“ACADEMIA...PROBLEM?” Academics respond to the running-dog Brooks!

SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 2021

Might we have a problem?: Perhaps inadvertently, David Brooks had revealed the cold heart of the modern-day Other.

Typical peak David Brooks! He had dared to suggest that "the thing we call wokeness" can sometimes involve imperfect judgment on the part of those who reside in Our Town, even including our scholars!.

We sometimes speak a type of silly jargonized language, Brooks had seemed to suggest. Also, we sometimes come up with crazy ideas! 

As an example of those alleged ideas, he cited something called "ethnomathematics," an example he'd plainly dreamed up. We quoted these allegations by Brooks in greater detail in yesterday's report.

Last Sunday, Sarah Viren floated a question in the New York Times. "Academia, do we have a problem?" Viren weirdly asked.

In his earlier column, Brooks had suggested that the answer might be yes. He'd even suggested that Our Town's most erudite  thought leaders might occasionally display imperfect vision and judgment.

Brooks' claims appeared in his May 14 column. Luckily, a pair of academics replied in letters to the Times.

Each of these two professors is a good, decent person. We thought we'd show you what these stalwarts said.

Academia, do we have imperfect judgment? Is it possible that angry parents will sometimes have a valid point when they complain about the way Our Town's loftiest values migrate into public school instruction?

Is it possible that, on the rare occasion, Our Town's behavior could be imperfect? That parents could have a decent point when they complain about "tidbits??

We know, we know—it's absurd on its face! Here's what two professors wrote:

The use of jargonized language:

In his column, Brooks complained at several points about the tendency, here in Our Town, to invent and employ a specialized "woke" language. A sociology professor replied to this ugly, ridiculous claim.

Everything she said was correct. Here is her letter, in full:

To the Editor:

David Brooks is troubled by some words he regards as “woke.” On the contrary, these are useful analytical concepts.

“Heteronormativity” draws our attention to our cultural assumption that everyone is heterosexual. “Cisgender” refers to people who experience their biological sex and gender identity as compatible. “Intersectionality” means that race, class and gender are interconnected phenomena.

These concepts are not that complex, not that radical and not evidence of discourse performance.

We're not sure what "discourse performance" is. That almost supports' Brooks' non-existent point!

At least in principle, though, everything the professor said is true:

In principle, the word “heteronormativity” actually can "draw our attention to our cultural assumption that everyone is heterosexual." Similarly, the other two words the professor discussed can imaginably draw our attention to significant states of affairs.

We were satisfied that the professor had put Brooks in his place. But several young analysts spoke up, saying something like this:

The professor seems to have missed the point of what Brooks was saying. 

In theory, academia's highly jargonized tribal language can be part of illuminating discussions. But that's only true in theory. 

In practice, such jargonized lingo will often serve to cloud discussion and debate. To the masses of the great unwashed, it will almost sound like a foreign language. Such jargonized lingo will often serve to drive such rubes away!

According to these headstrong youngsters, the professor's letter helped prove Brooks' point! The professor is a good, decent person who has had an outstanding career. But she seemed completely oblivious to the critique which Brooks had lodged—a critique in which Brooks alleged that our jargonized language tends to stifle outreach.

What this professor said was true. But according to these youngsters, she seemed to be working deep inside a bubble. It almost seemed like this professor had throughly missed the point!

Fringe absurdities like "ethnomathematics:"

Brooks also claimed that "the thing we call woke" can produce crazy ideas.  On its face, the claim is plainly false, but here's the "example" he gave:

BROOKS (5/14/21): [The ideology] produces fringe absurdities like “ethnomathematics,” which proponents say seeks to challenge the ways that, as one guide for teachers puts it, “math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist and racist views” by dismissing old standards like focusing on “getting the ‘right’ answer.”

On its face, Brooks' general claim was nuts. Thankfully, a letter writer dispatched this particular bit of nonsense. 

The writer is an associate dean and a history professor at a certain college. Here is his letter, in full:

To the Editor.

In his anti-wokeness column, David Brooks cited “absurdities” like a guide to inclusive teaching for math instructors and mockingly quoted its critique of standards like “getting the ‘right’ answer.”

Fortunately, the editorial included a link to the guide in question. The full quote questions the emphasis on correct answers over “understanding concepts and reasoning,” which would be a valid point for any kind of teaching. Cherry-picking this quote and presenting it out of context is a disservice to the educators who prepared this guide to help overcome longstanding inequities in math education.

As a university administrator who works in faculty development, I would say that this is one of the most effective texts I’ve seen on anti-racist pedagogy, and I encourage all readers to examine it themselves.

It was much as we had suspected.  Brooks had cherry-picked his quote! 

According to the letter- writer, the full quotation raises a question "which would be a valid point for any kind of teaching." We were satisfied that the running-dog Brooks had been foiled again.

That said, full disclosure! Several analysts proceeded to take the letter writer's advice! They clicked the link to the teaching guide in question, intending to judge for themselves.

When they did that, they found a guide which bore this two-part title:

A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction / Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction

There's nothing wrong with that! Presumably, no one wants to promulgate racism in any part of our public school instruction.

So far, the analysts said,  so good! But as the analysts scrolled ahead, they also came upon this:

Deconstructing Racism in  Mathematics Instruction

White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions. Coupled with the beliefs that underlie  these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to  the world of mathematics. The table below identifies the ways in which white supremacy shows up in math classrooms

DISMANTLING WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE IN MATH CLASSROOMS

We see white supremacy culture show up in the mathematics classroom even as we carry out our professional  responsibilities outlined in the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP). Using CSTP as a  framework, we see white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom can show up when: 

There is a greater focus on getting the "right" answer than understanding concepts and reasoning.

How does white supremacy show up in math classrooms? It was the very first example this teaching guide offered:

We see white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom when there is a greater focus on getting the "right" answer than understanding concepts and reasoning.

That's what the teaching guide says. It even puts the word "right" inside scare quotes, as if to say how silly it is to think there could be a "right" answer to a mathematical question or problem—when engineering a bridge, let's say.

Briefly, let's be clear. There's always a balance, in math instruction, between 1) getting the right answer to some problem, and 2) understanding mathematical concepts and reasoning.

