Sunday, October 02, 2005

THE NOSE OF THE CAMEL

A new book by Douglas J. Slawson, The Department of Education Battle, 1918–1932, is a case study in federal government involvement. Slawson focuses on an especially active period of lobbying for and against a federal department of education, a period that ended with the forces of government expansion defeated (an unfortunately too-rare outcome). Of course, the advocates of a Cabinet-level department would eventually get their wish, when a separate U.S. Department of Education came into being almost 50 years later in 1979. (Federal funding and regulation were already long established by that point.)

Slawson’s book, published by The University of Notre Dame Press, highlights the role of Catholics in defeating the drive for a federal department of education. Protective of the school system they built at heavy cost, Catholics were sensitive to any move that appeared to threaten their schools’ existence. It was the 1920s after all, an era of anti-Catholic sentiment that manifested itself, among other places, in an Oregon law that mandated public-school attendance for elementary-age children. (The law was nullified by the courts, a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court in 1925.)

As Slawson points out, Catholics were not alone, however; in fact, they were “in the political mainstream.” President Coolidge in particular was concerned with shrinking government expenses, and the creation of another Cabinet-level department was hardly consonant with that goal. Lutherans, too, who boasted a large parochial school system of their own, lobbied against the establishment of a mechanism that could be used to standardize schooling and make life difficult for non-public education.

On the other side were a variety of public school proponents, the National Education Association among the more respectable of them. Already a powerful and astute lobbyist, the NEA, failing in the contemporary political climate to get the whole package of a federal department and federal funding for schools, settled on a piecemeal campaign, whereby a department would be achieved first. Funding and control would naturally follow.

But opponents were wise to the strategy. Jesuit Paul Blakely at America magazine opined that any federal involvement represented the nose of a camel poking into the education tent: “Soon the whole animal would be inside.” Catholics understood that the federal government had a valuable and vital role to play in American society, a role articulated and delineated in the Constitution. But education regulation was clearly intended by the Constitution to be a function of local and state governments. Catholics perceived that their self-interest and constitutional principles coincided and they made the most of it.

The push for bigger government is relentless, however, and the NEA and its allies eventually won their department. The latest installment of federal funding (and control), the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has continued the trend. As one veteran educator put it, public school administrators are “pulling out their hair” trying to comply with the Act’s extensive reporting requirements, which mandate not only administration and tabulation of test scores for every student, but tracking of progress made by sub-groups such as African-Americans, to ensure that no group is being left behind.

The impetus behind NCLB -- discontent with the poor quality of public education in many parts of the country -- was justified. But the effort to address the problem, coming as it did from a national office incapable of taking into account local variations, became a bureaucratic nightmare. The NEA is now among the loudest critics of NCLB. But the act is the logical result of a federal department of education that the NEA lobbied strenuously for decades to create. The power of the leviathan appears seductive until it has passed out of one’s own control. Instead, and in retrospect, the uncompromising approach of the Catholic opposition 80 years ago appears to be validated. When next it is proposed that the federal government get involved in an area beyond what the Constitution provides, we should remember the warning about the nose of a camel

More here






Learning As A Martial Art

A thought-provoking perspective

Learning is all about motivation. Students will race around a track in sheets of rain and howling wind. In any chosen athletic contest or training they will wring every ounce of energy from their psyche and body. They will not wait to be driven but will drive themselves to collapse and be exhilarated by team loyalty and pride in their personal self-discipline. They will love and obey the slaphappy coach who makes Marine drill instructors seem like dishrags but bulldozes his students to victory over the limitations of others and of themselves. Why will these same kids despise the classroom teacher who insists they bring a pencil to school each day?

There are probably no martial artists on staff at Columbia University Teachers College, but many karate instructors know more how to motivate youth than do most experts from the academic educational industry. The "sensei"solidly teaches all his students what is needed to survive and prevail. He points out striking links between coping with life itself and managing one's affairs in the kickboxing or grappling ring. The combat is not necessarily literal. It's not about kicking, twisting limbs, strangling, dislocating joints or moving on your back or stomach.

The techniques they teache stand for more than the actions themselves. Students are learning more than a fighting skill. They are learning patience, how to follow directions, acceptance of pain, humility, confidence, and to outlet our built-up emotions. They are learning how to be accountable for what we do and not to blame others or make excuses for our laziness or other weaknesses. They are discovering that hard work equals success, and a mental discipline from which we learn the value of kindness to others. We will put these values into our lives. They will make us better workers, parents, and citizens." What has all this to do with academics?

Everything! Intellect is served by character and character is fueled by intellect. Students need them in order to confront difficult, unexpected, and sometimes maddening answers. Students need to be in control of their own inner resources and not have the chaos within them catered to and rationalized away. They must organize their projects. Just as they put socks, sweaters, and underwear into separate drawers, they must compartmentalize their chores and assignments, whether academic or otherwise.

The majority of school systems would never stomach, much less authorize their schools to hold students liable for their failed will power.Their students would never consent to be relieved of responsibility even if they were offered it. Kids who gut texts, set pails on fire, pull fire alarms, discharge extinguishers, spray graffiti on desks, and vandalize toilets in the public school that mollycoddles them, will within days of starting physical and moral training at an average martial arts school, volunteer for the privilege of wiping the sweat off his martial arts school mats.

They are fiercely loyal to their community and their teacher. They know he will make non-negotiable demands on his kids so that they will take responsibility for their destinies. They learn to deal with life's unfair and inevitable obstacles. They will bow to the black belt champion, but thumb their noses at the public school system that they realize is holding them back, even while it patronizes them. Teachers, the agents of inspiration, are like salmon swimming upstream in an inhospitable river.

In a kickboxing ring there is no such thing as not having done your homework. The fighter must be perfectly "on task" and in control of temper and temptation. He cannot plagiarize a battle plan. He must be able to adapt to the strategies of others. He must take the blows and not lose focus. He must learn to abide by rules made by others and master his rage even when a referee makes a mistake and his long hard work doesn't get the earned trophy. Classroom teachers are referees too. They may deduct too many points off a test.

Most people scoff at martial arts philosophy, because they associate it with quotes of corny wisdom, cloned action sequences, stock characters, and poor speech-to-mouth coordination. The truth is, that properly presented, it gives kids the core values that are absent from any approved syllabus in our public schools.

Many chief educational administrators in America have no credentials whatsoever as professional educators. They believe that any manager can manage any administrative unit, whether a hospital, jail, or school. That is debatable. Perhaps the qualifications of being an educator should be illustrated rather than defined. But definitely a teacher, in the deepest sense, can come from any walk of life. Many martial arts instructors are more in the tradition of Socrates than is your local school's Dean of Discipline. As our schools spasm in violent underachievement, the last refuge for a sound education may be a metaphorical ring of combat

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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