Thank Goodness for Blogging

I'm a voracious reader and typically read 2-3 dozen books per year. It can be difficult at times for me to remember exactly which books I have read vs. which ones I've only heard about. On occasion, I've requested a book through the inter-library loan program only to discover I've already read it.

I almost did this again just now, but then I had this nagging suspicion I'd read the book in question. Sure enough, a quick check of my blog revealed that I had. Not even 6 months ago!

Is this a sign of getting old(er) or just that all this homebuying & moving nonsense has taken its toll on me?

If Shakespeare Used Facebook

Via the Core Knowledge blog, I discovered a hilarious spoof of Shakespeare's Hamlet written as if it were a Facebook news feed. Enjoy! (Note: I've slightly edited it to clean up the language)

Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition)
by Sarah Schmelling

Horatio thinks he saw a ghost.

Hamlet thinks it's annoying when your uncle marries your mother right after your dad dies.

The king thinks Hamlet's annoying.

Laertes thinks Ophelia can do better.

Hamlet's father is now a zombie.

- - - -

The king poked the queen.

The queen poked the king back.

Hamlet and the queen are no longer friends.

Marcellus is pretty sure something's rotten around here.

Hamlet became a fan of daggers.

- - - -

Polonius says Hamlet's crazy ... crazy in love!

Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet are now friends.

Hamlet wonders if he should continue to exist. Or not.

Hamlet thinks Ophelia might be happier in a convent.

Ophelia removed "moody princes" from her interests.

Hamlet posted an event: A Play That's Totally Fictional and In No Way About My Family

The king commented on Hamlet's play: "What is wrong with you?"

Polonius thinks this curtain looks like a good thing to hide behind.

Polonius is no longer online.

- - - -

Hamlet added England to the Places I've Been application.

The queen is worried about Ophelia.

Ophelia loves flowers. Flowers flowers flowers flowers flowers. Oh, look, a river.

Ophelia joined the group Maidens Who Don't Float.

Laertes wonders what the h*** happened while he was gone.

- - - -

The king sent Hamlet a goblet of wine.

The queen likes wine!

The king likes ... oh c***

The queen, the king, Laertes, and Hamlet are now zombies.

Horatio says well that was tragic.

Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, says yes, tragic. We'll take it from here.

Denmark is now Norwegian.

Are Homeschoolers Motivated by Racism/Ethnophobia?

According to Dr. Gene V. Glass of Arizona State University, homeschoolers:

"appear to be motivated by a fear of mixing with the opposite class or race."

Pretty strong statement, no? One that a reasonable individual would want to see backed up with some compelling evidence when put forth in a scholarly work such as Dr. Glass' recent book Fertilizers, Pills, and Magnetic Strips: The Fate of Public Education in America, wouldn't you agree?

The only thing Dr. Glass uses to support his claim is the 1998 study of homeschooling done by Dr. Lawrence Rudner. There are several problems with using Dr. Rudner's study. The first is that it was done a full decade before the publication of Fertilizers, Pills, and Magnetic Strips. The second was that it was a self-selected sample of fewer than 12,000 families recruited from among the membership of the Home School Legal Defense Association. Dr. Glass may not be familiar with HSLDA, but those of us within the homeschooling community know that the membership of that organization is not particularly representative of all homeschoolers. It'd be akin to polling the membership of some suburban PTA and using that to generalize about all government-run school families.

In 2003, the National Center for Educational Statistics did a survey of homeschoolers that came up with a quite different demographic makeup than the earlier Rudner study. The percentage of non-Hispanic whites in the NCES study was 77% vs. 94% in the Rudner study. The percentage of blacks was 9% vs. only 1%, and the percentage of Hispanics was 5% vs. <1%. The makeup of the overall school-age population in 2003 was 61% non-Hispanic white, 14% black, and 17% Hispanic. Blacks and Hispanics are therefore somewhat underrepresented among homeschoolers, but it's not nearly by as much as Dr. Glass would have his readers believe.

Furthermore, I'm not convinced that the fact that non-Hispanic whites are somewhat overrepresented among homeschoolers is proof by itself of racism/ethnophobia. Is there any evidence that homeschoolers are disproportionately likely to reject integrated schools? I'm not aware of any research on the topic, but anecdotally it doesn't hold true for the homeschoolers I know personally.

For example, the school my children are zoned to attend is only 2.8% Hispanic and a mere 1.8% black. Low-income students of any race/ethnicity make up only 3.2% of the school's enrollment. So obviously my decision to homeschool is not due to a "fear of mixing with the opposite race or class" because there are hardly any black, Hispanic, or poor kids at our neighborhood school. In fact, I'm pretty sure the percentage of black and Hispanic kids in our homeschool support group actually exceeds the percentage at the school (it's certainly not less).

Out of all the homeschooling families I know personally, only one lives in a neighborhood where their kids would be zoned to attend a school with a significant Hispanic population. And they are strongly Fundamentalist Protestant and therefore wouldn't send their kids to the "Godless" government-run schools in any case. All the rest live in neighborhoods similar to mine.

