Of Ravens and Writing Desks

Mar26 by Marc Grober

500px-MadlHatterByTenniel Told, “take two aspirin, ponder why Emerson is like a hotdog and call me in the morning”, my correspondent snapped back, “You may as well have asked why is a raven like a writing desk.” Precisely. Hence my title, borrowed from Deacon Dodgson, and the following comments, to serve as my demurrer.¹

A veritable crisis of choice confronts us, leading the decriers to despair of Panglossian paralysis. ² Not only do we suffer from the apparent number of choices, but from the terrifying prospect that the type of oats we select to consume for breakfast might not provide the greatest contribution to our long term health! We could be wrong!

It is perhaps easier to laugh with Voltaire than with Swift. Skewered Leibniz (peut etre Pangloss-en-pot, ou Candide en cocotte) is far more palatable than well-Nursed Child “Stewed, Roasted, Baked, or Boyled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a Fricasie, or Ragoust”, at least for most of us. Some seem pleased enough to order from Adams’ Ameglian Major talking cow, who reprised the good news invitation, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

“But what”, you might ask, “does any of this have to do with, ‘Why is Emerson is like a hot dog?'”

Carrol, of course, was just yanking his readers’ chains, uninvited guest not withstanding. But riddling out the function of riddles has been a focal point of human endeavor for some time.³ For my purposes, I want to focus on two kinds of more mundane queries, the leap and the slog. The slog is a favorite of the Socratic pedant; a question posed to facilitate the journey (much as the uninvited guest becomes the journey’s host here.) The leap, known to Sojourners in the East as the ‘koan’, is intended neither as the trail of crumbs nor as the dog at your footsteps, but incites you to hurl your psyche across the void where, having presumably leapt in the right direction, the light will click on. [I should think that a discussion of How the Leaper Got His Spots is no more apropos of this discussion than the fable of The Fox, The Goat and the Well and I shall leave Mr. Peabody to address same with Rudyard and Aesop as time may allow.]

But the slogger, unlike the quantum acrobat, will have stumbled on to the suggestion that maybe Voltaire was a little too clever for his own good, not to mention, though Barth does, “It’s as if–as if the key to the treasure is the treasure!”

“A mighty hotdog is our Lord!”

The Purveyor of the Great American Antidote was Ralph Waldo Emerson. ⁴ Ralph was an “‘Engage’, already!” kind of guy. And his anthem, Self Reliance, stirs us today as it did when first presented.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

Fear not, nor a coward be. Engage.

The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without parallax, without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct.

Every question raised is first a choosing, the path of discovery unfurling, the only choice the choosing.

Have we lost our way and ended up with the Lords a’Leaping after all? Ralph is not suggesting you wear a bag over your head, as I think Anasta is pointing out. Self-Reliance is about not being afraid of your shadow, about trusting in the process that brought you to this, only the most recent of all the forks in the road that have presented themselves. Have faith in the evidence of your own process.

Spinoza is known for his thesis Deus siva natura, which translates in English to, “The world is your hotdog.” Ralph’s corollary to Baruch’s argument? Eat! Go ahead. Take a big bite. With ketchup and onions, or sauerkraut and mustard. It’s not a big deal, and you have it under control. And when you are asked, “Cake or death?” I am sure you will know what to say then as well.

Bon appétit!

_____________________

Notes

1. My initial “text”, as it were, was Letter to Demetrias, one of the few extant examples we have of Pelagius’s writing, and Alice was pointed to an introduction to same (Rees, 35), the focus of our discussion revolving around “choice”. While Bill Clinton’s virginal lungs will, for many, forever pose the lingering question of what the unschooled are expected to swallow, some Americans, like Hawthorne’s Goodman Brown, might still see the posing of the question as engaging in heresy, much as Augustine did. Augustine and Pelagius came to different conclusions about choice, and about the ramifications of choice, and for those who take the one less traveled, that will make, as Frost agrees, all the difference.

To be fair, Pelagius argues one must keep one’s eyes on the prize, but he argues that the choice is a continuing challenge, and that it is in the striving that one finds blessing. And Frost does not argue that the path made the difference; he suggests we will see it that way eventually. But the wily Frost, in always being obscure, still leaves us at the fork in the road. Our lives are simply chains of choices (no matter how you define chains.)

2. While some would argue that the “paradox of choice” is much ado about nothing, it would be only fair to allow Schwartz the opportunity to explain himself: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/is-the-famous-paradox-of-choic/ Perhaps what is in issue is not the challenge of making a choice, but the misperception of the nature of choosing. If the result of the choice is a selection of one of 52 varieties of sugared grain breakfast product, none of which is a very healthy alternative, why choose?

3. Kinkaid, in reviewing Huxley’s The Raven and the Writing Desk, writes,

Primarily, however, Huxley’s book deconstructs the meaning of the
riddle and mocks our attempt to find coherent rules for the game of
nonsense. He uses “evidence” in such a way as to parody positivistic
solidity, ranging wildly through biography, linguistics, the mechanics
of punning, game theory, alliterative patterns, philosophy, Carroll’s
own number codes, and Anglo-Saxon grammar. All these give us clues
that lead us to see that both the riddle about the raven and the writing
desk and the riddle about the meaning of nonsense are unanswerable.

