Tuesday, November 23, 2021


Thanksgiving 'myth'? Universities ask whether Americans should 'reconsider' holiday as 'Day of Mourning'

Many communities worldwide have harvest celebrations. It's not political

Several American universities are participating in an event asking whether Americans should "reconsider" the Thanksgiving holiday.

The alumni associations of the University of Maryland, Florida Gulf Coast University, Washington State University, University of Central Arkansas, Hiram College in Ohio and California State University, Long Beach are participating.

After the initial publication of this story, a spokesperson for UCA claimed it had "no knowledge" of the webinar. After Fox News asked UCA why it had no knowledge of a webinar its own website promoted, the spokesperson said, "ALC is a contracted service that the UCA Alumni Association uses for content. From what we’ve been able to determine, the information was mistakenly linked to UCA. This webinar was not one that was requested by our alumni association." The event has now been removed from UCA's website.

According to the event description, the recent national shift from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day "reflects a changing national mood," and asks if Americans should do the same with Thanksgiving.

"Starting in 1970, many Americans, led by Indigenous protesters, believed that Thanksgiving should be rededicated as a National Day of Mourning to reflect the centuries-long displacement and persecution of Native Americans. The recent shift from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day reflects a changing national mood," the event description states. "Should Americans reconsider Thanksgiving when wrestling with our country’s complicated past?"

"The myth of Thanksgiving is powerful and ubiquitous. In the autumn of 1621, so American legend has it, English Pilgrims seeking religious freedom shared a feast with Wampanoags, the residents of the territory the Pilgrims labeled Plymouth," the event description adds. "The good feelings of that meal soon faded when Native peoples and English colonists, including the Pilgrims, began to compete for resources, initiating conflicts that raged for generations. Yet despite the often-violent relations between the nation and Indigenous communities, the myth of coexistence remained."

The event's speaker, Peter C. Mancall, a professor at the University of Southern California, told Fox News that his goal for the event is to "explain the context for events and offer insights about how to interpret the existing evidence."

"I respect my audience’s ability to draw their own conclusions about the material," he said.

A spokesperson for the University of Maryland said that the alumni association has a contract with the Alumni Learning Consortium, which hosts the event. A spokesperson for California State University, Long Beach also said that university pays to participate in the Alumni Learning Consortium.

A spokesperson for Florida Gulf Coast University said that the university's alumni association pays $2,500 to Professional Book Club Guru, which also provides access to the event. A spokesperson for Hiram College in Ohio said the college also pays for events through the Professional Book Club Guru.

The Alumni Learning Consortium is managed by the Professional Book Club Guru, which states that its mission is to "help alumni associations create more and higher quality online programs to drive engagement."

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The Brainy Bunch! Parents whose TEN homeschooled children all started college before age 13 insist the kids 'AREN'T geniuses' - and claim anyone can achieve the same success with a few simple methods

The parents of 10 children who all started college before the age of 13 insist their precocious sons and daughters are 'not geniuses' - instead crediting their 'efficient' homeschooling regimen for their family's academic success.

Monalisa Harding, 53, and her husband Kip, 53, who are high school sweethearts from San Jose, California, homeschooled all their children from the same syllabus instead of sending the kids to traditional schools.

They knew they were on the right track after getting each of their first three children through high school by the time they all turned 11, and their younger kids went on to achieve similar success.

Their oldest child, Hannah, went on to earn a bachelors degree in mathematics at the age of 17 from Auburn University, Montgomery in 2004 - making her the first child prodigy.

Last year, their youngest child Thunder, 11, passed his entrance exams to college, joining Lorennah, 13, who is already in her second year.

Those of the Harding siblings who have already graduated from college have gone on to become doctors, architects, spacecraft designers and lawyers.

Eight of the brothers and sisters have already graduated by either 15 or 16 - and all went to university before they were 13.

The most recent family graduate Mariannah, 16, is now applying to do her masters in horticulture in January.

Seth Harding, 20, child six of 10, became Alabama's youngest lawyer at the age of 19 after getting his law degree and passing his professional exams during the pandemic.

But humble Monalisa insists her kids 'aren't geniuses' - and said their success is down to homeschooling which is more 'efficient' than going to school.

