Professors Who Indoctrinate: reconsidering one-sided instruction -- GKC

A worried émigrée from Israel recently asked me if I thought it was acceptable for her daughter’s university professor to consistently take an anti-Israel stance. His class deals with Israeli history and this professor, who is a Jew, consistently depicts Israel negatively. In his very first class, for instance, he unreservedly condemned the creation of Israel, saying it constituted a profound injustice to the resident Arabs.

Despite immigrating to America, this émigrée mom worries that her daughter, born and raised in Israel, will learn to despise the country of her birth. She also wonders if it is proper for any college professor to take sides on controversial issues that remain unresolved.

My initial reaction was to say that a professor’s should not take sides, but provide alternative perspectives and help students consider issues more critically. Upon reflection, though, I concluded that this answer leaves a lot unsaid.

In the first place, most students can, and often do, ignore instruction no matter how forceful or prolonged. I know a woman, for instance, who went through 8 years of Catholic schooling that was conducted by old style nuns who took no prisoners. Yet she is remarkably ignorant of Catholic doctrine.

I asked her, “Given years of religious instruction, how is it possible for you to be so uninformed about Catholic doctrine?” Her answer was, “I tuned them out.” I asked, “Why? She said, “I think it was when they told us it was a sin to save the life of the mother if it required sacrificing her unborn baby. That seemed wrong to me. I remember thinking, what if the mother has other children who love and need her? What of her husband? They also told us babies were born in a state of sin. What an evil thing to say about obvious innocents. That was a real turn off.” I said, “So you simply ignored years of additional instruction?” She replied, “Yep, pretty much.”

This is not a one-off example. It frequently happens that students receiving any kind of instruction do not internalize it. Plus it is common for them to “learn” things just to pass a test. Then they promptly forget it.

In my 46 years as a professor I taught thousands of undergraduates and was repeatedly astonished by how little of their previous instruction they actually remembered. Many found it impossible to convert their raw test scores, say, 29 correct out of 35, to a percentage. Most could not identify the principle combatants in World Wars I, II, the Korean War nor the Vietnam War. Few had any idea when the Great Depression occurred and a fair number of them did not know it even happened. Most could not find China on an outline map. One thought that France was our northern neighbor because, “people speak French up there.” Another thought that Heinrich Himmler must be the chap who invented that life saving maneuver for people who are choking.

These kids were not dolts. They were middle of the pack freshmen and sophomores who, I’m sure, could easily master a complex new social media application in minutes. But many, perhaps most, manifested only transitory (long enough to pass the test) interest in what typically is taught in schools; and trying to transform their purely instrumental interest into an intrinsic one is akin to trying to make a dog happy by wagging his tail for him

I doubt my experience with this academic amnesia is unusual. I’ll wager that student ignorance of past instruction is common in higher education institutions across the country. And that applies to college students too. That’s why higher education senior staffers would rather fight a pack of rabid pit bulls than require their seniors to pass a core subjects test before they can obtain a degree.

How is any of this relevant to our émigré mother’s worries? Well, given the perishable nature of school taught knowledge, it seems highly unlikely that some preachy pedagogue is going to convert her daughter — or anyone else, for that matter. After our proselytizing professor delivers still another impassioned plea for the Palestinian cause you can bet his student’s overriding interest will be, “Is this going to be on the test?” I doubt any will go out looking for a photo of Yasser Arafat to hang on their wall. Of course, students who have positive convictions regarding Israel will be especially resistant to this professor’s preaching.

If a student is on the brink of disliking Israel to begin with, then our partisan professor might prove decisive. But the young lady in question is decidedly pro-Israel. So odds are she will not only reject her professor’s criticisms — including those that are well founded, by the way — but will become even more devoted to her former homeland. Oppositional reactions often occur when deeply held beliefs are challenged.

Is it proper for her professor, or any professor, to conduct class in a one-sided manner? No, not if the issues are multi-faceted. But taking sides does grant a professor the extravagance of self-righteousness. The only problem with that being he or she is setting too great a value on their ego and too little value on their responsibility.

For a more complete discussion of this and related issues, see Is Education Merely Indoctrination?

Best Wishes,
Gary K. Clabaugh
Professor Emeritus, La Salle University

"I’m Not a Politician" ?! We're all politicians, sometimes ... often.

Faith is believing what you know ain't true. -- Puddinhead Wilson

Everyone’s a politician to some extent. If you need no one’s help to get what you want, then all your problems are technical. This doesn’t mean they are easy or honest. As soon as you need to involve someone else, then you must be political, that is, take into consideration what they want to do that might conflict with your goals. And you’ve got to talk to them so as not to scare them off. You must give up forthrightness for effectiveness. This is politics. And it doesn’t mean that what you are trying to get done is either technically difficult or underhanded.

Situation A: Who gets up in front of a crowd of people at a political rally and says. “I’m am not a politician”? Who believes it? Many political aspirants, it seems, like to say such things. And no one really believes it. And yet lthe audience goes along with what the speaker proposes. The speaker’s lie is politically productive.

Situation B: Suppose that same person had gotten up in front of the same crowd and said, “I’m a politician.” Most in that crowd would think, “Yeah, we know that already,” and boo him or her for saying it out loud. And few would go along with what the speaker would have to say. So it would be stupid to start off a speech saying, “I’m a politician” for this audience. The speaker’s forthrightness is politically unproductive.

