Elsewhere (227)
The College Fix reports on a daring breakthrough in educational standards:
The New York State Board of Regents will consider tomorrow whether to go with a task force’s recommendation to scrap a teacher literacy exam known as the Academic Literacy Skills Test. “Part of the reason,” NBC New York reports, is because “an outsized percentage of black and Hispanic candidates were failing it.” It is expected the Board will abandon the assessment.
Because expecting educators to be even nominally competent is so Twentieth Century.
Victor Davis Hanson on politics and incompetence:
Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg used to offer all sorts of cosmic advice on the evils of smoking and the dangers of fatty foods and sugary soft drinks. Bloomberg also frequently pontificated on abortion and global warming, earning him a progressive audience that transcended the boroughs of New York. But in the near-record December 2010 blizzard, Bloomberg proved utterly incompetent in the elemental tasks for which he was elected: ensuring that New Yorkers were not trapped in their homes by snowdrifts in their streets that went unploughed for days. The Bloomberg syndrome is a characteristic of contemporary government officials. When they are unwilling or unable to address pre-modern problems in their jurisdictions — crime, crumbling infrastructure, inadequate transportation — they compensate by posing as philosopher kings who cheaply lecture on existential challenges over which they have no control.
John Ellis on why the National Endowment for the Arts is a bad thing:
From the organisation’s website, “The NEA is an independent federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation.” That mission statement prompts a few questions… How does creating a false market for art promote and strengthen creative capacity? The NEA model artificially props up mostly unwanted markets by using tax dollars that get funnelled through inefficient and wasteful bureaucracies… Artificially propping up an unwanted market does not benefit the arts. It does benefit the people who work in the NEA office and the many local organisations that help funnel taxpayers’ money to arts organisations, though. What it does to the arts is create a marketplace that supports bad art.
See also this.
And Anthony Gockowski spies a terribly radical approach to being terribly radical:
“The nap-ins are part of the internal journey to diversity. All dreams start while sleeping,” explained Marissa Amposta, student coordinator of the event, noting that her nap-ins will take place in the rotunda of the campus library, and that students will be able to share their dreams on a fabric scroll displayed nearby. The event will take place as part of the school’s “Dreaming Diversity Art Installation” created in celebration of Women’s History Month sponsored by the Women’s Resource Centre. “People forget we are still working for equality,” Nicole Tabor, graduate assistant coordinator of the centre declared. “It might never happen if we stop fighting.”
Yes, they’re fighting, you see, these little warriors. For “diversity,” obviously. And also for “equality,” which the middle-class ladies taking gender studies courses are, it turns out, being cruelly denied. And they’re doing all this – bravely, heroically – by taking naps for three weeks.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
Because expecting educators to be even nominally competent is so Twentieth Century.
They’re really looking out for the kids, aren’t they?
They’re really looking out for the kids, aren’t they?
Apparently, it’s deemed more important that junior and middle-school teachers have an approved level of melanin than it is that they’re able to punctuate or correct students’ grammar, even at a fairly basic level. And when parents start to complain about such employees or, if they can, take their children elsewhere, they will presumably be accused of racism.
These are hormonally drenched late teens and early twenty somethings, presumably randy as anything. One imagines there must be industrial levels of sublimation taking place, no wonder they are all so batty.
Hell in a hand cart.
I think the first item is doomed to land New York with a clusterfuffle, because it’s mixing together about four different issues which really should be disentangled for separate consideration. My approximate enumeration looks something like this:
1) The matter of whether this test in particular is a good test.
2) The fact that practically every test is going to have more whites than blacks or hispanics passing it. (Exceptions: tests of black hispanicness, tests nobody passes at all.)
3) The question of the reasons for point 2 being true.
4) What Is To Be Done About It All.
I wonder if the Academic Literacy Skills Test includes an entry for analysis of this kind of knotty problem.
What Is To Be Done About It All.
