COMMENTARY
GEORGE TEMPLETON
By George Templeton
Gazette Columnist
This will be the first of a two part series. It sets the
scene for the recent commotion about the Common Core.
I don’t intend any prescription, or to say that back in
my day we had the “right” idea. My experiences, because I am
not a professional, are the context that I view the current commotion from.
The atmosphere of destructive criticism aimed at public
education is unhealthy. Business managers don’t want negative feelings
in their employees or customers.
The second part will be submitted before school starts.
It will try to present less sensational, constructive criticism.
Education
The TV news explained how rap music was used to teach science.
Math is the language of science, not rap! Could this provide insight into
why many Americans think that Intelligent Design is a science?
Critics say that public schools are failure factories and children,
who have the opportunity to study, are not learning. How often do they complain
that not enough home work is assigned? Have we created a culture of mediocrity
that values a good time most of all? The teacher should make learning
exciting, entertaining, and easy, but in reality how often is life like that?
The benefit a student gets depends as much on his effort as anything else.
Public School
“Government” schools are under attack, though
they are responsible for our middle class, an informed voting public, and the
dream of upward social mobility.
The belief that “good” teachers are born, not
made, and that education’s problems can be solved by firing the bottom
ten percent of teachers, is voiced in Karl Weber’s 2010 book Waiting for Superman and boosted by
HB2500, making a teacher’s inadequate single yearly performance plan a
basis for dismissal.
Economists present numbers and subjective conclusions claiming
that educational results are not improved by dollars, fewer students, and
advanced teaching degrees, but numbers are meaningless when they are presented
outside of context. When you have sick patients your focus should be on
them, not on the typical person. Gross National Product does not measure
happiness or guarantee a meaningful life. America’s soul won’t be
found in bottom-line, short-term business management demanding a quick payback.
Forty years of shipping jobs overseas have grown American consumerism
while discouraging the creativity and synergism of local industries. We
did not question what America
could do that the rest of the world would pay us for. The way to future
jobs lies in a broad education, stressing fundamentals that do not quickly
become obsolete. Common Core gives this strong foundation.
A social divide in American society concerns whether religion
or the rationality of the Founding Fathers should govern education.
Thomas Jefferson realized that a theology that makes itself antithetical to
education is not compatible with democracy. Should education maintain and
transmit traditional cultural values and skills, or address maladjustment to
the present and future. Is education a liberal conspiracy, a
religious-political agenda, or a competitive need? Will pseudoscientific rationalizations
and denial of mankind’s greatest problems be passed on to succeeding
generations, or will we encourage confronting a changing reality and guide
culture as it evolves in succeeding generations?
Destructive propaganda hurts. A mean-spirited
atmosphere persuades good teachers with public service motivations to leave the
profession. The consequences of educational mistreatment do not appear
until the inventory of knowledgeable people becomes depleted through attrition
and retirement. How can the community expect teachers to be loyal to them
when they are not loyal to teachers?
Common Core
Common Core is a set of recommended standards (not
regulations) developed cooperatively by the public and state experts, intended
to establish uniform, nationwide minimum knowledge needed to be competitive in
today’s world. Standards do not set an upper cap on what can be
taught, will not make schools and students identical, don’t define teaching
methods, and won’t provide necessary funding. Competing business
organizations, lacking a plethora of linked propaganda tanks intent on
sabotage, have been able to cooperatively write standards for the good of the
public. Can education do the same?
The standards are bottom-up, not top-down, and have been
published in draft form since September 2009, resulting in nearly 10,000 public
comments, but right-wing propaganda from the likes of Glen Beck and Michelle
Malkin did not emerge until the spring of 2013 following President
Obama’s reelection. Conservapedia’s characterization of
Common Core as atheistic, leftist, and substandard seems to be concentrated on
the things that make the Radical Righteous Right (RRR) conscious of their own
bad qualities. Their propaganda stereotypes it as government repression,
but it cannot be that because the government lacks the expertise to
independently create any standard without the help of state experts.
Arizona
policymakers and educators are not always communicating on identical wavelengths.
The Tea Party has mounted an intensive campaign to ambush the Common Core.
They associate Common Core with all their boogeymen: Inept government,
separation of church and state, secular values, social policy science,
conflicts with Genesis, global warming, environmental sustainability, critical
thinking (called liberal indoctrination), and big spending. The loss of
our children’s global competitiveness will far exceed any savings from
ending the project.
Arizonans against Common Core
calls it a dark, sinister plan to control our educational system and
dumb us down. Senate Bill SB1403 curtails and links it with UN Agenda
21’s sustainability. SB1213 promotes teaching the scientific
validity of Intelligent Design and global warming denial. Reality flips
upside-down when the tax exempt, undisclosed donor, fake-science, Heartland
Institute claims “secular” is a religion and student diversity
requires teaching Christianity in public schools. The Gulag Bound web site goes farther by claiming that Common
Core will eliminate private property, and exterminate twenty-five million
Americans. The Cornwall Alliance rallies the public to fight a
“spiritual world war” against Darwin’s
evolution and environmentalism. They preach that believing in climate change
“is an insult to God”.
