Nance and I started saying “thinking” rather than discernment to mean the same thing, as in “thinking parents.” Same power to change, well, everything . . .
Read this nifty “Parenting Beyond Belief” interview with the guy who wrote “I Sold My Soul on E-Bay” and see if you can argue. I sure can’t. It applies to the religious wars and other stuff too. Red and blue partisans obviously have no discernment and so I tend to tune them out. Not a very effective frame for change of anything except whose name is on the checks. And undiscerning homeschool “advocates” full of criticism for charters and other public schools, government, law, intellectuals, teachers, taxes and anybody who defines homeschooling differently than THEY do, who might want to listen up, too:
One of the trickiest bits to negotiate in raising kids without religion is engendering the right attitudes about religion and religious people. Some aspects of religious belief deserve a helluva lot of loud and direct critique. I want them to learn to do that fearlessly, like Harris and Dawkins. But other aspects and actions deserve loud and direct applause. I want them to learn that as well.
[Favorite Daughter is turning out really well in that regard.]Discernment is called for. While never hesitating to criticize religious malignancies, we should bend over backwards to catch religious folks being and doing good if we ever expect them to notice us being and doing good. It stands to reason. . .
No marginalized group in history has gained a place at the table by telling the majority it is too stupid to live, or by closing its eyes and telling the majority you better damn well be gone before I count to ten. . .Until we realize the same thing and extend a far friendlier hand to the more reasonable representatives of the (most likely shocked and surprised) religious majority, we will be deservedly stuck on the margins.
Don’t worry. People like Hemant just might manage to save us from ourselves.
Thank you! I’ve been a fan of the Friendly Atheist for awhile but hadn’t seen the Parenting Beyond Belief blog (unfortunately). A new one for the blog roll.
Maybe the Friendly Atheist could enlighten that Unfriendly Anthropologist?
If politicized science filtered through one’s own personal beliefs and hiding behind academic credibility, is what evolved homeschoolers oppose, then Isn’t stomping about with such a one-track mindset just as offensive from atheist acolytes as from the worst divine design “experts”?
I’ve discovered that last spring, while he was mocking and banning homeschool parents who took his questions at face value and cheerfully invested quite a lot of time to communicate our own answers for his “education” about home education, Greg Laden was busy annoying science commentators elsewhere in cyberspace about real science, with his tin eared, ham-handed approach to human communication (maybe he’s better with animals?)
Snook finds Greg Laden’s blogging an object lesson in the counterproductive, all-attitude-no-discernment approach to advancing um, anything productive and progressive — an enlightened intellect apparently too big for one university to contain, too brashly prolific to listen to anyONE about anyTHING, seeking fame and fortune through some form of politicized “science” as supposed salvation, self-generated sock puppetry brazening it out as online issues education, ugh.
This science blogger goes on to say pretty much what Snook sees, about what’s wrong with Greg Laden’s “analysis” of issues and the unhelpful woolly-fawning comments with which he bolsters his own blogging — especially given his indignant protests that he’s trying to be on your side if only you’ll keep coming back for him to sharpen his claws on, and maybe expose your kids for an idle scratchfest or two too –
[Well, that's what I first thought about his "homeschool" commentary, which is arguably worse than this! Maybe if we all compared notes we'd find out how close to SOP this is in his "commentary" --]
And here’s the signature move in action, the same one he keeps trying on evolved homeschoolers until they catch on to the rampant falsity in his “study” or desire to come together on anything — he’s the brainy scientist on every possible issue and expression, while the rest of us (homeschoolers or not, and despite our own degrees, experiences, perspectives, whatever) are just hacks and we’re ALL unfair to him, poor thing:
Almost exactly what he kept whining about at Rolfe’s, and here, and at Lynn’s and Dawn’s if I remember, gee almost like he was spamming us to further his own profile?
And then as usual, the “discussion” ends when the chopsocky-meaty puppet “cmf” shows up in all his doublespeak splendor to say what a prince of a consensus-building guy Greg is :
Reading list for self-guided instruction on this chapter:
“There’s Been Some Homeschool Talk…”
“Science: How the thinking parent experiences risk”
Here’s the REAL concern if we’re smart”
“Schools teach last test while education writes next one”
“Dunno where Greg Laden was going with this – “
“So we were saying censorship is a bad thing. . .”
