RoR: Forum

Post 0

Sunday, March 23 - 6:01pm

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My 13-year old nephew is of mixed race and he told me today about a "workshop" that his teacher put the class through recently.

It was called "White Privilege" or "White Privileges" (I forget which) and it involved letting the white students sit in the middle of the classroom but having the black students stand -- in the corners of the room or along the walls.

My nephew said it made him feel "weird." He's already registered his personal dismays to me -- long before this workshop -- about feeling hurt from others' "race-consciousness." The teacher in this instance was white and so were most of the students.

What do you think about this "workshop" performed in this public school?

Ed

Post 1

Sunday, March 23 - 6:27pm

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It would be lovely if the public schools spent our precious resources teaching the youngsters how to read, write, reckon and think logically. But they don't.

Out public schools barely teach history. They prefer teaching "social studies".

Bob Kolker

Post 2

Sunday, March 23 - 7:13pm

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Ed,

And the purpose of this exercise is . . . ?

Post 3

Sunday, March 23 - 8:39pm

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The purpose of the exercise is indoctrination.

In addition to "White Privilege" there should be a workshop called "Affirmative Action" in which whites and Asians who score well on tests have their grades both reduced and redistributed to non-whites and non-Asians in order to even out the number of gold stars on the semi-annual report cards. Additionally, whites and Asians who do well academically will have their grade-point averages reduced and redistributed to appropriate ethnic minorities so that the latter will be promoted to the next grade, while the former will be offered the choice of repeating the current grade or dropping out. "Thanks for helping your fellow students! Don't let the door bang you in the lunch-box on the way out!"

Oops! This is reality, not a workshop. I forgot.

Post 4

Sunday, March 23 - 9:21pm

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Thanks for the replies, guys; especially yours, Claude.

I'm trying to integrate this workshop in order to discover its essence (something which an effortful attempt at integration would indirectly uncover). Placing it where it's supposed to fit in with the rest of knowledge, its nature will be automatically illuminated.

I guess I wanted to be able to say something smart and right to the kid, you know, in order to help him become a self-made soul and such. There are forces in public education destroying young minds and spirits, and I was hoping to throw the boy a pscyho-epistemological life-line while he's being sent through these unforgiving river rapids which some call: "education" -- trying to balance on his state-supplied inner-tube.

:-(

Thanks again!

Ed

Post 5

Monday, March 24 - 3:34am

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What do you think about this "workshop" performed in this public school?

The moron should be flogged. Your sister and brother in law should read it the riot act, then proceed to flogging. Incredibly stupid. No rational point to it at all, and nothing useful was learned. Dumb. Leftarded.

Almost as sickening as this.

(Edited by Teresa Summerlee Isanhart on 3/24, 3:50am)

(Edited by Teresa Summerlee Isanhart on 3/24, 3:51am)

Post 6

Monday, March 24 - 6:53pm

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I'm glad to see that public school students are so well versed in math and science and history that there is just this over abundance of spare time to have them learn about "white privilege". Because you know we have so many students graduating public schools that are ready for this new high tech economy, it's better if they have some more trivial pursuits in school to tend to.

[/sarcasm]

Post 7

Tuesday, March 25 - 4:52pm

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A friend emailed this link to me, which was sent to her by Erica Holzer. The article is fabulous, and should be cross posted in the Nobama thread. No base is missed, and it hits the subject of this thread so squarely on the head, I'm delighted and shocked at the same time.

I had to pass this on to Ed, his bright and beautiful nephew, and the young man's parents, who should blow a copy up, 10 x 10', and give it to the instructor.

Post 8

Tuesday, March 25 - 10:59pm

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Thank you very much, Teresa. I have forwarded this link on to my sister.

When I was just a lil' tyke -- I got the snot beat out of me by 2 classmates. Somehow my mom found out. The next day, my mom called the school to tell them that I wouldn't be starting on time. Instead, she waited until class started, brought me to the school with her, barged into the classroom, and had me point out the 2 young rights violators.

