Since I discovered him, I've been mainlining a lot of Jordan Peterson. I know I've mentioned him twice before in recent days, but I just can't help sharing more of his oeuvre because I think he's saying things that desperately need to be said.
Here, for example, Peterson questions the radical left's gender ideology, citing its utter lack of objectivity. If the scientific evidence is presented to me, I can accept that a very small number of people have disorders of gender identity that are best treated through medical transition. But trans activists aren't interested in evidence or in careful diagnosis; they just want to force other people to turn off their skepticism and grant self-declared trans folks unearned power and moral standing. Like Peterson, I'm not down with that.
Here, Peterson avers that unfettered free speech is vital because free speech is how we think. I understand and appreciate this argument on a gut level because I grew up with a father who regularly encouraged me to say whatever was on my mind so that he could play devil's advocate and tear me down. At the time, it drove me crazy -- but as an adult, I now recognize how brilliant a teacher Dad actually was. We reason better when we're not endlessly affirmed in our beliefs; we have to butt up against people with whom we disagree or else we'll lose the ability to articulate, defend, and - when necessary - correct our worldviews. Plus, as Peterson points out, driving certain speech underground because it is "hateful" or whatever doesn't actually cure bigotry. No: Suppression of "hate speech" enhances its allure. If suppression of "hate speech" actually worked, Trump would not be president. Alas, "build a wall" is now a motto of the new punk.
This video is longer, but it's also worth a listen. I actually cheer when Peterson declares that flying flags emblazoned with the hammer and sickle is tantamount to waving flags emblazoned with the swastika. Because yeah: Compared to the communists, Hitler was just a piker.
Oh, and if you're interested in academic psychology at all, I also highly recommend visiting Peterson's personal YouTube channel, which is loaded with free lectures on the science of personality and ideological formation. Go and watch!
If Trump were to announce tomorrow that he plans to appoint Rowe as his Secretary of Labor, I'd be sorely tempted to change my mind about the Hairpiece.
In other news, I've changed the sticker on my sidebar. While I still don't intend to vote for Trump, I want to make it perfectly clear that I don't support the Clinton corruption machine either. I'm basically a homeless voter at this point; as I suggested last week, my only remaining options are to:
Slit my wrists in despair over the collapse of our republic.
Stop giving a fuck, pop buckets of popcorn, and enjoy the decline.
From this point on, I'm going to lean more towards the latter course. That doesn't mean I'll stop the serious cultural commentary completely, mind you; it does mean, however, that more silliness is going to be thrown into the mix. It's pretty much the only way I can stay sane.
In my sophomore year, my community college hired me to help underclassmen with subjects for which I’d earned credit. Jack (everyone in this essay has a pseudonym) was evidently stressed even as I entered a private cubicle to greet him. When I asked him to show me what he was working on, he presented a stack of papers about adding and subtracting fractions.
My job included helping kids develop college-survival skills, as many didn’t know how to take notes or manage their time. Listening to complaints from students in a general chemistry class about how even a community college was so much more difficult than high school made it apparent they lacked such skills because those skills had not been previously necessary. I learned they were accustomed to regular reminders for homework, weekly fill-in-the-blank PowerPoint notes, and all-multiple-choice tests. (Emphasis mine.)
Gosh, that sounds familiar! But in all seriousness, if you're wondering how students can pass through high school learning absolutely nothing, you might want to consider this coddling as a major culprit. "Zombies" don't come from traditional, teacher-led curricula; they come from pandering and an absence of discipline.
If I were a teacher in a public high school, I would spend the first day of school reviewing optimum study habits -- and then, from that point on, I'd cut the apron strings. "I've given you some hints, guys, but now it's all up to you. Oh, and by the way, I don't believe in study guides. If you ask me what's going to be on a particular test, my answer will always be the same: 'If we've gone over it, it will be in there -- even if we went over it in September.'"
I suspect that wouldn't go over well -- at least, not at first. I do think, however, that if I were permitted to continue in that vein, I would better serve my students in the long run.
In related news, I've found yet another voice speaking up in favor of leaving even younger folks to their own devices:
You can’t role-play empathy! Or lecture children to death on how important it is to include other children. Children need to learn these things through practice. LOTS of it! This is best done through daily play experiences with other children – especially outdoors, where children can roam, explore, and play away from the adult world.
...
Children are told what they can and can’t play, with many of the traditional games like tag and kickball becoming something of the past. Play dates are organized by adults to keep children entertained, safe, and happy. And what was once a tradition for the kids in the neighborhood to independently walk down to the local water source to play a game of pond hockey, has become an all-consuming hockey travel team where children are ranked and judged based on skill.
