Low Cost Interventions for a Better World: Reform by Redefinition?

edited 062720

"To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. " -- Publius Cornelius Tacitus
	Alternative Facts?

A PARABLE

In the Republic of Foz a group of high-minded citizens undertook to remove the bitterness from every medicinal preparation. And with all but one potion they succeeded. But there was an elixir the curative power of which diminished with its bitterness. This elixir was the only antidote for the fatal sting of the Fozfly. Thus, there arose at first a murmuring, then public indignation at the efforts of this band of crusaders.

Fearful that their quest be frustrated, our noble champions regrouped and with the help of a government grant formed the Foz Foundation. The members of the Foz Foundation dedicated their research to demonstrating that the sting of the Fozfly, far from being an affliction, was merely an occasion that precipitated a "natural life crisis."

Now, in the Fozian language, nothing categorized as a "natural life crisis" is considered to be a disease. Nor is anything characterized with the term disease also conceived to be a natural life crisis. Since only diseases require medical treatment, the proper Fozian response to a natural life crisis is acceptance and resignation.

Thus as the influence of the Foz Foundation waxed, the need for the recalcitrantly bitter potion waned. In the final stages of enlightenment to which most of Fozian society was educated -- called Fozzy thinking -- there existed in all the land no medicinal preparation that had a bitter taste.

And death by Fozfly -- still rumored by certain barbarians to be avoidable -- came to be accepted as natural and necessary, if still a discontent of Fozian civilization.

To examine these issues further, see School Violence, Punishment, and Justice

See, also, Cheating Well

Cordially
--- EGR

Honor Killing: Serving the Idols of the Tribe

Pakistan: Pregnant woman stoned to death -- Philadelphia Inquirer, Wednesday, May 28, 2014, A1

Don't Just Blame Religion. So what's new? The United Nations Population Fund estimates that the annual worldwide total of honor-killing victims may be as high as five thousand women.[1]

But don't jump to any conclusions about religion, especially the likely one, for most Americans, that Islam is more prone to this than others. This jump relies on common ignorance about the histories of Christianity, Judaism, Confucianism, etc.

In a similar case in Nice, France in 1994, Koranic authorities testified that Koranic justice did not sanction the family's actions in killing their "westernized" daughter.[2] It's as much a matter of location, as of religion.

Wherever religious institutions, and particularly their leaders, rely on secular power for their protection or their survival, the universalist virtues they might espouse, e.g. mercy, forgiveness, etc, will be stifled to disarm emotions that might upset traditions of obedience to secular leaders. (See A Leader's Primary Pursuit: Incumbency)

Just consider, for example, how Constantine's demand of early Christian bishops for unified doctrinal criteria of membership brought about the Nicene Creed (381 BCE). But even today in these United States of America, modern sectarian Constantines have been scarcely able to refrain from attempts to season the public scholastic pot with state-enforced "intelligent design" curricula. See "Intelligent Design," "Unintelligent Curriculum")

So Why Follow the Leader? A dumb question(!) ejaculated rarely except by those enjoying the frissons of self-righteousness. Answer: because our personal status, our individual pride is bolstered by those we profess to follow. (In how many congregations does seating reflect personal status?) With all too rare exception, the dominant tribal idol of every member is inevitably Ego. (See God, Church and Schooling for Democracy: American Faith in "Faith.")

Making Convenient Sacrifices: Our Kids. In Genesis 22, Abraham is commanded to, then restrained, from offering Isaac as a burned sacrifice. (Is God surprised, or gratified, by Abraham's obedience? Either interpretation belies His omniscience.) Some biblical scholars take this story to indicate the renunciation by Israel of the ancient practice of child sacrifice, commonly done in times of extremity by a variety of peoples.

Many of us point, with barely hidden Schadenfreude, to the "honor-killings" by others -- whom we secretly look down on -- of their own children. "Thank God we are not like them!

The reality is that we, in "modern-day America" have reverted to that ancient practice of child sacrifice, not physically, perhaps, but psychologically and spiritually. And the gods we sacrifice to are unworthy ones: ambition, self-aggrandizement, and reputation.

