Peter Greene: Lies, Lies, Lies

January 22, 2017 //

Peter Greene wonders how he can teach his students about the importance of honesty when the President is a shameless liar?

Categories Education Reform

20 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:

January 22, 2017 at 2:35 pm

This was excellent reporting by CNN this morning shooing video of Spicer talking about the importance of truth and integrity. Hmmmm…I wonder what happened?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/video/sean-spicer-lying-to-media-not-acceptable/vi-AAm7pbB

LikeLike

Reply
- Charles says:
  
  January 22, 2017 at 2:58 pm
  
  Suggest that he teach some history about Richard Milhous Nixon. He was known to stretch the truth from time to time!
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
Lloyd Lofthouse says:

January 22, 2017 at 3:12 pm

If it was me, if I was still in the classroom teaching, I’d plan/develop a unit to teach my students about the era we live in that comes with multiple truths, depending on who you are and what you want to believe, and then teach them how to fact-check to find the truth that is the most accurate choice.

With the era of multiple choice tests used to rank-and-punish teachers and public schools, not corporate charter schools, we also have multiple choices of what the truth is.

Is the truth A, B, C, D or E (All of the Above).

The lesson would be easy and possibly fun.

Offer several actual alternative truths for the same topic/issue from different traditional media and social media sources, and then have the students research and/or fact check every alleged truth to decide which choice is the most accurate.

I see this as a great opportunity to teach students how to use critical thinking and problem solving skills in this era of multiple truths to determine the one that is the most accurate and even rank them on a scale to identify the ones that are the most false.

LikeLike

Reply
- realchicagomama says:
  
  January 22, 2017 at 6:26 pm
  
  I use this all the time when our school tells the students that their participation in edtech research surveys are their “opportunity to voice their opinions.”
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
- mathcs says:
  
  January 22, 2017 at 8:33 pm
  
  And of course the use of distractors in writing options for multiple-choice questions is good. Trump, et al are good at those.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
Jonathan says:

January 22, 2017 at 3:55 pm

Trump’s pathological war on the media can’t be sustained. Over time it’s his own credibility that he’s undermining. Sure there are some who will always believe his lies no matter what, and others who go along for political reasons, but how many people actually believe his version of the inaugural turnout?

When does going along with his petty lies reach a point of diminishing returns for those associated with Trump, and actually cause them more damage than gain?

LikeLike

Reply
Gary says:

January 22, 2017 at 4:26 pm

We can’t, to answer your question.

LikeLike

Reply
NYSTEACHER says:

January 22, 2017 at 5:50 pm

Eh. I dunno. I’m a history teacher. If you do that right, that ain’t a morality class. History is filled with liars, cheats, and scoundrels. That’s not news or a deep thought. In fact, the lying isn’t the question….lets assume that it’s pretty omnipresent and that every person is a mix of good and bad, honesty and lies, virtue and sweet god-almighty vice. The question is about rights. Did whomever infringe people’s rights or expand them? Did they lie, cheat, or steal in the service of infringement? Expansion?

Honesty is nice down home and person to person. I’m glad, though, FDR wasn’t super honest about being an isolationist (he never was, just had to pass as one). I’m very upset that Trump is honest about it.

Does Trump actively work to create a literal alternate reality with his lies? Absolutely. Is this deeply insane and troubling? Absolutely. Has he always been that way? Absolutely. The real problem isn’t all that. It’s that he wants to limit, infringe, and exterminate rights for many people.

Lying is a tool. It’s a very ugly one. But I don’t think the left gains much ground by being he liar police. I know…Trump is super extreme. His lies have to be called out. But clearly, that path doesn’t go too many places. He got elected and basically everything he said was a distortion or lie for the past year.

Maybe we need to teach our kids how to detect and perceive lies, rather than just work at making honest kids. Lets work at making kids who are good bullshit detectors. Bullshit detection is, after all, the entire point of the humanities and liberal arts. Much more useful. Lets have whole classes and courses on lies. We need lying experts.
Gritty kids that can see a little lie from a million miles out.

