Education Policy | ... JAEZZ Views

Thanks, Donny T.

5 December 2025 Leave a comment

Schools that I attended many years ago were effectively segregated, as were neighborhoods, businesses, and the like. Yet, all the people of color I encountered as a child were caring, even loving, and it seemed to me, indispensable to our daily lives. I was left one morning with our Black “cleaning lady.” I played with her daughters, and later, I petitioned to return to play again, as we had had fun. I was told mildly, “No, you don’t play with them.” This came from the same voice that had left me in the care of Thelma and her daughters, while he undertook some other activity. I asked why, but was stonewalled with, “Well, you don’t.”

That’s when I learned — at 6 or 7 — that there was a rule of discrimination, which like most rules and laws were given me no reason. I was restrained by command and ignorance. It wasn’t a conscious turning point in my world view, but it did pull back the curtain to reveal the dark wizardry of the world. Kept ignorant and constrained, I would be compliant. What my father overlooked in his young son was that I was not of a compliant character. I was independent and frankly irreverent. And I am thankful for that. I was never the poor creature trapped in authority and blinded by ignorance.

In the years since, I have made a point of seeking out places and people who are different from me. I discovered that cultural differences are fascinating and enlightening. Every difference is another color of life, making a rich and vibrant world. Yet in my retirement years, I seem to have relaxed my efforts to encounter differences and have somewhat lost the joy of learning. I know this makes my life more bland, and not learning is not living. However, Donald Trump and his gang of culture thugs have come to my rescue.

By going after Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the Trump Gang has reawakened my interest and energies for these very things. The voice of the authoritarian commanding ignorance has once more pulled back the curtain. Knowing that Donald Trump is just wrong, reassures me in my belief that diversity, equity and inclusion are essential, not just in the institutions, workplaces and marketplaces. These values are the pathways for all of us to a rich and thriving country, and ultimately, to such a world.

A daunting prospect, I agree, but dreams of reaching beyond our grasp are essential to extending that grasp to richer ends. Thanks, Donny T. You seem to have backed your ass into the fan again.

Filed under Education Policy, Philosophy, Racial Issues, Social Commentary Tagged with D.E.I., donald-trump, life, mental-health, Politics, Race and Power, trump, Whiteness

Can Humanity Be Digitized?

10 November 2025 Leave a comment

In the years before AI, when search engines simply scanned the Web, I told my tenth grade lit students that I’d give A’s to students whose analytical essays on a piece revealed something we hadn’t discussed in class and for which they had produced clear textual evidence. My principal suggested I was giving out too few A’s. I pointed out that I didn’t give grades, they were earned. I showed students ways to approach literature and assess the strength of the conclusions at which they arrived. My students earned plenty of A’s, mostly, I think, because they felt really good about what they were writing and how ‘smart’ they felt.

I wonder how an AI system would handle a request for an, as yet, unearth thesis in – say – the Ramayana. Of course, the AI’s ‘class discussion’ must have been very extensive, but under these or any other circumstances, could the bot postulate and support a novel conclusion?

Classical reportage covers who, what, where, when and, to some extent how. The why of things may only be taken from the heard words of someone other than the reporter. The good reporter would not have speculated. Incorporating events external to the reported incident and used as an analysis would also have been opinion, as in this writing.

If AI systems are collecting, and when appropriate, citing existing data, then they’re simply doing research. Citing sources would be good. Citing would provide some basis for authenticating the factual quality of the information. What about the intangibles? On what rubrics can AI systems evaluate the strength or weakness on ranges in the nonphysical realm? How can they scale loosely defined abstractions, such as liberty, respect or love?

My students had the words in the book, the strategies I had shared with them and 16 years or so of gathering data and experiencing feelings. They put it together. Their real intelligence allowed them outstanding insights – insights and the skill at arriving at them that I hope they have carried into life.