Presumably, no teacher should overemphasize  either part of this dyad. But on what planet is getting the right answer a part of "white supremacy culture," while understanding the basic concepts is more of a black kids thing?

On what planet can any sane person say this division prevails? According to our analysts, angry parents may sometimes see "tidbits" like this and correctly feel that their public schools may perhaps have a problem. Angry parents could sometimes be right!

If you were a parent and you were told (something like) getting the right answer is part of white supremacy culture, might you suspect that your public schools were having some sort of a problem? Might you even feel that academia might have a problem—academia, the gated grove from which such "fringe absurdities" tend to emerge?

Our youthful analysts said that Brooks had been right. So, perhaps, are some angry parents, these impressionable youths also said.

Our analysts are hotheaded kids. Credentialed experts tell us that the larger problem is this:

Our brains were wired, long ago, to produce tribal true belief.  Sadly, what was once a survival skill is now a societal problem.

We're even wired that way in Our Town, despondent experts have said. Our professors can even be wired that way. And some angry parents are right!

We're very, very dumb in Our Town, but also extremely self-assured. If you think our own brains aren't wired that way, we have a suggestion to make:

Go ahead! Just read the Post or the Times, any morning of any week!

Questions for extra-credit discussion: Should the Times have checked to see what that teaching guide said?

After the Times conducted that check, should it have published that letter?

(For what it's worth, that teaching guide gets even sillier, as it proceeds, concerning the racism lurking in the search for "right" answers in math. Academia and the like, do we sometimes have a problem? Could parents sometimes be right?)


104 comments:

  1. "Also, we sometimes come up with crazy ideas!"

    Meh. Militant virtue signaling is not something your degenerate cult has come up with, dear Bob.

    It's a perfectly normal M.O. of any totalitarian cult. Described in detail by George Orwell in 1984: doublethink, two-minute-hate, and so on.

    You don't get the credit for it. There's been similar cults like that before, and unfortunately there will be others, most likely, in the future. Your liberal cult, dear Bob, is just a pitiful pathetic speck in the universe.

    ReplyDelete
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  2. Academics are having discussions with other academics, not the general public. And also not Somerby. The purpose of academia is not to fight culture wars, especially when Republicans not only manufacture examples but make shit up. Even if academics were to dumb down their professional discourse to Somerby's level, and even if they made every statement with an eye to how it will play in the suburbs or boonies, Republicans will make up whatever outrages are needed to stoke their base. It is what they do. Somerby is an experienced political thinker (giving him the benefit of all doubts). Why doesn't he understand this? Personally, I think he is batting for the other team.

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    1. "The purpose of academia is not to fight culture wars"

      And yet that's exactly what they do, dear Corby. And we're pretty sure different kinds of brain-dead liberal dembottery is all they do. Check out the grievance studies affair.

      No surprise there, dear Corby. The whole purpose of academia is to service the establishment, the ruling class.

      Delete
  3. "That's what the teaching guide says. It even puts the word "right" inside scare quotes, as if to say how silly it is to think there could be a "right" answer to a mathematical question or problem—when engineering a bridge, let's say."

    Here is an example of a focus on the "right" answer instead of reasoning: Suppose a teacher insists that all answers be rounded to two decimal places. A student forgets to round off and leaves her answer to three decimal places. Her answer is otherwise correct. Has she gotten the "right" answer or the teacher's preferred answer?

    This kind of insistence on picayune rules hurts kids who have otherwise understood the concept, applied procedures correctly, obtained a valid answer but failed to conform to a teacher's rules. This happens when teachers do not understand the material well themselves or are too busy to check divergent answers for correctness and instead just compare to an answer sheet or answers given in the back of a textbook.

    Is there a correct number to round off to? It depends on the precision of measurement. That is a concept the teacher may not understand, much less students, so the teacher's rules are largely arbitrary and for their own convenience.

    Similarly, rules about enclosing the final result in a large box, putting answers on a single sheet of paper, and so on. In fact, privileging the "right" answer encourages copying when teachers fail to look at the work used to produce that answer (the demonstration that a student understood and applied the concept and procedures correctly).

    And then there is the difficulty that a student may not understand a question or problem in the way the author intended it. Question writing is difficult. You only know about unintended interpretations (arising from differences in experience) through use of the questions with many students. Textbook writers may not have been able to test their questions thoroughly, so teachers need to consider the learning demonstrated by the student, not just the correctness of the answers.

    This is about training materials for teachers. Training teachers to consider more than just the correctness of an answer is a good idea for all students, but especially for students who come from a different background than the majority. It is just good teaching to think about this.

    Somerby, of course, blames his analysts for their disagreement with the letters written by professionals and educators. These imaginary analysts permit him to speak the opinions he won't own, and to have things both ways in today's essay -- siding with Brooks while superficially disagreeing with him about siding with letter writers. That strikes me as cowardly and intellectually dishonest. But what else is new?

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    1. There are (at least) 2 things wrong with your comment. One is you've set up a straw man with your silly decimals example. Who could disagree with you on that? Secondly, you haven't explained why that would be an example of "white supremacy."

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    2. What's almost as funny as the expression "privileging the "right" answer" is the notion that public school overlords do these sorts of mental gymnastics on behalf of the kids, rather than it being an effort to finagle outcomes in order to keep the politicians off their backs.

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    3. Cecilia, Which politicians? And why are they on the backs of public school officials, which you so pejoratively call “overlords?”

      I suggest that you are reading a blog where the blogger has written endless posts about test scores (the naep variety) and “achievement gaps”, and it is precisely this focus on scores (by politicians and parents of all political stripes) that causes these groups to be constantly on the backs of the public schools, and only the public schools. We can have a discussion about why this is the case, and how the motives differ depending upon political persuasion, but not at this blog.

      And it doesn’t help embattled public schools when jackasses refer to their leadership as “overlords”, or when proposals like this one in California, which was merely a proposal that has been shelved, become national political footballs because jackass pundits with a national audience and an ax to grind want to prolong the culture war rather than help cure those “achievement gaps “ and help kids learn.

