UACJOB Chronicles, 2
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Those mailing lists are such good examples of leftist idiocy, we might as well pull another one from the hat.
This mailing list has Tina on it (you remember Tina, right? The education prof who does all kinds of touchy-feely-gooshy and why-I-hate-America “activities” in her doctoral seminars? Tina, who has a poster of Castro on her office door?)
It wasn’t Tina, but one of her PhD students who started this particularly scary example of brain death. I’ll call him Greg.
Greg is from Canuckistan, and a more stereotypical Canuckistani couldn’t exist. When he isn’t trashing the United States or insisting that “America” is not the United States (get over yourself), he’s whining about how insulted he is when people assume that he’s an American.
Just for the record, he’s no American.
Anyway, Greg just loves Tina, and practically kneels at her feet. You can see him anywhere Tina might be, like at protests. He tags along like her dog–the little yappy mop type of dog. He even tags along beside her on the mailing list, which is supposed to be only for faculty–but Greg is her shining star PhD student, and he yaps at her every command, so she put him on the list.
Tina: “Greg, remember what you were telling me yesterday about your grading system? Would you like to share it with our teaching list?”
Greg: “Grades are competitive and competition ruins the cooperative nurturing environment necessary for education, so I ask students what grades they think they should get, and that’s what I give them.”
Tina: “Competition is so destructive to effective learning, I’m so very glad you do this, Greg!”
Then everybody jumped in, and the stupidity began.
“Don’t they all want As?”
“Yes.” (Nothing else: just this).
“Do you conference with them first, and ask them in conference?”
“No, I ask them in class on the first day.”
“That’s such a GREAT idea! That way, you effectively destroy the competition before it begins!”
Here, let me interpret. What that last statement means is, “You effectively destroy any motivation for the students to do anything at all before it begins–provided they have any at all, after god knows how many idiots like Greg they had for their courses.”
“I do something like this. I ask my disadvantaged [read: female and non-white] students what they should get, and give that to them, but I grade my other [read: white male] students on a traditional A-B-C model.”
Ah, I’d better explain the “traditional A-B-C model” to you. You’re thinking this is what you are familiar with, but you’re wrong. These education school people don’t believe in giving anything lower than a C, except for “bad content” or “lack of critical thinking” (these mean, “content is not PC party line,” by the way–we’ll get to that later).
“That’s fascinating. Tell us more!”
“It levels the playing field, so the marginalized students aren’t futher disenfranchised by our patriarchal, ethnocentric system. Privileged students are privileged by the system, so I use it to evaluate them.”
Then Tina jumps in.
“I like that system a lot. In our classes we role-play, so all the privileged students take on the roles of the disinfranchised. That way, we can build on our sensitivities, and create a more nurturing, fruitful class environment.”
Okay, is anyone still wondering why public education has gone completely to hell?
Well, if you thought it couldn’t get any stupider or more frightening, you’re wrong. Very wrong.
On the same list, we have Jeremy. Jeremy, like Tina, is education faculty. He teaches math and science education courses. When Jeremy jumps in, the idiocy takes a nosedive.
“Ethnocentrism is the crucial issue. In my seminars on math and science ed, you wouldn’t believe how ignorant these students are. Why, they actually believe in an objective truth!”
“Oh yes, I know, my students are like that, too.”
“I find that my courses have to concentrate on unlearning what they think they know. I have an activity we do on Newton, where students learn that Newton’s Laws are really only perceptions.”
“Could you fire us a copy of that activity, Jeremy? We could adapt it to our own classes, maybe!”
I can see it now in first grade math: “Class, 2+2=4 is only a perception. In other cultures, 2+2 could equal 8, or maybe they don’t need the concept of 2.”
Then Tina jumps in.
“The thing is, our students will have to go into the cities and teach, and they need to be sensitive to the cultures of inner-city students. They need to realize that teaching in the traditional model is cultural imperialism, and devalues the cultures of their students.”
That’s enough. I’m going to get sick if I document any more.