The Challenge of Education

Last week, an interesting thing happened in England. The consequences of this action will, I believe, reach far beyond the shores of that country and encompass the world. The Royal Society asked their Director of Education, Professor Michael Reiss, to step down from his position because of comments that he made regarding the teaching of evolution in the classroom.

To quote from Dr. Keith S. Taber’s letter to the Times Educational Supplement (see http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/learning-science-concepts/message/835 for the entire letter and the responses),

The gist of Prof. Reiss’ argument was that the appropriate response to students who raise their beliefs in class when they are taught the scientific theory of natural selection should not be to ignore, dismiss or ridicule the students’ views, but rather to respect their ideas as a starting point for discussion, and to challenge them through the scientific arguments that have led to evolution by natural selection becoming some a strongly supported and widely accepted model for how life on earth has developed.

Professor Reiss is not supporting creationism or intelligent design, nor is he arguing for the inclusion of these topics in the science curriculum. But he is arguing that teachers should respect the views of their students and use those views as a starting point for discussion.

Too often, teachers dismiss the ideas of students as irrelevant or meaningless to the discussion. And this doesn’t just apply to those who teach evolution with an all-or-nothing approach; any time we present our ideas as the only choice or the only option, we risk alienating students and those who are seeking answers to critical and crucial questions in their lives.

Education should be the number one priority in our lives but it doesn’t seem to be that. We argue for accountability from our teachers but all we ask them to do is teach an ever-increasing number of facts with no connection to the real world and without the means to analyze the facts or even develop the ability to discern what constitutes a good idea and what constitutes a bad idea. As I noted earlier, “Are We Ready For The Future?”, we quite easily deal with short-term problems because we have short-term visions. But what will happen if we encounter a complex problem that cannot be solved quickly and simply? What will happen if we encounter a problem that has never been described?

When Dmitri Mendeleev first proposed his first periodic table, the major problem that he had to overcome was that of the “missing” elements. Others before him had attempted to push the elements together, leaving no holes in their predicted tables. But this solution failed to provide suitable explanations for the observed properties of the known elements and the relationship between elements that showed similar properties. What Mendeleev did was to use the observed physical and chemical properties of the known elements and reason that there were other un-discovered elements. To make his periodic table work, he left holes where he felt that elements should go; he then provided information about what the properties of these elements would be. The most commonly cited examples are Mendeleev’s “eka-aluminum” and “eka-silicon”. “Eka-aluminum” would have properties similar to that of aluminum and indium; “eka-silicon” would have properties similar to that of silicon and tin. We know these two elements today as gallium and germanium.

But Mendeleev’s periodic table does not have holes in it to account for the Noble Gases nor did he predict their existence. He did not predict their existence because he had no evidence to suggest their presence in our environment. Helium would not be discovered until two years after Mendeleev’s periodic table was published and only through an examination of the spectrum of the sun

With our knowledge of electrons and electron structure, we could easily see how to place the Nobel Gases in the periodic table but Mendeleev did not have that information. How will we handle such problems in our future?

The only way that Mendeleev was able to even predict the existence of some elements was through his ability to see relationships between the elements and how elements could be grouped together because of similar properties. If all we do is teach basic facts and do little to go beyond those facts, such “break-through” thoughts will be few and far between in the future.

Now, some will tell me that once helium was discovered, it would have been intuitively obvious that there were other similar gases necessary to fill the holes that the discovery of helium would have automatically created. And that is true, but you have to have that sense of discovery and that is not present in an environment in which only facts are taught and questioning is not allowed.

To teach students to question things is a very risky thing to do; because it will cause many students to question the fundamental things that they have been taught. But if the fundamental things are sound, the questioning will cause no disturbance. If there are problems with those fundamentals, perhaps they should be questioned.

Teachers need to respect the belief systems of their students; it is how the students operate. But they also need to move beyond the teaching of facts and begin including questioning and analysis in their presentation of the facts. This will be a challenge but the benefit will be that future problems will be solved, not unknown.

Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

Continuing Thoughts on Education in America

As everyone knows, I am not a fan of the “No Child Left Behind” act.  Whatever its intentions were, its outcome has done more to harm and set back education than it has done to achieve what it set out to do.

I am not arguing against accountability in the classroom.  Everyone who does a job, be they a teacher in the classroom, a worker on the assembly line, or a CEO of a major business, has to be accountable for the work that they do. 

But accountability in education is not necessarily measurable in the short-term.  If one wanted to determine how well students have learned a subject, you have to see what they do with that information later.  This means that any testing of students cannot be done the same year that they learned the information; yet, that is effectively what we are doing with NCLB-related testing.  Because of the way that many of these tests are scheduled and with the pressures put on teachers and instructors to do well on these tests, we do not teach information but rather how to do well on the tests.  In effect, we are teaching the tests!  Scores will go up but of what value are those scores.

Now, there is a report that standardized testing fails (see F for Assessment: Standardized Testing Fails) for additional information.