Asimov’s writing from half a century ago mocks the self-accolades of AI engineering. STEM was once a theme in the humanities. Now it is trying to generate its own humanity. Will it supplant us along the way? Are we the primitives in this evolutionary leap into Artificial Humanities? And what does that even mean? Can humanity be digitized?

—————————————————————————————————————————

This article suggests that far from supporting creative discovery in its own function, it stifles such thinking in its users’ generative cognition. “How A.I. and Social Media Contribute to ‘Brain Rot,’” New York Times, Nov. 10, 2025 [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/technology/personaltech/ai-social-media-brain-rot.html]

Filed under Critical thinking, Education Policy, Literary Criticism, Social Commentary Tagged with ai, artificial-intelligence, chatgpt, Education, writing

Literacy for the Information Age

21 September 2025 Leave a comment

The radio has informed me that Minneapolis Schools will be putting, more perhaps, emphasis on the teaching of literacy. In our inundation of marketed information, bromides such as “literacy for the information age” present a puzzle for the close reader or listener. What does it all mean? It sounds good.

First is the matter of the flooded environment. There are so many impressive words, catchy phrases and glib statements – market-speak – around that both the audience of such noise and its producers simply take it as the norm. This is how it should sound, because it is how it sounds. A fairly circular understanding of reality. I like to think of it as ‘surround sound.’ Our verbal reality is that by which we are surrounded in all directions, as if floating inside a beach ball of sound, the walls made of clever but vapid words, phrases and statements. The language of these walls defines our new grammar – the syntax and lexicon of a new spoken and printed reality. And the new language only superficially resembles the old. For example, a word such as “iconic” is now used much like the word “very.” It is simply a hollow intensifier with misty connotations of the classical, classiness and – thanks to Apple Computer’s accurate use of the root word, “icon” – digital¹. Do we remember the original meaning of the word “icon?” What does that say about an iconic new idea?

So here we are inside this planet sized ball of clever, if vapid, verbiage. We look out at it, and if we are thinking people, we ask of any one statement, “What does that actually mean?” The reasoning is typically open-ended or circular. Statements from the same source are often just highly polished contradictions. And many statements seem inconsistent with our experienced reality.

We return to the promotion of a new emphasis on teaching literacy, “literacy for the information age.” How can literacy be considered more important now than it has been for the last hundred years, as the speaker for Minneapolis Schools suggests? The phrase sounds good. Is education policy to be based on a skewed, empty catchphrase?

Perhaps electronic text documents actually use a different dialect of English that uses a different syntax and a different lexicon. I have to admit, it often seems as if they do. I had thought it was a case of the producers’ use of social media-speak and thumb-writing; they were just semi-literate. Perhaps, this is the very form of English in which we need to be fluent in order to function well in this “information age.” It is not however; it is simply a corruption of the language.

Literacy is as important as ever in this “disinformation age.” The literate demanding of clarity and precision helps us see through the glittering spin of cleaver words and phrases. Literacy should be, as it always has been, the ability to see what the words, alone and in complex combinations represent, not just how they sound.² The utterance, “Literacy for the information age,” is a misrepresentation of an essential understanding of any education.

The saddest thing about the idea that reading literacy is especially important in the current environs is that we do so little of it. So many more of the words that are directed at us are spoken, mostly recorded. Spoken language seldom exceeds a middle school level of literacy, even among highly educated people. Reading varied and challenging text is, on the other hand, how we develop not just a broader lexicon. It also increases cognitive strength; it helps build dendrites. When we read broadly, we become smarter.

1 Have you thought about the source of the word digital? Perhaps we should use the term “the binary age” in reference to computing code. Is it because we use our ten digits on a keyboard. We use two thumbs to “text” something.

2 I hasten to make the allowance the sound of language in poetry and even prose. Here is the place for the subtle to be enlightened and enshrined in therich sound of the spoken words, where the words tap emotions as well as deepening lucidity.

