Gun Fun or Safe Citizens? Must We Make Trade-Offs?

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. -- Churchill

For the fanatic with a hammer, every problem is a nail. -- Adage

Fun vs Risk. Like dodgeball, horseshoes, darts, and archery, shooting guns can provide a great deal of enjoyment. But like all of the activities mentioned there is often more than a small element of risk involved in them.

But it is only by learning to carefully balance benefits pursued against costs risked that we develop important skills and moral strengths. We do not live in a Garden of Eden. So it is that guns, whose unskilled handling is particularly risky, still provide us an educational tool for pursuing, maintaining and defending important qualities of life.

Preference ≠ Morality. Unfortunately, many people tend to mistake their personal preferences for moral principles. This has happened on the many sides of the arguments for gun control. Particularly where kids are involved, the emotional din raised by presumed adversaries tends to drown out any careful examination of the issues involved. Disputants postulate cabals who would threaten our peace and freedom by imposing their own favorite hammer to solve anything that looks like a problem.

So it is that we read of “gun guys” who are sure that anything that looks like a problem can be dealt with a well-placed bullet. Standing up to them are “educators” who sit on their high horses and accept no trade-offs for their fervent belief that it is only more “education,” schooling and higher degrees that will pacify the savage breast. Despite this name-calling and caricature, we can, nonetheless, start somewhere to seek common understanding.

Two Principles for Decision. There are two general principles that, I suspect, would be acceptable to almost all participants in the “debate.” The first is Fair Balance of Benefits and Costs. This principle can be formulated in this way: In proportion to the severity of the costs risked, those who benefit more should assume greater risks.

For example, private gun ownership could be restricted to members of private gun clubs who must buy insurance to pay for damages caused by their members. Clubs would incur liabilities for uninsured damages. This likely high expense would probably make it worth the members’ trouble to screen applicants for membership and to regulate their activities. Maybe in this way the “monsters” who some imagine are the only ones who misuse firearms might be separated out from legitimate users, even if such monsters have already been born into club-member families. (See, for further example, Six things Americans should know about mass shootings)

The second principle is this: Nothing is a means to an end if it’s ineffective to that end. That is, things that don’t or wouldn’t work to achieve a goal, cannot be reasonably argued to be required.

For example, one of the weaker arguments for unrestricted private gun ownership is that it provides a counterforce to government (federal, state, city?) use of armed forces to deny us our Constitutional liberties. A similar nightmare was given expression both in the 1984 film Red Dawn. and its 2012 remake, involving foreign rather than local would-be conquerors. The 1984 teenagers manage to put up a significant resistance with locally cached weapons against Russian invaders and their Cuban and Nicaraguan henchmen. So, clearly, AK-47’s, rocket launchers, even, are needed by us common folk, by us Washington D.C. outsiders, to keep government tyranny in check.

Does anyone read military history anymore? Better yet, has anyone watched the Military Channel lately and seen how Iraq’s Red Guard was shredded and Saddam Hussein’s government toppled by U.S. military might? In two different wars? Which American weekend survivalist warriors -- even if they had access to weapons much more powerful than AK-47’s (and were teenagers) -- could hope to stand up against U.S. special forces, combat drones and spy satellites?

U.S. Armed Services members take an oath to protect the Constitution; not, as in Nazi Germany, to obey the whims of some Supreme Leader. Besides, in a government such as ours with so many competing organizational, political and functional units, it is highly unlikely that any one group could secure the obedience of a sufficient number of weapons-controlling bodies at all governmental levels to bring the Red Dawn nightmare into reality.

Better to organize politically to pursue and maintain what you value, than pretend to prepare for a conflict, for a Spartan military existence, for which few people, even gun enthusiasts, seem inclined to trade away the comforts of job, family and daily life. That Americans are not Spartans is shown by the fact that there is no military draft which might reasonably spread the costs of national defense to those who most benefit from them. However, most people are content to go about their private lives and let the few Spartans among us, together with a large number of newly immigrated, impoverished or adventuresome young people, serve in our own “all professional” military services.

Being effective politically means learning to trade-off cherished habits to foster political stability and functional consensus. Some of these tradeoffs follow (note links):

1. Stop sneering at politicians. It’s a difficult job. No one is a worse person for making compromises.

2. Reduce name-calling: it produces pointless stereotyping and reification. Practice the self-control you preach to your kids.