Dr. Glass has a highly annoying tendency throughout Fertilizers, Pills, and Magnetic Strips to claim racism/ethnophobia as a motivation without providing much in the way of objective evidence to support his assertion. He even admits as much in the appendix, noting that his personal preference is:

"for psychoanalysis to explain many of the most important aspects of human behavior...I do see something akin to the 'defense mechanism' at work in intellectualizing of motives of both experts and ordinary people around questions of racial and ethnic segregation in public education. No one likes to be accused of being prejudiced, but most of us are."

Such conjectures have no place in a scholarly work. Stick to the facts, please! If I want psychobabble, I'll turn on Dr. Phil.

Barking Up the Wrong Tree a Bit When it Comes to Education Reform

A couple of weeks ago, I discussed the ideas found in the recently released book Smart Kids, Bad Schools: 38 Ways to Save America's Future by Brian Crosby that I felt had merit. On the whole, I think Mr. Crosby (a veteran high school English teacher from Southern California) is on the right track with his suggestions for reforming America's government-run schools. However, I do believe he completely missed the boat with certain of his ideas.

Bad Idea #1. Moving teachers rather than students from classroom to classroom between periods. Mr. Crosby does acknowledge that this would only be possible if every student in the class took the exact same courses, but dismisses this concern:

"With the push toward more academic rigor, why can't they take the same classes? The students in the advanced classes are already tracked together; those who would be in a vocational track would likewise be taking the same coursework."

This is a false assumption. While certain honors classes may tend to enroll many of the same students, not every student in them is taking the exact same schedule as every single one of his/her classmates. In my high school during 9th-11th grades, I would say that probably 75-85% of those taking honors math also took honors science, and there was roughly the same overlap between honors English and honors history. However, there was a much lower overlap between honors math and honors English, only around half to two-thirds. Senior year, by which time almost all students had already met the school's graduation requirement for 3 years' each in science and history and many had chosen to drop one or both, had even more variations in schedules.

That's not even taking into consideration electives such as foreign languages, computer science, psychology, economics, statistics, the performing arts, study hall, etc. My friends and I tended to be in mostly the same core courses, but we took all different types of electives depending on our particular interests and post-graduation aspirations.

On top of the normal variations among students' schedules, I knew several individuals who were taking courses either ahead of or behind the typical grade level. A good friend of mine doubled up in math her freshman year so that she could take a distance learning university-level math course in 12th. I personally chose to start studying Latin as my second foreign language in 10th rather than the typical 9th (when I had tried Spanish but got frustrated with the lack of academic rigor in that particular sequence).

In addition to problems with coordinating students' schedules, there is also the issue of courses requiring specialized classrooms. Mr. Crosby, the English instructor, may very well be able to teach in a generic classroom. But what if he taught chemistry, biology, computer science, or a foreign language and needed specific equipment available on a regular basis?

Bad Idea #2. Having teachers instruct classes Monday-Thursday and then spend every Friday in professional development. Mr. Crosby writes:

"What do the teachers get to do on Fridays? They do something they only rarely get a chance to do- share ideas with other teachers....It also frees up one day a week for teachers to attend conferences without having to miss teaching to their students."

I agree that teachers ought to have more time available in their schedule for collaboration and pursuing continuing education. But devoting 1/5th of their working time (which is already quite a bit shorter than most other professions) to these activities seems excessive. I could see perhaps 2 Fridays per month, but not every single week.

Bad Idea #3. Bashing teachers who go above and beyond what they're required to do by their contracts for love of their students. This one just struck me as pure selfishness:

"I have often heard from principals how proud they are of teachers who volunteer to advise a club or chair a department. Yet these slave laborers are inadvertently harming the rest of the teachers....Many teachers, partly due to their strong Judeo-Christian ethics, sincerely believe in the 'I'm there for the kids' credo and view their jobs as missionary-like, a 'calling' if you will....These instructors sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, but what they are really sacrificing is their own profession."

*HEAVEN FORBID* that certain teachers actually put the welfare of their students ahead of their own greed! The problem with today's schools is *NOT* that too few teachers share Mr. Crosby's self-centered opinion on this issue but that far too many do :-(

One of the major reasons that certain charter schools like the KIPP ones outperform their traditional government-run counterparts is that they attract teachers who put service to their students above selfishness. Who's going to do a better job for his/her students- the teacher who views the profession as a calling or the one who's "all about the Benjamins"?

The cynic in me suspects that Mr. Crosby is uncomfortable with his more altruistic colleagues because they make those who share his selfish mindset look bad...

Bad Idea #4. Bashing educational alternatives to government-run schools like private schools and homeschooling. Like #3, I suspect that Mr. Crosby's antagonism stems primarily from self-interest rather than what's best for the students. He nearly says as much in the final chapter of Smart Kids, Bad Schools, when he writes:

"I'd rather have a broken public school system than have millions of kids stay home to be schooled. I'd rather deal with bureaucratic headaches than have vouchers given out to millions of parents."

Wow, I'm glad to know that Mr. Crosby is willing to put ideology of "believing in the public schools" ahead of the welfare of millions of American children.

Earlier in the book, he makes the astonishing claim that:

"Except for religious reasons and spiffy uniforms, there is no sound argument for educating children in private schools."

What about the fact that the government-run schools in many areas are truly dreadful? In Mr. Crosby's hometown of L.A., only 48% of students in the city's government-run high schools graduate in 4 years. Compare this with a 97.5% graduation rate in the city's Catholic high schools for students from low-income families, according to a recent study done by Loyola Marymount University in L.A. Also, test scores are consistently higher among private school students than among students in government-run schools.