Filed under Critical thinking, Education Policy, Literary Criticism, Social Commentary Tagged with Education, literacy, reading, Teach thinking, teaching, writing

Teaching Your Students to Think

21 January 2023 Leave a comment

Dear Teacher,
You want your students to think for themselves. Try this:

Student action	Required thinking	Example
Find a question in the world.	Engages observation and pattern recognition	“Why are so many cooks and bus-people in Minneapolis Latino?”[1]
Consider why it needs an answer?	Engages contextualizing[2]	“To determine if Minneapolis restaurant hiring practices are discriminatory”
Refine the question.	Requires research skills and actions[3]	“What is the usual ethnic makeup of Minneapolis restaurant staffs?”
Formalize the question. (the research question)	Engages observation and pattern recognition. Engages contextualizing and analysis[4]	“What are the characteristics of jobs dominantly held by each ethnic group in a variety of Minneapolis Restaurants?”
Answer the “Why ask” question. (the thesis of the report)	Engages analysis and evaluation[5]	“Depending on how one defines discrimination, one may or may not see the ethnic imbalance in Minneapolis restaurant jobs as discriminatory.”
Defining all terms and using the evidence collected, state and explain a “thesis.”	Engages composition skills	Carefully and clearly explain the above statement, i.e., write a research report

The examples given in this chart work well with upper class (juniors and seniors) high school students and above, where I have used them, but the process can be adapted to earlier grades. I have used something along these lines with students in what was then junior high school (7 and 8). I can fairly easily imagine it being adapted to younger students, but it would need major reform to be used with students who had only begin using abstract thinking – probably about 8 or 9 years of age. It is the thinking process that is the focus, not the inputs or outputs, which we are usually expected to score as a measure of the students’ learning. Using pre-writing work, we can assess the amount and depth of the thinking, and design activities to strengthen shortcomings.

If one internalizes thoughtful processes in early and frequent use, one may find good thinking becomes automatic. For that reason, it is helpful to begin building students’ thinking-framework early. Thinking may seem threatening to some in a conformist world, but it is necessary, if uncomfortable, to innovation, and that generates forward movement in all fields, as it has in the technical fields. Economic, social, governance, even math and science fields can all benefit from the ideas of those who see, question and postulate change. We must teach the whole person for life in the whole world.

[1] This is by far the hardest part. One must always be observing what is going on around them, noticing and recognizing patterns. In this table, for instance, a pattern is defined by the header row of terms. Look for some more patterns.

[2] Contexts may be wide ranging – economic, ethical, legal, success based, etc.

[3] This will require a range of question situations, in this case restaurants, possibly involving first hand visits, phone calls and letters. Cover different ranges of situations – location, economic, variety – such as cuisine, and other possibly impactful variations. There may be organizations that have already collected some or even all of the information you are seeking. Search the question on the Web.

[4] Keep accurate records of from whom, about what, where, and/or when information was found. These references should be cited in any writing that calls on any of this information. This may be the longest and most complex part of the process. Good research is work. It comes with asking a good research question, and then constantly asking yourself, “am I really getting answers to my research question?”

[5] Analysis is non-judgmental. Evaluation is the comparison of substantiated conclusions with some set of standards. Analysis must be included in a research report, but a value-based conclusion may be included or left clearly open-ended.

Follow-up footnote

It has come to my attention that there is more to the process that I have laid out here. Two areas, in particular, that are not detailed here are process assessment and research journaling have been noted and I would love to discuss them with anyone interested. I realize there are other things to apply here too, action research being but one of them. Action research is a teaching process that parallels this observation-relevance learning process.

I can be emailed at Jay@jaezz.org. For those looking to advance the process, we can talk about how to customize for specific foci. For those who find this process too overwhelming for their students, we can talk about how one might step into the process rather than taking it on whole right out of the box. And I would be more than interested in hearing your ideas to make this more adaptable and richer. My goal is to do something to staunch the bleeding of critical and creative thought from the American educational system.

