The Race--Father versus Son

This race took place, seven years ago, when I had a chance at beating my athletic son.

My son W and I ran a race together called the Dipsea, a tortuous, seven-mile climb and descent over a mountain, ending at the ocean. 

Running a practice Dipsea a month earlier, I found that the mountain laughs at you. “You thought that incline was hard? Try this one! And you better pay attention to these treacherous tree roots and the poison oak in the valley.” Unlike most cross-country contests, though, this race uses handicaps developed from a long history of running performances. W, age thirteen, started a few minutes ahead of his 43-year-old father. Since W had just completed a season of soccer, and I was always the last one picked for anything when I was a kid, I didn’t consider the handicapping fair in our individual case. Still, I had trained on rocky hills more than W and could outrun him going straight up on the trail. He was much stronger than me on flatter sections, however.

Watching W explode off the start line at the shriek of the starting whistle, I told myself that I would not see him again until the end of the race. But it would be sweet to beat W, a natural athlete. When my group’s whistle sounded a short time later I forgot about my fantasy. I needed to pay attention to slippery stairs. 

I wanted to get in a running groove. I was too absorbed in maintaining my balance on a precipitous descent nicknamed “Suicide.” My legs were hurting too much climbing out of steep ravines, listening to other runners gasping for breath.

As I ascended, a quarter mile from the peak, close to the halfway point, I suddenly saw him. He was walking. I caught up to him in a very steep section where we both had to walk. “W, are you OK?” “No, I feel sick. I think I’m dehydrated.” “What? Why didn’t you bring water? Here, drink mine.” W quickly gulped down the warm water. His pained expression relaxed. We walked together for another minute, and the trail flattened out somewhat. “I feel better now. Thanks Pops!” He slapped me on the butt and took off. I ran after him. We hit the last uphill section, and I accelerated. “See you later,” I jeered as I passed him, and we started a long downhill section. I’ve got to get way ahead of him now, I thought, or he’ll outrun me near the end where it’s flat. I pushed harder. After two miles I was 50 yards ahead of him when, oh no, a traffic jam of fat walkers clogged the narrow trail. I couldn’t get by and had to walk with them until the trail allowed room to pass. Before long, W was right in back of me again. The trail broadened and we both picked up the pace on a curvy and flat last mile. 

I maintained a lead of five yards. As we rounded the last curve, 200 yards before the ocean-side finish, we passed a line of spectators. I heard a voice yell, “Go Mike!” and a second later, “Go W! Beat your dad!” I wasn’t going to be a good father and let him win. I was sprinting, giving the race everything I had left. Beating W would make up for all the times the kids laughed as I struck out, all the times I missed the critical free throw, all the times the grammar school teachers put me in the “special” PE class. “Go Mike! Go Mike!” I heard from somewhere. Twenty yards from the finish line, my insides couldn’t take the pounding anymore. I slowed down and motioned for W to pass. The crowd roared. What a nice, giving father!

General Douglas MacArthur—Brilliant General or Impossible Narcissist (or Both)

Historians’ views of MacArthur tend to be projections of their politics. Liberal writers view MacArthur as a man who “needed to be worshiped” (Halberstam), a narcissist who, despite his inability for honest self-reflection possessed uncanny military instincts and strategic vision. Conservative writers admire the soldier less grudgingly, and instead, paint MacArthur as a genius and hero, a life that should be emulated by any American. I have compiled a short list of biographies and books on MacArthur’s time period. I picked these books and not others because I was familiar with them. Links follow the summaries.

David Halberstam in The Fifties, (pp. 77-86) entertains the reader by revealing Truman’s understanding of MacArthur as a narcissist and Prima Donna, a supremely confident genius of Inchon who arrogantly underestimated the threat of the Chinese Communists in North Korea. Halberstam painstakingly lays out how the Chinese telegraphed their intent to enter the war if provoked and how MacArthur ignored all the warnings.

