Posted on 10/23/2005 8:07:55 PM PDT by txzman
10/24/05 By John Leo Class(room) Warriors
The cultural left has a new tool for enforcing political conformity in schools of education. It is called dispositions theory, and it was set forth five years ago by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education: Future teachers should be judged by their "knowledge, skills, and dispositions." What are "dispositions"? NCATE's prose made clear that they are the beliefs and attitudes that guide a teacher toward a moral stance. That sounds harmless enough, but it opened a door to reject teaching candidates on the basis of thoughts and beliefs. In 2002, NCATE said that an education school may require a commitment to social justice. William Damon, a professor of education at Stanford, wrote last month that education schools "have been given unbounded power over what candidates may think and do, what they may believe and value."
NCATE vehemently denies that it is imposing groupthink, but the ed schools, essentially a liberal monoculture, use dispositions theory to require support for diversity and a culturally left agenda, including opposition to what the schools sometimes call "institutional racism, classism, and heterosexism." Predictably, some students concluded that thought control would make classroom dissent dangerous. A few students rebelled when a teacher at Brooklyn College School of Education showed Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11 in class and dismissed "white English" as "the language of oppressors." Five students filed written complaints and received no formal reply from the college. One was told to leave the school and take an equivalent course at a community college. Two of the complaining students were then accused of plagiarism and marked down one letter grade. The two were refused permission to bring a witness, a tape recorder, or a lawyer to meet with a dean to discuss the matter.
K. C. Johnson, a history professor at the school who defended the dissenting students, became a target himself. After writing an article in Inside Higher Ed attacking dispositions theory as a form of mind control, Johnson faced a possible investigation by a faculty Integrity Committee. The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education entered the case on Johnson's behalf, accusing the college of viewpoint discrimination and a violation of academic freedom. FIRE is a national civil liberties group that does what the American Civil Liberties Union should be doing but usually won't. FIRE said: "Brooklyn College must confirm that it tolerates dissent, that it is not conducting another secret investigation of one of its own professors." FIRE says the college has "disavowed any secret investigation."
Backing down. Another battle over dispositions theory has been unfolding at Washington State University's college of education. The college threatened to terminate a student, Edward Swan, 42, for failing four "professional disposition evaluations." Swan, a religious man of working-class background, has expressed conservative opinions in class. He opposes affirmative action and doesn't believe gays should adopt children. His grades are good, and even his critics say he is highly intelligent. One teacher gave Swan a failing PDE after spotting the statement "diversity is perversity" in Swan's copy of a textbook.
At the start of the current semester, Swan was offered a choice: Sign a contract with the college or be expelled. The contract included mandatory diversity training, completing various projects at the faculty's direction, and the possibility of above-normal scrutiny during Swan's student teaching this fall. Instead of signing, Swan contacted FIRE. "Almost immediately, Swan's situation changed," said an article in the local newspaper, the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. The faculty told Swan he did not have to sign the contract and would not be expelled. Judy Mitchell, dean of the college of education, said the school would continue using the PDEs. A reporter asked her if Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia would pass a PDE if he were a student at the college. "I don't know how to answer that," Mitchell replied.
David French, president of FIRE, then jumped in. "I commend the dean for her honesty," he said. "But the answer is alarming because Scalia shouldn't fail any 'character' test because of his beliefs." Obviously, the dean had a problem. She couldn't say that no conservatives need apply, and she couldn't tell her faculty that the PDE s would be waived for someone like Scalia. In both the Johnson and the Swan cases, the colleges backed down when FIRE went public, but neither agreed to avoid using dispositions theory for apparently ideological purposes. The lesson for education students is clear: Say what you think in class, and if the administration moves against you, give FIRE a call.
It was only a matter of time. Since I have had some liberal friends desert me because of my "dispositions" or in frank terms political beliefs, it makes since that a school of education would want to "clense" the school of impure conservative thought.
If senators can quiz a supreme court candidate to find our how he will vote before confirmation why not ask a teacher to take a multiple point test on his values before granting him tenure.
When I went into teaching school 35 years ago, I was told then that the majority of teachers who are dismissed or don't make it are turned down because of disagreements with other teachers. I believe this mentor professor was trying to tell us to keep our thoughts to ourselves even back then.
BTTT!! Let's hear it for the N.E.A!
A properly socialist attitude is more important than mastering the material.
Teachers these days...unlike previous teachers..can't even pass the basics in the subject they are teaching. It is pathetic.
NEA strikes again.
INTREP
I believe it. We had to read all sorts of Marxist literature in one of my required ed classes. Had to write papers on Whiteness, Social Justice, and Paolo Friere's "Liberatory Education." I am proud to say I nearly reduced that professor to tears one night. You could just look at her and see why she was a feminist. She was blocky and always wore turtlenecks. Looked like a roll-on in a wig. Hated her.
See? There IS a solution for these poor, beleaguered Administrators. All that is needed is the leadership to act. Are any of Hitler's descendants available to offer on campus training?
SFS
Yes, I got my degree in EE from Berkeley and went into engineering and found myself unsatisfied. (It turns out this was because my company was in a lull and had no real work to do, but they did not share this with me.) I went back and got a credential and was lucky to be placed as a math teacher. While there I showed other teachers what I found worked well, and ran the remedial math program but never advanced much to the higher courses because the more senior teachers had everything locked up unless I wanted to change schools. By then I was coaching too and became attached to the one school I was at.
When I went back to engineering with the same company, they used me to teach new engineers so I was able to teach and be paid an engineering salary. With some interesting test failures to work on the engineering job took on new meaning. But I still believe teaching is a high calling and if they would let us teach and negotiate for our pay it would be one of the best jobs to be had.
Of course the present state of teachers schools and unions have messed it up about as much as it can be messed up. Maybe Arnold will win the union busting proposition in CA and start to turn things around. (I taught in CA.)
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