I remember how it was -- JR
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Students at NYC high school get third grade-level lessons on ‘Goldilocks’
Juniors taking American literature at highly rated Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn were tasked with a series of rudimentary assignments based on childhood fables and fairy tales — third grade-level classwork that stunned critics and parents called “educational neglect.”
After reading “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” and “The Tortoise and the Hare” this semester, the 11th-grade general education students were then tasked with answering simple questions, such as “Who?” “What?” “When?” and “Why?” according to students who provided copies of the lessons to The Post.
For an answer to “What?” in “Goldilocks,” one student answered, “eat bears’ food + slept in beds.” The “Why” was “hungry + tired.”
They were then directed to write a summary sentence of the “literature.”
Students at the Midwood school were initially as taken aback as the little bear was over his missing porridge — when they saw the sheer simplicity of the assignments. But they were savvy enough to realize a good thing when they saw one.
“I was confused why we had it at first but I was like ‘F–k, it’s an easy assignment.’ I’m not complaining,” shrugged one junior outside the school this week.
Another student called American Literature “the easiest class that I have” and speculated that the worksheet on the “Tortoise and the Hare” would account for 10% of her grade.
A third student showed an instruction sheet on writing summary sentences she received a few weeks ago, with “Goldilocks” as the example.
“This was just a starter to see what you could do. Just to see if you could do it first and then we were gonna move on to something more challenging,” the student noted.
A fourth student said he received both “elementary style” assignments.
“Besides annotating a lot, we don’t really do what I would describe as 11th-grade work,” he said.
The assignment sheet with the bear’s tale came with a version of the story from the British Council’s “LearnEnglish Kids” program which says it aims to teach the language to children.
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Report Reveals Just How Much the DEI Complex Has Infiltrated Medical Education
Forty-four percent of medical schools have tenure and promotion policies that reward scholarship on "diversity, inclusion, and equity." Seventy percent make students take a course on "diversity, inclusion, or cultural competence." And 79 percent require that all hiring committees receive "unconscious bias" training or include "equity advisors"—people whose job it is to ensure diversity among the faculty.
Those are just some of the findings from a new report by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which together with the American Medical Association accredits every medical school in the United States. The report, "The Power of Collective Action: Assessing and Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts at AAMC Medical Schools," is based on a survey of 101 medical school deans—representing nearly two thirds of American medical schools—who were given a list of diversity policies and asked to indicate which ones they had implemented.
The results paint a striking portrait of ideological capture: At many medical schools, concerns about social justice have saturated every layer of institutional decision-making, particularly the hiring and admissions process, a trend some doctors say will undermine meritocracy and endanger patients.
The report indicates that more than a third of medical schools offer extra funding to departments that hit diversity targets, half require job applicants to submit diversity statements, and over two thirds "require departments/units to assemble a diverse pool of candidates for faculty positions."
In addition, every school reported using a "holistic admissions" process—a euphemism for affirmative action—that assessed applicants’ grades and test scores in light of their race, lowering the academic bar for groups "underrepresented in medicine."
"We’re dealing with life and death here," said Jeff Singer, a general surgeon from Arizona. "I want to know that my doctor got their degree because they are smart and know what they’re doing."
Released November 10, the report comes in the wake of a yearlong campaign by the Association of American Medical Colleges to inject "diversity, equity, and inclusion" into the accreditation process. A year ago, the group put out guidelines calling meritocracy a "malignant narrative," a view critics said at the time would lower admissions standards and endanger lives. And in July, it required all medical schools to incorporate "diversity, equity, and inclusion" lessons into their curricula, stating that they should impart a "critical understanding of unjust systems of oppressions."
The survey appears to have been part of that campaign. All schools that completed it received a score grading their DEI efforts, which marked any policies not implemented as "areas for improvements." One of the best uses of the survey, the report said, is for schools to show that they are meeting the "accreditation requirements for DEI."
Feeling the heat of those requirements, medical schools have lowered standards for all students, even the top-performers, to avert a scenario in which dropout rates explode. "Once you take in a cohort of students who struggle, you have to ratchet down the entire curriculum," said Stanley Goldfarb, a professor at University of Pennsylvania Medical School, a Washington Free Beacon enthusiast, and the father of Free Beacon chairman Michael Goldfarb. "So everyone gets through with much less rigorous courses."
Several doctors also voiced concern about mandating DEI coursework, which they said would leave less time for other, more essential subjects.
"If you’re bleeding out from a gunshot wound, you need the doctor who knows how to save your life, not the one who can tell you about implicit bias," said Laura Morgan, a nurse in Dallas, Texas, who lost her job at a teaching hospital, Baylor Scott & White Health, after she refused, in a recent diversity training, to affirm that all white people were racist.
The Association of American Medical Colleges told the Free Beacon that it supports all of the policies listed in the report, arguing that they "contribute to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture and climate for students, faculty, staff, and administrators."