4. I would be remiss, in an essay that touches on the paralysis of choice if I did not offer a different take on Emerson. Anasta certainly gives one pause to consider Emerson’s prescription, but having hoisted himself, arguably, on his own petard, might not the argument be largely cautionary, as opposed to antagonistic?

Other Works Mentioned

Anastas, Benjamin. “The Foul Reign of Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance.’” The New York Times, December 2, 2011, sec. Magazine. Accessed March 26, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/riff-ralph-waldo-emerson.html.

Barth, John. Chimera. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1972.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Essay on Self-Reliance. East Aurora, N.Y: The Roycrofters, 1908. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7211683M/The_essay_on_self-reliance.

Huxley, Francis. The Raven and the Writing Desk. Harper & Row, 1976.

Matthew, 26:26

Rees, Brinley Roderick. Pelagius: Life and Letters. Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 1988.

Swift, Johnathan, and Jack Lynch. “A Modest Proposal.” University instructor resources. Swift, “A Modest Proposal.” Last modified January 17, 2011. Accessed March 26, 2014. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/modest.html.

Voltaire. Candide, Or, Optimism. Penguin, 1947.

For Your Further Viewing and Amusement

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_MEpww2MHA

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niOm01dEzzI

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ECUtkv2qV8

Weasel! Goes the Popp.

Mar23 by Marc Grober

Recently, Bill Popp took to the pages of the Anchorage Daily News to suggest that we can defeat the high cost of living in Anchorage (see, http://www.adn.com/2014/03/16/3376983/bill-popp-anchorages-cost-of-living.html .) Popp
Of course, right off the bat one will note that being the 23rd most expensive US city is not a really big deal (especially when Anchorage actually places so high on the list of communities by median household income – 4th according to some sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest-income_metropolitan_statistical_areas_in_the_United_States.)
While Popp relies on non-public data (CCER/COLI) public comparisons are very close (see e.g., https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/prices/consumer_price_indexes_cost_of_living_index.html), and what we quickly see is that much of Anchorage’s costs are, as would be expected, related to cost of product transport, and if that was all we were talking about, I would not be responding. But that is not the case.

Popp argues that Walmart helps the Anchorage cost of living by reducing grocery expenses. In fact, while Walmart does have a talent for selling product cheaply, they also drive wages down by 15% and deny benefits to most of their employees, and between the two actually increase local infrastructure expenses. Wonder why Carrs are soon going to be owned by a new national chain? Maybe because Walmart, by being able to force prices down, is putting business that pay a livable wage and benefits out of business. One must assume that the head of the AEDC is familiar with the research done by the good folks at Berkeley (http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/research/walmart.shtml), but then again, this is Alaska where we appoint non-residents to Alaska Board, bribe billion dollar oil companies with billions of dollars of subsidies, and brag that reducing business licenses expenses for companies engaged in more than one line of business (700 business) by $50 per business is a critical improvement for doing business in Alaska (HB32.)

Now, I really don’t want to comment on Popp’s picture; making remarks about how easy it is for “fat cats” to push an agenda that makes product cheaper for them while lowering the standard of living for most by more than the margin by which prices are reduced is just gratuitous. But enough is enough. Reducing the cost of living is not going to increase the standard of living in Anchorage, and afterall, that is what is important here.

While most of us know this nursery rhyme,

All around the Mulberry Bush,

The monkey chased the weasel.

The monkey stopped to scratch his nose,

Pop! goes the weasel.

Half a pound of tuppenny rice,

Half a pound of treacle.

Mix it up and make it nice,

Pop! goes the weasel.

In this case, we might as well, sing

Mix them up with silly slop,

And, “Weasel!”, goes the Popp.

Crossing the Rubicon

Feb25 by Marc Grober

Caesar Crossing the Rubicon – Fouquet

It would seem that my claim — that you are entitled to adhere to any philosophy you wish as long as your conduct does not endanger me, and that we have come to the point where, whatever your philosophy argues, it will most likely endanger me if it is not evidence based and it informs your behavior –has disturbed the force.

We have a land full of fundamentalist wingnuts, yes, but perhaps the more dangerous population are the new-agers involved in what I can only suggest is neo-spiritualism (turn about is fair play, I think, as these folk argue that Dawkins et al are neo-atheists.) Unfortunately, these otherwise clever folk offer the likes of Ken Ham steerage when he talks about science being a faith and the value of religion. This is the heavy cavalry in the 21st century attack on “freethinkers” and their calls to arms are that religion not only has great social benefit, but may reflect ultimate truth. And the more comprehensive the argument that there is no demonstrable validity to either claim, the more virulent the attack. The Sarewitzs of the world are more dangerous because they present as plausible the logically inadequate and inconsistent as acceptable to the scientific mind, they provide religious nonsense with a stamp of modern approval and somehow suggest that Eastern religion and quantum mechanics are coming together to form a new cosmic understanding. Om mani padme humbug.

The Vinegar Tasters.