3. Realize (and act accordingly) that your (or your group’s) special hammer is one among many. Your perception of problems may not be anyone else’s. Negotiate turn-taking. Learn to tolerate and be civil to those people you do not like. Indeed, don’t think you have to like people just because you tolerate them.

4. In solving problems try to deal with concrete issues. Avoid arguing about vague theoretical, especially incendiary, statements, e.g.” Is abortion really murder?”

5. Don’t expect to settle an issue once and for all. Situations change. Priorities change. People change. Consequently, policies may need to change. Expect negotiation to be a repeated process.

6. Finally, don’t expect even the most enthusiastically celebrated consensus to persist as people come to believe they misunderstood what they were agreeing to; or, how to achieve the agreed-to goal.

Vigilance and political participation are the price of liberty and justice. The lazy, the distracted and the complacent risk losing both of these.

For references and to examine related issues further, visit the hyperlinks given in the text and also see Trading Off "Sacred" Values.


Cordially
--- EGR

Policy “Reversals”: the Bane of “True Believers”

“We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.” -- Edward de Bono

Poor President Obama. He wants to get things done. He strategically accommodates the opposition when his own forces cannot overwhelm it. At least for the moment.

This drives his “purist” supporters crazy. Surely, they insist, you can fertilize the fields without getting your hands dirty! Surely, there must be some way of making an omelette without damaging an egg!

American public education has long served two incompatible but desirable goals: providing equal educational opportunity to all students and providing each student with an education suited to his individual needs.

At different stages in its development, America’s educational system has emphasized one or the other of these goals and generated ideology which served to celebrate the emphasis, e.g., "a thorough and efficient education for all children.”

Not too long after, a big switch happened. We were bombarded with “individualizing instruction”, that is, “different strokes for different folks,” or “fair is not necessarily equal.”

Is such “flip-flopping” a sign of weakness; or, of wisdom?

To examine these issues further, see Mechanisms for Policy Reversal

Cordially
EGR

Destroying Schools to Improve Them: should the NCLB revolution continue?

"It became necessary to destroy the school to save it." -- updating a quote originally from the war in Vietnam

Suppose someone advocated overthrowing the government solely because poverty, even at a low level, continued to exist over the span of a generation. We might point out to that person that poverty exists at some level almost universally. We might argue that weighed against the progress we have made over the centuries, there was no need to throw the baby out with the bath water. If that person persisted in his advocacy of overthrow we would, at least, disregard him as someone who lacked the wisdom to render intelligent judgment on such matters.

In accord with guidelines set out under No Child Left Behind, Sam Houston High School in Houston Texas was closed down because 110 students out of 2500 persisted in getting low scores on math exams. (See Erika Mellon Houston Chronicle Friday June 6, 2008
 "Math scores of a few were the death of Sam Houston" http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5824088.html).

It is not that anyone knows exactly what the problem here is. This is just a knee-jerk response involving the superstition that by firing principals and teachers, students can be made to learn; and, by interrupting the education of the majority, a minority can be brought to succeed. This confuses reprisal with accountability.

See Moral Responsibility in the Education Industry:
how much can school reform enhance a student's occupational fitness?

Cordially,

-- EGR

Preaching Against Violence: Band-Aids on a Dirty Wound?

edited 10/17/18

We are apt to forget that children watch examples better than they listen to preaching. -- Roy L. Smith, American clergyman

The sincerity and urgency with which a proposal is promoted is no indicator that it will be useful and lasting. Indeed, one may suspect the contrary to be true.

If you’re an educator who has worked for some years, you might remember some items on the following list: teaching machines, 4-MAT, mastery curriculum, Writing Across the Curriculum, Transcesence, Chisenbop, Values Education, Behavioral Objectives, Life Adjustment, Great Books, Competency-Based Learning, Teacher-Proof Curriculum, the Junior High School, Performance Contracting, Industrial Education, Suggestopedia, the Project Method, Computer Literacy, The New Math, The Paideia Proposal, America 2000, or the Open Classroom.

They came and they went, leaving little trace but crippled or wasted school budgets. These items were, in their day, promoted with a zeal and a printed output that required the sacrifice of vast forests to support that literature.

Educational reform has, like a 20-year locust, crawled once again to the surface of the public consciousness. Americans have been “reforming” the public schools cyclically for over a century. The list of “fads” given above is some indicator of the past successes enjoyed.

