Posted on 12/21/2020 11:16:02 AM PST by SJackson
Jill Biden thinks an ed-school advanced degree makes her more important. Does it?
Essayist Joseph Epstein stirred up the “woke” commissars with an essay jovially advising Jill Biden from insisting on being called “Dr” because she has a doctorate in education. As Epstein pointed out, usually the demand to be called “Doctor” when one is not an M.D. suggests insecurity or unseemly vanity. After all, according to her husband, she sought out the degree because she was “so sick of the mail coming to Sen. and Mrs. Biden.” No matter. To Epstein’s critics, the “entitled” old white guy was “sexist” and “misogynist,” demeaning Mrs. Biden’s accomplishments in order to keep her in her “handmaiden” place.
Such “woke” dudgeon is so common that it is a dog-bites-man story, reported on only to provide progressives with opportunities for virtue-signaling, attacking their enemies, and feeling superior to the unenlightened. What’s more serious about this spat is the foundational flaw that runs through it–– our failure to separate real science from activities that reflect scientism: Dressing up ideological beliefs or even fads in the quantitative data and forbidding jargon of real sciences like physics or engineering.
Of course, the criticisms were all preposterous: slighting the EdD is an equal opportunity custom long embedded in Academe, where the “narcissism of small differences” is epidemic, especially for the American professoriate, which doesn’t enjoy the wider social esteem that European academics enjoy. Also, doctorates in education exist mainly as a way to boost a school-teacher’s salary, or qualify him to serve as an administrator. For snooty professors in traditional disciplines, the stink of the marketplace clings to the EdD.
But the deeper question is, why does a discipline like education even exist? Does anybody really believe that there are scientific truths from which this discipline derives? The reliance of educational theory on psychology and sociology should set off warning bells. While empirical information shows up in these fields, they are not “scientific,” but comprise philosophical theories dressed up in the numerical data and polysyllabic jargon that characterize real science. Disciplines whose topic is human behavior, interactions, motivations, or consciousness are particularly dubious, because few of these aspects of our humanity can be understood with the rigor and predictability of hard science.
As such, the disciplines on which education relies are subject to the transient fads and fashionable theories that have bedeviled psychology and sociology since their birth in the 19th century. But the influence of educational theories is particularly malign, since they inform the credentialing programs that certify who gets to teach in our schools. Hence young people are subjected to all sorts of curricula and pedagogical techniques that repeatedly fail. “New” math, phonics, the obsessions with “self-esteem,” sex education, “tolerance and inclusion” curricula, and now unscientific ideas like “systemic racism” or “white privilege” are filling lesson plans and passed off as the fruits of scientific inquiry rather than ideological constructs based on a particular political viewpoint.
That these various pedagogical fashions have failed is evident in the dismal performance of our public schools, as shown by U.S. students in the Programme for International Student Assessment tests, where their scores are regularly below average. This will not come as a surprise to many in businesses, or to older professors like me, who over 43 years of teaching has seen the decline of foundational skills like reading and writing, and of the general cultural and historical knowledge once possessed by people with just grade-school educations.
The biggest problem with scientism is that it assumes human beings can be known and manipulated the same way real science has come to understand nature and then create life-improving (and life-destroying) technologies. This assumption is false. With their minds and free will, humans are too complex to be understood with the same rigor with which science can understand the material world. They are unpredictable and spontaneous, in a word, undetermined unlike any other creature. As Tolstoy’s Prince Andrei says, “What science can there be in a matter which, as in every practical matter, nothing can be determined and everything depends on innumerable conditions, the significance of which becomes manifest at a particular moment, and no one can tell when that moment will come?”
Teaching is an art, not a science. The only preparation needed is the knowledge of subject matter––something today’s credential students in the “soft” disciplines sorely lack. Everything else needed to teach successfully is learned from experience, and advice from successful veteran teachers, if one can be found. Any classroom is too diverse in so many different ways––upbringing, ethnicity, levels of intelligence, work ethic, home life––to be amenable to some totalizing theory or methods cooked up in some ed school.
