I recently mentioned to a key official at the Minneapolis Public Schools the fact that my son (Ryan Davison-Reed) and I are true leftists who often hold our nose when voting for Democrats.
My frame of reference was of course most clearly related to education issues, on which Democrats (including members of the DFL) are just as bad as Republicans.
But I feel more revolutionary all the time and have ongoing disregard for most things that appear on my visual screen as I go to and fro in the world:
We have a great need to rethink everything.
I have thought about the necessity of revolutionary analysis and action in revaluating many activities and ideologies. Contemporary life is very crude, essentially as a function of the brief experience of humanity on the planet. Our crudeness is observable everywhere we turn.
Ryan and I are always talking about the need to go back to the root on everything.
Thus it is that conservative intellectuals such as Edmund Burke and George Will are wrong at the outset and have no chance ever to be correct on the strength of their main premises. That is to say that to want to conserve institutions that are so crude and upon assumptions about life that are so shallow and illusionary is to want to dwell forever in an artifice built upon human religious beliefs and material aspirations low in aesthetic and intellectual quality. Only occasionally have certain people moved the standard to higher aesthetic realms; only in given works of creative and scientific inspiration and in the beauty of nature do we see possibilities into a better way of living.
We do indeed want to preserve these works of creative genius as a guide to further discovery in our ascent toward a higher level of knowledge and ethics; but very little do we want to conserve for static observance or conception as Ultimate Truth.
Thus is conservatism in its very nature invalid, and so is reactionary thinking morally repugnant. And liberals have traveled only a very short distance in pursuit of a better way. The pursuit of Truth falls to those moving leftward in the creation of constantly better approximations of Perfection.
Thus spoke not Zarathustra but Gary Marvin Davison.
Apr 18, 2016
Citizens Are Ignoramuses, and Officials of the Minneapolis Public Schools Intend to Keep Them That Way
Citizens in the United States are ignoramuses, and officials of the Minneapolis Public Schools intend to keep them that way.
In his book, Just How Ignorant Are We? (New York: Basic Books, 2008), George Mason University Professor Rick Shenkman summarizes scientific survey and polling data in revealing the extraordinary level of American ignorance. Included in his account are the following examples, given for citizens 18 years of age or older, except where noted for particular age groups:
Just 25% of American adults can name more than one of the fundamental First Amendment freedoms (speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition for redress of grievances), although diehard optimists (and equally ignorant folk) might take heart by observing that approximately the same percentage (22%) of adult citizens can name all five of The Simpsons television characters.
Only 30% of adult citizens know that Roe v. Wade (1973) was the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal. Just 25% know that the length of term for Senators is six years, and only 20% know that each state has two senators for a total of 100 members of the upper chamber of the United States Congress. Fewer than half (40%) can name the three branches of the federal government (executive, judicial, and legislative). And, remarkably, a mere 49% of American adults know that the United States was the nation whose pilots dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In an assessment of basic knowledge of civics administered to 14,000 college students by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in 2007, over half of these test-takers scored fewer than 55 correctly out of a total 100 questions. Fewer than half knew that the Battle of Yorktown (1781) ended the fighting between the American colonists and the British in the American Revolution.
Other instruments reveal that just 34% of American adults know that Congress is the federal governmental body with the constitutional right to declare war; 35% know that Congress can override a presidential veto. Sixty percent of adult citizens think that the President can appoint federal judges without Senatorial approve--- which must have created confusion in such folk when President Obama appointed Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia amid the controversial refusal of Mitch McConnell and the Republican congressional leadership to bring the nomination before the Senate.
Forty-five percent of American adults think that revolutionary speech is punishable under the Constitution. Only 5% of respondents to one survey could answer 75% of fundamental economics questions correctly; comparable figures for percentage of respondents making 75% correct responses on matters pertinent to domestic issues was 11%; foreign affairs, 14%; and geography, 10%.
A Strategic Task Force on Education Abroad declared in 2003 that American ignorance of the outside world constitutes a threat to national security. The susceptibility of so many uninformed people to the demagoguery of Donald Trump should make that admonition very tangible.
…………………………………………
Most likely against the common perception, young people 18 to 24 years of age are the least informed of all, despite their constant punching of smart phones and other technological devices. Young people as a group rate only above those confined to nursing homes in level of general knowledge. Only 23% of young people use the Internet to access information pertinent to issues of national or international importance. Young people do very little reading. As revealed in a 2004 study by the National Endowment for the Arts as cited by Shenkman in his book, only 43% of those in the 18 to 24 age group read literature (down from 60% in 1982). Over 50% do not read newspapers (either physical or online), fiction, poetry, or drama. But few older adults in the United States do much serious reading, either; and in the United States Congress, members regularly cast votes on bills that they have not read.
Rick Shenkman warns his own readers not to mistake access to factual knowledge with consumption thereof:
This, of course, goes to the core of the erroneous approach to K-12 education espoused by education professors and other members of the education establishment. I have detailed in other articles the responses that I have gotten from members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education and officials in the central offices of that school district that reveal their lack of focus on knowledge acquisition as central to K-12 education. They are much under the influence of that falsely labeled “progressive” approach to education that purports to teach students how to think critically and prepare for lifelong learning without having any knowledge base upon which critical analysis must proceed--- and without having learned very much in the first place.
Thus it is that the condition of intellectual laziness and the terrible knowledge base that teachers and other members of the education establishment have as a result of their experience in wretched departments, colleges, and schools of education motivates them to conceal their own ignorance by devaluing knowledge with the claim that facts can always be looked up as necessary. This is all the more true, they claim, now that the Internet and myriad electronic devices provide so much access to ready information.