In the meantime, teachers are reporting that more and more children are having trouble regulating their emotions in school, struggling with a sense of entitlement, and constantly seeking out adult reassurance with just about any difficulty they encounter.
This links up pretty well with the aforementioned article from The Federalist. The common theme, of course, is adult micromanagement and the refusal to give school-aged children any credit. I don't want to sound like a stereotypical old biddy, but when Matt and I were kids, we somehow managed to survive many hours of basically unsupervised play without lingering psychological or physical injuries. Are today's children made of fundamentally different stuff? I think not.
To explain the current Maoist moral panic disrupting our so-called institutions of higher education, journalists and bloggers who are committed to free speech have offered several theories. Some have pointed out, first of all, that college administrators have proven themselves to be weak, corrupt, and oh-so-tempting targets by previously acceding to demands for restrictive speech codes, diversity offices, and multicultural "studies" departments, paying the Danegeld and consequently emboldening the Dane. Others, meanwhile, propose that over-protective child-rearing is to blame, claiming that many parents' refusal to expose their kids to age-appropriate adversity is leaving many young people ill-equipped to deal with the frictions and aggravations of the real world.
Of course some students at Claremont feel intimidated, afraid, and out of place because they aren’t academically prepared for an elite college.
Perhaps this observation lends itself to sympathy for the current crop of protesters. I’d be mad and frustrated as well, were I recruited to attend a college only to find it beyond my academic reach, all while racking up student debt.
DeVore was alluding to the institutional mismatch that often results when extra-academic factors like "diversity" are considered in the admissions process, but I think academic culture shock may be even more widespread than he supposes. Indeed, I think it even impacts students who, on the surface, possess all the correct qualifications.
I teach students all over the ability distribution, but I want to focus in particular on my high fliers -- i.e., the students who strive mightily to succeed and have the stellar academic records and test scores to prove it. These students have been in honors level and "extended"/gifted programs since the late middle grades, and by the time they come to me for college admissions help, they're usually enrolled in a full course of AP Everything. They're bright, engaged, eager to learn -- great kids overall. I love to work with them. And yet --
-- and yet I've been noticing some disturbing trends in the way these teens are taught that may, in part, drive the inchoate rage infecting our campuses.
In my county, for instance, even AP students are seldom taught how to take notes. When they are assigned readings in their textbooks (assuming, of course, that they even have textbooks, which is not guaranteed), they are also given a reading guide that obviates the need to decide what's actually important. When they attend lectures, their teachers helpfully give them blank copies of their Power Point slides that students can dutifully - and passively - fill in during class, once again removing the challenge of sifting out which remarks actually matter and which are extraneous details. And when test time rolls around, out come the study guides and practice exams which delineate in precise detail how the test will be structured and what exactly will be tested, which thereby encourages short-term, shallow cramming.
This meme exists for a reason -- which should worry us all.
Our top students, in short, are not being taught how to study effectively because their teachers keep holding their hands. Beyond that, I've also noticed an abject failure on the part of many AP teachers to teach students how to write. Essay assignments in our local advanced classes are woefully infrequent and utterly inadequate, and the standards for an "A" grade are frankly pitiful. The result? Not even my best students really know how to put together an effectively argued research paper. They are far too dependent on unreliable internet sources -- and even if they do hit upon some decent evidence for their assertions, they have no clue how to organize those details correctly. Alas, even the essays they're asked to write for the AP exams don't necessarily teach them the crucial synthesis and composition skills they will need for their university-level coursework.
Again, these are my best students -- the wonderful, fantastic kids who really do want to learn and, based on their SAT scores at intake, have the native ability to do so.
I think, in some fundamental ways, we are screwing up how we teach our high ability students before they even arrive at Yale, Harvard, etc. -- and as a result, some of these students may find themselves struggling to adapt once they hit the quad. In college, after all, there is no hand-holding. In some classes, you're one among hundreds who are all vying for the attention of a limited number of overworked teaching assistants -- and the midterm and the final are the only scores that impact your final grade. For students used to the above-described regime of constant teacher-provided guidance, this may indeed be quite a traumatic transition - and if they've already been trained to perceive injustice in every obstacle, they need only a hop, skip, and a jump to reach the conclusion that their school is deliberately obstructing their success.
(Note: This post was edited later to add a perfect meme.)