      Delete
    4. Let me translate your post, mh.

      If Somerby focused on blaming Republicans and racism for the achievement gap rather than having an interest in looking at tests that are scrupulously objective in the sense that they do measure competency levels., then maybe we could have a proper discussion on these matters. A discussion replete with talk of “privileging the right answer” and intersectionality.

      If Somerby wasn’t such a downer... if he ran his blog like he was one of those good tv pundits on MSNBC, we wouldn’t have to call him a white supremacist.

      We could all sing along here at TDH and tell ourselves we are fabulous 200x a day, rather than 150x.

      mh, there are so many blogs out there that will give you exactly what you want. So very many.

      Delete
    5. Let me translate your post, mh.

      If Somerby focused on blaming Republicans and racism for the achievement gap rather than having an interest in looking at tests that are scrupulously objective in the sense that they do measure competency levels., then maybe we could have a proper discussion on these matters. A discussion replete with talk of “privileging the right answer” and intersectionality.

      If Somerby wasn’t such a downer... if he ran his blog like he was one of those good tv pundits on MSNBC, we wouldn’t have to call him a white supremacist.

      We could all sing along here at TDH and tell ourselves we are fabulous 200x a day, rather than 150x.

      mh, there are so many blogs out there that will give you exactly what you want. So very many.

      Delete
    6. I said none of those things. I implicated politicians and parents of all political stripes. I implicated pundits who have no real interest in schools (Brooks, David, for example, and quite possibly Somerby, Bob, among many others).

      And I did say that a proper discussion of this issue isn’t going to occur here at this blog, and you show up to immediately prove me right.

      Delete
    7. Fuck off.

      Have I ever called Somerby a white supremacist? Nope. I happen to believe that virtue-signaling punditry like Brooks and Somerby’s harms the public schools. I also believe that the intense focus on test scores that many liberal school reformers have is detrimental to schools.

      So, why don’t you just fuck off if you’re going to be a jackass?

      Delete
    8. Cecelia, when you cannot even figure out how to stop repeating comments, you are unlikely to get anything right on any topic.

      1. tests are not scrupulously objective
      2. you know nothing whatsoever about testing, test development, or how bias works
      3. you are too lazy to look at mh's link or you would see that it is about the public hearings and revision of the proposed curriculum and Guide, not any of the things you talk about
      4. if Somerby weren't a white supremacist certainly no one would have to call him that
      5. Somerby never calls anyone fabulous and neither do the commenters so you are babbling nonsense about that 200 times per day here
      6. Cable news is about current events. That idea that such reporting makes anyone feel fabulous is ridiculous -- maybe you are confusing MSNBC with Fox?
      7. You should have looked at mh's suggested education blog, but you obviously didn't. Lazy! It isn't anything like what you imagined.
      8. Your hostile tone makes it pretty obvious that you are trolling here, not interested in discussing anything, so please do fuck off. You aren't needed or wanted here.

      Delete
    9. Anonymouse 11:18am, if you weren’t real, political fund raisers would have to make you up.

      Delete
    10. Anonymouse 11:18am, if you weren’t real, political fund raisers would have to make you up.

      Delete
    11. That sounds like an ad hominem to me.

      Delete
    12. Oh, don’t worry about it, Anonymouse 12:23pm, lazy, and blabbering are just two insults. There’s usually four or so, and the appellation of “white supremacist” or racist is thrown around so often by Anonymices that it’s de rigueur.

      Delete
    13. Fuck off, you are a waste of everyone's time.

      Delete
    14. Did you hear the one about the Republican who wasn't a bigot?
      Me neither.

      Delete
  4. The right way to answer a question in a classroom is to raise your hand and wait to be called upon. Shouting out an answer is not the right way. In practice, teachers (male and female) call on male students more often than female ones. They also forgive male students who call out answers without raising a hand, while chastising girls who do the same thing. This has been observed and documented in classroom studies.

    If you want to eliminate gender bias in classroom discussions you need to call attention to this practice so that teachers can be more self-aware. But this is very much a focus on the "right" way to answer a question instead of the content of the answer.

    Somerby should understand this distinction, even if Brooks does not, since Somerby worked in a classroom himself. Is he being deliberately obtuse or has he forgotten?

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  5. "But on what planet is getting the right answer a part of "white supremacy culture," while understanding the basic concepts is more of a black kids thing?"

    On the planet where expressing the answer in a prescribed manner is part of getting the right answer. On a planet where a word problem is about a context never experienced by a minority child and thus the child may understand the concept but be unable to apply it because of the way the question is written. The assumption that all children will have experienced the elements of white culture is the white supremacist assumption built-in to the way questions are written. Teachers need to be aware of this problem so that they can assist and not penalize children who may have had different home experiences.

    Somerby should have quite a few examples of this problem from his own experiences teaching black students in Baltimore. Apparently, he is not motivated to explore the issue, or he ignored the part of teaching that requires an educator to diagnose why children are having problems, not just mark answers "right" or "wrong."

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    1. Different home experiences? What does that even mean? And, why would the home experiences of a poor white child necessarily differ from those of a poor black child, for example? Anyway, schools are supposed to teach all kids the value of getting the right answer, and correcting them if they're wrong. It's ridiculous to call that "white supremacy."

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    2. 1. Because their parents have different kinds of jobs. 2. Because they are less likely to have educated parents.
      3. Because they are more likely to have a parent working two jobs.
      4. Because they are more likely to have a parent who has been arrested.
      5. Because their poverty may be more long term.
      6. Because their parents may have more health issues.
      7. Because they are more likely to live in a neighborhood where they cannot play freely outdoors or visit friends, less safe neighborhood, more dangers.
      8. Because they themselves may have food insecurity, more health problems, fewer toys/games, lack access to internet or wifi, be cared for by elderly grandparents, be required to watch younger siblings or help with home chores such as cooking.
      9. They may lack a quiet place to do homework in a crowded home.

      Marking a wrong answer incorrect is not all there is to good teaching. It is white supremacy when that is all that happens. The Guide says that pretty plainly. You might try reading it.

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    3. @9:59 "Different home experiences? What does that even mean?"