It’s a strange tangle of conceits. Apparently, the shortcomings of many prospective black and Hispanic teachers can only be due to “poverty and the legacy of racism.” And so the solution jumped on is to lower standards and hire lots of black and Hispanic teachers who themselves struggle with reading comprehension and are unable to “write competently,” and who will presumably do wonders for the reputation of black and Hispanic educators. To say nothing of the children left in their care.
I can’t help wondering what it must be like to be a black or Hispanic teacher from a humble background who has nonetheless mastered punctuation, grammar and comprehension, and is good at her job, and who then finds herself obliged to work alongside colleagues who struggle with such things, even in multiple question form. Colleagues that she is expected to regard as peers and equally deserving.
Canada’s Carleton University removed the weight scale from its campus gym after several students complained about being “triggered” by it. A sign has been put up in place of the scale, explaining that the decision to remove it is “in keeping with current fitness and social trends.”
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/carleton-university-removes-weight-scale-from-gym-after-students-call-it-triggering/
Canada’s Carleton University removed the weight scale from its campus gym after several students complained about being “triggered” by it.
Um, wouldn’t it have been easier – and more accommodating of other gym users – to simply not stand on the scales? Again, it’s as if the whole point were to inconvenience other people and exert power over them, albeit in ever more contrived and petty ways. But I suppose that’s the thing about narcissistic psychodrama. It’s not enough to indulge in it quietly, on one’s own. Everyone nearby has to be forcibly involved.
Check out Finlands education requirements to become a teacher.
http://www.oph.fi/english/education_system/teacher_education
The first link reminds me of one of the many excellent Thomas Sowell-isms:
‘The tests are not unfair, life is unfair. And the tests reflect that.’
Plus, are they implying that minority students are incapable of learning from teachers of another race? That’s so…racist. furthermore, I bet that would come as a surprise to asian minority students, who routinely excel in academics. And they have also experienced terrible discrimination historically…
“an outsized percentage of black and Hispanic candidates were failing it. [the literacy test]”
This has been going on for most of my life. The only thing that has changed is that when someone points out the obvious defects in quotas for incompetents, the accusations of “racism!” are more shrill and the likelihood of actual violence is far higher.
all grammars are racisms! what that man from seattle said. I can’t even!
Another well-balanced lefty:
“College Student Pleads Guilty To Slashing Her Own Face, Making Up Post-Election ‘Hate Crime’”
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/03/u-michigan-student-admits-slashing-her-own-face-in-hate-crime-hoax/
“Recognize that you’re still racist no matter what”
https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/840965422446960640
Recognize that you’re still racist no matter what.
It’s like Charlie Brown and Lucy, but with accusations of racism instead of a football.
“Having a white workforce really doesn’t match our student body anymore.”
Why not, “Having a [competent] workforce really doesn’t match our student body anymore?” And of course, such changes have to be matched with additional impediments to parents who wish to remove their children to educational opportunities where “social justice” is subordinated to actual achievement, whether it’s opposing school vouchers or opposing charter schools or imposing additional burdensome regulations on parochial schools and home school families.
Is our teachers learning?
Because expecting educators to be even nominally competent is so Twentieth Century.
Thank goodness the kids of middle-class lefties won’t be affected. #Upside
Thank goodness the kids of middle-class lefties won’t be affected. #Upside
There is that. And after all, it’s only an exam that, in the words of the New York Board of Regents, is designed to test “whether a prospective teacher can understand and analyse reading material and also write competently.”
Oh, and remember, it’s not just teachers.
What could possibly go wrong?
If I remember right, the female “firefighter” soon developed a back problem and was retired on disability.
Jeff,
I rather imagine the FDNY was happy to pay the claim to be rid of her, and the risk she posed.
If I remember right, the female “firefighter” soon developed a back problem and was retired on disability.
According to the Firehouse website, she lasted all of 10 days. It’s almost as if there’s a moral to the story. Similarly incompetent teachers, however, will most likely be able to bluff it for quite a bit longer.
I rather imagine the FDNY was happy to pay the claim to be rid of her, and the risk she posed.
