Levelling
At Vanderbilt University, an honours programme intended to accommodate academic giftedness has been denounced as “inherently exclusionary.” Having now been identified as an affront to “equity,” an unforgivable wickedness, the programme is of course being shut down:
And so, instead of all that problematic academic rigour, all those challenging tasks that not everyone can complete, exceptional students will now be obliged to mingle with those less academically inclined, and offered an education “accessible to all,” one “open to the voices of divergent experiences.”
The practised doublethink in play, in which precocious interest in advanced material is actively discouraged, and in which “access” is invoked while gleefully denying it, has been noted here before.
Along with educators’ hostility to students and parents who dared to complain about the downgrade, and whose concerns were dismissed as perpetuating “systemic racism.”
Update:
In the comments, sH2 quotes this,
And adds,
Well, quite. The reliance on fuzzwords and rhetorical fluff is not an encouraging sign. And any unironic use of the word equity should raise eyebrows.
The restructuring above is a familiar conceit, heard many times, and somewhat unconvincing. We’re expected to believe that by phasing out the most challenging courses, in high schools and colleges, and by shafting the students who take them, somehow everything else will become every bit as good, every bit as excellent.
Yes, there will be excellence everywhere.
Albeit achieved in ways that are never quite explained. And despite the obvious disregard for students who excel, and whose ability is deemed troublesome and a basis for corrective measures.
Regarding the promise of glorious inclusion and excellence everywhere, this came to mind:
Oh, and let’s not forget the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Inclusive Excellence Centre, where microaggressions are forbidden, including the words thug and trash, and where punctuation and grammar are unfathomable things, even among staff.
Update 2:
On the subject of omnipresent excellence, arrived at by some opaque and supernatural means, Rafi adds,
That would seem to be the most plausible option, the easier route. That, and cultivating a ludicrous unrealism. Habitual pretending. Something close to an inversion of reality, driven by fantasies of “equity,” which seems to mean something like equality of outcome regardless of inputs.
As in California, where differences in “school experiences,” i.e., differences in ability and achievement, are something to be eliminated by holding back high-achieving students, with curriculum guidelines based on “social justice,” and educators who are visibly “committed to social justice work.”
And so, we have California’s Department of Education actively discouraging gifted maths students from taking calculus any earlier than their less gifted classmates. As if this were a good thing with no conceivable downsides. Because frustrating clever kids, boring them and demoralising them, is, like, totally progressive.
And likewise, we have Jennifer Katz, a professor of education at the University of British Columbia, scolding parents who question the conceit that bright children will somehow flourish if taught more slowly and in less detail in a more disruptive environment. While implying, quite strongly, that any parents who complain must be racist.
And then there’s San Diego, another bastion of progress, where teachers are instructed that in order to be “anti-racist,” they must “confront practices” deemed inegalitarian and which result in “racial imbalance” – say, norms of classroom behaviour, a disapproval of tardiness and cheating, and oppressive expectations of “turning work in on time.”
There’s a through-the-looking-glass quality. A fun-house mirror malevolence.
As noted in the comments following this, it’s quite easy to demoralise bright children, and the brighter they are, the easier it tends to be. Just bore them and frustrate them in an environment where precociousness is ideologically problematic and often results in social disapproval, from both peers and educators. Say, with accusations of racism, and the closure of their advanced programmes, where they’d previously been allowed to be better at things.
The pace at which learning happens is important. If a lesson is unfolding much too slowly for someone, if new information is barely trickling out, with endless delays and interruptions, boredom and frustration can be hard to avoid. If someone needs to work at a certain speed, anything less can, very quickly, be demoralising. And difficult to undo.
But hey, progress, baby.
*alarm bell*
Well, quite. The reliance on fuzzwords and verbal fluff is not an encouraging sign. And any unironic use of the word equity should trigger some kind of alarm.
It’s a familiar conceit, heard many times, and entirely unconvincing. We’re expected to believe that by phasing out the most challenging courses, in high schools and colleges, and by shitting on the students who take them, and who may need them in order to reach their full potential, somehow everything else will become every bit as good, every bit as excellent. Yes, there will be excellence everywhere.