How about we teach our kids that people who seek power should always be distrusted. Whether at work (bosses) or politically, a big heap of skepticism is always appropriate. They all lie, and the lies that matter most in life are the ones used to keep people from their rights. And speaking truth to them matters…..but it matters most when it’s mixed with saying no and standing in their way.

Again, our side of the education “wars” could stand to learn that lesson too.

LikeLike

Reply
Dienne says:

January 22, 2017 at 6:04 pm

I dunno, I kind of find it refreshing that I can tell Trump’s lies from the truth. Shamelessness can be a virtue. Most politicians, left and right, just do it better, so it’s harder to tell lies from truth because everything they say sounds “rational” or at least plausible. After all, let’s all remember which president redefined the word “is”.

LikeLike

Reply
- NYC public school parent says:
  
  January 22, 2017 at 9:54 pm
  
  Unfortunately, this is the kind of thinking that the alt right is celebrating.
  
  It is the kind of false equivalency they want.
  
  Bernie Sanders lies. Elizabeth Warren lies. Donald Trump lies. At least you can see Trump’s lies and isn’t his shamelessness a virtue. Sanders and Warren’s lies are so much more dangerous. Thank goodness Trump isn’t like that.
  
  And remember, Obama lied about whether you could keep your old doctor when Obamacare started.
  
  Dienne, let’s pretend that “liar” President Obama was Trump. He is confronted with his “lie” about Americans being able to keep their old doctor. Here are the two “Donald Trump” way to respond to that:
  
  “You are wrong. I absolutely never said that Americans could keep their doctor.” or:
  
  “Yes I said you could keep your doctor and you can keep your doctor. You absolutely can keep your doctor, just as I said.”
  
  President Obama’s response to people calling him out on him saying that was neither of those. That is because he wasn’t trying to gaslight the American people. Trump is. But he needs Americans like you to legitimize him so he can continue to do so.
  
  Remember, there were millions of people attending Trump’s inauguration. Millions more than at Obama’s. Hardly any people attended the Women’s marches. And we have always been at war with Eastasia.
  
  When you confuse politicians saying wrong things and later acknowledging it with politicians who tell you that the reality that is in front of your own eyes is the lie, then you are helping the devil do his work.
  
  If America ever hopes to dig themselves out of this hole we have dug, we have to end with the false equivalency that says Hillary Clinton and Trump are both liars — as is Obama — so what’s the big deal with Trump’s lies.
  
  Offering up a completely false vision of our country, and insisting that reality is something other than what we see before our eyes, will lead directly to fascism.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  - NYSTEACHER says:
    
    January 23, 2017 at 8:36 am
    
    Nah.
    Not doing the false equivalency thing.
    
    Simply saying that:
    A) Trump is obviously taking lying to new levels…well beyond insane.
    
    B) That said, imagining a political life (or any part of life really) without expecting pretty big heaps of lies is….well delusional and ahistorical. There has never been a moment in our political life, or any time in life when people occupy and strive for places of power, that lies are not baked in. The Enlightenment thinkers knew this deeply and created the idea of a multi-branch government based on the fact that those in power cannot be trusted and that the only way to insure that the rights of the people are not infringed by a cabal of liars is to essentially turn said liars against one another.
    
    C) On the question of how to raise kids among said swamps of lying: Well, perhaps as educators we should focus more on making kids able to detect the lies of those who wish to take or infringe their rights, wages, or anything else. That, to me, is much more important than raising some impossibly honest kid. The most important honesty to bake into a kid is honesty with themselves. It all starts there. It seems to me that many well-meaning, bright, stable, educated, enlightened parents fall down on that front….raising up kids who may be earnest to a fault, but have a tough time with self-honesty. That said, as a history teacher, I’m much more concerned about a kid who can see the lies of their boss or a politician than I am with whether that kid lies to their parents or whatever. I don’t really care about that. Thats why I think the whole palms-up “how am I going to teach honesty to my kid in an age of Trump!?” thing is a little overdrawn and basically asking the wrong question. Bullshit detection is way more important in a citizen than bullshit production.
    
    LikeLike
Ken Watanabe says:

January 22, 2017 at 6:15 pm

Trump spokesman KellyAnne Conway made a coinage called “alternative facts.” Euphemism for fact illiteracy. Sean Spicer(Surrogate-in-Chief)’s blatant lie to make his propaganda the fact is a clear case in point.

