More Twitter Threads

On censorship in schools:

For all those who need to hear this: a commitment to anti-censorship can co-exist quite comfortably with a belief that certain books shouldn't be in school libraries and/or selected for study in English class.

— The Right Geek: Domestic Terrorist 🤡 (@TheRightGeek) October 31, 2021

On the wonderfully egalitarian doctrine on original sin:

The people screaming at @Miss_Snuffy for having common sense in re: children and original sin are exposing the very heart of the conflict between traditionalists and progressives in education.

Thread.

— The Right Geek: Domestic Terrorist 🤡 (@TheRightGeek) October 29, 2021

Public School Officials Are the Aggressors -- Not Parents

This is going to be a rant. There will be swearing. I apologize for that in advance.

The Biden administration, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, the National School Board Association, the major teachers unions, and their blue check lickspittles have inspired, for me, a rage so towering and incandescent that it rivals the sun. The ongoing displays of arrogance truly disgust me, especially given how categorically wrong - and dishonest - all these people are.

Critical race theory is not being taught in primary and secondary schools? Bullshit, Terry. Great heaping loads of foul, stinking bullshit. It doesn't fucking matter that it's not the original papers that were first taught in our law schools. What we're seeing in K-12 is, in fact, an application of those supposedly abstruse academic ideas to schooling as described in texts like this or this. Schools are still demanding that kids classify themselves by race and then recognize either their "privilege" or their "disadvantage" according to that classification. Schools are still teaching kids that they should feel guilty for history they personally took no part in -- or that they should feel aggrieved and hopeless because of that same history. Instead of teaching all the facts without accompanying editorials, schools are imposing one interpretive schema on many children that erases the complicated truth (like, for example, that slavery was a human norm in the 1600's, that some freed Africans even owned slaves of their own, or that most whites didn't) -- a schema whose particulars have been disputed by many celebrated (and not necessarily right-leaning) historians whose careers span decades.

Whatever all this should be properly called, it's indoctrination, and it's wrong, full stop. The public school teacher's job is not to become a creepy social engineer; it's to deliver the democratically-established curriculum to the children of tax-paying parents who don't have the time to do so themselves. You, teachers, do not have the remit, the intelligence, or the professional qualifications to psychologically assess your students for the purpose of unearthing their (or their parents') crimethink -- or to guide them through contentious conversations without parental input. 

Hell, many of you don't even have the qualifications to adequately cover the state-mandated subjects your were originally hired to teach! Are you fucking kidding me? Math teachers don't learn real math, ELA teachers don't learn real English language and literature, history teachers don't learn real history -- and no teachers learn the actual science of learning and cognition. Education schools, for some ungodly reason, have been segregated from the rest of the university -- and have been captured for decades by Weather Underground types who'd rather feed young teacher candidates Freire-inspired garbage than consult with the neuroscientists across campus about the limits of working memory. 

You, teachers, can barely spell or read a simple pie chart. (Trust me, I know; I've seen your so-called "educational" materials and even tutored some of you on the Praxis.) So when I see shit like the tweet below...

Same energy pic.twitter.com/G0X1UulW7k

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) October 6, 2021

... you'll have to forgive me if I immediately make a sound like I'm barfing up three feet of intestine. Parents - many of whom are professionals themselves with far more legitimate, more rigorous credentials - are infinitely more qualified than you are because they haven't been poisoned by literal anti-teaching propaganda (like, for example, the notion that kids can "construct" mathematical knowledge by floundering around, with minimal guidance, in endless discussions with their classmates) and radical political nonsense. Indeed, only journalists outpace you when it comes to the extent of your deliberately cultivated ignorance. Is it any wonder, then, that very few of our students exit school proficient in English and math?

And yet, despite your manifest incompetence and piss-poor training, you, public school "educators" and school board members, have still far exceeded your designated bounds out of an unsupportable belief that you should be treated as unquestioned "experts". Not only have you approved the peddling of false history (as described above), you have further abused your authority by 1.) encouraging, through curricula or library book selections, age-inappropriate discussions of sex, gender, and sexuality that confuse young children; 2.) tyrannically imposing restrictive health measures on our students that are not based on real-world data and effectively treat kids like plague vectors instead of like little people who are entitled to dignity (not to mention developmentally crucial playtime and normal interactions with their peers and supervising adults); 3.) hiring data miners to spy on students and their families under the guise of "social-emotional learning"; 4.) conspiring against parents who demand transparency and/or their rightful say when it comes to curricula and school procedures -- and even subjecting such parents to legal harassment; and finally, 5.) shutting down nonviolent democratic debate because you wish to duck the inevitable heat your have brought upon yourselves through the other actions previously described.

The parents whose trust you've broken aren't the aggressors here. You are. Parents are simply defending themselves and their children. And I hope they ultimately triumph.

Twitter Rants

This makes me incandescently angry. She's throwing basically every slur she can think of at parents who don't want their kids to be judged on race -- and it makes ZERO sense at all. Madam, NORMAL people don't work like you do. (cont. below) https://t.co/gxvROgEruW

— The Right Geek (@TheRightGeek) July 16, 2021

In the above thread, I respond to a local story featuring an insane ideologue.

