Reply #97: Heard the Interview

[swilton]

And what she has so well apparently chronicled in her book is what I have observed as a social science substitute teacher in the public schools and as a PhD graduate student in the social sciences. I think this explains why we have an uneducated electorate which was the subject of the Craig'slist rant also posted on this page....

She noted in the interview that content has been taken out of the political science and history curriculum - I have seen that for myself in that undergraduate foreign students studying at the university have been accepted into graduate classes. Foreign students are so much better prepared than American taught students. Furthermore, the content (i.e., American Government, concepts like separation of powers) I am asked to 'present' at the high school level is very, very, basic political science - should be explained in grade school - any foreign student would know at least this much about American Government.

I use the word lightly as 'present' - in most of the classes I have substitute taught in - they teach to questions...to supposedly raise scores on college entrance exams or other state scores. The concept of learning a subject because it is exciting or fascinating is totally lost - there is no love of learning....You learn facts to answer questions that might be given on placement tests...Context is lost...

The absence of content in the social sciences - the absence of passion in learning - may be why the students I have taught (advanced placement in some of the 1,500 top schools in Maryland) just don't seem to care. They are rude and unruly and the reason I don't substitute teach anymore - rather than throw pearls to swine. This explains why they don't care about the social sciences and, with the subsequent lack of interest in the social sciences it in some instances loses its funding, unless of course its funding is from the State Department, DoD, or the intelligence agencies. Even within academia at large - what is taught within the social sciences varies greatly between schools, universities and junior colleges.

Content has been taken out of the teaching of the social sciences was a point brought out in the interview with Ravitch - she attributes to the Lynn Cheney challenging liberal education in the 1990s - I think that the challenge to the 'controversial' content of education goes back even further to the early 1970s and the Powell Memorandum...I have provided some links here...

I also disagree with Ravitch that this will happen in the future - it is already happening as noted by our undereducated electorate....furthermore academia has been/is/will be co-opted by big business and the military industrial complex - links are provided herewith.

Peace to the powerful!

The entire Ravitch interview can be found on

DemocracyNow.org


References to the Powell Memorandum
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell,_Jr.
http://www.truthout.org/100109A

References to the Minerva Project
http://minerva.dtic.mil/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerva_research_initiative
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/8969-procuring-academics-for-empire-the-pentagon-minerva-research-initiative.html