy.

An uninformed, unsuspecting student body, awash in diversity rhetoric and pedagogy, maneuvered by solemn, earnest action plans shaped by diversity ideologues, might be led to think that ethnic violence and hatred, alive and readily visible around the world, has nothing to do with ethnicity and its inherent premise of exclusiveness.

Kenneth Stunkel is a professor of history at Monmouth University in New Jersey.

The Drug War: We're Losing

Do you think we have a drug problem in the U.S.? Well, we do. Too many of us get arrested for smoking pot (well, not me), but take all kinds of mind-altering drugs prescribed by our doctors. McCain apparently loves Ambien. Which is the bigger problem?

Watch this, then tell me...

Principals: God's Gift To Teachers?

Over at LeaderTalk there is a post by Chris Hitch (not Hitchens) on how to handle the prima donna teacher. Basically, if a principal has a teacher who's students consistently do well, but rubs the principal the wrong way, the principal should fire the teacher. Hmmm. I think principals, for the good teacher, are a hindrance, not a help. Read this ridiculous screed with the 4 comments here, and the article only below the fold.

Handling Prima Dons (and Donnas)

I had a colleague in a school ask me about how to handle a prima don on his staff. He feels he is being held hostage by this individual. The individual is loved by parents, does great things with his students, is creative in the classroom, and get his students (all of their students) to perform at their best. He's also also cranky, arrogant, and think the rules apply to everybody else but him. This summer, the prima don may implicitly (or explicitly) say that if things don’t go his way, he will leave the school.

I suggested two filters to use at the outset-I had my suggestions, which you'll see below but I am quite curious about what readers of this blog suggest instead of or in addition to what I've suggested.

1. Ethics and Policy: If the person is violating any ethical canons or school board policy, you have no choice but to confront and quickly use whatever disciplinary measures you have to in accordance with your local and state policies and procedures. It’s one thing for a teacher to care about the children under her supervision or for a technology teacher to show how streaming video websites work, it is an entirely different matter for her to dispense pain medications or temporarily disable your system’s website filtering system without following your district policies. Whether the person is teacher of the year or a family member of the school board chair, you have to handle this person in the exact same manner as any other employee.

2. Consistent High Performance: All three of these words matter. If the person is not giving you consistent high performance, then you have a much easier decision-cut them no slack and look for removal, dismissal or nonrenewal. If you have a person who is rude to everybody and doesn’t do a good job, you are under no obligation to keep them around. We’d suggest that each time you work with a prima donna, you think through whether the person is still exhibiting consistent high performance.

A. Find the combination: While many prima donnas exhibit the same annoying and destructive behavior, they generally have different sets of needs. Some may need additional “air time” to demonstrate their superior knowledge and intellect. Others may want public recognition for the work they have done. Still others may want to be perceived as a “power player” by being asked to serve on a district level committee. By looking for what you see that they want, you have a tool that you can use to help leverage better behavior from them.

B Build a wall: Prima donnas know they are good and some may simply want to be left alone. If your prima donna simply wants to be left alone, put their expertise to use on a lone ranger project that aligns with your strategic goals and they don’t have to spend time in what they consider wasted time in endless meetings.

OR

Build a fence: If your prima donna loves the limelight, and wants to be perceived as a leader, have them lead a committee, but with conditions. Your conversation may go like this. “I’m glad you’ve agreed to lead this committee. Remember that one of the key aspects of this committee is to get a set of recommendations that that everybody will buy in to. You’ve got a lot of skill and talent and your perspective is valuable. One of the areas that will be important for you to focus upon is building upon the ideas of everybody in the group. What ideas do you have to make sure that everybody is listened to and heard?” When the prima donna pushes back, you have an opening to discuss how their skills in this committee can help increase their credibility with the others on the team not only for her specific skills but also being perceived as someone who listens to others.