Let me bump this and add some further commentary: I'm getting sick and tired of people freaking the eff out like COVID is Ebola. It's NOT. If you're healthy and young, your chances of dying - or even being hospitalized - are extraordinarily slim. >> https://t.co/a9F5Nh3zzR

— The Right Geek (@TheRightGeek) August 2, 2021

And in this second thread, I've finally lost my patience with the fascistic Covidiots.

Enjoy!

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I'm sure someone with more letters after their name than I has already said this, but in re: the Rockies controversy...

... you can't trust what you hear when the audio is corrupted/ambiguous. Perceptual priming is a thing that exists. >>

— The Right Geek (@TheRightGeek) August 12, 2021

Edited on 8/12 to add: the above thread, which whacks people over the head with the science of perception, covering the reason why we can't always trust what we see/hear.

Buckle up for another thread!

I don't trust teachers -- even though I are one. Let me tell you why. >>

— The Right Geek (@TheRightGeek) August 13, 2021

And here's a message of support to all parents rebelling against their local school boards.

How to Boot Stomp the Poors

Hot take: The left is right about “privilege.” It does have a tendency to protect itself. Leftists just don’t understand - or they refuse to acknowledge - that they (and their self-identified “conservative” apologists) represent the voice of the powerful. They speak for the elite — not us “MAGA-tards.” And it is their ideologies that maintain the various phenomena they insist are the features of “systemic oppression” for which we - not they - must atone. 

In The Vision of the Anointed, one of his seminal books, Thomas Sowell persuasively argues that to use income brackets to carve up American society into the “rich” and the “poor” is, in fact, to embrace a fiction. The 21-year-old scion of two urban professionals who’s currently making minimum wage at his local Starbucks might be cash poor for the moment — but to say that he belongs to some rigid, identifiable underclass is to ignore both his formative experiences and the likely impermanence of his present position (assuming, of course, that he makes smart choices from here on out). Indeed, the chances that this kid will find himself in a more comfortable circumstance - or even in the top 1% - in a decade or two are still remarkably high. 

Despite the fluidity of the membership for each income decile, however, I do believe there is such a thing as class. I simply believe it is better defined by sets of common experiences than by money in the bank. True: monetary wealth and life experiences aren’t independent variables. And true: even life experiences won’t give us clear boundaries between the classes. Nevertheless, I think Charles Murray had the right idea when, in creating his “How Thick Is Your Bubble?” quiz for Coming Apart, he included questions about the reader’s beer-drinking and vacationing habits.

By my personal definition, I’m a member of the coastal elite. Though I’m currently cash poor (just like that young, bourgie barista), I grew up in a comfortable middle class home in the suburbs in which education and cultural enrichment (via museum visits, trips to the theater, etc.) were stressed. I was trained (by my late father of blessed memory) in the art of gentlemanly debate and consequently developed a discomfort with ruder, more frank ways of speaking (something I’ve obviously been working to overcome for the sake of the truth as I understand it). I also graduated summa cum laude with highest honors from a top tier university and work in a job in which academic knowledge (of some sort) and verbal virtuosity are prized. I am, as Chris Arnade might put it, a quintessential “front row kid.”  If not for the grace of God, I would be David French. Admittedly, up until the winter of 2017, I basically was.

So when I rail against the elites on this blog, I’m railing against folks with whom I’m intimately familiar. As for what it was that made it possible for me to become a front row dissident — to, essentially, betray my own “breeding”? One reason may be that my family was military, which was a subculture of its own during the late Cold War era in which I knew it (i.e. well before the officer corps’ recent convergence by the woke). (Sigh. I’m pretty sure Dad’s spinning in his grave right now. If he were alive, he’d be hollering like crazy over this “whiteness” poison and how it will destroy unit cohesion.) Another may be that Mom and Dad both grew up working class and I have close relatives who still are. And the last may be my inborn personality. On the Big Five, I’m extremely low on extroversion and relatively low on agreeableness; in layman's terms, that means I’m a cranky, uncompromising bitch who doesn’t care very much what other people think. 

However the above-mentioned individual factors rank in importance, the result is that I have consciously cast my lot with the Other, “Deplorable” Half. And I will be eternally happy I did that because the people like me who do attempt to keep up with the hottest intellectual trends sweeping our class turn out to be awful, awful people. As I’ve said in previous posts, they’re God-damned peacocks who perform compassion instead of actively embodying it. And what’s worse, they look down on their fellow Americans with exactly the same kind of unearned, overweening pride that moved WASP’s in earlier ages to whisper that so-and-so was “simply not our kind, dear.” The one difference? Wokeness has finally given them a guilt-free means to be snobs — to fully indulge in their thinly-veiled antipathy for the hoi polloi in full confidence that they won’t be called out by their ideologically (but not practically) egalitarian peers for putting on airs.

And yet — there are definite costs to all this auto-flattery that don’t just fall on the targets of Elect opprobrium. In fact, when I hear someone like Don Lemon complain that white Americans don’t “see him as a human being,” I react with both contempt and pity. Naturally, the contempt comes in because Lemon, whose partner is white, clearly doesn’t mean all of white America when he spews crap like this. No: clearly, he means those white Americans over there who - ew - might drive pick-up trucks or - ugh - may not have gone to college. In other words, he’s absolutely using this rhetoric to announce his superior social status. Moreover, like many “POC” in the front row class, he’s openly rent-seeking. He’s learned that play-acting his “victimhood” moves his white peers to fall at his feet and give him anything he demands — and rather than react to that with self-respecting disgust, he’s chosen to take the path of least resistance because there lies tangible bennies.

