Detailed Abstractions

During a school assembly for students enlisting in the Marine Corps, two teachers disrupted the assembly by protesting the war (here):

…For the fifth consecutive year, school resource officer Nick Pasquarosa recognized those seniors who had enlisted in the military. “While Nick was speaking, one faculty member held up a sign saying “End war” and another female teacher stood beside her,” said Assistant Principal Ann Knell. “The two faculty members sat down and did not clap during a school-wide standing ovation for those students.”….

It’s truly unbelievable we have such dolts teaching our children.  I guess it’s sort of analogous to the blind leading the blind, but in this case the students knew better than the teachers so it’s more like… the blind leading the seeing?

Please don’t misunderstand – I could care less about their actual stance and more about the time, place, manner, and assumptions with which they decided upon this course of action.

First, it’s well known that public schools are NOT bastions of free speech, nor are they paragons of oppression either.  But through time and court precedent, educators should (and most likely do) know that the primary responsibility to the children is education.  So any free speech that disrupts that process can be prevented and/or punished.

For instance, if I went to school with a pro-drug message, I would be sent home.  If I wore a blank arm band in memory of fallen soldiers, I would likely still be sent home, but ultimately win.

Second, and in my opinion more importantly, is the arrogance with which the teachers acted.  Keep in mind, that this is their employer giving an assembly which they believe brings value to their students (clients).  Yet they still protested?  I use the term arrogance, because I think we can safely say they assumed, and possibly correctly so, that they will not be fired.

This is what really gets me.  Not only did they believe they were in the right to disrupt a school proceeding, but they seem to believe it’s about freedom.  When in reality, if any company in the world decided to gather its employees to spotlight process X, a protest would certainly be met with immediate firings.  This would also be true in a private school setting.

Yet these teachers are claiming a right to do this and that it’s a teaching moment.  I would submit to them they should use it as a learning moment it should be instead instead of arrogantly attempting to parlay this into a “teaching” opportunity.

The high school, which erupted over hurt feelings when some wore flag shirts to school on Cinco De Mayo, and then erupted further when an incompetent management structure got involved has apologized.

The statement given ignores any of the real issues.  Like all political statements, they even pretend something is true that they know isn’t.  Their school & their decisions, are anti-free speech and to pretend otherwise should be seen as the absurdity it is.  He then talks about being “proud” of the students for handling the media coverage…

You mean the ones’ who protested, to get media coverage?

…On Thursday, May 6, about 50 students, many carrying the Mexican flag, walked out of classes. The students told reporters that they thought it was disrespectful for the students to wear the American flag on their shirts while others were celebrating Cinco de Mayo….

First, what the hell were they protesting?  Maybe it’s just me, but if Joe Friday sticks by the facts it seems it went like this:

1. Some students wore American flag t-shirts on a Mexican holiday.
2. Some fragile students complained that they were “hurt” by this.
3. Incompetent management then forces the students to change or go home.

For all intents and purposes, it seems the idiots protesting won the fight.

But yesterday, according to the  statement…. “they (the students) wore purple and white for solidarity”…. so all is well I suppose.

Meanwhile, you still have children who were “taught” in this “teachable” moment that they should never, ever have to be disrespected.  I’m unsure where this belief about respect has come, but I believe it’s a dangerous and intolerant belief.  I seem to recall when respect was earned, not deserved, but I digress.

It seems logically obvious that true freedom is to allow things you won’t/don’t like.  Allowing freedom actually means  (please read carefully you spoiled little brats) people are going to do things you don’t really like and there’s absolutely nothing you can or should do about it.

Additionally, on the plethora of things you should be grown up enough to deal with in a free society, speech by way of t-shirts is the least intrusive and offensive thing I can think of.  Seriously, I have what some would call a pretty dark sense of humor, and the things I can think to wear if I were to purposefully wanted to disrupt Cinco De Mayo…. well, let’s just say while it make me laugh, my imagination can lead me to t-shirts which might actually be cause for a protest (assuming the school allowed it).

In a free country, not only do we not allow the cops to arrest people simply for demonstrating their beliefs, but we also respect freedom in general.  For instance, when some comedian or cartoonist creates something satirical, yet disparaging to the Catholic Church, no one demands protests, no one demands censorship, and no one ever demands death.

Sure, people rightfully offended might debate about it, write about it, might boycott products, but they don’t close schools to protest over being disrespected.  They prefer to get their respect through their actions towards helping others, not through mob scenes.

