The Peace Nobel pleased and surprised a lot of fans of Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus. Here is a post that poses an interesting and encouraging question, “Can a man make a difference in the world with just 27 dollars?” The post features several links to other comments.
How long before the backlash against microlending begins to be heard? Five, four, three, two . . .
3 Comments | 
Current History, Economics, Leadership | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
At 7:46 a.m. EDT the population of the U.S. is projected to hit 300 million people.
What sort of lesson plans are available for such an event?
Is there room for pondering such issues under the state’s education standards for social studies?
2 Comments | Current History, History, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Clint Eastwood’s movie based on James Brady’s book about his father and World War II, Flags of Our Fathers, will be released on October 20. This blog’s post on photographer Joe Rosenthal’s death a few weeks ago has been one of the most sought after, searched-for and read posts.
This movie release provides excellent opportunities for history teachers. Will we be able to take full advantage?
Here’s the website for the movie.
1 Comment | Flag etiquette, History, History video sources, Lesson plans, Patriotism, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Avoiding Aristotle’s warning that we shouldn’t introduce children to “music,” many teachers like to add a little music to a lesson plan from time to time. Especially useful is music that pertains directly to the stuff in the lesson plan.
If you are stumped on how to find such music as I am (and remember, I teach in Texas!), you may find this index of folk music to be quite useful, The Folk Music Index, by Jane Keefer in Oregon.
As useful as that index is, it is limited to material in Ms. Keefer’s personal collection. Fortunately, her site lists links to other folk music indices: Folk Music Indexes, Print and Electronic Sources. That index includes links to such important indices as Alan Lomax’s work at the Alan Lomax Database.
Just a pause to rant: Texas music suffers from profound neglect in Texas history courses in elementary and secondary schools. Oh, there are recordings available for teachers to use in classrooms, including a few old tunes from Native American tribes, some cowboy songs, and a few other Texas-related songs. Nothing for the classroom begins to touch the full range of Texas music students should be aware of, and take pride in.
Texas music would be a good project for a music major, or a copyright specialist, rather than a historian, perhaps. Or the subject would be a good one to make collaborators of lawyers, musicians and historians. Here are some of the great gaps in Texas music that I see, for social studies education:
If you have a good source of music for history courses, drop a line. If you have a good source of music for economics courses, phone.
6 Comments | History, Lesson plans, Texas, Textbooks | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Week after week it just keeps getting better. Here’s the latest Carnival of Education — there is something there for anyone interested at all in education.
There are many “carnivals” of various types in Blogtopia these days. This one is among the best. Plus, it’s on a very important topic. You’d do well to go see what it’s got this week.
Not so good a measure, most argue.
They’re right, of course. One need only look at the awards of Nobels in the past to people from nations where the education systems were not up to snuff to understand how wildly inaccurate such predictions can be.
Seed Magazine’s on-line version actually has an article discussing the issue: “Precious Medals.” The article concludes most rationally that the U.S.’s success at winning science Nobel Prizes does not in any way, shape or form indicate that we do NOT have a crisis in science education in the nation right now. That’s good to remember.
By the way: Was Theodore Roosevelt the only man ever to win both the Congressional Medal of Honor, and a Nobel Prize? (He won the Congressional Medal for the “charge up San Juan Hill” in the Spanish-American War of 1898; he won the Nobel Prize for Peace for working out the treaty that ended the war between Japan and Russia, during his presidency (1901-1909)).
1 Comment | Education, Education reform, Theodore Roosevelt | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Much checking yet to do, but one ironic result show up in anecdote, at least. Milton Friedman’s advocacy for vouchers may not be borne out even in the economics Nobel winners. Edmund Phelps, it appears so far, attended public schools near Chicago, in Friedman’s back yard.
Milton Friedman, the eminent Nobel-winning economist from the University of Chicago, author with his wife Rose of the best-seller that fueled much of the intelligentsia of the Reagan movement, Free to Choose (which was made into a television series for PBS), has long been an advocate for vouchers from public schools. Friedman argues that a dose of competition would be good for public schools, and the ability of students to choose to take their voucher to another school would also be good for students.
My belief is that we do not have sufficient data to make predictions that any voucher system would be an improvement. Public education as an American institution is an outgrowth of communitarian spirit coupled with strong need and strong desire for better-educated people to drive the economy; this spirit and these needs provided demand for education which could not be filled by private enterprise. Public education is, in my opinion, already the market response to consumer demand.
But data are difficult to parse out — not much was collected in the U.S.’s western expansion, we may not be collecting the right data now. So we argue from anecdote. Friedman’s anecdote’s talk about good private schools. Other anecdotes note public school successes.
Richard Feynman’s autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, covered his public school education in some detail, and it offered me some solid anecdotes for policy discussion when I was higher in government. Feynman won the Nobel in 1965 (Physics), was a genius, and also a product of the public schools. A quick survey of U.S. Nobelists shows most of them are also products of public schools. Since then I have watched with a one eye open the announcements of Nobels, wondering whether this trend will change in my lifetime.
So far, no change. The Nobel press packages and official biographies generally lack information about primary and secondary schools of winners. Digging is necessary. Phelps’ biographies are no exception. I finally got something close to an answer from a .pdf rendering of a chapter from The Makers of Modern Economics, Vol II, Arnold Heertje, ed. (1995, Edward Elgar Publishing Co., Aldershot, UK, and Brookfield, US), linked from Phelps’ biography page at Columbia.
Phelps was born in 1933, a Great Depression baby. Both of his parents lost their jobs ultimately. Although he was enrolled in a kindergarten for the gifted, there is no indication that he attended private schools.
If you have contrary and correcting information, please send it.