      The underlying dembot assumption is that parents of The Superior African Race are unable (or heroically refuse?) to "act white".

      Which, naturally, creates peculiar "home experiences", incompatible with schooling.

      Delete
    4. Here is a different home experience. Suppose a word problem in math asks how much a babysitter will earn after 2-1/2 hours at a rate of $5 per hour? The math there is straightforward, but what if a child has never had a paid babysitter because relatives watch the kids in his or her extended family. Maybe they don't know what a babysitter is. What if they have no experience with being paid for doing chores or having an allowance because children are expected to help without pay in their family? That makes the questions much harder for that child because they must think about the situation as well as the math itself. White middle class families routinely hire babysitters and pay kids for chores, so textbook questions involving such pay will be familiar to them. That makes this a white supremacist question to the extent that it assumes an experience much less common in poor black families and in immigrant families, especially with lots of kids (where the older kids watch the younger ones, or a grandma is the "sitter").

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    5. Right, WHITE SUPREMACIST babysitters.

      Oh dear, you're so precious. Thanks for the laughs.

      Delete
  6. Let's get rid of all tests for knowledge or skills so that everyone can feel good about themselves. You must let me walk into the cockpit and fly the jet your family just got on. You must let me replace the skilled surgeon that's about to perform lifesaving surgery on your child. It would boost my esteem. And if you don't let me, you're a racist!

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    1. No one is suggesting this. No one has talked about feelings either. And yes, you are a racist for inventing this particular kind of straw man.

      If a black child understands the concepts but cannot afford a calculator to use in class, so he makes occasional errors not made by the child using a calculator, does that imply that he or she doesn't understand how to work such problems? Does it mean they will be unable to learn to fly a plane or do surgery, given the same equipment as everyone else? Beneath your comment is an assumption that black children who make mistakes are less competent than white children, and that this is all intended to sooth their feelings, not permit them to compete on an equal footing, to show what they know just as white kids are generally able to do.

      Delete
    2. Glaucon X,
      Sounds great.
      We made a lying, grifting, reality TV star the President for 4 years. What more do we have to lose?

      Delete
  7. Why would a teacher, such as Somerby, who has worked with black children in elementary grades, have any problem with trying to avoid obstacles introduced by cultural assumptions?

    Somerby also appears to have no understanding of the ways in which arbitrary and meaningless rules are used to keep black people out of jobs, universities, polling places, and other opportunities for advancement. Invention of rule violations to deny applications is a method of discrimination. "I'm sorry, but you hand delivered your application, so it doesn't have a postmark." "Oh, too bad, you should have called before you came in, since we don't have you on our list." "You marked your answers in pencil instead of pen (or vice versa) so I had to mark them all incorrect." "You needed to check the box to be considered for that scholarship, not simply filled in an application." "You left the line blank where we asked for felony arrests, instead of writing 'none' so we could not consider you. None of this has anything to do with actual qualifications. And when minority applicants are unable to engage in prerequisite experiences because of such occurrences, they are screened out of later ones too. That leads them to consider qualifications to be a bogus requirement invented to keep them from being considered for opportunities in life.

    Somerby has a different attitude toward expertise and credentials, but the abuse of white instituted rules has historically been used as a barrier to consideration of black people for any number of experiences. And black people know it. That is a cultural reason why they are less likely to place importance on such requirements (a moving goalpost) in favor of increased emphasis on learning the important parts of math or any other field, the concepts and content, not the form and format of question answering.

    No one should have to explain this to an experienced teacher like Somerby, but apparently we do. That's why these teacher guides have been developed. Somerby's resistance to using them is an example of white lack of empathy, and I doubt Somerby is much different in his response than the most entrenched white supremacist would be.

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    1. If Somerby claimed the sky was blue you would spend your time writing a long boring illogical post about how it ain't and how that means he hates women and blacks.

      You use him and your time here as a way to avoid larger more important problems in your life that you don't have the courage or strength to face with truth and honesty.

      Delete
    2. Guess again...

      I used to defend Somerby in comments, but that was a long time ago, before it became so clear what his politics actually are.

      Delete
  8. Brooks did not make up the term Ethnomathematics. Here are some examples from the guide for incorporating enthnomathematics:

    "Recognize the ways that communities of color engage in mathematics and problem solving in their everyday lives.
    • Teach that mathematics can help solve problems affecting students’ communities. Model the use of math as a
    solution to their immediate problems, needs, or desires.
    • Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.
    • Teach the value of math as both an abstract concept and as a useful everyday tool.
    • Expose students to examples of people who have used math as resistance. Provide learning opportunities that use
    math as resistance. "

    How do you use math as resistance. When I was much younger and engaged in community activism, I noticed that the city job training plan was allocating a figure for enrolees at sites training primarily white enrollees that was more than double that allocated for sites training Hispanic enrollees. I wrote a complaint to the Department of Labor about this budget that stopped revenue sharing to the city until a fairer allocation of resources was developed. That activism relied on math because some calculation was required to determine that the amounts per enrollee were so vastly different. That is use of math for resistance.

    This is not a game to people who are affected by racism in our society. Somerby's attempt to ridicule anti-racist efforts by addressing the language is just another deflection by those who wish to maintain the status quo, a system that benefits white students to the detriment of minorities. The specifics are subtle but real. When Somerby suggests that Brooks made up ethnomathematics, he dismisses a valid reorientation of the way teachers look at what they are teaching.

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  9. Here is the link to the guide itself:

    https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf

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    1. They are talking about ways in which the beliefs of white supremacy have been institutionalized into teaching practices, perhaps outside the conscious awareness of teachers themselves.

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  10. 'We're very, very dumb in Our Town, but also extremely self-assured.'

    Certainly Somerby's town of hardcore, malignant Trumptards is very dumb, and very self assured. Somerby has to be very dumb to think that he can spend 4 years defending Donald Trump, Roy Moore, Ron Johnson, Devin Nunes, Brock Turner, Matt Gaetz, Chauvgn and still claim that his town is not the town of Trumptards

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  11. 'There's always a balance, in math instruction, between 1) getting the right answer to some problem, and 2) understanding mathematical concepts and reasoning.'