How much more preferable for many parents to put their kids through the gauntlet of status-conscious early schooling, the grind of academics-manqué of high school, and the circus of college admissions than to have to select a college of "lower standing" or have the student enter later than in the freshmen year.

Comfortable sacrifices of minor import? Alfred North Whitehead weighs in with this comment:

When one considers in its length and breadth the importance of a nation's young, the broken lives, the defeated hopes, the national failures, which result from the frivolous inertia with which (education) is treated, it is difficult to restrain within oneself a savage rage.[3]

It's a matter of family honor! Mom's honor and Dad's honor. Grandpa's and Grandma's, too.

To examine these issues further, see "Tracking" in Public Education: preparation for the world of work?


Cordially --- EGR

References

[1] See "Ending Violence Against Women and Girls" United Nations Population Fund http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2000/english/ch03.html

[2] See Terrill Jones, "Family Sentenced for killing westernized girl," Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, December 4, 1994. For more dismal information see LEADERSHIP AS USURPATION, at http://goo.gl/9SwYSp

[3] Alfred North Whitehead. The Aims of Education and Other Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1929) p.22.

Getting Clear on Outcomes : a preliminary to project planning

There are many examples ... of situations in which disparate groups of politicians and the constituents they represent have joined together in common cause but consensus has represented nothing more than a superficial commitment to a simple slogan. -- Susskind & Cruikshank, Breaking the Impasse, 1987, p.63-64

Suppose we were considering funding a project to improve student scores in mathematics. Suppose it is shown that Johnny Jones has failed a math test. Is Mr. Smith his teacher to blame because he is a bad teacher? Or is Johnny a lackadaisical student? Or was Johnny sick when he took the test? Or something else?

From the meager information that Johnny failed a test, we cannot make a fair judgment. Johnny’s failure might be accounted for by any of the suggested explanations. How could we add information to the skeletal description, "Johnny Jones failed a math test," to make a decision as to what really happened? What information would be critical? What would be non-informative? What our project aims at will depend upon it.

People often jump into planning a project without carefully specifying what outcomes they are looking for. This avoidance is done sometimes because they feel that the commitment to the project is weak and they don’t want to provoke objections. A risky choice! They may finesse agreement in the initial stages of the project only to have crucial support pulled out after vast expenditures of resources. Such has happened, for example, throughout the history of school reform movements in the United States.

Another reason they may avoid careful specification of outcomes is that they think such procedures are a “mere matter of semantics,” a dispensible impediment to “action-oriented” people like themselves to getting things accomplished. This is delusion. It treats superficial consent to vague terms as though it were deep commitment.

If you consider how many things incite calls to action which are later abandoned because hidden disagreements arise to sap them of support, you will likely agree that some kind of process is in order that will help avoid misunderstandings at a basic level. The alternative is to go ahead blindly and hope for the best. From experience we know that the likely result is a vast waste of time, money and effort.

The process we suggest is called case comparison and analysis. In using it we bring up realistic examples for consideration. We note differences and similarities. We decide which cases we, individually, can agree on most clearly represent the critical terms contained in our goal statement. Then we try to spell out what the defining characteristics are for those terms.

Examples of cases for analysis can be found via the following links:

Model Cases: Effective, Moral or Worthy Teaching
Model Cases: Justice, Expedience, Favoritism
Model Cases: Punishment, Cruelty, Infliction

Take a look at the cases involved. You will see that they are very similar. Yet a minor difference in description may involve a major change in how we classify them.

For references and to examine these issues further, see Defeating or Supporting a Case Characterization


Cordially
--- EGR

Intervention: helping, interfering or just being useless?

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. -- Thomas Jefferson

A little power, like a little knowledge, can be a dangerous thing. Some people think of power as though it were a muscle: Use it or lose it. So they easily give into the temptation to “intervene” into others' affairs.

