A teacher sends this description of what passes for critical thought in his school. Read it through and ask yourself whether it makes any sense always to advocate someone else’s opinion. What if their opinion is wrong? What if they are spouting nonsense? If everyone advocates someone else’s opinion, will we be lost in a Tower of Babel where no one has any authority, and everyone is advocating someone else’s opinions, and ideas become fungible and meaningless?
The teacher writes:
“Fabricated and orchestrated grit! Yet we will do it with an appropriate expression on our face, and will do it through “consensus and collaboration.”
Our High School – which has been touting “Global Citizen” and “21st Century Skills” for a few years just created a rubric for “Respect of Another’s Opinion.”
The lowest level was “tolerating another’s opinion.”
The highest level was “Advocating and promoting another’s opinion.”
Not to be mistaken with promoting someones “right” to an opinion, but actually “advocating” their ideas!
Who gets to be the winner? This is consensus group-thinking to an extreme.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Respecting another person’s opinion should be the highest level. Advocating another person’s opinion should go without saying if you agree with it. Sounds like an education reformers idea to me. One of the dumbest rubrics ever.
Agree
Well, with what I’ve read about the Common Core testing, students will be reading passages and forming an opinion, but the opinion will have to be based on text evidence. Therefore, students will may not be able to respond with their own opinion because even if they disagree with the opinion of the author of what they read, they have to use evidence from that text to support “their opinion” about the topic. Not that I agree with this…!
The Common Core is about values clarification, sustainable development propaganda from the UN, giving up the individual opinions and dreams of a sovereign American citizen for the collectivist group think of a “global citizen”, who knows how to put his own interests aside for the good of the planet and everyone else. Right now some people think the Common Core is just a set of standards based on skills sets without any prescribed content.
The Test creators are in charge of the content; the CC aligned materials will support the test, and the teacher will be stuck teaching whatever is in those materials so that the students will pass the test. So Pearson is in the driver seat. Pearson partnered with Bill Gates to create Common Core aligned e books in 2011.
Bill Gates signed a “Cooperative Agreement” with UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific,and Cultural Organization) in 2004, and he initialed every page just so that everyone knows he is completely on board with all of it. He pledged allegiance to the UNESCO constitution which is in direct opposition to the tenets of our U.S. Constitution. He placed senior Gates Foundation people all over the Obama administration, such as Arne Duncan’s Chief of Staff. What Bill Gates wants, Bill Gates gets. Right now that would be rushing to get the Common Core fully implemented by 2015 because UNESCO declared 2005 – 2015, “The Decade of Sustainable Development”. Hurry. Hurry.
When I first read your post, I thought “what has she been smoking?”
However, on second thought, it does seem as though the “Respect Opinion” rubric is designed to overcome differences of opinion — as though any difference of opinion is all due to some misunderstanding.
Now, I believe there are philosophers who claim that, however, as a practical matter, if you think the power plant should be built, and I believe it shouldn’t, then there is a difference of opinion.
There are over 600 US cities that are members of ICLEI (the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives). ICLEI will use the “delphi technique” to make you think you have input on issues like that local power plant but actually it has already been decided. Your local town council may even pay a yearly fee to be a member of ICLEI. The Common Core is being used to help our students understand that they are “global citizens” not American citizens. And yes, it will be on the test. Answers that adhere to an understanding of our US Constitution and our somewhat tenuous national sovereignty will be wrong. Answers that show allegiance to the UNESCO constitution will be right. I actually don’t smoke…..anything….ever. It’s bad for the lungs.
http://archive.iclei.org/index.php?id=global-members
http://www.morphcity.com/home/81-iclei-invasive-un-treaty-in-600-american-cities
Students trained to advocate other people’s opinions can grow up to be pundits and PR people.
Who wants more of them around?
In my school, they could be in the Instructional Leadership Team. In my district, they could be principals, or coaches… In my (First) state, they could get a nice job with the DOE.
Ha!
And since much of the new economy seems to be based on little more than marketing/PR t(i.e. lying) they will be equipped with “21st century skills”.
