George Lakoff is a scholar of rhetoric and communications. His book, “Don’t Think of an Elephant” is a classic. As soon as you tell people, don’t think of an elephant, that’s all they can think of.
Lakoff explains here that repeating Trump’s lies and outrageous statements helps him. Reframe the discussion, not in his terms. Here is a start on reframing the narrative: never forget that he lost the popular vote by nearly 3million votes. He is a minority president. He is a Loser. Loser. He has a very thin skin. Laugh out loud.
A few years ago, I spent two hours talking to Lakoff and getting his advice about how to frame the issues in education. I have tried to internalize what he told me. Liberals think that people are persuaded by facts and reasons. Conservatives know that people are moved by narratives and emotion. Conservatives have a morality story about the strict father, who is always right. No shades of gray. I’m still stuck in the facts and reason mode. I haven’t figured out how to change that.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can’t wait for Lakoff to start posting his latest suggestions for dealing with DT.
It would seem that it hardly matters what Lakoff or any of us say. Late today, the NY Times reports, the Repubs pulled and end run and did away with the Ethics Committee. Now Trump and his fellow turds have clear sailing even with the Senate questioners.
Here is the article en toto.
“With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office
By ERIC LIPTONJAN.
Representative Robert Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, in 2014. Mr. Goodlatte announced on Monday that the House Republican Conference had approved a change to weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics. Credit T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images
WASHINGTON — House Republicans, overriding their top leaders, voted on Monday to significantly curtail the power of an independent ethics office set up in 2008 in the aftermath of corruption scandals that sent three members of Congress to jail.
The move to effectively kill the Office of Congressional Ethics was not made public until late Monday, when Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that the House Republican Conference had approved the change. There was no advance notice or debate on the measure.
The surprising vote came on the eve of the start of a new session of Congress, where emboldened Republicans are ready to push an ambitious agenda on everything from health care to infrastructure, issues that will be the subject of intense lobbying from corporate interests. The House Republicans’ move would take away both power and independence from an investigative body, and give lawmakers more control over internal inquiries.
It also came on the eve of a historic shift in power in Washington, where Republicans control both houses of Congress and where a wealthy businessman with myriad potential conflicts of interest is preparing to move into the White House.”
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Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, spoke out during the meeting to oppose the measure, aides said on Monday night. The full House is scheduled to vote on Tuesday on the rules, which would last for two years, until the next congressional elections.
In place of the office, Republicans would create a new Office of Congressional Complaint Review that would report to the House Ethics Committee, which has been accused of ignoring credible allegations of wrongdoing by lawmakers.
“Poor way to begin draining the swamp,” Tom Fitton, president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, said on Twitter. He added, “Swamp wins with help of @SpeakerRyan, @RepGoodlatte.”
Mr. Goodlatte defended the action in a statement on Monday evening, saying it would strengthen ethics oversight in the House while also giving lawmakers better protections against what some of them have called overzealous efforts by the Office of Congressional Ethics.
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“The O.C.E. has a serious and important role in the House, and this amendment does nothing to impede their work,” the statement said in part.
But Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, joined others who had worked to create the office in expressing outrage at the move and the secretive way it was orchestrated.
“Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House G.O.P. has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,” Ms. Pelosi said in a statement on Monday night. “Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”
The Office of Congressional Ethics has been controversial since its creation and has faced intense criticism from many of its lawmaker targets — both Democrats and Republicans — as its investigations have consistently been more aggressive than those conducted by the House Ethics Committee.
The body was created after a string of serious ethical issues starting a decade ago, including bribery allegations against Representatives Duke Cunningham, Republican of California; William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana; and Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio. All three were ultimately convicted and served time in jail.
The Office of Congressional Ethics, which is overseen by a six-member outside board, does not have subpoena power. But it has its own staff of investigators who spend weeks conducting confidential interviews and collecting documents based on complaints they receive from the public, or news media reports, before issuing findings that detail any possible violation of federal rules or laws. The board then votes on whether to refer the matter to the full House Ethics Committee, which conducts its own review.
But the House Ethics Committee, even if it dismisses the potential ethics violation as unfounded, is required to release the Office of Congressional Ethics report detailing the alleged wrongdoing, creating a deterrent to such questionable behavior by lawmakers.
Under the new arrangement, the Office of Congressional Complaint Review could not take anonymous complaints, and all of its investigations would be overseen by the House Ethics Committee itself, which is made up of lawmakers who answer to their own party.
The Office of Congressional Complaint Review would also have special rules to “better safeguard the exercise of due process rights of both subject and witness,” Mr. Goodlatte said. The provision most likely reflects complaints by certain lawmakers that the ethics office’s staff investigations were at times too aggressive, an allegation that watchdog groups dismissed as evidence that lawmakers were just trying to protect themselves.
“O.C.E. is one of the outstanding ethics accomplishments of the House of Representatives, and it has played a critical role in seeing that the congressional ethics process is no longer viewed as merely a means to sweep problems under the rug,” said a statement from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an ethics watchdog group that has filed many complaints with the Office of Congressional Ethics.
“If the 115th Congress begins with rules amendments undermining O.C.E., it is setting itself up to be dogged by scandals and ethics issues for years and is returning the House to dark days when ethics violations were rampant and far too often tolerated,” the statement continued.
One Republican House aide on Monday disputed the suggestion that the Office of Congressional Complaint Review was a new entity, arguing that the current staff would largely remain and that the outside board overseeing it would also continue to exist.
“It’s the same office, same people, most of the same rules,” said the House aide, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Among the most prominent cases brought by the Office of Congressional Ethics since it was created was an investigation into Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, who was accused of intervening with the Treasury Department to try to assist a struggling bank in which her husband owned stock.
Ms. Waters was ultimately cleared by the House Ethics Committee, but the committee criticized the actions of her grandson, who was then her chief of staff, and urged the House to consider broadening a ban on lawmakers’ hiring their relatives to include grandchildren.
By moving all of the authority to the House Ethics Committee, several ethics lawyers said, the House risks becoming far too protective of members accused of wrongdoing.
Bryson Morgan, who worked as an investigative lawyer at the Office of Congressional Ethics from 2013 until 2015, said that under his interpretation of the new rules, members of the House committee could move to stop an inquiry even before it was completed.
“This is huge,” said Mr. Morgan, who now defends lawmakers targeted in ethics investigations. “It effectively allows the committee to shut down any independent investigation into member misconduct. Historically, the ethics committee has failed to investigate member misconduct.”
This action makes all Trump’s illegal behaviors, lawsuits, pay for play, even murders on 5th Ave. should he choose, MOOT. We now have a 100% FASCIST government.
This Ethics Committee death also shows the Paul Ryan and those who voted to pass this, are all total Fascists also and are willing to defile the Constitution and American democracy…all for power and cash.
Only bright spot is that it was about 150 for, and 75 against….so there are some decent Congress people….but not enough to keep this from happening consistently for at least the next four years. Gone will be Dodd Frank, Consumer protection, EPA, Roe v. Wade, public schools, Obamacare and all other health care for the poor, Social Security, Medicare, the Post Office, and all public agencies. We will be ruled by Market Forces and the unconscionable greed merchants who support the Dictator tRUMP.
Someone tell me: How does getting rid of ethics oversight help to “drain the swamp”?
Swamp 10-Ethics 0
Yes, and
Oligarchs and fascists 10
Democracy and the American people: O
Makes you sick to your stomach, doesn’t it?
2old2teach. YES. I’m losing weight from the exercise of shaking my head and then running to the bathroom to vomit. But now I see (just now) they’ve gone back on it. I don’t know what to think–oh, wait–the new rule is: Trump speaks, Congress jumps, so they probably just didn’t get the hand-delivered memo in time.
Evidently Kevin McCarthy was not in favor of this travesty. Please, every Californian, CALL and WRITE him shouting your displeasure at this clearly undemocratic move. Let him know that as his constituents, we will not take any of this without a fight. This is a huge step for these Trump crooks to protect themselves.
Lakoff: Don’t Think of an Elephant.
Even though we as educators might not like it, he is not a “minority” POTUS. The electoral college system works as it allows all states to choose the POTUS. The “new” additional votes have all come from states where the HRC already won those electoral votes [CA, NY] so to continue to insist that he is anything other than the president-elect is more and more polarizing and will help to divide the country further. Better to accept what is, try to work within the system and keep education at the forefront of the conversation.
Stan: While I appreciate your thoughts, I am concerned about “working within the system.” Trump is breaking, and will continue to break, the system, with the help of a compliant Congress. Even the Democrats are not speaking out against this guy. And he has (to me, anyway) frightening authoritarian tendencies. It doesn’t take long for a dictatorship to form, and if we don’t speak out, it may be too late.
I’m not saying to not be civil, and we need to work within the system when we can. But I fear that if people only work “within the system,” it’s over, because Trump is NOT working within the system.
No we do not need to be civil . One fights fascism with bats not flowers. His agenda is not the agenda of a key percentage of those who supported him But they had no place to turn . Even if that number is 5% . It becomes a landslide electorally and popularly. Those workers in the Midwest who started abandoning the Democrats years ago did so for cause . Nowhere is this more apparent than in the assault on the most loyal constituency of the Democrats labor coalition . TEACHERS
That’s right, one cannot help Trump from the Left. One can only oppose Trump, or abandon the Left and join him on the extreme Right. Now is not the time to collaborate. It’s time, liberals, to, as the Beatles sang, “Get back to where you once belonged.”
You’re right to a point. I’m hoping we’re not going to see extreme violence on this. I can dream I guess, but you’re right–this will not be civil.
From my first reading of the Elephant in the Room, a most welcome diatribe, I was a Lakoff student and follower. He is my favorite epistemologist. But I tend to hark to my pals, retired teacher, Joel, and Leftie, and feel I will be hitting it all straight on, and as loud as my aged voice will carry.
Here are two well reasoned articles today on all of this.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38945-henry-a-giroux-on-trump-s-cabinet-the-church-of-neoliberal-evangelicals
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/defying_donald_trumps_kleptocracy_20170101
Ellen, I suspect Trump’s cabinet members would be astonished to be labeled “neoliberals.” I think they have earned the sobriquet “reactionary.”
Agree with you, Diane…yes to “reactionary”. Cannot believe how we are going to retrogress.
Stan NYC
Not only is he a minority President, he is an extreme minority President. The polls were not wrong they were fairly accurate perhaps with some ground swell of rejection of Clinton (her natural base stayed home in key states. ) more so than support of Trump in the last 2 weeks . So what do polls show about the aspirations of the American people .
http://pnhp.org/blog/2015/12/17/kaiser-poll-58-of-americans-support-medicare-for-all/
https://www.nasi.org/learn/social-security/public-opinions-social-security
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/poll-labor-unions-popularity-in-america-121426
http://www.dailywire.com/news/5118/exit-polls-most-americans-distrust-wall-street-aaron-bandler
http://www.gallup.com/poll/142658/americans-views-public-schools-far-worse-parents.aspx
No it is not time to work with this despicable human being it is time to drag him to the guillotine of public of public opinion and finally to impeachment and defeat .
This as Hedges said will not happen in the Congress, It will not happen in the corporate owned media . It will happen in the streets if we resist as millions of Americans say the right wing agenda is not the American Agenda.
Amazing how a few thousand demonstrators brought income inequality to the forefront if only there had been the political leadership to follow up on it . Instead OBAMA crushed Occupy Wall street. Labor abandoned them after initial support, in order to re elect the Corporate stooge who was slightly better than the oligarch .
The head of just one criminal Banker and make no mistake those actions especially the LIBOR scandal were criminal, would have altered history.
Time to drag the Democratic leadership out of their corporate cesspool . Or let them go the way of the Whigs.
Joel,
Polls are as reliable and valid as standardized test scores and the resulting interpretations. In other words they are completely invalid and unreliable, therefore not a good starting point for an argument.
If I may suggest a book that explains just how completely unreliable polls are “Proofiness: How you are being fooled by the numbers” by Charles Seife.
Duane Swacker
The national poll average was spot on .
But let us assume that some of the state polls were 3% or 4% off .
I’ll cede that to you. Every one of these polls is far beyond that and I did not even list gun control measures.
Joel…speaking of the LIBOR scandal reminds me that both Obama and Trump verbalized that Jamie Dimon is their favorite banker…but he belongs in prison for his double dealings. However, instead of a cell he was rewarded for being a blatant crook, with a $24M bonus.
It is indeed an ugly world where ‘might makes right,’ for at least the 1%.
With complete respect for you and your opinions, Stan, I have to strongly disagree with you here.
The Electoral College system does NOT “work;” it is inherently absurd and clearly unfair. If a person defends this antiquated, outrageous, obtuse system for electing our president, why not use a version of it for ALL of our elections, from school board to senator and governor?
It does not matter where votes come from. Those who argue that Hillary “only won the popular vote because of California and New York” are essentially arguing that the votes from people in those states count less than the votes from people who live elsewhere. Why?
