What Sara Wrote On Her Hand...

[JPS]

Obama is praised for being a great speaker - I'd like to see him give a speech with only what he can write on his palm.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Palin criticizes Obama for being what he is, a communist. And if you don't like Palin, or anyone else, that's fine, too.

Sarah Palin has a broad spectrum of support considering she isn't running for anything. I would just as soon hear her speak using her "rhetor" than many so-called highly educated baboons. Education is what you make of it. A successful speaker is one who connects to their listeners. She appears to be doing quite well in most crowds. For awhile until after the election, so did Obama, until people began seeing what a skilled speaker can do with his skill. Obama is symbolism, Palin is substance.

"However, Palin's attacks on skilled communication go much deeper. Palin claims we shouldn't just distrust skilled communication, we should distrust the education that creates it. She criticizes Obama for being educated, when the holes in her general knowledge are shocking. We can criticize Obama for many things, but being educated shouldn't be one of them. As a teacher, I find this to be a really disturbing trend, coming for the most part out of American politics. There is a growing movement in America that believes education is not to be trusted, and is not a valuable pursuit. Every semester I see more college students who want to wear their ignorance like a badge of honor rather than learn to think critically and defend and evaluate the positions they hold. Sarah Palin is emblematic of, and a growing part of that movement. Her recent tea party speech was a great example of this kind of low brow populism."

And as a teacher your are hopefully willing to admit that there are many in your chosen profession that do more than teach. They try to endoctrinate with the stuff they teach. Palin wasn't criticizing Obama because he was educated. Maybe I missed

a few speeches of hers but most of her criticism of Obama was and is over ideology.

Teachers should spend more time giving the information and testing on it, and less

time on coddling those poor little darling victims. Our public education system is where

this problem is and the unions embedded in the system, along with a dose of left leaning politics.

Ms. Palin is learning lessons from the enemy in order to defeat it.

You had your say why you dislike her. It's for similar reasons that I like her. She is very successfully identifying with her audience, because they like what they hear.

[9teeneleven]

"To win that war, we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern."

I have a hard time disagreeing with anyone who is a fan of the 6.8 spc. But, there are a lot of strawman Obamas being bounced around the political circuit. I'm not in support of most of what he has done, or failed to do since he got in office, but I also don't think we should resort to hyperbole to discuss our displeasure. It is more productive, unless one simple wants to be an obstructionist (that might be a good political strategy, but a very damaging policy strategy), to present actual arguments rather than character attacks. It is a more effective strategy because it lends your opposition legitimacy. There are very few conservative commentators in the public eye who are actually doing conservative principles justice. The rest are showing allegiance to party politics. I think that is disappointing.

I don't expect this kind of commentary from politicians, but we should expect it from the media. The problem is that the conservative media are dedicated to party politics and celebrity. Palin is every bit the celebrity that Obama is accused of being. It is a disturbing trend of the last 40 years that the distinction of journalist has completely evaporated. The line between journalist and celebrity is completely blurred, but even more problematic, the line line between journalist and politician is completely blurred.

But back to Palin, like I said, connecting with an audience is not a measure of the quality of one's ideas. It's called pandering. I thought that Palin's whole speech was devoid of substance. Take as an example the following quote:

"The protections provided, thanks to you, sir, we're going to bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution and tries to destroy our Constitution and our country. This makes no sense because we have a choice in how we're going to deal with the terrorists."

I can understand how one might argue that in the U.S. borders we might suspend constitutional rights for terrorists (I wouldn't agree, I think that would weaken our own constitution in the act of defending it, but I don't want to get into that). Yet, Palin does the issue an utter disservice. She boils a VERY complex issue down to something that is black and white and makes no sense. Even if she ultimately disagrees with it, if the reason why we might want to maintain constitutionally protected due process, even when it might have a short term cost, doesn't make sense to Palin then either a) she truly does not understand the complexity of the issue and is a fool, or she understands, but is pandering.

As to the issue of teachers painting outside the professional lines into the political picture, in my 8 years as a college student, I never saw it once. On the other side of the exchange, I have seen it a few times (though I've seen it go both ways: left and right). However, the teachers who are truly doing more than teaching tend to be those who are less accountable for what they teach: adjuncts. In today's college landscape, most of the heavy lifting is done by day laborers. It is an increasing trend to cut costs by not having to pay salaries, benefits, and ultimately is an attack on tenure. As a result, teachers are hired, or graduate students employed to teach high load courses. Most of these adjuncts are valuable competent teachers. But the nature of the situation that causes their hiring (often at the last minute) means that there is much less vetting then there would be for a potential full-time tenure track hire. These teachers are also less accountable for what they teach, because they are not subject to promotion and tenure votes.

