Key to Hayek’s campaign was the conviction that policy flowed from the general attitudes, beliefs, and worldview of what he terms “secondhand dealers in ideas.”1 What these people believe today, Hayek maintains, will determine policy in 10-20 years. Secondhand dealers in ideas are not experts in the ideas they peddle; they care less about particulars than the grand sweep of things. Libertarians failed to make way against the midcentury socialist tide, Hayek maintains, because they had nothing to offer these people. They offered stale orthodoxies of an earlier age and saw politics mostly as a wonkish scheme of adjustment at the edges.

Labels: education, politics

Writing notes by hand would have given me several different tangible resources that could help me find the critical missing information: a stronger memory of the meeting I was in, the gaps in the details of the discussion that occurred, and the notes themselves that would help me trigger a stronger recall of the events just by reviewing them on paper. Detailed typed notes would not help my recall and retention of the information in the meetings in the same way that notes written by hand would, though they would have been helpful.

Very interesting - I too have always found that writing things down is much much better than typing.

Labels: education

I always thought it was very odd how focused people were on "graduating college" as a marker of success, as if the act of graduation somehow guaranteed success. Now to a certian extent historcially it did as employers were using the colleges as a screening mechanism for the best of the best, something that no longer holds true when something like 25-33% of people have college degrees. Regardless, I thought the title linked piece tying it to cargo cults was somewhat intersting:

There are a lot of things that set the groundwork for this, and I am not an expert on post-modernism and critical race theory. But one factor that is not often credited is a cargo cult mentality. Folks look at successful white people and observe they all went to college, and then infer that if we just get all the black kids into college, they will be successful too. Their resulting plan is to reduce or eliminate standards that are perceived to be keeping black kids out of college. The problem of course is that college is not the cause of prosperity, but a marker (with prosperity) of other traits -- focus on long-term goals, discipline, hard work, and yes knowing 2+2=4.

For those unaware, cargo cults are basically religions that formed on Pacific islands where people thought that dressing like soldiers and building fake airstrips would get airplanes to drop off valuable cargo.

Labels: education

Item 1

; in another, a law professor was punished, following a 16-month investigation, because an exam question he wrote involving a bikini wax was deemed to have created an unsafe environment after a student “allegedly believed the question’s premise somehow required her to reveal to the class whether she’d had a Brazilian wax,” according to FIRE.

and Item 2

Professor Weinstein responded in an email by raising some questions but, more importantly, calling for open discussion of the ideas, strategies and directions outlined in the plan. He did so carefully and politely, never once criticizing any individual. . . . In response, he was branded a racist and an obstructionist. A faculty member who sat on the Equity Council explicitly called him a racist in two different faculty meetings. When Professor Weinstein asked for an opportunity to defend himself, he was told that a faculty meeting was not the appropriate venue for such a defense. When he asked what the appropriate venue was, he was told that no such venue existed because he was a racist.

Yikes.

Labels: education

JONATHAN HAIDT: I didn’t even know about that. The president was supposed to be the grown-up in the room. He was supposed to show some wisdom, some balance, and some strength. And so we’ve seen, basically what can really only be called Maoist moral bullying – am we saw it very clearly at Claremont McKenna. The video is really chilling–the students surrounding this nice woman who was trying to help them, and reducing her to tears. As we’ve seen more and more of this, I’ve begun calling it, “the Yale problem,” referring to the way that left-leaning institutions are now cut off from any moral vocabulary that they could use to resist the forces of illiberalism. As far as I’m concerned, “Next Yale” can go find its own “Next Alumni.” I don’t plan to give to Yale ever again, unless it reverses course.

Time to stand up for reality.

Labels: education, trends

I'm not one to usually praise heterodoxy, but this is neat.

We are social scientists and other scholars who want to improve our academic disciplines. We have all written about a particular problem: the loss or lack of “viewpoint diversity.” It’s what happens when everyone in a field shares the same political orientation and certain ideas become orthodoxy. We have come together to advocate for a more intellectually diverse and heterodox academy.