My mom confronted the 2 hooligans-in-training and the large male teacher said that my mom couldn't just waltz into the classroom, disrupting everyone's education, and verbally condemn (read: threaten) 2 young boys like that. My mom got up in the teacher's face (actually his chest and upper belly; because he was a giant of a man), and told him a few things that should go unmentioned in a respectable public forum such as RoR.

My mom went too far, and I felt like such a punk (only "punk's" moms fight their battles for them). Even still, there was some sort of importance I felt about myself -- in order for my mom to go to all of this trouble over a simple school-yard beating which I had begrudgingly received.

Maybe my sister will go to her son's school and break out a can of Whoop-Ass like that.

;-)

Ed

Post 9

Wednesday, March 26 - 3:52am

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Your mom sounds like my mom.

I had a teacher grab me by the arm after I made a mistake in class. Her long nails dug into my skin and actually left a claw mark. I was in third grade, I think.

My mother saw the marks the next morning when I was dressing for school. She asked me what happened, and I told her. My mother said nothing else to me, and walked me to school. She ushered me into the principle's office, and proceeded to lambast the vice principle, a very nice and just lady, who examined my arm, and agreed that an injustice had been done.

The teacher was supposed to apologise to me in front of the whole class, but never did. Instead, I was ignored for the rest of the year, and I failed third grade.

My parents were outraged, but there was exactly nothing they thought they could do. This was back in the early 60's. I think my father even called the police, and a lawyer, but nothing legal ever came of it.

Years later, I discovered this same teacher, who was Jewish (which means nothing to a 7 year old) was very cruel to other blond/blue eyed children with German sounding last names. As an adult, and long after the she died, I often wished I could go back and talk to her about this terrible, misplaced grudge she obviously had. I can only hope she regretted her treatment of us.

Post 10

Wednesday, March 26 - 5:23am

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Hi Ed,

You said your nephew was mixed. Perhaps he should have stood up in class, and, in the confused manner that I'm sure would come natural to any logically thinking individual, asked the teacher, "Um...I'm neither white, nor black. Where should I go?"

Or, if he were brave enough, sit in the front and center seat, and say, when the teacher undoubtedly asked why he was there, "I don't consider myself either white or black. I'm me."

Post 11

Wednesday, March 26 - 9:23am

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It's funny that, for the longest time, black activists were complaining that a half black, half white baby was considered 'black' by most people, yet Obama, who is in fact half black and half white, is lauded not as a mulato presidential canditate, but as a black one.

Post 12

Wednesday, March 26 - 4:25pm

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It's the old "One Drop Rule."

"From Reconstruction until about 1930, the children of black/white interracial parents and of mulatto parents were usually identified as mulatto. It is becoming increasingly common for people to identify themselves as multi-racial, bi-racial, mulatto or mixed, rather than as black or white. The fraction of mixed children census-labeled as solely black dropped from 62% in 1990 to 31% in 2000 (when multiple "races" were first allowed), suggesting that the one-drop theory and denying one's European ancestry are no longer accepted the way they used to be."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule

I don't understand why we still have it now, or why some feel they have to identify with one race over the other, unless it's to make some kind of point. I'm not at all sure what the point is, though.

An old supervisor is married to black man, and they have four kids (maybe five now, I don't know!). She and her husband referred to them as "mixed." My husband's "niece-in-law" is half Mexican, half black, but if you ask her mom or grandma, the girl is all Mexican. She refers to herself as "mixed," however.

It's interesting to me that race still holds such a strong identifiying appeal, even when it has nothing of real value to offer.

When I was in school, or even now when I have to fill out any kind of form that asks for my race, I always write "Human." <g>

Post 13

Wednesday, March 26 - 6:42pm

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One of my teachers - a Ms. Taylor - in the 4th grade in North Georgia (U.S.) informed the class that mixed race children were invariably idiots.