But intervention can easily be seen as “interference” by those who gain nothing from it. Those who welcome the intervention and the advantages it brings will call it “help.” Easily overlooked is the likelihood that the intervention will not have any effect besides producing headlines in newspapers, or hours of comment by media pundits. The fact that an intervention may be well intended does not prevent it from turning out to be a long-term disaster. The wars in Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan were all initiated though interventions based on presumably honorable intentions. Notably, the costs of these interventions were not borne, in the largest measure, by their initiators.

BLOODLETTING The Burns Collection

Educational reform in the United States has been a continuing focus for delusional intervention through more than a century of U.S. history. Why delusional? Because the basic logic of intelligent intervention was ignored or replaced by wishful thinking.

What is this basic logic? It consists of three things. Do not intervene unless…

1. (cue) … you have accurately determined whether the situation that prompts you is, in fact, what you think it is. (Misperceptions and false starts abound.)

2. (concern) … the situation prompting your intervention will, in your best judgment, negatively affect your (whose?) interests. (Is it your “business”; is it worthwhile?)

3. (control) … your actions (or strategic inactions) will generate effects that influence sufficiently lasting changes in the situation. (Will things revert back to the way they were before intervention?)

I worked for many years in a school system with a “zero-tolerance policy” on fighting: students, otherwise peaceable, who offered resistance against the physical assault of bullies were suspended along with their attackers. One particular student, a quiet sort, was admonished by the principal, “Johnny, you’re such a good student; but, you keep on getting suspended for fighting back. I’ve told you time and time again that whenever someone assaults you, to are to come tell me about it.”

Johnny replied, “What’d you do before that has ever stopped ‘em botherin’ me? You gonna walk me home or to school? How’m I supposed ta live in my neighborhood, if I get a rep(utation) for running to a teacher every time I’m in trouble?”

The principal responded with a not untypical intervention: Johnny was sent away to a disciplinary school for being “highly insubordinate.”

“They .. make a desert, and they call it peace” -- Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117)

For references and to examine these issues in detail, see Rationales for Intervention: From Test to Treatment to Policy



Cordially
--- EGR

Indulging Power, Denying Nurture

Power never takes a back step
-- Only in the face of more power.
---- Malcolm X
(See How New York City Beat Crime in Scientific American, Aug 2011)

My nephew, a psychiatric nurse, once worked for several years in an institution that housed child murderers; that is, children who had intentionally brought about the death of another human being. I asked him how the job was and how he got along with the kids. He answered that they were mostly OK but very occasionally one would try to stab him. I asked my nephew what he thought those kids needed most. He replied, “They need a father.”

One of the most pernicious confusions ever to infect thought and theory in education, psychology and psychiatry is the idea that hurt and harm are inextricable. The current dogma is that to hurt is to harm and to harm is to hurt. (See Hurt, Harm & Safety)

Commonsense examples from the real world disestablish this doctrine: an inoculation, dental surgery, hard exercise and criticism may hurt; they needn’t, indeed, often do not, harm. Radiation, pollution, inattention and gluttony often do not hurt; yet they may, and, not infrequently, do harm.

Recently in Philadelphia gangs of teenagers have been running through Center City streets and attacking uninvolved bystanders, apparently for the excitement and fun of it. They are likely learning -- or know already -- that to the extent no one will or can control you, to that same extent do you have the free exercise of power.

There is a lot of excited babble among the governing classes and pundits as to what to do about it. Because of the hurt-harm dogma, some possible solutions will not even be brought up for discussion.

For references and to examine this issue further, see The Singapore Solution

Cordially
--- EGR

Does Prohibiting Corporal Punishment Prevent Abuse?

Where there's a will, there's a way. -- Proverb

In the public schools, people seem to be rabid partisans on the issue of corporal punishment: the Pro’s salivate contemplating the wonders they imagine spanking will wreak; the Con’s worry, worry, worry that any physical contact initiates a very short walk to the torture chamber.

The Pro’s seem to see punishment, of all sorts, to offer a convincing argument for conformity. The Con’s are indisposed to entertain the possibility that non-physical punishment may easily reach the level of torture, even though every grade school bully knows this in his (her?) bones.