    Given that Somerby has demonstrated before that his knowledge of statistics and percentages is essentially non-existent, it's amusing to see him expound on maths like he's some expert rather than the Trumptard that he is.

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  12. Yes, those Bolshevik* overlords at the California Instructional Quality Commission are such overlord Bolsheviks that they put out their proposed changes to the California Mathematics Framework for public review and comment, and will do so again. As a result of the first hearing, references to the study that Somerby has lambasted (in his media critic role, no doubt), titled “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,” have been removed from the draft proposal.

    Here is a summary of the debate that is much more informative than David Fucking Brooks or Bob Somerby:

    “California math curriculum spurs new controversy about accelerated learning”

    By Sydney Johnson
    May 20, 2021
    https://edsource.org/2021/california-math-guidance-sparks-new-curriculum-controversy-among-parents/655272

    Note that there were teachers and even Democratic politicians who weighed in with criticisms of the proposals, and that the proposals include far more than the one study that caused the Wall Street Journal to declare that the left is trying to “cancel mathematics.” I don’t know how public schools manage to deal with this kind of bullshit.

    *”Bolshevik”, a term used by Brooks’ friend Rod Dreher and quoted by Brooks

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    1. mh, what you’re describing is the process of discussion that you claim to seek.

      Yet here you are calling it bullshit because people (including parents and teachers) who don’t agree with you have input and one of what will be many proposals goes back to the drawing board.

      Then to top off that sorry state of affairs, the wrong people (Brooks and Somerby) opinionize on such matters.

      Delete
    2. mh, what you’re describing is the process of discussion that you claim to seek.

      Yet here you are calling it bullshit because people (including parents and teachers) who don’t agree with you have input and one of what will be many proposals goes back to the drawing board.

      Then to top off that sorry state of affairs, the wrong people (Brooks and Somerby) opinionize on such matters.

      Delete
    3. Cecelia, mh has patiently pointed out to you that the fact that there is public comment and change based on public input is contrary to your contention about "overlords". The WSJ and Brooks essays are bullshit because the process didn't focus only on what they described, and also because the plans were revised based on public comment. mh is not complaining about that input but rather trying to tell you that the fact of input-based revision contradicts you, Somerby and Brooks.

      Your characterization of what mh said is entirely wrong. And that is no doubt as frustrating to mh as it is to me. It is as if you don't think at all, but are a bot that grabs selected phrases from someone else's argument, rearranges them slightly and spews them back, with no attention to meaning.

      The bullshit is the focus on ethnomathematics, when that part was removed from the plan due to public complaint. The bullshit is the selection of an idea such as CRT, which is never mentioned in the plan, and singling that out for criticism when it is largely irrelevant. Or the claim about canceling mathematics (because they were eliminating accelerated gifted classes). That is bullshit.

      Delete
    4. Waiting for a Conservative to make a good faith argument is a waste of life.

      ignore them, and work around them.

      Delete
    5. Anonymouse 1:33pm, you’re right here.

      mh wasn’t saying that the discussion and debate within the hearing was bullshit. He said that the opinionizing within the media afterwards was that.

      Sorry, mh.

      Delete
    6. Everyone knows, if it weren't for bad faith arguments, the Right wouldn't have any arguments at all.

      Delete
    7. Dear mh, what's your opinion on Ebonics?

      We feel it should be declared the official US language, to replace and renounce the WHITE SUPREMACY lingo you're so shamelessly flaunting here.

      Delete
    8. "We feel it should be declared..."

      Now that those against equal rights and justice have chimed in, what do the rest of you think?

      Delete
    9. "Ebonics" is a descriptive term, not prescriptive. Linguists are against prescriptive language rules. Language evolves to meet the needs of the people using it. Like the argument about CRT, the controversy over Ebonics took a discussion among linguistics and moved it into other spheres in order to say negative things about black people.

      Delete
  13. The concern about accelerated math classes and similar advanced work is that minorities are not selected to participate in them. That doesn't only occur because of test scores, but because the expectations of teachers color their recommendations. As a result, minority students do not even hear about such opportunities, no matter what their actual performance in their regular classes.

    This happened to me when I was in middle and high school, and then it happened to my daughter who was gifted in math but ignored for participation in special programs, despite scoring very high. Why? Because she was Hispanic and extroverted. At one meeting with her teachers and administration, her math teacher insisted she did not know the material and was flabbergasted when he checked his grade book and discovered she had straight As on all the tests (plus top scores on achievement tests in math and reading). When the administrator asked him why he thought she didn't know the material, he said "she stares out of the window a lot". This is what happens to minority kids.

    In my case, I was selected for a gifted math class, but two boys were offered the opportunity to skip the class and instead read independently. I was not offered that chance despite being equally capable of benefitting from it (based on my subsequent performance in math courses and a career involving math). Again, it didn't occur to the teacher to suggest it and I didn't know that opportunity existed.

    Racism and gender bias affect teacher perceptions and teachers are the gateway to such opportunities. Parents of those who are invited don't want to lose their advantage, but there is no assurance that minorities will not be unfairly excluded, as they have been in my own experience and as is shown in the statistics for minority participation.

    I disagree that the solution is to eliminate such tracking of gifted students. But, without calling teacher attention to the problem, I don't see how there will be greater inclusion of diverse students, many of whom are equally talented given the opportunity to show what they can do.

    ReplyDelete
  14. “as the analysts scrolled ahead, they also came upon this:”

    Somerby’s analysts managed to scroll ahead to page 8 of an 83 page document.

    Now, I haven’t read all 83 pages, so my mind isn’t made up one way or the other, either about the thesis or the proposed changes to instruction, but at least I’m willing to read to the end and decide.

    Maybe the suggestions that the authors make are innocuous or even potentially effective. And if that is the case, why should I be so exercised about the accusations of white supremacy, if it can possibly help minority kids learn?

    After all, I haven’t seen much improvement in those “achievement gaps” with the existing instructional methods...

    ReplyDelete
  15. It’s interesting (well not really) how I pick up on something Cecelia said and debate that, and then she turns it back to a discussion of Bob Somerby, since that’s all her mind can conceive. One narcissist defends another, I guess.