What is the solution?  Teach beyond the test; teach skills that require thinking and analysis, not simply memorization and recall.  Look at Bloom’s Taxonomy and move up the scale to the higher levels.  If you have to test for accountability, test when the results are valid, not immediately after the lesson.

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

Are We Ready For The Future?

Conversations the other day and discussions that have been taking place prompt me to ask if we are truly ready for the future. To be ready for the future requires, I believe, a vision for the future and I do not believe that such a vision exists.

In the midst of rising energy prices, the predominant answer seems to be that we need to drill for more oil or find other sources of crude oil. Regardless of what some might say, the war in Iraq is as much about obtaining other sources of crude oil as it was ever about freeing a nation from the clutches of a tyrannical dictator. And even if the immediate answer is to drill for more oil, say on the North Slope of Alaska, we do not have the refining capacity to handle the additional crude oil and the additional crude oil will not reach the market for several years. And while obtaining supplies of crude oil that are independent of foreign dominance may lessen our reliance on such sources, it still does little to remedy the fact that we are dependent on crude oil for the majority of our energy, no matter the source of the crude oil. Nothing in the present debate about energy offers any suggestions that we are looking at alternative energy sources as more than some minor point in a discussion that will be (literally) covered over by crude oil.

We also have to realize (as I don’t think too many people do right now) that crude oil is not just the starting point for energy but the starting point for various and sundry other things, such as plastics. Our debate on energy fails to provide the answers for new sources and the alternative to a lifestyle that we have developed over the years. Our debate on energy must also take into consideration the environment, be it global warming or pollution issues.

Similarly, the abortion debate will again be a part of the political rhetoric again this year. Now, this is not about abortion but rather the fact that in the debate we offer no options. Those who are opposed to abortion are also opposed to almost every form of sex education and contraception but offer little in the way of how parents are going to support the child that they, the pro-life forces, insists has a right to be born. To discuss one aspect of this debate and leave the others out of the discussion is to say that we as a society do not care whether a child is born or not, all we care about is that our side of debate wins. Who will watch for this child as he or she grows up? The discussion that is taking place now is lacking in the discussion of the future.

What are the causes of terrorism in the world today? Can it be simply that people hate America? Or does it go beyond that? What causes people to rise up in revolution against their country and leaders? Why do dictators work so hard to limit dissent and opposition? How is it that we can celebrate a revolution in our own country yet are not always willing to support others who have the same goals and often use our very words to justify their revolution? We have supported revolutions in the past but only when it suited us; if the revolutionaries were attacking a government that supported us, we were just as likely to give that government aid so that they could crush the counter-revolutionaries.

When will there be a serious discussion of ending hunger and poverty in the future? When will our discussion of the future include suitable and sustainable housing for all, not just a few? When will there be a serious discussion of finding work for all that is meaningful and is more than just “make work”; when we will discuss making wages for the workers “living” wages so that people can truly live, not just survive?

These are the questions that we should be asking right now but we aren’t. We aren’t asking them because 1) we are afraid to ask them, 2) we don’t know how to find the answers, and 3) we may not like the answers that we find.

We too many times offer immediate solutions that do little to remedy the long-term problem. Isn’t time that we start thinking about the long-term and not just the day after tomorrow? There will come a time when there will be a problem for which we have no solutions because we have no vision for the future and there are problems that yet unknown. And while we may say that we will deal with the unknown problems of the future when and if they arise, how can we deal with them if we are not thinking in terms of what might happen in the long run? As long as our thinking is limited to the immediate and next day, we will never be in a position to think about long-term problems or those that have not yet arose.

And the problem is that the only ones offering a vision are offering a vision of a “Pax Americana”, of an imperial America that dominates the world through force and raw power. It is not a vision that offers hope or the promise of a better tomorrow but only violence and continued war.

The sad part about this is that many people today willingly accept this vision for it offers them security; even it does little to remove or solve the problems that cause us to need a stronger sense of security. The problem is that no politician is willing or even possibly capable of offering a vision that differs from this one.

First, their visions are merely packaged formulations of focus and study groups; at best, the visions they offer are merely an expression of what the people want at this moment. And the people want today what only can be found in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, the mystical city of Garrison Keillor’s imagination. It is a city and a society where all the men are good looking, the women beautiful and the children above average. At worst, the vision of the future is a restatement of the present or some idealized version of days past.

But the politicians only offer what people want to hear. The people do not want to hear that sacrifice will be needed or that they will have to pay for the commitments for the future. The people want to hear that the problems that we face are someone else’s fault and that someone else is going to pay to fix it.

There is a saying from the sixties that says “today is the first day of the rest of our life.” That is most certainly the case. We cannot, no matter how hard we try, go back in time. Unless something dramatic happens, time only moves in one direction and that is forward.

What we have to do is radically change our priorities. There is another saying from the sixties that says “it will be a great day for schools when the Defense Department has to have a bake sale to buy a bomber.” I have no problems with having adequate security for this country but what does it say when the expenditures for weapons and weapon systems far exceeds what we spend on people. And as our weapon systems become more and more complicated, where will get the workers to build the systems? What would happen if we were spending our money on people and making the lives of people better?