But then — this is where the pity comes in. Because I think Lemon, somewhere deep down, knows how demeaning and toxic his woke milieu really is. If I were surrounded by unctuous white “allies” desperately trying to curry my favor to assuage their own guilt, I think I might feel I’d been robbed of my dignity too. Of course, that doesn’t excuse Lemon’s embrace of those who - either consciously or unconsciously - despise anyone who’s not them. Nor does it excuse his acting out his learned distaste - again, either consciously or unconsciously - by promulgating ideas that will pull up the ladder of success for all those who are Out. But there’s still a nut of something psychologically genuine in his pose of offense. Lemon, to put it bluntly, hangs out with the wrong crowd; that’s why he feels put-upon and bereft.

Authenticity does not exist among Lemon’s “friends” — and neither does deep knowledge of human nature or the roots of established social orders. That’s why the policies favored by our “betters” could very easily be collated under the following banner:

How to Boot Stomp the Poors in X Easy Steps

What are some of those steps, you may ask? Well, off the top of my head, here are two from the field of education (with which I have the most extensive contact):  

1. Get rid of standardized tests.

2. Discontinue advanced placement, accelerated study, and gifted programs in tax-funded schools.

In both cases, the stated motive for the proposed change is “equity.” Because certain subpopulations are proportionally under-represented among those students who earn high test scores and/or admission to advanced programs, the claim is that these markers of excellence are racist and should be scrapped. But as I have remarked many times before, different outcomes are not sufficient evidence that an injustice has been done. Such a conclusion can only be drawn after the (probably multifaceted) causes of these discrepancies have been thoroughly, thoughtfully, and honestly examined. Bias there may be — but it is also a fact that not every subculture values and pursues an education with equal fervor, and until we can face that forthrightly, radical attempts to “balance the scales” are certain to do tremendous harm.

If we completely abandon standardized tests, for instance, we will lose a great equalizer. Yes, that’s exactly what I said: an equalizer. The first tests of this type were conceived in China as a way to identify meritorious candidates for the civil service, and they enabled Chinese from lower social classes to advance to important government positions from which they would’ve been barred if those tests did not exist. And in the American context, meanwhile, the existence of the SAT has made bias against disfavored minority groups (like Jews and Asians) both visible and incredibly difficult to justify. To abolish standardized testing, then, is to rob us of the one means of objective measurement that has a proven historical record as both an engine of upward mobility and a bigotry detector. 

Yes: there is a slight association between a student’s SAT score and his SES. But the association between that same SAT score and actual undergraduate performance is stronger, indicating that, contrary to popular belief, the SAT is measuring something more than a student’s family circumstances — something that turns out to be quite relevant to predicting academic success (that thing being g, which is simultaneously the most supported thing in social science and the most often avoided). And unlike portfolios, resumes, essays, interviews, and/or student transcripts, the SAT is incredibly difficult to game (yes, even when you hire expensive tutors; take it from someone who does that for a living), which makes it a fantastic cross-check for students who don’t come from tony schools and therefore may not sparkle on those aforementioned - and comparatively easier-to-burnish - alternative assessments. Not every kid has the resources to wow an admissions committee with an account of his internship with a Washington D.C. think-tank — but every kid can log onto a computer at the public library and study for the SAT with Khan Academy without paying a cent (which is why I have a regular donation set up to support Sal Khan’s mission).

And if we destroy advanced placement programs? Again, more well-to-do kids won’t feel that lack; they will simply move to private institutions that offer what the public schools won’t. Meanwhile, the students on free and reduced lunch who are left behind by this flight will be stuck with the thin gruel that passes for a curriculum at their local politically-correct madrasa. You think the achievement gaps are bad now? Just wait until you have to pay tuition to take a calculus class in high school! Oh, I imagine that some of the most enterprising low-SES parents will still somehow find a path around that barrier — but if you want to talk about systemic obstacles to achievement, this would certainly qualify.

On just about every conceivable policy issue, these blue check bozos demonstrate an inability - or an unwillingness - to comprehend how their preferred solutions will affect flesh-and-blood people in the real world. Instead of working with human beings as they are, they continually seek some mystical “perfect” that can never be realized. And when their policies fail - which they almost always do given their manifest lack of contact with reality - those most afflicted are the supposed “beneficiaries” of their “aid.” Thus:

 

• The elites can always hide behind their hired bodyguards and community gates — but scuttling traditional law enforcement leaves regular folks defenseless against the ensuing disorder.

• The elites, protected by their affluence, can usually get away with encouraging non-traditional lifestyles — but poo-pooing marriage has saddled working class kids of every color with most of the consequences of rampant family dysfunction. 

• The elites benefit from the steady stream of cheap domestic labor made available by a porous border. But destitute migrants are left at the mercy of human traffickers — and less-advantaged border communities are forced to contend with depressed wages and persistent crime (including theft, vandalism, drug trafficking, and gang violence). 

• The elites came through the COVID lockdowns unscathed, ensconced in their cushy homes, their jobs preserved because they could be done with a lap-top and an internet connection. The yeomanry, on the other hand, were utterly crushed by our aristoi’s quixotic pursuit of absolute physical safety.

And on and on I could go down the list.