    Anyway, one of the objections I have to an intense focus on testing is that the tests, like the naep and particularly the state-level tests, are used to determine whether schools are “successful” or “failing.” Doesn’t it seem logical that teachers and school officials would spend a lot of time teaching to the test, because they know their jobs and the very existence of their school hinge upon the outcome of those tests? In so doing, there is needed instruction and experimentation that is left undone.

    It’s possible that a certain portion of the increase in naep scores is due to this teaching to the test.

    Note that I said “intense” focus, and the above is what I mean by that. I don’t fundamentally reject testing. It’s just that test scores are used as a proxy, or a lazily convenient “scientific” way of grading school quality that is reduced to number-crunching in a spreadsheet, when teaching and student “success” can’t really be reduced to that.

    And that produces a catch-22, whereby schools where the majority of students score relatively poorly on tests will always be judged “failing”, and subject to reduced funding, firing of staff, state takeover, or closure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. mh, you didn’t debate what I said at 8:26am, you bemoaned the truth of it.

      Then you blamed it on people who focus on the disparate naep scores.

      Who, oh who would that be, and why would I so inexplicably reference him...

      Delete
    2. I asked you a question about what you said. That was an invitation to discuss the topic. But you chose to accuse me of things I did not and have not said. You seem to be more concerned about what commenters think about Somerby than about the topic.

      Delete
    3. Rude Pundit says:

      "That's what makes this whole fight against the Cult of the Big Lie so frustrating. It's not like the evidence of a legitimate election is even open for interpretation. To disagree about it is like arguing with someone who looks at an ocean and says it's dry sand. At some point pretty quickly, you wanna say, "Okay, motherfucker, step on in," while you hope they don't drag you with them because they're gonna insist they're walking on solid ground until they drown.

      As I've said before, you can't argue with someone who refuses to accept that reality is real."

      This is the problem with trying to engage any Republican these days. Cecelia won't engage on a factual level because the facts (reality) have become irrelevant in a time when politics is about bullying, raw exercise of power, cheating and lying. Cecelia has nothing to say in a substantive discussion. Not only does she not know anything but she doesn't care about what is true or real. It is irrelevant to her goals, which are to get as much as she can grab and too bad for the losers. Donald Trump taught her that, but she must have been receptive to his message.

      Delete
    4. Anonymouse 1:23pm, here is an excerpt from a news story that mh linked on this board.

      It’s representative of almost every defense of “ethnomathematics” that you will read here.

      It’s astounding that this comment came from an academic given the responsibility of designing a program to help minorities kids get BETTER at math.

      “I was placed on the advanced math track, and I took algebra in eighth grade,” said commission Chairman and high school history teacher Manuel Rustin. “I raced through math just like other students who are determined to get into the UC system. But eventually, math became something I couldn’t identify with anymore. It felt like a rat race to memorize procedures and formulas. … Seeing what we have here, I saw myself all over it.”

      You can’t engage with people who take this approach, you can only sit back and hear them calling you a racist for disagreeing them.

      Delete
    5. Manuel Rustin is stating how he felt. What is there to disagree with? Those are his feelings.

      It can be argued that he might have felt more engaged with math if it were connected to something more central to his life, something he cared about, and that is the point of the ethnomathematics suggestions. But what is there to disagree with when he is stating how he felt?

      At the college level, it was difficult getting talented minority students interested in the STEM disciplines because they were more strongly interested in subjects related to their more immediate lives and experiences. Showing such students how math is relevant to social change may help them see the value in learning it, which is a prerequisite for any student.

      I do not understand how anyone can be against such goals. What is there to disagree with? That is perhaps why you will be called a racist for disagreeing. There is nothing to disagree with substantively, so the disagreement must arise from other sources, such as a lack of interest in helping minority students succeed. As mh says, what is there to lose by trying this approach?

      Delete
    6. mh, almost every Anonymouse comment here issues a personal insult at Bob for having the temerity to not agree with them. Surely a discussion could be had without that.

      No, it’s why you’re here. For that reason it’s okay if he has defenders.

      Delete
    7. Thank you the show to go along with my tell.

      Here I am sitting back and reading that I’m likely a racist for not agreeing with you on this warm and wonderful approach.

      This is why Bob focuses on the naep scores because they are a bullshit free picture of reality that stands hard and sobering in the face of high level academics giving testimonials as to why they found highly ADVANCED math classes empty and soulless due to all the memorization of formulas and mathematical processes(!)

      So what’s the plan? It’s that we add a social resistance mindset to the curriculum to make math come alive for these students.

      You want to effect their lives? Why not just provide the latest cellphone for ANY student who brings their grade up a letter?

      Delete
    8. "...I’m likely a racist for not agreeing with you on this warm and wonderful approach."

      Is this a joke?
      You think THAT'S why you're likely a racist?
      Holy shit are you clueless.

      Delete
    9. Yes, it’s racist to think that it may be a revealing bit of stereotyping for educators to use activist ideological tropes as a cultural tie-in for making math relatable to black kids.

      Delete
    10. I'm pretty sure that the entire continent of Africa uses some kind of test to determine who gets into the limited number of seats in the various technical fields. They don't just let everyone in because someone from a poorer area's feelings might be hurt. Does this mean the whole continent of Africa also racist against Blacks?

      Delete
    11. Cecilia, If test scores are indeed “a bullshit free picture of reality”, then that reality is that black and Hispanic students do considerably worse on these tests than whites and Asians.

      The next obvious question is whether there are measures that teachers, school boards or state commissions ought to attempt to help these kids improve. The methods used up to now don’t seem to have changed the “achievement gaps” very much.

      It would be nice if the discussion didn’t have to always center around whether your personal feelings are hurt because you think you are being called a racist and could expand to a discussion of what we as a society should or could do to help kids and schools. And if identifying a legacy of white supremacy or systemic racism can help, I’m for it.

      I am no expert, but that is what I care about.

      Delete
    12. Gloucon, I would assume that each African country has its own procedures for college entrance requirements, including the Muslim countries of North Africa. Also, apartheid was a real thing in South Africa.