Nor is there some magic pedagogical technique or technology that allows students to bypass the drudgery that all learning requires. The poor performance of our schools can also be marked by their eagerness to adopt any new fad or computer program that promises to “make learning fun” and protect students from failure and damage to their “self-esteem.” Yet such goals tend to thrive in schools of education. The “different ways of learning” fad––visual learners, kinetic, logical, social, and the rest––may work with very young children, but the age quickly comes when a student needs to learn to read and memorize information, and practice foundational skills through repetition. Of course, the ed schools dismiss this as “drill and kill,” even though for thousands of years until the last fifty that’s how human beings across the world learned cognitive skills.
The prestige put on advanced degrees reflects how thoroughly scientism has spread through our culture. The hard sciences perhaps deserve this esteem, but even there you can find plenty of hacks and drudges. But at least they had to know math. The softer disciplines don’t deserve to be treated the same way medical doctors are. There too you will find the mediocre and the mercenary, but every day doctors save thousands and thousands of lives.
It is testimony to Jill Biden’s lack of self-awareness that she thinks an ed-school advanced degree makes her more important. This doesn’t mean that a good teacher in an ed school has no value, given that to teach in America you need to have that credential. But in my experience from teaching thousands of credential students, I can tell you that the good teachers I have met over the years are good in spite of their credential courses, not because of them.
So Mr. Epstein is right to counsel Jill Biden to drop the “Dr.” As Epstein writes, “In contemporary universities, in the social sciences and humanities, calling oneself Dr. is thought bush league.” It bespeaks insecurity and a desperate craving for respect, always a bad combination. Being First Lady should offer Mrs. Biden ample opportunities to earn both, rather than demanding empty honorifics.
“Doctor” is the appropriate title for virtually any person with a Ph.D.
Just because Doctor of Education is the garbage degree at that level (and, yes, there is science to education, just liberals are as confused about that as they are about bathrooms) does not mean a doctorate is worthless for any discipline but medicine.
FWIW, I have returned to school after 30 years of software development to pursue a M.D. Currently double-majoring in math and biology as an undergrad.
....usually the demand to be called “Doctor” when one is not an M.D. suggests insecurity or unseemly vanity.....
Unless one has a hard-earned Ph.D., as I do!!!!
My university students ALWAYS knew to call me “Doctor”, without my asking!!!! The exceptions were the graduate students who worked with me in the lab, with whom I was on a first-name basis. This is standard throughout academia, and in industry as well.
Should EdDs be called “Doctor”? I think not!!!!
The other issue is those people who think that only those who have delivered a child should be called “Doctor”. Well, nurse midwives deliver babies on a regular basis, and (unlike MD ob/gyns) are never called “Doctor”! Nevertheless, this does not get jill biden off the hook!!
“Chronicle of Higher Education style guide”
I went to chronicle.com and couldn’t find their style guide. Can you point me to it? I’d like to see their “style” requirements”.
I would call her “cheater”. Works in a couple of dimensions.
WILMINGTON, DE—As Dr. Jill Biden and her husband went out to eat over the weekend, a man began choking on his Denver omelet. But lucky for him, Dr. Jill Biden was there, and she is a doctor.
"We need a doctor here!" cried a waiter. "Is there a doctor in the house?"
Dr. Jill Biden sprang into action. "I'm a doctor!" she said, rushing over. "I'm going to need a podium and a microphone, stat!" After a busboy hurried over with the life-saving tools she would need, Dr. Jill Biden thanked him and then began delivering a speech on meeting students' needs at the community college level.
"Thank you for having me here today," Dr. Jill Biden said as the bewildered choking man tried to call for a "real doctor," since he was obviously a misogynistic bigot. "Webster's Dictionary defines education as the action or process of educating." As she continued her intro, the man's face started to turn purple.
"There are three reasons community college being accessible for all is a net gain to society," Dr. Jill Biden said as the man started to lose consciousness. "First, good classes are good for people. We must increase positive educational outcomes by offering good classes for low or no cost. Good classes may include everything from tennis courses and physical education to math and even science."
"In conclusion, community college is good," Dr. Jill Biden said fifteen minutes later, after the man had died. "Thank you."