When President Dwight Eisenhower was preparing to leave office, he warned this country about the rising “industrial-military complex.” Sadly, his words came true. Everything we have done since 1960 has been directed towards the care and feeding of that beast and every dollar spent on that beast has been another dollar that could have gone to feed someone or build a home for someone or make the life of someone a little bit easier. Our greatest foreign policies triumphs in the 1960’s came when we sent Peace Corps Volunteers into the third world (the news today says that getting into the Peace Corps will be the toughest job you ever had). When we helped people, good things happened.

To be ready for the future requires that we start now. We start by changing the funding for our schools so that our schools can prepare our children for the future. We get rid of the “No Child Left Behind” act as it only prepares our children for today’s test, not tomorrow’s real one. Demand that money going into school systems flow past the administrator’s offices (have you ever noticed the disparity between the pay for administrator’s and classroom teachers?). Put the money into the classroom and make classroom teacher salaries competitive (make people want to become teachers as a first choice and not a last resort).

Make the educational process what it once was, learning how to think and respond. Too often, we are happy when our students can repeat what they were told, no matter how stupid or arcane that response might be. It is more important that they understand what they are saying and what it means; this will require a great effort because school systems, like any great bureaucracy, obeys Newton’s First Law of Motion (an object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion unless a greater force acts upon it). If we do not impose a greater force on our schools, our schools will continue in the same direction they are presently headed and I am afraid that direction does lead to a good future (if it leads to the future at all).

Then we need to start working on building the future today. We do not need more bombers or fancier weapons systems. We need better ways of delivering food to the hungry.

We need homes for everyone at prices that everyone can afford. And we need to make sure that people have the jobs at wages that will insure that they can buy their house and keep it.

I am not calling for subsidized housing or “make-work” projects; I am not calling for big government programs. Those are the methods of the past; we are moving towards the future. But we will not even get to the future, let alone be ready for it unless we start today.

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

The Current Economic Situation

There are times like these when I wish I had a copy of the term papers, or at least the second one, that I wrote my senior year in high school. The first one was about the Plantagenet family of England (the first Royal family); the second one was about the Great Depression of 1929. What I remember about that second paper was that after I had written it, I discovered a book by John Kenneth Galbraith on the very topic. Perhaps if I had my term paper or that book, I would have a better understanding of the thinking that is taking place at this time.

Any time that a major financial institution takes a hit and gets bought out or goes bankrupt, the people in the street should worry. Because, it seems to me, if the “big” players are getting hurt, the “little” players are taking a beating. But, again it seems to me, one seems to understand that or even care that this is happening.

There is all this talk about what the government should be doing with regards to saving Wall Street or if it should be saving Wall Street. Whether or not the government should have stepped in to help Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers Holdings like it did for Bear Stearns is another argument entirely. I know that the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because of the mortgage problems that would develop if such a takeover had not happened. The only thing that bothers me about the government taking over the two mortgage lenders is that they did not make the CEO of each company give back the bonuses they were reported to have received. It is unclear to me why companies which are losing vast amounts of money give huge bonuses to the people who are effectively losing the money.

But that isn’t what bothers me the most. To be honest, shouldn’t these big companies, which have misused the trust of their investors and the people who have relied on the services they have been provided been punished. Shouldn’t those people whose bonuses are more than most people will earn in a lifetime have to justify these payments, not just to the stockholders but to the American people as well?

And when will the government offer true assistance to the little people of this country? Shouldn’t those who are going to suffer or are suffering if these big businesses die get some help as well?

I know that a couple of months ago Congress passed some legislation and the President signed it into law that was supposed to help people with their mortgages. Unfortunately the money that is available for the individual mortgage holder will not be available until after October 1^st and you had to have had an adjustable rate mortgage (one that would have been considered sub-prime) to benefit from it. If you had a fixed-rate mortgage, you are apparently out of luck.

We wrote our Congressman about getting some help with our mortgage problems and were told about what is called FHA Secure loans. But the only lender in our area who would do anything with these loans was our present lender and they never bothered to contact us. I later found that most lenders won’t do these types of loans because there was too much risk involved and they don’t want to take these risks.

We spoke with another lender about what to do to get out of our mortgage problem and their advice was to sell the house and find a smaller place to live. But we are one of many whose mortgage is greater than the value of the house and selling the house would still leave us owing the mortgage holder. I personally don’t see how that can even be considered a feasible option.

We contemplated declaring bankruptcy to protect our house but guess what? The lawyer we talked to told us that we have to be working in order to file the kind of bankruptcy that would protect one’s assets. Of course, if we working then we would not be contemplating such actions.