If I were a foil-hat type, the breathtaking consistency of the direction of these negative impacts would lead me to suspect a deliberate conspiracy on the part of our “privileged” to keep various outgroups down. But I’m hoping the truth is much simpler: that they just don’t know any better. Their “privilege” has effectively shielded them from the inherent tragedy and resource scarcity that defines our fallen world, so they assume that the system can be made flawless — and that we opponents must be evil, stupid, or lying when we point out the damage done by these “anointed” and their utopian schemes.

At any rate, the impact is the same: the elites maintain their advantage while the poors suffer.

Grumpy Thoughts, 9th Edition

“Grumpy Thoughts” is a series in which I share quicker takes on recent news. To see the previous eight editions, click here.

As for today’s post, let’s begin with a short open letter.

Dear Ms. Smith (pro-abortion valedictorian):

I work with other studious young people your age, so I recognize in you a common desire to fight for justice and change the world. I take no issue with your spirit and believe you have a right to use any platform you’re given to express your political views regardless of what school authorities might think on the matter. 

However, I strongly encourage you to examine the abortion issue more deeply and not simply accept the lies you’ve been told about the prerequisites for female accomplishment — for it is not the case that your future depends on an invented right to destroy human life. If you should find yourself facing an unwanted pregnancy, bearing the child and then, perhaps, giving it up for adoption will not utterly scuttle your chances — even in the worst circumstances you mention. There are other options besides murder. 

But let’s suppose an unwanted pregnancy does irreparably damage your carefully laid plans. You and I - and every other human being on this planet - have a moral responsibility to look beyond the ends of our own noses and factor in the rights of others — especially those who are disadvantaged and defenseless. To put it another way, life is not all about you and your desire for career advancement. The fact that you would embrace terminating the life of your hypothetical child - who has committed no crime and cannot speak in his own defense - for the sake of your otherwise commendable ambition reveals a fundamental selfishness on your part that you should seek to root out rather than indulge.

You want to rebel? Why not fight the conventional wisdom that demands we women lay siege to the very thing that makes us women* in order to succeed. This, in my view, is the so-called “patriarchy” we need to dismantle.

Sincerely,

RG

*Yes, I am implying here that it is the womb that makes a woman. Howl all you want, but as a more masculine member of the distaff sex, I actually find that definition liberating.

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“Life is not all about you.” I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot and in posts covering many different subjects. But I think that strikes right at the heart of one of my biggest problems with leftists: their eagerness to stomp on the rights of others for the sake of their own supposed “comfort”/”safety”/etc.

Leftists never take personal responsibility for their own happiness. Instead, they always ask us to bear that burden. If they’re upset about something, then it’s entirely our fault — even though, in reality, the leftist’s own cognition has a lot to do with her emotional state. (If you believe, for example, that honest, peaceful discourse is an unmitigated threat to your “existence,” you’re wrong, and you have a duty to seek help and change — not us.)  If a thoroughly reasonable standard - or ordinary people leading ordinary lives, even - somehow gets in the way of a leftist’s absolute liberty to do whatever the hell she wants whenever the hell she wants without even the mildest of injured feelings or inconveniences, then she concludes that “the system must be dismantled” regardless of the chaos and despair such a revolution would wreak. A leftist demands that the entire world change to suit her needs — and said demands are never open to negotiation because that same leftist believes she is more important than anyone else on Earth.

In my political writing, I believe I have always tried to find the rare kernels of wheat amongst all this leftwing chaff. And I’m probably going to continue to make that effort; after all, I have a commitment to the truth as I understand it regardless of its source. But I’m also looking at what time it is right now — and thinking I need to be even harsher when it comes to calling out everything that is evil and base in the whole leftist worldview. Because it is evil to intimidate and shame people into doing your bidding, it is evil to condone eliminationist and hateful rhetoric against people you perceive to be “privileged”, it is evil to promote violence and rioting as a tool for “change”, it is evil to use your victimhood (real or imaginary) to sponge off others, and it is evil to assault excellence because you’re incompetent and marinating in your own ressentiment.

Quite frankly, I’m not going to sit here and kowtow to these lazy, aggressively stupid, and floridly diabolical activists. Call me an istophobe if you want. I no longer care. I’m going to say exactly what I think now with zero effs given. See above and below.

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A few posts ago, I suggested that the teaching profession has been colonized by not-super-intelligent women who leap at every chance to avoid real work. I made this observation out of frustration with the utter failure of many public school systems to provide the services to which students and parents are entitled because “muh COVID.” But I still stand by it because it explains other aspects of the K-12 implosion as well.

For example, it certainly accounts for the eagerness with which school districts in my area have embraced critical race theory. In one county to my north, theory-addled officials have eliminated the standardized test that used to be required for admission to their nationally-respected STEM magnet because they’ve swallowed the lie that race-blind standards — aren’t. And in another, officials have even threatened to cancel parents who’ve dared to challenge them on a so-called “anti-racist” curriculum that actually explicitly promulgates anti-white bigotry. Why? I’ll tell you: CRT gives them an easy out. It allows them to deflect the blame for observed achievement gaps onto a nebulous “system” that must be razed instead of squarely confronting their own monumental failure to educate less-advantaged students.