But the danger is that the typical American shows little interest in knowledge, and never gets around to looking up facts of any relevance to serious national or international issues. Given so little knowledge acquired during the thirteen years spent in the terrible K-12 public schools of the United States, Americans never learn to respect knowledge and never become the lifelong learners and critical thinkers that the education establishment deceitfully claims they are producing.
The entity known as the Minneapolis Public Schools is a salient example of the locally centralized school district of the United States that sends graduates across the stage to claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only.
Citizens in Minnesota and the United States are ignoramuses.
And, given their knowledge-poor approach to K-12 education, officials in the Minneapolis Public Schools implicitly intend to keep them that way.
In his book, Just How Ignorant Are We? (New York: Basic Books, 2008), George Mason University Professor Rick Shenkman summarizes scientific survey and polling data in revealing the extraordinary level of American ignorance. Included in his account are the following examples, given for citizens 18 years of age or older, except where noted for particular age groups:
Just 25% of American adults can name more than one of the fundamental First Amendment freedoms (speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition for redress of grievances), although diehard optimists (and equally ignorant folk) might take heart by observing that approximately the same percentage (22%) of adult citizens can name all five of The Simpsons television characters.
Only 30% of adult citizens know that Roe v. Wade (1973) was the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal. Just 25% know that the length of term for Senators is six years, and only 20% know that each state has two senators for a total of 100 members of the upper chamber of the United States Congress. Fewer than half (40%) can name the three branches of the federal government (executive, judicial, and legislative). And, remarkably, a mere 49% of American adults know that the United States was the nation whose pilots dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In an assessment of basic knowledge of civics administered to 14,000 college students by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in 2007, over half of these test-takers scored fewer than 55 correctly out of a total 100 questions. Fewer than half knew that the Battle of Yorktown (1781) ended the fighting between the American colonists and the British in the American Revolution.
Other instruments reveal that just 34% of American adults know that Congress is the federal governmental body with the constitutional right to declare war; 35% know that Congress can override a presidential veto. Sixty percent of adult citizens think that the President can appoint federal judges without Senatorial approve--- which must have created confusion in such folk when President Obama appointed Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia amid the controversial refusal of Mitch McConnell and the Republican congressional leadership to bring the nomination before the Senate.
Forty-five percent of American adults think that revolutionary speech is punishable under the Constitution. Only 5% of respondents to one survey could answer 75% of fundamental economics questions correctly; comparable figures for percentage of respondents making 75% correct responses on matters pertinent to domestic issues was 11%; foreign affairs, 14%; and geography, 10%.
A Strategic Task Force on Education Abroad declared in 2003 that American ignorance of the outside world constitutes a threat to national security. The susceptibility of so many uninformed people to the demagoguery of Donald Trump should make that admonition very tangible.
…………………………………………
Most likely against the common perception, young people 18 to 24 years of age are the least informed of all, despite their constant punching of smart phones and other technological devices. Young people as a group rate only above those confined to nursing homes in level of general knowledge. Only 23% of young people use the Internet to access information pertinent to issues of national or international importance. Young people do very little reading. As revealed in a 2004 study by the National Endowment for the Arts as cited by Shenkman in his book, only 43% of those in the 18 to 24 age group read literature (down from 60% in 1982). Over 50% do not read newspapers (either physical or online), fiction, poetry, or drama. But few older adults in the United States do much serious reading, either; and in the United States Congress, members regularly cast votes on bills that they have not read.
Rick Shenkman warns his own readers not to mistake access to factual knowledge with consumption thereof:
This, of course, goes to the core of the erroneous approach to K-12 education espoused by education professors and other members of the education establishment. I have detailed in other articles the responses that I have gotten from members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education and officials in the central offices of that school district that reveal their lack of focus on knowledge acquisition as central to K-12 education. They are much under the influence of that falsely labeled “progressive” approach to education that purports to teach students how to think critically and prepare for lifelong learning without having any knowledge base upon which critical analysis must proceed--- and without having learned very much in the first place.
Thus it is that the condition of intellectual laziness and the terrible knowledge base that teachers and other members of the education establishment have as a result of their experience in wretched departments, colleges, and schools of education motivates them to conceal their own ignorance by devaluing knowledge with the claim that facts can always be looked up as necessary. This is all the more true, they claim, now that the Internet and myriad electronic devices provide so much access to ready information.
But the danger is that the typical American shows little interest in knowledge, and never gets around to looking up facts of any relevance to serious national or international issues. Given so little knowledge acquired during the thirteen years spent in the terrible K-12 public schools of the United States, Americans never learn to respect knowledge and never become the lifelong learners and critical thinkers that the education establishment deceitfully claims they are producing.
The entity known as the Minneapolis Public Schools is a salient example of the locally centralized school district of the United States that sends graduates across the stage to claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only.
Citizens in Minnesota and the United States are ignoramuses.
And, given their knowledge-poor approach to K-12 education, officials in the Minneapolis Public Schools implicitly intend to keep them that way.
Mar 14, 2016
An Introduction to--- or Reminder of--- My Personal Background and Activities in the New Salem Educational Initiative
I just wrote the following account of my personal background and activities in the New Salem Educational Initiative in reply to a person in the public media seeking such a profile. These comments should be helpful as a review for followers of my blog, and as an introduction to those less familiar with my teaching, writing, and public advocacy.
.......................................................................
With regard to your kind comments about my teaching and my advocacy on matters pertinent to K-12 education, and desire to know more about my background and activities, I offer the following summary:
.......................................................................
I hold a Ph. D. in Chinese history from the University of Minnesota, with an original academic specialization in Taiwan.