I have been unemployed for the past sixteen months. I am presently teaching a course at the local community college and that is bringing in some income, though not enough. For the better part of this year, I was not receiving unemployment benefits because they had run out; I did receive some money from the emergency package that went into effect in July but that money has stopped because of my working. And while there are others who may think that the economy is doing well, you can’t call the local unemployment office on Mondays or Tuesdays without getting a message to call back when the call load is lighter.

I also found out that creditors are exempt from the “Do-Not-Call” List. If you are behind in your credit card or loan payments, your creditors can call every hour on the hour if need be to get you to pay. Of course, it doesn’t matter if you can’t pay because you don’t have the money. The only way to turn off those computer generated phone calls (which some firms have out-sourced to countries outside the US) is to set up a payment arrangement or have your phone cut off because you can’t pay that bill either.

I am not quite sure what the solution is. Yes, I know that I have to either find a job or find some other work that doesn’t interfere with what I have right now. Believe me, that is what I am doing. We have asked our family and friends to help us if they could and, fortunately, that has been possible. But we are still short of the funds that we need right now and today I got news that my taxes are due.

I debated and prayed about posting this piece for a long time. I am not sure what will come about from it, other that people will realize that 1) it is the little people, the regular workers who are hurting and that helping the big companies probably won’t do a bit of good in helping them. Our leaders (business and political) need to focus more on the people and not the companies.

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

The Fundamental Question

I think that everyone, at some point in their lives, must answer two fundamental questions. The first must always be “Do you believe in God and salvation?”

There is no right or wrong answer to this particular question, though there will be enough people who will tell you that your answer is right or wrong. Of course, they will define for you what the right answer is and what the wrong answer is. But the answer to this question can only be found in your heart and you have to be prepared to deal with the answer that you come up with.

But it is clear that there are too many people in this country and in this world today who feel that they have the right, the power, and the authority to tell you what the answer is. And they will tell you what will happen to you if you fail to answer the question the way that they tell you.

That is part of the problem in this country and the world today. We willingly let others tell us or try to tell us what to think, what to say, what to do. We willingly let others tell us what our future will be. And when our future begins to unravel and the world around us falls apart, we have nothing to fall back on. When our future begins to unravel and the world around us falls apart, we look around and wonder where we went wrong. We wonder why this country is in the shape it is and we wonder why, for all that this country has in terms of resources and ability, that nothing gets done.

We see people without sufficient healthcare. And I would point out that the older one gets, the worse the ability to provide healthcare gets. And it is not just healthcare; we have limited dental care; we have limited optical care. And we don’t get mad.

We see people living in the streets or under bridges. We read about the rising numbers of foreclosures and we wonder where the land of opportunity has gone. Oh yes, there have been laws passed that are supposed to help people in the current housing crisis. But it is limited help and only for certain people. And it will not necessarily stop the foreclosures.

I am not old enough to have lived through the Great Depression. My father and uncle were teenagers through its later stages and young men as World War II started. My grandfather’s last entry in his diary spoke of the promise and hope that the country felt when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933. My grandfather was a Captain in the U. S. Army at that time and had been a Captain for the better part of the time from the end of World War I and this pivotal moment in American history. In the same entry where he suggested that there was hope for the country, he noted that he was being paid ¾ of his regular pay; the Great Depression extended far beyond the soup-lines and shanty towns of our modern day history books.

And that leads me to the second fundamental question that each one of us must answer at some point in time, “What are your politics?” It is not enough to say that one is liberal, conservative, or libertarian. Politics can be defined as the process by which a group of people make decisions that affect other’s lives.

I have come to the conclusion that labels such as liberal, conservative, or libertarian no longer apply when one is discussing politics. The fact of the matter is that no matter what side of the political spectrum a person may say they are on, it is quite clear that they are only in favor of those things that we get them elected. Politics have become the art and science of determining what the people want and how it can be achieved at the lowest cost for them and for those who seek election. And it has often been said that the basic rule of politics is to get reelected.

Now we can point out many politicians, on both sides of the aisle, who have done great things. And there are those politicians who have brought home the “bacon” for the people of their district. (Remember that rule #2 in politics is that only money spent on government projects in other congressional districts is “pork”; it is for jobs when it is spent in one’s own district). But in the end, it is always what the politician can do to get reelected.

We readily seek labels that will help us identify with the winning political party in hopes that somehow we will benefit from their largesse. How else can you explain the number of working class voters who have voted Republican in the past few years? Nothing in the Republican rhetoric ever suggested anything to me that the working class would benefit from the election of Republicans; oh, there was mention of more money through tax cuts but, many times, when there is a cut in Federal taxes, there is a rise in State taxes to offset the loss of revenue. But the people accepted the rhetoric and the scare tactics that accompanied the rhetoric.

Now, some will tell me that it is better to be a conservative so that you can make the decision about how to spend your money. And I suppose that is true but the majority of conservatives that I have heard or read have no feelings whatsoever for the poor or lower classes in this country. “I got mine; let them get their own,” seems to be the mantra.