If you’re going to make that argument, why not also dismiss Trump’s votes that come from the states where he won by a big margin, like those that comprised the old confederacy? One could reply to your statement by saying, “Well, the only reason Trump even came within 10 percentage points of Clinton was because of his huge margin in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, and other conservative states such as Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Missouri, Idaho, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota.
If you’re going to disregard the votes of people from California and New York, than why not disregard them from the above states as well?
The ONLY system that is fair, accurate and sensible is one in which EVERY vote counts the same, whether it is cast by a person living in a NYC apartment, or someone who owns a mega ranch in Montana. What could possibly be wrong with a system in which the votes of PEOPLE—regardless of where they live—all have an equal vote for the most important elected office in our nation.
So, we MUST begin EVERY conversation about Trump by reminding people he LOST by three million votes to his opponent and that he does NOT reflect the will of The Majority.
That should be our starting point; and I’m finding it’s ALREADY effective, especially with Trump voters, who tend to be very impressed with what is literal, and who include many SPORTS FANS, who already see politics in terms of “team loyalty” and “numbers that prove it.”
To simply say some version of “Oh well…Trump won…and now we have to be good little boys and girls and treat him like any other president we respectfully disagree with…” is a formula for a grand failure.
So, notwithstanding the ideal of dismissing Trump votes, we then should abandon the electoral college and so reward only those states where there are large population #’s? How fair would that be when selecting the leader of all 50 states when you dismiss all but 10-12 of those states and their popular votes? So, what you are then saying is that everyone should live where everyone else lives and never live anywhere else?
Damn right, Stan, that “we should reward those states where there are large populations”….that is called “democracy”…and with California having over 36 M residents compared to less than 1M for S. Dakota, a popular vote, one person gets one vote, is only fair and rational.
How can you be a teacher yet rationalize that the largest and now most populace state in the Union, with a GDP that is 6th largest in the world, should NOT have any say in how this country is run? That is not only ignorant, it is lunacy.
Do you teach in a charter school and are you a TFA kid?
“so to continue to insist that he is anything other than the president-elect is more and more polarizing and will help to divide the country further.”
I am not getting this at all, on any level. We are polarized, and there is absolutely no reason to try to hide this fact.
Is “working together” some kind of sacred activity that needs to be done by everybody and all the time? Do you want to work together with your enemy, who just declared war on you?
Did Trump appoint De Vos to try to work with us, or he did he appoint the general for the war against public schools and teachers?
The people in this country are much more patient than they should be. It’s time to end the 100+ year ruling of the billionaires. Let’s not work with the billionaires on their agenda, on their economy. Let’s not even think about their white elephant, let’s just talk about and pursue what we want, and see who wins, the majority or the billionaires.
My bet is on us. When the people stand up, they win. But they do have to stand up, and not try to “work together”.
But they do have to stand up, and not try to “work together” with the enemy.
I am also stuck in the facts and reason mode.
I have admired Lakoff’s work for a number of reasons, not the least of these the clarity of the strict father metaphor for understanding the “non-nonsense” focus on discipline in schools, the rapid uptake of “grit” as a virtue, overuse of “rigor,” the weird need to speak of “soft skills,” and a view of the life as if every aspect is competitive. Stack ratings of kids cannot begin too early. They need preparation for a life as winners (and losers).
Teachers are trapped in the values and ethos of policies that do not honor their significant role in nurturing children and youth. Among the absurdities: grade level expectaions for “self-mangement” and “mind-set” skills, with these spelled out in detail and marketed as if wonder bread.
Click to access SE-CC-Domain-Social-Emotional-Skills-updated-1.2.15.pdf
Very enlightening! Facts and reason mode- I guess that’s where I am, too- especially as an educator. In the past educators have been able to be nurturing within classrooms, individual schools, and some even within districts. Now we are forced into a mold of correct or incorrect in the evaluation of students, teachers, and school systems- the notion that there is only one correct path to a required outcome.
I think people in general have an aversion for complexity, because complexity is difficult.
For whatever reason (could it be an era of expanding consciousness?) our ever changing world is becoming more nuanced and complex, ratcheting up the need to reconcile truths that don’t lend themselves to reconciliation.
Facts and reason do present a compelling narrative. Telling that narrative in a compelling and comprehensible way is the challenge. Hillary’s telling of the story was head-bound. Didn’t Gore have a similar problem with his compelling facts?
Martin Luther King used compelling facts and truths with a force that had an irresistible pull.
Bernie seems to have had a powerful moral narrative rooted in nothing but facts, but his telling of it came from the heart and belly first. I felt it every time he spoke. The effect was that people, like me, were willing to suspend the practical consideration of whether his ideas could actually fly, because the ideas themselves were true: Our government, and our tax dollars that make the government possible, has traded in the common good for the special (monied) interest. Democracy is coopted by wealthy people and corporations. WE can change that dynamic if enough of us step up and vote.
Every time Elizabeth Warren speaks with passion on this subject, ears perk up.
Despite the odds this, narrative created tremendous momentum for Bernie.
Absolutely true
Well said. The roots of liberalism — concern for others — are compelling. Third Way attempts at bipartisanship are not compelling. Liberals have a narrative. The problem is that Third away has not a narrative, but a marketing campaign. But what we do and discuss here with Diane is a compelling, liberal narrative of concern for public education and all the people involved in it.
2
“The NYT had an editorial arguing that major corporations are helping Donald Trump lie about job creation in order to get favors from his administration. The main example is the Japanese investment firm Soft Bank, which allowed Trump to get away with taking credit for investment decisions which had been announced in October, before Donald Trump was elected. It argues that Soft Bank is hoping that Trump will allow a merger between its Sprint subsidiary and T-Mobile. This merger had been opposed by the Obama administration because it would reduce competition in the cell phone industry. It would likely also result in the loss of a substantial number of jobs.
It is worth noting that such phony claims of job creation can only be effective for Trump if the media allow it. If the headline of the news stories was something to the effect of “Trump again makes phony job claim,” with the article carefully explaining that Trump had nothing to with creating any jobs, it is likely that Trump would give up on the tactic. Of course this would require the media to engage in objective reporting even if it ends up being very critical of a particular politician.”
Instead we see an endless 24 hr news cycle . To fill up a 24hr news cycle with investigative journalism would be very expensive. Then one would be faced with the editorial decisions to actually report the findings. So what passes as journalism is talking heads screaming at each other repeating talking points till any sense of reality and truth is lost. False equivalence then becomes reality .
What actually made Trump so appealing to many was his down in the gutter ” You can go tell him to go F— himself ” style. It passed for authentic and if we want to fight that it will not be with pretty speeches about going high especially when they are a disguise for policy that is going low . Going low on a corporate agenda that enriches the political coffers of politicians and then their personal wealth once out of office. Unfortunately the owners of our corporate media are not really upset about seeing their tax rates cut. Not really upset about regulation being cut… …. The Democratic party which never was a workers party as a whole!! Is happy to be where the corporate money takes them .
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/how-the-media-is-helping-donald-trump-lie-about-jobs
2
Me neither.
Respectfully, George Lakoff is a good beginning of the discussion, not the end.
Howzabout facts AND emotion seasoned with a healthy dose of humor?
Why humor? As a genuine American wit said: “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” [Mark Twain] *Also good to remember that bit in THE SOUND OF MUSIC: “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” Humor can be the sugar that helps sharp criticism go down better…or so I see it…
Let’s follow up with a very old and very dead and very French guy:
“Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.” [François de la Rochefoucauld]
What would he say about self-ridicule? For example, Donald Trump excoriates Hillary Clinton for her three-word “basket of deplorables” comment but excuses his extensive 2005 taped comments [a tiny drop in his bucket of deplorable remarks] by saying he’s sorry, he’s a grown-up now, let’s move on, nothing to see here. But, er, that begs the more self-wounding question—if he was THAT backwards at 59 [comparable to an immature pubescent male teenager] then just when did he skip ahead 50 or so years in the last 11 or so years in order to reach even a modest level of maturity at 70?
Just like the other rheephormsters, when Donald Trump provides the ammunition to wound himself grievously, let’s use it. Don’t refuse his generosity!
😏
And it’s not just humor I’m referring to…
A bit of what appeared at the end of the year in the LATIMES, the title beginning with the words “Yes, they really said that.”
Link: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-quotes-20161231-story.html
Donald Trump: 1), “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters” and “I alone can fix it” and “I am your voice.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda: “And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.” [The caption reads: “Lin-Manuel Miranda, reading a poem about the Orlando massacre at the Tony Awards.”]
Consider the contrasts.
A character. Character. Shallowness. Gravitas. Self-centered. Empathetic. Grandiose. Humble.
Facts. Emotion. Humor.
But not the troika that Vladimir would like to see used on his new BFF…
😎
“Spoonful of Sugar” is from Mary Poppins, not Sound of Music. Julie Andrews in both, but VERY different musicals. Love your work KTA, but I’m a musical theater nerd.
Threatened Out West: my bad.
😧
And, in an abrupt departure from the default setting of the president-elect, I freely admit to having made a mistake that was not just “symbolically” but “literally” wrong.
Thanks for keeping it real, not rheeal.
😎
That’s why you are fully awesome, KTA! You have terrific information and arguments, and yet are humble. Thanks for all of your work.
You keep writing. I’ll keep reading.
Thank you, KrazyTA.
The one thing that will pierce through Trump’s armor is humor. He can’t stand being mocked, satirized, ridiculed.
If ever there was a man who deserves humor, it is Donald the Loser.
And like I wrote above, Trump & Co. never waste a moment to pay heartfelt homage to François de la Rochefoucauld.
KellyAnne Conway, before submitting herself to Donald Trump, was all in for Ted Cruz.
Here’s what she said in early 2016 about her current boss: “he says he’s for the little guy, but he’s actually built a lot of his businesses on the backs of the little guy and he’s a lot of little guys through eminent domain, or through not paying contractors after you’ve built something. The little guys have suffered.” *Caveat: incoherence in the original.
[CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, 2-10-2016]
If anyone here had made this up, we would be assailed with the most vile epithets imaginable.
So to speak in Trumpish about this and other “thought leaders” of the incoming administration…
In the words that need to be spoken to schoolyard bullies everywhere: I’m rubber and you’re glue and everything bad you say about me bounces off me and sticks to you.
Losers!
😎
Diane–I think it’s like learning to speak in our commonsense mode of language (as we all do without thinking about it), and then entering a theoretical discipline and having to think quite differently in the field and in that language. Then you go back to your commonsense mode. Adjustments have to be made, but not to keep talking theory in our commonsense conversations, or vice versa, but to know who your conversation is with and who your audience is and to become able to communicate/translate in appropriate ways depending on that audience.
Teachers are at the matrix of this presumably conflicting situation because they learn lots of different theories and methods, and communicate with other teachers in that theory and field language, and then have to mediate their broad-fields knowledge into their teaching of children and conversations with parents all who may know NOTHING about some educational theory, or theory as such, but who need to know what the teacher’s knowledge of that theory can contribute to their understanding of their child and what is occurring in the classroom.. Hats off: Theirs is a constant program of interpretation in this regard.
Problems arise (specifically with teachers in my own experience) when they come to class with an ingrained bias against theory and theoretical language (I started every course with a lecture about this). When this happens, they pretty-much cut themselves off from the legitimacy of their profession. It’s not understanding or talking in one or the other language, but understanding the place of each and being able to rightly use it in specific situations. It’s the same as with teaching children–if you want to communicate some insights to them, you start with their own experience and present understanding and build out from there.
But Lackoff-s stern-father metaphor (if I understand it correctly) might be apt for many insofar as they are involved almost wholly in tribal consciousness (the principle of generation) where the leader is connected with the god, and their word and actions are sacrosanct to members of the tribe–they go unquestioned. The problem with that is that the father/leader can be poorly informed or outright wrong about x–which is the age-old intrusion of intelligence and excellence (as principle) on the tribal mind and its political ethos. It’s how civilization emerges in the first place from tribal order, but where it doesn’t dispense with that order, but continually transforms it to become in relation with human intelligence and its questions of excellence.
A present reversion to the tribal principle as emphasis and as extreme, seemingly opposed to “facts and reason” (intelligence/ excellence), may be what’s going on in Lackoff’s interpretation of present conflicts in communications framed by “conservative and liberal.”
That being said, I wouldn’t give up facts and reason. I’ve my own critique of Lackoff, but in this case, as applied to political discourse, he has a good but (from my view) insufficient insight about the differences between political attitudes, mindsets, and discourses. My take on it is that we’ve come a very long way to be ABLE to speak in terms of facts and reasons, and they don’t necessarily preclude or set themselves off from narratives and emotions. A good rhetorician knows how to intertwine both and remain genuine.
The danger in a Trump-like pied piper is that they can use narratives and emotions and even logic, to AVOID and to denigrate truth, facts, and reason (aka: lying). And if that’s the case, then changing the narrative (as Laura Chapman suggests above) may be needed, but not necessarily by avoiding repetition of false narratives, but to explode them quickly and often, exposing their inner conflict, and giving them a good replacement–and where the truth speaks in the interpretive meaning that will best “stick” in the audience’s mind. It’s a boxing match we’re in, but we do have to stay on our feet.