Why do certain subgroups of students fall behind? The root causes for this are complex and multitudinous, but one reason is certainly the public school system’s addiction to stupid fads like “whole language” and “reform math” that appeal to “educators” who are thoroughly untutored on how the human brain actually works. More affluent students can get around these idiot curricula by seeking out someone like me (i.e., a traditionalist who has a degree in brain science); poorer students, however, are stuck with programs that fail to teach them to read, write and cipher. Unhappy with the outcomes generated by this state of affairs? You should be — and you should seek to rectify them by returning to what works: explicit, teacher-led instruction in the three R’s.

Of course, that seems yucky and hard to our aforementioned public school officials. Establishing need-based, drill-focused remediation camps to fix what “reformers” have broken? Ugh. That’s too much. Better to spread the idea that literacy and numeracy are “the white man’s standard.” That way, you don’t have to do anything at all.

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And while we’re on the subject, the Very Smart People claiming that our complaints in re: the propaganda leftists are trying to force upon our children are alarmist/reactionary/a white-washing of history/etc. need to shut the eff up right now because you’re either actively lying or you just don’t know what the eff you’re talking about. 

Oh, I know you think you’re oh-so-clever pulling your faux-mystified “critical race theory is something discussed in law schools” schtick, but your dishonest obfuscation of the point doesn’t erase the direct intellectual through-line connecting those academic discussions and the applications of neo-racist thinking that we’re now seeing with our own damned eyes in our local schools. Whether these curricula are technically employing CRT as its academic originators understood it or not is a side question that doesn’t change the fact that they are morally wrong and incredibly damaging if you care about fostering genuine justice and solidarity. 

And that false dichotomy you’re setting up between the 1619 Project and “not teaching black history at all”? It’s absolute BS and everyone knows it. I’m almost 42 years old, yet I learned about slavery and segregation and was exposed to the thought of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and others. (I also learned about the Trail of Tears and our interventions in Latin America, just FYI.) True: my high school course didn’t cover the black American experience with the exhaustive depth activists evidently prefer. But that same high school course also boiled down the presidency of John Adams to the X-Y-Z Affair and the Alien and Sedition Acts (which, as a fan of Adams, I take personally), so — I’m thinking maybe it’s hard to fully explore the details of anything in a survey course intended to instill elementary factual knowledge about the history of our own country (which everyone needs first before we start diving into the nitty-gritty). 

BLATE: There’s a vast field between “anti-racist” indoctrination and covering up the negatives in our national story, and every. single prominent anti-CRT activist lives in that space. If you are asserting otherwise? Again, sit the eff down so adults who aren’t functionally retarded can hash this out.

Yep, this is precisely what these radicals are trying to pull. And we see right through it.

          

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Some psychopathic speaker who was given a platform at Yale (and is therefore unbelievably privileged despite her caterwauling to the contrary) reportedly dreams of murdering white people because she believes we’re all predators illegitimately seeking congratulations for what we’ve done for her. Well, allow me to correct the record: I don’t want to be praised, cupcake. I want to be left the hell alone. I’m sick of being held responsible for crimes other people committed before I was born. I’m happy to help anyone who’s genuinely struggling*, but when push comes to shove, I don’t owe anyone anything just because of my skin color. Collective guilt is a bullshit concept that leads to mass graves wherever it’s taken seriously.

*And let’s define “genuinely struggling,” shall we? If you’re low income and/or a victim of family dysfunction and/or community disorder and decay, you probably do need a hand up. Weirdly, though, those folks generally aren’t the ones clamoring for special consideration. Weirdly, the loudest voices demanding I abase myself before their righteous “suffering” are thoroughly bourgie mediocrities living quite comfortable lives who’ve discovered that appealing to grievance gives them power akin to wielding the One Ring. To them, the only thing I’m willing to offer is my two middle fingers.

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To the whiny brat complaining about the prevalence of American flags from her rarefied perch at the New York Times: if you don’t like the United States, you’re free to leave. I’ll help you pack your bags. Hell, I’ll even set up a damned GoFundMe to buy your ticket if you don’t have the resources to emigrate. Why? Because I don’t want to share this country with contemptuous people like you. People like you want me and mine dead — or at least oppressed and immiserated. And as it is obvious there’s no room for reconciliation or negotiation here, I’m more than happy to consider divorce. Eff right off — and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

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James Lindsay is the unquestioned master at translating “woke” terminology into sane people English and you should absolutely peruse his stuff over at New Discourses. But here, I’m going to indulge in some translating of my own — after which I will propose a more helpful, less Marxian way to discuss the very real phenomenon at issue.

When I hear the phrase “systemic racism,” I hear: “I’ve noticed a disparity in outcome between whites and blacks in the US, and I’ve decided to blame all white people. It means nothing to me that in eras much more rife with legally sanctioned racial oppression, blacks were becoming professionals and raising well-adjusted kids. It means nothing to me that Asian immigrants on free lunch are cleaning white kids’ clocks on standardized tests. And I’m unwilling to consider the possibility that decades of condescending government handouts and affirmative action (i.e., stealth racial quotas) may have actually disincentivized educational attainment and healthy family formation in the black community and therefore done more harm than good. If I’m black, I enjoy humiliating guilty liberal white people, and I want historical mistreatment to be an excuse for all time because I just can’t be bothered to do anything for myself. If I’m white, I’m a peacock seeking carte blanche to lord my superior social status over other whites who don’t have my credentials or my position of power.”