The problem, as I attempted to put it in the first paragraph, is that we no longer have the time or space to allow people to do moronic things. Trusting in magic in a closed system with a lit fuse is not acceptable policy. Now, I have to admit that the pendular argument has something to offer, and while I am horrified by the constant attempts to analogize science to philosophy the physics of harmonic motion (periodic motion where the restoring force is directly proportional to the displacement) do offer some food for thought. Is Q’uranic patience, Dao-ist acceptance, best practice? Shall we smile, fools on the hill, as the lemmings throw themselves off the cliff, until the wheel turns? I don’t know if I am equipped for dung heap sitting, certainly not without substantially more meditation. And of what use is the argument for an evidence based ethic, if we are condemned to suffer the slings an arrows of outrageous harmonics.

Faith comes with no guarantee. But, as Taleb reminds us, neither does evidence. However, it is the irrational leap into likely disaster with paper bags over our heads that worries me. I have no problem with enlightened codes of behavior, whatever their purported sources, but if you believe that the world will be magically cleansed by an old white dude and his circumcised son, we are going to have problems (and I mean, you and me, as well as globally.)

________________

Blankenbicker, Adam. “Why I Don’t Believe in Science…and Students Shouldn’t Either.” Sci-Ed, September 2, 2013. Accessed February 20, 2014. http://blogs.plos.org/scied/2013/09/02/why-i-dont-believe-in-science-and-students-shouldnt-either/.

Coyne, Jerry A. “No Faith in Science.” Slate, November 14, 2013. Accessed November 29, 2013. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/11/faith_in_science_and_religion_truth_authority_and_the_orderliness_of_nature.html.

Herman, Joan L., Ellen Osmundson, and Ronald Dietel. Benchmark Assessment for Improved Learning. An AACC Policy Brief. Assessment and Accountability Comprehensive Center, 2010.

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. The Black Swan the Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York, NY: Random House, 2005.

Travels with Elstun

Feb14 by Marc Grober

One of the problems facing anyone trying to discuss much of anything about education is the question of just what education is. As I have suggested elsewhere, while I have a very clear idea of what education is, your very clear vision may be different, and we have yet to even get to those who have little or no vision. But how, I have been pondering, might someone explain what education might mean to someone who might not have been the beneficiary of an education? And it was at that point that I had a delightful bit of travel (without ever leaving my seat) that seemed, in part, to answer that very question. And I thought I would share that with you.

Snapshot by Elstun Lauesen

We start in Juneau, exploring Star Hill, and there come across an oddly painted building with an even odder plaque. It states (in antiquish uncial-like font),

vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit

which translates in Latin to, “Called or not called, God will be there.” What is the source of this curious statement? It turns out that this text is copied from a famous doorway in Kusnacht, Switzerland. Carl Jung, the 20th Century psychologist, had the Latin carved in to the stone above the door of his house in Kusnacht.

“By the way, you seek the enigmatic oracle Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit in vain in Delphi: it is cut in stone over the door of my house in Kusnacht near Zurich and otherwise found in Erasmus’s collection of Adagia (XVIth cent.). [Jung had acquired a copy of the 1563 edition of Erasmus’s Collectaneas adagiorum, a compilation of analects from classical authors, when he was 19 years old.] It is a Delphic oracle though. It says: yes, the god will be on the spot, but in what form and to what purpose? I have put the inscription there to remind my patients and myself: Timor dei initium sapiente [“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”] Here another not less important road begins, not the approach to “Christianity” but to God himself and this seems to be the ultimate question.” (1975: 611) From http://www.jungnewyork.com/photo_vocatus.shtml, and see also http://www.thezodiac.com/called.htm

And we are off to 16th century Rotterdam to look into the Adagio of Erasmus. The “proverb” and anecdote that struck Jung can be seen here (though the edition is not the same. ) As Aniela Jaffe notes, “It is the answer the Delphic Oracle gave the Lacedemonians when they were planning a war against Athens” (1979: 136) confirming that the God will be with the Lacedemonians. And, it quotes the Odes of Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) so off to Imperial Rome we go. And there we find Horace telling us in Book 2, Ode 18:

Proud Tantalus, and Pelops,
his son, he holds fast, and whether he’s summoned,
or whether he’s not, he lends
an ear, and frees the poor man, his labours done.

But what has this to do with the Oracle? It would seem that Horace was offering a play on the words of the Oracle! Off to Thucydides’ Greece to chat with the Oracle? Well perhaps by way of 21st Century Boston, where we catch up with J. Kates, who clarifies all in a humorous though cautionary tale well worth the reading (and the trip!)

Photo borrowed from JungNewYork.com (sources unknown).

The panel on that doorway is just another ironic cast (yes, it is a bad pun, but I am going to continue to use it…) The plaque of course is not iron, but what is ironic is that anyone, having read Horace’s Ode condemning vain riches, would be so clueless as to carve the source of Horace’s skewering on their lintel, let let alone nail it in in brass (now that is ironic) to their door.

“Does any of this have anything to do with education?”, you might well inquire. My point in traipsing through time and space was to demonstrate that as a direct result of my education I undertook that journey. An “explore” is a lifelong journey, teaming curiosity with discipline, which enriches each life so engaged, and those touching them.