Lackoff’s broad brush idea, however, implies a self-abstract stance on his part and an incomplete understanding of varied developmental issues in vast audiences that have to do with choosing entry points and kinds of communications. It implies giving over the field, and/or a normalization/made static of what is political and oppositional over what is dialectical and dynamic about us. Human beings are whole and concrete, and are not abstract soundbites in opposition to other abstract soundbites.
“Problems arise (specifically with teachers in my own experience) when they come to class with an ingrained bias against theory and theoretical language.”
Exactly. Have had versions of “Well, Duane, that is great theoretically but. . . .” many many times with not only teachers but especially admins who should be grounded in theoretical approaches. Since I expect more from those folks, the administrators, who take the power and authority, and money, I find the adminimals rejection of theory especially appalling.
Duane Swacker says: “Have had versions of ‘Well, Duane, that is great theoretically but. . . .’”
Two things on that. First, usually when you hear those kinds of statements, they aren’t really talking about theory in the formal sense, but rather about speculation of some sort like: “Well, that might work if x, but in the case of y, . . . ” and where “that” is not a theory but, again, a speculative point.
Second, theory by definition is general and, to be verified, must be tested in the specific concrete–like in a laboratory with controlled conditions. The problem with educational theory (that I have found in my own work) is that many theories are either good or not; and they apply well or not in concrete situations where they CAN be applied. But also many times they are thought of badly because the applications elements are skewed–and so if they go badly, the theory itself takes the hit. (Administrators are good at this mistake too, as well as fostering a bias against theory as such.) And in human situations, it’s VERY difficult to isolate and control significant conditions that do not have many outside influences (this is where statistical science comes in)–like the history of the people involved; and where the data is not influenced by some other aspect of some other theory. Long story . . . .
I have to admit that when the conversation turns philosophical, I turn off. I lived and worked in a concrete world where the theoretical only made sense to me when I was presented with a concrete example. I need to live my theory in order to understand it or at least see someone else do so. Otherwise, I may grasp a concept for the moment, but it quickly vaporizes from disuse or disconnection from its physical representation. Does that make sense? I need the concrete world view to anchor philosophy.
Yes, you certainly are making sense, 2o2t.
But at the same time philosophy is nothing more than attempting to explain what we experience in the world without the benefit of absolute sureness, unlike let’s say a mathematical proof or a truly scientific endeavor in which all the parameters of which one is exploring can be delineated. It is precisely because there are many “concrete examples” that don’t all jibe together when brought together by our experiences that we have a need for philosophizing.
The teaching and learning process is one in which a philosophical attitude must reign as the total complexities involved cannot ever be reconciled contrary to what economists and others might want you to think in their proposing VAM’s and other schemes to “evaluate” that teaching and learning process.
2old2teach: says: “I need to live my theory in order to understand it or at least see someone else do so. Otherwise, I may grasp a concept for the moment, but it quickly vaporizes from disuse or disconnection from its physical representation. Does that make sense? I need the concrete world view to anchor philosophy.”
Makes perfect sense to me. The problem with it, and the difference between the human sciences and the natural/physical sciences, is that human beings (we) are developmental, we involve ourselves in dialectic, and lived history is never exactly the same from event to event, which makes a good amount of it approached as similar, but not exactly the same.
These points make it possible (not necessary) that the theory can be high-dollar, so to speak, and be completely beyond our personal horizon born of our experience. That doesn’t mean you have to believe it, but that we need to remain open to it and to our questions about it, especially if it can stretch us beyond ourselves and that such stretching can benefit us and our students (back to the concrete).
That same problem of horizon, of course, also applies to the theoretician, who (like Lakoff) can be speaking out of a good idea, but neither completely general and thus applicable to all, nor verified in any case. One of the grand turning points in the history of knowledge is yet to come–that the horizon of the theoretician in many developmental issues needs to come under critical purview, or at least stated, for qualified knowledge about human beings to emerge. But that’s another story.
“… lived history is never exactly the same from event to event, which makes a good amount of it approached as similar, but not exactly the same.”
True, but each iteration allows me to match reality to theory and adjust my understanding accordingly over time. In a class, present me with multiple examples to which a particular theory might apply. Interestingly enough, a change in vocabulary makes a difference to me in accessibility. Talk about a philosophy (of learning) and I am out the door. A brain fog literally clouds my mind. Rephrase it and talk about a theory (of learning) and I am ready to sit down and dig into it. Can anyone explain my reaction to me?
2oldtoteach: About the changing details of history, you say: “True, but each iteration allows me to match reality to theory and adjust my understanding accordingly over time. In a class, present me with multiple examples to which a particular theory might apply.”
That’s probably one of the nicest expressions of the reality that I’ve seen. Your statement also shows how important the implementation/applications process is in teaching. You don’t just need to know the theory well, like Einstein’s space, you need to know the human context for each student in many cases, and how to create and condition the zone of application, so to speak, and then “adjust” to it as you go and as the student undergoes learning; so that THESE students or THIS student understands THIS set of insights.
Unlike Einstein’s verifying a theory about how light works around the planets, for instance, planets are not sentient, conscious, developmental beings. The teacher’s real-life application is in real-live persons where you have to keep your finger on an ever-changing pulse–precisely because the student IS learning and changing in the process (and so is the teacher). Teaching is certainly not for sissies. I think the “zone” of teaching is one of the most overlooked aspects of teaching, especially by many administrators who keep interfering with it as if teachers didn’t have enough do to already. .
Then you say: “Interestingly enough, a change in vocabulary makes a difference to me in accessibility. Talk about a philosophy (of learning) and I am out the door. A brain fog literally clouds my mind. Rephrase it and talk about a theory (of learning) and I am ready to sit down and dig into it. Can anyone explain my reaction to me?
I can only guess for you; but it’s not the first time I have marveled at how deep the centuries-old bias against theory AND philosophy goes in many of us. It has a bad rep, and not for nothing, unfortunately. But pragmatism comes to the rescue–call it what helps keep the brain fog away. If I may, philosophy is the mother of all other sciences, which were not around until long after philosophy came on the scene with the Greeks. Also, it is the centerpiece of education as such precisely because it addresses knowledge AS knowledge, and not particular knowledge. It’s object is knowledge as such, and not, for instance, physics or pedagogy. .
thanks, for this …. last week Jack Hassard did an article on Lakeoff…. I have lost friends over this issue. one friend repeated all summer the HRC attacks over Benghazi and “indictments’ and “emails” and a niece of mine was sending out articles up until the last week before the election with the same old 40 years of attacking HRC. Today my friend says “democrats have to be better at getting their message out”…as if it is just a “sales talk” that is needed and if given the right sales talk some one will buy the junk you are selling . I cannot be convinced that horrid things Trump wants to do are OK. It is not a question of “message” to me it is a question of morality of right and wrong; of ethics and moral values.
There was an interesting NPR /WBUR discussion with a panel of 3 today (Jeniffer Rubin and 2 others) about being “moderate”. Does being a moderate mean I have to accept that 1/2 of the lynchings are permissible? or that 1/2 of the immigrants should be put on trains and deported splitting up the families of children born here from their parents who might not have obtained papers? Some things to me are just morally and ethically wrong. If something is patently unconstitutional I cannot agree that “moderation” in that horrid thing is permissible. (I know I’m not wording carefully but this is still my anger from McConnell’s wall of opposition against Obama for 8 years I cannot be passive …. so I will hold on to the anger rather than become indifferent.)
He lost the popular vote? Bt he tweets that he won it…and most of his followers believe ti ,according to polls.
This is a post-truth nation We are becoming a ‘STAN”
“Everything we know suggests that we’re entering an era of epic corruption and contempt for the rule of law, with no restraint whatsoever. How could this happen in a nation that has long prided itself as a role model for democracies everywhere? But this debacle didn’t come out of nowhere. We’ve been on the road to stan-ism for a long time: an increasingly radical G.O.P., willing to do anything to gain and hold power, has been undermining our political culture for decades. In a direct sense, Mr. Trump’s elevation was made possible by the F.B.I.’s blatant intervention in the election, Russian subversion, and the supine news media that obligingly played up fake scandals while burying real ones on the back pages. The only question now is whether the rot has gone so deep that nothing can stop America’s transformation into Trumpistan.”
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/America-Becomes-a-Stan–P-in-Best_Web_OpEds-American-Culture_American-Hegemony_American-Hegenomy_American_History-170102-986.html#comment637512
Here’s a KEY quote from Lakoff and ESSENTIAL advice for all of us as the next four years unfold:
“Hillary Clinton won the majority of votes in this year’s presidential election.”
“The loser, for the majority of voters, will now be a minority president-elect. Don’t let anyone forget it. Keep referring to Trump as the minority president, Mr. Minority and the overall Loser. Constant repetition, with discussion in the media and over social media, questions the legitimacy of the minority president to ignore the values of the majority. The majority, at the very least, needs to keep its values in the public eye and view the minority president’s action through majority American values.”
Read more here: https://georgelakoff.com/2016/11/22/a-minority-president-why-the-polls-failed-and-what-the-majority-can-do/
Conservatives know that people are moved by narratives and emotion. Conservatives have a morality story about the strict father, who is always right. No shades of gray. I’m still stuck in the facts and reason mode. I haven’t figured out how to change that.
As a historian of public education, I think you can present a very good long-term narrative that is worth sharing:
Public education has brought communities together and has made us the greatest nation on Earth. If you want to “Make American Great Again,” then stick to what works.
wdf1–in his “Democracy in America,” Alexis de Tocqueville writes about America as being different from most (or all?) other cultures precisely because we have more than one story, much of our history is of conflict between the people of those stories; and so we have a written-in set of chasms in our culture that won’t go away: (1) The story of European settlers; (2) the story of slavery (and now the long movement of Black people to true freedom); and (3) the story of the Mexicans. It’s been a long time since I read him; but I remember thinking then that he forgot the Native Americans, which is a great irony since they were already here. (I’ll brush up on it.)
You say: “As a historian of public education, I think you can present a very good long-term narrative that is worth sharing.” Probably it would be about the history of our “founding” documents” (?) and how each separate group has struggled to be a part of the narrative of those works that includes “All” under the “all men are created equal,” as at least under the law?
I didn’t say it was a smooth journey with public education, but it is a mechanism that has brought us together. Public education is the way that we find commonality as Americans, but we don’t find it if the only thing we’re going for is high standardized test scores in math and ELA.
wdf1 “Public education has brought communities together and has made us the greatest nation on Earth.”
Greatest in what? Military power? Power of the billionaires economy that is used to kneel people all over the world, including those here back home?
According to Oliver Stone’s US history documentary (and according to the rest of the non-US world), the greatest fault of Americans is this belief in American exceptionalism. Wars after wars have been sold to the American people by appealing to this belief in “greatest nation” that grants us the right to manage other countries’ business, and Trump appealed to this need to be the “greatest nation” again to elect himself.
After a Trump, no one will believe in American exceptionalism.
Mate Wierdl: I agree with what you said in your other two recent notes, Mate.
However, I do think our Constitutional documents, equality under the rule of law, and all the rest makes for the best shot human beings have for “All” to fare well. It’s not us, though. Rather it’s our inception, documenting, and now presumed allegiance to that way of life and government that makes us associated with and reach for that greatness. It’s the best system that makes that reaching possible. And as has been said here so many times, education, as development of all human beings based on openness and freedom of thought, is a part of that greatness–in practical terms, because education in a culture where freedom of thought, religion, speech, assembly, and press are cornerstones of that culture has the greatest potential to set the cultural conditions in that culture for creativity and real, not imagined, peace and progress.
I guess you could say that, with Trump, there is coming a *great” historical irony: Trump’s misguided understanding and double-speak manipulation of America’s greatness is manifesting as an all-out attack on what, in fact, makes us great in the first place, if great “we” ever are to be.
And now independent ethical oversight of Congress is gone and taken over by the utterly stupid idea of self-regulation. That’s why Congress initiated such oversight in the first place–because ill-meaning people cannot and will not self-regulate in terms of well-accepted ethical principles. Their fundamental principle is Trumpian–the guiding principle is: whatever I want and can get away with.
And the lies and distortion of history keep coming. For instance, on CNN this morning a Republican Congressman was saying that the problem with the Affordable Care Act was that it was a one-party, one-person bill–that Obama didn’t bring others into the process. Huh? Besides the fact that it had Romney’s fingerprints all over it, what universe has this guy been living in for the last eight years? The topping on the cake was that the interviewer said nothing about it. All around post-truth–but worse, anti-truth.
I think “we” still just cannot believe how bad it is; and it’s difficult to get a grip on the whole thing insofar as it’s FAR beyond party politics. We are so used to walking on the rug that, now, is being pulled out from under our feet.
Catherine, why do you think that Trump’s presidency promises to be unparalleled in US history ? And why do you think, the US system (constitution, whatever) is the best, the greatest, provides the most freedom to its general population? What do you compare it with?
For example, in what sense do you think, you are in more control of what happens in this country than a citizen of, say, Denmark? Can we control our billionaires in any way? Is it possible that they and their corporations do things here and all over the world for which they would be imprisoned in most Western countries?