The encyclopedic 700-page American Caesar by William Manchester presents a complex individual who personalized conflict, exemplified in his famous, “I shall return.” During WWII he felt that his office required luxuries, and the Japanese were coming after him personally. Like royalty MacArthur often spoke of himself in the third person. This attitude toward himself and his role made him a superb warrior.

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn mentions only MacArthur’s violent put down of the Bonus Army during the Great Depression (P. 284). Zinn’s social history ignores the rest of the general’s career. This is a shame. How would MacArthur’s great popularity contrast with Zinn’s assessment of the American mood of the early 1950s?

Steve Neal’s Harry and Ike (pp. 204-215) concentrates on MacArthur’s public dissent from White House policies after the Chinese invasion of Korea. The book notes Eisenhower’s opinion of MacArthur from their work together and the political fallout after Truman dismissed him. Both Eisenhower and Truman despised MacArthur.

My favorite book of the bunch reviewed here is John Gunther’s The Riddle of MacArthur, published in 1951. This book concentrates on MacArthur’s masterfully conducted rehabilitation of Japan. The “supreme commander” introduced Japan to democracy and civil liberties and got them to like it. The book goes in great detail about MacArthur’s personal style and how that fit with the needs and wishes of the Japanese people. The Japanese had just suffered a great psychological blow--their culture was not infallible. The book lacks the historical (or revisionist) perspective of the author's 1970s edition or more modern works.

Finally, MacArthur’s autobiography,  Reminiscences, is overblown, melodramatic, and exhaustive. His collection of pictures alone makes it worth perusing—the high drama of him with General Wainwright just before leaving Corregidor, wading ashore at Luzon, majestically leaving the plane to assume command of the Japanese occupation, visiting Inchon, addressing a West Point honor corps, and more.  A Hollywood movie producer couldn’t have produced more intensity. The book is without balance of course, but it also contains MacArthur’s famous speeches.

Here are the books. Buy them or check them out of your library.

Punishments for Convicted Rioters

Last week's New York Times followed up the British rioting with an article, Britain Will Force Convicted Rioters to Clean Up. Link to the article here. The Times, using media and Labor, Liberal Democrats, and Conservative Party officials as sources, portrayed British society, especially the government, as unbalanced and agitated by the property damage, looting, and violence that occurred earlier this month. The Times stated that London police, reading rioters' social media posts, carefully guarded the 2012 Olympic Village and "higher-end shopping malls,"  The Times gives no proof but insinuated that Scotland Yard was less zealous in protecting life and property in sites that lacked landmark status or high economic value.

Did the police assess the political and economic value of sites before protecting them? If true (and only if true), the people should vote for candidates that would change that policy. I believe the police must anticipate where the rioters will be and protect that area, regardless of the exclusivity of the neighborhood.

The Times  also gave examples of miscarriage of justice--young people thrown in jail for looting items worth only a few dollars or inciting others to riot. The Times article does not state whether the opposite took place--other rioters getting a slap on the wrist for more serious crimes. The Times also did not give statistics stating the percentage of criminals that were justly punished. I will assume that the British justice system, as a whole, did execute justice swiftly and properly.

Lastly, The Times quoted critics that complained about a double standard. White collar criminals in the financial crisis were not punished as harshly as the rioters. This issue too needs to be explored further. Did the courts go easy on the bankers because they were upper-middle class or because the penal code mandates harsher punishment for mayhem and violence?

Postscript: I recommend Jonathan Sach's post here. He says that a breakdown of the social order was the cause, and a rejuvenation of religious institutions, as occurred early in the 19th century in both Britain and America,  can solve the problem. Berel Wein writes in his newsletter (September, 2011) that the Israelis are frustrated by the failures of liberalism and socialism and never-ceasing hostility of much of the world.

Franz Joseph Haydn Travels to New York City

I wrote this skit to illustrate how the evolution of art--its form, audience and production have changed. Form, audience, and production have changed along with society in the last 221 years.

Feel free to use the skit in a World History or Music History classroom or elsewhere. Please let me know if you use it. If my fellow teachers like it I will write more.