And please refer back to Diane’s 6/24/13 post, “The Reformy-to-English-Dictionary You Have Been Waiting For” (& comments) with the working definition of “21st Century Skills!”
Mom from District 2, Dawn Hoagland, 4equity2, and Ann B.: kudos to all for saying so much with so few words.
🙂
Rest assured, though, that the twenty first century skill necessary for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN of passionately advocating the opinions of their social superiors [aka bosses and leaders] will not affect the places the edubullies and educrats send THEIR OWN CHILDREN.
Sadly [?], critical thinking is still alive and well in U of Chicago Lab Schools, Cranbrook, Waldorf School of the Peninsula and oh so many laggards.
For example, out of the “50 Reasons” to send your child to Harpeth Hall [how could I forget Michelle Rhee?], topping the list is: “1. Our Mission: To teach girls to think critically, to lead confidently, and to live honorably.” Further down the list: “34. Encouraging young minds: A middle school where seventh graders build robots one minute and investigate current applications of constitutional amendments the next.”
And under “School Philosophy” of Sidwell Friends [POTUS & FLOTUS] we can find “We offer these students a rich and rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum designed to stimulate creative inquiry, intellectual achievement and independent thinking in a world increasingly without borders.”
I saved the MicroMan Himself, Bill Gates, for last but not least. Under an “Overview” of “Academics” at Lakeside School can be found this stirring [if hopelessly old-fashioned] commitment to non-Compliance Centre standards: “Each student’s curiosities and capabilities lead them to unique academic challenges that are sustained through a culture of support and encouragement. All students will find opportunities to discover and develop a passion; to hone the skills of writing, thinking, and speaking; and to interact with the world both on and off campus. Lakeside trusts that each student has effective ideas about how to maximize his or her own education, and that they will positively contribute to our vibrant learning community.”
I’m sure you’ll join with me in forming a team to rescue their children and so many others from the clutches of these non-SLANTED cauldrons of EduExcellence.
Or not.
🙂
So Lakeside School led Bill Gates to believe he “has effective ideas about how to maximize his or her own education.” They should have put “his or her own” in capital letters, bold and italics, because he thinks he knows how to do this for everyone else. Thanks a lot Lakeside.
W
I second that W. WW? Scary stuff…
I would like to know the name of the school so I could write to the people who wrote that foolishness.(THere must have been a committee!) It is not enough to oppose the tyranny of absolutism. The relativism endorsed be these fools is another form of absolutism.
“…. On the other hand, PC now occupies the preferred territory of all ideologies: it is among schoolchildren. The language and literature papers in our national exams are becoming implicit invitations to ideological conformity; and everyone knows that there are few marks to be had for bucking the earnest line on, say, Maya Angelou. The weaker pupils will take the false comfort of belonging to a consensus; the stronger will simply receive early training in the practice of hypocritical piety.
We recognise this mental atmosphere, and its name is anti-intellectualism. Noticeable, too, is the re-emergence of sentiment as the prince of the critical utensils. Commentators respond, not to the novel, but to its personnel, whom they want to “care about”, in whom they want to “believe”. Such remarks as “I didn’t like the characters” are now thought capable of settling the hash of a work of fiction. A critical approach of this kind will eventually elicit what it fully deserves – a literature of ingratiation. And we will then have reached the destiny that Alexis de Tocqueville predicted for American democracy: a flabby stupor of mutual reassurance. The simultaneous consolidation of “dumbing down” is not an accident. PC is low, low church – it is the lowest common denomination.”
Martin Amis, “The Voice of the Lonely Crowd”, The Guardian, Friday 31 May 2002
yes yes yes!
“The language and literature papers in our national exams are becoming implicit invitations to ideological conformity;” YUP. Here are some examples from the Texas STAAR release items:
.
Sample STAAR Writing prompt:
“Should people do things only to be recognized?” The wording of the question suggests, of course, what the “correct” response is supposed to be.
Another:
“Although many people work to benefit themselves, some people choose to put others first. . . . Write an essay explaining whether people should be more concerned about others than about themselves.”
