PS. anyone know where I can cash these dang Soros checks!!?
so is it a lie now? or a lie then? ahhhhh nevermind, i forgot there is no accountability in your world of grandiose delusions
So this crap about professors telling you to leave a class because you disagree is just that, crap - and they're full of it.
People who whine about teachers indoctrinating their kids are basically admitting they are poor parents.
In my early school days, they had a thing called Parent/Teacher Day. My folks attended every one of them, not to get a report on me, rather to size up my teachers. If they didn't like one of my teachers, they'd yank me out of that class.
I don't know about you, but I was beyond being indoctrinated by the time I got to college. I was firmly set in my beliefs and opinions, and I was smart enough to decipher teaching from indoctrinating. I think most college kids are the same.
Matt
From a young age, almost daily, my parents would ask me what I learned in school that day over dinner, and they expected answers. If they didn't agree with what I told them, or if I got something wrong, they'd set me straight. I wonder how many families actually sit down for dinner together these days, let alone discuss what their children are being taught in school. Different times for sure.
Matt
I think anyone who has met my kids would wholeheartedly disagree with you, including a bunch of them on this site. I also have a feeling you are very out of touch with the current state of our public school system. I am at every parent teacher conference, extremely involved in our school, and our community. My kids tell me daily over our nightly family meal gathered around our table about the "indoctrination" that happens in many of their classrooms. It doesn't mean they indoctrinated, it just means the intent is there. The teacher's union does a great job at insuring that it continues when you file complaints as well because guess who supports the union? I have one very conservative daughter and one very liberal one, they make their one choices. You are either naïve or deliberately obtuse with your broad brush bull $#!^ statement..
No doubt some of what you say portrays an accurate picture, OTH, this is an email from a former student, last named removed, that I received a week ago:
Prof Syracuse, It has been almost 8 years since I have taken your economics course at JCCC and I just wanted to reach out and thank you for teaching me so many things beyond economics. I didn't realize until a few years later that I not only learned a great deal about the course that you taught with such enthusiasm, but I learned how to think. This should be a main goal for colleges and universities in addition to the material required for a particular course but unfortunately now I see a lot of universities across the country telling their students what to think instead of how to think for themselves. The times in class where you would ask challenging questions and sometimes play the devils advocate was key for personal and professional growth throughout my career.
I often seek out different views on certain topics to either challenge or solidify what I believe and why. Recently I have heard a lot of debate on capitalism. On one side I hear a lot of young adults vehemently against it on the basis of a more marxist and socialistic ideology with proponents such as Bernie Sanders and the like. And on the other hand hear men like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson that are for capitalism. These are two opposing views and without professors and men like yourselves that taught me not what to think, but how to think, have enabled me to go beyond my own limitations without offense and truly try to understand why I believe what I believe. So thank you sir.
I hope you are doing well and keep up the amazing work you continually do!
Thanks, Nick
I know many others who teach the same way, and are proud their students do not know their political affiliation as they hide it so well. OTH, if a student comes to my office they are "indoctrinated" by this God fearing, country loving, loyal/faithful husband who never misses an opportunity to push free markets, capitalism and democracy, unabashedly I will add:)
I think you missed my point. I believe a child should never get indoctrinated by a teacher, if the parents are doing their job and playing a active role in their education, and in their lives in general.
Obviously, a parent can do everything right, and sometimes their kids still don't turn how they'd hoped for. That's just human nature, and thank God for it. If we all thought alike, it would a awfully boring world.
Frank, my mother taught junior high English for 20+ years. To this day, I still run into former students of her's who express similar sentiments as those in your letter. It always brightens my day, and reminds me how fortunate I was to have her as my mother. Keep up the good work, my friend.
Matt
Man this is a fun game.
Amongst activities like camping, hiking, fishing, we also share information about outfitters. For example these kids and many parents have contacted me through the years and have received fishing referrals for Ontario (Bui's and Severn's are my personal 1 & 2) and who to bear hunt with and not bear hunt with. One father hunted at Desjardin's! That was several years ago and so I do not remember his name, but the family was from the MO side. (we are on the border.)