Monalisa, said: 'The nature of homeschooling is so efficient - anyone can do it.

'It's just about parents dedicating the time to get it done and prioritizing their children's education above all else.

'We're not a wealthy family. We had to make sacrifices so that I had the time to teach each of them individually.

'When you raise kids in an environment where homeschooling and hard work is the norm, then, as they grow, they'll naturally adapt to it and take it in their stride.

'They all worked and continue to work extremely hard, which is why they're breaking new ground every day - I couldn't be more proud of them.'

In 2014, the couple released their own book titled 'The Brainy Bunch', detailing their methods and techniques which has brought their children so much success.

The book goes into detail about the intricacy of homeschool study and offers advice and support for parents wishing to do the same.

Monalisa and husband Kip, who used to be in the military before working in government, also offer private consultations for families about home schooling.

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A Declining Industry? The Growing Financial Risks of Attending College

According to a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Kevin Carey, 46% of the students graduating from Eastern New Mexico State University make less than $25,000 annually (less than the earnings of a typical full-time Wal-Mart employee with a high school education) after college. Almost simultaneously, an article in the Wall Street Journal told of recent graduates who earned degrees online at the expensive University of Southern California sometimes amassing six-digit debts loads and working in similar low-paying jobs.

Many enter college thinking graduation will provide a comfortable middle class life, but that is often simply not true. Going to college has significant financial risks, like with most financial investments—beginning with the reality that close to 40% of matriculants fail to graduate in six years.

While not politically correct to say, college is an inappropriate post-secondary option for a sizable percent of high school graduates. Moreover, most choosing colleges don’t have a good idea about what they want to study, and fail to understand that the choice of major is usually much more important in predicting future vocational success than the choice of college. Ever more woke and politically correct, colleges are reducing reliance on things like SAT tests that actually are decent predictors of collegiate success. Merit is out, and “equity” is in, so I fear colleges will continue to turn out or fail large numbers of mediocre students—further discrediting the notion that college is a good value proposition. I used to encourage bright students to consider becoming college professors some day—rarely any more. Universities are to the professions what coal mining or steelmaking is to blue-collar workers—a declining industry.

In work for the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, Preston Cooper did a rather comprehensive examination of literally tens of thousands of bachelor’s degree programs. Cooper is quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying “28% of bachelor’s degrees... do not have a net positive return.” If one calculates a broader social rate of return taking account of college scholarship subsidies, the total rises to about 37%. It probably is roughly true that college pays well financially for about one-third of graduates, is a bad investment for one-third, and is marginally beneficial to the remaining one-third.

A couple big caveats. First, college is a consumption good as well as a human capital investment, and a person can greatly enjoy the four-to-five-year collegiate gap period between adolescence and life even though the result financially is not satisfactory. Second, Cooper is necessarily using data of so-so reliability, especially since some students (not receiving federal student financial assistance) are excluded from the Department of Education data base; I suspect this biases estimated returns downward somewhat.

I think all of this contributes importantly to the most striking trend of the modern era in higher education: the pronounced flight to quality where colleges perceived to be “excellent” are flourishing while those with a less distinguished reputation are suffering. But analysts of the federal data such as Cooper and Andrew Gillen also note that the subject studied in college is particularly crucial. Employers perceive college as high-level vocational education—upscale trade school. As Cooper put it, “a majority of programs in art, music, philosophy and psychology leave their average students financially worse off.” A petroleum engineering major at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin is likely to have a better return on her/his investment (average earnings at age 25 of $89,692) than a comparable major in English literature or art at Columbia University.

Another dimension of all of this that gets less emphasis because it is not very fashionable to talk about these days: an awful lot of college kids meet their lifetime soulmate in school, and love, a decidedly difficult quality to measure quantitatively, is important in assessing the overall quality of life. Even the financial dimension of life is impacted by collegiate hookups: perhaps one spouse becomes a poet and earns little but loves her work—but she or he has a partner making megabucks serving as Whiplash Willie plaintiff attorney. For this couple, college is decidedly a profitable financial investment even if the data for one of them suggests otherwise.

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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