An Apology for my Methods

I recently taught a lesson on "Abraham and the Patriarchs" in my World History class. I chose to refer to the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as myths, which I told the children were "enduring stories told to convey ideas." This lesson drew considerable controversy, with many well-educated friends weighing in on my decision. But to all of you who did weigh in, I welcome the chance to respond to your thoughts and concerns. There are three arguments in my apology. The first concerns academic values, the second the why certain cognitive models are inapplicable with the final argument demonstrating why this method is best from the Christian perspective.

1. 

One of the very first arguments devised against my methods was that children are not cognitively developed enough to understand how a myth can be empirically false and yet true in a more abstract sense. I do not think this applies only to children, there are many adults who cannot make such distinctions. 

If therefore, people (children or adults) are incapable of making those distinctions should we merely let them proceed believing that events which are "regarded as historical although not verifiable" are grounded in the empirical reason used in academic settings. I should say not, in the absence of evidence which explicitly supports the existence of the patriarchs we can draw no conclusion about their existence based on reason and logic. It does no good to ignore the stories as they already know them. Therefore, we ought to teach such stories in school as 'myths' or possibly 'legends' but certainly not history. Even if people cannot grasp the distinction, secondary schools are designed to reinforce the individual's ability to reason not to reinforce cultural or religious values. Ideally, a teacher should also consider the various religious backgrounds of students in their class, though mine are quite uniformly somewhat christian.  

2. 

Bloom's taxonomic model, created in the 1950s and introduced to me by one of my critics, suggests that children start out learning by remembering, understanding and applying before proceeding to analyzing, evaluating and creating as represented in the following diagram taken from: edorigami.wikispaces.com.   

This seems simple enough but it fails in two ways. First, it fails to take into account the complex environment in which children learn. Children in High School are frequently asked to design projects and compose essays or other assignments. Categorically, these skills belong to the highest level of thinking - creating. By neglecting to teach them how to analyze and evaluate before creating we are by default reducing the quality of their creations. For a more detailed criticism of this model see: http://www.utechtips.com/2007/01/08/blooms-taxonomy-revisited/. In my case, it would be unfair for me to allow my students to construct a poster about the patriarchs if I had not offered them the information necessary to analyze the story and distinguish between important and unimportant "facts." 

Moreover, most students from the bible-belt already know the story of the patriarchs from churches and Sunday schools. For me to recite the stories would be redundant. If I offered them a slightly different way to look at and interpret the stories, education would take place. In fact, according to this model's approach we might move out of the lower categories and into the higher ones by basing the lesson on "facts" already in their minds and then offering a new way to look at them. 

3. 

Aside from the academic reasons I have for refusing to teach "Abraham and the Patriarchs" as historical fact, there are religious reasons for doing so as well. The present system encourages thinking about the world in terms of empirical facts and simply put, the Bible was not meant to withstand such scrutiny. Thus Christians who suddenly become aware of the "facts" have a tendency to, out of shock, reject the facts or reject their religion. Neither of these outcomes are desirable. 

Christian children do not need to be taught using a system of absolutes, it is no good in the long run to introduce facts now and introduce qualifiers later especially when it could affect a person's faith. Religious and philosophical truth have abstract characters and should be recognized as such.  

Bertrand Russell, one of Christianity's foremost critics argues that the only reason people become religious is because of indoctrination from an early age. Unfortunately, he is correct in more cases than he is not. That is why it is unconscionable to me to skip over the controversial bits (and so leave students in the dark) merely to prevent challenging their faith. I will not contribute to a system that essentially reinforces children's cultural and religious notions and results in their being good docile adult church members who listen to their priest and sing their mass in Latin... A person's faith is part of their personal journey which ought to be challenged at every turn not coddled and given the weak and unreliable support of empirical evidence. 

I know that many of you may disagree with me and please continue to do so, I find your comments enlightening, but I hope this post has served to justify to you my teaching methods.

On the Capitalist System and Small Business Owners

America has been almost wholly given over to capitalism, a system which enriches few, impoverishes as many as it enriches and which is presently attempting to dismantle our cherished liberties. William Wordsworth in an excerpt from his poem England, 1802, says it best. 


The wealthiest man among us is the best:
No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,
This is idolatry; and these we adore:
Plain living and high thinking are no more:
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws.