One of the reasons why these prompts are so awful, of course, is that they have to be topics that ANYONE can write about without having any particular knowledge. But of course, if you don’t have some particular knowledge to write about, then you have nothing to say worth reading, so the whole idea of coming up with knowledge-independent writing prompts appropriate for a single test that EVERYONE will take is absurd. It goes against what we teach (or should be teaching) about writing well. The basic procedure is this:
Have something to say. Then say it.
That much ought to be obvious. But it’s evidently not obvious to these people who presume to be testing writing!!!! Ironic, huh?
All of which raises a important issue: One-size-fits-all national standardized testing is a TERRIBLE idea, but one-size-fits-all state testing is no better. The House version of the ESEA that just passed with no Democratic votes keeps the 3-8 and once in high-school mandatory standardized testing requirement but kicks it back to the states. That’s no better. Given the horrific quality of many of the state tests, it’s even worse. I’ve studied most of these tests quite carefully. The Texas STAAR is one of the best of a bad lot.
This “opinion rubric” seems echoed in the various maladroit teacher eval systems coming into play. Want a good score on your eval? Then be a carnival barker or perform pedagogical karaoke for whatever set of standards the observer is looking for, regardless of whether or not it makes sound instruct all sense.
I not only agree with your outstanding observation, I will advocate and promote it! Now, which one of us deserves a 5 on that damn rubric?!
pedagogical karaoke. excellent
Yes, excellent analogy. Sadly, many teachers are in line, waiting for their turn at the mic.
Wow. Ideal is advocating someone else’s opinion. Not evaluating it and making a decision based on its merits or lack thereof. That’s counter-intuitive, utterly defiant of common sense, and therefore perfectly reformy. After all, it’s what Arne Duncan does for Bill Gates.
So maybe the SOMEONE will always be Bil Gates.
Now, now. This is a rubric specifically for “respecting” an opinion. Certainly this edu-facility must have a separate rubric for “recognizing” an opinion, and another one for “defending” an opinion, and then another one for “refuting” an opinion, and probably another one for “evaluating” an opinion, donchya think?
I say that you can advocate someone else’s opinion all you want.
This is something you should do if and only if you agree with the opinion and if you are well versed on the topic. . . .
To do otherwise is to be a fraud, something that can over time, take its toll on one’s health.
We already have too many people who can parrot the thoughts of others without having a single critical thought in their own heads. (We are all probably guilty of it at one time or another, too!) The “reform” movement has used this herd mentality to press their agenda very successfully.
2oldtoteach,
I agree!
I see opposition to the common core from the far right and the left. Don’t you hate it when that happens? I don’t believe Gates is a commie stooge for the UN or that he’s a capitalist oinker lining his plutocrat and arbitrager friends’ pockets. I do believe the common core as envisioned by the test makers is another great educational failure in the making.
I wonder where you would score on the rubric with your comment???
Really, Manny. That’s not showing very well-developed agreement skills. Back to the factory for you.
I agree…um I mean I advocate for your opinion…um, how does that go again? 🙂
Zing!
Help! I’ve fallen and can’t find my way back down to the factory.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
I’m not clear about whether this involves writing, oral language, cooperative learning or what, but it sounds like it might be based on David Coleman’s “people really don’t give a sh*t about what you feel or what you think” position, because he thinks students have only ever been encouraged to express their feelings and opinions. The above seems to demonstrate how far the pendulum has now swung in the opposite direction.
I don’t know where Coleman got that idea from either, since he’s not a trained, experienced K12 educator, but there is a much more reasonable way to teach students how to be objective than doing something like this. It’s typically done when students are taught how to write a term paper in an accepted writing style like MLA or APA. They are to summarize info in their own words from relevant sources, provide citations, and delay proffering an analysis that includes their own opinions until the last section of the paper.
We reeeeally need to keep these non-educator know-it-alls out of positions of power in our field.
There’s nothing wrong with learning how to advocate both or all sides of an issue the way it’s done in debate clubs. Students do this in class as well–. But it doesn’t mean they must agree with it. The standard should say: “The student should be able to advocate for or against an issue using the facts presented”. But a rubric should never ask a student to promote an opinion. That’s just wrong. Most essays ask for an agreement or disagreement. But the highest rubric should be about respect the way “sportsmanship” is the highest goal when students play against in other in the gym.