How many American billionaires supported Nazi Germany without ever being punished for it? How about their support of Chilean junta, Noriega, Iranian Shah, Saddam, Taliban?
Which country allows its troops to conduct war in other countries so readily? How many countries have our military been actively involved in since WWII? Is it less than 20?
How many people have gotten killed by US troops since WWII? How many millions?
Have we seen US politics putting life on this planet in grave danger before?
Why not watch the Oliver Stone series, and see what you say after?
In fact, I got quite encouraged watching it, because I realized, Trump is not a unique occurrence in US politics, his rise to power and his qualifications for the presidency, his cabinet appointees happened business as usual. So we do have examples for how to deal with such threats.
We do have things to do, things to change, so we can be proud of our record again.
Mate,
I am not so sure I would rely on Oliver Stone as a source for US history. He is a film maker, not a historian.
Diane “I am not so sure I would rely on Oliver Stone as a source for US history. He is a film maker, not a historian.”
Well, Stone did team up with a history prof. He lectures here about the present threat of the existing nuclear weapons (very much the greatest worry of non-Americans in relation to Trumps temperament) and dropping the bombs in WWII
https://www.c-span.org/video/?407365-1/atomic-bomb-use-world-war-ii
Here are the resources for the book with the same title as the documentary, including the name of the historians whose works they relied on.
http://www.untoldhistory.com/#resources
No doubt, presentation of history is always subjective, and there are always more questions than answers. It’s hard to deny certain facts and numbers though: the two dropped atomic bombs, the number of wars the US has engaged in, the number of billionaires who supported Nazi Germany, the Taliban, Iraq, Iran, etc.
Did you agree with Stone’s version of JFK assassination?
Maybe he should make his next movie about the Trump-Putin-Melania connection
Unless it’s math or swimming, all I can do is listen to what other people say and perhaps say “Hm, this sounds like a reasonable question.”
In his US history documentary, Stone doesn’t claim anything specific about the JFK assassination, he just states that even some people closely involved criticized the Warren report.
So in this case, all I can do is read
17 Doubts about the Warren Commission’s findings were not restricted to ordinary Americans.
Well before 1978, President Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and four of the seven members of
the Warren Commission all articulated, if sometimes off the record, some level of skepticism
about the Commission’s basic findings.
in
Click to access arrb-final-report.pdf
and understand, that there are unanswered questions surrounding the JFK murder. Is there a particular reason to take reports like the Warren report for granted? Do we (can we ever) trust our politicians enough to do so?
In any case, the specific question for which I referred to the Stone documentary is if the claim that billionaires have been adversely manipulating the US and world economy and politics for over a century and get away with it, is true.
Even closer to home: is it true that Gates manipulates both US and world politics on a large scale, and if so, why is he allowed to do that?
How can billionaires like Trump be stopped? Do we have to fight them one by one (fight only those billionaires who are doing stuff we don’t like), or is allowing people to get too rich and hence gain too much influence the basic problem?
Presently, I do believe, there is a general problem with allowing people to have much power, and hence a better system is needed to curb the power individuals can have. The freedoms we give to individuals should never compromise the well being of the rest of the population.
Mate’ Wierdl: A good place to find good (most of the time) critique of Stone’s films is in what the film critics write. Oftentimes, they will point up discrepancies that those of us in the general public cannot know; and I’ve seen in many cases they are critical enough to fact-check with historians and other writers. At least they might provide a good starting place for raising questions about his work.
Mate Wierdl: You say you want to be proud of our record again. Me too. What I am talking about is the always-potential framework of the Constitution and its freedoms (and all) that condition us to “form a more perfect union”–the one’s we benefit from and experience daily but, for way too many in my experience, the one’s “we” seem to forget about.
But what you are talking about is its failures, not its form. Those failures are human and threaten to take down the open framework and the protections it affords all of us–that’s what I am talking about. You are talking about today’s real-politic; and I agree with you on your take in most cases; but I am talking about the fact that real-politic is, again, a result of human failure; where the framework is ever-open to, and sometimes we succeed at, going beyond ourselves and our failures. Though, since hearing about and exploring Jane Meyer’s “Dark Money,” I think we are in unprecedented extremes of failed capitalism via human greed and lust for power–those and other failures.
I do like Denmark–but that conversation is for another time. The Constitution et al, however, bids us to transcend ourselves on many planes. If we don’t, then it’s “We” who are at fault, and not the form of government we have.
Catherine “But what you are talking about is its failures, not its form. Those failures are human and threaten to take down the open framework and the protections it affords all of us–that’s what I am talking about. ”
Actually, I do think that there are problems with the constitution itself: it doesn’t ensure democracy as much as it should, and provides less protection to the common people than it should.
Just think about how the system performs in matters related to the election: it’s not the humans (politicians) who fundamentally failed during the election, but the electoral system showed that it’s badly designed. Simple calculation shows that, in fact, the electoral system can allow a president who got only 20% of the popular votes.
Then there is the problem of the winning candidate choosing the whole cabinet, further magnifying the “winner takes all” principle inherent in the system. Presidential candidates certainly can win or lose an election, but the people shouldn’t.
And then the Supreme Court can consist of openly political members who, as we saw it in 2000, can decide the fate of an election.
I think there are many other problems with the Constitution. It really was a fantastic document at the time of its creation, probably the most advanced, most humane back then. I do not think it’s suitable for our times—and there is nothing embarrassing about stating this about a 240 years old, heavily patched document.
Mate: “Heavily patching” is another way to say the Constitution is flexible and open to change–according to how history changes–and intelligent people keep making it better. Are you suggesting we get rid of the Constitution–because it’s old? Good grief, if that’s the case, it’s really hopeless to keep this discussion going. (This is not the blog for that conversation anyway.)
Also, I didn’t follow through in my earlier note about why Rump is so much more dangerous than the others who were involved, even in the failures you remarked on in your note.
We’ve been talking about this difference for several months now and probably before I came on the scene. So if you want to know WHY (as you suggest in your other note) I for one see a great difference between Rump and others, then go back and read those notes. I’ll not repeat the same arguments, and recount the same red flags again and again when, again and again, you say the same things as if there were no difference.
Either you don’t care to understand, or you are involved in being deliberately obtuse.
Catherine “Heavily patching” is another way to say the Constitution is flexible and open to change–according to how history changes–and intelligent people keep making it better. ”
Next time, when my kids express their embarrassment over my wearing an old shirt my mother patched (and enlarged) many times over the years, I’ll just tell them, the shirt is not old but flexible. 🙂
Anyhow, I’d say the Constitution is not flexible but overly permissive, being vague, and it cannot be helped, since it was designed that way to reflect compromises the Founders made.
As for not listening to what you are saying: I did express my opinion in the very beginning (and then repeated it a few times as a reaction to your claiming otherwise) that the aggressive international politics and business practices of our country throughout the 20th century and in our century are permitted by our laws, and not the fault of the particularly bad humans here.
Rich people get away with things here for which they would be convicted as criminals in countries with laws that are more advanced in curbing individuals’ power. In a modern democracy, there is no place for the concept of “too big to fail”, as has been believed and practiced in this country for over a century, such as in case of Ford’s and GM’s dealings with Nazi Germany or in case of the banks 2008.
It’s not Gates’ fault, that he can dictate teacher evaluations in the whole country, or that he can conduct his insane experiments with our children. It’s our laws that has allowed him to gain such power over us.
I think our laws should reflect what Henry Wallace, FDR’s secretary of agriculture and then his VP, said close to 100 years ago
The ungoverned push of rugged individualism perhaps had an economic justification in the days when we had all the West to surge upon and conquer; but this country has filled up now, and grown up. There are no more Indians to fight. No more land worth taking may be had for the grabbing. We must experience a change of mind and heart.
http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw05.htm
I think these thoughts are especially timely. Perhaps we should reread Lewis’ “It can’t happen here” to remind ourselves that Trump’s rise is not as unexpected as many thought
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/shortcuts/2016/oct/09/it-cant-happen-here-1935-novel-sinclair-lewis-predicted-rise-donald-trump
There is a way to prevent this from happening in the future, and I do not see what else can be done but changing the laws.
It is a problem with our policy system when a governor can say “I want the philanthropist in here because s/he will”… and they make some kind of promises about the “philanthropy that I know are not “real” expectations. That is why it bothered me so much when Obama spoke about “philanthropy” in one of the State of the Union messages and why our Governor Baker is looking for his “hedge fund” cronies to be “philanthropic”… So the policy decision makers open the “Gates for Gates’ and let them in and we end up with the fox in the henhouse. I call it part of the “ancient domination systems” and we just haven’t modernized enough to be rational thinking human beings (we still have many flaws)
It’s not Gates’ fault, that he can dictate teacher evaluations in the whole country, or that he can conduct his insane experiments with our children. It’s our laws that has allowed him to gain such power over us.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
I’m wondering, Máté, if what needs changing is not the Constitution, which needs to be flexible but the laws governing economic activity, for example. We have let the law surrounding monopoly be relaxed to create a situation in which we have banks that are “too big to fail.” I have a suspicion that we and perhaps the world might still be suffering the consequences of letting our financial sector collapse if we had. What I resent most deeply is equating top banking executives with the companies as “too big to jail.” Elizabeth Warren has spoken quite convincingly on the need to reform Wall Street regulation. I don’t believe anything she has suggested requires a constitutional change. The Constitution provides a framework of principles that on rare occasion need revision. There is plenty of law we can fiddle with without a major reboot of the Constitution. Of course, you realize that I am talking through my hat; this mini lecture is just my understanding of how things are supposed to work and don’t when we get too lazy. I don’t think there is any system that can protect us from our own apathy and inattention.
I of course am not an expert either, 2o2t. But profs do research constitutions systematically, and hopefully it will have results. One thing is for sure: we have the oldest constitutions, while the average age of constitutions is 30 years. Jefferson apparently thought that ours should be renewed every 19 years.
“Our objective is to improve the science of constitutional design by developing a comprehensive data set that records the characteristics of constitutions, both contemporary and historical,” they wrote.
https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/206732
That sounds like an interesting project. I would be very interested in their take on what kind of constitution is “best” and why. I see some real strengths in ours, but it is a document and does nothing if we don’t use it. I am reminded of a survey that was done some time in the misty past on The Bill of Rights. People were asked whether they supported various provisions without reference to their presence in the Constitution. People voted against them! Given the current political climate (and numerous others I can think of in the past) do we really want the Constitution to be something that needs to be rewritten every 19-20 years? I much prefer amending it. The process is difficult but should change be easy? I want such change to take hard work and yet still have a safety net. With an amendment system we still have a structure in place while we are struggling with the changes. A predictable reboot puts an uncomfortable uncertainty in the equation. Now that I have pontificated a bit, I will try to leave it to people who have been putting a bit more effort into the issue. Well, probably not really. It is invigorating to have amiable discussions about such things. that is one thing I really appreciate about this blog. With a little bit of effort, most of us can agree to agree or disagree without shredding each other. For the outlier voices, I will try to listen. Don’t tear my throat out and I’ll try not to disembowel you!
In connection with Lakoff’s “positive framing”, I think the following may be important to note from the Illinois study
The U.S. Constitution is an example of a document that specifies “negative rights,” or the rights of citizens to be free from government intrusion.
Many constitutions, especially those written after World War II, emphasize “positive rights,” or the rights of citizens to decent housing, clean environment and good education from their governments.
Mate’–If I am correct in my reading of your note, you are saying we need more laws to curb overreaches of, for instance, the banks and people like Gates and the Koch brothers. I don’t think that’s a Constitutional issue, however. As someone else said here, it’s more about laws.
The other thing is more of a structural issue. That is, in between (a) the laws and (2) our personal actions is the realm of freedom. In another note, someone else remarked that our Constitution is the only one that explicitly retains and preserves unnamed rights to the States or to the people (Amendments IX and X).
The point being: More laws, less freedoms. In abusing our freedoms, then, we call down the need for more laws to preserve order and to “curb” that abuse. While we do so, we also encroach on the freedoms of us all. So that an abuse of our freedoms is an abuse of the common trust that lays at the basis of a Constitutional democracy that (our founders knew) best fosters a peaceful and vibrant way to live.
So yes–we probably need more laws to curb to-big-to-fail banks, like Glass Steigel; and Bank-Account-Bullies like Gates and the Kochs; but now the corporate oligarchs are so ingrained in actually writing the laws, and are so far beyond any authentic national identity (with the Constitutional Democracy of the United States), it doesn’t matter what the laws are–as so written–because they won’t do what is needed to preserve the Democratic order and unnamed rights anyway. And now the laws we have, as well as the Constitution, are under attack–which was my original point in the first place.
It’s like Putin’s world: He has so much power that, if HE doesn’t do what’s right, no one else will either–because they cannot. I hate to even think what’s next. In the end, it goes back to the people, on principle.
BTW, did you see that post from Solon in the thread for questions to pose to Betsy Devos? If not, go back and read the quotes from the book he cites–It reads like a Corporate Playbook for destroying the Republic and relates chillingly to the above.