“Greg Laden Supports Evolved Home Education With Slash and Burn From His Bunker”
“Creationism (of sock puppets and young disciples)”
“Greg Laden Blog Full of Unscientific Crap That Keeps On Giving”
“Incoherence and Obnoxiousness”
. . .and intending to advance education policy beyond identity politics (not just from Young Earth Christian homeschool fundamentalists, but from any scientists, atheists and anarchists confused about the difference too) there’s this:
“Ancient history lessons for homeschool hegemonists”
(Like GL’s blog, this post is about anthropology being shamelessly politicized.)
Looks like eagles, hawks and doves can “see” their way “clear” now and then to accepting a mixed picture of reality calling for sharing the skies with nice-guy discernment, instead of one polarizing lens of absolutism.
Some will screech and squawk to high heaven to warn their own flock, guard only their own nests and peck each other’s eyes out if it comes to that. That’s natural instinct as well as their established right, of course. But in another view of reality, we’re all birds after all . . .
With a mixed picture emerging about progress in Iraq, Senate Democratic leaders are showing a new openness to compromise. . .
And speaking of discernment rather than no-holds-barred warfare, here’s my promo of what’s coming in the Sunday Sept 9 NYT Magazine:
[I've felt that way and paid that price in education politics my whole life, even as a schoolchild pawn used in political power plays like busing and illegal teacher union strikes, and in recent years even in HOME education politics -- thoughtful discernment is not a universal value, it seems; no-holds-barred fighting is.]
Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, is a frequent contributor to the magazine. He is the author most recently of ‘‘The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America.’’
(What an apt title, personalities and rivalries very much define America and not just on the bench . . .)
I have to say, I think I finally agree with you. Greg posted about homeschooling again not too long ago and what was being used? Inflamatory invented terms (‘radical homeschoolers’) and claims (”To be perfectly honest with you, I think that avoiding and rejecting accountability is more important to some radical homeschoolers than the education of their own children.”)
If he’s sure those ‘radicals’ aren’t reading his blog anymore, why bother to keep targeting them? If his interest is discussing education alternatives, why keep bringing up homeschooling in a context that only ever is meant to attack the ‘radicals’?
I find it frustrating because I generally enjoy his posts but what he claims to want in terms of discussion is often at odds with how he acts when he engages in a discussion. I’m at the point now though where I don’t think the enjoyment of some his posts is worth the aggravation of seeing yet another post on homeschooling that’s simply an attack on those he had a tiff with. Especially when I know who’s attacking and respect those people.
I know what you mean — so other than that, how’d you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
AS always, the liberal Harvard genius cognitive psychologist and education professor Howard Gardner springs to mind — his leadership studies pretty much PROVE that if we want positive change, we want to tell a winning story to people ready and eager to hear it, not tell a story about winning to the people we’re ready to beat.
At first, I thought Greg was trying to say “radical UNschoolers,” a term that I hear some use occasionally in referring to themselves. I didn’t realize that he was using it in a derogatory, inflammatory way until he started responding. Yeah, it’s not about homeschooling. Thanks to Dawn for reading my mind and making my comments for me. I’m done.
My southern family has been mobile and overeducated for generations, to the point that when we watch college football, we usually feel some kind of conflicting affiliation to both teams. Then our play is to “root for the quarterbacks” and hope each in turn and the game as an integrated whole, will be well-wrought and fun to watch. (Except when my own lizard brain attachment to the Florida Gators comes into play — then I am totally irrational and proud of it!)
So as we sizzle together on these conversation gridirons, I think instead of picking one side and ragging on the other guys, I’ll “root for the neocortex” to win out on both sides so the whole game can be elevated.
More about right-left ideology battles, with one in progress here — you can’t educate the amygdala but you can educate the neocortex. No matter which team you play for, attacking the other side’s rationalized unthinking with our own instincts and stereotypical beliefs is anti-education; it gets us nowhere anyone wants to go. Human progress through enlightened government policy depends on well-educated neocortical discernment to recognize, understand and effectively override (our own and each other’s) lizard-brain heuristics:
Dale McGowan on “discernment” as loving, practical parenting –
[...] truly intelligent design reflects the discernment sorely lacking in most political advocacy and public policy conflict nowadays. During the maddeningly self-destructive years among ourselves [...]