This school needs to rethink their rubric.
Agree
Schoolgal, I see where you are going with “using the facts presented,” however, this is apparently about how to respect the opinions of others.
To me, it would make sense to have a spectrum with rejection at one end and acceptance at the other. In between would be tolerate and respect. We want to show students that all of these positions are different from one another, and that they have a responsibility to tolerate any opinion and to respect the right to hold any opinion. I say we must tolerate all opinion because to do otherwise would violate the spirit of the First Amendment.
Then the standard should be written: Students will show they can respect all sides of an argument. I have no problem with that. And, that’s exactly the point I was trying to make in the first place.
Most of us seem to think this is merely misguided and stupid. What if it is well guided and intentional? Think 1984. What if our children are first – to be trained as workers, not thinkers (common core), and second – to be followers, not leaders. Always accept and regurgitate the opinion of your ‘betters’.
Honest, I am not a paranoid conspiratorialist (even if there is a vast center wing conspiracy to get me :). However, it is hard to brush of a lot of what we are seeing as simply stupid.
Here is the direct quote from his memoirs pg. 405
For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as “internationalists” and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it. -David Rockefeller
Now can we use the term “conspiracy facts” since one of the biggest conspirators of all times has outed himself?
You hit the nail on the head, Michael. Preparing obedient, servile workers is the subtext (and sometimes the explicit text) of much of this deform movement. Forget lit. Can you read the memo that tells you what to do? Do you have the grit, tenacity, and perseverance to stick with whatever soulless task you are assigned to do? Can you complete that task without showing any signs of alienation? I read this stuff from the governor’s association and from the DOE, and it gives me the chills.
Yeah, I get chills from it, too. The federal DoE, which has persistently ignored addressing the needs of the whole child, now wants “grit, tenacity, and perseverance to become a pervasive priority in education.” Their sudden focus on non-cognitive skills is highly suspect.
When the moral education vs. character education debate raged decades ago, I went with moral education in my classroom, because that involves students developing critical thinking skills, and reasoning and debating about moral dilemmas, while character education distills all issues, gray areas or not, down to black and white matters with one right answer. Character education seems to have won by erroneously claiming ownership of morality, but what it comes down to is indoctrination.
Americans should be outraged that KIPP, which implements a military style approach in highly segregated schools for low income children of color, is being held up as a preferred non-cognitive model by the DoE. It’s another prime example of “reformers” disingenuously asserting that faith-based claptrap promotes “college and career readiness” and “civil rights,” when it really fosters racism, classism and a workforce of compliant low-paid peons.
Michael, so goes the old saying, “You’re not paranoid if they’re out to get you!”
Sounds a bit Marx-ian…but which one–Karl or Groucho?
…”error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it.
*Thomas Jefferson
First Inaugural Address
March 4, 1801
* “The Words of Thomas Jefferson”
Sounds like training for lawyers.
Amen.
Takes one to know one, eh!!!
One method worth exploring is to distinguish opinion from fact. In the context of a classroom debate, students can assess the merits of a particular policy (e.g. Euthanasia laws, death penalty, abortion, gun control legislation, etc.). What are the “facts”? On what basis does the opinion holder draw her/his conclusions. This might inspire people to analyse one another’s assumptions and premises.
Facts? We don’t need no stinkin facts!!
Several years ago, I was a parent representative on my children’s elementary school Site Base team. One of the initiatives that the committee decided to undertake was the articulation of school’s “character education” goals. As a parent, I thought that character education was something that should be primarily the responsibility of parents. I believed that schools should focus on preparing our children to become literate citizens and on providing them with the skills necessary to be able to function in our society. Plus the title “character education” has creepy overtones, an unsettling amalgam of Chairman Mao and Barney. One of the items included in the Student Oath was “I will respect others”. The whole idea of forcing or expecting students to take an oath seemed coercive and somewhat creepy too, but requiring them to swear to unequivocally “respect others” without the “others” having done anything to earn respect seemed especially problematic. To respect unequivocally is a bad idea. To tolerate unequivocally is a bad idea too. To advocate unequivocally is even worse. Should they respect Hitler? Should they tolerate his opinions? Should they respect the Taliban? Should they tolerate their opinions regarding women? How about the Klu Klux Clan? I could go on, of course.