Unique experience? I think not. Recently the careful consideration of a Bosch painting produced this rendered transcription and this Buttiful Music (details here and here .)

Jung, C.G. (1975) Letters: 1951-1961, ed. G. Adler, A. Jaffe, and R.F.C. Hull, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, vol. 2.

Croix, G. E. M. de ste. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981.

Kiss My Annotated Bibliography

Feb11 by Marc Grober

APA_Style I recently had a tutee complain bitterly about an teacher marking down papers because the papers did not comply with the instructors perspective on a particular style manual. It is not the first time for pompous declarations on all manner of style issues, and this time, I though I would follow through and pose the question presented to the style experts at the APA.

Dear Style Experts, There is a small war going on at universities over how students are supposed to format “annotated bibliographies” using APA 6th Ed. Style, and students are getting caught in the cross-fire over assignments that will never see the light of day. Whether or not some Instructors may have missed their connection entirely, there is, nevertheless, a substantial basis for teaching students how to properly format documents for academic purposes, and I suppose the best way to bail the poor students out of their dilemma solution is to ask the experts to make things clear (which is, after all, your stated purpose.)

To which I received the following wonderful response:

The APA Publication Manual doesn’t specify requirements for annotated bibliographies, for the simple reason that they are not used in APA Style. In fact, APA Style does not use bibliographies of any sort (as noted at http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/format-bibliography.aspx). This is not just a quibble about vocabulary. A reference list has only one purpose: to provide the sources cited by the author. Bibliographies also provide sources, but they may include more, such as suggested reading, background reading not cited in the paper, and commentary on the sources. None of those things are included, or can be included, in an APA Style reference list. Instructors control their own curricula, and they may have valid pedagogical reasons for wanting students to produce an annotated bibliography. However, it is the instructor’s responsibility to fully inform students about the required format for the assignment. It’s an unfortunate fact that not all instructors are diligent in fulfilling this responsibility. Nevertheless, it is not within the scope of APA Style to instruct students on how best to violate APA Style. Hope this helps,

So, dear instructor, perhaps you had best reconsider?

Contemplations on Attempts to Amend Alaska’s Constitution

Feb6 by Marc Grober

Jack Balkin, in his text “Living Originalism”, suggests that the US Constitution provides an opportunity for the public to daily redeem itself, to reconnect and re-establish our commitment to a way of life despite ever changing circumstances, to pursue a more perfect union. He goes on to say,

The Constitution is an intergenerational project of politics, and the generations of We the People are the participants in the project. The Constitution contains commitments that We the People have only partially lived up to, promises that have yet to be fulfilled, and it is the task of each generation to do its part, however great or small, to help fulfill them nd to achieve a more perfect union in its own day. The participants in the project will argue among themselves about how to continue the project; they will make mistakes and commit injustices, but this by itself does not detract from the point of the enterprise. As the Talmud says, we are not required to complete the great Work, but neither are we free to refrain from it.”

If you read the proceedings of the Alaska Constitutional Convention (click here to listen here to Senator Gardner reading from the archives) you can still hear the same sentiments echoing off the chamber walls as our Founders strove to improve on what they found, so as to adopt a Constitution for their day:

“I believe we should take direct steps to maintain a free public education not encroached upon by any quarter. I think it might be well to bring out in the argument for the direct or indirect benefit of public funds for education is the matter that is now being faced in Europe and in particular in the Netherlands where they have what is called the form of educational pacification, where the government is splitting the tax dollar among some 500 different church groups providing for a parochial school benefit on an indirect basis, and in a community where there is maybe 500 school children there will be as high as seven or eight small schools scattered out throughout the community, not providing for the fullest benefit in the educational field as far as having a good complete centralized program. I think that sectarianism segregation in our educational system is bad for the children. I do not deny the right of people to have their own schools. However, I think that we should always look to the interest of the founders of our nation when they brought about the separation of church and state.” Jack Coghill Floor speech quoted in full with cite below.

Constitutions are, as Jefferson might suggest, sacred not so much for their text as for the compact they represent, our oath that as a society we will strive for the common good. That sense of responsibility is in fact the reason that there are among us those who signed our Constitution who have argued that no matter what else, the power to amend our Constitution should never be used in such a way as to rend asunder that which the Constitution has brought together (see quotes of Jack Coghill, Sr. and Vic Fischer, below.) Unfortunately, the Alaska Senate is engaged in just such a consideration this session.

Let there be no doubt that Joint Resolution 9 is not about rectifying historical faux pas, nor is it about rectifying an “old mistake”. But the underlying purpose, as distressing as that is, almost pales before the grief that this resolution is intended to bring to the people of this State. For this is in a very real sense a cynical ploy; an effort to do just what we should never do. This is an effort to drive a wedge through the heart of Alaska. This is designed to promote the most vitriolic clash in Alaska’s history, to rend our very soul in twain, and is is being done, believe it or not, in the name of Alaskan youth. For shame.

