NoIndoctrination.org - View Listing

[Help NoIndoctrination.org - Donate Now Through Network For Good]

Warning: Postings are only opinions. (See Terms of Service)

Note: Although the postings appear to be anonymous, NoIndoctrination.org knows the posters' names. We communicate with the posters before putting their comments online. We also research each posting and ask for corroborating material when appropriate.

Record for NoIndoctrination.org entry #90.

Portland State University (PSU)

Dec. 5, 2002

http://www.pdx.edu

Course: ED 420: Education and Society

Course Catalog Description: Explores the nature of education in a public context of the United States. Purpose is to develop critical ways of thinking about schools as social institutions and as a means of cultural transmission and transformation. [Graduate School of Education] (All students who want to become teachers must take this course.)

Professor: Tom McKenna

Required? Yes, for all students

Lecture Bias: Excessive

Comments: Lecture and discussion were held at the same time. (See discussion section below.)

Discussion Bias: Excessive

Comments: The discussion was based on the readings and what the teacher had to say, so naturally the discussion ended up being very one-sided. There was no academic freedom. The environment of discussion was only open to certain points of view, and I think every student in class had a pretty good idea what would be viewed as acceptable. I chose my battles very carefully. One time, after just reading an article bashing the teaching of basic skills to children, I read a quote from US News and World Report by an academic scholar from the Brookings Institution (hardly a conservative think-tank) that stated that homework was in - basic skills were the most effective way of teaching children (I paraphrase). The prof got visibly angry and challenged me that the book had not challenged using basic skills and insisted that we go to the page number that I cited and show him where the reading that HE gave us criticized the necessity of basic skills. The whole class went there and we found it, just as I'd said. This basic skills problem I described illustrates the difficulty involved in offering a point of view counter to the one promoted by the biased text and the professor. After one of the few mainstream readings, on multiculturalism in education by Diane Ravitch (former Undersecretary of Education in the first Bush Administration), the professor commented on how wrongheaded but "very seductive" her writing was. We were told that as white males (if we were white males - which I am, as were 2 or 3 other people) we needed to recognize that we were "persons of privilege". No evidence was offered for this, nor were any reasons given that this might not be the case. We were told that we (all of us who were white anyway) were racists and that we could not help not being racists and that we needed to recognize this. There was definitely intimidation on expressing contrary points of view, albeit not overt, and I think that most students in the class probably recognized this.

["Free inquiry and free expression are indispensable to the attainment of these goals. All members of the University community are encouraged to develop the capacity for critical judgment and to engage in a sustained and independent search for truth in an atmosphere of academic freedom": Portland State University's "POLICY STATEMENT ON RIGHTS, FREEDOMS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF STUDENTS" (http://www.culture.pdx.edu/osa/osa_a.htm)]

Readings Bias: Excessive

Comments: There were very few readings that offered anything in terms of an alternative point of view to extreme liberalism/socialism. The assigned readings for one week were by Carol Gilligan and the American Assn of University Women on the subject of how girls were discriminated against in education (with no alternative opinon offered). I asked a couple of weeks in advance if the professor could list as optional reading Christina Hoff Somers' "The War Against Boys" article from The Atlantic Monthly (which persuasively refutes the tenets of the aformentioned Gilligan and AAUW articles) as alternative reading. I gave him my copy of the magazine to review 2 weeks in advance. All he had to do was list the Atlantic web site address on where to find the article to list it as optional reading...no worrys about copys or copyrights. I never heard back from him about my request (although he did give me the magazine back a few weeks later) and it did NOT appear as part of the optional reading, which would have provided an alternative point of view to the indoctrination. One of the books, "Rethinking Our Classrooms" was from http://www.rethinkingschools.org/. I would call this book nonsense if only the ideas inside of it weren't so off base as to be harmful. It provides practical ways in which your children can be taught about the horrible injustices of capitalism and the wonderful world of communism (yes, it teaches only about the wonderful theoretical parts of communism on a child's level). Whites are persons of privilege and only whites can be racist because only whites have the power to be oppressors. Basic skills are trashed. I kept this book...but only as a great example of how some "teachers" (people who SHOULD be teaching children ACADEMIC subjects but apparently don't have the time for that) are trying to indoctrinate children.

General Comments: I feared for my grade in this course and worked very hard at it, way above and beyond. My fear may have been without cause...I got an A (I got the feeling that everyone had probably gotten an A...we were asked to give ourselves a grade.)

Rebuttal

When a course posting goes online, NoIndoctrination.org sends a notice to the professor inviting him/her to contest any specifics. (See Rebuttals.) If we receive a rebuttal, it will be posted here.