Fortunately for her credibility, she also taught us - having just gone thru the Sputnik crash course in science - that the stars shown by reflected light from the sun, that the planets, on the other hand, were actually stars in their own right, that the moon had no gravity, because it had no atmosphere, which is why you had to have suction cups on the tail fins of a rocket ship to the moon - so it wouldn't fall right off the moon.

I was given one of my very rare "C"'s for refusing to put suction cups on my drawing of a space ship, which was our homework one day. Then she called me a liar in front of the class because I insisted that in addition to the nine planets, there were also thousands of these little planetoids called asteroids. I offered to show her in the school library's encyclopedia, but instead she sent me home with a note for my parents concerning challenging the authority of a teacher.

I don't recall any specifics about the biology she taught us, except that it was even worse. Fortunately, as I meant, her credibility was at near zero by then with most of the kids, as a fair number of us had actually read up on space and some of us were already science fiction fans, as well. So, the real lesson we took away from Ms. Taylor was not to depend upon authority for the truth.

Later, at the local yocal country high school, they assigned the football coach to teach biology. This guy was so stupid that he didn't even understand the rules of football, which he had played all through college on a scholarship based on his enormous bulk. He also had things to inform us about blacks and whites and why they should never mix. However, he too fell afoul of the principle that stupidity is incurable and ubiquitous.

He dismissed evolution by asking whether anyone had ever seen a blackbird mate with a bluebird. No? Then evolution must be nonsense... Every day, the guys (the classes being segregated by sex, as sex education was part of the biology course - and, no, I'm not EVEN going to go there.) would sit bug-eyed, sometimes with tears running down their cheeks in the effort not to break into hysterical laughter. There was hardly a student who didn't know more about biology, football, certainly SEX, and probably just about every other conceivable subject than the teacher did.

The progressives think that the real value of compulsory public education is to build good citizens, and then they complain about the low quality, which is totally backwards. It is the incredibly low quality of public education which is the best part, as it teaches people that they have to think for themselves - or let their lives be run to the standards of Ms. Taylor or the football coach. Of course, it does depend, I suppose on what your definition of a "good citizen" is... But it also seems as though you could probably learn that in a year, or maybe even a month, however, and learn other stuff, like reading, writing, arithmetic, etc. if you didn't have to spend your time learning that the people in charge are safely assumed to be total fools.

Post 14

Wednesday, March 26 - 7:09pm

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Phil,

I'm so very disappointed by your post. In particular, I'm so very disappointed that I could not sanction it more than once!

;-)

That was beautiful, man. Thanks.

Ed

Post 15

Thursday, March 27 - 7:09pm

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Thanks, Ed.

BTW, there was a study done in the 1920's to assess how to deal with illiteracy in adults. They put a group of randomly selected completely illiterate adults thru a crash course and were able to bring them up to an 8th grade level of general academic prowess, as measured by standardized skill tests, in a matter of 9 months of intensive tutoring.

That said, the Montessori kids as well as examples such as J.S. Mill and William James Sidis all point to the fact that a lot of the basic hardwiring of the brain that is responsible for intelligence of all kinds is done on the basis of very rich feedback in the earliest years.

So, instead of a 12 year prison term for kids, force-learning a whole lot of stuff that they will never, ever need to know as adults, we probably should be focusing on providing a really optimum environment from late fetus stage to age 4,5, or 6 and then providing the tools and opportunities from that point forward. Any smart 6 yr. old who knows how to surf the web has more tools and information available than I EVER had, from 1st grade thru graduate work in college. And child labor? Damn right! Let them earn their own way from as early as possible and they will be thanking you for the rest of their lives.

In the late '70's and early '80's, there were a number of cases of kids as young as 7 years old getting fairly rich off software they had written. The very first adventure game on a personal computer, I believe, was written by a 12 year old who helped out his dad at Data Equipment Supply in Downey around 1980. I was there when he brought in his cassette tape for the VIC20. A few years later he was turning down full scholarships to virtually every major university in the U.S., because he couldn't afford to leave his software business.