There are Alaska Senators who believe that they should use the Constitution as a political weapon, a device with which to promote their political agenda, not because it is in the best interests of all, but because they think they can get one over on someone else and get their way. In a 1996 article for the Atlantic Monthly about Jefferson and about the true nature of America’s “civil religion” (a far cry from the Protestant intolerance informing the positions of many in Juneau today), O’Brien states, “In an address at Michigan State University on May 5, 1995, President Bil Clinton warned right wing militias not to attempt to ‘appropriate our sacred symbols for paranoid purposes..” And that it is what we face today.

But the Alaska Legislature does not represent the interests of some Alaskans. It represents the interests of ALL Alaskans, and I have to ask the Legislature, in all sincerity, if they truly believe the horrific politicization of education that this resolution would unleash is going to benefit Alaska.

We do not live in a democracy. Indeed our founding fathers were terrified of democracy as well they should be, schooled as they were in Greek Philosophy. Instead they fashioned a republic specifically designed to prevent demagoguery. Specially fashioned to insure that popular passion would not result in momentary advantage. In order words, to protect us from what the Legislature is here asked to unleash.

We understand now that JR9 is about holding hostage the students of this State for the purpose of promoting a highly polarizing effort to divert public funds to private purposes, among those purposes, religious education. It is about opening Alaska media to millions of dollars of
outside advertising intended to destroy public employee unions and public education. It is about the Texification of Alaskan education.

I call on all Alaska Senators to uphold that redemption offered by our Constitution, and acknowledge that the Alaska Constitution, that organ of unification, must not be used as a means of shattering the public trust or confidence in its public institutions.

Resources

Balkin, J.M. Living Originalism. Harvard University Press, 2011. 75 http://books.google.com/books?id=khidNUWpY8UC&pg=PA75#v=onepage&q&f=false

O’Brien, Conor Cruise. “Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist.” Atlantic Monthly, 1996. Accessed March 27, 2013. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96oct/obrien/obrien.htm.

‘But in his opinion, some of the more than 20 amendments have been political in nature, and unnecessary. “It’s not that the Constitution is a holy document. It’s that it has proven very effective.”‘ http://www.litsite.org/index.cfm?section=Reading-and-Writing&page=Pass-The-Word&viewpost=2&ContentId=1597

‘ “My inclination is to leave it alone,” Coghill says. “It’s a real simple and well put together document.”’ http://www.anchoragepress.com/news/constitutional-questions—in-you-can-vote-for-a/article_012327eb-76e8-5a72-9b5d-2ec4b55c146d.html

“COGHILL: Speaking in defense of my proposed amendment, I would first like to say I am very prone to the problem of putting any religious persecution into the Constitutional Convention or among the delegates. It would be the same thing as me trying to convince Mr. Ralph Rivers of the principles of the Republican party, and he in turn of the party he belongs to. I don’t believe that is the problem at all. I think that they certainly have a right, a private right or a religious right, or a parochial right under our constitution to have schools. However, I believe that the way our government was set up 175 years ago, that the founders felt that public education was necessary to bring about a form of educating the whole child for civic benefit through a division of point of the home taking a certain part of the child, the church taking a certain part of this education, and the government or state through public schools taking the other part. I adhere to that principle, and I might say that I am the president of the Association of Alaska School Boards and one of the formers of that twelve-point program we developed in Anchorage last October. I think that the problem could probably be well misconstrued here as to the motive and intent. However, I feel that the intent of public education is primarily a state function and does not belong to any private or any one particular group, whether they are in the minority or the majority. I believe we should take direct steps to maintain a free public education not encroached upon by any quarter. I think it might be well to bring out in the argument for the direct or indirect benefit of public funds for education is the matter that is now being faced in Europe and in particular in the Netherlands where they have what is called the form of educational pacification, where the government is splitting the tax dollar among some 500 different church groups providing for a parochial school benefit on an indirect basis, and in a community where there is maybe 500 school children there will be as high as seven or eight small schools scattered out throughout the community, not providing for the fullest benefit in the educational field as far as having a good complete centralized program. I think that sectarianism segregation in our educational system is bad for the children. I do not deny the right of people to have their own schools. However, I think that we should always look to the interest of the founders of our nation when they brought about the separation of church and state. The problem was brought, and it was brought about by Thomas Jefferson quite well when he said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in the state of civilization, it expects something that never shall be”. Therefore out of his deliberations with John Madison they brought about a form of free public education starting in Virginia, and it has come forward ever since under the intent of having the tax dollar only brought to the public educational system. I know there have been many law cases on it, Supreme Court rulings and what not, and I think that the matter still is divided as far as the general public is concerned, as between the sects of religion and not on the principle of preserving the free public education as an instrument of the state.” From the Minutes of the 48th Day of the Alaska Constitutional Convention Accessed at http://www.law.alaska.gov/doclibrary/conconv/48.html

Screen Shot 2014-02-06 at 9.32.44 AM

Simple is as simple does….

Feb6 by Marc Grober

There has beena good deal of tooth grinding about the current ASD budget gap, some of the ideological rants, some well intentioned efforts to focus the public eye on various issues. An example of the latter can be seen at ElectronicBonsai , David Block’s Blog. Tip o’ the hat to David in that he is generally accurate, but his conclusion unfortunately is not – there is no “simple” answer to ASD’s budget woes, in no small part because it is, at its base, a political problem and our politicians are doing a Tastes Great/Less Filling on us, and we continue to drink the slop.

