A friend of mine was unceremoniously fired from Felician University in 2023–one of sixteen people fired on a single day–after 23 unrelenting years as an English comp instructor to students with an average SAT verbal score well below 500. I described her in a letter of recommendation, without exaggeration, as “the most dedicated college instructor I had ever encountered” in two+ decades in the profession. Her office was across the hall from mine, and every now and then I’d eavesdrop on her efforts. I couldn’t imagine putting even half the effort into teaching that she did. Continue reading
Tag Archives: education
Divestment at Yale
Well, they say it’s kinda frightenin’
How this younger generation swings
You know it’s more than just some new sensation
Well, the kid is into losin’ sleep
And he don’t come home for half the week
You know it’s more than just an aggravation
–Van Halen, “And the Cradle Will Rock…”
Yale Daily News, December 8:
Yale students overwhelmingly pass divestment referendum
Continue readingThe Yale College Council announced today that the student body has passed the divestment referendum by a large margin.
Divestment and Complicity
I’ve reproduced a comment of mine below the fold from the website of Princeton Alumni Weekly, responding to critics of the student divestment campaign described in my previous post. One critic had said: “I fail to see why students on campus should vote on how the University invests its funds.” Another had said: “Students shouldn’t be ‘running’ the University any more than alumnae/alumni should. Leave investing to the experts hired by the University to manage the endowment funds.” Continue reading
“False Alternatives in the Politics of Knowledge”
Just a quick announcement for anyone inclined to attend the APA Eastern Division meeting this year. The Molinari Society is organizing a session, care of Roderick Long (Auburn University), on “False Alternatives in the Politics of Knowledge.” The session is G3A, on Wednesday, January 8, 2025, 4-5:50 pm (room TBA) with presentations by Cory Massimino (Center for a Stateless Society) and myself. The meeting is being held at the Sheraton New York Times Square, 811 7th Ave at 53rd St. Attendance, as usual, requires registration and payment of the registration fee. Cory’s presentation is called “Between Convergence and Conspiracy.” Mine is “Between Indoctrination and False Neutrality: Pedagogy Under Occupation,” a now unrecognizable version of this post from nine years ago. Roderick will be commenting. Continue reading
Neutrality Loathsome
Either be hot, or cold: God doth despise,
Abhorre, and spew out all Neutralities.
–Robert Herrick, “Neutrality Loathsome“
When I taught college-level philosophy, one of the biggest obstacles to teaching, and particularly to successful class discussion, was students’ fear of dealing with controversial issues in class. Despite the bragging that Americans like to do about “free speech,” American students were far more reluctant to speak candidly about anything (or handle constructive criticism) than the college students I briefly encountered in Pakistan or taught in Palestine. By comparison with students in these impoverished and highly repressive places, American students were discursively speaking afraid of their own shadows. They seemed to need “permission” to say anything beyond the safely anodyne and cliched. Continue reading
The Beautiful People
Is it legitimate to criticize someone’s physical appearance? I don’t mean: is it legitimate to have or even express personal preferences about someone’s physical appearance. I mean: is it legitimate to issue an objective verdict on someone for looking the way they do, e.g., criticizing the very structure of a person’s face for giving them the facial appearance they have? Continue reading
Run It “Like a Business”
I worked at banks for 16+ years, and I would like to see our PPS finances run like a business.
—Rita Rafalovsky, candidate for Board of Education, Princeton Public Schools (PPS)
A candidate for Board of Education in my town, a banker, is running on the age-old slogan that the local school system ought to be “run like a business.” There are many ambiguities in this claim, but no need to chase them all down. It seems a sufficient objection to the slogan, and to any campaign based on it, that the public schools aren’t a business. So it makes no sense to try to run them as if they were. The more sensible approach might be to identify the kind of institution they actually are, or should be, and run them that way. Imagine walking into a business establishment and announcing that it ought to be “run like a school.” That would obviously be absurd, but it’s no less absurd if you turn things around. Continue reading
Cancel Culture Blues: The Strange Case of Steven Wilson
I need to stop reading stories like this, because if I do, I’m in danger of lapsing into Michael Young’s running dog reactionary views on cancel culture.* I’m still a big fan of cancellation as an idea, but if this is what “cancel culture” is going to be, then my thought is: leave me the hell out of it. But this isn’t what cancel culture has to be. We have a choice about what form it will take.
[Steven] Wilson was the chief executive of Ascend, the consortium of central Brooklyn charter schools he built, beginning with plans devised on his dining room table in 2007.
But Mr. Wilson was effectively barred from celebrating with his students.
Several weeks earlier, he had written a blog post embracing the values of a classical education; some younger members of his staff perceived it as racially traumatizing. Others found it simply tone-deaf. He was in a kind of purgatory, still employed by Ascend but taken out of its day-to-day operation.
Teach Your Children
I have what I regard as a good working relationship with the Rutherford Police Department, and count its chief, John Russo, as a friend. I’ve hosted members of the Department twice at my university, and have been a guest of Chief Russo’s at the Department itself. I have no objection to police visits to schools per se, but I think some balance is in order: if cops are going to visit schools, civil libertarians from the ACLU or similar organizations should be visiting the same students in the same schools. A school unwilling to host civil libertarians should not be hosting cops. Far too many do.
https://twitter.com/RutherfordPDNJ/status/1103848659538579457
Hey, PoPo–Leave Those Kids Alone
Is the behavior described in this story immoral? Yes. Stupid? Yes. Punishment-worthy? Maybe. But the appropriate subject of a police investigation? No.
We’re all justifiably outraged when someone calls the cops on black people engaged in some innocuous activity–be it barbecuing, babysitting, or whatever. But calling the cops to “assist” in a school investigation into fascist speech is no better than that, and fundamentally, no different. It’s a misuse of the powers of the police, and yet another illegitimate broadening of the scope of their activities. Continue reading
Policy of Truth 