I wonder if there are parents complaining about you "pushing your agenda" on some liberal forum somewhere. ;-)
Matt
I am going to disagree here just a little GG. I have seen active parents whose children would argue with them because "Teacher said (fill in the blank)." Some kids especially elementary age if a teacher says something it must be true and it is hard oftentimes to convince them different. Now, I also believe IF they are raised right with parents that care, take interest, participate in the school meetings etc, that by the time the student gets to college, the impact will be minimized. But not always.
Not too long ago my father told me about how my brother wanted to come home from college before the first year was out, he didn't think he fit in with the school/philosophy/people where he was (4 or 500 miles from home). Dad convinced him to stay until the end of the school year. This would have been the 1969-70 school year so you can figure out what was going on. My brother is a hard working person, stayed away from drugs and most of the food he eats he grows or hunts, but politically is very liberal and very non religious. My brother told me a couple of months ago he could not vote for someone we knew because although he thought he would do a good job, that person was a Republican and he wouldn't vote for any Republican. Point is Dad to this day regrets still not fetching Jim Bob and blames himself for many of the moral problems Jim has. (BTW, Dad will tell you anyone who votes for a person simply because of the party that person belongs too is an idiot, you better look at the person and their beliefs etc).
We need the parents to show up and take an interest in their children in every aspect including education. Therein lies many of the problems we see in society today in my opinion. As someone mentioned above, the parents off the "good kids" are the ones that show up at the parent teacher conferences, whereas the parents we really need to see do not. There is a real good possibility that that is one reason they are the "good kids."
The beliefs and bias of a teacher will show up in their classroom from time to time even when they make an effort to keep that from happening. That is human nature I think.
I agree with the balance of your post, but.....I think parents who allow their kids to argue with them over something a teacher said isn't doing their job.
Perhaps I was raised in a stricter household than most, but there was a definite hierarchy of people I was taught to believe. My Mother and Father were at the top of that list. Grandparents and our Pastor were next. Teachers were somewhere below. Arguing a teacher's word over those of the people above them in the hierarchy simply wasn't tolerated, and often led to a red behind from my father's belt.
Ah heck, I sound like an old fart....
Matt
Yes, I have had some of them contact me, mainly over the fact that I share this information within my bio I post on our Canvas LMS for every class.
I walk them through where 90% plus of the money for conservation comes from, and that I respect their views and ask they do the same. If that fails, I let them know I am tenured and eligible for retirement;)
;)
Sometimes even when they don't verbally argue they are thinking it. Although I could never even think it without my parents catching me. ;) But, I am old too I guess. Respect (set by example), was a big part of my upbringing also.
On the other hand, I was taught to think, use common sense and by adulthood not to just take someones word for it. (That's Biblical too, Acts 17:11). Maybe the lack of critical thinking skills is also part of the problem now. Interestingly enough, we are encouraged to specifically teach that in junior high and high school. Back in the dark ages when I was in school, I don't remember being specifically taught that but we learned to anyway.
Really going to disagree with the cut and dry part. There is lot of science that is fluid and changes. Even the scientific laws change from time to time . I taught out of an environmental science book that even teaches skepticism as being healthy in science.
To be clear, my parents encouraged honest discussion and reasoned debate too. What they didn't tolerate was arguing because "so-and-so said so", especially if the so-and-so was further down in the hierarchy.
Matt
For example, a teacher may be presenting something considered to be best practice in the scientific community, a family disagrees. Is the teacher indoctrinating, or are they doing best practice by providing the student with, at that time, the best available information.
If indoctrination means "vote this way or that" or "X Y Z group is bad"... That's some bad news.
But, if indoctrination means teaching to the best available evidence on a subject, and someones belief's differ... I guess that's not indoctrination to me.
Matt
IMO, if there's a ounce of subjectivity in any topic, I think it's a educator's responsibility to present all sides and let the student decide for himself. A teacher's feelings, tastes, or opinions should never be expressed in the classroom unless he's asked. And even then, he should make it clear there is no "right" or "wrong" opinions.