Certainly bringing back the BRT system would increase community involvement in the budget on a more granular level. In fact, I served on BRTs during every cycle since they were implemented by Carol’s predecessor and we in fact help cut millions from ASD’s budget (mostly mission creep, as opposed to waste.) But any number cruncher will likely tell you that while the BRT system will give the community a better sense of what is in the budget, it is fairly obvious where cuts can be made, and we are likely not going to go there…..

On the other hand, David’s use of the term “infiltrated” with respect to federal education programs is unfortunate. As David Teal suggested (repeatedly, as it were, on LegTV) the State would have implemented the same programs as the Federal government offered financial incentives to pursue, so while an easy target for whiners, there is not much to complain of there. However, we should note that ASD has never fully complied with many policies that bring in Federal funds, but has always continued to receive those funds while they are afforded substantial room to move inside grant scoping parameters. But grants come with overhead and, as David correctly notes, run dry. One might even argue that Alaska School Districts should look at running their base functions off the base student allocation to avoid the boom and bust cycles that Ms. Comeau used to her advantage over the past decade to erode teacher compensation. But as most everyone will agree, that would be virtually impossible.

Books, though, could be cut with a bold turn into the headwinds of the 21st Century. But while we’ve wasted millions on technology that really won’t help, we have spent little on technology that could help. And while Mr. Steele, while a Board member, actually suggested that turning the Tech BRT into a standing District body might produce long term benefit, that idea was quickly snuffed when it became apparent that the BRT was not going to be led about quietly…. But even the savings that could be realized from appropriate technological policy won’t make a dent in the hole artificially created by our leading lights.

If one looks at budget expenses over time you see that adjusted for inflation what goes in to the classroom has not changed much over a decade, while overall spending has risen sharply. And most of that rise is attributable to low cost bonds pushed by the current and past administration for construction and administrative costs (which go far beyond just a few extra ineffective unit administrators.) In other words, the folk who are complaining most about the current cost of education are largely responsible for the cost sectors that they are whimpering about. And in the meantime, what most of Anchorage seems to forget is that most of us make no net payment for any State or local service. Let’s say that again: “most of Anchorage seems to forget is that most of us make no net payment for any State or local service.” The “taxes” that David references are offset by payments from the State to the populace, so from an accountancy perspective, we are being paid to pay our taxes and cry pitiably should anyone suggest that we actually reach into our pocket for a sous more.

We have made our bed and now it is time to lie in it. At the local level we have a fractured and polarized community, and we elect to the Board far right ideologues (who simply want to shut down public education and public employee unions) like Don Smith and centrist nodders who purport to be in support of public education and then give the nod to whatever looniness central administration runs up the flagpole (like Jeff Friedman who thought it was just fine that ASD should violate State law with respect to teacher credentials.) The current crop is so ineffective that none of them have apparently demanded that staff publish the working documents used to develop the scandalous e-mail that went out referencing a change from 6 to 7 periods, though the public asked the Board to make that information public 3 weeks ago. We have municipal administration that believes it can run roughshod over the community because it has an extra vote in the Assembly and we have a State government that is controlled by people who are approaching delusional.

BSA Funding by year

In a very real sense, the source of our problems is the focus of our problems; we have so poorly managed public education that we have failed to produce what public education is intended to produced, an literate and informed public that can parse logic and rhetoric to engage in critical thinking for the purpose of making rational decisions. In fact many are trying now to gut our Constitution so that the State will fund “schools” that promote instruction in the supernatural while they applaud Mr. Ham and Creationism! Is that the fault of teachers? Well, far be it from me to argue that we don’t have more than a few rotten apples in the barrel, but that even the best teacher faces an impossible task with the odds we have stacked against them. But while Evaluation under The Danielson Group will require teachers to spend more time in peer review, reflection and lesson planning, they will be provided less time to do that, increasing class sizes (though class size should be halved), and reduced respect and compensation.

The rational response to all this might be to follow the age old advice to put the shovel down and back away from the hole, but that is not likely. What we are going to do is get very angry and scream our way into a few extra bucks, which in the long run will not in any way address the issues underlying our problems. The “simple” fact of the matter was well framed when Senator Dunleavy recently inquired of Superintendent Paramo regarding SJR9. Paramo ducked the question. And that is what our big school districts are all doing about State funding, they are all ducking. They use State politics to batter teacher negotiations. They throw up their hands and say, “It is out of our control!” instead of saying, “We are shutting this fiasco down because this entire discussion is ludicrous.” It is high time for local school districts to choose, because we all know that otherwise the choice is made for them, and that choice results in lots of people employed doing little more than babysit.

Culturally Competent Educational Systems

Jan22 by Marc Grober

We really do not have an economic crisis with respect to school funding in Alaska. We can easily produce the funding necessary to maintain our schools to the extent we decide is appropriate, and as I have mentioned elsewhere (https://opinion.alaskapolicy.net/pardonme/?p=250) the arguments over “sustainable” budgets is largely a smokescreen.