And even more, in a broader context, there is nowadays extensive effort to "Make America Great Again!" that, despite repeated promises, will likely result in social and environmental rubble.

There is a scene in an Agatha Christie mystery where Hercule Poirot ponders the meaning of the various clues he has gathered when his client thunders impatiently, “Don’t just stand there thinking, do something!”

There’s the rub! Americans, (and Brits, apparently, too) especially those considered to be “leaders,” are so imbued with being “proactive” that they and their supporters imagine that quick action, any random flailing out, will make up for shoddy thinking, misapprehension of the problem, and sloppy communication. Dealing with “violence,” in the schools, in the streets, or among nations, provides more than ample example of these faults.

Ancient wisdom cautions us against charging ahead armed only with good intentions. It also counsels us to moderation, because all actions produce costs as well as benefits.

For references and to examine these issues further, see Doing Violence to 'Violence'

Cordially -- EGR

Racial or Gender Achievement Gaps: the Result of Basic School Conflicts?

The school is a complex organization. By their complexity alone, schools run up against four basic internal conflicts. These are

• following policy vs. sensitivity to individual differences, e.g. the conflict of teaching a class according to a standardized curriculum vs. making adjustments according to the readiness of individual students

• delegating authority vs. pursuing authorized goals, e.g., Teachers change the curriculum at will to reflect their personal tastes and priorities.

• process vs. product, e.g. Standardized testing and curriculum vs. the concern for the "specialness" of students.

• power vs. morale., e.g. Student enthusiasm for school sinks as "discipline" is tightened up.

Dealing with these school conflicts is not merely a matter of more dedication or self-discipline on the part of individuals. Nor is it a matter of patience or forbearance or charisma. What must be addressed is the structure of relationships that constitute the organization.

To examine these issues further, see Basic Internal Conflicts


Cordially
--- EGR

School Administrators: caught between rocks and hard places.

School administrators are expected to act in accordance with Federal regulations, State and Local Law, and School Board Policy. In addition they are supposed to work efficiently and with regard to public relations. On top of that they must be seen as caring and ethical, showing appropriate concern for faculty, student and parental concerns.

But what are the priorities when push comes to shove, as it frequently does in times of tight budgets or social change? Where do they learn and practice rationally prioritizing competing interests? Nowhere but on the job. Too, little; too late.

How do they learn to distinguish real problems from panicked misunderstandings, or political manipulations? They often don’t, except through painful on-the-job humiliations.

What training do new and even experienced administrators normally get for rationally justifying their decisions so they can rationally defend them, if necessary, in a variety of venues? Usually, none.

Can you really understand and practically apply the differences between what is or is not legal, ethical, reasonable, expedient or tactful? Many working administrators cannot.

I taught a course for more than ten years at Widener University called “Ethics and Values in Education.” My students were mostly practicing public school administrators working on their superintendency certification or a doctorate. Over the years the frequency with which my students were being dragged into court increased substantially.

They came to class with sad stories of embarrassment and humiliation at the hands of opposing council for things which they had done in good faith and in accordance with many of the constraints they were aware of. But they discovered they were clay pigeons even when school district counsel argued to protect them.

However, it isn’t too difficult and it doesn’t take years and years of study to prepare yourself to be assertively rational about why you decided to do what you did. The resources given below give examples of ethical, legal and other conflicts that could be handled with careful thinking.

See Ethical Argument, Practical Proposal


Cordially
--- EGR

Bad Actors in Organizations: an illusion?

One of the deep, dark secrets of American organizational life is this: it doesn’t matter how someone talks or acts -- name your nastiness! -- so long as no one higher up perceives that behavior as making them personally run a risk.

The converse is this: it doesn’t matter how innocent or justified an action is, say, by policy, law or tradition; if higher ups interpret it as a personal risk to them, e.g. shaking the boat, then the fury of “the organization” will descend upon the actor.

Did you see the boss’ nephew slipping money out of the cash drawer? Don’t be the sole messenger of that event! You’ve seen your CEO sexually harasses other employees? Forget it, or forget about a promotion! Your superior officer wants you to “acquire” special materiel and change the books to cover your tracks? Do it, or request a transfer, or resign! Your dean or president wants something shady done? Will you be seen to be “accommodating to administrative intention?” Decide now if you want to get on the administrative “money track” or remain forever a lowly paid technician.