What should be used instead: lingering disadvantage. It is true that black development was actively suppressed in the US by slavery, segregation, and misguided “urban development” for a few centuries, and it is true that black people today are now behind on several metrics (like, for example, accumulated wealth) in part because of that history. But these after-effects cannot properly be called “racism” without stretching the definition of “racism” beyond all meaningful bounds. The term “racism” should be preserved for concrete, clearly documented differences in treatment in present-day organizations for which bias seems to be the prevailing cause. For everything else, “lingering disadvantage” is a more accurate term that avoids abusive finger-pointing - because, of course, white people living today didn’t commit yesterday’s sins - and enables multivariate analyses of our current problems.

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And with that — I think I’m done for this week. Let me know in the comments what I should cover next!

The Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative Is Tainted

I happen to agree that students who are not on accelerated math tracks are often shortchanged by poor instruction and - even more importantly - ridiculously low standards. I also happen to agree that every student - barring a severe LD/ID - should be able to master basic algebra, geometry, and statistics at the very least if they are taught correctly. But the Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative, which proposes a universal course sequence for all students in the Commonwealth in grades K-10, appears to be animated by wrong-headed ideas -- at least if the supporting documentation the VDOE provides is any indication.

Batty Theme 1: If You're High Achieving, You Need to Check Your Privilege

Despite the VDOE's recent denials, it does appear that their intention was - and perhaps still is - to eliminate acceleration and force high achieving students into mixed-ability classrooms until the last two years of high school. The links at the bottom of the page all display a hostility to explicit ability grouping, decrying tracking as "inequitable". This, from the NCTM, is representative: 

"The practices of tracking students into course pathways that do not prepare them for continued study of mathematics and tracking teachers in ways that deny some students access to high-quality instruction are longstanding barriers to offering each and every student access to a high-quality mathematics education. These practices are not just, and they contribute to unjust differential student learning outcomes. These insidious practices must be dismantled if we are to achieve the goal of supporting each and every student in reaching his or her potential in mathematics." 

But to call tracking “insidious” is biased, loaded language. Granted, in the past, high ability students from underserved groups were often excluded from “high” tracks due to bias. But the way to address this is not to get rid of tracking. It is, instead, to remove the subjective from tracking decisions. A focus on universal objective measures of mathematics achievement and talent will expand opportunity when coupled with “second look” programs that actively seek out low-SES students who may fall through the cracks. 

In reality, tracking happens for practical reasons. Nobody in 2021 is intentionally trying to hold students back. It's simply a fact that in a typical middle/high school, you will encounter students who have strong ability/strong foundational development and students who do not. This variety arises because 1.) students are not all equally intelligent, sad to say, and 2.) even if they were equally capable in a theoretical sense, by the time students have entered the upper grades, it’s already too late to correct what’s been missed in previous classes without pulling out students who need extra help. 

In fairness, the NCTM does mention "differentiation," which is basically a covert way to ability group students. But "differentiation" is very difficult to pull off fairly and effectively and, oh by the way, also dramatically increases a teacher's workload. So if we were to switch to mixed-ability classrooms, how would we bring the students who are behind up to “grade level” while also adequately serving talented, highly prepared students at the same time? How would we teach the student who still can’t divide fractions and the student who’s flying through basic algebra? I'll tell you: we wouldn't. We'd ignore the high achieving kid and teach to the lowest common denominator. I've seen it happen out here in the wild; I even catch myself devoting more time to struggling students even though I'm well aware, due to personal experience, that gifted children need special attention too. 

It's also true that disadvantaged students often don’t have access to the most experienced, most effective teachers. But there are reasons for this too beyond some “insidious” conspiracy to screw certain kids. For one thing, the most talented, most experienced teachers are often the only ones who can teach AP/IB/honors level math. That's certainly the case at my own workplace. As a sixteen year vet, I'm the only instructor who knows our curriculum backwards and forwards and can confidently teach AP-level math and science. Thus, the highest achievers are funneled to my desk because I am the only one with the requisite content knowledge. Secondly, in many neighborhood schools, social dysfunction wholly unrelated to mathematics instruction often makes the environment an exceedingly unpleasant one in which to work. To be blunt, the highly talented instructors quite rightly want to work where they will be appreciated and treated well -- not where they risk constant disrespect and even physical assault from students we can no longer remove from our classrooms because “muh equity.” And lastly, talented teachers are more likely to want autonomy to teach as they see fit -- something they may not be given in low-ranking schools, where faddish nonsense often reigns supreme. Strengthen discipline in such schools. Protect them from the dangers of the surrounding community. And return to modes of instruction that are proven to succeed. Only then will you attract the best and the brightest.

Batty Theme 2: The Best Way to Teach Math Is Via Discovery & Endless Talk

This has been ed school orthodoxy since forever, and it shows no sign of dying out any time soon. (Which is one reason why I refuse to get my masters in math education even though it would almost certainly open up my job prospects). The problem? It's wrong. You can't learn math the same way you learn your native language because, in evolutionary time, we've only just yesterday started to use symbols and abstraction to represent both low and high level mathematical concepts. (Calculus was invented in the 17th century -- two seconds ago as far as our lagging wetware is concerned.) 

The NCTM document describes a classroom scenario in which a teacher opens up a class discussion regarding how to correctly interpret a position-time graph -- a discussion that continues at some length until the students finally realize for themselves that a horizontal line on a position-time graph means that the object is standing in place. The theory behind this is that this floundering conveys some sort of "deep understanding" that explicit explanation does not. But there's no good evidence that discovery actually works -- at least not for our novice students, who simply don't have the grounding to conduct a fruitful investigation and reach the correct conclusion in a reasonable time frame. On the contrary, studies from Project Follow Through onward have concluded that well-designed direct, teacher-led instruction is best -- not just for procedural fluency but also for this vaunted "understanding" that is the education elite's central concern.   