What’s also buried in here,  is that no one (especially the “Mexican” students) seems to understand the holiday has nothing to do with Mexican independence and its history is actually a shared American/Mexican holiday for a Mexican victory of one battle over the French.  It was a hard fought victory for 4000 barely-trained Mexicans over 8000 well-trained and well-equipped French.  So the holiday was never meant to be “celebrated” exactly, as it was meant to be more like a D-Day remembrance.   (Mexican Independence day is the 16th of September)

Indeed, to be really offensive students could’ve chosen to have worn French flag t-shirts, not American flag t-shirts.

Back to the history:  It was used in early American history, mid-1800s, by Mexicans & Americans in California to tick off the French.  Now, I’m all for doing anything that irritates the French, but that obviously died out over time.  The holiday, then became almost nonexistent.

However, with money to made…. over the past 30 years or so, corporations & a willing populace have changed everything.  The remembrance, which should come from such a bloody, yet surprising victory, was turned into a holiday to sell more Mexican food, beer, and flags;  just like St. Patrick’s day might have one time had something to do with St. Patrick, but now serves only as a reason to drink green beer and buy “Kiss me I’m Irish” stuff.

My point: that looking at this from each angle seems to show the American public should be angry at one thing only.  How high school kids, in a well-funded school system, in one of the richest states in one of the richest countries in the world are so… frustratingly ignorant of their ancestral history and know nothing about even about the basic idea of freedom itself.

9 charged with bullying Mass. teen who killed self via the AP (here):

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — Insults and threats followed 15-year-old Phoebe Prince almost from her first day at South Hadley High School, targeting the Irish immigrant in the halls, library and in vicious cell phone text messages.

Phoebe, ostracized for having a brief relationship with a popular boy, reached her breaking point and hanged herself after one particularly hellish day in January — a day that, according to officials, included being hounded with slurs and pelted with a beverage container as she walked home from school.

Now, nine teenagers face charges in what a prosecutor called “unrelenting” bullying, including two teen boys charged with statutory rape and a clique of girls charged with stalking, criminal harassment and violating Phoebe’s civil rights….

Assuming the facts, this was criminal behavior with or without the heinous result:

…Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel, who announced the charges Monday, said the events before Phoebe’s death on Jan. 14 were “the culmination of a nearly three-month campaign of verbally assaultive behavior and threats of physical harm” widely known among the student body.

…At least four students and two faculty members intervened to try to stop it or report it to administrators, she said….

So far we seem to be good – charge those directly responsible.  Now what about those administrators who did nothing?

…School officials won’t be charged, even though authorities say they knew about the bullying and that Phoebe’s mother brought her concerns to at least two of them….

& here is the unspoken problem:  government imposed monopoly on schools for which no one is responsible.  Thanks to a strong union and forced funding of these failing institutions we end where the adults charged to protect her are not responsible at all.

Maybe it’s just me, but criminal charges seem consistent with the law.   Sure, a civil suit will likely exist and be successful.  But the end result is the taxpayers who have to support the idiots who allowed this to continue will have to pay for their mistakes.

I’m just saying – it’s possible a justice system which can’t or won’t hold these people accountable combined with a civil system that will punish taxpayers, not the administrators, doesn’t incent future administrators to do better next time.

Maybe there’s a reason they weren’t charged?

…No school officials are being charged because they had “a lack of understanding of harassment associated with teen dating relationships,” and the school’s code of conduct was interpreted and enforced in an “inconsistent” way, Scheibel said…

Oh…. now I get it.  They’re not responsible because they’re too stupid to understand kids their jobs.

It seems at least 4 children, 2 teachers and 1 parent knew enough to try to get help to intervene, but since the administrators just don’t understand kids these days – it’s not really criminal.

What would’ve been criminal would be for Phoebe’s parents to keep her home from school, without proving they were educating her consistent with state guidelines.

But what’s not criminal is doing nothing to prevent this little girl from being criminally harassed daily.

*Side note:  Bravo to the children that stood up against this behavior.  They should be celebrated for doing the right thing and will hopefully be secure in the knowledge that they at least tried.  While the adults did nothing, they tried.

I know it’s odd, but the title of this post has little to do with the actual discussion.  Instead it reflects my thought process as I try to craft together some sentences which might express the degree of my amazement about society’s disconnect between their beliefs and reality.  Hopefully too, I’ll be able to accurately express how important this issue is.