Easier said than done, I realize.
Matt
The point I'm making is that the teacher's job is to educate, not opinionate. A parent shouldn't be required to cleanse their child's mind of all the BS they accumulate at school every night. They should be able to spend the precious amount of time they have together shooting a bow or basketball or doing whatever else they enjoy. I shouldn't have to spend even one second denouncing the BS that Ms. Liberal English teacher spouted off about in class saying that all Hispanics are doomed because we elected Trump or some such nonsense.
I couldn't agree more, and it's always been so.
I think it's also fair to say that some students are more susceptible to indoctrinating than others, regardless of their upbringing. I went to the University of Colorado in Boulder for my degree. You won't find a more liberal bastion. Granted, I lean further left than some of you, but I'm certainly no bunny-hugging socialist like most of my professors were. In fact, politics was about last on the list of things that interested me, so I usually tuned that noise out.
Matt
The Law of Energy, Law of Conservation of Matter and some others sure changed when we started learning about nuclear physics didn't it? :) One of the things that always aggravated me is how many exceptions there are to many of the principles in chemistry.
I used to teach Wildlife Management as well as Environmental Science, wasn't really a lot of difference between the two.
And, we could get into global warming, Theory of Evolution and a host of other things over which scientists are not in agreement.
Sounds about right, but previously you were "DocKeating" or something, professor at SUNY, even offered to help folks out with their kids' admissions.... you remember, don't you?
Sewwwwwwwwww, like, lie then or lie now much? both? of course, quite rite
you are PERFECT professor material, best of luck
please don't suggest Ethics, we'd not jibe well together
Colleges cancelling speakers and meetings because of their guests ideology... that's political indoctrination. Declaring unapproved speech forbidden and punishable due to some not agreeing with it..... political indoctrination.
None of that is even at the classroom level. It is at the administrative level. It is actively pursuing and promoting the only approved ideology...... their own..
Bottom line: as a parent, i made myself available for the schools and monitored my children's education. I observed that there are a number of teachers who are concerned about teaching...but far too many who look at teaching as just a job.
I have been blessed that all three of my kids have grown up to be functional citizens and have found success in their areas of interest. Carrie is an accomplished artist who is opening her own gallery in Jackson, WY. Daughter Jillie is CEO of a waste management company in Florida. My son, Smith, got his nursing degree and is working on a masters in hotel management...without any student loans/debt.
Considering the state of our educational system, with its trend to PC/social justice/proREgressive views, I consider that my parenting has enabled my children to achieve in spite of politicization of our educational system.
Kudos to heroes like Henry, David and other educations who are part of our community here. Having worked as a sub in the school system, I do appreciate those educators who strive to educate rather than pontificate.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Matt
I've enjoyed it also.
Identity Warriors Have Infiltrated the Sciences. Here’s the Damage They’re Doing.
In conversations with most college officials, many CEOs, many politicians, and race hustlers, it’s not long before the magical words “diversity” and “inclusiveness” drop from their lips.
Racial minorities are the intended targets of this sociological largesse, but women are included, as well. This obsession with diversity and inclusion is in the process of leading the nation to decline in a number of areas. We’re told how it’s doing so in science, in an article by Heather Mac Donald, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, titled “How Identity Politics Is Harming the Sciences.”
Mac Donald says that identity politics has already taken over the humanities and social sciences on American campuses. Waiting in the wings for a similar takeover are the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and math.
In the eyes of the diversity and inclusiveness czars, the STEM fields don’t have a pleasing mixture of blacks, Hispanics, and women. The effort to get this “pleasing mix” is doing great damage to how science is taught and evaluated, threatening innovation and American competitiveness.
Commentary By Portrait of Walter E. Williams
Walter E. Williams @WE_Williams
Walter E. Williams is a columnist for The Daily Signal and a professor of economics at George Mason University.
