Katherine Kersten brings back an old topic on this blog: dispositions theory in education. There’s a new design of teacher education at the University of Minnesota, she says:
The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers’ lack of “cultural competence” contributes to the poor academic performance of the state’s minority students. Last spring, it charged the task group with coming up with recommendations to change this. In January, planners will review the recommendations and decide how to proceed.
The report advocates making race, class and gender politics the “overarching framework” for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep.
We were last down this road in 2005 during the KC Johnson controversy at Brooklyn College. Yet it continues unabated. At SCSU students in educational administration or in child and family studies have a form to fill out if they see a disposition that doesn’t meet the professional standards. In the former field, if you “express an inability or unwillingness to work with some
people” and “avoid collaboration”, you have an area of need to work on. Teachers in graduate studies get courses in which their competencies are assessed to determine if they consider “multiple perspectives and willingness to challenge and analyze one’s own perspectives given alternatives” and “respond to items regarding lens of social justice and dispositions.”
Johnson reported on this blog last month that these Minnesota criteria are being highlighted at exactly the moment NCATE, the teachers’ accrediting body, is turning away from them. So maybe this won’t last for much longer around here.
Ron Lipsman writes at The American Thinker on the life of a conservative faculty member. Unlike some, he came to the university (he does not identify his institution) as a liberal but became conservative through experience. He then finds, as many do, that his views leave him marginalized and, in pursuit of an administrative post, Lipsman stuffs his opinions for about 15 years. Now at lower cost to himself as he approaches retirement, he is speaking out.
At the end he identifies three novel observations that, in my experience, are not so novel. First, he says that he is largely ignored when he speaks out, that the faculty said “Oh, that’s just Ron being Ron.” After a time that is, however, how most of us are treated. Only when you wish to seek a new post in the university do your views come up. Indeed, a way for the university to marginalize you is to put you on a committee to get a blessing that something is “OK because the conservative guy was on that committee and he didn’t squawk (loudly).” (See my post from 2005 on tokenism.)
Lipsman also observes that there are not enough people making waves, including himself. I hope this isn’t true — I think NAS, FIRE, et al. are making waves! But there is the fact that in the 6+ years of my blog I’ve had several co-bloggers, many of whom were also conservative faculty at St. Cloud. They have all left; there are few others willing to take up the cause. We have known about the chilling effect of political correctness for years; ice does not make waves.
His last observation is that the liberal hegemony exists in many places, but seems easiest in academia. But where else does tenure exist? Stanley Kurtz has noted that “tenure turns into an incredibly efficient tool for enforcing political conformity” when controlled by one elite. That is, tenure is the means by which the hegemony perpetuates.
Lipsman’s article does not provide us with something new, but it does provide those unaware of our campuses today with a useful summary.
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