What am I referring to you ask?  A new Zogby poll, which confirms again that humans, in this case Americans, seem unable or unwilling to face reality.  Using scientific polling methodology, the poll finds, within a +/- 2.1 percentage points, that  (whole thing here) :

Nearly three-in-four Americans (72%) believe most of the country is not politically engaged and does not follow the news from Washington closely….

&

…Despite the belief that most Americans do not pay attention to the news, 85% of Americans say they personally follow the news closely….

Now basic math proves, without any hesitation, that 85% of the population simply can not be above average.   In fairness, it is possible to say that I follow the news closely, but like others, am not engaged in the political process.

However, without grouping the questions, it would seem that this is an unlikely response due to the amount of thought process that one needs to take into account versus the amount of thought process most of give to pollsters.  Meaning, that in order for me to say, most people aren’t engaged enough and intend myself to be counted among those, but also say yes to following the news closely, requires a high degree of thought.

For instance, in one possibility, I might be saying I follow the news, but am not politically engaged enough because I don’t really like politics.   Getting to this decision however would require me to have thought of the two separate questions as more of a group.

It’s far more likely to say that these people believe that everyone else isn’t paying enough attention and everyone else is uninformed…. which is honestly, just stupefying…

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all that surprising that so many voters are wrong.  We’ve talked about it on here in reference to the public polling data which showed both a majority of Americans against more government intrusion into health care, but for a public option (here).  And this has been a topic of conversation for political scientists for ever, with Cato publishing a great  paper in 2007 which discusses in detail the The Myth of the Rational Voter (which in greater detail is presented in this book) which shows that the public holds economic views not shared by most economists.

For instance, most people believe in economic myths such as sending jobs overseas hurts us or that the change in gasoline prices was due mainly to oil companies and not the market itself.

We also know of constant polls showing Americans unable to identify national issues correctly.   In October of this year, Pew updated their polling of American’s knowledge (here):

…The Pew Research Center’s latest News IQ Quiz finds a mixed picture of public awareness on key issues, with majorities aware of some key facts on health care and the economy. But other questions stump large segments of the public, including the current size of the U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan, the approximate level of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the name of a key environmental proposal being debated in Congress….

With other polls of course saying the same about all kinds of issues, such as science and affirmative action.

So taking the known opinions of people with relation to their beliefs on how well they are informed and how well the public as a whole is informed – in conjunction with polling data which routinely reflects poor public knowledge – it seems we have a case of not only ignorance, but a very large blind spot.

The reason is the ability for a person to know what they don’t know, takes a higher level of knowledge and critical thinking skills, than for a person to understand only what they know.

For instance, many people these days would consider themselves computer savvy and within some degree this is true.  With the constant use of email, social networking sites, IM, presentation and documentation software and a litany of other things most people know about computers, people reasonably might consider themselves computer savvy.

However, without some additional training or self-education or schooling, it would be tough for most people to understand just the very basics of security design, even if they are well versed in virus & firewall software.

& This isn’t a negative.  Specialization of knowledge is extremely useful.  This allows people who operate a computer for mostly email the ability to be safe on the internet without needing to  understand the underlying fundamentals of security policies.  Due to specialization, we have ample experts from which to choose who will readily setup all of this for you.  Allowing you to know very little about the underlying facts, but potentially resulting in greater knowledge about firewall or administration programs.

Therefore, for the person to know that while they are well versed in many computer applications, the specificity of their knowledge base is still very limited, requires a degree of critical thinking.  Not only that, but we could go further.  If the polls are to be believed, people need to have better critical thinking abilities than the majority of the population currently has.

Honestly it really is a travesty that the most dynamic and innovative society of today to have an educational system which is failing to teach our students basic thinking skills.  I think this data among the other reams of data about public schools, shows a system in extreme need of an update if we are to succeed in really preparing people for understanding the world.  I’m not an educational expert by any means, but as a starting point I think I’d like to debate the merits of starting in elementary school teaching logic, philosophy, critical thinking, and other areas of inquiry designed specifically to help children learn to think… but I digress.

Regardless of potential solutions for education reform, we can all use this an example to help us question ourselves.  Just remember, when you’re reading that next poll which makes you wonder, “How do people believe this stuff?” – you might want to ask yourself if it’s really “the others” who are off base.