3. Ensure accountability: You can certainly include high performance in the interpersonal realm as well. If one of your key values is client service and you have individuals who are rude and inconsiderate to others (internally and externally), you have to have this conversation with the prima donna. Point out that he runs the risk of alienating and distancing himself from others with his actions. Serving as a mirror to his behaviors serves as a start to demonstrate the linkage between his behavior and the actions and behaviors you want from him.

4. Check the “will”: You have to make the determination whether the prima donna is acting the way he is because of his interest in improving your school or if he is simply castigating you because he doesn’t like anybody telling him what to do or actively undercutting what you are trying to achieve. If, in your conversations, you find out that the individual thinks there is a better way to do this, you should certainly listen. On the other hand, if he is doing end runs, generating rumors, and generally trying to undermine you and what you are doing, you have an entirely different (and we hope, quick) resolution to the issue.

What other suggestions do you have in place of or in addition to what I have noted?
Chris

What a tool! This moron's first mistake is thinking that principals help teachers teach. They don't. They don't have time, and many, mine included, have no teaching experience in the grade level they are principal for (my principal was a middle school English teacher, now she is principal of an elementary school, and has to be taught what younger children need).

The second mistake Chris the principal makes is thinking that teachers want principal input. We don't (unless the principal is a great teacher, which we wouldn't know)! And that does not mean we don't want our students, school, colleagues, or district to succeed. We just want to be the professionals that we are, and do our job without hindrance, unnecessary committee responsibilities, and fear of reprisal from power-hungry, career-minded principals.

This screed by principal Hitch should be looked at as part of the problem in education; professional teachers being reviewed, retained, or fired by folks whose mission it is to foster conformity to a norm not yet affirmed, in a desire to wrest control of education away from those who provide it--teachers! Reminds me of HMO's power over doctors, which is waning. When will principal overwroughtness wane?

NCLB Smackdown! Ouch!

I don't know how I got there, but I ended up at cleveland.com reading some reactions to a pseudo-letter published in the Clevelnad Plain Dealer. It is an apology from a principal to his constituents (yeah, the parents, students and teachers) for having to shortchange everyone in favor of testing. I guess it's a little over-the-top, but it makes the point rather well.

Anyway, at the site I ended up at, cleveland.com, the general feeling among the commenters was that the principal is a wimp, shamed the district, and should just shut the fuck up. Commenters go on and on about how schools and teachers are paid for with tax dollars, so the public should get more for their money, blah, blah, blah. This is the "Government School" crowd who can't wait to privatize education. I guess they don't realize privatizing it won't help, but whatever.

Now to the point of this post. One commenter decided to put into words something I have tried to say many times. I have seen versions of this in the past, but this comment is solid.

To all who have commented:

It seems evident from the majority who have responded that accountability of taxpayers' dollars is of paramount importance. I too don't want my taxes wasted, so let's improvise a bit. Education deals with the human condition as opposed to industries based on the production or servicing of inanimate objects. Perhaps we could curtail tax waste by uplifting the "No Child Left Behind" education law as a model for tax dollar accountability in other societal based endeavors receiving federal money of any sort. (Please remember, NCLB call for 100% student proficiency by 2014)

Given a 10 year deadline, police will eliminate 100 percent of all crime in local communities. Officers and administrators will face termination if significant progress isn't made over three-year intervals during the decade.

Given a 10 year deadline, established organizations whose purpose is to counter drug abuse will eliminate substance abuse with 100 percent efficiency within their jurisdiciton. Agents of such organizations (counselors, DEA personnel, law enforcement officials) will be terminated if significant reduction in drug abuse is registered over three year intervals during the decade.

Given a 10 year deadline, all medical practitioners and hospitals who accept Medicare payments will achieve a 100 percent recovery rate of their patients or be denied all future Medicare patients. (Practitioners deemed ineffective by the 100 percent criterion in publicly funded hospitals will be terminated.)