Mr. Crosby notes that private school salaries are typically lower than those paid in government-run schools, and that often private school teachers lack state certification. He then makes the extraordinary claim that:

"The best teachers out there know this and that is why they work in public schools where they can command higher salaries."

I know plenty of wonderful teachers who feel that the greater autonomy, significantly better working conditions, and higher caliber student populations at private schools outweigh the somewhat lower salaries.

In addition, evidence is lacking that traditional teacher certification actually improves student achievement. In his book Education Myths, Jay Greene of the American Enterprise Institute notes that (emphasis in the original):

"After examining every available study on the impact of teaching credentials on job performance--171 in total--Eric Hanushek [of the the Abell Foundation] found that only nine uncovered any significant positive relationship between credentials and student performance, five found a significant negative relationship between the two, and 157 showed no connection. "

Mr. Crosby also dismisses parental concerns about there being far too much standardized testing in government-run schools. He points out that most private middle and high schools require an entrance exam. True, but that's *ONE* three hour test taken during the application period and it's typically prepared for outside of the normal classroom time. By contrast, California government-run schools require annual tests from grades 2 through 11 administered over several days. In addition, many schools these days devote a significant portion of the school year towards preparation for these standardized tests, resulting in less time available for other educational activities.

As for the brief half-page discussion of homeschooling in Smart Kids, Dumb Schools, it's obvious that Mr. Crosby doesn't know much about the topic; he regurgitates the same old tired stereotypes about socialization, spelling bee winners, and speculation about racial segregation playing a role in the decision to homeschool. I'm not going to waste my time dignifying them with a response as they've been so thoroughly debunked in the past better than I could ever hope to do myself.

Bad Idea #5. Parents should *ALWAYS* defer to the "authority" of the teacher, and should *NEVER* question the teacher's "expertise" or want to influence what their child should learn. This highly patronizing and paternalistic attitude is probably the biggest beef I had with Smart Kids, Dumb Schools. Mr. Crosby even goes so far as to title chapter 36 "Would You Ever Question Your Child's Pediatrician?"

Well, guess what? I don't automatically defer to my pediatrician- and she's got a medical degree from Yale. Not to sound like too much of an educational snob, but that requires a whole heck of a lot more brains and hard work than getting a credential from some no-name state college (what the typical teacher holds). The typical newly credentialed teacher in the U.S. has a SAT score placing him/her in the bottom third of college graduates.

But back to my relationship with my child's pediatrician- while I do take into consideration her advice, I may or may not choose to follow it. She's not God and I'm not going to take what she says as the Gospel truth simply by virtue of her position. In general, I have a lot of confidence in her diagnostic skills and often follow her recommendations. But when it comes to a situation where we disagree about what's best for my individual child (such as whether to follow the standard vaccination schedule or a selective/delayed one), ultimately I'm going to make that judgment call.

Mr. Crosby goes on a 5 page diatribe against parents, insulting them as "nasty", "manipulative", "pushy", and "busybodies" simply because they dared to "question the authority and knowledge of the teacher". He laments that:

"In the old days, parents would listen to what teachers and principals had to say about their children without questioning their expertise or authority...But with [today's] teachers, half of whom have master's degrees, parents seem to have no compunction whatsoever about suggesting ways to teach their children.... As Evan Chase wrote in Edutopia, 'Somewhere along the line [parents] have gotten the implicit or explicit message...that they are somehow entitled to unprecedented influence over what their child will learn and think they know better than classroom teachers what's best for their kids.'"

I hate to break it to you Mr. Crosby, but parents DO know their children better than someone whose interaction with them is limited to around 1800 hours for the typical high school teacher. So please forgive us parents for having the nerve to believe that we should retain the ultimate say over our own kids.

Takes One to Know One

It's time once again to play "Fill-in-the-Blanks", the game where you the reader get to guess what the missing words words are. Here's the statement:

"But it must have been difficult for ______ to entertain seriously the academic arguments of a _____ whose disdain for all ______ was so pervasive."

Tough one, huh? Any number of words might work in that particular sentence.

The statement comes from pg. 145 of Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason. The other day I discussed the difficulty I was having with Ms. Jacoby's arrogant and insulting tone when it comes to the subject of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Fill in the blanks in the sentence above with "Christians", "author", and "religion" and it perfectly describes my feelings about Ms. Jacoby's book.


P.S. In case you are wondering, the actual deleted words are "liberals", "professor", and "social protesters". It comes from Ms. Jacoby's discussion of the late Dr. Allan Bloom's book, The Closing of the American Mind. Dr. Bloom had been a faculty member at Cornell during the 1968 mayhem at that university and had vehemently opposed the administration's caving in to student rebel demands to drop traditional academic requirements.

She's a Bookworm, On Printed Pages She Rides...

Dana over at "Principled Discovery" wants to know what "crimes" homeschoolers would be "wanted" for.

My oldest has been a bookworm since she was a baby. The above picture was taken when she was around 1 1/2. She went from Bob books to The Chronicles of Narnia in less than 18 months' time, which is I've heard is not all that unusual for homeschoolers but I certainly was still surprised by it. I now have 4 different accounts at the library (my personal, my teacher's, hers, and her little brother's) because we kept hitting the maximum number of items allowed!