I vowed from the outset of my years devoted to education to train like a university scholar but remain dedicated primarily to K-12 settings. Over the course of forty-five (45) years, I have taught in a multiplicity of situations: fifteen years in K-12 classrooms; four and a half years, non-sequential, at the university; three years teaching English as a Second Language in Taiwan; a year of lecturing in Mandarin Chinese for the Fulbright Foundation in Taiwan; and a year teaching a GED curriculum in a prison (Missouri Eastern Correctional Center).
I have taught in many settings, with continual prime emphasis on working with the economically poorest of the urban poor, since I first taught near the public housing projects in West Dallas; and for the last twenty-five (25) years in North Minneapolis.
A metaphor for my career as a scholar-teacher is the phase during which I presented my dissertation, Agricultural Development and the Fate of Farmers in Taiwan, 1945-1990, to the professors on my committee at the University of Minnesota; while I was a teacher at the old City, Inc., North Side; the latter served students, many of them gang members, from troubled familial circumstances.
I am an author of numerous works:
I have written numerous opinion pieces for the Star Tribune and have posted 262 articles on my blog at http://www.newsalemeducation.blogspot.com.
I have written eight books, most of them listed on Amazon; and including two--- The State of African Americans in Minnesota, 2004 and 2008 editions, for the Minneapolis Urban league, during the tenure of my friend Clarence Hightower as President and Chief Executive Officer. For a year and a half now I have published an academic periodical, The K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, available to a growing number of individual and group subscribers. I also host a television show, The K-12 Revolution with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison, on which I conduct interviews (most recently with Minneapolis Public Schools Director of Black Male Achievement, Michael Walker); make extended commentary; and conduct academic sessions of up to two hours (covering two complete shows) with my students.
I have completed ten of fourteen chapters for a new book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, which offers a complete education in economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, English usage, the fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics--- so comprehensive that many a university graduate wishes that she or he had either previously received, or remembered, the included information.
With regard to my students, know that these other quite time-consuming activities are in addition to my most important and temporally extensive activity of all--- the conducting of 17 small-group academic sessions over the course of seven days a week; and the administration of the New Salem Tuesday Tutoring Program at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, at which Jerry McAfee is pastor.
In these academic sessions I move my students, all of whom are either African American or Hispanic and qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, to grade level in mathematics and reading, then put them on a college preparatory course of study. I train them to take the ACT and cover with them the information from my chapters in Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.
I was on one of the committees that wrote the academic standards for the State of Minnesota Department of Education.
I am at work 19 hours most days and at least 15 hours every day, modeling and advocating for the excellent education for which our young people have been long waiting.
I am determined to revolutionize K-12 education for the delivery of knowledge-intensive curriculum by knowledgeable teachers who possess the pedagogical gifts for imparting their knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.
.......................................................................
With regard to your kind comments about my teaching and my advocacy on matters pertinent to K-12 education, and desire to know more about my background and activities, I offer the following summary:
.......................................................................
I hold a Ph. D. in Chinese history from the University of Minnesota, with an original academic specialization in Taiwan.
I vowed from the outset of my years devoted to education to train like a university scholar but remain dedicated primarily to K-12 settings. Over the course of forty-five (45) years, I have taught in a multiplicity of situations: fifteen years in K-12 classrooms; four and a half years, non-sequential, at the university; three years teaching English as a Second Language in Taiwan; a year of lecturing in Mandarin Chinese for the Fulbright Foundation in Taiwan; and a year teaching a GED curriculum in a prison (Missouri Eastern Correctional Center).
I have taught in many settings, with continual prime emphasis on working with the economically poorest of the urban poor, since I first taught near the public housing projects in West Dallas; and for the last twenty-five (25) years in North Minneapolis.
A metaphor for my career as a scholar-teacher is the phase during which I presented my dissertation, Agricultural Development and the Fate of Farmers in Taiwan, 1945-1990, to the professors on my committee at the University of Minnesota; while I was a teacher at the old City, Inc., North Side; the latter served students, many of them gang members, from troubled familial circumstances.
I am an author of numerous works:
I have written numerous opinion pieces for the Star Tribune and have posted 262 articles on my blog at http://www.newsalemeducation.blogspot.com.
I have written eight books, most of them listed on Amazon; and including two--- The State of African Americans in Minnesota, 2004 and 2008 editions, for the Minneapolis Urban league, during the tenure of my friend Clarence Hightower as President and Chief Executive Officer. For a year and a half now I have published an academic periodical, The K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, available to a growing number of individual and group subscribers. I also host a television show, The K-12 Revolution with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison, on which I conduct interviews (most recently with Minneapolis Public Schools Director of Black Male Achievement, Michael Walker); make extended commentary; and conduct academic sessions of up to two hours (covering two complete shows) with my students.
I have completed ten of fourteen chapters for a new book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, which offers a complete education in economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, English usage, the fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics--- so comprehensive that many a university graduate wishes that she or he had either previously received, or remembered, the included information.
With regard to my students, know that these other quite time-consuming activities are in addition to my most important and temporally extensive activity of all--- the conducting of 17 small-group academic sessions over the course of seven days a week; and the administration of the New Salem Tuesday Tutoring Program at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, at which Jerry McAfee is pastor.
In these academic sessions I move my students, all of whom are either African American or Hispanic and qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, to grade level in mathematics and reading, then put them on a college preparatory course of study. I train them to take the ACT and cover with them the information from my chapters in Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.
I was on one of the committees that wrote the academic standards for the State of Minnesota Department of Education.
I am at work 19 hours most days and at least 15 hours every day, modeling and advocating for the excellent education for which our young people have been long waiting.
I am determined to revolutionize K-12 education for the delivery of knowledge-intensive curriculum by knowledgeable teachers who possess the pedagogical gifts for imparting their knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.