It was Ludwig Wittgenstein who said, “When one is
frightened of the truth then it is never the whole truth that one has an
inkling of.”
Learning
My life was forever changed by my 3rd grade
teacher. Our teacher brought her college science texts to school and
allowed us to read them after completing our assignments. We shared insect
collections, grew plants, and experimented with electricity. Curriculum
requirements did not limit her active participation with students. She
believed in our potential. We were discovering the wonder and mystery of
life along with basic studies.
In junior high, shop classes introduced us to vocational art.
The men at the motor winding shop gave us free magnet wire to build crystal
radios. Vocational education was not inferior to or in place of a broad education.
Youth and freedom from adult responsibilities comes only once. It would
be a shame if a narrow educational focus replaced an opportunity for
exploration of life’s meaning.
My luck was to live in the time of Sputnik and the ascent of
transistors and computers. America addressed the Russian
challenge collectively. Unprecedented public spending on education led to
“government” Physical Science Study Committee physics and summer
teacher education opportunities. We were all special! It was a time
of camaraderie. We were to become a super industrialized nation supplying
the best products to the world. Good jobs were real and next door waiting
for individuals with the right qualifications to fill them.
In high school, we had physics, chemistry, biology, English, math
and electronics. My class had only 540 students, but we filled a full
schedule and more of each of these subjects. Accelerated classes were
available for students qualified by ability, aptitude, and ambition. They
provided challenges for students without branding others as “not made of
the right stuff”. We had released time Bible instruction, a band,
large orchestra, and free summer music instruction. We had after-hours
clubs for special interests.
On career day, more than three quarters of the fellows
indicated their future involved going into some field of technology. Nearly
all of the students in our school graduated. We knew that education, not
graduation, was the goal. We realized that there was intrinsic reward in
a job well done.
The university students were frantically checking to see if
they could drop-add into a different class. The professor had a bad
reputation! I checked my schedule but no openings were available.
By the next class there were only five of us remaining and all admitted to
trying to drop the course. The teacher was a task-master who gave huge
assignments and loved teaching. He graded rigorously but honestly. When
he could see that you were beginning to catch on, he would provide an additional
special assignment “just for you”.
My English class was not just about grammar, punctuation, spelling,
and research. It was writing about, and debating the meaning of
life. There was no uproar about truth decay and indoctrinating shades of
gray. My friend, inspired by this class, changed his major and became an
English professor.
My hand-written notes for beginner’s theoretical
mechanics filled two large three ring binders with about 500 pages of
calculus. It was all proofs, concepts, and derivations without numerical
calculations or multiple-choice exams. Our teacher had an inspirational
grasp of the subject matter and an ability to come at every question from different
angles.
In Electromagnetic Field Theory all the exams were
comprehensive, going back to the beginning of the class. We had a book,
but did not follow it. Instead, we were given a lesson plan and a list of
library books. We were told that we were responsible for anything that
could be found in any of those books. We were to master the subject, not
a test. We learned that Maxwell explained radio waves and the speed of
light, not Einstein’s relativity as creationists seem to think, and that
“secular” astronomers measure distances indicating a universe much
older than 6000 years.
Atomic Physics explained that Einstein’s Theory of
Relativity is not just a hunch. It includes and extends Newton’s laws of motion, and has not
been disproven in even a single case. Scientific theories cannot contain
supernatural causes. They make explanations and falsifiable predictions
of phenomena.
Theology studies required us to be civically responsible.
We tutored inner city children. We did not think that we were enslaving
disadvantaged minorities by trying to help them.
My beginner’s course in Earth Science contradicted the
6000 year old universe claimed by creationist PhDs. It described methods,
all largely in agreement, not beliefs, for dating the age of the earth.
Being anti-science does not require rejecting the many benefits that science
has brought to society. Critical thinking does require application of the
scientific method.
My beginner’s course in history had only written
assignments and essay exams, no text or syllabus, and required researching,
composing and typing about 400 single spaced pages to answer a weekly list of
comprehensive questions. It wasn’t multiple guess! Every week
I visited the library to find and check out stacks of needed books. They
required us to analyze and contrast differing historical opinions, argue a
position, and write about the evidence, relevant culture, sociology,
technology, economy, religion, philosophy, and politics of the time. Footnotes
were required. We were graded on our ability to communicate, and on the
depth of our arguments. There was no correct answer, no absolute truth,
only a question: What knowledge has been most significant for
mankind’s successes and failures? We were reminded, “There is
an easy solution to every human problem – neat, plausible, and
wrong”.
“Happening now, alert, alert”, news claims that
one must not become “wonky” or detailed. Conservative
politics describing American exceptionalism, no intended slavery, combined church
and state, religious harmony, persecution, liberal atheism, conspiracy,
militarism, guns, and moral torture, is culture-war politics, not history.
Future
The Common Core standards are available on the
internet. Perhaps you can recognize some of my educational experiences in
them. I’ll present a critique next time.
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