Albeit achieved in ways that are never quite explained. And despite the obvious resentment of students who excel, and whose ability is deemed problematic and a basis for corrective measures.
Speaking of excellence everywhere, achieved via woke magic, this came to mind:
Oh, and let’s not forget the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Inclusive Excellence Centre, where microaggressions are forbidden, racism flourishes, and punctuation and grammar are entirely optional.
[ Post updated. ]
Punishing white and Asian kids won’t make black kids any smarter.
…and…
Given the absolute stupidity of our elite, highly educated classes I see this as a net good thing. Make the geniuses feel the pain of ignorance and stupidity directly in their daily lives. How else are they going to learn these realities? Certainly not from books.
They’ll just change the meaning of the words. It’s what they always do.
That would seem to be the most plausible option. That, and cultivating a ludicrous unrealism. Something close to an inversion of reality.
And so, we have California’s Department of Education actively discouraging gifted maths students from taking calculus any earlier than their less gifted classmates. As if this were a good thing, with no conceivable downsides. Because frustrating clever kids, boring them and demoralising them, is, like, totally progressive.
And we have Jennifer Katz, a professor of education at the University of British Columbia, scolding parents who question the conceit that bright children will somehow flourish if taught more slowly and in less detail in a more disruptive environment. While implying, quite strongly, that such parents must be racist.
There’s a through-the-looking-glass quality.
In other news, imagine being this guy.
I mean, let it go.
But without bursting into song.
As predictable as the sunrise, a play in three acts, a CNN production:
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
A theater critic responds.
It will impede white and Asian kids’ education, which is a chief (albeit unspoken) goal. It will also make black kids even more stupid and resentful. While making race war more likely.
..
I laughed and I’m not sorry. I want to see the rest of that press release.
Alas, the Inclusive Excellence Centre’s website is no longer maintained. From what I remember, it carried on in that fashion for quite some time. Lots of grammatical howlers and seemingly random, unfinished sentences. And I should add that Mr Scherer, whose struggles with punctuation and grammar, and proofreading, were so entertaining, is, or was, the Director of the Inclusive Excellence Centre.
A benchmark of the excellence on offer.
The reference is not at all inapt.
As noted in the comments following this, it’s quite easy to demoralise bright children, and the brighter they are, the easier it tends to be. Just bore them and frustrate them in an environment where precociousness is ideologically problematic and often results in social disapproval, from both peers and educators. Say, with accusations of racism, and the closure of their advanced programmes.
The pace at which learning happens is important. If a lesson is unfolding much too slowly for someone, if new information is barely trickling out, with endless delays and interruptions, boredom and frustration can be hard to avoid. If someone needs to work at a certain speed, anything less can, very quickly, be demoralising.
And difficult to undo.
If you have no standards, you have NO excellence.
Heather Mac Donald, here.
Everything about that is tragic.
Heh. Yes. It’s the combination of inadequacy and self-satisfaction. Perhaps he wanted the world to know that he’s petty and spiteful and emotionally juvenile.
Seems an odd thing to want to announce, but there we are.
“Inclusive excellence”. The jokes write themselves.
Well, if you wanted to satirise the thing, make it seem disreputable, it would be difficult to come up with anything more ludicrous and contemptible than what it actually is.
Men on Film becomes Men on Inclusivity.
Centre, not Center? Even though this is America, not Europe. Pretentiousness from people who have much to pretend about.
I seem to recall hearing, back in the 60’s and 70’s, disparaging comments that the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee distinctly third-rate, little more than a glorified high school. Not sure how accurate it was but thought I’d mention it for what it’s worth.
I tend to correct American spellings. Having two different spellings on the same page just makes the place look untidy.
So bite me.
Academia is overdue for a harrowing.
[ Hmm, should I admit that I didn’t bother to check the spelling on the UWM website, but instead went with my initial kneejerk assumption? Should I recognize the reasonable goal of maintaining consistent spelling? No, that would be too sensible. ]
[ Glares across the Atlantic. ]
Regarding Mr Penny, this short thread.
See also, large parts of London.
Given that the university itself excludes many applicants and all those who do not apply, the most reasonable course to follow to achieve universal equity and equality is to abolish the universities altogether. After which we can abolish secondary and primary schools. A veritable eden of ignorance and stupidity can be ours. Let us not delay!