"Our member medical schools and teaching hospitals have an obligation to address the factors that drive racism and bias in health care," said David Acosta, the group’s chief diversity officer.
Not all of these policies are entirely new. "Culturally responsive care," the idea that doctors should have some fluency in their patients’ values and upbringing, has been a staple of medical education since the 1970s, Goldfarb and Singer said, and—in moderation—is an appropriate thing to teach.
But, Goldfarb added, that is a far cry from requiring entire courses on "cultural competence."
"All this can be done in two lectures," Goldfarb said. "The problem is that it inevitably expands."
The report suggests that medical schools are sinking significant time and energy into their diversity initiatives. Beyond changing the curriculum and hiring process, 75 percent of surveyed medical schools have advocated for legislation related to "diversity, equity, and inclusion," and 81 percent have modified "communications, branding, icons, or displays that may be perceived as noninclusive."
Schools are also collecting detailed demographic data on their faculty members and students—an ostensibly neutral practice that has been leveraged for ideological ends. Hiring committees often keep track of faculty promotions by race and gender, the report notes, then use that information to ensure "equity is maintained in advancement decisions."
All told, 85 percent of schools said they’d used "demographic data to promote change within the institution."
Eventually, the report implies, that number should be 100 percent. Medical schools are "creating a holistic strategy where DEI is integrated into all operations and mission areas," the report says. "The findings in this report prompt further exploration of how effective DEI practices can be embedded into the entire infrastructure of medical schools."
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Australia: 'Accidental' homeschoolers are rising as some parents feel they have no choice but to withdraw their children
Gemma didn't set out to homeschool her daughter, Bonnie. Bonnie had loved kindergarten and Gemma assumed that, the following year, school would go just as smoothly.
"We entered prep very excited and full of wonder, ready to start the mainstream [school] experience," Gemma says.
But it was 2020, and Bonnie's start in school coincided with the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic. Schoolyard conversations, and restrictions like social distancing and mask-wearing, had Bonnie concerned.
"She came home full of questions and then full of worry," Gemma says. "And that's where the anxiety started to build."
It was the beginning of Gemma's journey to becoming an "accidental homeschooler".
That's the term used by Rebecca English, a Queensland University of Technology researcher and lecturer specialising in non-mainstream education.
The term describes a cohort of home educators that Dr English says is growing. Accidental homeschoolers are those people who have tried one or several different schools that haven't worked for their child, "so they have found themselves home educating or distance educating", she says. "They just felt they had no choice."
It's a decision that carries implications beyond a child's education. Overwhelmingly, it's women who take on the homeschooling responsibility in a family, Dr English says.
"The short-term impact is the loss of possibly a woman's full-time wage," she says. In the medium-to-long term, it might equate to lower superannuation, and a drop in how much money a family can spend in their local community.
Rising figures mean these are issues that need addressing, Dr English says.
In Queensland, where she is based, there were 900 homeschooled students a decade ago. Today there are about 8,500. In the past year alone, Queensland homeschool registrations have jumped 69 per cent.
Dr English believes the figures reveal a system in need of change. "There are reasons that all of this is falling down. And we need to have a broader conversation about this as a country."
After Bonnie's anxiety about school "started to dial up to 10", and she was diagnosed with anxiety and autism, Gemma says she tried to make the school experience work. She sought external specialists as well as extra in-school support.
None of it was enough. "[Bonnie] was so worried and she was so scared that she wanted to be around us and she didn't like the separation from us. "For us, it just became a point where we had to try something different," Gemma says.
Bonnie's school was nurturing and well-intentioned, but Gemma says teachers were under-resourced and over-worked. They didn't have the specific skills needed to help her daughter feel safe and comfortable at school.
The family finally made the decision after term one this year to withdraw Bonnie and homeschool her. "It wasn't the [fault of the] school and another school wasn't going to be the answer. It was the system as a whole. And we had to make a change," Gemma says.
She argues that schools need more flexibility — and more time — to be able to focus on the individual needs of students.
Dr English agrees. She argues that schools need better support to be able to manage issues such as bullying, as this is one of the main reasons parents choose to home educate, according to her research.
Her research also highlighted the indirect factors leading some parents to choose to homeschool. Some of these include social and emotional issues a child might face, such as anxiety or depression, or because they identify as being on the autism spectrum and find classroom noise difficult or overwhelming. "And so they're much happier at home," she says.
Dr English argues that an uptick in homeschooled children is something that "can't be disconnected from the teacher crisis" — that is, the widespread shortage of Australian teachers.
"Realistically, schools are really pressed. The institution of schooling really needs to be looked at more deeply … There just isn't the time to do that support work," Dr English says.
She argues that teachers are too stretched and that too much of their working days are consumed by "data-driven" work demanded of them by education departments, leaving them insufficient time to devote to individual students.
"If teachers were better supported, more people would join the profession [and] less parents would feel disaffected and would be resorting to home education," she says.
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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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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