[Squeakland] the non universals

[mmille10@comcast.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Bill Kerr" <billkerr at gmail.com>
> Mark Miller wrote:
> 
>> Over the decades there's been a tearing down of authority. Now it's expected
>> it will be distributed rather than narrowly focused, at least in more
>> "liberal" environments (forgive my use of a political term). It seems like
>> these are exercises in egalitarianism, where that's the primary value,
>> rather than merit of the subject matter, because after all, who's to say one
>> subject is more important than the other? By what authority do you claim one
>> subject is worth less than another? In an environment where the "gods" have
>> been torn down, seen as flawed and not worth listening to because their
>> motives are suspect, everybody is a "god"
> 
> I think that's an accurate description of what has been happening in formal
> education in Australia and probably the "west". In the name of
> egalitarianism in government schools in Australia the curriculum is being
> watered down. One effect of this has been a migration of some of the best
> students from government schools to private schools. So something done in
> the name of equal outcomes ends up having the opposite impact.
>
> The thing I like about Alan's non universals list is that it is a valid
> attempt to suggest that some knowledge might be more important than other
> knowledge. This is based on scientific anthropological evidence. The
> egalitarian assumption (and it is an assumption more than an argument) that
> all curriculum areas ought to be equal is hard to change - it has become
> institutionalised. But it's valuable to have a counter argument that is more
> than just an assertion or a bald belief.

Another aspect I forgot to mention about this trend is there's this idea among 
those who are more ideologically driven that there should be no judgement about 
anything. So if you're bringing in ideas that require judgement you may run into 
resistance. Unfortunately there are some who care so much about advancing
the ethics of tolerance and non-judgement that they're drawn to absolutist,
almost militant positions rooted in the universals. They miss some of the
reasons why intolerance was able to flourish in the past, and I've 
found that in fact they repeat some of the same behavior patterns as those they 
say they despise, just with different criteria for discrimination. So 
unfortunately you may be faced with an intractible problem because you're 
dealing with people who probably don't have an appreciation for the 
non-unversals to begin with. I wish I could give advice for how to deal with 
this mentality, but I've only seen this in people. I haven't had to deal with 
them.

> Other parts of your post indicate that there is an endless stream of
> proposals which superficially might sound like "good ideas" (computer
> literacy, vocational training, emotional intelligence) but which in all
> likelihood just tap into the more mainstream universals thinking. Once
> again, for me, the non universals list provide a coherent rallying point to
> resist this sort of thing.

I personally liked it when they were promoting programming as "computer 
literacy", and from reading Mark Guzdial's blog it looks like that idea might be 
returning, now in a broader context. I'd like to think that programming at least
provided some lessons in the non-universals, though I'm sure that
wasn't the intent for bringing it in. In reality schools behaved as if they were 
part of a "cargo cult", as I've seen some people use the term. They were swept 
up by the idea that "this is the next big thing and we don't want to be left 
behind". Schools are not the only places where this happens. It happens in 
business as well. The whole dot-com boom and bust was a "cargo cult" writ large. 
It's a pattern that's been repeated over and over. The same thing happened with 
toll roads and railroads in the U.S. in the 19th century. What always happens is 
a practical context eventually emerges from the "cargo cult" once people sober 
up from their mania. This is always preceded by an economic crash. Eventually
these technologies are used in a meaningful way. Since there's apparently a
symbiotic relationship between schools and industry, it's understandable
though unfortunate that schools end up getting caught in this. The thing is if 
they didn't they'd be accused of teaching students "useless knowledge", or not
promoting progress and meeting trends. I used to think this way. I knew
others who did as well. There's a certain practicality about it. If you're
just trying to make a living it can seem like there's little point in trying to 
become enlightened. It's easier to try to swim in the same waters as
everyone else, because it seems like this will open up the largest number
of opportunities for you. There's comfort in numbers. The practical ethic is
that enlightenment is for those who have the time (and money) for it, or for
those who are smart and can "get it" quickly. Since most high school
students do not go on to college (at least in the U.S.), the practical ethic 
probably holds sway most  of the time.

I know our present situation is not nearly as precarious, but this reminds me a 
bit of the mindset of the Middle Ages. Despite the illiteracy of common folk and 
leaders of countries, Charlemagne was someone who thought differently and 
recognized the value of literacy and education, despite his own circumstances 
and that of his people. I haven't heard an explanation yet on why. I might 
investigate that sometime. He learned to read, and set about setting up schools 
for the populace, though as I understand his campaign to promote education 
didn't last long because of other disruptions. The impression I get is this 
probably mystified a lot of people of the time. It would've been seen as 
frivolous, having no practical value. Today we see this action on his part as 
enlightened.