Given a 10 year deadline, all universities receiving federal funding (or accepting students with outstanding federal education loans) will achieve a 100 percent graduation rate. If the graduation rate does not make significant improvement over three-year intervals, identified professors from ineffective departments will be terminated.

In each of the preceding examples progress rates will be published on a regular basis in local newspapers keeping the public abreast on whose doing the best job with the public's (federal) money.

I am sure we can agree that "data-driven" proficiency/efficiency plans are the way to go to get maximum mileage from our tax dollars. They provide simple answers for very complex issues.

Yeah! If we are going to hold teachers accountable, after all, they are paid with public money, we should hold all the public employees accountable! So let's pay that rude DMV representative more money if she can plow through more vehicle registrations than her coworkers! Who cares about fairness when we can have accountability!!!!

Let's not forget Jay P Greene! He has a line by line takedown of the letter by the principal. He is just so horrible!

Shakesville: Most Hypocritical Site Ever? Updated!

(This is a re post of the other one. The comments are gone, though it was only 2 of us. I will try to recover them. Shouldn't blog with the kids.)comment recovered

Over at Shakesville they are ripping a movie promo about father's rights. Now, admittedly, the trailer is awful. The acting is bad, there's too much gratuitous sex and violence, and the whole thing just looks bad.

The problem, though, is not with the trailer. It is the non-nonchalance with which The Sister herself trivializes the very real problem facing parents who enter family court; especially stand-up fathers. Here is McEwan:

A word of warning to anyone considering the old "my cousin's best friend's brother's wife is a crazy bitch who won't let him see his kid and he's honestly a good guy I swear and his kid is dying to see him but she's totally a crazy bitch and did I mention she's a crazy bitch?" routine: Great. Good for him and shame on her, if it's true [emphasis mine].

Remember the shit Hillary got when she said Obama was not a Muslim, as far as she knew?
Well, here we have McEwan doing the same thing to good fathers. According to her post, McEwan seems to think the notion of a good father is nearly impossible; so nearly impossible that anyone claiming to know a good father (who is also the victim of a bat-shit crazy female partner) should be derided, blown-off, and doubted.

I have had the pleasure of commenting on the blog over there, and let me tell you, that is one intolerant community. I check them out weekly, and usually find something interesting. This one today though, struck a cord. Probably because I am one of those men who had to fight for every second I got with my son, who now lives mostly with me (not because his mom is a crazy bitch, but because the judge realized that my son deserved BOTH parents, and due to our schedules, that's how it worked out--which should be the default setting for conciliation/family courts, but it's not).

The courts are not family friendly. They deal with the worst of society, and that is how they are set up to run. The courts make assumptions about the population it serves, and, apparently, it serves a population of crappy fathers. The only problem is, we are not all crappy fathers. In fact, some of us good fathers, whose children have good mothers, are frequently sold short in court by requiring we pay for all attorney's fees (because we are men?), pay for a long-cause hearing, pay for psychological evaluations (to rule out "?") and be happy with visitation. VISITATION? You want me to VISIT my child?

Look shakers, you have your niche where you point out every misogynist, sexist, ...ist thing you can find. Great. How about you do a little digging into this father's rights thing and see, if just maybe, we are not all trying to get custody of our children so we can beat them. Douchebags!

(Maybe The Frustrated Lawyer will chime in?)

UPDATE: Here is what I think is a comment representative of Shakesville. It is from the thread about the above mentioned item:

Molly, NYC
" . . . she's totally a crazy bitch and did I mention she's a crazy bitch?" routine: Great. Good for him and shame on her, if it's true.

Rule of thumb: In any he-said-she-said argument, unless she's clearly in the aluminum-foil-hat brigade, if he starts impugning her sanity, he's lying through his teeth.

Then came a levelheaded comment that was met with derision:

closette
Bad acting, bad script from what I can tell, and I've no idea who the intended audience is meant to be (unless they're imprisoned in some kind of right-wing Christian compound and not allowed outside).