Mar 11, 2016
Weekly Midweek Missive (#376, IX-29) sent to my son, Ryan Davison-Reed, on Friday, 11 March 2016: The Starkly Errant Philosophy of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education
Mar 8, 2016
Excellent Education Is Defined by Student Mastery of Commonly Shared Knowledge--- and, Thus, Beware the Acolytes of Ted Kolderie
In their article, “The Way to Design Schools So That All Can Succeed” (Star Tribune, March 7, 2016), Robert Wehl, Jay Haugen, and Jeff Ronneburg tout bad ideas that are consistent with those espoused by professors in our terrible departments, colleges, and schools of education; and that emanate directly from Ted Kolderie, whose vapid notions often appear on these pages. They should be recognized for their vacuity as a guide to the overhaul of K-12 education.
First consider the meaning of an excellent education and what actually prevents our students from receiving the education that should be theirs as human beings in community with others.
Excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting well-defined knowledge and skill sets in the liberal, industrial, and technological arts to students of all demographic descriptors in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.
An excellent teacher is a professional of broad and deep knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
When our K-12 students go across the stage at graduation, their brains should be alive with commonly shared knowledge that is their human inheritance. From their K-5 years forward, all students should especially gain a bevy of information in mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, English usage, the fine arts, and world languages. From the middle school years (grades 6-8) forward, student knowledge and skill sets should include those pertinent to industrial arts such as plumbing, auto mechanics, carpentry, electrical circuitry, and construction; and those germane to the use and application of computer and electronic technology.
But for at least four decades, professors in departments, schools, and colleges of education have espoused a “constructivist” approach to learning that focuses on immediate student interest in the context of that person’s individual life experiences. Education professors devalue knowledge as defined by well-defined, sequentially learned, commonly shared knowledge and skill sets. One can always look up that sort of knowledge, they say, with the help of classroom presences functioning as information “facilitators,” rather than as true teachers.
These same education professors give us K-5 teachers whose programs are the least rigorous on college and university campuses; such teachers have very little subject area knowledge. Prospective teachers at grades 6-12 do get bachelor’s degrees in legitimate disciplines; but the standards for licensure are low, and the system is rigged to impel them toward master’s degrees in education, rather than in the subject areas that they teach. Education departments, schools, and colleges are “cash cows” for universities.
Thus it is that education professors promote the shibboleths of “critical thinking” and “life-long learning” that actually act in tandem as a smokescreen for teaching our students very little:
Students have little knowledge, for example, as to how the Federal Reserve System works; why people do what they do according to Sigmund Freud, B. F. Skinner, and Abraham Maslow; the doctrinal and cultural difference between Shi’ite and Sunni Islam; what Reconstruction was and why it failed; how the dramatic phrasings of August Wilson soar to Shakespearean heights ; and how Einstein’s calculations pertinent to the universe challenge the earthbound laws of Newtonian physics.
This is the context in which readers should reject the ruminations of Wedl, Haugen, and Ronneburg. Their references to “customized student learning,” flexible rather than universal standards, multiple measure assessments rather than objective testing, empowered teachers, and autonomous school sites are verbal constructions that resonate pleasantly in many ears but echo the insipid pronouncements of education professors.
We need not less, but more centralization, of the sort that has made students in South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany, and Finland the most knowledgeable in the world. We need commonly shared knowledge bases that will give all students lives of cultural enrichment, professional satisfaction, and civic preparation. We must have objective testing, which is the fairest and most dependable way to measure student learning. We need universally well-trained teachers able to impart vital knowledge and skill sets to all students. And we need locally centralized school systems that must be surrogates for national centralization in a nation fixated on local control.
In this age of cybernetic friends communicating in physical isolation and alienated people perpetrating violence on their fellows, know that we need informed citizens interacting in the context of community.
Know that the fanciful ruminations of Ted Kolderie acolytes cannot give our students what they need in commonly shared knowledge, skill, and sense of community.
Know, most importantly, that only via commonly shared knowledge, skill, and sense of community can students go forth to thrive both as individually fulfilled human beings and as citizens responsible for the good of all humanity.
First consider the meaning of an excellent education and what actually prevents our students from receiving the education that should be theirs as human beings in community with others.
Excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting well-defined knowledge and skill sets in the liberal, industrial, and technological arts to students of all demographic descriptors in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.
An excellent teacher is a professional of broad and deep knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
When our K-12 students go across the stage at graduation, their brains should be alive with commonly shared knowledge that is their human inheritance. From their K-5 years forward, all students should especially gain a bevy of information in mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, English usage, the fine arts, and world languages. From the middle school years (grades 6-8) forward, student knowledge and skill sets should include those pertinent to industrial arts such as plumbing, auto mechanics, carpentry, electrical circuitry, and construction; and those germane to the use and application of computer and electronic technology.
But for at least four decades, professors in departments, schools, and colleges of education have espoused a “constructivist” approach to learning that focuses on immediate student interest in the context of that person’s individual life experiences. Education professors devalue knowledge as defined by well-defined, sequentially learned, commonly shared knowledge and skill sets. One can always look up that sort of knowledge, they say, with the help of classroom presences functioning as information “facilitators,” rather than as true teachers.
These same education professors give us K-5 teachers whose programs are the least rigorous on college and university campuses; such teachers have very little subject area knowledge. Prospective teachers at grades 6-12 do get bachelor’s degrees in legitimate disciplines; but the standards for licensure are low, and the system is rigged to impel them toward master’s degrees in education, rather than in the subject areas that they teach. Education departments, schools, and colleges are “cash cows” for universities.