I think the idea of emotional intelligence is coming out of a managerial ethos. 
People have been picking up on the idea since the 1990s (that's when I first 
noticed it, anyway) that the way things are shaping up is that the U.S. will no 
longer be a place where stuff is made, but rather where ideas are created, and 
then turned into tangible products elsewhere. In short, "the rest of the world 
will produce, and we will manage that process". That's the idea anyway. I don't 
know how well it will pan out, and I personally don't endorse it. I like the 
idea that we make stuff here as well as around the world. But to take this
managerial argument to its logical conclusion, IMO you need some
technical intelligence to come up with feasible ideas for products to
begin with, unless all you want to have is executive management that
just allocates resources and that's the only domain in which you
expect innovation to take place. Basically if you're going to become a
global "management society" (if that's the goal), then you need people who
can work well with other people, here and in other cultures, and
inspire and lead to get things done--emotional intelligence (though I'd just 
call it by its common name: social skills)--along with the logistical skills. 
The problem is I don't see quite where schools fit into this. They can teach the
logistical skills, and knowledge about other cultures, but they're not 
configured to "teach" social skills. That skill is inculcated most effectively 
in the family, IMO.

> One of the things I lament about the U.S. public school system is it's
> > becoming increasingly politicized in the sense that teachers are literally
> > bringing political topics into classrooms where they don't fit well ....
> 
> 
> 
> I disagree  with you on  the 3 paragraphs beginning with the above. Say,
> take intelligent design. My feeling is that rather than banning it, it would
> be better to debate it. This sharpens up peoples understanding of the
> issues.
> 
> The real problem here I think is lack of democracy in schools. ie. a teacher
> may express a poltical view and students feel they don't have the right to
> contradict it. I feel that we need to learn to debate and argue better and
> this takes practice!

The supporters of the teaching methods I described previously (I hesitate to use 
the word "method", because I don't really see a purpose to it, but some people 
do) say that this sort of "dialogue" between teachers and high school students 
"promotes debate". The examples I've heard about do not promote debate. They're 
more like class lectures with the teacher rambling on about their POV on the 
world, and not very intelligently at that. I've heard people compare this to the 
Socratic method, which strains believability and insults people's intelligence 
(the comparison, that is). I don't mean to equate this to germane discussions 
that fit within the context of the subject being taught, and there's a give and 
take between teachers and students. As I said in an earlier posting on the 
Squeakland list, when done well it can be a valuable learning experience.

I haven't heard of any heavy handed intimidation with teachers and
students in high schools. I have heard of an unsettling number of instances
of this at universities, in the arts and humanities, where political
correctness stifles healthy discussions. In these settings it seems more like 
attempts at indoctrination than education, which is a real shame, not only 
because they take the approach of shoving an ideology down students' throats and 
call it "critical thinking" (they use this canard as well), rather than 
conveying knowledge and encouraging academic investigation of it, but also it's 
a big waste of money. College is not cheap.

I used to entertain the idea of ID being discussed in biology. While I don't 
mind its existence being mentioned, I've changed my mind about it going further 
than that. Physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson made a very good argument against 
entertaining ID in science classes. He said the danger of bringing in the idea 
that an intelligent designer created what we see in our world is it precludes
discovery. If a designer made what we see then there's no reason to explore
it, because the cause of the phenomenon's existence, structure, and
other properties have already been determined. He concluded with a
concept I had never heard before, but I think it puts science in its proper
context: Science is a philosophy of discovery. So anything that says
"we cannot explore this, because we already know the answer" has no
place in this philosophy. He emphasized that this does not mean that
people's faith in a higher power is invalid. It just means it has no place
in a scientific context, and it seemed to me that by defining science as
a philosophy he implied that it did not have a monopoly on the truth
either. It's a method of discovering things about us and our world, which
produces knowledge that is consistent and reliable. Unfortunately I can't
reproduce exactly what he said here, but I thought his argument was so good that 
there was no disputing it.

You might ask why not have this discussion in biology, since it would clarify 
the issue. I think once you open it up for discussion you introduce a dynamic 
where no matter how well reasoned the argument is there will be some who will 
choose to not agree with it, because they feel it challenges their faith, and 
this can be disruptive. What I used to hear happened at the high school I 
attended was when a science class got into subjects that fundamentally disagreed 
with students' faith, they were free to leave the classroom while that subject 
was being covered, and could come back in later. This expressed their dissent, 
and they could choose not to be present for ideas that they fundamentally 
disagreed with, but it did not open the subject up for non-scientific debate. 
This seems like a reasonable policy to me for science courses. If students want 
to bring up anomalies in the theory of evolution, fine, but I don't think it's 
appropriate to set up a situation where you get into a discussion of whether 
something supernatural created what we see or if it came about through random 
interactions. Save that for existential philosophy.  There are other outlets for 
this as well, such as literature, art, and perhaps religious studies.

You might ask why treat science courses differently than others? I think that 
science is unique with respect to religion, because both attempt to explain in 
their own way why things are the way they are. Some would say science explains 
more about *how* things are than why, and there's some truth to that. There's
no rhyme or reason for it except what is self-evident. Religion uses methods
that fit in the universals category, magical and intuitive, for explaining these
things. Science uses methods that fit in the non-universals category. Not to
say that this encompasses all that religion is. It promotes some
non-universals, like reading, obviously, and it promotes some aspects of
civilization, like following a set of laws, and social harmony, foregoing one's
own interests for the greater good. These aspects of it were far more valuable
in Medieval times when illiteracy and chaos were rampant, but I don't think it
should be taken for granted today. It's natural for children up to about age 7 
to exist entirely in the universals. I'm just speculating, but religion may very
well provide a vital bridge for children so they can transition from the 
universals to the non-universals.

---Mark
mmille10 at comcast.net
http://tekkie.wordpress.com