_______________________________________________________________________

Haydn

 

 

Rap

 

Franz Joseph Haydn Travels to New York City

Setting:  a recording studio in New York City, 2011

Haydn:  Where am I? Just a second ago I was in Prussia working on a new composition. It is a nice summer day in 1780, is it not? No, I must be in purgatory. I am hearing loud, hideous, repetitive noises, and chanting about acts of violence. These sounds must be manufactured to punish people.

Rapper: Our time machine works! Welcome to America and year 2011, Mr. Haydn. I’m Hoho, a world famous composer of hip-hop music. We wanted to get a classicist’s opinion about our craft. These pop music sounds you consider abuse will probably sell a million units.

Haydn: I am amazed that you can somehow preserve recordings and even more astounded that you sell music. I have worked my entire professional life as a patron to Prince Esterhazy and his family. The noble court supports, finances, and enjoys the art I have created. Art is not a commodity like so many loaves of bread that is sold to the ignorant and unwashed masses.

Rapper: Why should you be satisfied with a life of dependency, creating according to the whims of your master? You have an audience of one. I have an audience of millions, and no one is my master. Not only am I richer than you. I am freer to create whatever I want. I have the lifestyle of the true artist.

Haydn: You are not free. You are a slave to the whims of the public. In my day the English created textile factories. Like you, the owners of those factories created products that were bought by millions. The factories created rhythmic noise too. Like the factory owners, you do not create based on artistic freedom, but on the changing styles of the masses.

Rapper: I sell recordings, not shirts. My music is performed and played all over the world. I’m a pop star!

Haydn: People today react strongly to your primitive sounds but are unsophisticated and have never been exposed to inspiring music. Your cacophonous electronic instruments and inflammatory lyrics have not produced great art. I agree that what you have created is popular, but it is neither morally nor spiritually uplifting. The events in the Roman Coliseum were also popular with the masses. “Popular” should not be equated with “good.” Your so-called music may allow you to accumulate great wealth and satisfy your selfish desires, but it inspires the masses to act like beasts.

Define the following words and explain how Haydn used them:

1. purgatory

2. commodity

3. cacophonous

4. inflammatory

__________________________________________________________

Answer the following questions:

1. Who had access to music in Haydn’s time and who has access to music now?

2. Do you believe that music must be composed for an elite group? If not, how else will music be maintained at a high quality?

3. What is the most important purpose of music? Give evidence.

4. The Internet is taking over many of the traditional marketing tasks of another old elite that once controlled the propagation of the arts, the record company. Name these marketing tasks and note two positive and two negative facts resulting from this democratization of music production.

The Strange Death of American Liberalism

I recommend reading the political history, The Strange Death of American Liberalism, authored by professor H. W. Brands, especially now, ten years after the book was published. The author's prose sparkles. Brands' clarity of expression and wonderful use of metaphor makes for a most entertaining and rewarding read. Events in education over the past ten years give strong evidence that Brands' analysis was correct.




The author is a famous historian as well as a brilliant writer. Here is how Dr. Brands describes himself. See his website here.

Henry William Brands was born in Oregon, went to college in California, sold cutlery across the American West, and earned graduate degrees in mathematics and history in Oregon and Texas. He taught at Vanderbilt University and Texas A&M University before joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is the Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History. He writes on American history and politics, with books including Traitor to His Class, Andrew Jackson, The Age of Gold, The First American, and TR. Several of his books have been bestsellers; two, Traitor to His Class and The First American, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. He lectures frequently on historical and current events, and can be seen and heard on national and international television and radio programs. His writings have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Ukrainian.

Based on his treatment of controversial presidents Nixon and Reagan (which I find to be a projective test of a scholar's political beliefs), Dr. Brands comes across as a political moderate.