You want to know one of my guilty pleasures? British nanny shows. When I have time on my hands and am fantastically bored, I'll often pull up YouTube and start searching for Supernanny clips. There's nothing like watching Jo Frost lay down the law when you're in the mood for some idle entertainment.
Now here's the thing about Frost: Ordinarily, she is incredibly warm and approachable; indeed, in many cases, she ends up counseling overly anxious parents to loosen the hell up and have some fun with their children every once in a while. When a young charge starts misbehaving, however, she flips a different switch. At that moment, she stops tolerating "nonsense," "whinging," and "fapping around" -- and the kids learn to self-regulate. Imagine that.
As you may have guessed, I've been watching the recent disorders at Mizzou and Yale with horrified fascination -- and I can't help but think that what we really need is for a college administrator somewhere to take a page from Frost's book. The kids are throwing tantrums? Time for the Supernanny approach.
First of all, begin by being open and compassionate. Let these activists know that, should they have a grievance, they will be given a forum to peacefully express their views. At the same time, however, announce at the outset that certain rules will be absolutely nonnegotiable and that behavior that tramples on the civil rights of other members of the student body, the faculty, or the public will not be tolerated. In particular, make it clear that physical aggression of any kind will result in suspension or outright expulsion. Spitting on opponents? Pushing and threatening them? Nope. Frost would give a kid an instant time out for that sort of foolishness -- and so should you.
Secondly, if a dispute escalates, recognize emotional manipulation and don't give in. When a child is disciplined and he starts crying for his mommy, Frost ignores the tears. She knows she's being taken for a ride -- that the kid is trying to weaponize her empathy. Similarly, if campus activists claim that they can't eat, sleep, study, or otherwise function because of the supposedly "oppressive" environment of your school, the best response is to hold firm and refer them to your mental health department for counseling.
Third, if an activist starts screaming and swearing at you, check out of the conversation. Say, "I'm sorry, but I can't understand you when you talk to me like that. Come back when you've calmed down and can speak rationally." Then walk away. Don't give that kind of disrespect an audience. Frost never does; for her, "backchat" warrants consequences, not indulgences.
Of course, if a college administrator actually took this advice to heart, I'd be sorely tempted to check the temperature in Hell. But hey -- a girl can dream.
Last week, I noted that our society has destroyed a formerly rich notion of love and compassion and has replaced it with an anodyne demand for "niceness" whose only goal is to avoid pain or offense. I also suggested in passing that this new set of social mores fits neither our common sense nor our current scientific understanding of the human mind -- and that it is destroying young folks' ability to reason appropriately or show genuine empathy for people unlike themselves.
This weekend, I ran across some strong anecdotal evidence that the aforementioned observations are grounded in fact:
“Be quiet,” the girl screams to the Master of her college. “As your position as master, it is your job to create a place of comfort and home for the students that live in Silliman.” But wait: Is it? Is that the job of the administrative head of a college dormitory at Yale? Is Yale an institution for the emotionally broken? Well, this girl appears to think so. When Christakis ventured to disagree with her, the student exploded: “Then why the fuck did you accept the position?” she screamed. “Who the fuck hired you?” She then demanded that he “step down” because being a master is “not about creating an intellectual space” but rather “creating a home.” In loco parentis? “You should not sleep at night,” she sobbed. “You’re disgusting.” She then turns and stomps off. End of tirade. Curtain.
This temper tantrum, by the way, was prompted by a dispute over Halloween costumes: not actual, existing costumes, mind, but just the theoretical possibility that someone might wear something offensive.
I get that certain costume choices are freighted with racist baggage; for example, I think it's dumb as hell to walk around in black face or don a war bonnet you didn't actually earn. Adults, however, handle such insults in private; in personal confrontations, they make their feelings known. They don't call down the hammer of the authorities because they realize those authorities are utterlyincompetent when it comes to dealing with the smaller frictions of daily life. Institutions, you see, over-correct and over-react. See also: boys who get suspended for drawing - or pretending to have - weapons.
And as for this whole idea that college should be "a place of comfort and home"? No, my dear. You are, presumably, at least eighteen years old. Every state considers that the age of majority. And call me crazy, but when I went to college lo these mumble-mumble years ago, I left with the understanding that I was to get busy adulting and handling my own crap. Was I perfect in this endeavor? No, but the expectation was still there. I didn't look to my professors as surrogate parents; I looked to them as intellectual mentors. That is the actual purpose of college - not to enjoy an extended cushy adolescence, but to strengthen and enrich your mind in preparation for a responsible citizenship.
