Tag: education

Japan cuts through the convergence

The West would be much better off if it followed suit and shut down all of the social sciences and humanities at its universities as well:

Many social sciences and humanities faculties in Japan are to close after universities were ordered to “serve areas that better meet society’s needs”. Of the 60 national universities that offer courses in these disciplines, 26 have confirmed that they will either close or scale back their relevant faculties at the behest of Japan’s government.

It follows a letter from education minister Hakuban Shimomura sent to all of Japan’s 86 national universities, which called on them to take “active steps to abolish [social science and humanities] organisations or to convert them to serve areas that better meet society’s needs”.

The ministerial decree has been denounced by one university president as “anti-intellectual”, while the universities of Tokyo and Kyoto, regarded as the country’s most prestigious, have said that they will not comply with the request.

However, 17 national universities will stop recruiting students to humanities and social science courses – including law and economics, according to a survey of university presidents by The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, which was reported by the blog Social Science Space.

Not only do most people not need to go to college, but if you’re going to go to college and major in a social science or the humanities, you would be better off not going at all. What is being “taught” is nothing more than dyscivic, dyscivilizational propaganda, contra the pretensions of the academics, the humanities now teach students how to actively avoid thinking.

Higher education has been entirely coopted by the SJWs who invaded the universities fifty years ago. As per the Impossibility of Social Justice Convergence, higher education is no longer able to perform its primary function. Japan’s response is the correct one. Shut it down.

Social justice contradictions

Diversity and Equality are inherently contradictory. The racism of the university diversity champions is just one obvious example.

Her primer on college admissions begins with the basics: application deadlines, the relative virtues of the SAT versus the ACT and how many Advanced Placement tests to take. Then she eases into a potentially incendiary topic — one that many counselors like her have learned they cannot avoid.

“Let’s talk about Asians,” she says.

Lee’s next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant’s race is worth. She points to the first column.

African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says.

She points to the second column.

“Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.”

The last column draws gasps.

Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission.

So blacks are getting a 280-point SAT bonus. Because they’re equal to Asians, who obviously are culturally advantaged in white institutions. Although, what exactly is the benefit to whites to have Asians going to their top universities instead of whites?

Maybe the New Americans will be nice and whites will get their own reservations and casinos too. I have no doubt that there were more than a few of my people back in the day saying, “hey, I’m sure we can get along just fine with these paleskins. There is plenty of land for everyone!”

Fortunately, that could never happen because Asians don’t outnumber Americans like Europeans outnumbered Native Americans… wait a minute!

There is no escape

It’s not possible to escape SJWs anymore. They are everywhere, in corporate America, in the universities, and on social media. Or perhaps I should say zhee are everywhere.

Multiple professors at Washington State University have explicitly told students their grades will suffer if they use terms such as “illegal alien,” “male,” and “female,” or if they fail to “defer” to non-white students.

According to the syllabus for Selena Lester Breikss’ “Women & Popular Culture” class, students risk a failing grade if they use any common descriptors that Breikss considers “oppressive and hateful language.”

“Students will come to recognize how white privilege functions in everyday social structures and institutions.”  

The punishment for repeatedly using the banned words, Breikss warns, includes “but [is] not limited to removal from the class without attendance or participation points, failure of the assignment, and— in extreme cases— failure for the semester.”

Breikss is not the only WSU faculty member implementing such policies.

Much like in Selena Breikss’s classroom, students taking Professor Rebecca Fowler’s “Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies” course will see their grades suffer if they use the term “illegal alien” in their assigned writing.

According to her syllabus, students will lose one point every time they use the words “illegal alien” or “illegals” rather than the preferred terms of “‘undocumented’ migrants/immigrants/persons.” Throughout the course, Fowler says, students will “come to recognize how white privilege functions in everyday social structures and institutions.”

In the immortal words of USMC legend Chesty Puller, “All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us. They can’t get away this time.”

So lock and load, ladies and gentlemen. Lock and fucking load.

The end of the public school

I tend to agree. As state and local money gets tighter, something is going to give. And one of those things is going to be the public schools, because kids don’t vote and elderly Boomers are much more concerned about keeping the public money flowing in their direction than they are about the future:

Public education is losing ground. It is being undermined at every turn. This is due to more than the Christian contingent. People everywhere are taking control of their children’s education. The Internet is making this possible. As time marches on, tools and information will be even more accessible. This trend will not be reversed.

Why not? Funding. The system takes gobs of money. Gobs. It inhales taxpayer money and then wastes it like any other bureaucratic welfare-state system does.

Resources flee over time from those individuals and institutions that misallocate capital. Competition eats them alive. Resources also flee over time from individuals and institutions that break God’s law. By giving the state jurisdiction over the education of our children, this is exactly what we have done over the last 300 years. We have already paid for that choice. We have more to pay. In the meantime, the institution is coming to an end.

Sometimes, good things happen for bad reasons. The end of the 18th century indoctrination system imported from Germany is an idea whose time has long past. Technology and economics are in the process of killing it.