And cyberbullying opens a new dimension in which the infliction of anguish has little to do with physical contact. So long as adults delude themselves that merely forbidding a mode of infliction will suffice, cruelty will out.

To pursue related considerations, see School Violence, Punishment, and Justice 

-- EGR

Multiculturally Sensitive, or Just Making Excuses?

If individuality has no play, society does not advance; if individuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes.
-- T. H. Huxley (1871)

One of the oldest and easiest methods of “getting back” when an injury has been done is reprisal. For example, if someone in group A injures someone in group B, group B members grab anyone in group A, innocent, involved or not, and injure them “in return.”

Unfortunately, the practice of reprisal continues on today in many parts of the world, not the least important of which is in American public schools, where kids in gangs or cliques act this way up through college, as popular movies and TV illustrate. But teachers and administrators do, too.

Consider only the practice of giving class detentions, or making sports teams do “punishment exercises” for losing games, or depriving whole groups of privileges for “offenses” done only by a few. No Child Left Behind programs have closed schools and transferred teachers and administrators when only a small percentage of students failed to show “adequate progress” on standard tests.

Clearly normal school practices are not as barbaric as killing the family members of criminals, or bombing the home villages of suspected insurgents, or NCLB, but the violation of moral or legal principles is the same.

Now an interesting thing often occurs when we deal with an offender that depends upon whether he (or she) is one of “us” or belongs to a different group; or -- as we say as we pretend to be enlightened -- another “culture.”

If the offender is from another culture, there is a tendency to attribute the offensive behavior to a “cultural difference,” i.e. “all people like him are like that.” But if the offender is from our own culture, then the offensive behavior is “an individual act,” unless we can alienate the whole family, “who permits that behavior.”

On the other hand, if a child does not understand English well and gets low grades, as teachers, or administrators, or school board members, we can disavow any concern for the grade difference by “understanding” that “people like him or her” are just showing a “cultural” adversion to ambition and learning.

“Cultural difference” thus becomes a magic wand by which we punish or disregard the less than sterling achievements of the hapless who are different, somehow from what we “normal people” are.

For references and to examine these issues further, see Multiculturalism & The Problems of Immigration


Cordially
--- EGR

Violence Persists in Philadelphia Schools! A Tradition?

Another two years gone, and still the same old song in 2010.

The Philadelphia Inquirer of August 28, 2008 reported that the State of Pennsylvania identified Vare Middle School as “persistently violent.” When I attended the then called Vare Jr. High in 1955 and 1956, I saw a kid’s hand run into a bandsaw by the resident gang members. I and my buddies paid extortion fees every day at lunch to the same thugs right under the noses of the teachers. Also, the same hoods forced us to run naked through many a gauntlet of wet snapping towels -- and an occasional belt -- in the locker rooms.

I graduated from South Philadelphia High School in 1960, also listed as dangerous in the 2008 article, and saw little violence personally. I was in the Academic Track and somewhat isolated from most of the school. But I did see a teacher, with great deference, carry the books of the son of a local judge. The son was driven to school on occasion in a limousine, became a State legislator in his adulthood and spent some time in prison for various offenses. A high-class hood.

Also on the list of persistently violent schools was Edison High, where my wife in 1966 witnessed a boy being dragged down a corridor spraying blood from a neck artery. My wife spent part of her career in several other of the listed schools and ended up in Frankford High School, also on the list of dishonor. She took early retirement three years ago rather than continue to work where her car was regularly vandalized, the principal’s leg was broken by a student and reports of fire-fights – with real bullets -- were not infrequent.

Seventeen other schools were listed. What is most curious is that over the years from 1955 to 2010 many a new superintendent has come and gone: each time with great fanfare and newpaper reports of high promise. Each one has left, with overweening praise for his or her accomplishments filling the local papers. And yet these same papers, clucking and mooing loudly, seem not to tire of reporting how student achievement is falling and violence is rising.

Can school systems deal with such things? If not, why pay superintendents such high salaries? Why cover it up in the newspapers?

To examine these issues further, see School Violence, Punishment, and Justice

Cordially

-- EGR