It’s perhaps worth pausing to consider the selfishness of Ms Doirin-Holder, the demonstrably incompetent would-be firefighter, who, despite her obvious and rather alarming shortcomings, persisted in seeking a position for which she was clearly not at all suited and unlikely ever to be. How many lives would she consider it acceptable to endanger in order to be given, unearned, a more prestigious and lucrative position?
Ditto Ms Rebecca Wax, mentioned in the last item here.
And note how both of these stories relate to the second item in the post above.
How many lives would she consider it acceptable to endanger in order to be given, unearned, a more prestigious and lucrative position?
Reminds me of the sad story of Lt Kara Hultgreen, the US Navy’s first female fighter pilot.
“Way out of her depth” was how fellow Navy fighter pilots described her. She was assigned to an active F-14 squadron despite multiple deficiencies at piloting that aircraft. Her death in a carrier landing accident was all too predictable.
One has to think if a “solution” like that is advantageous form someone, and of course it is.
There’s a rich class which prospers over the misfortunes of a vast layer of the population; for those people, the best course is the one that:
– does NOT solve the problem, maintaining the source of their wealth;
– gives the illusion that the motivation is a moral one: the good of the very poor people they’re preying on.
It’s a vicious circle, but vastly profitable.
It’s like the scandal in Rotherham: institutions presumably dedicated to children’s protection were reciprocally awarding and promoting themselves for the splendid services nominally offered, while hundreds of girls got raped under their eyes; the business narrative had to go on.
I tried napping for the dream of social justice, but woke up with my cis-normative tendencies firmer than ever. Different dreams, I guess.
“People forget we are still working for equality,” Nicole Tabor, graduate assistant coordinator of the centre declared. “It might never happen if we stop fighting.”
You’ve got equal pay for equal work. You’ve got equal access to education. You’ve got the vote. You’ve got contraception and maternity leave. As my 30 year old daughter says, “job done: we have equality”. And her mother, who is my wife, agrees.
I tried napping for the dream of social justice, but woke up with my cis-normative tendencies firmer than ever. Different dreams, I guess.
I tried napping for the dream of social justice; boss didn’t care why, d@mned near fired me.
Racist.
I bet Hopp Sing wasn’t dreaming about TrigglyPuff.
Is our teachers learning?
Dude, I was like OMFG when I read this, and Education isn’t even my major. The answer is literally in the question? The teachers is learning the childrens, obvs. Jeez, just do the math.
So if literacy standards are dropped for minority/ethnic groups how will people from such groups ever qualify for careers in medicine and many other areas which require literacy and the ability to read and analyse complex information? I, for one, would not wish to use the services of a surgeon who could not read my clinical file or medical journals as part of ongoing professional development. Or perhaps such a notional minority medical practitioner would always be attended by a literacy practitioner who would read and write for him/her? It is, as always with Leftists, the equality of mediocrity, of lowered expectations that prevails.
In keeping with this policy of level-down-and-double-down, I suggest we start hiring air traffic controllers whose minds wander a lot and who respond to high-pressure, time-critical situations by bursting into tears.
The teachers is learning the childrens
This is even funnier when taken in the context of the woman advocating “shared ignorance” of teacher and students, so that they could “learn together”. Because no teacher is more intelligent than her students, and (leap of logic) therefore shouldn’t be expected to know any more about the topic at hand.
Further to my earlier comment suggesting special assistant Literacy Practitioners for aspiring surgeons, engineers, etc., in special education “integration” aides are hired to support “special needs” children. Perhaps the notion of a ‘literacy practitioner’ supporting an aspiring [ethnic] student surgeon or an engineer in aerospace is not so far fetched?
As an educator of 47 years experience I am horrified and disgusted by the notion of reducing standards, especially of literacy, rather than helping people come up to standard. Every teacher is a teacher of English first! However it is all about the Emperor’s new clothes as far as the Leftist morons are concerned: perception and “seeming” equal are all that matters. Here’s a thought: why not just give aspiring, but illiterate, medical students [for instance] a white coat and a stethoscope? That would surely make them Doctors of Medicine! An aspiring engineer could be given a calculator and clip-board, and so on.