Pace “Idiocracy”, mass stupidity is coming from the top down.
Colleges wouldn’t need “honors programs” in such an explicit and thoroughgoing way if they hadn’t already degraded academic rigor to accommodate the unsuitable. Historically, and still in a lot of the world, colleges admit only the talented, set the standards so that the merely talented can expect B’s if they work hard while the super-talented get A’s and can be accelerated up to more advanced courses.
“Honors program” is a “good neighborhood” in the diverse university – it’s how the respectable people respond to the degradation caused by diversity, not by rethinking out loud their commitment to the principle of diversity, but by re-introducing discrimination and white flight under a euphemism.
Critical inquiry is a white man discipline which other demographics have assimilated to with varying success, assuming that they even wanted to assimilate in the first place. Critical inquiry has never needed the divergent racial experience, that’s never what it meant. Racial resentment damages the discipline of critical inquiry because criticism of somebody’s reasoning is suppressed for fear of it being taken as a racial attack on the reasoner and their group.
The only moral and prudent purpose of nice principles like “meritocracy” and “diversity” is that they lead to nice things for your people. Black advocates have correctly evaluated that “meritocracy” isn’t a principle that leads to their people getting the nice things that they see the other races getting, so they’re behaving rationally by demanding the nice things no matter by what ideological means. The solution that maximizes racial dignity and minimizes racial envy/resentment/friction is separate countries, but blacks know that creating nice things in their own countries has been less successful than intimidating whites into giving them nice things.
The comments of the oh-so-busy-business-like people saying that tough New Yorkers just deal with it are almost amusing in their copium delusions. Almost. See, taking abuse just shows how tough you really are. Tough guys. Real strong. I had a school administrator explain similar to me once. Tough guy. Real strong. Lazy bastard though.
The degradation is obvious. Staring at your shoes and trying to be invisible for fear of being harassed or assaulted is not how a sane person would wish to live, during pretty much every commute, given any choice. As Mr Burkett puts it, “Ignoring that stuff every single day is death by a million cuts.” It’s corrosive, soul-destroying.
And so the denial – required of the status-conscious progressive – results in a twitchy neuroticism, in which living in a degraded, emasculated way is framed as some kind of sophistication. A hip credential.
It’s loathsome.
See also, magic cardboard and public masturbators.
From which, this edifying scene:
Because that’s how all switched-on sophisticated people want to live, apparently.
From prior thread: Also, the proper term is not “cracker,” it’s “Saltine American.”
ahhahahahahah thanks Dicentra.
What I love about US conservatives is how they can take a hit and turn it into a meme. For example, in 2016 we all called ourselves “deplorable” and this year Trump did the garbage truck thing. Way back in 1776, the Brit insult was takin in and turned into the song “yankee doodle dandy”.
Schools: note that asians are if anything the most upset about the dumbing down. They are so dedicated to their kids education.
I was bored as heck in school. In fifth grade there was a thing called SRA reading program from IBM. In spare time I could use it. Self taught. By end of year I had finished through 12th grade level and was sad there was no more.
Further evidence against tea:
A handy scale.
[Reposted from previous thread]
More on Jordan Neely:
As a thread.
Minor point perhaps but Newman’s ‘was killed in the subway’ grates. ‘Killed’ implies a killer and intent, neither of which were in evidence unless you posit Neely killed himself.
[ Peers across the Atlantic. ]
No galleons of vengeance yet.
Neeley death: the BLM activist calling for revenge and actually a BLM uprising claims that Neeley was just “loud”. No, you twit, he was threatening to kill people. He wants no consequences for dangerous behavior.
A handy scale.
The Brits remain, as they have for centuries, in the thrall of Big Kettle™ and are just upset that just as we shooed them from our shores, American ingenuity and disdain for useless time wasting shillyshallying improved on the absurdly simple task of tea making by using the microwave.
What it is, is tea making decolonized and dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century..
[ Recalls Marine drill instructor’s comments on incorrigibles. ]
[ Checks fallout shelter’s food stocks. Replaces air filters. ]