Folks vs. Upper Middle Class Overly Educated Atheists

Christopher Orlet of The American Spectator has a fabulous critique of Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason. Some highlights:

"Jacoby, not surprisingly, is unable to see the contradictions in her own deeply held convictions. Here is an elitist who envisions an egalitarian society. She longs for a more democratic, Jacksonian nation, but she also expects it to be peopled not by the rednecks who voted for [Andrew] Jackson, but the enlightened litterateurs who voted for John Quincy Adams (and lost).

Like all liberal snobs, Jacoby dutifully admires the poor and the working man, but cannot abide their colossal ignorance, their petty superstitions, their techno-savvy, their bigotry, and worse, their anti-intellectualism. Ultimately, one leaves this book with the suspicion that the only "folks" -- to use a word the author rails against ad nauseum -- the author can stomach are folks like herself, e.g., Upper Middle Class Overly Educated Atheists.

Jacoby claims she started out to write part two of Hofstadter's 'Anti-Intellectualism in American Life'. Instead of a scholarly study of American culture she produced this bitter 356-page rant."

Love it!

Try a Little Civility if You Want People to Listen to Your Argument

Susan Jacoby, the author of The Age of American Unreason, laments that most Americans today are not interested in listening to points of view that differ from their own. She writes:

"The unwillingness to give a hearing to contradictory viewpoints, or to imagine that one might learn anything from an ideological or cultural opponent represents a departure from the best side of American popular and elite intellectual traditions....Americans in the 1800's, regardless of their level of formal education, wanted to make up their own minds...That kind of curiosity, which demands firsthand evidence of whether the devil really has horns, is essential to the intellectual and political health of any society. In today's America, intellectuals and nonintellectuals alike, whether on the left or the right, tend to tune out any voice that is not an echo. This obduracy is both a manifestation of mental laziness and the essence of anti-intellectualism."

Ms. Jacoby makes an excellent point here. Too often people act as the choir being preached to, rather than seeking out a diverse range of opinions on a topic. But how can one really even figure out what one believes after only hearing one side of an argument?

However, in the next chapter of The Age of American Unreason, it quickly becomes apparent why Ms. Jacoby in particular is encountering difficulty getting her message across to others. Her tone is what some like to call "snarky" but that usually comes across as mean-spirited hostility. Think Michael Moore on the left or Ann Coulter on the right. This type of arrogant insulting of those with whom the author disagrees often completely overshadow the legitimate merits of his or her argument. Incivility has the tendency to "turn off" anyone who does not already 100% agree with him or her.

Take, for example, Ms. Jacoby's commentary on a 2002 Time cover story on the Apocalypse. The point she's trying to make is a valid one, which is the article only included religious viewpoints of different types and no secular viewpoint dismissing the belief in Revelation entirely. Fair enough. But just listen to the kind of inflammatory language she uses to make her argument [emphasis added]:

"[The article] gave no space to those who dismiss the end-times scenario as a collective delusion based on pure superstition and who understand the civic danger inherent in the normalization of ideas that ought to be dismissed as the province of a lunatic fringe...On a deeper level, though, the aritcle exemplifies the journalistic conviction that anything 'controversial' is worth covering and that both sides of an issue must always be given equal space- even if one side belong in an abnormal psychology textbook. If enough money is involved, and enough people believe that two plus two equals five, the media will report the story with a straight face, always adding a qualifying paragraph noting that 'mathematicians, however, say that two plus two still equals four.'"

Ms. Jacoby goes on to describe religious believers as "willfully ignorant", the Bible as "supernatural fantasy", a belief in anything other than atheistic Darwinian evolution as a "cockamamie idea", and calls faith a "toxic" force that is one of the chief "enemies of intellect, learning, and reason". She approvingly quotes PBS journalist and noted liberal Bill Moyers, who calls Christians "ideologues [who] hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality." And that's just in the first chapter of the book!

I really do think that Ms. Jacoby has some valid points to make, especially when it comes to the media, pop culture, and government-run schools. Unfortunately, her obnoxiously arrogant rants against religion make it very difficult to for me to get through her book. If I had wanted that kind of screed, I would've picked up something by Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. But I had higher hopes for Ms. Jacoby's book...

More on "The Mommy Myth"

The other day, I discussed the treatment of homeschooling in the book I recently finished called The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women by Professors Susan Douglas of the University of Michigan and Meredith Michaels of Smith. I talked about the misconceptions the authors have about home educators and how what they would have me do instead of homeschooling (trying to reform the government-run schools in addition to full-time employment outside the home) sounded way more stressful.

Today I want to critique The Mommy Myth further. The authors do make some valid criticisms of the excesses of the Type A mothering expectations modern women face. Their chapter on those gushing profiles of celebrity moms that ignore the army of paid helpers those women have at their disposal (nannies, maids, gofers, personal chefs, personal trainers, stylists, hair & makeup artists, plastic surgeons, etc.) is dead-on. Unfortunately, their obnoxiously smarmy tone completely overshadows these. One of the reviewers on Amazon.com compared them to Michael Moore and that's a perfect analogy. Like Moore, Drs. Douglas and Michaels come off as completely arrogant and even when I might agree with the point they're trying to make, the mocking sarcasm just turns me off.