As an educator of 47 years experience I am horrified and disgusted by the notion of reducing standards
Slightly tangential – I once knew an elementary school teacher who was quite proud of her meteoric rise to a highly paid principal position as a result of recycling and submitting papers on pedagogical theory written ten years previously, since the in-vogue pedagogy apparently cycled every decade or so.
When I pointed out that if pedagogy was rotating the same theories on a regular schedule, that surely this meant none of them were better than any other and quite likely equally worthless, I got a blank stare and a rapid change of subject.
Hi Daniel, I would agree that the fundamentals of good teaching/education process were the same fifty, even one hundred years ago. My experience teaching in both Australia and the USA taught me that there is such a thing as good teaching and good teaching in the USA is basically the same as in the Australia. The recycling of ideas is a common observation.
You may find the quote below interesting and reinforcing of your view. I had it posted over my desk when working in a state government bureaucracy as I was tired of “new” methods being foisted on me and others by politicians and bureaucrats were not practitioners:
“WE TRAINED HARD … BUT IT SEEMED THAT EVERY TIME WE WERE BEGINNING TO FORM UP INTO TEAMS WE WOULD BE RE-ORGANISED.
I WAS TO LEARN LATER IN LIFE THAT WE TEND TO MEET ANY NEW SITUATION BY REORGANISING – AND A WONDERFUL METHOD IT CAN BE FOR CREATING THE ILLUSION OF PROGRESS WHILE PRODUCING CONFUSION, INEFFICIENCY AND DEMORALISATION”
Petronius, 210 B.C.
This is even funnier when taken in the context of the woman advocating “shared ignorance” of teacher and students,
For those who missed her dumpster fire philosophy, here’s Dr Nina Power.
And as noted in the original thread, were Dr Power to be involved in a serious traffic accident, I’m guessing she’d want paramedics and surgeons who possessed the kind of “hierarchical” expertise she so airy disdains as inegalitarian. I doubt she’d be happy to go under a knife wielded by someone who’d been taught – or rather, ‘taught’ – in the pretentious, haphazard manner she advocates for others.
As a teacher I do not have to be smarter in all aspects than my students. That is not possible; there is always someone more able or smarter in some area. I need to know enough to know what I don’t know and then find out more and also teach my students, both of lesser and greater intelligence than I, how to better themselves. Teaching is an ongoing process. It is more than just filling “empty” minds with facts. I wonder if Dr Power is just parroting GB Shaw: “Those who can do, those who can’t teach”, hence it is alright for teachers to be lacking, what she calls “equal intelligence”, but later, “shared ignorance”. Frankly I am an admirer of Edison: “Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration”. That is, being intelligent is really a life-long process of adaptive behaviour, not a “thing”.
No. Matter. What.
The above is all you need to know going forward, it should become your mantra.
As a teacher I do not have to be smarter in all aspects than my students.
I’m a teacher, and I also realise I can’t be smarter than my kids.
But I do need to recognise poor work when I see it, and that does require minimum standards.
There is also the issue of respect. Students won’t respect a teacher who is clearly incompetent, and will stop listening.
“College hosts ‘nap-ins’ to guide students on ‘journey to diversity’”
I don’t know about y’all across the pond, but here in the States we have a school for kids at age 5 called kindergarten. I recall in my kindergarten class every day we would pull out mats and take a half-hour nap. So, now in American colleges, folks are spending thousands of dollars to go back and recreate kindergarten…
“I bet Hopp Sing wasn’t dreaming about TrigglyPuff.”
(Since I can’t figure out how to insert a picture in this comment, I’ll just have to insert the link):
You mean this?
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/125/107/67f.php
Chester Draws wrote: “But I do need to recognise poor work when I see it, and that does require minimum standards.
There is also the issue of respect. Students won’t respect a teacher who is clearly incompetent, and will stop listening.”