But wherever did this pampered princess get the idea that college was supposed to affirm her in her ignorance instead of forcing her to think critically? Well, that would be the fault of her elders, I'm afraid. In the face of an extended internal assault, college administrators are buckling and giving some very disturbed individuals the keys to the bus -- and in the process, they are endangering the mental health of the students on their campuses.
If you haven't yet read Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt's cover story for the September edition of The Atlantic, please do, as it is a very approachable summary of the psychological realities to which I alluded in my last post:
Today, therapists usually treat depression and anxiety disorders using a combination of prescription drugs and cognitive behavioral therapy. The latter involves challenging the automatic catastrophic, overgeneralizing thoughts that often drive such ailments and retraining the brain to perceive things more benignly. So, for instance, if a patient is pathologically afraid of spiders, his therapist might, over the course of weeks, gradually work him up to actually touching a tarantula, helping him talk through his fear during each exposure and questioning conclusions that don't actually make sense.
What therapists do not do is counsel avoidance.
Campus activists, however, are turning this whole approach upside down. They are insisting on an absolute right to be shielded from what troubles them. Further, they positively revel in emotional reasoning, over-generalization, magnification, fortune telling, filtering, mind-reading -- the very cognitive distortions that make people unhappy and ill-adjusted.
Is it any wonder that some Yale students can no longer control themselves or function as grown-ups?
This post is going to be a hodgepodge. I'm trying to pull in some disparate threads I've picked up in the past week, so forgive me for thinking out loud.
First thread: I'm not only a secular teacher with special interests in STEM education and test preparation. I'm also a volunteer catechist at my local Catholic church, where I - hopefully successfully - instruct young teens and confirmandi in the fundamentals of our Faith. Last Sunday, the topic was Jesus Christ: who is He, and how can we develop a closer relationship with Him? The first segment in the curriculum encouraged the kids to share what they imagined when they thought of Jesus, and this is pretty much the response I received:
This is a very un-Catholic thing to say, but doesn't He seem like kind of a pussy?
The stiff-necked contrarian in me was deeply unsatisfied. Certainly, Jesus is merciful, forgiving, and approachable for children and sinners alike. But I couldn't help thinking of that Facebook meme. You know -- the one that references Matthew 21:12?
Gives you a slightly different impression, doesn't it?
And what about C.S. Lewis' descriptions of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia?
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
*****
“He'll be coming and going" he had said. "One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down--and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.”
So I pulled out the Bible and tried to steer my charges in a slightly different direction. I reminded them that Jesus' forgiveness was always followed by a command to sin no more. I noted the ways in which Jesus called out the powers of his day -- and was ultimately put to death for it. And overall, I tried to paint a more virile picture of who Jesus was.
Driving home, though, I was still disturbed. Damn it: Our culture has domesticated Christ.
Second thread: Apparently, according to the scrupulously "correct," we can no longer call criminals what they are. The word "criminal," you see, "dehumanizes" people who've simply been "rendered desperate by the cruelties of capitalism."
That sound you just heard was my eyes rolling out of my skull and bouncing on the floor. I'll be typing this post by feel from now on.
But seriously: Why are we suddenly so concerned about the precious feelings of petty thieves and thugs -- and why are we so unconcerned about the feelings of their victims? I'm a Christian and do believe in the possibility of redemption even for the very worst malefactors, but as Sarah Hoyt has noted, crime victims are also human beings and also deserve our consideration:
Say, for instance, you feel sorry for a pedophile – not that any of them got involved in anything like that recently! – because after all the poor critter is confused, and didn’t choose to be this way. You let him/her go, or even encourage him/her with stuff like “it’s not your fault.”
What is going to happen? I can tell you. What is going to happen is that they’re going to hurt another or many kids.
Now the kids didn’t ask to be hurt, and they didn’t do anything to deserve it.
By encouraging/feeling sorry for one person, who can, after all, control him/herself or seek help in doing such, you were cruel to a vast number of innocents that didn’t do anything to bring this on them.
This reality should be self-evident to anyone -- particularly to people who've been preyed upon. So why this drive to discourage telling the damned truth?
Third thread: Go and read the following post, also by Sarah Hoyt:
Sarah wrote this in response to the silly claims zipping around fandom that we Sad Puppies are seeking to suppress women writers, but one passage in particular struck me as more generally applicable:
Making special prizes for good little girls because vagina and actually going so far as to argue that creations like games or books which are engaged in as ludic pursuits don’t need to be fun, but only relevant, and that you should enjoy them even if you don’t enjoy them because they’re created by women, does the reverse of what I (and a lot of others, I was not a paragon. I’m using my experience because I lived it) did when I had the best grades and won contests DESPITE the inherent prejudice against me. I and others like me proved women can be grown ups and can function in the adult world; these victimhood pony-riders are convincing people who by an large believe in female equality to reconsider and think that women are fragile, not so smart creatures who need easy steps and easier tests and accommodations to function.