But it doesn't mean that there is no systemic bias against fathers in Family Court, unless you really believe that MOST fathers are undeserving of more than a few days a month with their children. Yes, that is the norm (otherwise why caution against too many anecdotes?). Also you'll find a selection effect in groups - more women screwed over among feminists, and more men screwed over among MRAs. No surprise there.

Conversely, the few cases where a real (i.e. not just alleged) 'bad dad" gets custody seem to be anomalies due to the system's incompetence, nepotism and cronyism. All the same, they are signs that the whole system needs to be reformed way from perpetuating itself by its "winner takes all" approach.

By the way, I suspect that its balding male judges, not "feminists", who are hardest on fathers, combining a toxic mix of political correctness and good old-fashioned chivalry to "help the [helpless, childlike] woman". It will be interesting to see how they handle lesbian custody battles in the future.

But Starfoxy couldn't agree with such sense-making gibberish:

Starfoxy

But it doesn't mean that there is no systemic bias against fathers in Family Court, unless you really believe that MOST fathers are undeserving of more than a few days a month with their children.

This assumes that custody is awarded based on what the parents 'deserve' which isn't and should not be the case. Custody should be awarded in ways that best meet the needs of the kids, and in a divorce kids do best with continuity. That means that if mom was doing 90% of the caregiving then she should get [emphasis mine] 90% of the custody because that is what the kid is used to. This is true even if dad is a great guy and totally deserves to spend time with his kids. If fathers want to spend time with their kids after a divorce then they should start the habit before a divorce.

Notice how Starfoxy phrases that; its as if there is some sort of competition, and therefore some handicapping should come into play, regardless of anything outside the time-I-spent-as-opposed-to-the-time-you-spent giving care. That is the only measure. Giving care. Dare I say how do we define that? I wonder how long it will take to bring up breast feeding? Lawn mowing? Money earning? Dish washing? Driving to school? Shall I go on? I think Starfoxy's rubric is a bit nebulous.

Kids deserve their parents. Up until a few years ago in California the law was such that a custodial parent could move to Timbuktu. They changed that and now the custodial parent has to do what the court says is in the best interest of the child. I think it changed in 2004, not sure though. But at least the court recognized that kids deserve their parents, and one parent could not do whatever he/she wants just because there is a custody arrangement. These arrangements are made for myriad reasons, having nothing to do with abuse, or neglect, or not giving the right/equitable amount of care in someone else's eyes. The court now assumes both parents, as opposed to assuming only the mother, will participate in the raising and care giving of their child. Over at Shakesville, they are of the mind that fathers suck, and probably wish the court had not set a new precedent a few years back. Well, my son just asked for dessert, and I don't have any. What do I do?

Here's hoping we get over our stereotypes!

"We Must Guard Against the Acquisition of Unwarranted Influence...

...whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

That first part of Ike's farewell we have not remembered. Unwarranted Influence. Understatement of the year century! Read this.

Definition Of Asshole (Updated)

There's a guy--reporter?--who wrote a piece in Newsweek. Over at Sadly, No! they, um, rip the asshole a brand new asshole! Begin the ripping:

So I tried to escape the toxic levels of wingnuttery this evening by flipping through my roommate’s copy of Newsweek. Amazingly, I flipped to page 36 and found this:

The Truth About Torture

To get a full accounting of how U.S. interrogation methods were used, the president should give those accused of ‘war crimes’ a pass.

By Stuart Taylor Jr. | NEWSWEEK

Dark deeds have been conducted in the name of the United States government in recent years: the gruesome, late-night circus at Abu Ghraib, the beating to death of captives in Afghanistan, and the officially sanctioned waterboarding and brutalization of high-value Qaeda prisoners. Now demands are growing for senior administration officials to be held accountable and punished. Congressional liberals, human-rights groups and other activists are urging a criminal investigation into high-level “war crimes,” including the Bush administration’s approval of interrogation methods considered by many to be torture.