Yes. You cannot ever fool a class of children/adolescents. They are continually testing and soon lose respect for an instructor who tries to BS them. They will respect an honest teacher who admits error or ignorance, but then follows up and rectifies his/her own errors and/or lack of knowledge. In my experience school children of all ages loathe weak teachers [adults] who allow them to do anything. They crave boundaries, including, as you state, “minimum standards”.
There is clearly a difference between strong/effective [school] teachers and the social justice/welfare people, with the latter being more concerned about having a personal relationship with students, rather than educate them for life after school.
Apologies in advance for the longer comment.
I was discussing the College Fix link with my lovely spouse, an immigrant who obtained a PhD in English and Linguistics and taught multiple courses in same as a full-time faculty member at a top 20 U.S. university before taking a child rearing hiatus. When she returned to teaching, she used her language acquisition background to teach ESL to immigrants at a local community college, all of whom had U.S. public high school diplomas from local high schools but whose written English was woefully short of what was necessary to even obtain a minimal vocational certificate. She was able to pull most of them through with a lot of work on her part, for which these students were quite appreciative. She still hears from many periodically, though she taught these courses a decade ago.
However, those same students wound up extraordinarily angry the local public school district which had passed them without providing the necessary instruction in English. They felt cheated and rightfully so. (BTW, the students came from all continents and cultures. What they shared was a desire to learn in order to succeed in American society.)
At around the same time, her employer gave her a couple of Freshman Composition classes to teach, as well. These were populated by regular non-immigrant American students from public high schools. All races were represented. According to my wife, the contrast between the two cohorts was marked. The American kids, who were only marginally better than the immigrants, reacted with anger at every correction. Corrections were viewed as personal insults and attempts to marginalize their personal identities. Only a few were able to pass the course ultimately and the rest were consigned to retake it or placed in remedial level courses. This in a nominal post-secondary educational institution!
The point of this anecdote is that New York is facilitating the graduation of students in both of the cohorts mentioned above: the ones who will ultimately realize they’ve been cheated and the ones who will demand that their inadequacies be ignored or, more precisely, be defined out of existence. The end result is the same, of course. Incompetent graduates.
R. Sherman wrote: “New York is facilitating the graduation of students in both of the cohorts mentioned above: the ones who will ultimately realize they’ve been cheated and the ones who will demand that their inadequacies be ignored or, more precisely, be defined out of existence. The end result is the same, of course. Incompetent graduates.” Well that’s no surprise.
I seem to remember students in US affirmative action education programs in the 1970s/1980s suddenly realising that the so-called educational programs were useless and so were the notional qualifications granted them. A number of law suits were filed because no real “education” occurred in the rush to make it seem that minorities were being assisted.
You may find the quote below interesting and reinforcing of your view.
LOL Yes, I minored in Classical Studies and I’m familiar with Petronius.
I used to have ODERINT DUM METUANT on the wall in my office, but they made me take it down.
There is also the issue of respect. Students won’t respect a teacher who is clearly incompetent, and will stop listening.
I’m not convinced that these clowns are concerned with practical outcomes, even pretty obvious ones. It’s all about appearance.
I wonder if Dr Power is just parroting GB Shaw: “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”, hence it is alright for teachers to be lacking, what she calls “equal intelligence”, but later, “shared ignorance”.
If you poke through the article and subsequent comments, you’ll see Dr Power’s flummery is much bolder than that. She’s quite happy to assert things that are demonstrably untrue – for instance, her claims that “everyone is equally intelligent” and that “everyone has the potential to understand everything,” which casually ignore both everyday experience and a century of cognitive testing. Perhaps more to the point, and despite claiming that “equality of intelligence” is “one of the most important ideas of the past decade,” she offers no credible reasoning for these suppositions and no evidence whatsoever. We’re expected to accept these claims simply on grounds of Marxoid egalitarianism. And this disregard for evidence is even given an air of virtue, of sophistication.
For a senior lecturer in philosophy, her thinking, such as it is, is devoid of logic and facts, and comically unstructured. It’s just a series of assertions and some modish name-dropping. Apparently, that’s good enough.