      But the question at hand concerns the United States, where racism and white supremacy indisputably held sway for something like 300 years and left a legacy that is undeniable. It doesn’t seem at all crazy to examine what that might be and how it still affects minorities.

      Poverty is a problem for all who experience it, and we should try to eradicate it. But blacks suffer disproportionately from it in ways that are hard to disassociate from America’s racist past, as difficult as that is to think about.

      It also doesn’t mean that the point is to demonize white people, but rather to right a wrong, even if many want to represent it as the former.

      Delete
    13. 4:30

      "The next obvious question is whether there are measures that teachers, school boards or state commissions ought to attempt to help these kids improve."

      Somerby has been harping on this for years and years in relation to our contemporary media and reporting about schools. They don't even ask the first question. They don't even recognize the scores change when they are disaggregated let alone recognize the "next obvious" question you suggest here. It's not at all obvious to the people who report this information to the American people for a living. That's has been his point. And of course he's 100% correct that them not doing so is D minus work. I'm sure you will agree.

      Delete
    14. I guess by your own swashbuckling ascription of motives the school reporters Somerby criticizes are all racists too!

      Delete
    15. 4:44
      Again, you turn the discussion to what Somerby “said.” Unfortunately, while I think he has made a couple of valid points about the reporting on schools, he has also given mixed messages. He has previously questioned the idea of a uniform standard that all kids, regardless of ability, should be expected to meet. So far so good. But that is exactly what a test like the naep is!

      When the media reports that “our schools are failing”, he uses the rising test scores (since 1972) to rebut them. When the media reports that schools are improving, he uses the achievement gaps to rebut them.

      My point is that test scores are not an appropriate way of measuring whether schools are successful or failing, because it presents a catch-22. “Failing” schools will always “fail” and “successful” schools will always “succeed.”

      That is why I think his use of test scores is a bogus criticism of the media.

      Delete
    16. The media are the ones using the test scores dumbass, not him. He's criticizing their use of the test scores without bringing up the back/white gaps.

      You have to laugh.

      Delete
    17. mh, despite my ignorant stance as to be less than compelled by the scholarly and scientific approach of “whadda we got to lose”, I am skeptical.

      One reason is that in the posts here, Anonymices sound like they’re 19th century British missionaries observing the poor natives in the bush, rather than referring to modern American black and brown kids.

      If I say that I’m skeptical because Asian kids don’t seem to be imperiled by the tyranny of correct answers, I’m going to be told that they don’t have a history slavery. At least until there’s some brouhaha over an Asian being mistreated, at which point they then will have a that history.

      If I knew how to make things better for these kids, I’d be a millionaire. But not knowing does not mean that I must then sign on to the notion that we do things that I think compromises standards rather than upholding them.

      Delete
    18. We could make knowledge of Hip-hop the entrance exam to MIT. But Asian and Jews would still probably dominate since they have cultures that respect the study of knowledge and believe in prep from the cradle on all subjects.

      Delete
    19. Somerby criticizes the media because their reporting on schools prevents the kind of understanding and change that mh wants. By doing so, Somerby is unambiguously advocating the kind of understanding and change that mh wants. And mh doesn't even comprehend what Somerby is saying let alone recognize his unambiguous progressive advocacy for the very causes that are important to him or her.

      You. have. to. laugh.

      Delete
    20. "But Asian and Jews would still probably dominate since they have cultures that respect the study of knowledge and believe in prep from the cradle on all subjects."

      Implied: Unlike white people.

      Delete
    21. "If I say that I’m skeptical because Asian kids don’t seem to be imperiled by the tyranny of correct answers,"

      Cecelia, Asian countries whose educational systems have emphasized rote learning and adherence to arbitrary rules about how to report answers, have been trying to reform their own education to encourage the kinds of innovation and creativity that produce invention and development unlike that found in Asia. That is why so many international students from Asia attend American universities. There is nothing admirable about rule-following -- it is a convenience for the teacher, not a virtue and certainly not necessary to success in mathematics or other STEM fields. Our history is full of innovators who could not succeed in school until they reached a conceptual level. The over-emphasis on dotting i's and crossing t's in math doesn't benefit Asian students or anyone else when it comes to productivity in later life. But those rules are used to oppress black kids in ways that are not applied to white ones. If Asians and Jews conform to the rules, that doesn't mean they are not experiencing discrimination in our society.

      Delete
    22. Do you really think that your illustration has a thing to do with black kids scoring several years behind whites and Asians on the naep?

      Delete
  16. I will also add that the main reason California is looking at changing its mathematics framework is that too many schools and students are not meeting the Common Core standards. Common Core is a federal program enacted during the Obama administration. It is a continuation and successor of No Child Left Behind from W Bush’s Administration.

    As such, the main focus of the California Instructional Quality Commission is to do something to achieve these standards. Its main focus isn’t to brand teachers, parents, or Western civilization as white supremacists. But that white supremacy (current or legacy) might play a role in the education of minority children isn’t implausible, given America’s history. Even Somerby has acknowledged that to some extent.

    Anyway, this is part of the catch-22: standards (determined through testing) aren’t being met, so we must do something to meet those standards, and the proposed changes result in a great hue and cry. “Why are you changing this??”; The Wall Street Journal accuses liberals of Bolshevik canceling of mathematics; And then next year “why aren’t you meeting the standards??”; then (somebody) “see, this is why we need charter schools or vouchers!!”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How do you define "current white supremacy"? Does that mean the current set of people who believe the white race is superior to others? Or does "current white supremacy" mean something different from that broadly-understood definition?

      Delete
    2. By “current” I mean to suggest that there may be people in power who hold white supremacist beliefs, who believe that black kids simply can’t learn and shouldn’t be given the chance. I am not suggesting how widespread it might be, but it likely exists. By “legacy”, I mean the undeniable white supremacy that systematically excluded blacks for hundreds of years and led to their being made a poverty-stricken underclass with little chance for advancement. This manifests itself in “systemic racism” today.

      Delete
    3. This particular educational initiative will get nowhere using the term "white supremacist" in the loose way they do. Such a dumb choice on the part of its authors. It's another perfect example of the left giving their opposition perfect ammunition to destroy exactly what they want and are fighting for.