Thus it is that education professors promote the shibboleths of “critical thinking” and “life-long learning” that actually act in tandem as a smokescreen for teaching our students very little:
Students have little knowledge, for example, as to how the Federal Reserve System works; why people do what they do according to Sigmund Freud, B. F. Skinner, and Abraham Maslow; the doctrinal and cultural difference between Shi’ite and Sunni Islam; what Reconstruction was and why it failed; how the dramatic phrasings of August Wilson soar to Shakespearean heights ; and how Einstein’s calculations pertinent to the universe challenge the earthbound laws of Newtonian physics.
This is the context in which readers should reject the ruminations of Wedl, Haugen, and Ronneburg. Their references to “customized student learning,” flexible rather than universal standards, multiple measure assessments rather than objective testing, empowered teachers, and autonomous school sites are verbal constructions that resonate pleasantly in many ears but echo the insipid pronouncements of education professors.
We need not less, but more centralization, of the sort that has made students in South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany, and Finland the most knowledgeable in the world. We need commonly shared knowledge bases that will give all students lives of cultural enrichment, professional satisfaction, and civic preparation. We must have objective testing, which is the fairest and most dependable way to measure student learning. We need universally well-trained teachers able to impart vital knowledge and skill sets to all students. And we need locally centralized school systems that must be surrogates for national centralization in a nation fixated on local control.
In this age of cybernetic friends communicating in physical isolation and alienated people perpetrating violence on their fellows, know that we need informed citizens interacting in the context of community.
Know that the fanciful ruminations of Ted Kolderie acolytes cannot give our students what they need in commonly shared knowledge, skill, and sense of community.
Know, most importantly, that only via commonly shared knowledge, skill, and sense of community can students go forth to thrive both as individually fulfilled human beings and as citizens responsible for the good of all humanity.
Mar 7, 2016
Transformations of Lives and Advocacy for Excellent Education in the New Salem Educational Initiative: Quite a Series of Days from 27 February to 6 March
[Note: Names used in these and other such articles on my blog are data privacy pseudonyms.]
The days running from Saturday, 27 February, through Sunday, 6 March, featured amazing opportunities in the interest of transforming lives and advocating for excellent education via the multi-program effort of the New Salem Educational Initiative.
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On Saturday, 27 February, Darnelle Franklin and I recorded two hours of my television show, The K-12 Revolution with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison (Minneapolis Telecommunications Network [MTN] Channel 17, Wednesdays at 6:00 PM). Darnelle is a Grade 9 student at Henry High School who has studied with me throughout his K-12 years. He is functioning at Grade 11 in both reading and mathematics, and he is now one of several students studying subject area material covered in my book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.
During our recording of two complete shows, Darnelle and I reviewed topics from the third chapter that Darnelle has read; this chapter covers Political Science and succeeds Darnelle’s study of Economics, and Psychology in two previous chapters.
On the show, we discussed the political forms of absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, and liberal democratic republic. We emphasized the historical evolution of these political forms and how constitutional monarchies in practice have tended to feature parliamentary versus presidential systems, and how in Europe they have also tended toward democratic socialism by comparison to the greater emphasis on laissez faire capitalism in the United States.
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On that very Saturday of 27 February I maintained a full schedule of small-group sessions, including work with siblings Joanna Billings and Wilson Billings, at Grade 2 and Grade 4 respectively at Jenny Lind K-5. Joanna is very precocious and has studied with me since she entered Grade K; she is functioning above grade level in reading and is far above grade level in math, accomplishing feats that are more typically associated mathematically with students at Grade 4. Similarly, Wilson is making top grades at school, has a powerhouse image of himself as an academic achiever, and is operating above grade level in both math and reading.
My work on Saturday also included work with siblings Hanna (Grade 4), Rico (Grade 6), and Gilberto Ramirez (Grade 8). Hanna is a fantastic talent and also diligent. Rico is a similarly fantastic talent but scattered and inconsistent in his effort. Gilberto is of more average ability but highly engaged and dedicated as a student. Hence, getting high performance from these students requires varying approaches--- all of which are keeping these three students on promising pathways to postsecondary experiences at colleges or universities.
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On Sunday (28 February) I worked with the mother (Carla) and aunt (Felicia) of these three students; each of these young adults aspires to her GED and enhanced employment opportunities. They are focused and highly motivated; and in all this a great family story. Just prior to working with Carla and Felicia, I worked with three members (Evelyn Patterson, Damon Preston, and Javon Jakes (grade 1), whose remarkable story I recorded in an earlier blog article--- and continue toward the end of this article.
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In the course of the following days of the week I worked with students ranging from Grade 1 to post-collegiate, the latter case a young man who has studied with me since Grade 6 and needs one course in College Algebra to claim his bachelor’s degree.
Seven of the students with whom I worked are advanced enough to be reading my college preparatory Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, reveling in the new knowledge that they are gaining as to the functioning of the Federal Reserve System and the stock market; the operant behaviorism of B. F. Skinner versus the psychoanalytical approach of Sigmund Freud; the relevance of the caucus and primary systems, and the Electoral College, to the current presidential campaigns; and the other material that they are learning in chapters focused on Political Science, Economics, and Psychology.
……………………………………………….
On Super Tuesday (1 March), I advocated for a resolution in my Democratic political caucus, asserting the case for the DFL and the national Democratic Party to moving assertively to advance a national K-12 curriculum. I was doing this to be pugnacious, given the realities of the attachment to local control in the United States, but lo and behold my resolution passed, 20-14.
Through the middle of the week I continued to give my efforts to a multiplicity of tasks >>>>>
>>>>> I superintended the New Salem Tuesday Tutoring Program;
>>>>> conducted a bevy of small-group academic sessions;
>>>>> and collected data on the number of positions with salaries for central office personnel at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
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Then yesterday, 7 March, I again met with Evelyn Patterson and her sons Damon Preston (Grade 7) and Javon Jakes (grade 1).
