Academia

If You Can’t Dazzle Them with Audacity…

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David Foster’s post on the Blatherification of America, specifically based on this post over at Joanne Jacob’s site by guest blogger Diana Senechal, reminded me of my own problems with the American educational system.

I have a daughter in first grade. Although Blatherification is evident in her classroom, it is probably the least of my concerns. I’m a physical chemist by primary training, but I make my living with my MBA in Marketing, so this is not a Snowian Two Cultures disconnect. The No Child Gets Ahead errr… No Child Left Behind standards have had a pernicious effect on education, and nowhere is this more evident than in the phenomenon of curriculum reorganization.

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The Age of Blather

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Diana Senechal, guest-blogging at Joanne Jacobs, tells the following story:

I run two lunchtime literature clubs at my school. The fourth graders just finished reading A Little Princess. During our discussions, I encourage delving into the text and discussing it on its own terms. I am not a big fan of “accountable talk,” “making predictions,” “making connections,” and so forth when they assume precedence over the subject matter itself.

One student brought up the part where Sara spends her money on hot buns for a beggar girl. “She made a self-to-self connection,” the student said. I felt sorry that students are learning such ghastly terminology, however well meant. Why are students not encouraged to say, “She understood how the girl felt” or “She felt compassion for the girl”?

Why, indeed? It’s bad enough to impose verbiage like “self-to-self connection” on college students: to do it to a 4th grader is really unforgiveable. It adds nothing to understanding–indeed, it very likely interferes with the true understanding and appreciation of the story by creating an emotional distance.

Strange, awkward, and unnatural verbal formulations, used ritualistically and without contributing to understanding, are becoming increasingly common in our society: although this phenomenon is arguably at its worst in education, it is by no means limited to that field. These word and phrases are not similar to the traditional jargon of a profession or trade. “Self-to-self connections” is not the same kind of thing as “amp” or even “kanban.”

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Worthwhile Reading

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A few items for your Monday reading pleasure:

In a commencement speech, the CEO of Questar Corporation takes on some popular myths about energy.

A professor of English who teaches at the U.S. Naval Academy has thoughts about the teaching and mis-teaching of his subject:

We professors just have to remember that the books are the point, not us. We need, in short, to get beyond literary studies. We’re not scientists, we’re coaches. We’re not transmitting information, at least not in the sense of teaching a discipline. But we do get to see our students react, question, develop, and grow. If you like life, that’s satisfaction enough.

Interesting description of the typical reaction of his students to Madame Bovary, and about the ways in which he tries to establish a connection between this character’s feelings and their own.

(via Newmark’s Door)

Finally, some not-so-cheerful thoughts from Arnold Kling:

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Whither Zombies?

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Tim Cavanaugh links to some pseudo-intellectuals  purporting  to analyze why zombies are such popular monsters these days, especially given the top-ten ranking of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” (which might make it possible for me to get my teenage son to read something  vaguely  related to Jane Austin).  The pseudo-intellectual ramblings linking zombies to everything from Reagan’s Cold War policies to the current economic uncertainty prompted me to post the following comment:

I remember reading an analysis of the original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” that waxed that the story was a red-scare allegory of communist infiltration. Seemed to make sense at the time (I was twenty.)  
 
Years later I read an interview with the writer/director the movie. The interviewer ask him about how the fear of communism influenced the work. The writer was confused. They’d had no grand allegories in mind. They made a movie about evil clones because they had a desperate financial need to make a cheap horror movie but they were to broke to afford makeup or effects for monsters.
 
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a zombie is just a zombie. People like zombie movies because zombies and the apocalyptic you’re-all-your-own setting they come with is genuinely horrifying. You can easily write interesting variations around the basic theme. Financially, zombies are cheap monsters and isolated farm houses are cheap places to film. Cheap, horrifying monsters explains the appeal of zombies for both film makers and their audiences, not tortuous allegories or appeals to zeitgeist.

I think most modern literary  criticism  seeks to exploit the  analysis  for political purposes instead of seeking to understand why and how the artist chose to tell the story as he did. The critics avoid trivial but true  explanations  and instead grasp at exotic but false ones  solely  to gain attention for themselves and their pet causes.  

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Goon Squad

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Then there was the sound of glass shattering. A window was broken by more opponents outside. As the situation escalated, Tancredo left. Those who went to hear him speak were clearly upset. “”Obviously there wasn’t a point,” one attendee said. “He wasn’t going to be allowed to speak.”

“Protesters” shut down a speech by former Congressman Tom Tancredo at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. (More coverage here.)

I am reminded of something that Laurie Zoloth, a campus Jewish leader, said after observing political thuggery at San Francisco State University:

This is the Weimar republic with Brownshirts it cannot control.

There is a definite Fascist tinge to much of the activity and belief structure of today’s “progressive” movement. Political violence and intimidation are being increasingly normalized in academia, and will inevitably spread to other parts of our society.

See my goon squad thread; also be afraid: the rise of political violence and intimidation in America