Friedman makes a good case, but it is a case that I find to be lacking in data. Even, perhaps especially, among the Nobel winners including economics, public school alumni win a disproportionate share of awards. There are all sorts of problems with the data to project trends, but there are few contrary data that I can find. Even with problems in data accounted for, public schools look good.
One problem is whether such data have any correlation at all to today’s public schooling. We may not know for 40 years whether the radical experimentation in standardized testing and other changes shepherded by the federal government will have any effect.
2 Comments | Economics, Education, Freedom - Economic, Public education, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I’m pondering this interesting blog, with this provocative post: Stumbling and Mumbling.
Are private schools a waste of money?
2 Comments | Economics, Education, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
His Wikipedia entry is said to be small, but should grow soon: Here is information on Edmund Phelps, who won the Nobel for economics late last week, with links to a lot more.
Producct of the public schools? Does anyone know for sure? He grew up in Evanston, Illinois.
Leave a Comment » | Economics, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Liberal press? You must be kidding.
Apart from the fact that media owners are all very conservative types, there is the tendency to stifle reporting with a left- or moderate-bias, while promoting right-biased news. Evidence?
A Reuters reporter wrote a book about Ann Coulter, after getting permission from Reuters. They fired him when he showed them the galleys. It’s circumstantial evidence, sure, but still, it’s convincing to some.
More comment at Majikthise.
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bogus history, Ethics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Muhammad Yunus, photo by P. Rahman/Scanpix
MuhammadYunus and Grameen Bank share the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Wow. Just wow.
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.
Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty. Grameen Bank has been a source of ideas and models for the many institutions in the field of micro-credit that have sprung up around the world.
Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development.
Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy can not achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.
Yunus’s long-term vision is to eliminate poverty in the world. That vision can not be realised by means of micro-credit alone. But Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing efforts to achieve it, micro-credit must play a major part.
Oslo, 13 October 2006
It’s one thing to talk economics, another to go do it. Here’s to hoping this award will encourage others to act effectively to end poverty.
More coverage:
3 Comments | Current History, Economics, Ethics, Freedom - Economic | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Archibald M. Willard, “The Spirit of ’76,” one of the best-recognized icons of American patriotism; courtesy of the American Reserve Society Sons of the American Revolution (of which Willard was a member); Library of Congress data: “Yankee doodle 1776 “/ A.M. Willard. Creator(s): Clay, Cosack & Co., lithographer. Related Names: Willard, Archibald M., 1836-1918 , artist Ryder, James F., 1826-1904 , publisher Date Created/Published: Cleveland, Ohio : Pub. by J.F. Ryder, c1876.
Archibald M. Willard, “The Spirit of ’76,” one of the best-recognized icons of American patriotism; courtesy of the American Reserve Society Sons of the American Revolution (of which Willard was a member).
Scouters discuss issues of leadership and skill, a wide-ranging group of topics that pertain to Boy Scouting, on a list-server known as Scouts-L. I subscribe to the discussion, and at times have participated frequently in it. Looking over my own archives, I was amused to see that it was more than a decade ago that I addressed the issue of how to quell any need for a Constitutional Amendment on flag desecration.
The U.S. flag fascinated me from my early childhood. It always strikes me as unique among flags of nations, and I can truly say that I find it stirring to see it in good display. In court, in schools, in the Senate and executive branch of federal government, and in local government, I have had more than my share of occasions to participate in cermonies honoring the flag, or merely sit in contemplation of it during official proceedings. I always reflect on John Peter Zenger’s trial for telling the truth about the King’s governor of New York, and how our flag now means that we can tell the truth about our own government without fear of official reprisal.
I often reflect on the story of Virginia Hewlett, who was a member of the U.S. High Commissioner’s staff in the Philippines when Gen. MacArthur’s forces retreated, and who risked her life in order to strike the U.S. flag and prevent its capture by the Japanese. For this action she and several others were captured, tortured, and endured the war in a prison camp. When she was freed, to her husband and my old friend Frank Hewlett (who was a UPI war correspondent and later a Nieman Fellow and Washington correspondent for the Salt Lake Tribune), she weighed 78 pounds. Read the rest of this entry »
5 Comments | Flag etiquette, History, Patriotism, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Constitutional Amendment, Flag etiquette, History, Patriotism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
When I posted the last piece on Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher and the U.S.S. Pueblo I was unaware of the news that North Korea (DPRK) had detonated its nuclear device. In retrospect, the crisis around the Pueblo demonstrated that in dealing with officials in DPRK, we generally do best to use our wits, not bullets or threats of bombs.
Just an observation.
7 Comments | Atomic Bomb, History, Politics, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Edmund Phelps of Columbia got the Economics Nobel today. Almost certainly the literature prize will not go to a U.S. candidate, nor the prize for peace.
Leave a Comment » | Economics, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
We’re talking past each other now over at Right Reason[*], on a thread that started out lamenting Baylor’s initial decision to deny Dr. Francis Beckwith tenure last year, but quickly changed once news got out that Beckwith’s appeal of the decision was successful.
I noted that Beckwith’s getting tenure denies ID advocates of an argument that Beckwith is being persecuted for his ID views (wholly apart from the fact that there is zero indication his views on this issue had anything to do with his tenure discussions). Of course, I was wrong there — ID advocates have since continued to claim persecution where none exists. Never let the facts get in the way of a creationism rant, is the first rule of creationism.
Steve Sack cartoon in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Discussion has since turned to the legality of teaching intelligent design in a public school science class. This is well settled law — it’s not legal, not so long as there remains no undisproven science to back ID or any other form of creationism.
10 Comments | Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Creationism, denialism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Law, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Creationism, denialism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Law, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You are currently browsing the Millard Fillmore's Bathtub blog archives for October, 2006.
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 