Mailvox: how to teach evolution

Mindy asks how to teach evolution to homeschooled children:

I’m off to purchase materials at a homeschooling conference in couple days. I was wondering what your thoughts were on teaching evolution to grade school level students. I want to introduce a more formal science curriculum but all of the conventional materials are saturated in evolutionary timescales and theory. 

Personally, my thoughts on creationism are rather fluid.  I don’t know that the six days of creation should be taken literally though I don’t believe man evolved from any other animal.  I would like to give my kids a firm foundation in Bible based science before teaching the conventional theory but am not sure whether to use the literal fundamentalist version to start with. Normally, when teaching younger children, we do so from the position of having a definitive answer instead of a more or less open question and yet I don’t want to confuse my first grader with my waffling.  At some point they will need to be introduced to the conventional theory of evolution.

When would you do this and how? Any science curricula that is especially good for grade school kids? I look forward to some new ideas on this. I do so enjoy your home schooling threads.

Many parents prefer to keep their children in the dark concerning intellectual concepts with which they disagree. This is true across the political spectrum. I consider this to be a huge mistake.

If you have read RGD, then you will know that my description of Keynesian economics, which I consider to be utter bollocks, is nevertheless so complete and correct that people have described it as one of the better summaries of it that they have ever encountered. My belief is that if something is false, the best way to understand its falsity is to know it better than its advocates. So read the sources and read the current champions, then critique it.

And if you’re not capable of doing that, how do you know it is wrong?

As for the Theorum of Evolution by (probably) Natural Selection, Biased Mutation, Genetic Drift, and Gene Flow, or TE(p)NSBMGDaGF, I would recommend a child be 15 or 16 before studying it. Any younger and they won’t be able to identify the obvious flaws and will be tend to be inclined to simply accept whatever they are told, whether it is TENS, monetarist economics, or magic garden fairies.

Start with an abridged version of The Origin of the Species. Then read one or two of Richard Dawkins’s books; The Selfish Gene is much better than The Greatest Show on Earth because it is an explanation whereas the latter is an apology. That will ensure that the child is better-educated and more up-to-date on evolution than any graduate of the public or private schools.

Then introduce two or three of the critics. I can’t recommend one, because I’ve never actually read any of the various books by TENS critics as I have no need to bolster my own reasons for being skeptical of the theorum. But there are plenty out there and I’m sure the readers here can recommend a few of them.

The point is that there is never any need for those dedicated to the truth to shy away from falsehood or fear it. Hit it head on. Study it. Master it. And then you will be able to explain its weak points to others. That being said, I can see the need for an Evolution curriculum; if we can find a suitably credentialed skeptic, we will likely publish one.

Phil Sandifer explains the PhD lottery

And why it is best avoided. Let it not be said that the man has never written anything sensible:

At the end of my last class of the semester, one of my best students – one who, out of some tragically misguided instinct, actually took a class with me a second time because he enjoyed it – came up to tell me that he’d had a good semester but didn’t think he was going to re-enroll next semester. I asked why, and he explained that he had a job lined up in the family business and just couldn’t justify the loans.

Years of defending academia and the value of a college education reared up inside of me, ready to make an impassioned speech. I wanted to tell him not to. And… I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Because he was right. I could not in good conscience tell one of my best students that it was worth the loans. And in hindsight, that was the moment I decided I was well and truly done with academia.

I had been going to take one last stab at the job market this fall. With the Flood book done and maybe one or two more articles in process, and maybe even a book deal on an edited version of my dissertation. Just to answer the question, one last time, of whether I could make it in academia.

Which is, as it happens, terribly silly. Academia is not a meritocracy. It’s a lottery, in which the grand prize – a tenure track position – is dangled over the heads of everybody so that we agree to work for the appalling wages that adjunct faculty get…. Meanwhile, the odds on tenure track appointments are astonishingly grim. It’s not unusual for a job to get five hundred applicants. There were, last year, maybe two dozen jobs in my field.

This lack of employability also tends to explain why educated SJWs have so much time to comment so prolifically at File 770 and elsewhere.

I find it very interesting that both Dr. Sandifer and I have reached precisely the same conclusion about higher education, despite our vastly different perspectives. Then again, we probably have very different ideas about the solution, as his likely involves increasing the demand whereas mine would involve eliminating the larger portion of the supply.

In any case, the best way to be done with academia is to avoid starting with it unless it is necessary for your job.

Vox’s First Law at work

Vox’s First Law: Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity. Or, in this case, autism:

State therapy specialists claimed Jacob
Barnett would never tie his shoes, read or function normally in society.
But the boy’s mother realized when Jacob was not in therapy, he was
doing “spectacular things” completely on his own.
She decided to trust her instinct and
disregard the advice of the professionals. Instead of following a
standardized special needs educational protocol, she surrounded Jacob
with all the things that inspired passion for him – and was astonished
at the transformation that took place.

Following a diagnosis of autism at age
two, Jacob was subjected to a cookie cutter special education system
that focused on correcting what he couldn’t do compared to normal
children. For years, teachers attempted to convince Kristine Barnett
that her son would only be able to learn the most basic of life skills….