And the majority of liberals will say that we have to have the Federal Government involved or the problem will never be solved. But the problems have never been solved and it seems that many of the modern day liberals need the poor or lower classes to justify their existence. But the people accepted the rhetoric and the scare tactics that accompanied the rhetoric.

And the majority of the American people will say that they don’t want money spent on schools or hospitals or roads or anything but they will complain when their children can’t get a quality education, the local hospital closes because it was bought out by a major corporation, and the bridges and roads deteriorate and the cost of a bus ride or a subway ride keeps going up.

At some point in time, we have to stop this process of politics by fear and special interests. At some point in time, we have to stop and say that politics is about each individual collectively and together. At some point in time, we have to realize that we are moving in the wrong direction but that we have the time and the ability to change our direction.

If one’s belief in God is personal, then one’s political beliefs are public. For whether we care to admit it or not, we are all in this together. And that brings up the most fundamental question of all times, “What are you going to do about it?”

The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Bob Dylan, 1963)

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

Education in America (part 1)

I have mulling over a piece about education and educational processes in today’s society.  But in the meantime, you might want to look at this particular piece in today’s INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION, “The Right To Control Students”

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

What Exactly Is Equality? And What Do We Expect?

I gave a sermon on Sunday (10 August 2008 ) in which the presentation probably was not one of my better ones. I forgot that I am God’s representative and Christ’s disciple and that the words that I speak have to be His words, not mine. I have been on a roll lately and I was thinking that it was my ability that was doing it. But it wasn’t my ability and I need to remember that.

But the sermon itself was a good one and I felt that it was appropriate for the Scriptures as well as the moment that is this Sunday. It was the responses that I received from some people that prompt me to post these thoughts. These thoughts are accompanied by some other thoughts from two other venues that I believe are related.

Somewhere in hearing what I was saying, the idea of equality became equated with the idea of affirmative action. I said nothing in the sermon about affirmation action and the idea that these two concepts are equivalent pushes the idea behind both.

After the first service a person came to me and said that I should be careful “pushing the envelope” when it comes to equality. This person told me that they had recently lost their job because someone else (a person of a different race) demanded a job with their company and threatened action if it was not given to them. If this is true, then this person’s company was wrong but, like so many other things going on in this country today, not willing to fight for what is right. A person who is already employed should not be fired or released simply because someone threatens a lawsuit in an effort to get a job. I don’t believe that the affirmative action laws were written that way.

But if this first individual’s claim that they lost a job to someone who threatened a lawsuit because of discrimination is correct, then we have a serious problem. Somewhere along the line, we have equated affirmative action with equality. They are not the same thing and we should not even think that they are.

The purpose of affirmative action was and is to say that companies who have two individuals with equal skills are to hire the one who represents a class of individuals who have been discriminated against in the past. It was not meant to mean that such individuals are to be hired regardless of their abilities or skills or to put someone out of a job that he has held for years. Yet, that seems to be what we have done. Through affirmative action, we created quotas saying that we need so many people of one kind and so many people of another, so that our company or organization represents society. That’s fine and dandy, provided the people have the proper skills and abilities. If they don’t, then they shouldn’t be hired.

Another person came to me after the second service and offered something that was somewhat similar, that their company was giving jobs to foreign nationals in preference to American workers. I am not sure if this was outsourcing or a modification of a training program. But if we are supposed to give away jobs in the name of equality, then we have a serious problem.

As a society, we are demanding quality goods at a cheaper price. I don’t believe this is possible. Quality comes with a price; that is not to say that low cost goods are not good quality but more often than not, low cost brings low quality.

The problems of the American automobile industry come, in part, from their belief that cheap Japanese imports were low quality. They once were but the Japanese borrowed our ideas about quality control and improved the quality of their products. But Detroit held onto the belief that Japanese cars were poor quality and kept producing their traditional models until they suddenly realized they were losing business. Now, it may be too late for the traditional auto industry.

In response to the demand for low prices, American industry created outsourcing. Outsourcing is American business’s response to society’s demands for low prices for common goods and it has been taken to extremes. Now, I am not a fan of outsourcing; as I noted in another piece (“Economics 101”) some creditors have outsourced their collection calls to India and other points overseas.

Both of these comments indicated one critical problem with our response in the 70’s to the demand for equality in the 60’s. We never made the playing field equal. Too many of our students come out of schools with diplomas that suggest they are qualified but they are woefully unprepared because their schools are under-equipped to meet the demands of society. I am not alone in this view.

I subscribe to a particular listserv and the recent discussion has been on student self-esteem. The tone of the discussion suggested that students come into college with the expectation that they need not do any more than show up for class and they will get an “A” in that course. They haven’t been pushed to succeed in their prior experiences and they have never experienced any sort of failure. Failure is not acceptable because it will destroy their self-esteem.

I believe Thomas Edison once said that it took him over 100 tries to get it right; in other words, he failed 99 times before he found the right way. But he never looked at 99 attempts as failures; he always said that he found 99 ways that would not work.