      Delete
    4. 5:14,
      How is that worse than enacting the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

      Delete
    5. Using the term "white supremacist" hurts their fee-fees.
      They don't call us "snowflakes" for nothing. They call us "snowflakes", because every Right-wing accusation is a confession.

      Delete
    6. 6:45 straw man comment. No one brought up snowflakes. You're stupid and don't have any interesting your original thoughts.

      Delete
    7. The problem is wealth supremacy--the egomaniacal hoarding of wealth by the rich, which should be used to provide for the basic housing, health and education needs of the poor.

      Delete
    8. 5:14 brought up snowflakes.

      Here's the quote:
      "...perfect example of the left giving their opposition perfect ammunition..."

      "their opposition" AKA snowflakes who cry, cry, cry every time white supremacy is mentioned.

      Anything else you want to be wrong about?

      Delete
    9. I'm not wrong. I'm 100% correct. You're a stupid jackoff who isn't even smart, interesting, original or clever.

      Delete
    10. 9:44,
      I'm sorry to make you cry. I'll try to be more sensitive to your delicate feelngs next time.

      Delete
    11. hahahhahahha!! Good one!! Sick burn!!! So clever!!

      Delete
  17. "We see white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom when there is a greater focus on getting the "right" answer than understanding concepts and reasoning."

    So one race is stereotyped as only caring about the answer not the concepts and the other is stereotyped as having the reverse attitude. This is clearly "Either/Or Thinking," which ironically, these same authors have condemned as a characteristic of a white supremacist thinking.

    "As a visual indicator, we italicize the terms used to identify white supremacy characteristics as
    defined by Jones and Okun (2001). They are as follows:
    • Perfectionism
    • Sense of Urgency
    • Defensiveness
    • Quantity Over Quality
    • Worship of the Written Word
    • Paternalism
    • Either/Or Thinking
    • Power Hoarding
    • Fear of Open Conflict
    • Individualism
    • Only One Right Way
    • Progress is Bigger, More
    • Objectivity
    • Right to Comfort"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's more than ironic too that we're getting lectures about focusing on the reasoning behind a..."wrong"...answer in the precision driven realm of...MATHEMATICS...from the deep thinkers who would tell you that it was wrong and disrepectful for you to have referenced a Dylan song when making a point about cultural dissatification and disappointment, because Dylan was singing about Edie Sedgwick, not the whole of society.



      Delete
    2. Someone can certainly be concerned about both accuracy and understanding concepts, but the document itself doesn't assign one to one race and the other to the other as discretely as Gloucon and the conservatives do. I didn't see the guide calling concern about accuracy a white thing or understanding of concepts a black thing. I saw it saying that overconcern and focus on ONLY correct answers hurts black students who may understand the concepts but fail to conform to the manner is which teachers insist the answers be given.

      That is very different than what Gloucon is claiming here.

      That list of characteristics of white supremacy may exist for supremacists, but they also characterize bad teaching. Whether you want to buy them as exemplars of white supremacy or not, teaching will improve if teachers try to avoid such traits.

      Given that there are very few minority teachers nationwide, how is this list of undesirable teacher traits not descriptive of white teaching?

      Delete
    3. Cecelia, the kind of accuracy you are talking about characterizes only the early grades of mathematics. Concepts are more important to algebra, geometry and higher mathematics.

      The idea that bridge construction will fail if there is no overconcern about accuracy is wrong when nearly all jobs involving math in any form involve calculators and computers, not hand computation. Errors are typically conceptual, not mechanical in such jobs.

      Delete
    4. Anonymouse 11:54am, If there’s a black mathematician in America who wouldn’t be offended at this summation, I’d be surprised.

      Why? Because any mathematician, black or white, is likely to be wiser than this.

      As though the world started with Microsoft. Tell the Babylonians that tale. Tell the Romans.

      Better yet, tell it to the computers.

      Delete
    5. Great point about Either/Or Thinking above, Gloucon X! (And since tone can be so hard to gauge in this kind of context, I’ll add that I mean that sincerely.)

      Delete
    6. And Celia, your point about the Dylan quote is also spot on.

      Most anonymous posters here seem to follow two rules:

      1) Somerby is very nearly always wrong (though they still read his blog with a frequency that approaches the pathological, given their opinion of what he says in it).

      2) See Rule # 1.

      Delete
    7. "We see white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom when there is a greater focus on getting the "right" answer than understanding concepts and reasoning."

      And we see dembots who say this as full of shit.

      There is no dichotomy here. Because "understanding concepts and reasoning" is exactly how your arrive at the right answer, and how you know it's the right answer.

      ...incidentally, this is how some of us are so good at multiple choice tests -- because understanding concepts and reasoning is often enough for guessing the right answer.

      Delete
  18. Gloucon neglects that the attempts to preserve slavery and the labor it provided is built into American systems. Those will affect all of these diverse people, as is currently occurring. That makes these systems already a bureaucratic nightmare and clusterfuck for people who cannot get bank loans or mortgages as readily as white people, are excluded from higher level jobs (Asians have a glass ceiling too in corporations), earn lower wages and so on. The ethnicity that already has been given special privileges for several centuries is white people. When that stops, all others will benefit.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Looks like those who say that "All Cops Are Bad" ACAB, have brains that are loaded with white supremacy thinking. It is an example of either/or all/or nothing thinking. Also burning cities down to force them to defund the police sure looks like "Sense of Urgency" there's more white supremist thinking according to these geniuses.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Saying that races other than white don't care about precision in math is a huge insult to the races that built the Pyramids of Egypt, Pre-Columbian monuments, and all the great structures of Asia. These people are vicious bigots who don't even seem to know that they are insulting non-white races.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually, Corby, you insult the people who you claim to champion, every time you suggest that that white people, via computers, have made current scholastic standards obsolete.

      Delete
    2. And Corby, if you’ll scroll up, Gloucon X explains quite clearly what he’s reacting to, and his reasoning is quite clear.

      Delete
  21. Yes, achieve universal consensus. So easy.

    The people who operate the schools are trained in educating children and they understand what they are doing. The rest of us should back off and let them do their jobs. You included.

    ReplyDelete
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