What does the book say? In a nutshell, The Strange Death of American Liberalism describes how liberal action, defined here as expansionist federal government, rarely happens in American history. However, Americans will allow the federal government to work where it can solve a problem better than any other institution. Only government can protect us from foreign enemies,and we have seen most government expansion during wartime. Brands believes that the long-lasting Cold War encouraged liberalism in domestic policy as well. When the United States left Vietnam and President Nixon resigned, American support for the Cold War and trust in government eroded. The country reverted back to its natural distrust of government, and therefore, a distrust of liberal policies.

Brands summarizes his thesis:

For a quarter century Americans had grown used to looking to Washington for leadership, first in matters of national security and then, as the Cold War suffused nearly all areas of American life, in such previously domestic matters as education, transportation, civil rights, and health care. As long as the Cold War preceded successfully for the United States, popular confidence in government appeared justified. A people accustomed to depending on government to protect them from nuclear annihilation didn't find it much of a stretch to look to government to address such comparatively minor challenges as an anachronistic system of race relations and lingering economic inequality. Yet when the war in Vietnam turned sour...the skein of popular trust in government unraveled....It was the liberalism of the Cold War era that was the anomaly (pp. 172-173).

Ironically, the most effective liberal in American history, President Lyndon Johnson, planted the seeds of liberalism's destruction with his prosecution of the Cold War in far away Vietnam.

Liberals, like everyone else, do not want to hear about the unpopularity of their political views, and therefore it was no surprise when esteemed (and quite liberal) historian Eric Foner panned parts of the book. Foner's criticisms, that liberalism reached its modern form in the 1930s New Deal and that the New Deal, not the Cold War, was the defining moment of liberalism, were anticipated by Brands (P. 175). Foner also criticizes Brands' lack of analysis of liberal ideas, especially liberals' pursuit of civil liberties and the decidedly non-liberal response to the events of September 11th, 2001. Foner does enjoy the book's "laser-like" focus on this piece of political history, its usefulness as a survey of American political history, and agrees with the author's portrayal of the Revolutionary War times. (See Foner's review here.)

I am quite interested in how the Cold War resulted in a Federal power grab from the what used to be a state issue--the funding and management of public education. Brands describes (pp.78-79) how the Sputnik scare and the Cold War made education a national priority and the business of Washington and not just the state capitols. The National Defense Education Act authorized $1 billion in spending (in 1958 dollars) and initiated the Advanced Placement (AP) program ubiquitous in high schools today. Johnson's Great Society programs increased federal aid to K-12 education (P. 92).

Few people consider "compassionate conservative" president George W. Bush a liberal in any respect. Yet, in 2001 he crafted No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which further expanded federal power into each state's management of K-12 education, a fairly liberal idea. The law was supported by both conservatives and liberals but not for long. NCLB critics complain that NCLB mandates can never be satisfied, eventually making all schools "failing schools," and the law has become increasingly unpopular among education professionals. We may have seen the apex of federal support (or interference, you pick) in education. Cracks are forming under the enforcement of NCLB, and states are finding ways to get around pieces of the law and perhaps its enforcement entirely. See Montana's reaction here. If Brands is correct, we can expect, as part of liberalism's eclipse, less federal funding for education and less support for NCLB or a rewrite of the law. I will let the reader surmise what the death of liberalism means for the future direction of Congress and the executive branch.

Is it OK to Work Out Every Day?

I am not giving medical advice, and, of course, you should talk to your doctor before embarking on an exercise program. I will simply tell you what I do. I work out every day. I make no excuses for myself, and it gets done. Well, not quite. I have a few excuses that allow me to cancel my exercise.
If I’m sick,

stuck in the cabin in a plane for 12 hours,

or have a non-stop 18-hour schedule

I’ll skip my training. These excuses come up rarely, however—maybe 20 times each year. The other 345 days of the year I exercise. It is very important that there is rarely a decision to make about exercise. The question is automatically when (not whether) I’m going to get it done and what I’m going to do.