In conversations with most college officials, many CEOs, many politicians, and race hustlers, it’s not long before the magical words “diversity” and “inclusiveness” drop from their lips.
Racial minorities are the intended targets of this sociological largesse, but women are included, as well. This obsession with diversity and inclusion is in the process of leading the nation to decline in a number of areas. We’re told how it’s doing so in science, in an article by Heather Mac Donald, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, titled “How Identity Politics Is Harming the Sciences.”
Mac Donald says that identity politics has already taken over the humanities and social sciences on American campuses. Waiting in the wings for a similar takeover are the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and math.
In the eyes of the diversity and inclusiveness czars, the STEM fields don’t have a pleasing mixture of blacks, Hispanics, and women. The effort to get this “pleasing mix” is doing great damage to how science is taught and evaluated, threatening innovation and American competitiveness.
The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >>
Universities and other institutions have started watering down standards and requirements in order to attract more minorities and women.
Some of the arguments for doing so border on insanity. A math education professor at the University of Illinois wrote that “mathematics itself operates as whiteness.” She says that the ability to solve algebra and geometry problems perpetuates “unearned privilege” among whites.
A professor at Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education published an article in a peer-reviewed journal positing that academic rigor is a “dirty deed” that upholds “white male heterosexual privilege,” adding that “scientific knowledge itself is gendered, raced, and colonizing.”
The National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health are two federal agencies that fund university research and support postdoctoral education for physicians. Both agencies are consumed by diversity and inclusion ideology.
The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health can yank a grant when it comes up for renewal if the college has not supported a sufficient number of “underrepresented minorities.”
Mac Donald quotes a UCLA scientist who reports: “All across the country the big question now in STEM is: How can we promote more women and minorities by ‘changing’ (i.e., lowering) the requirements we had previously set for graduate level study?”
Mac Donald observes, “Mathematical problem-solving is being deemphasized in favor of more qualitative group projects; the pace of undergraduate physics education is being slowed down so that no one gets left behind.”
Focusing on mathematical problem-solving and academic rigor, at least for black students at the college level, is a day late and a dollar short. The 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka the nation’s report card, reported that only 17 percent of black students tested proficient or better in reading, and just 7 percent reached at least a proficient level in math. In some predominantly black high schools, not a single black student scored proficient in math.
The academic and federal STEM busybodies ought to focus on the academic destruction of black youngsters between kindergarten and 12th grade and the conferring of fraudulent high school diplomas. Black people should not allow themselves to be used at the college level to help white liberals feel better about themselves and keep their federal grant money.
Mac Donald answers the question of whether scientific progress depends on diversity. She says: “Somehow, [National Science Foundation]-backed scientists managed to rack up more than 200 Nobel Prizes before the agency realized that scientific progress depends on ‘diversity.’ Those ‘un-diverse’ scientists discovered the fundamental particles of matter and unlocked the genetics of viruses.”
She might have added that there wasn’t even diversity among those white Nobel laureates. Jews constitute no more than 3 percent of the U.S. population but are 35 percent of American Nobel Prize winners.
One wonders what diversity and inclusion czars might propose to promote ethnic diversity among Nobel Prize winners.
That one is teed up........ already been done, unqualified and unaccomplished, given solely because of race. Several others for being the political darling de jour......
Read more: https://www.creators.com/read/michelle-malkin/06/18/nycs-war-on-academic-excellence#ixzz5IcOjkyeI Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Follow us: @Ammoland on Twitter | Ammoland on Facebook
“I also have a dream.”
This rallying cry, handwritten on a simple white placard held up by an Asian-American mom at a protest this week against liberal New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan to radically transform New York City's public schools, says it all. A new civil rights struggle in education has exploded — yet the national media and the usual celebrity voices for equality and justice are nowhere to be found.
While student “Dreamers” here illegally from south of the border garner bleeding-heart front-page stories and nightly news dispatches, the high-achieving sons and daughters of legal immigrants from Asia are getting shafted by far-left Democrats.
And it's all in the perverted name of “diversity.”