Our problem today is that we don’t allow our students to fail; we find some way to pass them, even when they are not ready. Students enter college expecting the same environment that past them through high school. As a result when they enter college they are not ready for the work that is required nor are they willing to learn the things that they need to learn in order to succeed. In other words, we are setting our students up to fail because we do not demand that they learn what is required at the lower levels which will allow them to enter college and perform at college levels.

A colleague of mine indicated that we needed to take students at the level where they are, no matter what their preparation, and help them along. And I agreed, especially because as high school teacher that was my philosophy. I have always held the view that the goal of education should be to give students the skills needed so they can learn more on their own after each class is completed.

I see too many students who come into college who do not have the prerequisite skills that a traditional high school graduate should have in order to enter college. (See “Teach Your Children” for a list of what a high school graduate should be able to do.) I also argued that it was necessary to tell the students if they need to examine their own options and make other plans. I am of the opinion that we should not automatically accept students in our classes without the prerequisite skills. It may be that their prior education was lacking and we have to do something about that, but that has to come from beyond what transpires in my classroom or in my organization.

One outcome of the 60’s and the changes of that time was a call for equality. Affirmative action was the result but it was really a band-aid where major surgery was required. Across the nation, many of our schools do not have the technology necessary to prepare the students for life after graduation and they do not have the funds needed to gain the technology. There is the issue of teacher preparation as well, but we will save that for another day. We have done very little to make our schools equal and, if our schools are not equal, then our students will never be put on an equal footing.

When I call for equality, I am calling for situations where everyone has an equal opportunity. I am not calling for some people to receive consideration when they are not qualified. But if they are not qualified, then we need to work to insure that they do become qualified. And if anyone thinks that because something happened years ago in the long forgotten past they are entitled to special benefits or recognition, they need to think again. What happened in the past is no excuse for not doing their best now.

But what has happened in the past should tell us that we need to do more in the present so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated in the future. Our schools are preparing student who are ill-prepared and under-qualified, yet we do not try to make our schools better. We demand quality products but we are unwilling to pay for the quality. We expect our leaders to represent the best and brightest yet we are willing to let mediocrity rule (for those who can remember, Richard Nixon nominated G. Harrold Carswell to a seat on the Supreme Court in 1970. Against cries that he was mediocre, Senator Roman Hruska stated “Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance?” (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942208,00.html and http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20051005-092022-5265r.htm) That remark is believed to have backfired and damaged Carswell’s cause.)

There are those today who feel that because of whom they are and, solely because of whom they are, they will receive special consideration when it comes to entering heaven. Such individuals will be sadly mistaken when that day comes. On the other hand, those who fail to seek equality in its basic forms will find that the doors to heaven may very well be barred to them as well.

If we seek equality, let us make sure that equality is what we seek and not some action that only gives lip service to the idea. Let us put thinking back into the process of life and let us think about our actions, not simply respond poorly to injustice and the lack of thinking on the part of others.

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

Economics 101

First, I wish to apologize to my faithful and loyal readers on RedBlueChristian.com for my absence.  As will be obvious in this particular post, my mind has been elsewhere.

Second, there is a possibility that this will be perceived as a rant; it is not meant to be.  But it is written out of frustration and frustration sometimes leads to ranting and raving.

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I was going to write the essentials of this piece last week but I was angry at the world and thought better of it.  But perhaps I should be angry. 

Last year, Freddie Mac paid Chairman and Chief Executive Richard Syron nearly $19.8 million in compensation even though the mortgage company’s stock lost half its value. During the same period, Fannie Mae President and Chief Executive Daniel Mudd got compensation valued by the company at $12.2 million, including a $2.2 million bonus.  If I understand the recent mortgage bailout plan, then much of the money that is coming out of that plan is going to these two organizations.  Okay, they are losing money and perhaps they need government help but why are they paying over $10 million dollars to two individuals??  What exactly do they do that justifies such income??

If they are receiving that sort of income, what type of income should the people who taught them in high school and college be receiving?  (Wouldn’t it be a nice idea of schools gave bonuses to the faculty whose students received awards like Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, or any of the other major awards that are part of our lives?)

And it isn’t just these two individuals.  The guys who ran Enron into the ground were getting major league bonuses and selling off their stock while hiding the truth from the workers and preventing them from getting out when the getting was good.  Where is the justice in that?

It has been stated and it continues to be the truth that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing.  My wife firmly believes that the middle class is dying and that we are on our way to a two-class society (essentially those with and those without).  Every indication says that is true.

But, what I see must only be an illusion or some figment of a bad dream (does this mean that when I wake up, Victoria Principal will be coming out of the shower?).  The economy is in a bad shape and those who are running this country (businessman and politicians alike) either don’t understand that or don’t want to believe it.

If we are to believe the economists and other “learned” souls, we are not in a recession.  As of July 31st, the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, grew by 1.9 percent in the second quarter of this year. That’s nothing to write home about, but it’s not to be despised either. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. We’ve had two consecutive quarters of positive growth, gross domestic product having increased by 0.9 percent in the first quarter. So therefore we are not in a recession.