I once knew an elementary school teacher who was quite proud of her meteoric rise . . . .
and . . . .
It’s all about appearance.
Having The Title.
Can I be a killjoy and point out that the quotation above isn’t by Petronius? (Yes, yes I can). Petronius Arbiter wasn’t alive in 210 BC, either – he was a court favourite of Nero who later fell foul of him and was forced to commit suicide.
“According to the Firehouse website, she lasted all of 10 days.”
Passing drill school(when the goalposts keep getting moved so you can’t fail) is one thing.
Once you get on the floor on your first shift as a probie, that’s entirely another. They probably ate her alive.
They probably ate her alive.
Extending these special exemptions and indulgences to favoured identity groups, even when individuals are worryingly incompetent, seems a recipe for friction and resentment. It can’t be easy to get past the fact – of which there may be daily reminders – that one of you has been promoted unfairly, way beyond her abilities. It’s hard to miss the insult to any staff, including minority staff, who actually earned their positions, and whose job has just become even more dangerous.
Speaking of identity quotas.
From this.
“Apparently, that’s good enough.
If I’m understanding this correctly, apparently it is good enough to fool the dumber people that she claims don’t exist. But of course, the “dumber people” are everyone that don’t agree with her. I suppose.
Or are they actually evil people just pretending to be dumb.
Every time I try to understand Leftist Logic my brane hurtz.
Or are they actually evil people just pretending to be dumb.
I think that’s about as clever as she is, though maybe foolish is a better word. As for evil, I could only guess, but there’s the usual mix of vanity, dishonesty and grandiose unrealism. And were her pronouncements realised, her fantasies of “overturning existing hierarchies,” the effects would be destructive. In the original thread, a commenter, Andrew Zalotocky, described Dr Power’s ramblings as “evil and trivial at the same time, like selling your soul to the Devil for a seat on the parish council.”
They probably ate her alive.
Firefighting? Your life may depend on the raw strength of another firefighter to drag you up a flight of stairs and out to safety while you’re both wearing firefighting gear that can weigh up to 75 pounds.
Not to mention the lives of fire victims who also depend on the physical strength and stamina of rescuers.
That should count for something in a sane world.
So, yeah, a female “probie” firefighter has a lot to prove among her peers before earning acceptance. There’s a lot on the line. No tears for washouts, male or female.
Or are they actually evil people just pretending to be dumb.
This.
how will people from such groups ever qualify for careers in medicine and many other areas which require literacy and the ability to read and analyse complex information?
These clowns will GLADLY permit substandard surgeons to operate rather than admit they are wrong.
How do you know whether your surgeon has good reading-comprehension skills? How do you know whether your pilot can competently compose a paragraph?
School administrators are some of the brick-stupidest people on the planet, meaning that they either cannot tell what competence looks like or they’ll be damned if mere students (or teachers) come up smarter than they.
It’s buckets of crabs all the way down.
her fantasies of “overturning existing hierarchies,”
Meaning: Me and mine occupy the top seats, having destroyed everyone above us.
Sometimes stupidity IS evil. If you have reason to know that you’re not competent to do X, and you insist on doing it anyway because reasons, and you’ve bullied wiser people in to letting you do it, and the disaster caused by your incompetence was foreseeable, then you’ve done an evil thing. The evil being HUBRIS.
I’m a pretty smart cookie, but being a Humanities puke working in IT, I’ve also learned that what I don’t know can hurt me (well, it will brick my machines and maybe other people’s stuff), so I must be cognizant always of my limitations. If I don’t know how doing X will affect things, I need to not do X until I’ve asked someone about it. Even if it appears to me to be an obvious little thing that I can just do.
Otherwise, I risk borking things up badly and then one of my long-suffering colleagues has to spend precious time unraveling it.
I actually prefer working among people who are smarter than I am at the primary task (developing software). It means I get to learn new things every day.
