Teach Them What to Think, and Maybe Bribe Them Too." Over at National Association of Scholars Ashley Thorne notes in her post that NAS President Peter Wood wrote about the inappropriateness of professors giving students credit for participating in Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign; the NAS post was then picked up by Education News. Reminiscent of the 2008 campaign, the 2012 Obama-Biden "organizing" fellowship application asks applicants if they are students and whether their schools offer credit for such "fellowships." Dissident Prof received notice for this volunteer opportunity from First Lady Michelle Obama.Dissident Prof allies helped spread the word about the bribery scandal at a Georgia State University Teach-In. Minding the Campus posted "
Dissident Prof continues to be amused by all the wailing and handwringing from California even after UC-Davis English professor Scott Herring's dispatch about the real situation regarding the "Reynoso report" on the "Pepper-Spray Incident" was posted. In a bout of hysteria to rival any Victorian's, the campus police chief announced her retirement. She wrote to the Sacramento Bee “I believe in order to start the healing process, this chapter of my life must be closed.” The "scathing report" (and the professor-led mobs of students) led to the Chancellor promising to not ever let such a thing happen again. Prof Herring sardonically predicts a plethora of expensive, tuition-raising programs to promote such "healing." His post was picked up by National Review's Phi Beta Cons blog.
here. Let's hope the reaction to Dissident Prof's expose on student bribery in Georgia is better.In California, it seems that professional activists' ginned-up publicity about accusations of "abuse" from Tobasco sauce spray matter more than the devastating 81-page report by the National Association of Scholars on academic corruption and malfeasance throughout the state's university system. Read the dismissive reply from University of California President
Dissident Prof was happy this week to introduce the first Dissident Student post by Emory University's William Matheson who out-debates Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke.
Most professors aren't happy to see students like Matheson who resist their lessons, and a major focus of such lessons is "racial understanding." In fact, it seems that not only conservative but most students are resistant to relentless efforts to make them racially sensitive. Reporting on a study that showed that by the end of their college years students are less interested in racial issues, Inside Higher Education told the entire story of academia's stake with their headline, "Backwards on Racial Understanding." Dissident Prof, of course, disagrees and sees this as a positive sign of resistance among the young folk. Is there hope for our nation, after all?
The study's authors nonetheless dig in their heals and conclude,
"An implication of these findings for postsecondary institutions with racially diverse campuses is that efforts to broaden students’ racial views should extend beyond multicultural course requirements. Colleges that can take steps that promote environments conducive for cross-race friendship and other forms of positive interaction may have an even greater impact on students’ racial attitudes."
Oh, that probably means more dorm sessions, freshman orientation workshops, speakers, "dialogues," Big Brother posters against "hate," kumbayah sing-alongs and hug-a-thons, and the appointment of directors, assistant-directors, assistant associate directors, etc., of diversity programs because as the study shows: we just haven't been doing enough!
No doubt many efforts will be like this conference on "white privilege," headlining Angela Davis, who in au courant academic fashion focused on the Trayvon Martin case.
The Georgia Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education is working to prevent students from forming their own opinions before college by sponsoring speakers on the topic of "Teaching in a Diverse World" and by linking to the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance site that highlights a teacher fired for providing her students with "authentic learning opportunities" in the form of writing essays about the Trayvon Martin case and then holding a fundraiser, complete with hoodie-clad students. Dissident Prof wonders if any student essays in support of due process would get good grades from this teacher, though.
posed the question, "How should schools respond to the Trayvon Martin controversy and student activism around it?" Notice the answer embedded in the question? It's kind of like all those topic questions for "critical thinkers" in textbooks these days. Dissident Prof believes that rather than "responding" and inspiring "student activism" schools should be teaching their lessons. But before asking, "'What do you think?'", Ms. Downey proffered,Atlanta Journal-Constitution education editor and publicly acknowledged "supporter" of Georgia State College of Education radicals Maureen Downey in her blog
"As a reporter, I believe in civic engagement and wish there was more of it. I have covered far too many city council, school board, zoning, planning, county commission and library board meetings where I was one of 10 people in the audience. We know that corruption flourishes when voters take the position that their elected officials are in charge and there is no need to pay close attention or get involved. More civic education could lead to more civic engagement."
(Or maybe the end result will the same as for all the racial sensitivity programs, with future citizens sitting on their couches eating potato chips (after being force fed broccoli by Michelle Obama in school) on election night.)
And then Ms. Downey continues,
"As a parent and a journalist, I am encouraged when students respond to events in the news. I was delighted a few weeks ago to receive an email from a DeKalb parent about her son’s efforts to protest the hotdogs being served in the school cafeteria. The child had organized a lunch-time boycott of the hot dogs because of his health concerns."
No doubt this student will win many friends among the student body for his introduction of tofu dogs into the menu.