Throughout the book, the authors bash women who do not agree 100% with their rigid idea of what all moms should be like. How is this any better than the bad old days of patriarchy? Feminism was supposed to be about empowering individual women to decide for what's best for *themselves* rather than having external forces dictate what all women should do.

In their attempt to free women from the demands of "intensive mothering", the authors time after time imply that there is something inherently wrong with: full-time homemaking, career sequencing, part-time employment, organic food, babywearing, extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, large families, educational toys, homemade Halloween costumes, singing to and playing with one's kids- even wearing moisturizer, having blonde hair, and wearing a size 2. Excuse me?

Doing those things doesn't automatically make a mom a saint, and not doing those things doesn't automatically make one a sinner. It all depends on the reasons why those choices are being made. Most of us are just trying to do what we think is best for our own families given our own personal circumstances. It is so NOT helpful for overly judgmental "feminists" like Professors Douglas and Michaels to bash those moms who've made different choices than they themselves would make.

If having a high-powered career, sending your kids to daycare and then a traditional school, bottlefeeding, using a crib, etc. works for you- that's your prerogative and I agree with the authors of The Mommy Myth that you could still be a good mom. Just don't go around bashing those of us who really do find a home-centered lifestyle to be more fulfilling as reactionary, anti-feminist, self-righteous, "domestic slaves" the way Drs. Douglas and Michaels do.

Homeschooling and "The Mommy Myth"

According to the authors of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women, I must be a failure as a homeschooling mom.

Why? Because I'm not totally fluent in quadratic equations, the XYZ affair, and the literary symbolism of Banquo's ghost in Macbeth. Forget about the existence of such things as oh, I don't know, teacher's manuals, literature guides, reference books, online and community college courses, tutors, etc. Forget the fact that the typical elementary schoolteacher would almost certainly have equal or greater difficulty in teaching these concepts without any kind of reference material. Not to be too much of an educational snob, but I scored more than 400 points higher on the SAT than the average new elementary teacher and had a higher college GPA than >60% (the study unfortunately lumped together all the 3.5+ students so I'm not sure exactly at which percentile mine would place me).

Didn't you get the memo from Professors Susan Douglas of the University of Michigan and Meredith Michaels of Smith? The one saying that home educators need to be omniscient, spend the absolute entire day imparting knowledge into our kids, and feel a compulsion to have our kids step over others, be the envy of others, rise above the mass of the others, "to be, and to be seen as, well, a star"? That we are self-righteous zealots who consider ourselves to be the perfect examples of enlightened maternal virtue?

Pardon my French, but that's a big, fat, steaming load of manure. It's quite clear from reading the discussion of homeschooling in The Mommy Myth that Drs. Douglas and Michaels don't know the first thing about real-life homeschoolers.

The authors' bias is obvious in their treatment of the National Center for Educational Statistics study statistic about 30% of the homeschoolers surveyed citing the desire to "provide religious or moral instruction" as their primary motivation for educating their kids at home. Now, those of us inside the homeschooling community know how broad that statement is, and how extremely diverse the group of families are who might concur with it. No one group has a monopoly on morality and people of any faith or none whatsoever might decide to homeschool in order to teach their children in accordance with their family's values. Yet to Drs. Douglas & Michaels, they're all ultraconservative fundamentalists motivated by:

"an insistence that their kids never encounter the words 'evolution', 'birth control', or 'Oscar Wilde'."

Even the most conservative Christian homeschoolers I know teach *ABOUT* Darwinian evolution and sexuality. Drs. Douglas & Michaels may not like the way those topics are being taught by conservative homeschoolers, but it's a myth that homeschooled kids are totally sheltered from controversial topics.

The authors of The Mommy Myth truly seem to believe that homeschooling is super difficult for the parent doing the primary teaching. But honestly, I see what they would have me do instead of homeschooling to be way more stressful. Throughout the book, they make it abundantly clear their preference for women to hold full-time employment outside the home by glamorizing careers and presenting an excessively negative portrayal of homemaking. Yes, it can be tedious to do housework, change diapers, and so on but the corporate world isn't all fun & games either. I could go on at length about the tedious aspects of my last paid position. The point is, Drs. Douglas & Michaels would have me employed 40+ hours per week, and on top of that somehow find the time & energy to devote myself to the "rehabilitation of public education" by "[joining] the PTA and [giving] the local school board h***."

Forget the fact that the local school board has very little power to fix the problems with government-run schools. I'd have to try to influence things on the state or even Federal level, which would be a full-time job in and of itself. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I'm a lot more cynical about the chances of me actually being able to bring about a significant improvement in the schools. Frankly, I'd rather spend my time and effort on giving my kids a good education at home than on some idealistic but likely futile crusade.

That's what I think truly bothers the authors of The Mommy Myth. They have this attitude that I should feel some sort of noblesse oblige to sacrifice my kids' well-being for what Drs. Douglas & Michaels see as the collective good. However, I don't see why the fruits of my labor should go to benefit "free riders" rather than my own family. Why should I invest my time & effort to help out the kids whose own parents are too lazy or disinterested? It's like the children's story of the Little Red Hen or 2 Thessalonians 3:10 "if any would not work, neither should he eat."