“The point being: More laws, less freedoms. ”
Or could say “more laws to give less freedoms to exploit other people”. We love to talk about freedoms, but the fact is, the poorer your are born, the less freedoms you have.
I think it’s safe to say, a reasonable constitution declares “free education, including preschool and higher ed, and free healthcare are to be provided for everybody. Minimum wage needs to be living wage.”
Modern constitutions are precise, concrete and aim to be not open for interpretation.
It doesn’t matter if we call it constitution or laws. What’s important is to prevent what we have today: a few influential people can decide what happens in, say, education, or where we send troops “to protect American interests”, the political convictions of our supreme court judges can affect how they interpret the laws and what kind decisions they make, and the president can turn the whole country upside down by choosing the whole Cabinet.
Mate’ Wierdle writes: “Or could say ‘more laws to give less freedoms to exploit other people.’ We love to talk about freedoms, but the fact is, the poorer your are born, the less freedoms you have.”
The Constitution is a general document that doesn’t attempt to micro-manage. That’s why it’s so powerful. It lets history move without needing a whole lot of change. Like the foundations of a house set the frame for your rooms upstairs, but it doesn’t say what you can or cannot do in them.
You say: “I think it’s safe to say, a reasonable constitution declares “free education, including preschool and higher ed, and free healthcare are to be provided for everybody. Minimum wage needs to be living wage.”
I think that’s covered by the “provide for the general welfare” idea. But apparently, we’ve had trouble figuring that out. Also, I think historically they didn’t put that in because of the slavery issue–to placate the southern states–because they didn’t want to provide those things for slaves.
:You say: “Modern constitutions are precise, concrete and aim to be not open for interpretation.”
The shift to “the people” is an assumption that a democracy is always in an experimental mode, and that “the people” will keep their government, and if they don’t, they don’t. That’s another reason why the whole idea of education is already built into the very meaning of “democracy.”
You say: “It doesn’t matter if we call it constitution or laws.” BIG difference. Try tearing up your foundations of your house every few years, or at the whim of this or that historical situation or legislature, and see how secure you and you family feel, or how long your furnishings last. The laws can be much more easily changed, whereas the Constitution is much more comprehensive and a touchstone for the laws and for the social and cultural order.
And you say: “What’s important is to prevent what we have today: a few influential people can decide what happens in, say, education, or where we send troops ‘to protect American interests’, the political convictions of our supreme court judges can affect how they interpret the laws and what kind decisions they make, and the president can turn the whole country upside down by choosing the whole Cabinet.”
Yes. The people who voted for Rump could have prevented it.
Catherine ” That’s why it’s so powerful. It lets history move without needing a whole lot of change. Like the foundations of a house set the frame for your rooms upstairs, but it doesn’t say what you can or cannot do in them.”
Huh. Even the foundations of the sciences get rebuilt every few decades or so, though they are much more exact and precise than the rules of governing a country. Even math papers (the most precise of sciences) written in the 18th century are very vague according to today’s standards. Try to read Darwin’s not-so-old Origin and see how many times you stop and say “what the heck is he talking about?”
Let’s face it: many people are afraid that with Trump, the very foundations of our country (and even the world) will be shaken.
“I think that’s covered by the “provide for the general welfare” idea. But apparently, we’ve had trouble figuring that out. ”
Exactly, because the language is imprecise, outdated. Apparently, even at the time, Hamilton and Madison had different interpretations of what welfare is and how it relates to taxes.
“Yes. The people who voted for Rump could have prevented it.”
No, the people did their best: they provided 3 million more votes against him than for him. It was the Constitution that provided for the system that allowed Trump, the minority candidate, win. It’s the Constitution which provides this loser of the election with the power to select the whole cabinet, and hence to force his minority policies on the majority.
You are right, house foundations don’t need to be touched if they are solid. But if they are not, they need to be rebuilt. Our political process is corrupted, and all the people can do is stand by as we go to war in Iraq, Afghanistan, or as Duncan-King-DeVos-Gates like clowns overrule our common sense.
We need to stop treating the Constitution as a religious document. The Constitution is about real life where things change, hence let’s use modern science to design our foundations. Nobody says, though, we cannot use good foundation material from the past. The Italians built many of the houses in Rome using materials from the Roman empire and in many places, the original foundation runs 100 yards deep.
Mate’ The basics here are that the responsibility for the maintenance of the democracy is in the people–on principal. That doesn’t mean we cannot change the Constitution; or of course the laws as they go through the process.
I don’t think the problem is with the Constitution itself, but with it’s misuse and abuse by some who have used the beauty and freedom embedded in the Constitution to make it go away–and now it’s become systematic and on a completely different level of power. You think the Constitution is the problem–like those who use and abuse this one won’t be able to “creatively” work around another one? Are you looking for a police state? If you are, you may get one sooner than you think.
So that we chase our freedoms around with more and more laws, even if the laws were enforceable on that scale, until those freedoms are gone.
I’ve said this in other words before–so I think we’re not getting anywhere here–I think that’s an important–essential–issue, and you don’t. So, though I appreciate the conversation, let’s go on down the road?
As an aside, the sciences are part of but are not a constitutional democracy; and singular methods and content do change again and again, but scientific method as empirical, collaborative, speculative while anso verification-seeking has remained since we discovered it (and we can find traces of it in the Greeks). So, though we can abandon it, it is and hopefully remains foundational to any of the now-or-new sciences no matter how they change otherwise.
“Are you looking for a police state? ”
So if I say “free healthcare to all” I am suddenly promoting some kind of police state? Come on.
What’s next? If I say “We need to control billionaires’ influence”, I am suddenly a Stalinist?
Are the Scandinavian countries examples for police states?
Freedom is quite slippery: if people are too free in pursuing their dreams, they may become billionaires by profiting from other people’s work, hence preventing those people from achieving their dreams. If billionaires are free to use their money for whatever, they may use it to be able to tell the whole country what to do, hence policing what other people can do.
So one person’s freedom may be imprisonment for others.
This is why a generic statement about freedom is dangerous, and the laws dealing with it have to be designed much more carefully than it was possible 200 years ago—or even 50 years ago.
Laws need to be scientifically designed, and computers can be used to predict each law’s possible influence and its interaction with other laws to make sure, it will play its intended role. The idea is similar to what computers do to beat the best human chess players or predict the weather. Except weather is a much more complex thing: it is influenced by much more factors than the number of laws and their possible interactions.
for several years now I have written to recommend the Center for Civic Education in Calabasas as a model curriculum “We The People”… the schools have not been teaching civic education , civic participation, civic virtue (MA Council for the Social Studies complained that these concepts are not being taught because the time is going to testing reading and math and history has been crowded out of the curriculum). I know there are other curricula programs but I have no hesitation to recommend the Center for Civic Education (I attended many of their conferences and learned a lot there are always excellent AP history teachers in the audience and I learned the most from them). I think Sandra Stotsky used to work there… This whole curriculum study went through constant attacks with national critiques (before the common core) and Mrs. Cheny was involved. It has been heavily politicized and I think the social studies/history teachers (just like the science teachers) get driven out of the classrooms by the extreme political views and censorship. The Calabasas center lost their federal funds when there was a revolt against “earmarking” funds in congress but I know Ted Kennedy supported their programs and helped to expedite things in this state (MA) but , unfortunately, it is left up to the teacher to volunteer to use the curriculum and it ended up in only the AP classes (where some of the other classes need it as do the elementary schools.) The history teacher that I know best from that program offers a “lyceum” for parents/adults in his community to talk about these same issues that are in the curriculum (he is retired so he has the time to do it). Some of these herculean efforts by “teachers” in their communities are totally invisible…. and the political system does not support or reward their values …. Be vigilant.. hold on to the science curriculum …. there will be a lot of “deniers” in the federal and state government; isn’t it the NOAA and other agencies saving their data files because we will be going through the “dark ages ” again and all the inquisition methods to destroy the history/files/ etc… etc. At Boston University we always said “keep another set of the data at home in the freezer” in case of fire… Be vigilant… the fires are burning out there….
Mate’ Again, you miss my meaning: “‘So if I say “free healthcare to all’ I am suddenly promoting some kind of police state? Come on.”
To you I would say: “Come on.” I was talking about the encroachment of laws on our freedoms as a general notion. Again, even with such a law stated as you say above, those who hate it and with power will find a way to dis-empower or work around it. THAT was my point. To stop that kind of movement, we would have to end in a police state, and even then it probably wouldn’t stop–never has. And when does the responsibility of the person, like Gates as our example, come in? The power and responsibility is mediated in the tension between the people and the laws that we live under, of course, but it shifts to be located in the the people with the experimental nature of the Constitution–a shift that you don’t seem to be able to grasp.
But We’re done here. Or at least I am.
being a lurker, on this one…. I know when my nephew bought a funeral home in Maine he insisted his 3 and 4 year old kids wear helmets when they were bike riding (my nephews on the open roads, not so much, meh!!!)
But We’re done here. Or at least I am.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
Catherine “Again, even with such a law stated as you say above, those who hate it and with power will find a way to dis-empower or work around it.”
This is a gun-lobby kind of argument. Laws controlling billionaires and providing healthcare do work in other countries. We should try them, before we announce, they wouldn’t work.
“Laws need to be scientifically designed, and computers can be used to predict each law’s possible influence and its interaction with other laws to make sure, it will play its intended role.”
Máté, tell me you didn’t say that! After all our conversations about computers, you want to rely on computer algorithms to predict what effect they might have?! You still have people deciding what variables to consider only now a machine will rigidly spit out what those individuals decided was important. I’m for a big messy democratic procedure.
I am totally with Catherine on our Constitution and what function it fulfills.
2old2teach: Thank you for picking up on the algorithms thread in Mate’s note. I was a little drop-jawed at that comment too. There’s nothing like a good plan, especially when it comes together well. But I have often thought the desire for exact prediction in many scientists is an indication of scientific hubris issuing in a further desire for control, but also based on a misunderstanding of how history and the human mind work, and work together. But when I read that paragraph, I don’t know why, but I was reminded of the movie Farenheight 451?
“But I have often thought the desire for exact prediction in many scientists is an indication of scientific hubris issuing in a further desire for control, but also based on a misunderstanding of how history and the human mind work, and work together. ”
I am not talking about exact predictions; that would be foolish. But it’s certainly possible to make much better evaluations of the effect of laws with the help of computers: while humans can see only a few steps ahead, computers can see trillions and trillions steps ahead. This is why computers now beat even the best human chess players. Still, computers are not doing “inhuman” thinking, they just do their simple, repetitive steps much faster than we do.
Here is a concrete example what I mean by the exact nature of “scientific prediction”. Imagine that the Founders had Excel spreadsheet at their disposal. Now, as soon as they propose the Electoral College system, they could have used Excel to examine all possible election scenario and find that under this system, it’s possible to become president with only 20% of the popular votes. This statement doesn’t predict that this disaster will happen, but shows that it’s possible. It’s also possible to calculate the likelihood>/em> of this happening. Can we say that for sure, this extreme election will happen? Of course not, as we cannot say for sure, it would rain or snow tomorrow.
Still, do you think our Founders would have gone ahead with the Electoral College had they known this possibility?
Have you guys seen “The imitation game”? It depicts one of the first uses of a computer to find familiar patterns in language—and, in fact, in a highly coded language. The main realization of Turing was that the only way to break the Enigma code was to use a computer—which then needed to be built. The film also shows well how humans and a computer can divide up the work (like what to do with the data the computer found). That’s what NSA does every day—though it’s well known that they try to rely on computers more than warranted.
So evaluation of language via statistics and computers is not new, and google, facebook, cryptologists and cryptographers do it all the time.
My law prof friend told me even 15 years ago that he barely uses the beautiful, thick law books on his shelf anymore since he does all his searches of laws online. He also tried to persuade me to team up with the CS profs to write a program that would find ‘small prints’ in legal documents and contracts and another one that would find correlation in the scope and effects of various laws—since my friend’s specialty was to compare laws of various countries and design international laws that would play well with many countries’ laws at once, and he spent much of his time drawing flowcharts.
As for the connection between our thoughts and the language (laws) we use to formulate them: that’s one of the objects of study of cognitive scientists like Lakoff.
So I am not sure, it’s all hubris to mention science in a post about the science of how to use language to affect thought and hence human behavior.
Let us take the 20K page long federal tax code. Do you think humans can figure out all the interactions of the laws in it? The possible combinations run in the hundreds of trillions, and that’s just a very generous underestimate.
Computers can help, not replace humans. For example, 200 years ago, computers would have told the Founders, how bad the Electoral college is, how many different (even extreme) interpretation the vaguely formulated laws might have, and hence how the political affiliation and religious beliefs of the Supreme Court judges may affect the interpretation of the laws.
What is possible to do with the help of computers is to propose a law, and then figure out if it has any conflicts with other laws, if it creates any loopholes, and also predict its effect in the future.
What computers can do is examine all the possible interactions, contradictions with other laws, and issue warnings. Experts can then adjust the laws accordingly.