How do you best prepare students to tackle novel problems? You fill their mental bank with examples, algorithms, and formulae and give them scaffolded exercises that start with the routine and then gradually step up the challenge by adding more and more novel elements. You don't demand they behave like professional mathematicians at the outset in the name of "productive struggle". No scientist launches an experiment without first reviewing all the literature that's relevant to his research question. No pianist starts playing concertos without first learning scales. No basketball player skips his basic drills. Similarly, no student of mathematics should be thrown into the proverbial deep end without floaties -- i.e., the received knowledge generated by mathematicians of previous ages.

Which brings me to...

Batty Theme 3: Procedural fluency/correctness is unnecessary -- or at least not as important as "understanding."

From the NCTM again:

Or imagine a classroom in which Jacobi is told directly that his reasoning is incorrect and Charles is told directly that his is correct. In such a case, both Jacobi and Charles might base their mathematical identities on correctness—getting the right answer—rather than on reasoning and sense making.

And also:

Historically, much of school algebra has been concerned with the rewriting of algebraic expressions and the solving of equations and inequalities. Today, these tasks can be performed by technology that is available in a variety of forms, and this development should shift the focus of school algebra from learning how to perform algebraic manipulations “by hand” to learning how to recognize which techniques will produce a desired outcome, how to interpret the outcome mathematically, and how to use the outcome to move forward in analyzing a situation or solving a problem.

Beneath quotes like these lurk the assumption that procedural fluency and understanding are independent -- but that is not the case. Procedural fluency is, in fact, what enables understanding over time. Math is a linear subject. Topics build on each other. The lower leads to the higher.

In my own experience, students who have not thoroughly mastered adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions struggle with Algebra 1. That's because the skills required to competently manipulate fractions are intimately linked with the skills you need for entry-level high school courses. To cite one example: to efficiently reduce fractions requires strong knowledge of divisibility -- something that also happens to be required to efficiently factor quadratic trinomials. The fractions score on my workplace’s diagnostic exam, in short, turns out to be a fantastic proxy for estimating a student’s general number sense and problem-solving ability and is a strong predictor of success (or struggle) in math overall. And when we focus on addressing a student's lack of proficiency in manipulating fractions through direct, focused instruction - when we, in other words, do exactly the opposite of what the NCTM suggests - that student's algebra grade, in the vast majority of cases, goes up. True: this is the experience of one particular learning center. But my personal observations do line up with what we're seeing in our abysmal math performance stats nationwide after years of "reform" math and "discovery learning".  

So no: forgoing the rich understanding that comes through doing lower level math with pencil and paper is not going to enable students to access higher level concepts more quickly. The reason for this is easily explained by something known as cognitive load theory. According to cognitive load theory, we can only hold roughly four items in our working memory at a time. But we can circumvent that by storing things in long-term memory - like the multiplication facts or the algorithm for finding a percent - thereby opening up the working memory slots for other things - like breaking down a multistep word problem. Thus, as it turns out, it is actively detrimental to force students - through instruction that deemphasizes the importance of procedural fluency - to consciously attend to lower level skills while they're attempting to understand something more advanced. 

And as for these "reformers'" love affair with "technology": Number one, technology is not reliable; I see my calculator-dependent students miss-key things all the time without realizing that their magical box is giving them garbage output in response to their garbage input. Number two, using technology is often less efficient than simply knowing something; it takes much longer to type "8 X 7" into a calculator than it does to retrieve "56" from memory. But most importantly, the way you process information that's delivered to you on a computer is different from the way you'll process that same information in writing. When looking at a screen, we are less attentive. We scan. We become passive bystanders instead of actively grappling with the topic at hand. That's why smart researchers are now suggesting students eschew technology entirely when they're trying to absorb a lecture or otherwise assimilate new material. 

Batty Theme 4: We Must Never Tell a Child He's Wrong

Instead, we must cultivate their "identities" as "doers of mathematics."

Yeah: it's basically the self-esteem movement all over again; it's just been re-dressed in social justice/critical theory clothes.

Of course, we should never tell a child that he's constitutionally bad at math and should just resign himself to that fact. As I stated at the start, I think even middling students are capable of mastering algebra, geometry, and basic statistics with the right interventions. And I also think that there should be flexibility in our sorting systems -- that there should be ample opportunity to jump tracks through sustained hard work and demonstrated achievement.

But while we should encourage our students to strive to achieve no matter their starting point, we shouldn't lie to them. Despite what appears to be popular ed school belief, kids are not stupid. They're going to know who usually gets the answers right and who often gets the answers wrong no matter how many times you insist that everyone in your class is "thinking mathematically" (whatever that means).  And they're certainly going to notice all attempts to blow smoke up their butts.

The best way to build a child's so-called "identity" as a "doer of mathematics" is to actually teach them mathematics to mastery. Competence leads to self-esteem and self-efficacy. It doesn't work the other way around.

Sigh. Can we please drop all this BS and go back to the legitimate cognitive science? Kthx.

On the Kerfuffle In Re: Jill Biden's Degree...

