Robert -
Wow... what a *mixed bag* of *baby and bathwater*! My cynical,
anti-Texas, anti-Right, anti-Christian, anti-Authoritarian side cringes
at this kind of stuff... yet reading through it I find some gems of
"truthiness" that are hard to ignore.
This kind of rhetoric is clearly laced with innuendo, double-entendre
and numerous "sly winks" about what they are really saying, so I am in
no way tempted to believe that the framers or the proponents of this
kind of stuff aren't trying to slip something past the "majority".
However... I *do* share the implied mistrust of a "one size fits all"
public education. (I know, *they* have their one "one size fits all",
only it is a different size.) I am happy to live in a society that wants
it's populace to be educated (or a nation that wants it's citizens to
be?... subtle difference, but maybe important). I also accept that
"standardizing" education (as with industrial processes) increases
efficiency and generates a more uniform product. But I *don't* want the
raising, education, and socialization of my children (or children of my
friends and neighbors) to be based on a *factory* model. Nor do I
*trust* a centralized authority to decide what "social standards" those
children should be tried to be fit into. In this I am vaguely
sympathetic with the radical GOP, tea-baggers, and libertarians.
The text about "scientific theories" and "new evidence" all sounds good
if I didn't know it was a thin disguise for "let the Creationists spout
whatever crap they feel like and don't you dare challenge them". But
in fact, I know that most of my own K-12 educators had little or NO
understanding of Science as a discipline and culture, including the
science teachers. Maybe *especially* the science teachers. Admittedly
my educational milieu was somewhat impoverished by circumstance (small,
rural/semi-rural). I'm afraid "Science" is taught in our public
education system in a manner not all that different than if it were
"Religion"... I believe in science, but I don't Believe in Science...
I think the discussions *here* amongst people who *mostly* have 4 to 12
years of formal post-secondary education, and *mostly* in technical or
scientific discipline indicates that getting a good grasp on what
constitutes "proper science" is not as obvious as we want to think.
Most of us were raised to Believe in Science I fear...
This was big news last summer. Also, one cannot fail to recognize that
it was the good Texas Christians who were behind the rejection of
teaching critical thinking skills. A thinly-veiled move to prevent
losing any Texas Good Christians to the critical thought process.
I think this is part of an escalating "rhetorical arms race". While I'm
not sympathetic with the Texas GOP fundamentalist Christian Right, I
*do* understand how they (or others who I might be sympathetic with)
might question their "opposition's" use of phrases like "Critical
Thinking Skills".
I watched my Gifted and Talented (and also gifted and talented) daughter
go through public school with *very* capable and progressive teachers
for the most part. About 1/4 times she would come home to tell me
about what she had been learning in school, I was *appalled* at the
*lack* of critical thinking that was being offered... She was being
taught *by* rote, what was at the time essentially "Political
Correctness". I don't think the message of the PC crowd was
particularly off base, but the *methods* often lacked intellectual
honesty. Fortunately it only took a little prompting on my part for her
(and her younger, more grounded, but less academically stellar sister)
to see through this. Both of them have very good critical thinking
skills and for the life of me I can't tell that they were "taught" much
if any of that in school.
My favorite was when ElderdDotter came home in 6th grade from an after
school meeting of the new "DARE" program, supposedly designed to combat
early drug experimentation among her age group. They all but had them
*chanting* "I will think for myself", "I will think for myself!", "I
will think for myself!". They had *co-opted* the meme "I will think
for myself" as the most *mindless* opposite possible. They also
"seemed" to be working toward a "brown shirt" program to try to get kids
to turn their parents in for drugs. I was not anywhere near this
territory so the specifics of it did not threaten me personally, but the
methodology and process were deeply disturbing.
Fortunately my daughter *was* (and still is) pretty able to think for
herself whether indoctrinated to claim she was or not. After she got
through chanting "I will think for myself" (not literally, but nearly
so) to me for a while... I simply asked her to listen to what she was
saying and ask herself if there was anything oddly paradoxical... she
twigged to it right away and slowly drifted out of the DARE program.
She went on to experiment lightly with drugs but never got tangled up in
them or the culture, while any number of the kids who continued to stand
in front of the school principle and a police officer with glazed eyes
chanting "I will think for myself" actually did fall into some pretty
deep holes with drugs (and other unenlightened self-destructions).
Hmm... I'd say their program had some problems. I'm assuming those kids
parents didn't talk to their kids? Or they patted them on the head and
gave them a gold star for "thinking for themselves!". Or they quickly
ran and hid their stash of drugs from their kids. Or all three.
Bottom line is that while this motley crue (Texas GOP) are clearly full
of misbegotten nonsense, some of their "enemies" are as full of the same
thing, only a different flavor. My enemy's enemy is not necessarily my
friend. Ignore those who would claim that Creationism is Science and
that *their* family-values are the only/correct ones, but don't imagine
that you won't run afoul of the machines fueled to *fight* this kinda
crap on your own pet issues. Wait until you are told *how* you have to
frame touchy issues like abortion or transgendering or war by someone
who you may or may not respect or agree with?
As I said: we're screwed. And we let it happen.
--Doug
And it will be *we* who let it happen if/as/when we get *more*
screwed. Actually I don't feel screwed. I feel like maybe 90% of our
population is screwed... and while that is inconvenient and sad, I feel
I have escaped most of it. Haven't you (Doug)?
- Steve
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