Thoughts on "Why Education is Useless"

I just finished reading the provocatively-titled Why Education is Useless by Dr. Daniel Cottom of the University of Oklahoma. I had picked up the book because I was interested in reading a spirited defense of why liberal education remains important in modern times. I've read several books on that theme in the past year or so including Climbing Parnassus by Tracey Lee Simmons, Who Killed Homer? by Victor Davis Hanson, and The Paidea Program by Mortimer J. Adler.

I was very disappointed by the pedantic, incoherent, and politically correct drivel Dr. Cottom wrote. Why Education is Useless reminds me of Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind but written from a left-wing perspective. Like Dr. Bloom’s book, Dr. Cottom’s is a mish-mash of rants against the author’s personal bugaboos and a highly pedantic discussion of philosophy full of academic jargon.

Here is a typical paragraph:

“Survivalism is an acephalic, rhizomatic, activist, grass-roots movement inspired by quasi-organic intellectuals who have rejected the so-called public sphere, cultural studies an institutionally legitimized academic movement through which tenured and potentially tenurable folks aspire to transform that sphere through their transgressions. The tragic vision of turn-of-century naturalism returns as farce in contemporary survivalism, and to judge from the ‘return to beauty’ widely bruited of late, fin de siecle aestheticism may return as farce in cultural studies if we do not watch what we are doing.”

Now imagine 206 pages worth of this soporific prose- no wonder it took me almost 2 months to get through the book rather than my typical fortnight or so!

Dr. Cottom comes off as the stereotypical arrogant, anti-Christian, anti-capitalist, anti-military, ultraliberal Ivory Tower academic. He spouts all the politically correct nonsense that’s been coming out of universities since the 1960’s and demonizes anyone who happens to disagree with him as racist, intolerant, self-righteous, or at best merely ignorant. He makes little distinction between demagogues such as George Wallace and thoughtful conservatives such as Dinesh D’Souza, William Bennett, and Pope John Paul II.

Dr. Cottom asserts that universities should "celebrate the uselessness at the core of higher education" as a bulwark against the "tyranny of stupidity" of our culture epitomized for him by George W. Bush. Now, I'm certainly no fan of President Bush but I just don't get the vitriolic loathing and insufferably arrogant feelings of superiority he elicits in many liberals. It goes beyond criticism of his administration's policies, which is to be expected, to something much more personal. It started long before the invasion of Iraq and even before the disputed 2000 election (though I'm sure those events exacerbated the already-existing animosity).

I suspect that a great deal of it has to do with the militant hostility to Christianity so popular in certain social circles. Dr. Cottom specifically mentions Bush's naming Christ as his favorite political philosopher in his book and makes the astonishing claim that it identifies Bush as a "right-wing Protestant white male beneficiary of political support from racist voters." Last time I checked, Christians were a pretty diverse bunch: both genders, all different races & ethnicities, a wide variety of denominations, and the full range of political leanings. Bush is a right-wing Protestant white male and for all I know he could well be the choice of white racists (though it's important to make the distinction Dr. Cottom conveniently skips that not all racists are white). However, simply choosing Christ as one's preferred philosopher does not make one ipso facto conservative, Protestant, white, male, or racist.

Upcoming Discount Horrible Histories Order

Ray over at Del Sol Books is putting together a Horrible Books group order to be placed on Sunday, 11/25 for delivery just after Christmas. We have been pleased with his customer service so far!

Thoughts on "Back on the Career Track"

About a month ago, I finished Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-Home Moms Who Want to Return to Work by Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin. I contacted Ms. Cohen for a response to my criticisms of the book because I wanted to be fair in my review. However, she did not respond, so I'm going ahead and publishing the post.

Overall, it's a good book and definitely one that's needed. There is a lot of very useful information contained within it, particularly in chapters 3-7. These go through the relaunching process step-by-step from assessing one's career options through the job search/building up one's business period through transitioning to employment both at home and at work. I especially like the focus on part-time, flexible, freelance, and other non-traditional options. The authors really "get it" when it comes to what many moms are looking for in relaunching their careers.

I also liked Part II of the book, which takes a more broad look at what the authors call "the relaunch movement". There is a very interesting policy discussion in chapters 9 about why there ought to be structural change in our economy to allow for more flexibility and "family-friendliness" in careers. Did you know that companies that offer workers flexibility have a 9% higher market value than similar firms that do not? Or that employee stress costs U.S. companies $300 billion a year in lost productivity and health care costs? As an example of this- I have a friend working for a high profile Wall Street firm whose colleague got so stressed out by job demands that the colleague wound hospitalized for a full month with pneumonia :-(

The biggest criticism I have of the book is that it suffers from a tendency to focus on the most elite women. Undoubtedly because the authors (both MBA's from Harvard) and presumably also the editor belong to this group. There is a long discussion of the benefits of attending a "ramping up" seminar, which are offered to the alumnae of exactly 3 schools: Harvard Business School, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University, and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. HBS awards roughly 1,000 MBA's per year, Darden roughly 300, and Tuck roughly 250. About 25-35% of recent classes have been female. Therefore, only a minuscule percent of women (even of highly educated ones) looking to relaunch their careers will be eligible to attend such a seminar. Why, therefore, even bring it up?