LikeLike

Reply
LeftCoastTeacher says:

January 22, 2017 at 6:52 pm

Did the National Parks Service really have its Twitter account removed for disagreeing with the White House about crowd size?! I didn’t know they could do that here, in this country. It’s ridiculous and serious at the same time. It’s so funny and it’s very much not funny.

LikeLike

Reply
- LeftCoastTeacher says:
  
  January 22, 2017 at 6:54 pm
  
  If I disagree with the White House about hand size, they won’t block my comments, will they?
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
Akademos says:

January 22, 2017 at 7:18 pm

Well, plenty of potential teachable moments to go back to over quantification of crowds, world wealth, fake news, impeachment, conflict of interest, Hitler, character flaws, alternative reality and much much more.

LikeLike

Reply
Cecelia says:

January 22, 2017 at 10:18 pm

I am so astonished that his first lie, told within a few minutes of his oath is not being expounded on by the media and bloggers. He made the claim that schools are flush with cash but students being deprived of knowledge. THE man who just settled for 25 mil on the fake school he established that made him flush with cash and that really did deprive it students of knowledge. HE just had his hand on 2 bibles and then makes a slanderous accusation that he himself is guilty of and then goes on to blabber about the carnage that we all are. WHY is this egregious lie about the education system being ignored in the media and ample coverage of the lies about the crowd quantity. Which lie is really worthy of the air time!

LikeLike

Reply
carolmalaysia says:

January 23, 2017 at 6:33 am

This partial quote from Quartz expresses what I fear.
…………………….
Trump’s real war isn’t with the media. It’s with facts.
Trump needs to delegitimize the media because he needs to delegitimize facts.

Updated by Ezra Klein@ezraklein Jan 21, 2017, 6:56pm EST

…But there’s a strategy at work here. The Trump administration is creating a baseline expectation among its loyalists that they can’t trust anything said by the media. The spat over crowd size is a low-stakes, semi-comic dispute, but the groundwork is being laid for much more consequential debates over what is, and isn’t, true.
Delegitimizing the institutions that might report inconvenient or damaging facts about the president is strategic for an administration that has made a slew of impossible promises and takes office amid a cloud of ethics concerns and potential scandals.

It also gives the new administration a convenient scapegoat for their continued struggles with public opinion, and their potential future struggles with reality. This kind of “dishonesty from the media,” Spicer said, is making it hard “to bring our country together.” It’s not difficult to imagine the Trump administration disputing bad jobs numbers in the future, or claiming their Obamacare replacement covers everyone when it actually throws millions off insurance…

LikeLike

Reply
Chiara says:

January 23, 2017 at 8:34 am

I told you all of ed reform would end up promoting vouchers:

“Panelists at Wednesday’s session, however, saw opportunity in DeVos’s nomination and discussed three ideas for expanding school choice programs at the federal level: a competitive grant program to help with startup costs for new private options; allowing the funds in the anti-poverty Title I program to “follow” children through schools via parent-directed accounts; and changes to the federal tax code.”

Democrats really misled voters on this. The single difference between Democrats and Republicans on K-12 education was vouchers, and now they’re all backing vouchers.

You cannot find a single mention of existing public schools on ed reform sites. It’s ALL vouchers and charters.

Public schools should stop hiring these folks as consultants. Their goal is to close your school. No reason to pay them millions of dollars in consulting contracts to reach that goal.

https://www.the74million.org/article/title-i-portability-grants-tax-code-changes-the-new-opportunities-for-federal-school-choice

LikeLike

Reply
Chiara says:

January 23, 2017 at 8:37 am

This is Fordham in Ohio:

Tweets by OhioGadfly

You will not find a single mention of a public school from these people. Yet Ohio lawmakers consult with them on public school policy.

Why are public schools being run by people who oppose the existence of public schools?

If I start an anti-charter lobbying group would charter schools hire me as a consultant? Of course not. Why are public schools expected to do it?

LikeLike

Reply
Ms. Cartwheel ... Librarian says:

January 23, 2017 at 11:50 am

And to think that he was sworn in on Honest Abe’s Bible!

LikeLike

Reply