I always try to keep politics out of the classroom, or when I have to, I keep my positions concealed to stimulate thinking by the class. However, if a teacher does bring their own politics into the class, if they are still doing their job, they are stimulating disagreement. Courses at an undergraduate level are not designed to memorize ideas and ideologies, but to begin to foster a critical relationship to them. I couldn't disagree more about more testing. Testing is destroying education at all levels. At the college level, the goal is not to memorize information, but to begin to enter a conversation with it. Right now, there is considerable political pressure to turn colleges into an assembly line. The same flawed methods of test-centric education are being brought to colleges. Attacks on professors as "ranting liberals," and attacks on tenure as "a life time appointment with no accountability" are facilitating these changes and often inspiring them. How do you create a standardized test for critical thinking? How do you measure it? It is very hard to measure the output. What you can control are the input: quality teachers, who have the freedom to develop courses that are effectively meeting course goals. Make those teachers accountable to their peers.

It was mentioned recently in another thread that tenure is necessary to ensure that education is not beholden to politics and financial influence. Attacks on tenure have more in common with attacks on the 2nd amendment than most realize. How do you create a nice happy passive society? You remove the tools it has to fight against power. Like firearms, a college education is one of those things. Making testing and outputs the focus of college education is analogous to making the second amendment about "sporting purposes." It allows those in power to control the dialogue, and ultimately, to weaken the tools that might oppose them. How do you dumb down higher education in the name of controlling quality? You begin to remove those who currently control how courses are taught (tenured professors), and replace them with adjunct instructors who have little say over how a course is taught, and no say over what course goals are. Then, you create tests. Tests define education as acquisition and regurgitation of information, rather than a critical relationship to it. As an added bonus, you grant contracts to edu corps who develop software that neatly teaches to the test, and plays a total role in defining the content of the course. Just last year, TBR Chancellor Manning offered a proposition that all college students in Tennessee be required to take online courses. This is a viable political solution, because it is seen at the political level as solving all of the above. Gun control is done in the name of public safety. Education reform is done in the name of quality. Don't believe either.

You are right that education is what you make of it. Some of the smartest people I've met, I met when I was framing houses. Intelligence hides itself in many unexpected places. What higher education does is give people a chance to hone their intelligence, and learn to use new intellectual tools. Can that happen outside of a college? Of course.

Do I get the longest TGO post ever award?

Edited February 15, 2010 by 9teeneleven

[jcoosi]

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I appreciate the 6.8SPC comment. You are a gentleman. I loaded a few 85TSX's last night. Can't wait to shoot a few.

If one's ideas are similar to another's it's pandering? I don't see her as pandering, but stirring the pot up in the Republican Party, which has gone astray lately. She's actually done more to make people understand there are people that actually believe in this country and are willing to take on this communist onslaught. She's certainly

not a fool. She's not a polished politician, either, and people like her for that.

Politics has no place in the classroom, especially any science class, and sadly

politics is how the funding for colleges occurs. The global warming garbage is purely

political. Funding for AIDS research and stem cell research is totally politicized like

so many other aspects are in the colleges. Not all professors are political animals,

but the ones cutting their teeth on grant money sure are. The way the money is

obtained for research skews the results in the collegiate arena. Back to global warming and "Al Gore, University of East Anglia, polar bears and hockeystick graphs.

I painted with too broad a brush about tenure, but it is a system that needs to be

used more judiciously, rather than less. I'll have to leave it at that, since I'm not a professor. But I do think that teachers should be teaching sound concepts rather than

their own opinions. That's where the politics gets in the way of learning. The student,

when taught the concepts and facts has the ability to think critically about the subject taught. Testing assures whether the concepts and facts are learned to a minimum level. Truth is what people should be looking for, not political opinions. I'm

glad you are wise to not inject your political thoughts. That's a positive sign.

It's not the collegiate atmosphere I mean to criticize. It's the politicized baboons

with tenure that run freely in the colleges that I abhor. Substance wins out over

symbolism and politics. So does "Free scientific inquiry". There are a lot of good

professors and there are, sadly, lousy ones, too.

Online classes don't impress me very much, either. There should always be a personal stake in the class. I won't disagree with you on that.

"Those in power", which you refer to are the ones who need to be scholastic, rather

than political. These kids would have learned more than "mmm, mmm, mmm Barack

Hussein Obama", otherwise.