As for the possible science in the design of the laws: we now know exactly how to make language precise, so that whatever we state will not be open to interpretation.
As for agreeing with Catherine: I do not know which of her statements you agree with. Vague laws result in unpredictable outcomes. True? If laws do not control the billionaires, they will exploit other people, won’t they? If the laws allow a minority candidate win the elections, will it happen? If the laws allow the minority president to choose his whole cabinet, can he do it to fit his own dumb and dangerous agenda? If the laws allow healthcare to be viewed as a market and not a basic human right, will insurance and drug companies and hospitals charge insane amount of money for their services?
What Catherine stated was that to accomplish the control I mentioned would lead to a police state. But I have been traveling around Europe for decades, and I do not see the police states—not more than here, for sure. On the other hand, I do not see kids taking exams day and night, I do not see people paying college debts back for decades, I do not see textbook companies controlling curriculum and teacher certification, I do not see kids without health insurance.
True, college presidents are not free to make many times more than the country’s president, and CEOs are not free to make 1000 times more than their employees, but that’s a small price to pay for providing more freedoms for the rest of the population.
In general, the more vaguely freedoms are defined in the laws, the less people will be able to enjoy them.
The question is this: if you don’t want to control Gates with laws, how else can you do it?
“Let us take the 20K page long federal tax code. Do you think humans can figure out all the interactions of the laws in it? The possible combinations run in the hundreds of trillions, and that’s just a very generous underestimate.”
Perhaps a simpler tax code…?
I’ve been the tech at our multiple sites for a long time. As you stated, Mate, there’s a role for computers in society. No doubt. But there’s also a responsibility on our part, as a society, to create frameworks that are useable and enough within our grasp (both in terms of comprehension and implementation ) to serve on a local as well as national and state level.
I think we’ve been losing sight of that concept. Tech has become the go-to which allows for larger scale planning than would be otherwise possible. This is great in many areas but not all.
One area of excess can be found in our field of education. I see it on my job where the push in tech would make the teacher into the tool of technology, which is bass ackwards, imo.
” Perhaps a simpler tax code…?….there’s a role for computers in society. No doubt. But there’s also a responsibility on our part, as a society, to create frameworks that are useable and enough within our grasp ”
And how can we make sure, the taxcode is comprehensible?
For example, 200 years ago, computers would have told the Founders, how bad the Electoral college is, how many different (even extreme) interpretation the vaguely formulated laws might have, and hence how the political affiliation and religious beliefs of the Supreme Court judges may affect the interpretation of the laws.”
No they wouldn’t have… because the algorithms would have been written by the very people who formulated the electoral college. You are proposing a VAM system for the Constitution.
Mate”: says: “It’s not Gates’ fault, that he can dictate teacher evaluations in the whole country, or that he can conduct his insane experiments with our children. It’s our laws that has allowed him to gain such power over us.
No, but it’s Gates’ fault that he DOES such dictating. How much of that fault reaches back into his (probably mostly technical) education is an unanswered, but significant question.
we have a governor who considers himself an expert in hedge fund management (like Romney)…. did you see my comment yesterday about Romney’s other “foot in mouth” when he said he “received binders of women”… we had a few connotations to share about that around the breakfast table!!!
I get really nasty to Governor Baker; Weld started the charter school theme in his tenure and Governor Patrick worked out the funding formula calling it “a work in progress” but it still has to be tweaked and massaged because almost 25 years later it just doesn’t work and my friend in LWV calls it a “whacko” formula. Alll the identifications of “children on hot lunch” AFDC counts have changed in the interim and the state does not have the proper data to follow up to even count our kids. It is like the city of Lawrence or Lowell when they can’t even get the school busses out to the proper places to pick up the kids (takes them 6 weeks to get the bus routes accurate every Sept-Oct).
This is reminding me of the computerized health care data base; it was working for a bit, then they change the computer requirements because of “Affordable Care” and didn’t get the routines worked through — what a mess… and our data counts on our students are looking like that because of the way they have to match up records. Can I put it here (I know it is boring or some and considered “idle banter ” by others but to me it is important in how we operate schools.
reaches back into his (probably mostly technical) education is an unanswered, but significant question.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
jeanhaverhill: Yes, I did see Romney’s other “foot-in-mouth” remark about “binders of women.” When called on it, he seemed so “deer-in-the-headlights” about it. I wonder if he still is.
But about Gates, DeVos, the Koch brothers, and so many others’–I think we are all suffering from history’s blowback, or payback, however you want to read it–for the slow but consistent denigration in our schools and their teaching of history, the arts and humanities, and more generally “liberal studies.”
The other thing is that the** public school argument IS complex** and doesn’t easily yield to good soundbites to present to sometimes-desperate parents. Basically, the argument from the other side has a reasonable sound to it (it’s slick), especially in our USA context where we are virtually saturated with advertising and the money-only mindset, or with the assumption that being wealthy automatically comes with integrity and a kind of godlike knowledge of every under the sun. The argument sounds good, but is really either not thought-out well, or it’s a con job plain and simple, which makes it specious.
The fact that it sounds so reasonable and is supported by business-people who, of course, are good at what they do–making money regardless (and for the cons, fooling people) then it must be good for my child, especially with the grand promises and immediate benefits offered by private companies. Even Obama bought it. (Call me naive and optimistic, but I’m convinced he wouldn’t have supported what he did support had he really paid attention and understood what is going on.) In any case, it’s obvious that way too many have no idea about the serious (to them) difference between public and private where education is concerned.
So the cons have the complexity of the issue on their side, along with the funds and in part, the national consciousness that is so worshipful of the wrong things. The intended “con-ees” are well-meaning but not involved in understanding the depth of the problems they are being conned about.
The truth of the ongoing critique of charters, etc., is coming forward, however, with every headline that reaches the Press and that Diane posts here about the concrete failures of promises of charters and privatization in general, and the fraud being perpetrated on parents and students with their tax money. How many will remain in the fog of post-truth judgments and demi-god worship, and for how long, is I guess the question of the moment.
I wouldn’t call you naive at all… with foreign policy and so many wars going on he had to trust other people and he trusted the wrong guy Arne Duncan … I think this way about Bloomberg also because I trust him on climate change (science) but I do NOT trust him on schools. is the saying, “2 out of 3 ain’t so bad”?
And, you are right about the “sound bites”…. I have wondered why someone hasn’t invented an electronic bumper sticker so that as you drive down the highway you can’t just change the flashing words to go with the context at each level of interchange (good thing is , on the highway, the person who cuts you off is likely to get off the next exit whereas in politics they hang around for the “long haul” …
Catherine: I am agreeing with you “denigration in our schools and their teaching of history, the arts and humanities, and more generally “liberal studies.” and I would specifically add civic knowledge, civic participation, civic virtue which the MA Council of the Social Studies has complained about through 2 governors now. And, the Commissioner says “come up with a test from Pearson first” and then we will consider civic education — there must be a test!!!! and he doesn’t hear the teachers and denigrates them. This is a decades old story when the “business” majors were favored and “hard sciences” were rewarded. I can recall even from the 1960s — the Miller Analogies Test — you teachers score low like ministers… and human service workers — all of whom were treated in the same fashion … more prevalent or more obvious today?
jeanhaverhill About civics education ABSOLUTELY with stars all around it. (Though I understand the problems with the testing mania, testing for civics shouldn’t be so difficult?)
But as the article from the Huffington Post said (I posted it this morning), because of recent events, the fake news thing, along with recognizing personal biases, has to be a part of educational curriculum today. However, the movement against the arts, humanities, and generally liberal studies over the last century up to now has been consistent and strong, and more so as more and more administrators have only or even mostly business or technical/science kinds of curricula in their background–they are the ones with the power to control departments and curricula, especially at the university level.
AND now we have the oligarchs (with their multiple ideological motivations) trying to rid the academy of anything remotely associated with WHAT THEY THINK OF as “liberal,” and falsely so under the banner of conservatism. <–what a colossal joke THAT is. So they are politicizing the university from the right about what they see as politicizing from the left–which is so in some cases, we must admit. But in many cases, they also view simply questioning corporations for truth in the context of a search for the common good as liberal propaganda aimed at corrupting the youth. So that providing the conditions for students to question the powers-that-be is a form of liberal corruption. Right. (Pun intended.)
The assault on a liberal (liberating) education, though, and the gravitation of authority away from those studies and towards the “hard” sciences and business, IS political, but also has a deeply flawed philosophical history. Such an “education,” however, commonly doesn’t raise questions about one’s deeper assumptions that already, in turn, influence their ongoing activities (as liberal studies does). that “shallow” background can “produce” persons who are very smart in some regards, but morally and spiritually stunted and, therefore, very dangerous indeed for what what is absent in their understanding of themselves and of the human condition. These things many do not think significant from the get-go. What is beautiful and inspiring for some, induces boredom in others.
But I wander–so sorry you are having so much trouble there–but I applaud you in your consistent efforts. I doubt we’ve been in a time when our voices are more important.
“I’m still stuck in the facts and reason mode. I haven’t figured out how to change that.”…. I’ve got the same problem! Let me know if you figure out how to abandon the “facts and reason” mode…
I have been living in the South for over 20 years. Here, you have plenty of opportunities to talk to and argue with people with a hierarchical (authoritative) view of the world.
In my experience, if you want to make sure, they are in your mode of arguing and not theirs, ask them questions that start with a “Why”. Normally, they don’t support their statements with facts and logic—they just express opinions because that’s how the authoritative world works: those above you give you orders you need to execute or they express opinions you must take for granted. So the “why” will stop them in their tracks.
I find that people with authoritative background usually try to get an upper hand during a conversation, and have a hard time arguing “democratically”, so at an equal level. They want to win an argument, and if that doesn’t work, they’d rather stop arguing and accept what you say than get into an argument to benefit both parties equally.
It’s worth Listening to Rush Limbaugh, how confidently he talks on his show where all the listeners are his admirers, and then listen to those rare interviews where he is asked to support his claims.
It’s basically impossible to change an authoritative person’s worldview (as it’s very difficult to change the worldview of a “nurturing” person), but the majority of the people are “in between”, and those can be pursued.
I like Mate’s post and have had success working with the “Why” word, too. I also find that it’s important to stay as unemotional as possible. The “hand wringing/knee jerk liberal” label sets in when someone start to express their feelings.
I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. Transactional Analysis theorizes the child, parent, and adult roles that make up our personalities.
Many of the people I know who are in the Conservative camp, tend to have a high percentage of the Controlling/Critical (unyielding) parental role.
It would be easy to say that people who fit the Liberal/Progressive bill would lean heavily into the “Adult” realm, but I think that, were this the case, we’d be more successful in our communications.
The problem, in my experience, comes when the “Nurturing Parent” intercedes, which is an emotional response as opposed to the objective, rational “Adult”.
Using therapy to strengthen the “Adult” in our personalities can result in positive outcomes when it comes to disorders caused by an overly Controlling “Parent”. I’ve had similar positive results when I stay focused on the “Adult” part of my personality during a discussion/debate with an unyielding “Parent”.
Here is an interview with Lakoff where he is criticizing an NPR report on charter schools. and he clarifies what he means by “positive” framing.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/george-lakoff/?hootPostID=7703f8ecd6174906d4a2eb2b7e842b92
Mate Wierdl: I appreciate hearing this interview–I commented on it, however, in another thread and repost it here en total, FYI (sorry for the mispelling of Lakoff’s name):
QUOTING ALL BELOW
Diane: That pretty much covers it.
But I think the “demagogue” thing is what connects Rump up with so many of his supporters who do not respond to his many outrageous comments and actions–and here’s the odd thing–in ways they normally would respond in any other case. The outrage is still there for others whom they do not like. So it seems to me the situation is far from reasonable. This absence of outrage puts the relationship between Rump and a good many of his followers in the same category as a cult and their cult figure. They quite literally go morally-spiritually blind where their leader is concerned, or they blame someone or something else, but with more intensity than deserved, or consider that “he must have a good reason,”
Also, in another note, Mate linked to a brief interview with George Lackoff where, in my view, the same issue as above is overlooked–the cult relationship. Everything Lackoff says about reframing is true and helpful in many respects. However, again, its incomplete–precisely because, commonly when we don’t think about how someone else’s framing is (deliberately or not) guiding our own thoughts, we are prone to allow such framing to occur–a cult’s followers are no different. On the other hand, if we are aware, we can reframe if need be–in mass movements of thought, the quicker the better.
But I have to ask what reframing does, or how effective will or could it be, when faced with the cult relationship, and especially in such a massive number of people? I think that’s what’s missing in Lackoff’s interview and viewpoint. If so, clues about how to initiate a breakthrough, I think, will have to come from another profession.
Also, about the ethics turnaround today: considering Rump’s past, I can give him no credit for ever doing anything right for the right reasons. We already see too many Charlie Browns playing to Lucy and her football. We want so badly for him to be authentic. Alas. END QUOTE
Catherine, the other word that goes with “cult” is “demagogue.”
Think Jim Jones and Koolaid.