My schedule is probably similar to yours, and I am busy. I’m a full-time high school teacher (including A.P. courses), department head, musician, and father of five. I get a normal amount of sleep and time with my significant other. I don’t watch any television. My work outs are usually between 20 and 40 minutes long, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening. This won’t prepare me for a triathlon, but will keep my weight about where I want it, develop muscularity, keep me healthy, moderate my mood, and make it easier to adapt to life’s problems. I can’t prove it, but I believe that the 20-40 minutes exercising gives me back 60 minutes of increased productivity. See my previous post on teachers and fitness here.

I’m 50 years-old. I can’t run as fast as I once could, but I can still put on my shoes and go. Running is my favorite exercise. It gives me a chance to be with myself and sort through problems and brainstorm for solutions. Running gives me the time to process and work through negative emotions. I do the other exercises to keep me running. As long as I don’t complete two hard workouts, either in mileage or intensity, in a row, my knees and feet don’t give me problems. So what do I alternate with running? A strength workout is increasingly important as we age, protecting our bone density and helping us balance (protecting against falls). For more information about the medical benefits of exercise, especially as we age,

see the classic Younger Next Year.
I enjoy the weights and machines at the gym because I can casually measure improvement, but those that don’t have access to a gym can do pushups, pull-ups (if the local school has a pull-up bar), and sit-ups. (See Sam’s previous post for a fun way of getting the exercise done.) My body can’t tolerate strength exercises more than three days per week. So I also enjoy an occasional longer work out on the exercise or mountain bike or rowing machine. Sometimes I go for a long walk—seven miles or more—if I have the time and the weather is nice. You may hate running and enjoy yoga instead. The important part is doing something, and I find doing it every day, making the exercise automatic and habitual, works the best.

I am not trying to win any competitions. I am not racer-thin or have the physique of a body builder. What have I accomplished with my daily work outs? I have improved the quality of my life, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

How to Write a School Research Paper (or a Master's Thesis)

Many students, grammar school to graduate school, dread writing large papers. However, if you know how to break down the task it becomes almost automatic.

I asked history teacher and former colleague and department chair, Mike Vice, about his remarkable system of writing papers. Mr. Vice explains his fail-safe strategy below. I have lightly edited his remarks. See also my short blog on bringing back research papers (here).





Sources
Sources may include the internet, books, magazines, encyclopedias, newspapers, personal interviews or other appropriate items. Your paper may not rely principally on Wikipedia. Better Wikipedia articles are sourced but may rely on unreliable opinion or research. Personal interviews must be identified in your bibliography, listing the person interviewed and the date.

Format of the paper
The paper must be typewritten or written on a computer word processor. New Times-Roman font and 12-point size are considered standard.

The paper should consist of several distinct parts: an introduction, a thesis or "burning question," a body, and a conclusion. The introduction, thesis, and conclusion are usually about a paragraph long, but may be longer as required.

The following explanations and examples may be helpful. For consistency, the examples will all deal with the same topic: "Was dropping the atomic bomb on Japan a good decision?"

The opening usually consists of one or two sentences that set the scene. Example: "In August, 1945, the Allies were in position to win the war in the Pacific. They were preparing to end it by one or more of three methods: invasion, bombing the Japanese into submission, or dropping the atomic bomb."

The purpose of the next part, the thesis, is to tell the reader why you're writing the paper. What question did you ask yourself? This part is very important for, if you lose the reader here--if the reader isn't interested by your question--you've lost him or her forever. The thesis is also usually one or two sentences, but may be longer if the question being researched is complex.

In our case, a sentence or two should be enough: "The choice made was to drop the atomic bomb on two cities. This was not the proper choice, for the bomb was such a horrible weapon that it should never have been used on people. Other alternatives for ending the war were available and would eventually have proved successful, even though they would have taken longer." Or, taking the opposite view, "Dropping the bomb was the proper choice for, by doing so, the loss of life at the end of the war was kept to a minimum." The thesis may also be put into the form of a question, such as "The question to be studied is, 'Was the solution chosen--to drop the bomb--the correct one?'" (And then you answer your own question.)

The next part of the paper is the most important. At this point you develop your arguments. Why do you answer your burning question as you do? This is also the longest part.

