Some personal thoughts at the end of Black History Month*** What disturbed me the most was the Bush bashing that occured from time to time by different panel members. This gathering was conducted in Miami near for the liberal ground zero of election 2000. Julia Hare a motivational speaker took her swipe at the President by blaming him for all the ills and plight of black Americans. Shelia Jackson Lee was there and since she is a member of congress she got in her shots. The most disturbing was Dr Eric Michael Dyson from the University of Pennsylvania. This man has several Ph.D's and has the sense of a grapefruit. Here is a man that has pulled himself out of the most dire circumstances though hard work and determination, published many books and is hailed in academia as a great thinker. This man goes and talks about how white supremacy is still keeping black people down. He even blasted his own employer the University of Pennsylvania. Someone should tell the good doctor to wake up stop hanging with the Gangsta Rappers and step into the real world. This learned man condemmed the system by which he himself has gained success. He also said that the White House was full of anti-intellectuals and the President was dumb. Well now that is typical liberal speak and we know that Dr. Rice is a member of MENSA and the President along with the Sec of State have their respective MBA's.
Anti-intellecutal?! Hardly, what I saw was the practice of Intellectual Apartheid amongst these thinkers. There was not one notable black conservative on the panel. For all the talk about equality there was no chance for equality of thought no intellectual diversity. All of these successful people have gotten to where they are by espousing conservative princples of hard work, education and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. This is what Booker T Washington and Frederick Douglas espoused for the race. All I was looking for was some truth which came out at times. Perhaps the island of hope in that entire morass was Dr Ben Carson the noted Pediatric Neurosurgeon. He said that the Jews both conservative and liberal can argue an issue be diametricly opposed but they will come together in areas that have a direct impact upon their communities.***
Educational ineptitude***Retired Indiana University (of Pennsylvania) physics professor Donald E. Simanek has assembled considerable data on just who becomes a teacher. Freshman college students who choose education as a major "are on the average, one of the academically weakest groups. Those choosing non-teaching physics and math are one of the academically strongest groups. Some of the more capable who initially chose teaching will find the teacher-preparation curriculum to be boring and intellectually empty, and shift to curricula that are academically more challenging and rewarding." Simanek adds: "On tests such as the Wessman Personnel Classification Test of verbal analogy and elementary arithmetical computations, the teachers scored, on average, only slightly better than clerical workers. A rather low score was enough to pass. Yet half the teachers failed."
There are other causes for the sorry state of today's primary and secondary education. There's been the politicizing of education. Teachers have recruited students to write letters to the president protesting the war and participate in demonstrations against school budget cuts. Very often, good teachers and principal are faced with the impossible task of having to deal with administrators and school boards who are intellectual inferiors and motivated by political considerations rather than what's best for children.***