“But I have to ask what reframing does, or how effective will or could it be, when faced with the cult relationship, and especially in such a massive number of people? ”
Reframing makes more people listen to you. Hardliners won’t, no matter what you say.
Somewhere, Lakoff writes that about 30% of the people are authoritative, 30% are nurturing, and 40% are swingers. The swingers are the ones who can be persuaded using appropriate framing.
The hope is that many of the people in Trump’s camp voted for him simply because they wanted change, and, in fact, they already look worried as they see billionaires popping up in his cabinet. I certainly do know Trump fans like that.
Mate’ Wierdl: Yes–I’m talking about the point where “authoritative” mindedness turns into the deeply troubled psychopathology of completely abandoning one’s critical judgment so that a person believes in a “leader” no matter what. (I guess that’s what you mean by “hardliners.”) My point is that it’s cult-ish and cannot be changed merely by reframing arguments.
But as a case in point for your post, and which reflects Lakoff’s point about reframing, I’m just now listening to C. Shumer who used the nice metaphor about the Affordable Care Act: “the Republicans are like the dog who caught the bus.” (Good luck with that.) But it seems that democrats have finally gotten past having their bell rung and are meeting Rump-Conway-type rhetoric and tweets with reframing: With regard to the ACA, Rump’s “Make America Great” is now “Make America Sick Again.”
But about some who just voted for change, regardless of WHY we needed change, but are now “worried” about the presence of new bottom feeders in the swamp: now they’re invested in having voted for Rump; and so they have to defend that and what he’s doing TO (1) their own inner intelligence and reasonability which heretofore they have abandoned, at least in a political context; and TO (2) those who are now involved with shouting the truth from the rooftops and exposing the evidence, including the clarity of the fact that those followers actually voted against their own interests in many aspects of their own lives.
But I think the HATE-OBAMA-CLINTON bleeding-teeth intensity, that is still saturating much of the discussion, still has its source in a huge number of people having shifted from merely authoritative consciousness into the psychopathology of the cult. It’s reminiscent of the people who worshiped Hitler. My hope is that with the passage of time, and as long as the Constitution holds up, it will go away on its own and many will wake up to what they are responsible for. If many are “worried,” it’s a good sign that they are on their way out of the theatre–they should be.
In my view, the only ignorance and meanness that is worse that Rump’s is located in his followers.
http://hechingerreport.org/reform-democrats-stop-calling-trump-names-really-support-policies/
Everyone should read the opinion piece from the Hechinger Report. Thanks for the link, Jean.
2old2teach: Here is a quote from that article; and I’d like to know what you and Jean think about this article? It looks like a warning to me–that the fight for public schools is already over, and guess what: we lost.
“The real question is, to what extent will Democrats who promote charter schools but disagree with Trump in other ways force limitations on school choice?”
Even the question is loaded with assumptions that “lean” the argument towards the idea of compromise; but not between public/private schools, but rather between REFORMER democrats and the coming of the DeVos-type policies. We are already past “my way or the highway” about public-school education and into complaining about democrats “forc(ing) limitations on school choice” which, I assume correctly?, is not about “limitations” but rather about accountability for charters and vouchers when using public funding? (Interesting shift of words there.) It’s actually asking: Why would democrats “force” accountability (limitations?) merely because we hate Trump (because, of course, we call him names.)
In my view: What a garbage article. Please inform me otherwise?
That quote translates into “Democrats don’t ‘like’ Trump, so they automatically reject or ‘force limitations on’ school choice”? (I guess we must be ideological and even tribal like they are.) That rejection can have nothing to do with actually exposing what “school choice” means to all of these folks: kill public education and give free and unaccounted-for money from taxpayers? or that, from both camps,public education is already a thing of the past? Puullllleeeeeese. The article even diminishes the argument that what’s important is what’s good for the kids? The slipping-it-in wording is pure sleeze.
Also, it’s no secret that public-school advocates are in conflict with the Republican party as such AND a good number Democrats, even Obama.
Please enlighten me: How does this article do anything but argue to Democratic “reformers” for a Jim-Crow treatment of education in America? that is, like Jim Crow had to accept that we freed the slaves and so went underground to systematically destroy equality with their same attitudes and power in place at the local level; so so-called education reformers must accept that public education still exists, despite their attempts to “starve it” (so it looks bad to those who want a good education for their children). And so they talk as if they are racists attending a Klan rally–leaving out of their entire argument the efforts to keep and to foster the quality of public education. They bought the ball park; and so our team cannot even play there anymore.
I welcome having my argument above contradicted. Like many arguments that are occurring presently, I don’t even WANT to be right about this one–though Hechinger’s is not exactly a bastion of liberal thought.
Hi Catherine. This speaks towards retaining the public school system:
“Young people don’t live wholly in schools; they live in communities. If Democrat reformers want children to live in nurturing communities and not just charter schools, they must move beyond myopic quid pro quo politics. Democrats can no longer afford to wittingly miss the forest for the charter school trees.”
Your quote signals a retreat from public schools, while I think this one is a little more “middle of the road”:
“I look forward to Democrats divorcing themselves from a relationship of convenience with Republicans, who have elevated what a school choice proponent really looks like in DeVos. Real dissent from Democrats should equate to aggressively limiting DeVos’s policies, which have included restricting state oversight, promoting for-profit charter management organizations and encouraging vouchers for private schools including those that are faith-based.”
I think the author makes some clear and coherent sense, but I also definitely share your concern. The specter of a complete dismantling could easily pave the way for a less invasive, but still destructive course for public education. The Dems have been on board for school reform from the start. No reason for them to fall back on the system they abandoned, years ago. now.
gitapik: Thank you for your response, but I don’t “read” these paragraphs from the article in the same way you do. I’ll quote a paragraph then add a a brief comment after each:
QUOTE “Young people don’t live wholly in schools; they live in communities. If Democrat reformers want children to live in nurturing communities and not just charter schools, they must move beyond myopic quid pro quo politics. Democrats can no longer afford to wittingly miss the forest for the charter school trees.”
First sentence: fine. After that, are they promising some kind of community “nurturing,” or just waving a carrot? The rest of this paragraph seems, again, like a veiled attempt to move accountability off the grid. <–and that remains the most absurd thing about this whole argument. As I read it, Democrats should consider abandoning their “myopic quid quo pro politics” (expecting public oversight of public money given to charter etc. schools) in trade for a fiction: Republican’s nurturing communities?
You say: “Your quote signals a retreat from public schools, while I think this one is a little more “middle of the road.” It’s just mushy?
**QUOTE: “I look forward to Democrats divorcing themselves from a relationship of convenience with Republicans, who have elevated what a school choice proponent really looks like in DeVos. Real dissent from Democrats should equate to aggressively limiting DeVos’s policies, which have included restricting state oversight, promoting for-profit charter management organizations and encouraging vouchers for private schools including those that are faith-based.”
I guess that’s instead of pointing to her inexperience, bad record, and religious zealotry? I think the writer is trying to say to Democrats–we’re putting the fox in the hen house. Now YOU keep him from eating the chickens–because she WILL be “hired.” Also, the president-elect is trying to dumb down his cabinet so that he looks more experienced and smarter than they do. He may have something in the Devos nomination . . . and . Speaking of quid quo pro. . . .
Have to say they I agree with you. Not very happy with it either.
The vote No on #2 was agreed to by citizens in my city (percentage was close to 60% /40% who did not want the cap lifted) but I cannot say “we won” because the same issues come back the very next day in a different program area in a different sense or with some “lingo” changed because it is a permanent part of the agenda that Charley Baker pushes (and most governors who are republican choose) and it will come in through the Trump federal agenda…. If he Baker comes out with a “new ” plan for funds for preschool you can bet that he will have tagged/earmarked “charter school” only funds as some part of it … or some other way he can push his own agenda and he has “stacked the deck” just like they pack the supreme court…. politics is war, or “war” is politics but it is never ending…. it’s hard to use the terms won/lost… This is an ongoing assault on public education just as in health care/social security/medicare etc. what we see is they are pushing ahead with their plan for not funding human services…. and we have one of those republican governors in MA who wants to copy Walker/Christie/Pence etc. who will applaud Trump . Today the Pioneer Institute has an op ed on why Devos is good (for charter schools etc)…. and we live in a blue state. …. They will push you out of the plane with no parachute so we have to constantly work with families/voters on the important issues because there is a total assault on pubic education .
for public schools is already over, and guess what: we lost.
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
jeanhaverhill says: “. . . but I cannot say ‘we won’ because the same issues come back the very next day in a different program area in a different sense or with some ‘lingo’ changed because it is a permanent part of the agenda that Charley Baker pushes . . . “
Straight from the Republican playbook. In the case of the recent ethics thing, and the ACA, they are up against (finally) an attentive public where (1) Republicans really want to gut any funding for public programming and (2) they don’t want the public to know it; and (3) they don’t have the time to wait for the attention to go away so they can just change the wording and still do what they want, while making it sound like it’s “what the American people really want.” With the ethics thing, they forgot: people believed the Rumper–and it wasn’t about getting rid of independent ethics oversight–though I don’t know what they expected with someone like him in the White House. Go figure on that one.
But the article just sounds like more word play, diversions, and carrots to me.
“I welcome having my argument above contradicted. Like many arguments that”
we had these very same discussions at our League of Women Voters meeting yesterday and it will continue. The legislature is meeting to discuss funding; the League won’t even have a position statement until state annual meeting… so we are “behind the 8 ball” so to speak but the fight goes on continuously. We could get consensus from 8 people in the study group and then someone says “but competition is good for schools” etc. and then someone else says “well deadwood teachers need to be fired”… and this is in a group of supposedly bipartisan individuals. (I keep telling them I cannot be “bipartisan” about the destruction of pubic education” . ) I figure when I disagree with one person on a question then I am missing something or I haven’t fully thought through all the issues. (for example, we could not get consensus on this question: “should the state continue to limit the number of students in charter schools in a district based on a percentage of the net school spending within each school district?” (The legislature has to take into consideration the No on #2 vote when they look at the funding issues; but we already have 200 or more charter schools, pilot schools, and schools under “SIG” status (hybrid).
Bill Phillis (Ohio E&A ) has this on his blog today. https://edexcellence.net/articles/betsy-devos-deserves-the-support-of-education-reformers?utm_source=Fordham+Updates&utm_campaign=af954efdad-20160918_LateLateBell9_16_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d9e8246adf-af954efdad-71523093&mc_cid=af954efdad&mc_eid=7654c01fdd
we also have an op ed from the Boston Pioneer Institute saying similar things…. this is an everyday fight….
It’s important to know what Hechinger report says, what Fordham Institute says, what Pioneer Institute says…. placing the article in view is like passing something across the breakfast table with a cup of coffee (Did you see this?)
Voting No on #2 in MA (with percentages running 60% to 40%) did NOT stop the assail by the governor, or Stephen Lynch (rep) or Sagan, or Peyser… they are still there …. and they have a drumbeat message and they keep appointing people with similar views to important positions in the state.
“…they keep appointing people with similar views to impotent positions in the state.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if your slip was closer to the truth. I’d like to keep every last one of them “impotent.”
I agree as in “powerless”…….. but as Elizabeth Warren is stating “we will hold you accountable” and that needs to be on every little detail on every move and every action. transparent and accountable.
jeanhaverhill: Sounds like cancer spreading to me.
Jeanhaverhill: A post-script: Though Romney’s “percent speech” was revealed, and though he didn’t win the presidency, I remember the large group of people who paid big bucks to sit there; and they most probably feel the same way as Romney did at that time–or worse. What has changed?
agreed. (the Romney speech)… But he was a governor in MA who withheld state funds and the local cities/towns have to tax themselves and the less affluent cities don’t have the tax base to come up with short fall so they have to tax themselves disproportionately. We have the pubic schools in the urban cities (not just Boston) ….but Boston gets all the attention (except when Arne Duncan shows up for a photo op as he did in Lawrence )… I want to place in here what the “whacky” formula is doing to our inner /cities/urban /less affluent areas. from the MA Association of Schools Committees (and the data come from the Annie Casey Kids County data files … it will take me one more space to get the comment. Thanks Catherine for your patience.
“Democrats should consider abandoning their “myopic quid quo pro politics” (expecting public oversight of public money given to charter etc. schools) in trade for a fiction: Republican’s nurturing communities?”
this is also the interpretation that I am also reading into it… because I get it all the time…. “be moderate” “compromise” “suck it up, buttercup” and worse from colleagues of 40 years who have been in pubic education such as the colleague who says “some teachers need to be fired”… and she is very smug about her comment and her hubris of perfection …. it takes me 1/2 hour sometimes to respond… “but they will still have to go through due process” (to fire anyone)… then I get the political spiel “well you democrats have to change your message” ( or “get out your message better” )… it just infuriates me. This “smugness” from a person who claims to be aware of “both sides” … i just imagine that she can’t deal with conflict and won’t confront anyone on an issue so she uses a talking point direct from Fox news. There is a lot worse going on like a “civil war” so I am just avoiding individuals at gatherings other than meetings that I am obligated to attend…. I keep hoping for Elizabeth Warren’s “spine of steel” to get me through these conversations with so called “moderates” who listen to Fox news for 10 years or more and claim to be “bipartisan”… or whatever … it is an attitude of “i’m above it — so let’s you and him fight ” (which is notorious in the “games people play” psychology) …
jeanhaverhill writes five interconnected posts about the situation in Massachusetts education in response to my comment about Romney’s made-famous speech in a “closed’ meeting where the intended audience for that speech were high-dollar donors to his then-campaign. My point was that, though Romney lost the election (probably in great part because of the video publication of that speech), the idea perpetrated there is still “out there” particularly in the in-house audience for that speech.