Labels: education

Mostly, though, I got content from my classes, and needed to think about what to do with it on my own. I did wind up finding blogging (and op-ed-ing for the YDN) helpful here — having a content monster to feed makes me keep forcing collisions between everything I know and all the problems I’ve encountered, in the hopes of finding a somewhat useful 500-800 word idea.

Labels: education

Bart Kwan style. Number one piece of advice, don't care what other people think. Amen brother.

Labels: a full life, education

Popehat has a link to the clarification/apology.

Labels: education, free speach, politics

Because this letter is an embarrassment to his new university. Watch Popehat pick it apart.

Yesterday Chancellor Dirks sent an email about free speech to Berkeley students, faculty, and staff. In today's competitive publishing environment it is astonishingly difficult to distinguish yourself as an academic by being wrong about free speech, but Chancellor Dirks is equal to the challenge. His email is so very bad on every level — legally, logically, rhetorically, and philosophically — that it deserves scrutiny.

I'm tempted to exercise my free speech rights and call Chancellor Dirks various bad names. But I will resist the urge.

Labels: education, politics

Learning about fertility awareness has convinced me that this needs to be taught in high school. For one thing, I believe it would reduce the number of abortions. I teach the basics of the menstrual cycle in the high school where I work, even though it is NOT part of the curriculum, because I believe women (and men) should know more about what is going on in their bodies. Most of them understand the basics, but when I start showing them charts of hormones and mention the role of the pituitary and corpus luteum, I can tell that they have no idea what I am talking about and they are hearing this information for the first time. The class suddenly gets very quiet and pays close attention, because they care about this topic. Many of them are probably sexually active, or will be before they graduate high school. As much as I would rather they wait until marriage, I would also rather that they are more informed about their risk-taking behavior. If a teenage girl knows that it is her "fertile" time, or around ovulation, because she has been taught to notice certain changes in her body, there is a good chance she will be less likely to have sex, and certainly unprotected sex, during that time.

I haven't forgotten my promise from November to cover natural family planning in more detail. I hope to cover this topic a bit more in the coming month. I was a bit busy with entering the institution of marriage in December.

Labels: education, NFP, prolife

For all those who are studying for their finals, and for some in particular.

Labels: education, prayer requests

I am six months late on this. But still found it shocking enough to publicly denounce.

The following quote is taken from the Texas Republican 2012 Platform statement, available here: http://www.texasgop.org/about-the-party.

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

 I just spend the week with some people who I am pretty sure are Texan Republicans. I should ask them what they think about this.  As a teacher, "higher order thinking skills" are what it is all about for me. Learning how to learn, questioning your sources, and thinking critically, are what separate a middle school student from a college graduate, more than any acquired body of knowledge. Knowledge these days is cheap and easy to come by via the internet. So what should we really be teaching in school if not skills and critical thinking?

Labels: education, politics

I guess it's a bad idea to say something unpopular.

Labels: education, science

Even sadder was when I was showing actual statistics to back up my arguments that walking is much safer than driving, the head of the PTA stated: “Statistics mean nothing when it comes to the safety of my child.” To which everyone applauded.

Indeed, statistics mean nothing to you. Nor does the safety of your child mean anything to you. Thanks to FRK for finding this.

Labels: education, math

Coincidentally, most successful entrepreneurs I’ve met so far are the ones who didn’t pass school with flying colours but are the ones who barely or didn’t get through. The ones who had just enough grades to go on to the next year. Why would you want to put in all this effort to obtain an excess of grades that are useless to you? Just get enough and spend the rest of your time on stuff you enjoy.

I'm beginning to think this is basically true.

A tip of the hat to HN.

Oh and Happy Easter to all, except those who celebrate Passover, in which case the appropriate holiday may be substituted.

Labels: education

Taking shape . . .

Labels: education, public service announcement

Of interest to the Columbia University crowd.

Labels: books, education, New York

I learned little about the law at Harvard Law School. This was partly due to my own laziness, and partly due to professors whose teaching pointlessly focused on ideologically-trendy but atypical situations, or hide-the-ball Socratic dialogue. (For example, my property instructor was obsessed with sexual harassment of lesbians by tenants).

Seriously though, a good discussion on why law school and the practice of law aren't super-connected.

Labels: education, quotes

Correct answer: Me!

Labels: education, humor