More on vouchers, history and creationism

August 7, 2006

Mark Olson is a veteran blogger on issues of concern to conservatives and to Christians, at Pseudo-Polymath. He’s responded to my earlier post on vouchers. Marks calls it ‘a bit of a quibble.’

His first complaint goes to history: I wrote that once we had a broad consensus on the value of education. Mark wrote:

In colonial (and I presume probably pre-Civil War Virginia) the Chesapeake bay/plantation folkway had a … hegemonic attitude toward education. In fact, while the plantation “masters” were 100% literate, the servants and other classes in the society (white) were some 70% illiterate. It was something of a point of pride that public education was not generally available. Literacy and education as well, was not emphasised in the backcountry as well (which continues (I think) today in Appalachia for example). So of the four folkways which made up our early nation, only two held that education was of value.

That official policy prevented education as a mark of oppression and/or racism only makes the point. Infamously, some states and localities at various times had laws against teaching slaves to read, or to educate slaves formally in other ways. Denying education is a traditional form of oppression. This does not change the consensus that education is valuable, but instead is a dramatic demonstration that the policy makers regarded education as valuable and as a political tool for change. At the same time that these governments forbade educating slaves, they established schools for other people. Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments | America's founding, Education, Freedom - Political, History, Public education, School vouchers, TAKS, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Dismal job market for historians

July 28, 2006

Jason Kuznicki writes about the dismal job market for historians at Positive Liberty.

In contrast to the troubles that afflict elementary and secondary education, Kuznicki writes:

I’m conversant in economics, so I even know the method to the madness: State subsidies for higher education tend to produce an oversupply of educated people. A state can hardly fail to misallocate resources, and, in all likelihood, we have too many universities, too many graduates, and too many PhDs in the fields the politicians think are important — like history.

“Oversupply of educated people.” The kids in my history and economics courses, with whom we struggled to keep them in school for one more semester to get a high school diploma, will not read that, I hope. Nor will their successors.

Leave a Comment » | Education, History, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Improve learning — speak informally

July 26, 2006

Hey, it’s a history blog, so I can refer back to stuff we missed, right?

Especially for teachers, go read this entry in Creating Passionate Users.

The author is a techie, but she’s talking about writing clearly (are you listening Texas teachers whose kids have to write well to get promoted?). She’s also discussing simple presentations, the type any business person does, the kind teachers and professors do all the time. And she has research to back her claims, that informal language improves student learning significantly. Not slang, not slouchy language — just not the formal, stilted stuff found in most textbooks.

Arrgghh! Textbooks! A subject for another rant, another day.

Leave a Comment » | Pedagogy, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Next Entries »