As I have noted, this is the economically poorest family whom I have ever served, keeping in perspective that my whole teaching career has been dedicated to teaching the most impoverished and historically underserved members of our society. I followed this family through four different living units in (mostly North) Minneapolis before they moved to a lower-rent Section 8 unit, their current bedbug-ridden apartment, on the East Side of St. Paul. Their current quarters are too ill-lit and devoid of furniture to be tenable for my academic work with members of the household.
Yesterday (7 March), Evelyn continued to zoom through our review of mathematical topics that will allow her to resume the college training that was interrupted a decade ago. We have gone through arithmetic operations and various operations with decimals, percentages, and fractions. We spent the preponderance of our time yesterday on the addition, subtraction, and multiplication of fractions and mixed numbers; and we went on to a review of fundamental algebraic equations.
Javon, now at Grade 1, is reading and performing mathematical operations that typically describe the skill and knowledge level of the Grade 3 student. Yesterday we concentrated on math. I ran Javon through a series of exercises on which he performed magnificently, demonstrating full grasp of multiplication tables for the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9. Javon loves my trick for the nines and is a whiz at its application. Next week Javon will learn multiplication tables for 6, 7, and 8--- thus completing, at just Grade 1, the all-important 0-9 sequence.
Damon performed multi-step algebraic equations adeptly, moving smoothly through ascending levels of challenges. He needed some review as to the rules that apply to additive as opposed to multiplicative operations with negative integers, showing his typical patience in regaining mastery.
……………………………………...........
When Evelyn, Damon, and Javon had entered my car at 2:30 PM on this Sunday, 6 March, Damon and Javon had just had a verbal quarrel. Evelyn was very frustrated.
I asked Damon and Javon what their argument had been about and found out that the dispute involved use of a friend’s electronic device for playing games. I talked to these half-brothers at length about the need to get along so as to help their mother. Evelyn struggles with her mental health, which I did not have to mention specifically for the boys to get my meaning implicitly.
So elated were these three about their academic successes on this day of study with me, that their spirits were elevated considerably as we made our way back to their apartment building. I talked to Damon and Javon again about ratcheting down the frequency of their arguments. They promised me that this would be a good week for their interactions.
Thus, transporting these three to and from their apartment allowed us time to talk in a way that helped them sort through a matter of seemingly trivial argument but one that had weighed heavily on Evelyn’s morale. And their accomplishment in their academic assignments had provided to each of these family members another rung on the ladder to success.
When people focus on matters for study that give them self-confidence and a sense of life progress, emotional states can be altered from moods of negativity to feelings of positive self-worth.
The mastery of broadly grasped and deeply internalized knowledge has been transformative in the cases of Evelyn and her sons Damon and Javon. These are people who yearn to learn all there is to know about all manner of subjects. They love learning for learning’s own sake; and they see their increasing knowledge as giving them the power to forge lives at a level of success that previously has escaped those of older generations in their family.
Evelyn, Damon, and Javon demonstrate each week the radiant power of knowledge. All of our nation’s citizens deserve the power of knowledge that surges in the souls of Evelyn, Damon, and Javon with each passing week.
Thus do I feel very blessed as I reflect on this very remarkable series of days extending from Saturday, 27 February, to Sunday, 6 March.
And thus do I vow to intensify the bevy of activities that currently describe the multi-faceted program of the New Salem Education, toward overhauling K-12 education for the life enrichment of all of our precious young people, and for all of those adults who are seeing for the first time the magnificent opportunities of life that beckon for them on a foundation of knowledge intensity and ethical responsibility.
The days running from Saturday, 27 February, through Sunday, 6 March, featured amazing opportunities in the interest of transforming lives and advocating for excellent education via the multi-program effort of the New Salem Educational Initiative.
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On Saturday, 27 February, Darnelle Franklin and I recorded two hours of my television show, The K-12 Revolution with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison (Minneapolis Telecommunications Network [MTN] Channel 17, Wednesdays at 6:00 PM). Darnelle is a Grade 9 student at Henry High School who has studied with me throughout his K-12 years. He is functioning at Grade 11 in both reading and mathematics, and he is now one of several students studying subject area material covered in my book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.
During our recording of two complete shows, Darnelle and I reviewed topics from the third chapter that Darnelle has read; this chapter covers Political Science and succeeds Darnelle’s study of Economics, and Psychology in two previous chapters.
On the show, we discussed the political forms of absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, and liberal democratic republic. We emphasized the historical evolution of these political forms and how constitutional monarchies in practice have tended to feature parliamentary versus presidential systems, and how in Europe they have also tended toward democratic socialism by comparison to the greater emphasis on laissez faire capitalism in the United States.
……………………………………………
On that very Saturday of 27 February I maintained a full schedule of small-group sessions, including work with siblings Joanna Billings and Wilson Billings, at Grade 2 and Grade 4 respectively at Jenny Lind K-5. Joanna is very precocious and has studied with me since she entered Grade K; she is functioning above grade level in reading and is far above grade level in math, accomplishing feats that are more typically associated mathematically with students at Grade 4. Similarly, Wilson is making top grades at school, has a powerhouse image of himself as an academic achiever, and is operating above grade level in both math and reading.
My work on Saturday also included work with siblings Hanna (Grade 4), Rico (Grade 6), and Gilberto Ramirez (Grade 8). Hanna is a fantastic talent and also diligent. Rico is a similarly fantastic talent but scattered and inconsistent in his effort. Gilberto is of more average ability but highly engaged and dedicated as a student. Hence, getting high performance from these students requires varying approaches--- all of which are keeping these three students on promising pathways to postsecondary experiences at colleges or universities.