It’s a bad idea. In fact, President George W. Bush ought to pardon any official from cabinet secretary on down who might plausibly face prosecution for interrogation methods approved by administration lawyers.

Go read the rest. There are torture pictures. It is a righteous, foul-mouthed repudiation of Stuart Taylor Jr., aka: Fucking Dick!

UPDATE: A truth commission is starting to sound like the only thing we have a chance of getting. Why, MSM, are you such wimps?

Is It Safe Redux

Over at The Dish Andrew has more on the hypocracy of the Hippocratic oath takers.

Psychologist Marty Seligman has objected to the notion that he "assisted" the torture program of the president in Gitmo and throughout the war on terror. Jane Mayer never actually used that word, others have in describing Mayer's book. No facts in Mayer's book have been disputed by Seligman. Here's Jane's response to his protestation of total innocence of what he became involved with, wittingly or unwittingly:

Professor Seligman’s disavowal actually adds a rather interesting new fact to the story of how the psychology profession played a role in the CIA’s “special” interrogation program. In “The Dark Side,” I established by interviewing him, that he had personally spoken for three hours at the Navy’s SERE School in San Diego, in April of 2002, at a somewhat mysterious confab organized in part by the head of Behavioral Science at the CIA.

This was a pretty crucial moment in the development of America’s secret interrogation and detention program. Abu Zubayda had been captured just weeks before, and the CIA was trying to come up with ways to make him talk. They had no patience for the slow, rapport-building methods used by the FBI, whose role in the case they had just superceded. But what to do? At this very moment, Professor Seligman, it seems, agreed to participate in what he says was an unexplained private high-level CIA meeting, held on the campus of the part of the Navy that runs a secret program emulating torture – the SERE School in San Diego.

Professor Seligman says he has no idea why he was called in from his academic position in Pennsylvania, to suddenly appear at this CIA event. He just showed up and talked for three hours about how dogs, when exposed to horrible treatment, give up all hope, and become compliant. Why the CIA wanted to know about this at this point, he says he never asked. But somehow- and this is what is news as far as I know – Professor Seligman does know that in his audience were the two psychologists who soon after became the key advisers to the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation program: James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. So, Professor Seligman, must have had some contact with them, since he knew they were in his audience. Did he speak with them? What did they talk about?

According to sources close to the FBI, around the same time, one of those psychologists, James Mitchell, showed up where Abu Zubayda was being held, and started talking about Dr. Seligman’s theories of “Learned Helplessness” as shedding useful light on how to coerce Zubayda into talking. Specifically, he spoke of Seligman’s dog experiments, in which random electric shocks broke the dogs’ will to resist. An FBI agent was appalled – pointing out they were dealing with humans, not dogs. But Mitchell said it was “good science” for both.

(Mitchell declined to elaborate on the treatment of Abu Zubayda, when I interviewed him, but admitted he admired Seligman’s work on Learned Helplessness. A lawyer for Mitchell later claimed that he had not tried to apply the theory to detainees. But a colleague, Col. Steve Kleinman, who worked in the SERE program, said Mitchell talked all the time about how Learned Helplessness provided the blueprint for interrogating detainees).

So- did Seligman assist the U.S. Torture program? I am careful not to say so in “The Dark Side,”- I just recount the facts of his odd visit to the SERE school. So- he is not denying anything in my book.

But now that he brings all of this up again, it would be nice if he’d answer a few more questions. What exactly did he think he was doing that day in April of 2002 with the CIA? How did he know who Mitchell and Jessen were, and, what role did he think they were playing at that time? Maybe he was as clueless as he says he was. But, why doesn’t he then tell us know what he thinks of his theories being used in this way? Does he renounce Mitchell and Jessen? Does he think they used psychology immorally? He was the head of the APA- has he ever spoken out about this? Has he ever complained to the CIA about what they did with his science? Time for some more information here...instead of non-denial denials...