The somewhat recent inclination on the part of teachers and administrators to have students sign oaths and “contracts” is concerning. Whether the contract is to agree to read a certain number of books during the course of the year or the oath is to foreswear drugs and alcohol, when an authority figure such as a teacher or an administrator puts that piece of paper in front of the child and expects her to sign, that is coercion regardless of the intention. Somewhat more subtle is the coercion inherent in bribing students to sign oaths in exchange for free giveaways. Our school rewards students with free bracelets during Red Ribbon Week if they sign an oath foreswearing drugs and alcohol. Of course, the students are free to decline, but nevertheless, oaths and contracts should be entirely voluntary, no bribery necessary.
My point is that the objections raised here regarding the coercive nature and groupthink mentality embedded in the federally mandated standardized tests, could be perceived as simply a continuum that begins at the local level and began before RTTT was instituted. There are disturbing similarities in requiring a student to sign an oath foreswearing drugs and alcohol and expecting him to advocate someone else’s opinion. In neither instance is the student free to examine the evidence and reach his own conclusions. In neither situation is the student encouraged to think critically and to approach the situation with healthy skepticism until he or she has had the opportunity to examine the evidence. In both situations, the student is being led to a foregone conclusion dictated by someone else, and in the first instance the student is required not only to agree but also to swear that she agrees in writing. Please note that I am not suggesting becoming involved with drugs and alcohol is a good idea. I am suggesting that the way that some schools teach students about that topic as well as others crosses a line. The ends do not justify the means. Perhaps in addition to challenging the coercive nature of requiring students to advocate someone else’s opinion on state mandated standardized tests or within rubrics designed to promote Respect of Another’s Opinion, educators should examine more critically certain methodologies employed by themselves and their colleague within their own buildings.
…educators should examine more critically certain methodologies employed by themselves and their colleagues within their own buildings
How many of us are just being “good Germans”? Yes, I went there. Bill Gates is an avowed Eugenicist and advocate of extreme depopulation, so I think the analogy is warranted. We have not really seen the end result of all of the data collection required by this system yet. IBM helped out Hitler with his data collection, classification and labeling project. To what end is InBloom collecting all this data?
The type of “sensitive information” that is described in the recent Department of Education publication, “Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance, is clearly not for the purpose of improving academic achievement. “Sensitive Information” will also be extracted, which delves into the intimate details of students’ lives:
1. Political affiliations or beliefs of the student or parent;
2. Mental and psychological problems of the student or the student’s family;
3. Sex behavior or attitudes;
4. Illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, and demeaning behavior;
5. Critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close family relationships;
6. Legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers;
7. Religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs of the student or the student’s parent; or
8. Income
A good German won’t question it.
Our middle school students recite an oath every morning. They ate lead by the adult making morning announcements. I am most uncomfortable with this.
There had been no demonstrable change in student attitudes or behaviors since this practice was initiated.
I believe it devalues the idea of what a “promise” should be, and encourages giving “lip service” to expectations.
Character Education in schools is always based on extrinsic rewards. It teaches children to want to be seen “doing good things” so they will be rewarded with a prize of some material value. It does not encourage children to internalize their desire to do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. Oh, and it doesn’t work.
Matthew 6:1-4
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
And again I say “amen”.
Amen is right. I hated it when our school collected food, money or had a candy sale and a prize is attached. One mother went to the supermarket to get more canned food so her daughter’s class could win the pizza party. We were collecting for City Harvest. I doubt that was the correct message. The PTA candy sale fund raisers also came with big prizes. Everything had to be a competition. Nothing came from the heart. Not even collecting for Penny Harvest.
Now, it almost seems hypocritical to teach altruism when big business is making huge profits off our schools. But, it must be taught.