…………………………………………………………………
On Sunday (28 February) I worked with the mother (Carla) and aunt (Felicia) of these three students; each of these young adults aspires to her GED and enhanced employment opportunities. They are focused and highly motivated; and in all this a great family story. Just prior to working with Carla and Felicia, I worked with three members (Evelyn Patterson, Damon Preston, and Javon Jakes (grade 1), whose remarkable story I recorded in an earlier blog article--- and continue toward the end of this article.
…………………………………………………………………
In the course of the following days of the week I worked with students ranging from Grade 1 to post-collegiate, the latter case a young man who has studied with me since Grade 6 and needs one course in College Algebra to claim his bachelor’s degree.
Seven of the students with whom I worked are advanced enough to be reading my college preparatory Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, reveling in the new knowledge that they are gaining as to the functioning of the Federal Reserve System and the stock market; the operant behaviorism of B. F. Skinner versus the psychoanalytical approach of Sigmund Freud; the relevance of the caucus and primary systems, and the Electoral College, to the current presidential campaigns; and the other material that they are learning in chapters focused on Political Science, Economics, and Psychology.
……………………………………………….
On Super Tuesday (1 March), I advocated for a resolution in my Democratic political caucus, asserting the case for the DFL and the national Democratic Party to moving assertively to advance a national K-12 curriculum. I was doing this to be pugnacious, given the realities of the attachment to local control in the United States, but lo and behold my resolution passed, 20-14.
Through the middle of the week I continued to give my efforts to a multiplicity of tasks >>>>>
>>>>> I superintended the New Salem Tuesday Tutoring Program;
>>>>> conducted a bevy of small-group academic sessions;
>>>>> and collected data on the number of positions with salaries for central office personnel at the Minneapolis Public Schools.
…………………………………………..
Then yesterday, 7 March, I again met with Evelyn Patterson and her sons Damon Preston (Grade 7) and Javon Jakes (grade 1).
As I have noted, this is the economically poorest family whom I have ever served, keeping in perspective that my whole teaching career has been dedicated to teaching the most impoverished and historically underserved members of our society. I followed this family through four different living units in (mostly North) Minneapolis before they moved to a lower-rent Section 8 unit, their current bedbug-ridden apartment, on the East Side of St. Paul. Their current quarters are too ill-lit and devoid of furniture to be tenable for my academic work with members of the household.
Yesterday (7 March), Evelyn continued to zoom through our review of mathematical topics that will allow her to resume the college training that was interrupted a decade ago. We have gone through arithmetic operations and various operations with decimals, percentages, and fractions. We spent the preponderance of our time yesterday on the addition, subtraction, and multiplication of fractions and mixed numbers; and we went on to a review of fundamental algebraic equations.
Javon, now at Grade 1, is reading and performing mathematical operations that typically describe the skill and knowledge level of the Grade 3 student. Yesterday we concentrated on math. I ran Javon through a series of exercises on which he performed magnificently, demonstrating full grasp of multiplication tables for the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9. Javon loves my trick for the nines and is a whiz at its application. Next week Javon will learn multiplication tables for 6, 7, and 8--- thus completing, at just Grade 1, the all-important 0-9 sequence.
Damon performed multi-step algebraic equations adeptly, moving smoothly through ascending levels of challenges. He needed some review as to the rules that apply to additive as opposed to multiplicative operations with negative integers, showing his typical patience in regaining mastery.
……………………………………...........
When Evelyn, Damon, and Javon had entered my car at 2:30 PM on this Sunday, 6 March, Damon and Javon had just had a verbal quarrel. Evelyn was very frustrated.
I asked Damon and Javon what their argument had been about and found out that the dispute involved use of a friend’s electronic device for playing games. I talked to these half-brothers at length about the need to get along so as to help their mother. Evelyn struggles with her mental health, which I did not have to mention specifically for the boys to get my meaning implicitly.
So elated were these three about their academic successes on this day of study with me, that their spirits were elevated considerably as we made our way back to their apartment building. I talked to Damon and Javon again about ratcheting down the frequency of their arguments. They promised me that this would be a good week for their interactions.
Thus, transporting these three to and from their apartment allowed us time to talk in a way that helped them sort through a matter of seemingly trivial argument but one that had weighed heavily on Evelyn’s morale. And their accomplishment in their academic assignments had provided to each of these family members another rung on the ladder to success.
When people focus on matters for study that give them self-confidence and a sense of life progress, emotional states can be altered from moods of negativity to feelings of positive self-worth.
The mastery of broadly grasped and deeply internalized knowledge has been transformative in the cases of Evelyn and her sons Damon and Javon. These are people who yearn to learn all there is to know about all manner of subjects. They love learning for learning’s own sake; and they see their increasing knowledge as giving them the power to forge lives at a level of success that previously has escaped those of older generations in their family.
Evelyn, Damon, and Javon demonstrate each week the radiant power of knowledge. All of our nation’s citizens deserve the power of knowledge that surges in the souls of Evelyn, Damon, and Javon with each passing week.
Thus do I feel very blessed as I reflect on this very remarkable series of days extending from Saturday, 27 February, to Sunday, 6 March.
And thus do I vow to intensify the bevy of activities that currently describe the multi-faceted program of the New Salem Education, toward overhauling K-12 education for the life enrichment of all of our precious young people, and for all of those adults who are seeing for the first time the magnificent opportunities of life that beckon for them on a foundation of knowledge intensity and ethical responsibility.
Transforming K-12 Education Via Multi-Programming Efforts in the New Salem Educational Initiative
In the course of the past 18 months, I have moved to expand the New Salem Educational Initiative from a program already directly transforming the lives of 125 participants into a full-throttle effort to overhaul K-12 Education.