But some people are such pinheaded asses that they can’t endure the idea that they’re ignoramuses, and so rather than patch up their ignorance with learning, they spin delusions about their own abilities and worth, gumming up the works in the process and stomping on the competent whenever possible.
Such ignoramuses are not working in the private sector: if they manage to get hired, they lose their positions soon enough. OTOH, gubmint bureaucracies are filled to overflowing with jumped-up morons, who spend all their time building fiefdoms and jockeying for position and the biggest of the asses ends up being in the top spot.
Thomas Sowell used to be a Marxist. He took Friedman’s courses and still was a Marxist. Then he worked at a gubmint agency and saw all of the braying asses and the multitude of incentives to BE an ass, and concluded that such people should never be allowed within a country mile of the levers of power.
My first tech-writing gig was as a defense contractor at the local air force base.
Sowell came to exactly the right conclusion.
Boy, did he ever come to the right conclusion.
If you have reason to know that you’re not competent to do X, and you insist on doing it anyway because reasons, and you’ve bullied wiser people in to letting you do it, and the disaster caused by your incompetence was foreseeable, then you’ve done an evil thing. The evil being HUBRIS.
Don’t think I can argue with that.
Sometimes stupidity IS evil.
And then of course there are people who are damaged in such a way as to be malevolent. As noted many times, the “social justice” demographic includes a remarkably high concentration of such disordered people. More, I think, than chance alone would allow.
Such ignoramuses are not working in the private sector
Oh, yes, they absolutely are. Now, it’s been my experience that the cycle time in pure software engineering is so short that they’re scarce there, but in conventional engineering the Dunning-Kruger effect runs rampant.
More, I think, than chance alone would allow.
It’s not hard to see how people whose psyche was warped by a childhood of severe abuse would be attracted to a worldview that consists of a host of exaggerated imaginary bogeymen constantly oppressing people, that one can be regarded as heroic and powerful for standing up against without having to actually do anything dangerous.
Then he worked at a gubmint agency and saw all of the braying asses and the multitude of incentives to BE an ass, and concluded that such people should never be allowed within a country mile of the levers of power.
Donald Trump has said something about cutting the federal workforce by 20% (iirc). I think that may only be the deadwood who do nothing at all. When something like 90% of the federal employees in DC are considered “non-essential” (those furloughed during so-called “government shutdowns” when there’s a budget impasse), I’d say a reduction of 50% might begin to make a impact.
David: “As noted many times, the “social justice” demographic includes a remarkably high concentration of such disordered people. More, I think, than chance alone would allow.”
Having worked as a specialist consultant in behaviour management in a state government [Australian] department of welfare I must agree that those in middle/upper management ranked as some of the most dissolute – they lived on alcohol and were quite predatory sexually – and incompetent people I have ever met, yet they could talk the social justice talk brilliantly. One female social worker was married to an ex-Catholic priest who had himself re-trained as a social worker. The woman was in charge of the large child protection department and notorious for her bitchy and two-faced treatment of staff, but she had to be re-deployed away from child protection when it was found out that her social worker husband was in gaol [or jail in the US] for having sex with an under-age girl!
Hi Charlie Suet. If Petronius did not write that wonderful statement, do you know who did? I was given the document and took it on good faith that the author was Petronius. Regardless it is a perfect description of politicised systems that lose track of their original purpose, i.e. service to those who are in need, and start to exist for the good of the in-house staff only
And Daniel Ream: I had some other signs above my desk for which I owe thanks to Walt Disney. One pointed towards the state capital where head office was situated. It read “Fantasy Land”. Another pointed to the Regional Director’s office. It read “Wonderland” The third sign pointed to where my specialist colleagues and I sat and worked. It read Adventure land. As we often worked with severely disturbed children and adults who were very dangerous in their behaviour, some times we found ourselves working in Frontier land. The bureaucrats never worked out the joke.
“systems that lose track of their original purpose, i.e. service to those who are in need, and start to exist for the good of the in-house staff only”
Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
Thanks for that PiperPaul: “Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy”.