Here, Sarah is approaching, asymptotically, what we who know a little something about education and human psychology have discovered: We are not designed to live in a friction-free universe. We require some adversity to become fully-actualized.
I'm not suggesting, of course, that we deliberately and needlessly hurt people to "toughen them up." I am suggesting, however, that I would be a failure as a teacher if I did not set the bar just a little bit higher than my students' grasp and then inspire them to jump. That's why I love Hajimete no Otsukai-- or this video, also from Japan:
High expectations beget excellence. Criticism begets improvement. What would happen to my students if I never deconstructed the weaknesses in their persuasive essays? What if I never pointed out their grammatical mistakes -- or told them their math was wrong? What if I never imposed discipline? I would inflict illiterate, innumerate brats upon the world.
This new regime of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and trophies for victimhood flies against our very nature, and it is already making lousy writers and lousy thinkers. As a writer, you must be able to accurately and sympathetically depict a full range of human personalities -- but you will not learn how to do so if you spend your entire lives avoiding people who think differently. As a supposed activist for "justice," you must understand, deeply, the potential obstacles that stand in your way, and you must know how to respond to the people who might oppose you -- skills you will not learn if your college campus is cleansed of all that is potentially disturbing to your beliefs. I know I'm a better debater because my father consistently served as my devil's advocate. Why are millennial SJW's and their older enablers so eager to deny their compatriots the same intellectual experience? A critique is not an assault. Challenge is not violence. When you assert the opposite, you foster mediocrity. You make the objects of your supposed "compassion" look somehow inferior.
Now let's try to create the tapestry: The common theme that breathes through all of this, I think, is our society's disordered definition of love. As a catechist, I repeatedly emphasize that love is wanting what is best for another person and seeking, self-sacrificially, to accomplish it. Our popular culture, however, has tamed this concept the same way it has tamed the radical, masculine Christ. Love, alas, is now simply niceness. If you love someone, says the zeitgeist, you must never cause him or her to feel shame, sorrow, frustration, or even cognitive dissonance. To elevate a man, you must wrap him in swaddling wool.
Said zeitgeist is wrong - morally and scientifically - and it should be challenged at every opportunity.
First, to use an admittedly crude formulation, manhood is about owning your shit. As I frequently emphasize with my students, a true man recognizes his own agency. If he is unhappy with his circumstances, he does everything in his power to change things for the better -- and he does so without whinging, without disproportionate cruelty, and without inferring negative motives where none exist.
Second, manhood is about sticking up for the vulnerable and recognizing that with great power comes great responsibility. It's no accident that little boys immediately and almost universally imprint on comic book superheroes. Superman and Spiderman and all the rest represent the natural masculine ethos in its purest form.
Third, manhood is about problem-solving -- leavened with a little risk-taking and a wholelot of selflessness. This past Friday, I saw a fabulous fictional representation of this principle in the character of Mark Watney. The protagonist of The Martiandoes at times feel despair as the odds and the elements conspire against him. In the end, however, he buckles down and gets to work. "If I die," he says in a message later, "let [my parents] know that I died for something big and beautiful and greater than me." Watney wants to live -- but he also knows he's a small piece of a much larger puzzle.
Fourth - and most importantly of all - manhood is about virtue. All those copy-book headings about temperance and fortitude are just as relevant now as they were in the days of Kipling. Unfortunately, they are often ignored in favor of hipster consumerism and hashtag activism -- and young men, searching in vain for guidance and wise counsel, are left tragically bereft of both.
ETA: Welcome, Instapundit readers! To answer two controversies that have arisen in the comments: 1) I used "whinge" deliberately. I picked it up from friends who live overseas, and I've always understood it to mean "to whine excessively for no good reason." 2) The necessity for kindness, I thought, is implied both in the point about protecting the vulnerable and in the point about maintaining one's virtue. But just to be clear, yes -- I do believe a true man is kind where kindness is warranted.
"Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon's lair but, as I said before, Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons."