What we do have is a fundamental failure to communicate, and this failure manifests itself among the political elite, the educational elite and the general population, the target of our education policies.

At the political level it has been clear from some time that few if any share a common vision of what education is, and there is a lack of a shared vocabulary with which to even discuss this. I mentioned to Senator Gardner almost a year ago that before trying to discuss inflation-proofing education, she should first attempt to realize a common sense of the nature of education with her colleagues, and while the Legislature has wound its way around lots of issues, I have yet to see any reconciliation as to just what education means.

In the educational world, there is so much Sturm und Drang regarding “reform”, “testing” and so much other nonsense that rational discourse is pushed to the margin. While the concept of data driven decision making is an important one, what it has produced is the manufacture of drivel used to drive policy that the data simply does not support, as well as inadequate research run up this or that flagpole to press one ideological point or another.

But worse by far is our failure to communicate effectively with the general population, the folk who are frankly dubious about the entire idea of education, in no small part because it seems to them, based on what they hear from the elite, that education “is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”

I stopped short in my tracks when I first heard mention of the need for a “culturally competent healthcare system”, largely, to be honest, because I am unnerved by the concept of a racially segregated health system. But the concept does not address so much cultural medicine, as recognizing cultural barriers to medicine. What are the linguistic,m cultural, socio-economic hurdles to facilitating a healthy population.

And it was then that I realized that we have the exact same issue with respect to education. What we have is really not an economic problem but a cultural problem, and if one took the literature about “culturally competent healthcare systems” and replaced “healthcare” with “educational”, we would have a rather complete picture of the problems we face in education today.

Babel Fish

While I certainly have a well defined vision of what an education is and why it is necessary, I am just as certain that others in my community don’t share my views, and many think that what I see as necessary for everyone is a ridiculous waste of resources. While some wax smarmy and opine that “the stupid is strong”, that only reinforces the arguments of those who don’t see the inherent value in education, or perhaps more accurately, don’t share Ms. Smarmy’s views. And their arguments are grounded in the economics of our State, where everything especially our politicians, are for sale, and someone who flunked out of high school can brag to their kids that an education is over-rated and is not feeding or clothing them.

It is time to put aside jargon and ideology, to ask Ravitch and Chavous to take a pill, and to actually discuss like intelligent and rational creatures what kind of society we wish to see and how we intend to achieve that society. Then we can invite those who wish to establish a theocracy to emigrate to an emirate and those remaining can then get down to brass tacks and pay for what is needed instead of hurling mindless one liners about as if they actually meant anything.

A Last Supper

Jan1 by Marc Grober

Listening to the Alaska House Task Force squabble over their report brings back memories of that vintage Super Bowl bit of Americana evidencing that Americans are the most gullible creatures on Earth. Perhaps the cleverest application of that bit of MadAve genius might be credited to a comment by Cheryl Bezaire, “ The Lord’s Supper: Tastes Great / Less Filling”, but the leveraging of that piece of inanity is legion.

What was so ironic about the ad (and it is as chilling now as it was almost 30 years ago) is that the public is suckered into accepting that the discussion is about beer worth drinking. Likewise, whatever the take of a particular faction on the Task Force, the fight on the right takes one thing for granted; education funding must be reformed because the money we spend is not being spent well. Yes, some argue we need to cut back, and some argue we need to spend smarter, but they all agree on a matter not in evidence, which is that we need to go on a education funding diet.

It is a bit frightening to suggest that Andrew Halcro is holding down the progressive end of an argument, but that is what happens when one gets sucked into the vortex of “Tastes Great / Less Filling” – even the most self-evident of acknowledgments appears sage as compared to hysterical pronouncements of self-fulfilling prophets. If you want to avoid a budget crisis, throwing away millions for redundant playgrounds and billions to bribe oil companies will tend to sap the zest out of any savings plan…

But what the whiners and the renders fail to recall is that most Alaskans pay a NET ZERO for all their State and Municipal services. Let’s just repeat that, shall we? Most Alaskans pay a NET ZERO for all their State and Municipal services. That is because Alaskans pay no income tax and their payment in other State and Local taxes are largely offset by their receipt of a yearly payment from the State. Yes, all the gnashing of teeth and the doom and gloom is over the nightmare of the residents of Alaska actually having to assume some personal responsibility with respect to State spending.

The upshot then is that the Task Force is hustling the Alaska public like Miller Lite hustled America; excuse us while we obscure from your view the fact that funding education is really not a problem in that all we have to do is PAY FOR IT. The argument over whether public education is an investment or a cost (or vice versa) takes advantage of the same ploy; it leads one, as a sheep to slaughter, into arguing over accounting fictions and missing the fact that in the largest sense it is neither.

And therein, perhaps, lies the rub, because the subtext is that the folk driving the Alaska Legislature not only don’t want to pay for anything, they want others to pay them to do what they want. Yes, they want the State to pay parents so that parents can shield their kids from things like science. Yikes!