Filed under Critical thinking, Education Policy, Pedagogy Tagged with Education, Purpose of education, Teach thinking, Why we teach

Dear Commissioners: I need a little help

28 August 2018 Leave a comment

From top down, I see leadership in this country being interpreted as holding and wielding power rather than working in the service of those being led. This seems a kind of mindless dictatorship, where the most persuasive is put into power, and it defeats true democracy where people choose the leaders who will advance their interests. This dichotomy and its current lopsidedness pervades our institutions and therefore all facets of our lives.

Since this difference hinges between people’s informed ability to make good decisions for themselves on one side, and their susceptibility to persuasive showmen on the other, the distinction rests on deeply held, early years’ development of individuals’ perception of themselves in their world. I am convinced that the key to restoring any reasonable balance lies in providing good early childhood and family education. Children must learn from early on to be self-directed decision makers not obedient followers. If children are typically told what to do, and seldom told why or how they should do that (e.g., choosing right from wrong, good from bad), they will grow into adults who depend on external direction for their actions, rather than those internally motivated to strive and excel.

Each generation must understand that it can only build on the previous generation, and each is responsible for passing that understanding along. Only through such building over time will substantial change occur. Consequently we must explore individual’s cultural and familial histories to understand how to support corrective measures in early childhood development, most of which takes place in the family home. I understand that different populations bring different resources and different cultural histories to the situation. Still, I believe the County may have the greatest access to influencing change. The State is too mired in money politics and the schools, beholden as they are to state funding, simply mirror their much more powerful benefactors. I want to help right the ship of reason.

So to my request: Is there anyone in the county that I could meet with to discuss these ideas, with the possibility of starting a broader discussion? I would hope such a discussion might lead to policies and actions that would begin to understand where people in Hennepin County are “coming from,” and how we might strengthen their efforts to bring their children and their children’s children to a higher level of democratic – not just academic – success. We must get beyond “rearranging the deck chairs” and get about spotting and avoiding icebergs. Yes, it is a Titanic task. It must start, to ever have a hope of finishing.

(Adapted from a recent letter to a county worker of my acquaintance, jcr)

Filed under Community Service, Education Policy, Racial Issues, Social Commentary Tagged with Early childhood, Family Education

Divided We Fall

9 September 2016 Leave a comment

The political expedient of offering a free lunch leads government authorities to make commitments they cannot support in the long term without assessments and tax increases–both political suicide. The get hit in their campaign funds and hit at the polls. The American wealthiest and their corporate empires assume a 19th century uber-privilege, owing nothing to the societies that fed their greed and freely buying the politicians to insure that. American voters meanwhile have been convinced that they deserve to have the amenities but not pay for them.

Then, when the bills come in, the authorities, beholden to their wealthy benefactors, look for excuses and scapegoats rather than biting the bullet, correcting tax law, and convincing tax-payers to pay up or give up the things they’ve come to expect. So the result is that they go after two of their own big expenses–the public workers, who make our society civilized, and the neediest, who don’t pay much tax and often don’t vote. Breaking the life-long promise of a pension to public employees, cutting funding to schools, and reducing the public work force, government chews off its own leg to free itself from the trap of its own design. Cutting off the needy is simply barbaric.

America has been effectively marketed a dream that everyone deserves a life that is fun and feels good. Watch almost any TV ad. Americans are discouraged from thinking about how that could be true when we know that life includes effort and pain. Only when enough of us look around and think will we begin to reverse the seemingly inexorable trend toward a country of 350,000,000 individuals, each at the center of her or his own universe, and start to reestablish America as a united society, who share common needs despite individual differences. If “divided we fall” has not been apparent before, certainly watching the human pieces of our civil society fall away over the years should alert us to the future we will leave our children and grandchildren.

Every thoughtful person must stand up, speak out, help out and vote.

Filed under Community Service, Education Policy, Politics, Social Commentary Tagged with Government action

The Problem with the “Achievement Gap”

3 June 2016 Leave a comment

Words carry baggage. A gap in a society has a near side and a far side. We put people on one side or the other. “We” are of course on this side and “they” are on the other. So a gap forms groups, absorbing individuals into one group or another. “Gap” and “group” are constructs imposed on reality, not derived from it.