Much of the book seems to be geared towards women with professional backgrounds in investment banking, law, or medicine. I'm sure that the "Goldman Sachs New Directions", "Lehman Brothers Encore", "Flex-Time Lawyers", and "Mom M.D." programs are great for those who qualify but again that's only a tiny fraction of relaunchers. What about the rest of us who held more pedestrian jobs prior to opting out? Most of the women I know who've "opted out" are not former i-bankers, lawyers, or physicians but former accountants, marketers, saleswomen, engineers, or assorted junior-to-mid-level business executives.

There was one specific anecdote that I feel just epitomizes how out-of-touch the authors can appear to many relaunchers. It's in the section of the book called "Starting with a job you perceive as beneath you." That in itself is pretty darn arrogant, and would have been better off softened to "Starting with a job for which you perceive you are overqualified." In it, Ms. Rabin sneers at the initial $30/hr she received for part-time work and blathers on about how it was so "hard to swallow" but within 2 years she was able to pull in "significant fees". I'm sorry, but most college-educated women earn moderate salaries; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the median earnings for female college graduates for the second quarter of 2007 is $23.58/hr and 80% earn less than $33.10. These women would almost certainly consider part-time work offering $30/hr to be pretty darn good! I certainly am willing to believe that for Ms. Rabin personally, it was much lower than what she was accustomed to. However, she could've easily gotten the point she was trying to make across without giving specific numbers. All she needed to say was that it was a quarter of her previous salary or whatever the case may have been. The way it's written in the book just plays into the negative stereotypes of Harvard graduates' arrogance.

The other issue I had with Back on the Career Track was a general denigration of being a stay-at-home-mom and glorification of selfishness. Of the 7 "pros" given for a relaunch, only 2 are non-selfish (financial necessity and avoiding the "empty nest syndrome"), one is debatable ("serving as a role model" as if SAHM's are somehow bad role models for children), and the other 3 are selfish (personal validation, leveling the marriage playing field, and ambition). What about wanting to use one's talents to make a difference in the community? Yes, there's always volunteer work but that typically has limited impact. Those with the power to really change society are generally earning a paycheck for their efforts. If I return to the workforce when my family does not absolutely need the money and/or healthcare benefits, it's going to be because I feel called by God to use the gifts He gave me to make this world a better place. It's not going to be for selfish pride, ambition, or because holding paid employment somehow "validates" me more than being a full-time mom.

I just can't relate to the stories of these Type A careerists who whine about how awful being a SAHM is:

"I feel as if life has no meaning. I have no sense of accomplishment in my life. I feel completely worthless because I don't have anything to contribute." Umm, aren't you contributing to your children's well-being by actually raising them instead of outsourcing it?

"I feel like all I do is move kids and things from one place to another. That is, when I'm not filling out forms." That's your choice to do so. Nobody is forcing you to be a glorified chauffeur by hyperscheduling your kids. You could take a more meaningful role in their upbringing by homeschooling them!

"It would kill me not to have an occupation to fill in on forms." Give me a break! One's self-worth should not be tied to some arbitrary title. As the bumper sticker on my car reads: "Motherhood is a valuable profession."

"Having had an exciting job before I decided to stay home with my children whetted my appetite for more. It gave me a kind of high I couldn't get any other way, and once I'd experienced that work-driven adrenaline rush, the desire for it never completely faded." What did you have, a job or an addiction?

"I never felt cut out for full-time motherhood....I realized I was no match for some of these perfect at-home mothers, who set up educational craft projects and other special activities for their kids. When I was working, I had an excuse for not doing these things. Now I had no excuse." Well, okay, if you're not up to the task of being a good mom, you can certainly work full-time outside the home and use that as an excuse for being a bad one. But that's pretty insulting to those of us who worked our fannies off to be both a good, involved mom *and* hold down a full-time job!

These women came off as totally self-absorbed, glory-seeking, workaholic, strivers who put their own selfish desires ahead of their family's needs. I'm sure this is not the impression Ms. Cohen and Ms. Rabin were aiming for in their depiction of relaunchers!

Despite these problems, however, I do think that Back on the Career Track is a "must-read" for women looking to relaunch their careers. I hope that the authors' elitism does not turn off readers from more humble backgrounds since the book offers a lot of very helpful advice. This is where a better editor would've come in really handy. It's easy when one has an Ivy League graduate degree living in a tony suburb like Newton, MA; Clifton, NJ; or my town near Silicon Valley to get caught in a bubble of yuppiedom and think everybody is like you, your tennis partner, the moms you know from Itsy-Bitsy Yoga, and the colleagues from your former employer & your husband's current one.

Debunking the Myths About the Church & Science

James Hannam, a PhD. candidate in the history of science at the University of Cambridge in England has written a book called God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science. His goal is to translate the recent scholarship about medieval science for a lay audience. Most people outside of academia are unaware of how historians have debunked the popular misconceptions about the Church being allegedly "anti-Science". Not just Catholic apologists but respected secular scholars as well. Mr. Hannam has made the first chapter of God's Philosophers available for *FREE* download at his website. He is also building a registry of people who would be interested in possibly purchasing his book to demonstrate to skeptical publishers that there would be a market for the title.

I definitely think this book is needed because I was very frustrated with the way Joy Hakim perpetuated myths about the Church in her book The Story of Science Volume 1: Aristotle Leads the Way. I'm still using the first part of it about ancient times but the misinformation about the medieval times means we're going to skip the later chapters. I hope that God's Philosophers is published by the time we reach medieval history!