But that doesn’t explain the rise in gasoline prices, the rise in food prices, and the turbulence and turmoil in the housing market.  It doesn’t explain that many food banks are strapped right now and the number of people coming to them for assistance is increasing every week.  At my home church, we are getting anywhere from 10 - 15 new applicants every week.

Whether or not we are in a real recession or a “mental” recession, as a noted Texas economist recently announced, is inconsequential; for many people, these times aren’t a recession, they are a nightmare!

I am one of those who is living that nightmare.  I have been fully unemployed for 15 months now and just began to receive supplementary unemployment benefits after not having any since March.  I received some income from an adjunct teaching position last summer and hopefully will be getting some this fall as well.  I haven’t been sitting back expected someone to call me with a job offer; I have been looking but with limited results.

First, many companies today tell you to file your application on-line and then you never hear anything (one person told me that he did hear something but it was a year after he had submitted the original application and now the company wanted to know if he was still interested and, if so, would he resubmit his information).  Most companies today do not tell you that they have hired someone and that you are no longer being considered.

I did have one job interview but after making it through all the hoops, the organization decided to kill the search and start over.  They apparently were not satisfied that any of the finalists (myself included) had the same vision of the organization as they did, which was an increased on-line presence.  I saw where they wanted to go and I thought it was possible but I also saw several problems that they hadn’t consider; I concluded that they didn’t want to hear the bad news that comes from adapting technology to traditional approaches.

Another organization, after telling me they would keep me informed, didn’t bother; when I asked, I was told that I wasn’t considered a good fit.  I may have been too old for them (but that is almost impossible to prove these days) or they were uncomfortable with my being both a chemist and a minister.  I can’t prove either, so I move on.

I know of two other searches in which I am still being considered but they have changed the parameters of the search and any results will not come about until January at the latest (and then there is the likelihood that if I am not selected for an interview then I will never know the outcome).

My lack of employment has had the expected results on my income and the lack of income has had its affects on my mortgage and other bill.  Please don’t tell me that there is hope for me in the recent legislation that was passed and signed into law.  The law that President Bush signed a week or so ago won’t take effect until October.  There is existing legislation in place but it requires the lenders to act and the lenders don’t want to act.  I have a potential solution to this problem but it requires money up front and we don’t have the money.

And as a warning, if you get behind in your bills, especially your loans and credit cards, expect your creditors to call you at least three times a day.  The calls will be computer generated and even be linked to a call center in India.  If you have caller id, the display will read “unavailable” or “unknown”.  And there is not one thing you can do about it except pay your bill, even if you don’t have the money.  The law that prevents telemarketers from calling you doesn’t apply in this case.  And the people who call you really don’t care what your situation is, they want their money and they will keep calling until you give it to them.

I never expected that I would be fabulously wealthy; I never expected to even be wealthy.  I expected that I would have a certain degree of debt.  It is a part of life.  But I thought that I would have a reasonable job,I would do what I like doing, I would receive suitable compensation for my efforts and I could pay my bills. 

I  thought that having a Ph. D. would mean something.  Right now, all it means is that I have another bill to pay and creditors telling me that I have to pay it before I may anything else. 

Through my words, my thoughts, and my deeds I have sought to make this world a better place.  Right now, I am not sure if that is enough.

I entitled this little piece “Economics 101″.  The basics of economics should be that no one should suffer, no should be hurt.  As I have written before, John Wesley didn’t mind it if you earned a lot of money.  In fact, he encouraged it!!  Earn all you could, he said.  But he also said don’t do it on the backs of others.  And he also encouraged each of us save all that you can and then give all you can.

It would appear that some of us are earning all that we can but the rest of the story is missing.

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian.com

Must It Be Business As Usual?

The other day, in response to a question about displays of patriotism during Sunday services during national holidays, I added the comment that peace and freedom are not won on the battlefield but in the hearts and minds of the people.

A blogging colleague responded by saying that this assertion was wrong. He said that war is sometimes the solution and that peace and freedom are sometimes won on the battlefield. He added that imperfect freedom and imperfect peace make for imperfect solutions but that such solutions are sometimes much better than the alternative.

I was tempted to ask what war actually solves and why we must settle for imperfect solutions. But as the focus of the remainder of my colleague’s remarks was on that original topic, so too will the focus of these remarks be on the issue at hand. But his comments are reflective of what I see happening in the world today,

We are in the midst of an economic crisis in this country. It is likely that this crisis will transcend national boundaries and slowly and surely begin to affect the other nations of this world. It is a crisis driven in part by the increasing energy crisis. Because so much of what we use today is somehow related to the price of energy, if we do not solve the energy crisis, then we cannot solve the economic crisis.

Yet, the offered solution to the energy crisis is to drill for more oil and let the supply of new oil drive down the current price of oil. In theory, this is a correct idea. But I see several problems with this solution.