By the time Jacob reached the age of 11, he entered college and is currently studying condensed matter physics at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. According to an email Professor Scott Tremaine wrote to Jacob’s family:
“The theory that he’s working on
involves several of the toughest problems in astrophysics and
theoretical physics … Anyone who solves these will be in line for a
Nobel Prize.”

Jacob also has an IQ of 170 — higher than that of Einstein.

This is an object lesson in what we discussed at the May Brainstorm. Never, ever, blindly trust the so-called experts. Respect, but verify.

The diversity camp crumbles

Anyone who has studied the history of racially and culturally diverse societies knew this was inevitable:

A complaint Friday alleged that Harvard University discriminates
against Asian-American applicants by setting a higher bar for admissions
than that faced by other groups.

The complaint, filed by a
coalition of 64 organizations, says the university has set quotas to
keep the numbers of Asian-American students significantly lower than the
quality of their applications merits. It cites third-party academic
research on the SAT exam showing that Asian-Americans have to score on
average about 140 points higher than white students, 270 points higher
than Hispanic students and 450 points higher than African-American
students to equal their chances of gaining admission to Harvard. The
exam is scored on a 2400-point scale.

The complaint was filed with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

“Many
studies have indicated that Harvard University has been engaged in
systemic and continuous discrimination against Asian-Americans during
its very subjective ‘Holistic’ college admissions process,” the
complaint alleges. The coalition is seeking a federal
investigation and is requesting Harvard “immediately cease and desist
from using stereotypes, racial biases and other discriminatory means in
evaluating Asian-American applicants.”

This action is particularly significant for its symbolism; Harvard is the throne of American left-liberalism. But the nominally ideological alliance of minorities against the white majority was only going to last as long as the minorities felt they benefited more from that alliance than from flexing their muscle in their own direct interests. Based on what we’re seeing from the Asians in the political world, they are all but done with their “liberal” alliance with blacks, Jews, and Hispanics.

It won’t surprise me if Asians magically become more “conservative” in the next decade as they switch to a Yellow-White (Blue) alliance against the White (Red)-Black-Brown alliance. Politics in the USA and in the UK are becoming less about ideology and more about the straightforward racial power struggles that have historically characterized most diverse societies.

And yes, I use the Red-Blue colors in their original form; Red being the appropriate color for those of the more socialist inclinations.

Giving up on civilized standards

Even if you are a blank slatist who subscribes to a purely cultural theory of African dyscivicism, how is a retreat from imposing civilized standards on disruptive young vibrants going to improve either their behavior or their odds in life?

Board members of California’s Oakland Unified School District unanimously voted on Wednesday to cease suspending students for what they call “willful defiance.” Those behaviors can include swearing/yelling at teachers, refusing direct orders, texting, and storming out of class, to name a few.

The reason? Concern that too many black students are being suspended for willful defiance.

One sophomore student, Dan’enicole Williams, told the San Francisco Gate, “They never take time out, if someone is sleeping in class, to ask what’s wrong. They may be acting that way because they didn’t eat the night before.”

“We’re getting pushed out of schools,” she added. “They don’t care about us.”

Along with suspensions, the new policy will also include bans on expulsions and transfers of students to other schools for multiple infractions.

This is not a society that is going to survive three more generations intact. I mean, anyone can be wrong about what the future will bring, but I simply don’t see any credible scenario where this sort of absolute lunacy doesn’t have considerable knock-on effects.

These optimistically misnamed “students” don’t want to be there and there is observably no purpose in them being there since they’re not even going to be held to minimal standards of behavior, so what is the point of denying their free will while simultaneously degrading the educational experience of all the other children?

Ah yes, preserving the narrative. The narrative must be preserved at absolutely all costs, or else Hitler will holocaust the Jews again. If I was a poor black single mother hoping that my child would somehow improve his lot by obtaining an education, I’d be up in arms about this nonsense.

The crime of failing to cower

This sounds like sheer comedy in the academic thought gulag:

Members of the Virginia Tech football team have been accused of acting disrespectfully at a campus sexual assault awareness event. Players were required to attend a Take Back the Night event on March 26. The event was organized by a campus female activism group and featured sexual assault survivors speaking about their experiences as victims. Multiple attendees accused the players of infringing upon the “safe space” the event is intended to foster, according to The Roanoke Times.

Take Back the Night is a national organization that seeks “to end sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual abuse and all other forms of sexual violence.”

Several attendees wrote letters to the student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, complaining about the players’ behavior. The players arrived late, said they did not know why they were attending the event and spent much of the time looking at their phones, the letters said.

“[T]heir judgmental remarks made it very hard to feel safe,” one wrote. “When survivors took the stage, there was nothing respectful in the way the football team took it, especially in reference to transgender survivors. I am deeply offended and horrified by the disrespectful nature that the players displayed.”

I would suggest that dragging the most aggressive and athletic young men on campus into a place they observably don’t want to be and then flaunting “transgender survivors” in their faces is almost the exact opposite of a “safe space”.

Some things merit disrespect. Maoist consciousness-raising sessions are most certainly one of them.