Meanwhile, the Administration is knee-deep in it’s own form of “education reform”, arranging for millions to be spent on outside contractors by State Districts to engage in constructivist assessments. Yes, while on the one hand teachers are advised they must engage only in research based pedagogy, the Alaska Administration of Sean Parnell has launched a mandatory attack on Districts requiring the use of expensive proprietary non-research based ideological methods as for evaluating teaching staff, which teaching staff, already overworked, is now somehow expected to find an additional 10-15 hours a week to play make believe over developmental theories that are not research based.

Are our problems so intractable? We have bozos declining revenues on the one hand, while we have other bozos wasting money on the other hand. It would seem that the easy answer (though I do NOT subscribe to easy answers) wo0uld be to get the bozos off the bus, and as those bozos all self-identify as Republicans, the choice for Alaskans would seem to be clear. Unfortunately, things are never as clear as they appear to be, which is perhaps the text of the AEA President who cautioned against suggesting that there was anything Revelatory (the topic of the Whore of Babylon having been broached) about the Task Force discussions. No, our Dems would likely be just foolish (they certainly demonstrate such foolishness in their strident whining about assessments.)

The folk gathered around the Table at the Task Force barkfest were there because, at least ostensibly, they figured that they were so bright they could see their way to a “solution” where others could not (or were intentionally obstructing.)The humorous turn here being that we are seeing a race to the bottom between the Administration (reform) and the Legislature (cut.) Great Taste. Less filling.

Under the Table things were not perhaps so civil, because the hunt has been on for ways to defund public schools, and where you can’t make that fly under the flag of religious freedom, perhaps you can make that fly under the flag of freedom of educational choice, though the intent, to allow the inculcation of children with delusional commitments to the irrational and supernatural at public expense, is the same.

The Table in Ms. Bezaire’s comment was set for Pesach (Passover) which strangely enough celebrates religious freedom. And ironically enough, we once again have stood the concept of religious freedom on its head as we turn the idea of freedom from theocracy into a device to secure public funding of religious education. Round and round goes the nasty beer as we offer the bracha: Great taste! Less filling!

The First Annual Anchorage Christ-off

Sep20 by Marc Grober

It is one thing to consider some apoplectic bozo sputtering about blood guilt, quite another to try to reason with someone who is ignorant of the history and theology surrounding “Jesus” yet is rabid about how they are “more Christian” than someone else (berating and verbally abusing, in the process, the other), especially when the other arguably deserves to be scorned for their heartless self-involvement and theological delusions?

Certainly, if the abuser chooses to argue that they are “true” adherents to the social gospels, then one would have to respond that their abuse is obviously inconsistent with both the “Christian” message to ‘turn the other cheek’, as well as the Muslim message (echoing the Old Testament concept) that justice is “the Lord’s” and humans should always treat other humans with patience and acceptance (see e.g. the Bee Sura.) 16_127

But for those who think that the gospels also portray Jesus as flatly revoking Deuteronomic law and rejecting the concept of a religiously ordered community, how does attempt to broaden their view of the complex issues of 2 millenia ago? And to try to address such positions in the online “press” or on Facebook, of all places? The ignorance of history and theology so often seen online is disturbing; that it feeds a rather bizarre attempt at refutation of the claims made for a particular religion by others, such as we saw this past week (Shannyn Moore: These Christian churches wouldn’t vote for Jesus Christ | Shannyn Moore | ADN.com) is simply bizarre. While the believers in the myths of Christian America are possibly delusional (reserving judgement on the mythos proposed by Jack Balkin), their despisers, relying on the same or similar myths are no worthier.

Of course, as an aside, one is reminded of what a Richard Dawkins might ask, “Why is anyone suggesting that we be guided in our modern ethical obligations solely on the basis of a deeply the massaged canon of a Roman demi-god cult which initially endorsed a continuation of stoning and other delightful practices and was largely devised as an instrument of the imperium?” Might we not come to the conclusion that putting people out to starve is wrong without trying to lift that instruction out of bizarre texts thousands of years old?

While I am indeed upset by the deplorable impact I think Jerry Prevo’s theology is haing on my community, celebrating a self-proclaimed forfeit over Dr. Prevo in a Christ-off will not have the effect of mending the ways of Prevo’s flock; just to the contrary! Dudley’s “Broken Words” is a vibrant testimony to the response of the fundamentalist evangelical right to such controversy. Nor will her screed push those in the “middle” away from the Puritanism of Prevo et al, as would any rational adult attracted by such teenage angst? Would anyone pursuing a progressive agenda wish to really be associated with this tumultuous bellowing over whose musty magician does better magic? Is this even remotely appropriate?

No, no and, no. The irony in “let my people go” is almost too much to bear… It is just so unfortunate that “Christians” have lost contact with the allegorical tradition once extent in Christian thought. And it is that kind of public diatribe that also paints agnostics in a poor light (to the extent that others see “blue domers” as agnostics.) We may be able to do without religion (and do very well, thank you) but as E. J Dionne and others have noted, we don’t do well without community, and one of the functions of religion (perhaps the most important function of Jesus’ religion — and he was certainly and unabashedly NOT Christian) is the maintenance of community.

As far as I can see, the taunters and the tauntees are tools all.

Pardon me, but….

A serious place for some serious discussion

Author Archives: Marc Grober