With the latter goal in view, I have created numerous venues for the advocacy of knowledge-intensive K-12 education, delivered by retrained teachers of genuine knowledge and the ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
The New Salem Educational Initiative includes most especially the longstanding programs reaching 125 people who are served in the seven-day-a-week small group academic program, the Tuesday Tutoring Program, and the multi-service program that offers continuing academic assistance and mentoring to university students and adults, those requiring immediate response to critical situations, and people seeking social service resource referral.
In addition, I now advance the ideas that I put into everyday operation in those just-noted efforts via several venues created over the course of the last 18 months: the academic periodical Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota; my television show (Minneapolis Telecommunications Network [MTN] Channel 17, Wednesdays at 6:00 PM), The K-12 Revolution with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison; my new book (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education), featuring ten already completed chapters in a projected fourteen to include economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, fine arts, English usage, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics; and articles posted with great frequency on this blog, now totaling well over 250.
I do all of this through the New Salem Educational Initiative with the goal of making of this nation the democracy that it imagines itself to be.
The purposes of an excellent K-12 education are to culturally enrich, civically engage, and professionally satisfy all of our people through the power of knowledge.
To accomplish this, we must counter an education establishment that has been intellectually corrupted by education professors: In the course of at least four decades, these university professorial lightweights have attempted to veil their own thin knowledge base by defining the purposes of education as the development of critical thinking and the habits of lifelong learning; they decry systematically and sequentially accumulated knowledge as unimportant.
In fact, the power of an abundant and deep knowledge base must undergird all critical analysis and the ability to embark on lifelong learning; shallow in their knowledge base, always avoiding any critical analysis of their own slim ideas, education professors use critical thinking and lifelong learning as semantic screens behind which they cowardly crouch, launching verbal missiles at those who revel in the world of knowledge that defines excellent education.
Through my various venues for advocacy of truly excellent, knowledge-intensive education, I seek to transform K-12 education at the level of the central school district. I would prefer to agitate for curricular overhaul and standards for teacher quality set at the national level, in the manner of the best education systems of the world (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany, Finland); but the mantra of local control in the United States moves the locus of change to the locally centralized school district, which in this nation must serve as the surrogate and model for change at the national level.
Shakespeare strums the vocal cords of Brutus in Julius Caesar for the delivery of an eloquent message urging response to opportunities and exigencies of the moment:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyages of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Now is the time to overhaul K-12 education.
Accomplishment of this objective is the paramount domestic issue of our time. Attaining this goal will end decades and in some cases centuries of familial poverty and dysfunction. Through the power of an excellent, knowledge-intensive education, we can become the democracy that we imagine ourselves to be.
Now is the time.
I must not fail.
You must not fail.
We must not fail.
We must not lose our ventures.
We are afloat on a sea of opportunity and must take the current where it serves, riding those waves of hope for full claim on our intellectual inheritance and the creation of better people, greater justice, more satisfying lives.
With the latter goal in view, I have created numerous venues for the advocacy of knowledge-intensive K-12 education, delivered by retrained teachers of genuine knowledge and the ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
The New Salem Educational Initiative includes most especially the longstanding programs reaching 125 people who are served in the seven-day-a-week small group academic program, the Tuesday Tutoring Program, and the multi-service program that offers continuing academic assistance and mentoring to university students and adults, those requiring immediate response to critical situations, and people seeking social service resource referral.
In addition, I now advance the ideas that I put into everyday operation in those just-noted efforts via several venues created over the course of the last 18 months: the academic periodical Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota; my television show (Minneapolis Telecommunications Network [MTN] Channel 17, Wednesdays at 6:00 PM), The K-12 Revolution with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison; my new book (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education), featuring ten already completed chapters in a projected fourteen to include economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, fine arts, English usage, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics; and articles posted with great frequency on this blog, now totaling well over 250.
I do all of this through the New Salem Educational Initiative with the goal of making of this nation the democracy that it imagines itself to be.
The purposes of an excellent K-12 education are to culturally enrich, civically engage, and professionally satisfy all of our people through the power of knowledge.
To accomplish this, we must counter an education establishment that has been intellectually corrupted by education professors: In the course of at least four decades, these university professorial lightweights have attempted to veil their own thin knowledge base by defining the purposes of education as the development of critical thinking and the habits of lifelong learning; they decry systematically and sequentially accumulated knowledge as unimportant.
In fact, the power of an abundant and deep knowledge base must undergird all critical analysis and the ability to embark on lifelong learning; shallow in their knowledge base, always avoiding any critical analysis of their own slim ideas, education professors use critical thinking and lifelong learning as semantic screens behind which they cowardly crouch, launching verbal missiles at those who revel in the world of knowledge that defines excellent education.
Through my various venues for advocacy of truly excellent, knowledge-intensive education, I seek to transform K-12 education at the level of the central school district. I would prefer to agitate for curricular overhaul and standards for teacher quality set at the national level, in the manner of the best education systems of the world (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany, Finland); but the mantra of local control in the United States moves the locus of change to the locally centralized school district, which in this nation must serve as the surrogate and model for change at the national level.
Shakespeare strums the vocal cords of Brutus in Julius Caesar for the delivery of an eloquent message urging response to opportunities and exigencies of the moment:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyages of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Now is the time to overhaul K-12 education.
Accomplishment of this objective is the paramount domestic issue of our time. Attaining this goal will end decades and in some cases centuries of familial poverty and dysfunction. Through the power of an excellent, knowledge-intensive education, we can become the democracy that we imagine ourselves to be.
Now is the time.
I must not fail.
You must not fail.
We must not fail.
We must not lose our ventures.
We are afloat on a sea of opportunity and must take the current where it serves, riding those waves of hope for full claim on our intellectual inheritance and the creation of better people, greater justice, more satisfying lives.
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