First, drilling for oil takes time and any oil that is obtained through new drilling will not be on the market for several years. Our refining capabilities are, it seems, are at their maximum levels right now, so we would need additional capacity in that regard; again, a process that takes time.

There are some who are opposed to new drilling, especially in the Alaska North Slope fields, because of environmental concerns. Their concerns are valid and need to be taken into consideration. Any new drilling and the construction of new refiners must take into consideration environmental issues and, more importantly, such concerns must remain beyond the simple start of the project. Typically, long-term maintenance is often forgotten and this is where the problems start.

Finally, we have to consider that fact that the supply of crude oil is fundamentally limited. Sooner or latter, it will run out and we cannot produce it anymore. And as long as our economy is based on the supply of crude oil, we are going to be faced with this situation.

Whether it is more oil to solve the energy crisis or war as the solution to war, we have this nasty habit of seeing our solution in current and past terms. When will we begin to think “outside the box” and seek alternative solutions?

There are three ways to see the world – “yesterday was better than today”, “there is nothing wrong with today”, and “let’s make tomorrow better than today.” The problem is that, more often than not, we see the world in terms of the first two views and give little thought to the third. We do not seek alternative solutions because we are either incapable of thinking in those terms (and given the state of education today, that should not be surprising) or we are afraid to think in those terms.

To think in new ways is a frightening experience. We are far more comfortable thinking in the same old ways that we have used all our lives, even when we know they do not work. We long for the good old days when things worked and there were no problems. We are in a comfort zone and we do not want that comfort zone disturbed. And when things like September 11^th happened, we do not know how to respond and we become fearful.

Our politics are based on those views. Our politics today are more fear than hope. Politicians on both sides of the spectrum speak more to our fears than our hopes and the only change that may occur is the change when they modify their views to fit the current polling data.

To ask people to think differently is a monumental task but it can be done. It will take time and it will not be easy (both of which are factors that many people don’t want to face today). It will require leaders who are willing to put forth new ideas, not ideas that respond to the polls. And if they put forth these new and radical ideas, they will have to put forth the commitment to hold to those ideas, not matter what happens.

I don’t want my political leaders to be television weathermen, telling me which way the wind blows. I don’t want my political leaders to tell me what is happening and how the other side is to blame. I want my political leaders to lead.

And the American people have to do the same. Instead of meekly accepting politics as usual, it is time that the people start asking the hard questions. It is time that we begin to see the world for what it can be, not what it is, and it is time to say, “enough of the usual processes; they don’t work. Let us begin something new.”

Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian.com

Teach Your Children

I don’t know if the song by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young is appropriate for this particular piece but the title is.

If you were like me, when you went to high school, you studied the Constitution of the United States.  There were probably very subtle reasons for doing so but it was most certainly so that we would be good citizens of this country.  In September, 2005, Charles Slater wrote that a student should be:

1. Readers of literature
2. Poets whose words envision new ways of being
3. Writers who reflect thoughtfully
4. Problem solvers who can use mathematics
5. Observers who can sense the wonder of science
6. Citizens who study history and take action
7. Speakers of two languages who cross cultural borders
8. Workers who can create with their hands and use technology
9. Artists who sculpt, draw and paint
10. Musicians who sing or play an instrument
11. Athletes who exercise for a lifetime
12. Leaders who recognize the moral dimension.

(What Does It Mean To Be An Educated Person?)

Each of these points speaks about what education should be, even at the high school level and for all persons, not just students but for all people.  But lately, I have to wonder if that is the case.  First, there was the video about the perils of dihydrogen monoxide (“Dihydrogen Monoxide Ban”).  Now, if you do not understand chemical nomenclature, the formula for dihydrogen monoxide is H₂O.  In other words, this particularly dangerous sounding compound is nothing but water.  Granted, there are things about water that are dangerous (as the floods in Iowa and the Midwest so aptly point out) but how willingly should we be to sign a petition to ban its use when its use is critical to our own survival.

And with the July 4^th coming up shortly, there will probably be a number of efforts to have people sign the Declaration of Independence without realizing what it is that they are signing.  And most people will refuse because they will think it is some sort of subversive document that will take away their freedoms.

But as Dr. Slater wrote following point #6,  “An educated populace is necessary to preserve and renew democracy.” 

In a letter written to William C. Jarvis in 1820, Thomas Jefferson wrote

I know, (there is) no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of society, but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

In a letter that he wrote to Colonel Charles Yancey on January 6, 1816, he wrote, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”  President Jefferson also wrote, “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”

But, as I read the responses to my post “The Rule of Law or The Spirit of the Law?”, I have to wonder if we understand what this country stands for and what the Constitution means.  We have gone to war without declaring war, we have taken away the rights of individuals without the process of law, and we have passed laws that, in the name of liberty, take away our freedoms.  Whether or not Benjamin Franklin is the author, we are reminded that “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Let us remember that what we do each day teaches our children as well.  Let us work to insure that they find liberty and freedom in what they learn.