For Women Who Love to Read

Leticia over at "Cause of Our Joy" gave a heads-up to a call for submissions for an anthology entitled Women Who Love to Read, the proceeds of which will benefit the University of Alberta [Canada] Pain Center. Those selected for inclusion will receive a copy of the anthology and the knowledge that they are helping patients in need. Details are listed over at "Rickety Contrivances".

TT: 13 Books I Have Read in 2007

Thirteen BOOKS I HAVE READ IN 2007 I've been a voracious reader ever since I can remember. My mom says I taught myself to read at age 3 and from then on it's been one of my favorite leisure activities. Here are some of the books I've read so far in 2007 and some brief thoughts on each. 1. Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home by Dr. Pamela Stone. Excellent study of why so many highly educated women leave successful careers to become stay-at-home-moms. Contrary to the media portrayal of it being by choice and emblematic of a "new traditionalism", Dr. Stone shows how many of them quit reluctantly because they were unable to find positions offering part-time/flexible hours, interesting work, and potential for career advancement. 2. Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child by Alissa Quart. Interesting but frustrating book. Problem #1 with the book is that Ms. Quart is childless, so she second-guesses what parents are doing without ever having been in that position herself. Reminds me of that great title I saw of a recently-published book: I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids. I'd like to see whether Ms. "Holier-than-Thou" Quart get a bit more sympathy when she has her own child(ren). She also lumps together a bunch of different issues that don't really have all that much to do with each other. It's like she can't decide what the focus of her book is- true prodigies, garden-variety gifted kids, or the average IQ offspring of affluent parents. 3. The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids by Dr. Madeline Levine. Excellent read for any parent trying to raise children in an affluent neighborhood. 4. The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School by Dr. Neil Postman. Thought-provoking but I did not agree with the author's emphasis on "social cohesion" over individual needs in education. 5. "Doing School": How We are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Kids by Denise Pope. Very interesting profile of how traditional schools, particularly ones in affluent areas, foster a hypercompetitive atmosphere detrimental to true learning. 6. Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach by Dr. Nel Noddings. Thought-provoking but scary. I found the book to very full of deliberate misinformation about Christianity. The author keeps claiming that she wants to foster "critical thinking" but what she means by that is teaching skepticism towards beliefs with which she disagrees and indoctrination of impressionable young minds in furtherance of her own agenda. This book should be required reading for Christian parents who have children in government-run schools! 7. Reclaiming Childhood: Letting Our Children Be Children in Our Achievement-Oriented Society by Dr. William Crain. I don't agree with everything that the author says, as he's a bit on the permissive side for my tastes. He definitely appears to hold a Rousseauian view of human nature that I do not share. But Dr. Crain does make some excellent points in the book. 8. The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins. This is very similar to the Denise Pope book mentioned above and just reinforced my desire to keep my kids away from such an unhealthy atmosphere in traditional schools. 9. Tough Choices or Tough Times: The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce Report by the National Center on Education and the Economy. Definitely not an easy read, but it got a lot of press earlier in the year about the commission's recommendation to end high school in 10th grade for most kids. It contains some interesting ideas but I very much disagree with the vocational focus and the recommendation for universal government preschool. Also, I'm not convinced that the average student is ready for college at 15 or 16. 10. God's Universe by Dr. Owen Gingerich. Another one that is not an easy read as it's written by a Harvard professor of astrophysics adapted from lectures he gave on science & faith. But it's an excellent work on how the two fields are complementary, and some of the evidence for why Dr. Gingerich believes that the universe shows Design. 11. Homeschooling- Take a Deep Breath, You Can Do It! by Terrie Lynn Bittner. I've read a bunch of intro to homeschooling books and this is by far the best! She is very down-to-earth and reassuring unlike certain other authors whose tone comes off as pretty intimidating. She also deals with issues that are pretty common but not generally discussed in homeschooling books such as how to convince a skeptical spouse and how to defuse rivalry between homeschooled and traditionally-schooled siblings. I also appreciated how Mrs. Bittner recognized the importance of religion/spirituality in homeschooling without advocating any one particular faith. The problem I have with most homeschooling books is that they either completely ignore religion or else they are written from a certain worldview (typically fundamentalism). Mrs. Bittner's book is religiously neutral, but recognizes the centrality of faith to the homeschooling of many families. 12. Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card. I took a break from the parenting & education non-fiction genres to read this latest novel in the Ender series. While it's not my favorite in the series, I did find it entertaining. 13. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. Another foray into fiction from one of my favorite series. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! *Please note that I take no responsibility for the content of other blogs*

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Couldn't Put it Down!

My body's going to hate me for doing this a few hours from now, but I pulled an all-nighter to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. J.K. Rowling is such a good story teller that I just couldn't put the book down!

I'm not going to give any spoilers but let's just say that I was pretty satisfied with the ending. The way she wrapped up some of the storylines were perhaps a bit on the predictable side; however there was one plot development I didn't see coming, which made one of the major characters more interesting IMHO.

Happy reading to those who have not yet finished the book!

Off to Read the New Harry Potter...

Just got back from the release party with my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. 784 pages, wow! I know it's a fairly quick read, but still!