Situation C: There is a third possibility. The speaker does not say anything about being a politician. He or she just gets up and says, “I want you to help me get elected so I can do something for you.” Doesn't this seem more honest and direct? Isn’t it better to ask for help without requiring people to first swallow a lie in order to do so? Would it be less productive?

It depends. Are these people who expect some kind of stroking, who demand some kind of emotional bribe to compensate their paying attention? Even more, do these people need to be lied to, placated, flattered, cajoled, made to "feel good" with what they know is less than true? Are they consciously aware that they are involved in a falsehood, a hypocrisy, before they are willing to be productive? It is for the sake of group solidarity, or just a tradition of good manners? A faith that overwhelms all veracity?

What kind of moral upbringing brings people to prefer hypocrisy? What kind of situation evokes this preference?

To examine these issues further, see Productivity, Politics and Hypocrisy in American Public Education


Cordially
--- EGR

The Achievement-Gap-GDP-Gap Myth: Selling Snake Oil?

edited 7/26/18

(I)f ...(student)... achievement gaps were closed, the yearly gross domestic product of the United States would be trillions of dollars higher, or $3 billion to $5 billion more per day -- Javier C. Hernandez (2009)

Would it were so. But this wishful thinking, on which many reform proposals have been based and marketed, is highly misleading. Most people with a poorly performing automobile would take it to be a joke, for example, if someone said,

Buy just one new replacement tire, and your gas mileage will increase, your engine will stop missing and the accident rate in your city will go down 50%.

A much cited slide presentation report by McKinsey & Company (2009) that detailed findings on the economic impact of the achievement gap in America's school beats on this same drum. A crucial item buried in slide 88 of McKinsey's 119 slide presentation is this: the difference between the actual GDP and the hypothesized GDP is "determined by assumptions about the ability to make use of higher skilled people and the quality of economic institutions."

Although some economists believe that cognitive and economic development are linked, they recognize that public school classrooms are not the only, or even the most important influences that affect this relationship. For example, Hanushek and Woessmann (2008 ) write,

Overall economic institutions ... can be viewed as preconditions to economic development. And, without them, education and skills may not have the desired impact on economic outcomes.

For example, the so-called "overeducated" often find themselves misfit in their economy, so that even high levels of their particular cognitive skills fail to provide "human capital," i.e. skills that translate into economic payoffs.

But what has been dropped from reform propaganda is the critical condition that appropriate, healthy economic institutions must be available so higher skills acquired can be put to use. (Since the 2008 report that Hanushek co-authored, he has said little about this condition, preferring, it seems, to take the easy ride on the school reform bandwagon.)

The present school reform undertakings, like the many that have preceded them in the past 100 years, represent little more than the triumph of hope over experience.

For references and links to cited articles and to examine these issues further, see Moral Responsibility in the Education Industry: 
how much can school reform enhance a student's occupational fitness?


Cordially
--- EGR

What You Don’t Learn in Teacher Training: Effective Student Motivation

Everybody’s talkin’ at me.
I don’t hear a word they’re sayin’.
Only the echoes of my mind.
– Harry Nillson Aerial Ballet (1969)

Can you imagine anyone’ s attending a course called, “Controlling Your Smoking Habits” in a “school” called “Tobacco Growers' University?” How about attending a course called, “How Used Car Salesmen Lie” at the “Automotive Dealers Institute?”

I had a graduate student complain to me once that the facts and considerations that I presented in class tended to diminish her “enthusiasm” for entering the teaching profession. I asked her in response if she would go to a doctor who was enthusiastic but barely skilled rather than someone like the TV character, House: little charm, little optimism, but with a ton of competence and no b.s. Her choice was clear, and wise.

Suppose you had been explicitly trained in what might motivate kids of all ages to perform on command – “on command,” because this is what your supervisor, your principal, your school board members and your kids’ parents will expect you to do. (Not that they themselves could do it!)

If you had such knowledge of motivation you would soon discover how infrequently you could use it, because the behavioral foundations for its success were lacking both in the students and in the school environment. Kids who don’t try to read, or can't play without bullying, or are unwilling to pay attention to anything that doesn’t deal with gossip, toys, games, or movies – and for teenagers, sex and violence – are difficult to get involved consistently in classroom activities. (Let’s not even get into the typical class interruptions your administrators believe it to be a matter of life or death to make at any time of the day!)

Just as a skillful doctor could tell whether you have been not taking your medicine or straying from your exercise plan or diet, so would you, a motivational expert, be more likely to recognize the many outside influences that undermine a student’s motivation for school activities.

Just think about who and what those outside influences might be. Would they welcome your observations on how they interfere with or fail to support student motivation?

And, by the way, would the course you took called something like, “Classroom Management,” have been more honestly labeled, “Keeping Up Your Teacherly Enthusiasm While Your Class (and Career) is Going to Down the Tubes?” Would any university or college permit their "cash cow," the Department of Teacher Preparation -- or something similarly named -- risk rocking the boat by teaching its students how parents, politicians, school administrators and college professors all contribute to stultifying student motivation?

To examine these issues further, see Motivation: why is this a worry?


Cordially
--- EGR