Organizations have rules, regulations and policies. But there is a basic Existence Rule: X only happened if X was duly noted and recorded by authorized persons. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of mind, out of existence.

So, it still takes courage to make a complaint. Spinelessness is a precondition for survival and growth in many an organization, whether corporate, military, governmental or educational.

Educational institutions, in particular, prefer the spineless for promotion. Until that situation changes, all talk of improving schools, at any level, is pure gas.

To examine these issues further, see THE ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEM: ILLUSION AND REALITY

Cordially
EGR

Living with False Assumptions

Never ASSUME, for when you ASSUME 

You make an ASS out of U and ME. 

-- Benny Hill

Like fat, sugar and other additives in our foods, the following “principles” are so deeply embedded in our culture that in most situations we unthinkingly fall back on them, although, under even casual consideration, we would find them far from certain. These principles are

The Principle of Command: To command is to control.
The Principle of Accepted Value: What we value, everyone should value.
The Principle of Objectivity: Facts are facts.

How do such principles control our thought processes?

To examine these issues further, see Questionable Assumptions in Social Decision Making”

Cordially
EGR

Education is a Battlefield; Rarely, Just About People Learning

A long serving, well-respected educator in the Pennsylvania State Department of Education tended his resignation in April 2009 rather than continue serving in a department where he found competence to be scarce and delusion in abundance.

To examine this situation further, see Respected Educator 
Resigns Penna. State Department Position

Cordially
EGR

Extend the School Day! Why Not Just Wear Red Suspenders?

9News.com of Denver reported over a year ago that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proposes that schools lengthen their day, their week and their year. Was this a serious suggestion? This year the same dismal refrain is echoed by David von Drehle in the July 22, 2010 issue of TIME magazine under the title “The Case Against Summer Vacation.”

Duncan’s comments are more interesting for their lack of coherence with other complaints:

"Go ahead and boo me," Duncan told about 400 middle and high school students at a public school in northeast Denver. "I fundamentally think that our school day is too short, our school week is too short and our school year is too short." 

"You're competing for jobs with kids from India and China. I think schools should be open six, seven days a week; 11, 12 months a year," Duncan said.

Boo!

Really, does this proposal make sense given the loud and tediously repeated claim that it is the teachers alone who are falling down on the job? It’s as if, in the face of complaints at NASCAR races that too many vehicles were underperforming, Duncan suggested the track be lengthened, instead of looking to improve the mechanics.

The second issue , the so-called competition, is so silly it boggles the mind. Pick a school kid. Fix him or her in your mind. Now tell me which Indian or Chinese kid he or she is competing with. Competing in what? When and where is the contest being held? What are the prizes or the penalities? Get specific. Can you? Every school kid “knows” that his or her competition comes from other students right in same class; not, from across the globe in Asia. (What economists and politicians “know” to the contrary is no less speculative!)

Do any adults, outside of Duncan’s Department of Education, imagine that they have lost their job because they failed to measure up to “foreign competition” when they were students? Could the present recession have been avoided had I and a million or more students like me, 50 years ago, spent more time in school?

Before we compel parents to submit their kids, at public expense, to the further detriment of their health and idealism, to incarceration in a school building with a longer school day, week or year, we had better get clear about several important things.

During this extended school day, school week or school year:

a. What’s supposed to happen?
b. Why is it needed? and
c. Is it cost effective?

To examine these issues further, see What Works? Under What Conditions? And Who Really Cares?

Cordially
EGR

A Chance to Play God: simulation experiments with character vs situation

Many human problems are seen as the result of bad character or bad situation. Accordingly simple “cures” – usually in the form of organizational policy -- are offered to deal with them: improve individual character or improve the individual’s circumstances.

Is a child misbehaving? Then punish him for what is objectionable or reward him for doing something different.

Is vandalism increasing in poorer neighborhoods? Then increase police presence or open recreational centers or schools.

Are some people subject to ridicule or abuse? Preach God’s common Fatherhood in the churches; or, teach brotherhood in the schools.

But what if you can’t treat things in isolation? Suppose different influences have different effects depending on how they are mixed together? (Technically put: suppose the causal factors interact.)

If you can play checkers, you can play God – at least in your imagination. You might want to play with populations whose characters and situations you can control to see how different mixes turn out. You do this through simulation.

If this thought interests you, see RANPOP Simulation Experiment #1

Cordially
EGR