Over the last couple of decades business leaders, researchers, and writers everywhere have been discussing what they see as a positive move in business from a standard top down organizational chart to a more decentralized decision making systems.

The goal stated from the beginning of moving down this path was to replace slow, ineffective bureaucracies with more nimble, versatile companies who can move with the new rate of change.  Thanks to the internet and other advances in sharing human knowledge throughout the world, the pace of change & innovation today is far greater than the pace of innovation a century ago.

As a society though, it seems we have yet to fully adjust.  Using standard logic, allowing decisions to be made at the lowest possible level in a corporation, does allow it to be more efficient and more responsive to their clients.  It allows them to see problems faster to find solutions faster and empower employees with a sense of belonging to a real team.

Continuing that logic however, allows us to look at the potential negative possibilities as well.  Allowing just anyone in a company to make any decision of course would result in complete chaos.  We’ve also seen that  by allowing those with good corporate political abilities to make tough decisions, without questioning their ethics or actual critical decision skills has led us down the wrong road.

The question we must ask ourselves then becomes, should power still be concentrated in the hands of a few, moral citizens, or should we continue on the path of decentralization that helped lead us to our current fiscal crisis?

What we do know, is that businesses and individuals both support more entrepreneurial thinking and training starting at younger ages (Junior Achievement Study here):

Gallup then asked the question, “If entrepreneurship means, ‘Taking the initiative and assuming risk to create value for the company or business, either as an owner of your own business or in your place of work,’ would you consider yourself to be entrepreneurial?”

Using this definition, nearly six in 10 (58%) of the employees surveyed and two-thirds (65%) of those responsible for hiring describe themselves as entrepreneurial….

The vast majority (96%) of employees feel it is important for the American workforce to become more entrepreneurial in order to keep America competitive in the global market…

Going further about education itself:

Finally, nearly half of employees (46%) and four in 10 (41%) of those responsible for hiring believe the best place to learn entrepreneurship is in grades K-12, surpassing all other options.

Along that same trend, Purdue recently decided to change their entrance requirements to allow only students who have taken a full 4 years of math at the high school level (here).  Their decision demonstrates the importance of logic and critical thinking skills that math helps to reinforce:

“We just wanted to make sure Purdue students are ready for the rigors of a Purdue education,” Horne said, noting studies show more math education correlates with college completion rates. “It’s not about getting in. It’s about succeeding once you’re there.”

We also know through the practice of government, the dynamic system of the United States might have felt more pain that other countries during this crisis, but due to the mostly decentralized economic model, we will recover more quickly than most.  As the Economist recently noted (here):

Second, one can look at America’s admirable record of dealing with turmoil. A study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a think-tank that studies entrepreneurialism, found that America’s high rate of economic “churning” boosts productivity and hence material well-being. Between 1977 and 2005 some 15% of all American jobs were destroyed each year as firms closed or cut back. Thanks to the expansion of successful firms and the entry of new ones, however, many more jobs were created than destroyed. Start-ups (ie, firms less than five years old) provided a third of the new jobs during this period.

This “creative destruction” process, both in the macro form of the economy and in the micro form of managing a team involves allowing people to fail.  Only from our failures, do we truly become successful.

So for business leaders, or educators, to honestly pursue this strategy, it means at least two things need to change:

1. People need to be able to let go of control
2. People need to be more tolerant of failure

At this point, it appears businesses are getting this message, however the government seems to be falling back on top down control.

• Enron – bad company, fraudulent business model – went bankrupt, business leaders jailed.
  • Government solution?  Overreaching regulation in SOX.
• GM – bad company, bad decisions – should go bankrupt (it’s a feature not a bug),
  • Government solution – prop up companies who should have failed.
• Economy gets hurt because of loose monetary policy, combined with quasi-government backing of securities and lax business ethics -
  • Government solution:  cheaper money, quasi-government backed institutions deemed “too big to fail”…

So while it might be true that in recent times business leaders have proven themselves to be unworthy of trust and decentralized decision capabilities, I believe fully we must understand that the solution to that problem is not in removing the current structure and go backwards in time.

The solution ultimately comes down to both us an individuals and the incentives of the game.  Are we willing to live with the consequences of our decisions and as a society? Are we willing to live with some level of risk that large companies might “fail”?

Or will our fears keep us locked into a governmental cycle of pushing more top down control, doomed to repeat a past that has failed all societies who have tried it?