However, multiculturalism these days is not limited to discussions about current events, essay writing, and protest fashion statements, but is being fully integrated into the teaching of all subjects, including math. Much of this is taking place at Georgia State University, whose College of Education website featured students learning about, hold on, "ethnomathematics." With no irony intended, Leah Seupersad, of University Relations, writes in an article titled, "Math beyond the numbers,"
"GSU mathematics education students are taking 'Ethnomathematics and its role in sociocultural traditions' this semester, a unique College of Education course that combines teaching students the relationship between mathematics and culture in the classroom and then allowing them to explore what they are learning about by studying abroad. The class recently spent their spring break vacation in Fez, Morocco, from Feb. 28 to March 6."
Well, of course, such specialized knowledge necessitates a trip to Morocco! And what did these future math teachers observe as an example of "ethnomathematics"?
It's very sophisticated, higher-order thinking for future rocket scientists: "Watching a ceramic tile worker draw a circle using a nail and thread provided [College of Education students] Stephanie Byrd and Lauren Frazier a real world example of how culture and mathematics are connected in Morocco."
Said Byrd, "'I believe that teachers having an ethnomathematics perspective leads to a better understanding of how different cultures influence the development of mathematics.'” (Logic and grammar, not so important.) In Morocco, students learned about "several mathematical ideas that come from cultural activities such as creating calendars, art and decoration, divination and counting schemes."
The mathematical concepts of Moroccan architecture were also studied, namely the 8-pointed star, which has "significance in Islamic traditions." Lest one dismiss this as too elementary, mathematically speaking, not only were 8-pointed stars studied, but so were 12-pointed stars and 24-pointed stars because they have "'social and religious significance.'"
But mathematics is not only a means to understand such highly sophisticated cultures (and presumably help those students incapable because of cultural handicaps to grasp abstract concepts), but it is also a subversive activity. Dissident Prof is sorry she missed this lecture by Rochelle Gutierrez, "professor of curriculum and instruction and Latina/Latino studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign," on "mathematics as a subversive activity." The notice for this April 4 "Research Wednesdays Speakers Series" desribed Gutuierrez thusly,
"Gutierrez’s research focuses on equity in mathematics education, race/class/language issues in teaching and learning mathematics, effective teacher communities and the achievement gap. Her current research projects include teacher community and secondary mathematics teaching in Mexico (for which she received a Fulbright); developing pre-service teachers’ knowledge and disposition to teach mathematics to marginalized students; and using 'Nepantla' as a way to theorize knowledge for teaching."
If only all teachers used 'Neplanta,' students would know their multiplication tables!
Dissident Prof wonders if the future Associate Vice President for Institute Diversity at Georgia Tech will investigate how "marginalized students" are taught mathematics.
Dissident Prof is not too optimistic. She fears that Georgia Tech may somehow justify Black Studies majors, who we are told by the Chronicle of Higher Education, have built upon their predecssors' scholarship and now offer a more "nuanced" study of race, class, and gender.
On the reading and writing front, a Georgetown freshman wrote about how his school--Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy--did not adequately prepare him for college. The "Get Schooled" blog quotes from the young man's Washington Post op-ed:
"I first noticed the gap between me and my classmates after my first writing assignment at Georgetown. In an English class to help prepare incoming freshmen, we were asked to analyze the main character’s development in 'Persepolis,' a graphic memoir about growing up in Tehran during the Iranian revolution. I thought it was an easy assignment. Everyone’s papers were distributed to the class, and it was immediately obvious how mine fell short: I merely summarized the plot of the book without making any real argument. I got a D-minus."
Doubtless, this student wasn't "critical" enough a thinker to digest a graphic (comic book) memoir. As one of those "marginalized students," he perhaps needs to catch up on all the Moroccan multicultural theories that his teachers are learning.
Our institutions of higher learning work hard to reject not only Eurocentric models for writing and mathematics, but also happiness, as Tina Trent describes in her article on the "Pursuit of Happiness Day" celebrations in honor of Thomas Jefferson's birthday on April 13. She unravels the machinations of the movers behind this effort on campuses nationwide and the unhappy intended outcome--a global tax, which of course is needed to implement all this happiness.
Trent also has posted a chilling article on her blog about how George Soros has basically bought all the academic criminilogists.
No doubt, the English professors at Kennesaw will be howling about McCarthyite witch hunts. One of the co-directors of the Marxist conference, Dr. Khalil Elayan, in a most uncollegial manner, refused to share a written version of his paper. Dissident Prof suspects that he had his suspicions that the entire universe would not approve of the tenor and topic of the conference, and that he hoped the conference would go on with little notice except among the sophisticates participating in it. These sophisticates would continue to applaud each other, publish each others' papers, and promote each other to tenured positions, while the unsophisticated taxpaying rubes in Georgia picked up the tab. She's been in enough campus mailrooms and lounges to know how loud the vows of revenge and the gnashing of teeth are now, and how the email lists are just burning up with adroitly phrased ejaculations of indignation at this attack on scholarship, academic freedom, nuanced discourse, and necessary transgressivity. She knows how much--like vampires--they hate exposure to daylight. And that makes her happy.