First, my knowledge of Massachusetts ed is “lite;” so tell me if I am off-base in my comments(?), which are mostly more general that specific to Mass.
Second, as I write, I’ve one eye on the hearings; so the political issues that infuse your posts about Massachusetts are dynamic and being played out as we speak. I too am looking forward to Warren’s input. I’d like to note here, however, how with so much ease, Rump and Company moves from a focus on persons to a focus on issues, and back again–depending on his needs.
Third, a question: Are you saying that, though the #1 status (as reported in EdWeek), is a source of pride for the State, the status is in part a result of a kind of “whackey” gerrymandering of funding (much lower score on “equity”) so that the “gaps” are wider than they look for the reporting?
Fourth, about argumentation with such persons as you describe: the specifics are always important of course. However, I think we all sense a kind of party-based obtuseness (dogmatism) going on in such discussions (?) so that talking to an idealogue (of various intelligence, and questionable integrity, moral comportment and patriotics) is only a bit better than talking to troll–so that choosing your battles becomes a preliminary thought.
Also, it may be helpful (I hope) to think about the distinction between this person’s (and your own) (a) take on the specific arguments and (b) their political foundations, the basic differences from your own, and how those foundations will, in most if not all cases, emerge in and even define, in almost predictable ways, the specifics of our arguments. A fictional excursion: consider that this person, in fact, has the basic political foundation as you do (in our case, with regard to education); and then as naught. In either case, what generally would their arguments be like, and how would they differ, on specific issue x?
Consider then, if their foundations differ from yours–and to be concrete, say, that person’s foundations are rooted in the Ayn Randian ideas that came forth so clearly in Romney’s famous speech–(too simply, but) that there are takers and makers; that the 47 percent were takers; and that the makers must do everything in their power to stop the takers from taking, and to leave the field open for the makers–whatever their panoply of good and bad motivations. In such cases, and as nebulous and variable as such persons can be, insofar as they still live in an albeit-battered democracy consisting OF that percentage-constituency, in order to remain in the argument, then they are “commissioned” by their foundations to dissemble, mislead, double-speak, that constituency.
This is too long already, and I’m feeling lame about it because of my lack of knowledge of specific issues in Massachusetts; but I think that (perhaps?), where frustrations in argumentation are concerned: being incisively aware of the distinctions in political starting points can be helpful–even as shifting as they can be in many of us–especially in those who are merely mouthpieces for Fox News and Company, Carl Rove, Steve Bannon, Kelly Ann Conway, and Rump himself. As someone else said here–if you want to see them waffle, ask them WHY about those foundations. But asking about those foundations, rather than attacking or trying to explain umpteen particular issues-x (as you say–taking a half-hour to do so) while the foundations are the central source of the differences, gets to the primary cancer. If their foundations were the same as yours, you wouldn’t be having to exhaust yourself explaining particular-issues.
We actually have the upper hand on this because our arguments are not arbitrary or, at their root, political, or relativistic–AT ALL. (Though of course they have vast political implications as all arguments do.) The general neo-Republican “they,” however, presently cannot tell the truth because, like with Romney, the truth is embarrassing to them (I think, meant or not, it cost Romney the election.). That being said, we’ve seen some to be totally shameless–for instance, some were OPENLY intent on voter repression last year; as were apparently the Republican Congresspeople shameless who tried to emasculate the ethics oversight earlier this week.
And so we have hit on a difference between neo-Republicans and Rump himself–he is shameless and gathering power as we speak. I hope this helps.
POST-SCRIPT to my note to jeanhaverhill: Two things, First, I said: “I’d like to note here, however, how with so much ease, Rump and Company moves from a focus on persons to a focus on issues, and back again–depending on his needs.”
This movement is classic WHO-WHAT dichotomy–which BTW we ALL should be aware of–the WHO argument, for instance, commonly comes from authoritarian or even tribal thinking (the principle of generation); whereas the WHAT argument is rooted in WHY-issues (intelligence and excellence).
There is a basic structure of conversation going on here that we all participate in; and again, it’s not either/or, but which is adequately and authentically emphasized in-context. Generally as example, when you are at home, you emphasize WHO and when you are at work you emphasize WHAT. The difference between Rumpian usage is that HE shifts and chooses the emphasis for nefarious self-service (he’s “smart” that way, though I doubt he understands the structure), whereas sane and reasonable people commonly shift emphasis according to a higher principle grounded in experience governed by genuineness and wisdom born of its habit.
An authoritarian, however, will commonly take the WHO stance and look with contempt at those who don’t automatically share their view. That’s why WHY is so threatening to them.
a lot of his people focus is ad hominem as when Freedom Works Dick Armey says on cable TV to Joan Walsh “no wonder you will never get a husband’ or some foolish remark — I can’t quote him exactly because it was about 7 years ago I heard him say it I would like to explore this more but i don’t have the background (would have to read up some more on the psychology of it to understand what you are saying)…
And most of his person focus (male or female) is s of a horrendous (malignant and pathologicl0 kind of making someone else look inferior to his own ego. I have remarked before that Governor Christie used some of these same tactics (as described by Katz in American Governor) but Trump carries it to extremes with words that I have never even said out loud to anyone or words that would be in “bar room” talk when the people are “liquored up” and I find that objectionable in civil (supposed ) discourse. When I was a summer worker at McLean (mental health) hospital in Belmont I would type up the 45 minute interviews patients had with doctors and that was when I heard some of those words spoken — often in “word salad” and out of context).
I know the Governor of Maine is also notorious for his language and attitudes that he expresses in public and I just call them “filthy old men” which is the defense mechanism i guess i learned early in order to stay far away from them.
I think it is a Rumpain trait to get the focus on to ridicule of someone else as in finger pointing to distract n order to get the crowd to laugh (whether in humor sharing or as a defense mechanism because they don’t know ow to resound to incivility and can’t confront it in public…. and some times a “titter” or a “giggle ” is just that — a defense mechanism (bout out of enjoyment or belief in what the Rumpian is saying).
between Rumpian usage is that HE shifts and chooses the emphasis for nefarious self-service (he’s “smart” that way,
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
yes, thes os what I believe; I just met with friends for 3 hours to discuss this very issue. Patrick (former Governor) talked about the funding formula (“whacko” according to my friends ) and Patick stated “this is work in progress and we will tweak it / amend it along the sway. Problem is the Ed Refor Act was passed in 1993 and then various and sundry things changed (in addition to a Great Recession about 2008)… and they keep “tweaking ” the formula; they passed an “Achievement Gap” law and that required the use of there MCAS/PARRC2.0 version tests to be used and these tests have not been proven to be reliable or valid…. so if I were affiliated with ACLU I would try to get a law suit going on the use of these tests to decide which schools should be “closed” “turned around” or denied funds because of the test scores being lower in the extremes poverty areas ; yes we have great inequities among/between school districts and this we have known for decades. It is a double or triple “whammy” when they (a) test the students who live in poetry and are already lacking in resources (b) make decisions about the funding formula based on the unreliable and invalid tests and some cities get double penally because of this policy. Thanks for your response because we are working on a process to put this all down on paper for the League of Women Voters consensus study and you help me think when you organized and come back with quresitnos.
Comparision: City Hospital /Boston has some of the very high risk/serious patients; the doctors are at limits of resources because of the urban conditions (aoth9ugh many of them would be among the most skilled in the world because of the vast array of diversity in their practice) … The treatments they have are of variable success rates ; (i’m making these figures up as hypothetical0 “given 1,000 patients perhaps 300 will get better given treatment (a) and perhaps 200 more will get better given treatment (b) and perhaps 150 will get better if we just provide nursing care (with no “treatment” ) …So would you say for a policy , “Walton Foundation build a clinic right beside the hospital and “cream” off the least of the risk (those with less serious conditions of health who have had better than minimal health care over their lifetime) and then drive Boston City Hospital out of business because Walton’s clinic claims better results with the persons they creamed from the top of the risk categories??
The person who described this for me the best was Peter Kramer (he was Patrick Kennedy’s M.D. and is a brilliant professional). They have a research description called “number needed to treat” and it is vastly different from the expectations of schools where NCLB said we had to get `100% over the hurdle by …. (and they gave a year that has already passed for NCLB to produce miracles).
Yes, I see their policy and formula as “whacko” and a double or triple “Whammy” for our most vulnerable students (as teachers say they don’t want VAM used to evaluate and make decisions for smiler reasons)
“whackey” gerrymandering of funding (much lower score on “equity”) so that the “gaps” are wider than they look for the reporting?
jeanhaverhill@aol.com
Catherine: here is the “Kids Count” description (Annie Casey Foundation; as reported by MA School Committee Association .) “New Method for Counting Low-Income Students
“These reductions create a problem for the Chapter 70 formula (school reimbursements) since simply using the school meal headcounts would lead to large reductions in district foundation budgets that aren’t reflective of real world ( the number of low-income kids that they are educating). And the size of this gap varies widely by district, so the problem can’t be solved by making a uniform upwards adjustment to the assumed cost of educating low-income students.” My friend Carole just calls the state formula “whacky”….
MA decides “to use the new measure and call it “economically disadvantaged.” This new measure identifies many fewer low-income students for three primary reasons:
(a) The state is not matching school enrollment lists with all relevant public programs.
(b) Not all low-income families enroll in the public programs for which they are eligible.
© There are technical challenges in matching public program enrollment data with school enrollment lists that remain unresolved. Some students enrolled in public programs are not being directly certified for free meals and thereby counted as “economically disadvantaged. The new measure for “economically disadvantaged” students in FY 2017 captures 18 percent fewer low-income students than does the measure used for FY 2016 with wide variations in the size of this gap across districts”
Add this to the fact that the cities/districts are penalized and lose funds every time a child enters into a “charter” school and the Mayors and School Committees are right in their description of lost funding ….
Catherine: “The Foundation Budget Review reports a “newer “ category of economically disadvantaged status and this is currently being redefined (it is in flux); it formerly was the number of students receiving the “hot lunch” program. In today’s count it is contingent on a student’s participation in one or more of the following state-administered programs: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); Transitional Assistance for Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC); Department of Children and Families’ (DCF) foster care program; or MassHealth (Medicaid) up to 133% of the federal poverty level (FPL). In computing the “cherry sheet” for reimbursements economically disadvantaged headcounts are assigned to the district where the pupils are actually enrolled (and where the extra costs occur), even if they are tuitioned-in from another district. (Foundation Budget Review Committee report). “
when you read these claims from the MA governor’s office , also note that we are ranked like # 42 in EQUITY… when it comes to funding…. so we have some extremes and some real disparities among and between districts. and many of the districts are suffering and over-burdened on costs while affluence reigns among the 1%
http://www.mass.gov/edu/ma-ranked-1st-in-the-nation.html
Diane, I’ve written (and not yet posted) a WinkWorld in which I reference this blog in which you mention Lakoff. I’d like to cite your post and send readers over, ok? Thanks always for all of your tireless work.
Joan,
Of course
Diane, I understand that it is pubic access for you. However, once in the last year, I wanted to repost a public blog, and amazingly, the author said no. So, now I always ask, even though I assume that if I put something out in public it is always open for sharing.
context for my previous remark: context: Romney was replying to someone’s question (possibly a journalist) about why women were not more obvious in his administration and he said when he had openings in MA governance he would get “Binders full of women”….
— we had a former Commissioner of ED Greg Anrig that I admired (he was Commissioner when Ambach was in NY so it goes back a ways ) and it was during a civil rights era that was progressing (rather than regressing) and he said to a room full of about 50 of us “if there is no minority candidate or woman candidate for that position , then the position will remain open”… that took some courage for him to say. I admired him on many issues and ETS saw his value or they never would have invited him to work there. We have not had a distinguished commissioner since that time (david dricsoll included who wants to measure your kids on “grit”. ).
At that time CA commissioner and Greg Ambach in NY were talking about how they could collaborate more (on important issues like curriculum, standards, testing etc) without getting all of those decisions forced on the states from Washington D.C.. If I am recalling Ambach correctly he said “those rules and regs written into laws in Washington are written by the 28 year old aides — implying they had little experience in the public schools). I saved that “talk” because it came up when they were forming a New England Lab and discussing collaboration in NY and New England states — as part of the LABS and Centers — which is another long tale I won’t go in to but the archives are at the State Ed office in Albany as I have read them there — a busman’s holiday to visit as my niece lives and works near by … I always love to visit their office of /BESE/DESE because they have a historical museum on the ground floor that is fascinating to me.