- C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
I am what you might call a Common Core moderate. Unlike many of Common Core's opponents, I am not wholly opposed to standardized testing; indeed, at my day job, we use standardized tests all the time to track our students' progress, and I have found them to be very useful tools indeed. I am also not concerned about a "corporate takeover" of public education; this thread in the opposition's rhetoric, I feel, is overly paranoid and imputes motives to Bill Gates and his compatriots that probably do not exist. I am concerned about fuzzy math and lousy English textbooks, but those pre-dated the implementation of Common Core and shouldn't necessarily be conflated with the standards themselves.
Still, I do think Common Core gets it wrong in many respects -- and among its missteps is its over-emphasis on informational text.
I understand the intent behind this emphasis. As I've observed in previous posts, children do in fact need to be exposed to a solid foundation of content knowledge in history, science, and math in order to be literate citizens. I'll also grant that the authors of the CCSS wanted the responsibility for the informational text requirements to be spread across the curriculum and not confined to Language Arts. This ideal, however, is turning out to be near impossible to implement. STEM teachers in particular are understandably resistant to the additional demands; who has the time to teach our students how to read Euclid or Newton when we have to, I don't know, actually teach our students some science and math? Thus, in practice, literary fiction is being crowded out of the Language Arts curriculum -- and this could have potentially disastrous results for our students. It's all well and good to be "college and career ready" (whatever that means), but what about being decent-and-functional-human-being ready?
'Tis true that very few are called upon to read fiction at their places of work -- but once again, the purpose of an education is not simply to raise competent employees. There are - and should be - emotional and moral components as well. Children and teens need to learn how to self-regulate, how to delay gratification, and how to muscle on after a set-back. They need to learn temperance, prudence, fortitude, and other important virtues. They need to learn the standards of our civil society, including genuine tolerance, personal responsibility, and the importance of showing charity to one's neighbors. And there is no better way to communicate these critical values than through the medium of the story.
Once upon a time, the power of the story was considered axiomatic; C.S. Lewis certainly displays this understanding in crafting the character of Eustace Clarence Scrubb, whose initial disdain for the imaginative leaves him, in a crucial way, handicapped. Divorce children from fiction and you divorce them from an age-old and profoundly humane means of tackling the world's great ethical and psychological challenges. You can send kids to an anti-bullying assembly and tell them to be kind to others -- or you can invite them to consider the hidden worth of their peers by reading "The Ugly Duckling." You can tell your child that there are no monsters waiting for him under his bed and he has no need to fear -- or you can read him a fanciful tale in which monsters are confronted and defeated. You can tell your teen that other people can be misguided, troubled, or difficult and yet still be worthy of your compassion -- or you can read To Kill a Mockingbird. In each case, the second course is far more likely to be effective than the first. Metaphor and dramatization have a knack for worming into a young heart that no didactic lecture can possibly match. That's why, since the dawn of language itself, human society has been awash in folk tales, legends, and myths.
And contra the CCSS's claims, the need for literary fiction remains constant as children mature. Older adolescents may no longer be frightened of bedroom beasties, but they are getting ready to enter adult society, where, as responsible citizens, they will have to grapple with the Great Conversation about what makes us human. Even a plumber or an engineer needs to know something about that conversation to make informed decisions in the public square -- and it is in the world's literature that these ruminations and debates can be found, not in technical reports from the Bureau of Land Management.
So yes: Make sure children get a solid grounding of factual knowledge across the domains of history, science, and math, but don't downplay or ignore the very real - and positive - impact the study of literary fiction has on the developing psyche -- and on our society as a whole.
Don't worry -- I haven't suddenly become a cultural Marxist. The "privilege" I'm going to discuss has nothing to do with the trendy (and foolish) leftist idea that supposes a white, heterosexual man automatically lives life on an "easier" setting than does a black, lesbian female -- even if the former is a jobless welfare recipient in Appalachia and the latter is a tenured academic. No -- the privilege I want to discuss is the privilege of being an American.
There are billions of people in the world today who live on less than $10 per day. There are billions who still lack convenient access to potable water, live in unsanitary conditions, suffer from easily avoidable infectious diseases, or are growth-stunted and malnourished. In Haiti, four years after a major earthquake, people are still living in tents and makeshift shacks. Would this happen in America? We may bitch about FEMA's incompetence, but major natural disasters do not leave our populations completely helpless. We do have our homeless, but not on that scale -- and clean water, safe food, good sanitation, and (at least partial) literacy are everyday facts of life that many take completely for granted. Even poor Americans are better off than huge swaths of the earth's population; the majority have televisions, refrigerators, and air conditioning -- consumer items that are unheard of in other parts of the world. Moreover, we enjoy a certain liberty that is often denied to our contemporaries overseas. Despite the best efforts of certain illiberal radicals, we still have freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to demonstrate against laws we perceive to be unfair, and other fundamental rights. Can you say the same for dissidents in the Middle East?