Dr. Ben Carson also happened to be there but was asked not to interfere as the media assured everyone he's not a real doctor.
https://babylonbee.com/news/man-chokes-in-restaurant-dr-jill-biden-springs-into-action-to-deliver-educational-lecture
Right, he called her Ma’am. Of course she didn’t realize having no experience with military, that is the equivalent to Sir. Military does not always use the rank name depending on the course of a conversation or the situation. A quick Ma’am or Sir is still as respectful - unless protocol has changed since my days.
Jilldo and the dildo......at a basement near you!
The word for her is pretentious.
Of course, pointing out that Jill Biden’s degree is unimpressive constitutes — wait for it — SEXISM!
This is my own personal favorite photo of the couple, Nicolae and Elena Ceacescu:
It’s taken from their best side, backs to the wall as all Communist dictators deserve...
I've always told my staff that they can call me by my first name if there are no patients around.
But they don't.
It's always "Dr. P".
I call fellow M.D.s by their first names when I work with them.
But I call my own doctor "Doctor T".
I'd feel weird calling him by his first name.
Outside of the office, I don't care what people call me.
"Mr." is fine.
It would be acting like a dick if I insisted people call me "doctor".
However, other than Shelton on "Big Bang Theory" TV show very few introduce themselves as Doctor so and so unless in an academia setting.If those morons on that show are any indication of what our "scientists" are like, it's no wonder we're being beat by the rest of the world.
AND, Penney going for that smirking, squinty eyed dimwit is all looks and no brains real life I guess? And don't get me started on that fingernails on a chalkboard screeching little blonde.
OH, and why can't at least one of those brilliant scientist/engineers fix the frigg'n elevator? Or at least call a repairman? Or better yet, Code Enforcement.
Oh, wait don't tell me, it's because it's the landlord's job.
The un-funniest, absolute worst, stupidest show on TV and it's in rerun over and over and over.
Anyone trained in the Heimlich maneuver—whether a Doctor or not—could have helped that choking man!! And Ben Carson is a REAL MD!!!!
If any student submitted a botched, misspelled doctoral thesis with substandard methodology like jill biden’s—in almost any field—their thesis advisor and their entire thesis defense committee would have rejected it outright. The student would have been asked to leave without a degree, or at best a “consolation” master’s degree. A good thesis advisor would have gotten the student to correct their research, long before submitting the “completed” thesis for approval.
How jill biden get away with receiving an EdD is not understandable. That’s even in the not so rigorous field of “education”. But perhaps it was just because she was a Senator’s wife, or joe biden just paid them off.
In any case, jill biden has NO RIGHT to insist on being called “Doctor”. And her Dim defenders have no right to accuse those who object of sexism or right-wing bias!!!!
If you have been around people that brilliant you know it’s spot on. Intelligence rarely equals common sense.
I am actually prouder of the Mrs and mom title than the Dr title. I always have staff call me by my first name unless around patients. Some of the older nurses just can’t bring themselves to call me by my first name but eventually I win them over.... We work as a team. My last name is quite difficult for my elderly patients who either call me Dr K or Dr my first name. I find those most insistent in the titles are the least secure and most incompetent or they are just plain jerks
Hey Jill, if the people in the media insist on calling you “Doctor”, I insist both they and you call me “Master”!
Sorry, I thought it was funny in the early episodes. Shows my intelligence...haha. I also thought Two and a Half Men was funny early on. Now, that puts me in the category of moron.
This is not easy to find and I can’t point you directly to it. I learned this in a historical context. Teresa Sullivan was president at the University of Virginia and ran into major headwinds in efforts to change things around. She survived the brouhaha, but there was massive back and forth for several years. In articles on the matter, many feminist letter writers decried that she ws referred to as Ms. not Dr. The convention I described was explained several times but had to be repeated to each outraged soul.
As she left the University in 2017, the Chronicle reported it
https://www.chronicle.com/article/after-a-tumultuous-7-years-teresa-sullivan-will-leave-uva/
and always used Ms. not doctor. BTW, the University of Virginia also used the term MS in 2018 in recapping her tenure, so it is not unusual to not use the Dr (she has a Ph. D.) See
https://www.virginia.edu/aboutuva/presidents/sullivan
Now that’s what I call, “Term Limits”.
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