De Blasio is hell-bent on destroying equal opportunity and merit-based admissions because the results are not equally distributed according to his social-engineering agenda. The Big Apple's famed specialized schools, such as the Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Technical High School and High School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College, require an academic entrance exam. It's a highly competitive process in which tens of thousands of students vie for a total of about 5,000 slots.
So what's the problem? According to the bean-counting extremists, too many Asian-Americans have aced the test and are “overrepresented.” It's not enough for the social justice crowd to settle for a 20 percent minority set-aside. They want to scrap the test altogether. A bill to eliminate the exams passed the state assembly education committee last week. Though it may die this year, the toxic principles underlying the legislation have infected the left for decades.
Dullard de Blasio falsely argues that white privilege and class privilege are to blame for the lack of black and Latino student representation at the elite schools. The two groups account for 67 percent of public school students but only made up 10 percent of elite school admissions offers last year. By contrast, Asian-Americans, who make up 16 percent of public school students, received 52 percent of offers in the past year.
So are Asian-Americans classified as “white” now? And how does de Blasio get away with the lie that these best and brightest Asian-American students are economically privileged?
Fact: The city's own poverty assessment shows that Asians are the poorest demographic group, with 24.1 percent living at or below poverty — vs. 19.5 percent citywide. The New York Post reports that overall, 45 percent of students at the “elite eight” schools qualify for free lunch.
As I've observed for years, liberal race-fixers believe that “too many” Asian-American students winning school admissions on their own merits is a bad, bad thing. In our case, overcoming the supposed encumbrances of ethnicity and skin color is viewed not as a proud accomplishment but as a political liability.
This is classic crab-in-the-bucket syndrome. If you put a single crab in an uncovered bucket, it will find a way to climb up and out on its own. But if you put a dozen crabs in a bucket, eleven will fight with all their might to pull down the independent striver who attempts to escape. And so it is with the identity politics mob and the equality of outcome cult. They can't stand high achievers and freethinkers who escape their iron grip.
A sad irony of the battle over racial preferences in education is that many of the very leaders who have lobbied hardest to re-jigger the numbers on college campuses to fit a politically correct, proportional ideal are supposedly “progressive” Asian-Americans.
I personally endured attacks from many of them who labeled me and other conservative minority leaders “sellouts” for opposing government-imposed diversity policies that sabotaged color-blindness and punished academic excellence.
Now, those same quota champions are seeing those same policies blow up in their faces in New York City's high schools. “Diversity” at all costs means taking the hardest-working, top-scoring students who earned their seats on the bus — and tossing them under the wheels.
Tell me again who the real sellouts are?
Hmmm....remember that Mad Tv series of skits: Lower Expectations? Seems to be a way of providing a student body more accessible for proREgressive indoctrination.
Progressives will be delighted to see the progress that has been made toward the eradication of all standards in New York City schools. It goes beyond moonbat mayor Bill de Blasio wanting to nix the entrance exam for elite schools. At DeWitt Clinton High School, students can get a passing grade even if they never show up for class:
Insisting that students can pass “regardless of absence,” Principal Pierre Orbe has ordered English, science, social studies and math teachers to give “make up” work to hundreds of kids who didn’t show up or failed the courses, whistleblowers said.
Like many NYC schools, this one is not characterized by academic excellence:
Last year, 50 percent of seniors graduated, but only 28 percent of the grads had test scores high enough to enroll at CUNY without remedial help.
Just because they graduated from high school doesn’t mean they can read.
Orbe must have received orders from higher up to make sure more students pass. We can’t have people thinking that NYC public schools are nothing more than an extravagantly expensive babysitting service.
Instead of showing up for class, students can complete — or have someone else complete — “mastery packets.” This is done at home, making cheating easy and inevitable.
The federal government says it’s okay:
The DOE’s academic-policy guide says students “may not be denied credit based on lack of seat time alone.”
One day there will be no standards at all. Everyone will be issued a college degree at birth. Then education equity will have been achieved.
Good for him.
H igher
and
D eeper