Overall, if you live in America - or in the developed world in general - you are unbelievably fortunate no matter who you are.
But you wouldn't know it if you peeked at what Victor Davis Hanson terms our "psychodramatic campuses." The students at UC-Santa Barbara believe themselves to be so emotionally fragile that they are now insisting on officially enforced "trigger warnings" before their professors tackle potentially disturbing subjects. Meanwhile, at Dartmouth, students recently staged an overnight sit-in in the president's office. Why? The protesters demanded gender-neutral bathrooms, outright racial quotas, and censorship of the library catalog (among other things) on the grounds that their bodies "are already on the line, in danger, and under attack." Really? At a private and highly selective Ivy League university? Somehow, I doubt it. Let's get real: if you're going to a school like Dartmouth, the chances are very good that you grew up in the upper-middle or upper class and lived a very easy life indeed. You had professional, highly-educated parents who made sure you went to the best schools, were assisted by tutors so you could pump up your GPA, and were shuttled to a plethora of (expensive) extra-curricular activities to burnish your college resumes. Trust me -- one of the many hats I wear at my day job is part-time college admissions counselor. The kids who get into the Ivy League are, quite frankly, the kids whose parents can pay for my services over the long term. But you're not talking about addressing that systemic inequality; instead, you're complaining because the school won't give you free gender-reassignment surgery. What entitled nonsense!
Apparently, many of our young people are now so well-off in absolute terms that they no longer understand what it means to be truly underprivileged and "oppressed." They've lived in bubbles so cushy and comfortable that they can no longer withstand the slightest offense or the merest whiff that someone disapproves of their ideology or their lifestyles. Because they've been told all their lives that they're ever-so-clever, every insult, no matter how inconsequential, is cause for disproportional anger and heavy-handed shaming or censorship. The free marketplace of ideas? Ha! Free speech is considered a threat, not a boon. When President Hanlon (at Dartmouth) offered to discuss the student protesters' complaints, they refused because mere conversation, in their mind, would leave them vulnerable to "micro-aggressions" that would severely wound them in body and mind. Honestly, I can't help but imagine how a Christian from the Sudan might respond to this twaddle; I expect he or she would laugh in these kids' faces.
I don't want to raise kids who behave this way - like coddled, pampered prince-lings who are convinced of their innate superiority and who insist their every demand be immediately satisfied - and I'm sure you, the reader, don't either. So what should we do as parents to turn out young adults who aren't professional victims and spoiled brats?
I think, first of all, that we need to instill a mentality of service. As soon as possible, we should involve our children when we cook meals for the homeless shelter or collect old clothes, toys, and books for Goodwill. Helping the poor should be a weekly event and something that is frequently discussed. And when our children hit adolescence, we should encourage them to go on mission trips -- or to summer work camps like those held in Arlington Diocese for local families who can't afford necessary repairs for their homes. Exposure to these opportunities will not only teach our children compassion, but it will also teach them to appreciate what they have.
Secondly, we should only compliment our children's genuine accomplishments. What counts as "genuine," will, of course, vary with the age of the child, but children should never be taught that every little thing they do is lovely and special. Excessive and false praise produces children with over-inflated egos who feel justified bossing people around.
Third, after a certain age, children should work to earn certain luxuries. They shouldn't be handed a new car when they're sixteen, for example; they should be asked to get a job to save for it.
Fourth, you should give your children regular opportunities to live without certain modern conveniences. After a long weekend roughing it in the woods with no showers, flush toilets, or electricity, they might better understand how good they actually have it.
And lastly, we need to make sure our children are educated when it comes to world history and current events. They need to understand that the level of material prosperity we enjoy is absolutely astounding when seen in its full context. And they need to understand how lucky we all are to live here, where the accomplishments of modernity protect us from a whole host of physical, emotional, and spiritual dangers.
The political theater at our colleges and universities disgusts me, as you've no doubt perceived. But we can combat it so long as we consciously avoid indulging our children's every desire and teach them that they are manifestly not the center of the universe.
I apologize, first of all, for suddenly turning this blog into an education and parenting blog, but as an educator and an aspiring parent, these things have been very much on my mind. What do I wish to give to my future children? A strong grounding in math and science? Yes! A well-rounded exposure to the liberal arts? Absolutely! (As I'll discuss next week, everyone needs to know how to read and write widely and well, and that can only come through accumulating a lot of basic background knowledge in history, literature, art, music, philosophy, etc.) A solid understanding - and, dare I hope, a love - of my Catholic Faith? Obviously!