Then Microsoft and Apple dumbed the computers down and effectively locked the users out of writing their own software. Note that late 1980's programs such as AmigaVision allowed users to design complete games and complex simulations, incorporating music, animations, databases, video, 3D and hyperlinks, all running on hardware with less than 1% of the processing power the average computer user has today. And remember when every business graduate was supposed to be a whiz at Lotus and DBase and Turbo Prolog? But there may be ways around that. Google may save the world yet!

Post 16

Friday, March 28 - 7:45am

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My nearly six-year-old granddaughter is absolutely absorbed with "Webkinz", a site that is a virtual world for plush toy pets.

http://www.webkinz.com/SWF/TOUR/siteTour.html

I heartily recommend this learning experience for any 5 to 10 year old. It teaches them everything from money management to setting goals, reading, math skills, computer skills, and on and on.

Sam

Post 17

Friday, March 28 - 8:03am

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Then Microsoft and Apple dumbed the computers down and effectively locked the users out of writing their own software. Note that late 1980's programs such as AmigaVision allowed users to design complete games and complex simulations, incorporating music, animations, databases, video, 3D and hyperlinks, all running on hardware with less than 1% of the processing power the average computer user has today.

Conveniencing is not dumbing down - the world of computers would be much less today than otherwise if we all had to bother learning those programs and had to make our own software... the proof of this is in the few who do want to keep doing that, yet not wish to make and sell the parts to achieve that - if such are not already still on the market, in which case there is nothing stopping you and your kind, certainly not Microsoft and Apple....

Post 18

Friday, March 28 - 3:21pm

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Reply to post 16.

Was the invention of the superheterodyne circuit a convenience that made radios usable by the many or was it a dumbing down of the tuning process?

Radios must be dumb down things. You just turn it on, move the cursor to the frequency of the station you want to here and regulate the volume in a way that is simple enough for a baby to do.

Bob Kolker

Post 19

Saturday, March 29 - 1:06pm

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To the two Robert's:

Sure, and "the market will decide..." And if Henry Ford had believed that, it would have set back automotive progress by ten years, most likely. It is when you put quality individuals together with quality tools, physical or informational, that you get quality results - and then only if those individuals actually believe that they can make a difference.

The early years of the microcomputer corresponded with an outpouring of creativity, not just on the Amiga, which led the field for most of a decade, but on virtually every other platform out there. A lot of that has disappeared as we have moved from user control to a completely black-boxed environment, with the exception of the Linux world, of course. However, Linux, unlike the Amiga, still has a substantial learning curve for the typical adult user, much less a young kid.

The Amiga - and even, to a much larger extent than today, MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 - gave the user real control over the desktop experience, without requiring years of working up the learning curve before one could do anything useful. Compare Visual BASIC to GW BASIC under DOS. I wrote all kinds of useful utilities in GW on the PC as well as the much more powerful Amiga BASIC, but each time I've tried to do anything in VB, I run headlong into the fact that to do one little thing requires knowing ten other things, each of which requires ten more things, to the point that you almost have to already know the entire language before you can do much of anything at all.

This is how MicroSoft likes it. We're moving back to the time when only an elite bunch of gurus in white coats will be able to do anything serious on the computer. Only Linux and now Google, it appears, are posing serious alternatives. Forget JavaScript and HTML. The browser environment was dumbed down more than the OS as soon as MicroSoft introduced Explorer. Notice how quickly all the cool browser extensions that Netscape introduced disappeared after that. Just as JAVA appeared ready to take over until MicroSoft corrupted it, destroying the cross-platform compatibility that was its chief selling point, and happily paying SUN the trivial damages of a $billion or so in order to keep the users from having any power.

We are in a literal war of ideas, with the State's one-size-fits-all coercive patent and copyright laws reaching for absurdity as the players with the real money and concentrated interests try to ensure that anyone doing anything anywhere anytime on the globe or in space will pay them a portion of all proceeds and do it their way or not at all.

My nephew's "progressive" education