Liberal Professor says Dumbing Down of America Began in Public Education

[rangerrebew]

Liberal Professor says Dumbing Down of America Began in Public Education
By Onan Coca October 23, 2017

   

Liberal, feminist (in the classic sense), college professor Camille Paglia is at it again, triggering America’s leftwing crybabies with her blunt honesty and her perceptive commentary about the ills in modern America.

In a recent conversation with conservative philosopher (and educator) Christina Hoff Sommers, Paglia reveals that many of our current problems on the college campus really began in public elementary and secondary schools.

https://constitution.com/liberal-professor-says-dumbing-america-began-public-education/

[Bigun]

Liberal Professor says Dumbing Down of America Began in Public Education
By Onan Coca October 23, 2017

   

Liberal, feminist (in the classic sense), college professor Camille Paglia is at it again, triggering America’s leftwing crybabies with her blunt honesty and her perceptive commentary about the ills in modern America.

In a recent conversation with conservative philosopher (and educator) Christina Hoff Sommers, Paglia reveals that many of our current problems on the college campus really began in public elementary and secondary schools.

https://constitution.com/liberal-professor-says-dumbing-america-began-public-education/

Absolutely right and it was purposefully done under the leadership of this man!



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey

[The_Reader_David]

You are right to pin the blame on Dewey, but that means the rot did not really begin in elementary and secondary schools, but in colleges of education where Dewey's baleful ideas (and in later generations Vygotstky's "social construction of knowledge") were taught, and in the state legislatures that gave colleges of education a monopoly on producing "qualified" or "certified" teachers (or whatever other term the particular state chose).

When my father went to high school in the 1940's his teachers didn't have degrees in secondary education, they had masters degrees (or in a few cases PhDs) in the subject they taught. 

Now it's ed majors from K through 12, all formed with Dewey's "progressive" ideals and worse, and about 85% of whom picked their major because it was the easiest one offered at their university.  (I choose that figure from the experience having taught "Math for Elementary School Teachers" a few times -- a class in which, despite being taught in the Department of Mathematics and explicit warnings in the syllabus and in class that it is a course on mathematics, not mathematical pedagogy, a sizable percentage of the students are so stupid they complain that mathematicians are teaching them mathematics, not "how to teach math".)  Secondary ed majors are a little better, but not much.

[Bigun]

You are right to pin the blame on Dewey, but that means the rot did not really begin in elementary and secondary schools, but in colleges of education where Dewey's baleful ideas (and in later generations Vygotstky's "social construction of knowledge") were taught, and in the state legislatures that gave colleges of education a monopoly on producing "qualified" or "certified" teachers (or whatever other term the particular state chose).

When my father went to high school in the 1940's his teachers didn't have degrees in secondary education, they had masters degrees (or in a few cases PhDs) in the subject they taught. 

Now it's ed majors from K through 12, all formed with Dewey's "progressive" ideals and worse, and about 85% of whom picked their major because it was the easiest one offered at their university.  (I choose that figure from the experience having taught "Math for Elementary School Teachers" a few times -- a class in which, despite being taught in the Department of Mathematics and explicit warnings in the syllabus and in class that it is a course on mathematics, not mathematical pedagogy, a sizable percentage of the students are so stupid they complain that mathematicians are teaching them mathematics, not "how to teach math".)  Secondary ed majors are a little better, but not much.

I graduated HS in 1966 and don't recall a single teacher of mine who had a degree in "education"!

[Sanguine]

Bookmark.

[Suppressed]

explicit warnings in the syllabus and in class that it is a course on mathematics, not mathematical pedagogy, a sizable percentage of the students are so stupid they complain that mathematicians are teaching them mathematics, not "how to teach math".)

Is there a class on mathematical pedagogy?  If not, then there's some validity to their comments.  It would be an invalid conclusion, logically, to assume that it was because they wanted the easiest.

Just like I wanted applied math for support of engineering applications, I wasn't doing it because I thought it was easier, but that I had no plans for focusing on esoterica and theoretical math in my career.

[The_Reader_David]

Is there a class on mathematical pedagogy?  If not, then there's some validity to their comments.  It would be an invalid conclusion, logically, to assume that it was because they wanted the easiest.

My conclusion is based on the whole experience of teaching the population of "pre-service teachers" as the college of ed likes to call them -- there are the 85% who picked the major because it was dead easy, and the 15% you'd actually want to have teach your children.  And in answer to your question, yes, our college of ed requires elementary ed majors take a course that they offer on teaching  K-6 mathematics (or misteaching, since it's probably Deweyite in foundation).

[Bigun]

Colleges of Education represent the slums of any university!

Dr. Walter E. Williams