But any educational program will have many less-appreciated facets that go beyond the academics. Some education writers call this the "hidden curriculum," though it is not exactly "hidden" if you know where to look. I would say, for example, that the "hidden curriculum" of the public schools very clearly teaches students to be compliant and to respect authority. In order to speak, you have to raise your hand. In order to go to the bathroom, you have to ask permission and get a pass. When your teacher - or the bell - says it's time to move on to math class, you have to move on to math class even if you were completely absorbed in what you were just learning in science. Now, don't get me wrong -- this training isn't 100% pernicious. Children do need to learn to listen and obey. But if, like me, you're vaguely libertarian and fiercely counter-cultural, you should still hold this Prussian regimentation somewhat suspect -- not because it teaches obedience, but because it often teaches obedience to authorities who are practically and/or morally off track.
But I digress. Suffice it to say that I believe giving my children a decent education will go beyond the purchasing of books and curricular guides -- that it will also require conscious thought regarding the intangibles. Hence, my reflection last week on Heinlein-ian self-reliance. Hence, this post, which will explain how my plans have been influenced by Mike Rowe.
For those of you who don't have cable and/or aren't obsessed with the Discovery circuit of channels, Mike Rowe was the host of a show called Dirty Jobs in which he apprenticed under people around the country - like, for example, sewer inspectors and septic tank specialists - who make a living doing things the popular culture considers unpleasant. In the course of shooting roughly 300 of these jobs, Rowe discovered the Skills Gap - i.e., the fact that despite this time of high unemployment, there are millions of jobs in industry that have been left unfilled because there is no one around who is both willing and able to do the work - and made it his personal mission to help close it by promoting the virtues of hard work and vocational education.
As he has stated in several venues - including his website, Profoundly Disconnected - Rowe thinks it's nuts that the entire education establishment is pushing a traditional four-year college degree like it's the only true path to success, and he further observes that such propaganda is a sign that our society has become completely divorced from the very things that keep our civilization functioning. "I think we've simply forgotten about the underlying industries upon which all else depends," Rowe writes in one article on farming, "and as a result, created for ourselves a vocational identity crisis. Our collective definition of a 'good job' has evolved into something that no longer resembles Work, and that had detached us from a great many things, including our food and the people who provide it."
Rowe is right. As a college-educated professional who works what is essentially a desk job in an affluent suburb, I have - unconsciously - taken many things for granted. When I go to the grocery store, I expect it to be well supplied. When I flush the toilet -- well, I don't generally think about what happens next. I don't need to because the vast majority of the time, things operate as they should thanks to millions of people doing jobs that, sadly, have been systematically marginalized by Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the dominant political faction in DC. And many people who live in my area are just like me. They reveal the level of their disconnect by the things they champion. They are food faddists who have no concept of what it actually takes to nourish 300 million people. They believe we should reinvent the entire energy industry -- because, of course, no matter what we do, the lights will still stay on. And, of course, they think people should be allowed to "follow their passion" on the public dime; when the CBO announced that the new health care law is likely to encourage people to work less, they considered it a feature rather than a bug.
I don't want my children to be so oblivious. I don't want them to be typical DC elitist snobs who think they can just play with the whole system to enforce their own personal moral sensibilities without causing it to crash around our ears. Consequently, in my school room, Rowe's "Work Smart AND Hard" poster and his "S.W.E.A.T. Pledge" will both be prominently displayed. (By the way, "S.W.E.A.T." stands for "Skill & Work Ethic Aren't Taboo" -- a pretty clever acronym.) Further, whenever possible, I'm going to expose my kids to kind of work that under-girds the prosperity we enjoy. I'm going to take them to farms, factories and electrical plants and openly discuss how food and other consumer items get to our houses and our tables. I'm going to try to have them shadow plumbers, carpenters, welders, and other skilled tradesmen so they can develop an appreciation for what these people do. And overall, I'm going to emphasize that bad jobs are actually vanishingly rare and that God intended us to exert effort to get the things we need and/or want -- that there is a profound dignity in sweating and getting dirty and slowly working your way up from nothing that you can't get from sitting on your tush and letting "entitlements" come to you.
After such a program, it is my hope that my children will be prepared to sign Rowe's pledge and start looking for ways they can contribute. Not only does America need enterprising self-starters, but it also needs people who are unafraid of discomfort and grime.
