“The Frenzy About High-Tech Talent by Andrew Hacker” | The New York Review of Books

June 29, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

In reviewing several books on the STEM craze, Andrew Hacker questions the underlying assumptions driving this fad. Such an evaluation is long overdue. I’m a fan of STEM, but I’ve been concerned for a long time about the adverse effects of putting these fields on a pedestal to the detriment of other areas of study. There are many reasons to question the STEM fad, but one of the most immediate concerns is the assumption that there will be jobs for students that go into those fields. Based on several studies, Hacker argues that there is little evidence to support this assumption.

Hacker concludes that “[t]he fervor over STEM goes beyond promoting a quartet of academic subjects. Rather, it’s about the kind of nation and people we are to be. Already in play are efforts to instill the metrics—and morality—of technology within ourselves as individuals and into the texture of society. Artists and poets may have to score high on tests of trinomial distributions if they want bachelors’ degrees. In viewing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics as strategic weapons, we are constricting honored callings and narrowing national priorities, while the alleged needs for STEM workers are open to serious question, including whether the demand for them may be exaggerated and manipulated.”

Read the entire article here:

The Frenzy About High-Tech Talent by Andrew Hacker | The New York Review of Books.

History News Network | Conservatives go after UCLA’s historian James Gelvin

December 24, 2014 / Debbie / 1 Comment

Does anyone else find this disturbing? An organization called Campus Watch audits the courses of professors who teach in the area of Middle Eastern studies to ensure that they align with their pro-Israeli perspective. On their website they claim that their organization “reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them. The project mainly addresses five problems: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students. Campus Watch fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds.” A review of their activities show that they are only perpetuating the “problems” they profess to be fighting against. While they do have the right to free speech their efforts to harass professors with views that are different from their own goes beyond their right to criticize those they disagree with. It is a very dangerous trend that I believe does not actually serve their real purpose (promote Israel as innocent of all wrong doing). James Gelvin, professor of history at ACLU, is their latest victim. One of Campus Watch’s representatives, Cinnamon Stillwell, attacked Gelvin in an article entitled “UCLA Prof Assigns Pro-Israel Book in Order to Trash It.” In one of his courses, Gelvin had required his students to read Alan Dershowitz’s The Case for Israel in order to critique it. Stillwell claims that this critique was not extended to other assigned material. But Gelvin pointed out that he also assigned a book with the opposite perspective and that “the assignment explicitly states that significant errors from both books must be cited, critiqued, and corrected.” For the full debate go to:

History News Network | Conservatives go after UCLA’s historian James Gelvin.

The goals and practices of Campus Watch go beyond the right to free speech, it amounts to harassment with the goal of stamping out all view points on campuses across America that do not conform to their ideological viewpoint. I believe that this trend is dangerous to not only to academic freedom but also to the prospects of peace in the Middle East. It serves only to perpetuate hatred and undermines any real attempts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

South Korea Joins the Textbook Wars

December 3, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

From the Chicago Tribune: “President Park is trying to reinstate her father historically,” Lee Jun-sik, a professor at the Yonsei University Institute for Korean Studies in Seoul, said by phone. “A government textbook would tout the achievements of conservative governments and boost views that conservatives need to extend their power as long as possible.”

S. Korea opens new front in E. Asian textbook wars – Chicago Tribune.

History News Network | Historians Should Honor Protesting Colorado Students

October 1, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Students in Colorado protested against the conservative school board’s attempt to impose an ideologically driven U.S. history on students. One of the conservative school board members, Julie Williams, complained that the current Advanced Placement curriculum emphasized “race, gender, class, ethnicity, grievance and American-bashing.” In a History New Network article, Peter Dreier, the chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department, at Occidental College, is calling on “The American Historical Association (AHA) and the Organization of American Historians (OAH) should honor these students for standing up to their school board’s effort to distort U.S. history around a blatantly political agenda.”

History News Network | Historians Should Honor Protesting Colorado Students.

see also this Associated Press article on the Colorado student protest.

History News Network | Liberal Education in America Is Under Threat: An interview with Historian Michael S. Roth

September 22, 2014 / Debbie / 1 Comment

History News Network | Liberal Education in America Is Under Threat: An interview with Historian Michael S. Roth.

Facts & Figures: Don’t Know Much About Government – NYTimes.com

September 20, 2014September 20, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Unfortunate but not surprising!

Facts & Figures: Don’t Know Much About Government – NYTimes.com.

Roxana Elden: The Myth of the Super Teacher

July 6, 2014July 6, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

This is a great video on teaching. Most people don’t understand how difficult teaching is! Teachers deserve so much more respect than they receive. Thanks for posting Diane Ravitch!

Diane Ravitch's blog

Roxana Elden teaches high school English at Hialeah High School in Miami. In this very funny video, she explains to education writers how demanding teaching is and how prevalent are the misconceptions in Hollywood and the media about the “super teacher.” Elden is a National Board Certified teacher and the author of “See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers.” She is a Teach for America alum who stayed in teaching. In the video, she says she is in her tenth year of teaching.

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Huppenthal Should do More than Apologize, He Should Learn Some History

June 26, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

John Huppenthal, superintendent of the Arizona State Department of Education, wrote this on a blog:

“We all need to stomp out balkanization. No spanish radio stations, no spanish billboards, no spanish tv stations, no spanish newspapers. This is America, speak English.”

This guy is in charge of our schools!!!! And this isn’t even the worse thing he’s said or done! (See The Arizona Republic)

The kind of recommendation that he proposes is exactly the kind of thing that led to the balkanization of the Balkans. Intolerance and the desire to purify one’s own territory to achieve an ethnically pure state (one people, one language, one religion) is what led to the extreme violence that has plagued the region since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Tolerance is the solution not intolerance!

A Lesson From England: “Education Should Be Beyond Belief”

June 23, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

In today’s The New York Times, Kenan Malik wrote a great piece about the alleged “Muslim Plot” in Birmingham: “Education Should Be Beyond Belief: A ‘Muslim Plot’ in Birmingham Shows the Folly of Faith Schools.”