I’m a practitioner and only work directly with clients/students and their families. I don’t know anything about organisational theory, but I do know what I want from bureaucrats so I can do my work properly, but, as time passes there are fewer and fewer managers in our systems who have clinical experience. From what I understand, modern management theory states that managers do not have to understand or know anything what they are managing because management is about systems and all systems are essentially the same. Consequently we have people in authority who we now describe as “content-free managers”. They do a lot of harm. Years ago I could count on senior managers having real clinical experience; they had a sense of vocation. Those managers understood what happened in the field so I and my colleagues would not have to explain what we were doing – repeatedly. Nowadays managers are always on a career path and only stay long enough to add another job to their resume before they move on. They are also risk-averse which is no good if one is working in the area of abnormal psychology where clients do not fit a standard “mould”.
From what I understand, modern management theory states that managers do not have to understand or know anything what they are managing because management is about systems and all systems are essentially the same.
This might have been true if people were “human resources,” but they’re not, they’re “personnel.”
From AoSHQ co-blogger Misanthropic Humanitarian, “Quote of the Day”:
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. Thomas Sowell
Seems appropriate. Too bad nobody in government is listening.
For your perusal:
https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/841594454658170880
Petronius quotation is attributed to charlton ogburn at this url:
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/25618.html
I got there via wikipedia.
NTSOG: Major projects engineering is now similar. Management is very often finance types or engineers with MBAs, which is why cheap offshoring is so popular – damn the downstream costs. There is a lot of time between pencils-down and operating facility, which provides ample opportunities to “smooth over irregularities”, screw-ups and incompetence.
There is little mentoring or training going on, as leads/managers are invariably now administrative rather than technical.
Much of this is due to displacement of experienced people in favor of “people who can operate the software” (which is perpetually in dev mode, constantly changing and sold to management often based on whiz-bang demos). Of course, management aren’t the ones who have to use the software…
I could go on, but I won’t bore everyone.
NTSOG said: So if literacy standards are dropped for minority/ethnic groups how will people from such groups ever qualify for careers in medicine and many other areas which require literacy and the ability to read and analyse complex information?
Funny you should ask:
The big brother of Fox sitcom star Mindy Kaling reveals that he got into medical school by pretending to be African-American.
Fifteen years ago, Vijay Chokal-Ingam shaved off his straight black hair, trimmed what he calls his “long Indian eyelashes” and started checking off the “black” box for race on his med-school applications.
Before long, the Asian Indian-American was interviewing at Harvard and Columbia, and found himself on wait lists at the University of Pennsylvania, Washington University and Mt. Sinai — despite his relatively mediocre 3.1 GPA and his family’s considerable wealth.
What could possibly go wrong?
Hopp Singg: ‘This might have been true if people were “human resources,” but they’re not, they’re “personnel.”‘
Thank you for that. I was always irritated by the term “human resources”, but never considered why.
And thank you to the others who have enlightened me with/through the references above.
From what I understand, modern management theory states that managers do not have to understand or know anything what they are managing because management is about systems and all systems are essentially the same. Consequently we have people in authority who we now describe as “content-free managers”. They do a lot of harm.
In Up The Organization, Robert Townsend describes the MBA as a variety of walking meat that only shows up to get handed a title, where actual managers start with the company and learn what the company does and why.
Up The Organization was first published in 1970, and is still in print.
“systems that lose track of their original purpose, i.e. service to those who are in need, and start to exist for the good of the in-house staff only”
Hello Hal: I began to see the rise of “content-free” managers in about 1995 in the organisations in which I worked. They gradually replaced those managers who had a sense of vocation and, as stated, had risen within the organisation. Many did have an MBA or, as is now commonly stated in position descriptions, an “equivalent” qualification. However that “equivalent” qualification may only relate minimally to the actual job and its requirements. The other thing I note is that such careerist “managers” cannot afford to have low, ranked [in terms of political status and authority], but very highly skilled and knowledgeable practitioners/clinicians in the system because they know too much and will not let political expedience over-shadow good clinical practice. It’s just more “Emperor’s new clothes” stuff-ups.