 ... I think something I wrote three years ago is the only appropriate response:

"Having a College Degree - Even a PhD - Is NOT the Same Thing as Being 'Educated'

Once upon a time, a college education at least tried to expose you to the very best that has been thought and said about the human condition and our place in the universe. It can be argued - validly - that the former 'canon' was in some respects too narrow, but it was still good that there were campus-wide standards and that every collegian was expected to meet them. Unfortunately, after the rise of the New Left, all the trappings of just this sort of liberal education were thrown right out the window. Granted, many colleges still have general education requirements, but even with these, one can still earn a bachelor's without ever taking a traditional course on our country's history, political structures, or literary heritage.

Now let's add on top of this the fact that, in recent decades, academia has grown ever more intolerant of dissenting opinion (to the point that students and professors are now demanding they be shielded from ideas and experiences they find even remotely upsetting) and what you get is a perfect storm of ignorance about the things that really matter when it comes to good leadership. Our elites basically know fuck-all about human nature and have no clue that their supposedly brilliant, forward-thinking, progressive ideas have often been tried before without success (and to be sure, I'm putting that very charitably).

Actually, the increasing political correctness of our universities (and all other spaces where our elites congregate) is a good example of just what I mean when I say that folks like Barro know jack about - well - people. People, in reality, are anti-fragile; by this, I mean that they thrive best when their lives are not without adversity. Young people especially need the opportunity to test their physical and cognitive limits, bump up against obstacles, and - both literally and metaphorically - hang upside down on the monkey-bars hands-free. But our elites have decided that risk of emotional and bodily injury must be stamped out completely -- and predictably, the people under their oh-so-compassionate charge have now been trained to be, essentially, mentally ill. Indeed, even among our young children, we're seeing a rise in the incidence of attention-deficit disorder, sensory integration disorder, and other maladies -- and at least one occupational therapist has argued convincingly that this is because our elites are micromanaging our children's play in the name of their great safety crusade.

And hell, I haven't even addressed the fact that not all degrees are created equal and that, in many fields, all that's required to earn a credential is the ability to sling bull with panache. The rot is so widespread in the humanities and the social sciences in particular that a lot of students in these concentrations who have real native talent have no chance to develop and hone their intellects. Why? Well, here's something else the elites don't understand about human nature: people may be anti-fragile, but many will choose the easy path if it's offered to them. If one can earn a degree and the associated social status that comes with it by skating through courses that require little effort or accountability, many students will embrace that option -- and among our elites, many people have. Ask me what it was like to be misrepresented by lazy journalists covering the pop-culture beat for more information.

One last point: The shadow curriculum of lower and higher education isn't just - or even mostly - about using your intellect to suss out the truth. There are fields of study out there - generally in the hard sciences - that do demand results, but as a teacher with over a decade of experience guiding students through the K-12 system and beyond, I also know there are numerous wholly non-academic expectations that stick to our educational enterprise like barnacles on a ship. Based on what's usually asked in a college admissions essay, our schools privilege sociable youngsters who are comfortable talking about themselves. They also privilege the obedient and the verbally adept. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with any of these traits (I've been identified as verbally adept myself - at least in writing), but this weeding process does overlook many legitimately brilliant Odds -- especially my rambunctious, scribbly boys.

TL;DR: You're going to have to do more to convince me of your fitness to lead the rest of us than to reference your 'college education.'

But even if you were a freakin' Einstein, with all the tangible intellectual achievements that entails, I'm still not going to grant you the license to judge me or to control my life. Which brings me to my third and final point:

You and Your Exclusive Clique Are Not Smarter Than EVERYONE Else

Remember that episode of The Simpsons years back in which the brainy folks of Springfield took control and tried to make their town more functional and efficient? Remember how this ended in disaster? I loved that episode because it conveyed a very important truth: Even a group of very, very smart people don't - and can't - know everything about a phenomenon as complex and unwieldy as a human culture or a human economy. That's why the outcomes of state economic planning range from stupid to downright horrific (see also: Venezuela). That's why, post-Sexual Revolution, we're faced with widespread unhappiness among women and equally widespread social pathology. 

Society is weird. There are many rules, traditions, and institutions lying around that, on the surface, don't seem to make sense. But those rules, traditions, and institutions cropped up for a reason. In many cases, they solved real dilemmas that our human ancestors encountered on their evolutionary journey out of the savanna. For instance, every culture previous to ours had strict codes to govern sexual conduct because, among other things, that was the only way to ensure that responsibility for the consequent children could be established. And, no matter how gosh-darned exceptional you are, you can't just take those codes apart without understanding and solving the problems they were meant to address.

So Barro and his ilk might be smarter than one working-class Trump supporter -- but are they smarter than all the Trump supporters and all the generations who lived before us combined? Not a chance! 

But, obviously, they think that they are -- and that's why many ordinary Americans rightfully hate their guts."

Fancy-pants degrees are often worthless. Jill Biden's certainly is. The senior honors thesis I wrote for my lowly BS is a more rigorous piece of scholarship than the garbage Mrs. Biden calls her "dissertation." I had to do multi-variable statistical analyses and a serious literature review -- neither of which I flubbed. Biden, on the other hand, passed despite making ridiculously basic errors in her arithmetic. Genuflect before her mighty sheep's skin? No, I don't think I will.

Note: This is my last post before the new year. I shall return on January 17, 2021!