If the separating measure used in creating a gap is achievement, it ignores the fact that achievement occurs on a continuum. So “gap” is a false construct, which not only does not accurately reflect reality, but which must serve some other agenda as well.

When we align the achievement-gapped construct with the long-standing race construct, we simply reinforce the notion of racial difference. In addition to focusing our attention on achievement, one very impersonal aspect of education’s many acculturating functions, it turns our attention away from the broader cultural and institutional aspects of a society that so stubbornly exclude individuals from opportunity and access to full and equitable participation based on superficial characteristics, such as skin color.

The achievement gap is only a glimpse of the vastly larger culture gap from which we suffer, and for which there is no self-elevated committee, council or cause resourceful enough to correct us, it seems. Even the good news is bad: we are not the only ones. Almost every culture on this planet suffers the same twisted, albeit self-serving, perspective on reality. Markers of “group” difference are plentiful—race, religion, ethnicity—all social constructs that have no basis in essential reality.

The problem, as I see it, is that there may be no solution to a “gapped” world. In the absence of the motivation of six billion plus individuals, there may only be resignation or eternal angst. Given how many of the world’s people will read this article, what are the chances?

Meanwhile of course, we can use “achievement gap” as a political tool for funding and policy decisions, the other agenda.

Filed under Education Policy, Philosophy, Politics, Racial Issues, Social Commentary Tagged with Achievement Gap

The More Things Change…

3 May 2016 Leave a comment

Dickens’ Spirit of Christmas Present said it 170 years ago: if nothing is done to correct it, discrimination and poverty will remain the doom of humanity:

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Some may blame the poor and oppressed for their condition, and thereby justify punishing them further. Or some may use that condition to their benefit, manipulating politics and economics to further separate the victims of poverty and discrimination from resource and power. In just such a way some blame the schools, the teachers and the unions for the outcome of such conditions in education.

We’ve long known of the persistent and troublesome academic gap between white students and their black and Hispanic peers in public schools.

We’ve long understood the primary reason, too: A higher proportion of black and Hispanic children come from poor families. A new analysis of reading and math test score data from across the country confirms just how much socioeconomic conditions matter.

Children in the school districts with the highest concentrations of poverty score an average of more than four grade levels below children in the richest districts.

“Money, Race and Success: How Your School District Compares,” Motoko Rich, Amanda Cox and Matthew Bloch, New York Times, April 29, 2016²

In reality, we have all inherited these poisons to our civilization, and we must all—from the meek and humble to the rich and powerful—join together to rid ourselves from them. We could be the generation of Americans who are truly great enough to face our doom and beat the odds. Yet too often we blame the victims and beat the scapegoats. Meanwhile American’s soul is festering.

_________________________________

¹ The online text: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm#link11 <

² The interactive graphics show systems that were studied. Find yours. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/29/upshot/money-race-and-success-how-your-school-district-compares.html <

Filed under Education Policy, Racial Issues, Social Commentary Tagged with The Gap

← Older posts

… JAEZZ Views

Teaching Your Students to Think

Dear Teacher,
You want your students to think for themselves. Try this:

Follow-up footnote

Categories

Recent Posts

Archives

Blogroll

Meta

Pages

jay@jaezz.org

jay@jaezz.org

jay@jaezz.org

jay@jaezz.org

jay@jaezz.org

Dear Teacher, You want your students to think for themselves. Try this:

Follow-up footnote

jay@jaezz.org

(Adapted from a recent letter to a county worker of my acquaintance, jcr)

jay@jaezz.org

jay@jaezz.org

jay@jaezz.org

jay@jaezz.org

Categories

Recent Posts

Archives

Blogroll

Meta

Pages

Dear Teacher,
You want your students to think for themselves. Try this: