Sunday, July 01, 2007

Colleges Score Perfect Grade In Liberal Bias

I was cautiously optimistic that my quest to move from a community college to a four-year school might succeed this time. The gatekeepers at the annual conference of the American Historical Association, where thousands are interviewed but few are chosen, had seen fit to let me pass, and I was now on the campus of a large state university for round two. Everything had gone well: my 75-minute PowerPoint lecture to a class studying early Islamic history, subsequent interviews with the department chair and dean - I was on a roll.

Then I was outed. During a meeting with the search committee, a professor produced irrefutable evidence that I "appeared to be more conservative than others in my field." Worse, the evidence gave him the weapon he needed to deliver the coup de grace: "You sounded like Daniel Pipes!" Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia, a think tank that seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East, and a widely published scholar on Middle East issues.

The professor had in hand a two-year-old article, titled "7 Myths about Islam," that I wrote for the History News Network, a Web site run by George Mason University at which professional historians and history buffs read, write and debate myriad topics. In the article, I argued against seven pious falsehoods about Islam that the mainstream media treat as historical facts: Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion; Islam was spread only through peaceful means; poverty produces Muslim terrorists; jihad does not mean holy war.

The committee member took particular offense at another myth I described as "a politically correct mendacity," namely Tony Blair's statement that on 9/11 Islam had been "hijacked by terrorists." He even delivered a brief lecture on the definition of "mendacity" for my edification.

I pointed out the Quranic roots of violence and jihad and insisted that jihadists have firm Islamic roots for their lionization of violence. And I stated plainly (as I had in my lecture earlier that day) that the vast majority of Muslims don't support a seventh-century interpretation of jihad.

In response to the offended academic's demand that I fess up and call Christianity violent, I answered that Christians had indeed practiced violence throughout their history, but that to do so they had to contradict their founder, whereas Muslims had only to emulate theirs. Further, I adduced my Middle East Quarterly article, "Beheading in the Name of Islam," which traces the Quranic, Hadith and historical precedents for jihadist decapitations of non-Muslims.

Challenged by me to refute my work, the objecting professor sidestepped academic evidence - further indication that he lacked the ability to disprove my research. He did, however, betray his political agenda when he said, "Most of our students are conservative Christians who already hold a view of Islam and Muslims similar to yours." Was he suggesting that the role of the history professor is to disabuse his students of their religious beliefs - to transform them into reliable fellow travelers - rather than to engage them with solid research and teaching? If so, he needn't look far for allies.

For another committee member objected that my research into Mahdist (Islamic messianic) movements presented Muslims as imperialists - never mind that the Ottomans were seen as such by co-religionists in Africa and Arabia. Her worldview, shaped by Edward Said's notorious book "Orientalism," would admit of only one kind of imperialism: Western.

No one involved in the selection process objected to the accusations that I was too conservative - too much like Daniel Pipes - to join their faculty. At this university, as at so many others, such charges are seen as rational objections to professional weaknesses, not as politicized protests against candidates who fail to pay proper obeisance to reigning pieties.

Before heading home I met again with the search chair, who tried in vain to assure me that the ideological litmus test I'd just failed in fact had never occurred. I asked her if she had ever heard a committee member accuse a candidate of being "more liberal than others in the field." Of course she answered "never." When the rejection letter arrived, it was hardly a shock.

I now have a personal story that backs up all the empirical studies documenting the bias against conservatives in the academy. If getting a Middle East or Islamic history job at a college or university means converting from following Bernard Lewis to the false messiah Edward Said, I won't be changing jobs anytime soon. I only wish search committees would stop pretending that the diversity they seek is anything other than skin-deep.

Source






Study: Black students lag in success on AP tests

Big surprise!

Participation in the Advanced Placement program has more than doubled in 10 years, but this surge in college-preparatory testing has not reached most black students, according to an analysis of 2006 exam results in 30 school systems with 5,000 or more black high school students.

The Washington Post reviewed AP data from nine of the 10 school systems in the nation with the largest black populations -- from New York City, with 115,963 black students in grades 9 through 12, to Baltimore City, with 22,225. The analysis considered 20 other school systems, all among the 80 largest for black high school populations, that are known for their rigor. The analysis considered the number of passing exams by black students and weighed it against black student enrollment .

Participation among black students has tripled in 10 years. But the numbers were so low 10 years ago that by 2006, none of the largest school systems could meet the goal of having 1,000 passing tests from black students.

The College Board, which administers the AP program, has repeatedly noted a dearth of black students in the courses. Many are reluctant to enroll in AP courses, particularly if it means being the only minority student , said Trevor Packer, AP program director

Source





Failure is an essential part of learning

The denial of failure in classrooms leads to lower expectations among teachers and reduces the intellectual challenge to students: A comment from Australia

In a submission to the Senate inquiry into academic standards of school education, the Council of Professional Teachers of Victoria argues that failure is part of the learning process, and claims it is missing in the 21st-century classroom. The council defends teachers against charges that the profession is the cause of any perceived decline in standards, saying the constant change in curriculum and pedagogies compromises the quality of teaching.

"Teach, from an early age, that some failure can be formative," the submission says. "Failure can help to develop resilience. Do not endorse inadequate effort. Encourage self-knowledge for the most effective teaching and learning strategies. This must be the very essence of community teaching."

The council is the peak body representing more than 40 professional teaching associations with more than 30,000 members in Victoria. After appearing before the Senate inquiry this week, the council's executive officer Olwyn Gray said students were being let down by the lack of intellectual challenge in their classrooms, and that the notion of intellectual risk was increasingly foreign to parents and students.

Ms Gray said students had an expectation they would always succeed, which was not how the real world worked. "Life isn't a level playing field. I don't want to condemn children to an underclass of underachievers but they need to strive, to say I did well this time and this is the next hurdle," she said. "If teachers work successfully with students who fail a particular task, you're helping these children develop resilience. "When a child fails, they go back and say, 'OK, I'll try another tack', and find they learn better a certain way. With a stronger degree of self-knowledge brought about by failure, you're not so depressed when you can't do something; you go back with resilience and it helps you take further intellectual risks."

Ms Gray said Australian students performed well on international assessments of competence in different subjects, but did less well in tests placing greater emphasis on rote learning, particularly compared with their counterparts in Asia.

So many reforms were imposed on teachers, she said, and these were often viewed as being change for change's sake and left no time for teachers to contemplate and refine what they did: "Teachers are just reeling from it -- you get used to the vocabulary and methodology of one thing and then you're on to the next. People get cynical."

Ms Gray said her belief was that the problem started in teacher training courses, which were too theoretical, emphasising different theories of learning rather than providing a range of strategies for different students. "Teachers need to learn a variety of methods for a variety of students because students learn in different ways," she said. "Rote learning is one way -- you need to learn phonic combinations of letters and sounds that way, and the times tables. "But they're the basics, just building blocks."

Source

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

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


For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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1 comment:

al fin said...

The leftist bias of academia is long-standing and blatant. The question is what to do about it?

It truly appears that in order to be on the tenured faculty of most universities, a non-leftist candidate should hide his non-leftist opinions until he is fully tenured.

Once tenured, he can shock and dismay his "colleagues" by turning to the "dark side."

Since leftist orthodoxy is overtly offensive to open minds, the only problem is to teach these open minds how to conceal their out of mainstream opinions until they are out of reach of the censors and biased selectors.