It's very difficult to deny that wealth has become associated with social affluence and status in America, 2011.  We hear wealth praised every day in the media, not directly of course, but what else is all the political pandering about 'making the economy safe for entrepreneurs' about. These entrepreneurs or small business owners who the Republicans (and even some Democrats) pander to are the wealthy or those trying to obtain wealth through the founding of a business, which according to almost all Republicans will always be small and harmless, integrated into the community and owned by your next door neighbor. 


The truth is this, there is not one aspect of being a business owner (small or large) that ennobles a person. As Wordsworth says, "Plain living and high thinking are no more." If anything business ownership makes a person more susceptible to the vices of greed and envy and perhaps other vices such as gluttony and pride. Though I am obliged to credit capitalism with attempting to eliminate sloth by rewarding people for their labor. Yet even then, the capitalist system does not encourage people to take an interest in their work merely for the sake of the work but instead encourages them through the distribution of the filthy lucre we call money. 


Some weeks ago (September 7th) Ron Paul, a candidate whom I respect more than other Republicans, argued in the Republican presidential debate that government organizations like the TSA should be dismantled and the industry deregulated, allowing pilots to carry guns and private security firms to monitor passengers boarding planes. This suggestion received a great deal of applause from the audience. The American public, or at least Republicans, seems convinced in this instance as well as in the bigger picture, that businesses do a better job of providing services than the government. In the sense that they could possibly make the process more efficient, saving time and money, I agree. 


Imagine for me a deregulated industry and a private security firm doing the job of the TSA. Inevitably, these unregulated goons working for the airline would racially profile customers. Free from the oppressive jackboot of government regulation, there would be no incentive to prevent this racial profiling. We have also to think of what this private security firm would do with our data and information. Would they be given access to the no-fly lists generated by the state department, or national security databases? Would they store the naked images taken of us as we passed through a scanner where they could be hacked or leaked? On the whole the only thing which would prevent any of this from happening or offer any redress would be an extensive litigation process which no one wants to undergo. 


Let us remember that regulations (nasty rules which bind the noble hands and feet of America's entrepreneurs)  conceptually include laws that make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex, race or religion when hiring an employee or selling a product to a customer. The concept of regulation also includes laws which prevent entrepreneurs from firing pregnant women who recently gave birth or paying men doing the same job more than women. Regulation (from the mouth of Ron Paul himself) also includes the minimum wage. Imagine eliminating the minimum wage which is not even a proper living wage. The poor would only become poorer, but businesses, driven by their bottom lines, would thrive as they do in China today.


The simple matter of fact is that the American dream is devoid of moral virtue. There is no incentive in the capitalist system for morality. Capitalists, entrepreneurs, small business owners (by any name) are of necessity driven only by one direct motive, profit. Doing what is right will not always be compatible with making money. It is this role which the government fulfills, to protect the poor and the middle class from the oppressions of the world's new feudal lords, entrepreneurs. 


As Wordsworth says in the most famous stanza of England, 1802:


IT is not to be thought of that the flood
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flow'd, 'with pomp of waters, unwithstood...
...Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever...*

Americans, the inheritors and guardians of that freedom, which is by no means exclusively British or even western, might take a note from Wordsworth and not "change swords for ledgers and desert the student's bower for gold." While we yet have the power at the ballot box, we should not exchange our ideals for economic prosperity and our moral virtue for a system that is servant to the bottom line. 

*For the full text of the poem go to: http://rantingstan.blogspot.com/2008/10/english-poetry-england-1802.html

I wish to add that although I initially wrote this in an earnest spirit, it no longer represents the fruit of my thinking in its entirety. I will leave it up because I believe that it conveys to my readers a picture of the progression of my thought.

Moments of Silence

What is a moment of silence?

Is it a response to our “disbelief, terrible sadness and quiet unyielding anger”

Does it demand our introspection,

Or do we know exactly what we feel in that moment?

In that moment of political, social silence,

undefined by the simple parameters of time,

are we fully aware of the empires we make?

Should we accept the silence?

Who does silence honor?

What does it say of a nation that it is

Speechless. Unprepared. Non-responsive. Irresolute.

In that moment we redefine ourselves recklessly.

That moment is stolen time, never to be returned.

It is a child that cannot care for those who occasioned its feeble and uncanny existence.

Its irony is deafening to a race distinguished by speech.

It is a moment of surrender,

To something new and foreign

Not terror but fear.

In that moment, while terror played the fool

Justice removed her blind

To gape at the spectacle

And despair with a tiny prick

Stole her virtue in the street.

So what have we to say of moments of silence

They are imperial bridges across the Rubicon

Assembled by the people working in silence