Using all of the research information that you have gathered to support your argument, you organize it in such a way as to convince the reader that you have decided the issue correctly. I suggest that you not only examine the reasons why you decided in favor of dropping the bomb (or not), but also why the opposite view is not the correct one. That is, if you favored dropping the bomb, why were the other alternatives not the correct ones? You might say that an invasion would have cost a larger number of casualties (and why), that conventional bombing alone could not have won the war (because the Japanese people's morale probably could not have been broken, and cite examples where this type of bombing had failed to win wars in the past), that a "demonstration" explosion (as some suggested) would only have given away the secret (and it might not have worked), that the Russians were going to "help" us against Japan but we didn't trust them so weren't about to drag out a final surrender, for fear that they would take over too much territory or impose conditions on us as a price for sharing the victory, etc., etc.

A good paper will include at least three good reasons why you decided as you did, and perhaps two or three reasons why others' arguments against your thesis are wrong.

Having pulled together all of the evidence and (hopefully) convinced your reader that your thesis is correct and proved, you end with perhaps one paragraph that sums up your argument: "Based on the various arguments, dropping the bomb was the proper decision. While other alternatives were available, they all would have failed to force a surrender for the reasons noted above. Had they been tried first and failed, President Truman would have had no choice but to drop the bomb anyway in order to end the war. Thus he would have had the worst of all worlds--the terrible casualties of the invasion, the participation of the Russians, AND the horror of the bomb."

As you can see, the format may be summed up in a simple manner:
1. "Say what you're going to say (or prove)": Introduction and thesis,
2. "Say it": The body of the paper that describes how you decided as you did, and
3. "Say you said it": The conclusion that wraps it all up.

Using 3" x 5" note cards

This is a paper-writing technique I was taught way back in my own high school days. You know, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth? It is the most helpful technique about paper-writing that I ever learned, and I continued to use it throughout my scholastic career, especially when I wrote my Master's Thesis.

Note cards consist of two types: bibliography cards and data cards. Both are necessary in order to organize your paper properly.

Bibliography cards
You prepare one of these for each and every source that you use in your paper. The technique is this: as you do your research you have blank cards at the ready and every time you find a source that even might be useful you fill out a 3" x 5" card with all of the bibliographical data that will be required when you prepare the paper's bibliography: author(s) name(s), title, publication data. Since publication data for books and magazines or computer sources are different you must be thorough here; more data taken down is better than less. Be careful. You don't want to be writing your paper and realize that you've left off an important piece of information and have to make another trip to the library!

When all of your cards are completed and you're about to write the paper, review them and make sure that there are no cards in the deck for sources that you've decided not to use. If you find any, discard them. Citing a source in the bibliography that has not actually been used in your paper ("padding the bibliography") is a cardinal sin.

At the end of writing the paper, when you're preparing to write your bibliography, take the card deck and alphabetize it. Then, as you word process the bibliography you need only make an entry using the information on the top card, then flip to the second and write up its entry, and so forth.

It's really easy!

Note cards
These are also used for your research and for writing the actual paper. Some people have scoffed at me for using this "low-tech" method, but nothing is more frustrating when you're organizing your paper as you sit near the computer, than shuffling through odd and ends of pieces of paper, trying to make sense of the facts and quotations you've gathered in your research. Another colleague noted that she merely recorded all of her data on the computer itself, then returned to the file(s) to put her paper together. But how, I asked her, do you then organize your thoughts as you look at the various parts and pieces? So, use this technique, old-fashioned as it may seem. As you breeze through the actual writing of your paper, you'll be glad that everything you need is at hand and that you can (literally) write a five-page paper in about two hours if you truly know your subject and you're on top of things.

So, the note cards... As you are doing your research, keep a stack of these cards at your side. As you come to any piece of information that might appear to be useful, take a card and write it down, being careful also to note the source and page number (if a book) or any other information that might be necessary for a footnote in your paper.

When you're ready to start writing you'll have a stack of cards in front of you. (For my master's thesis I had a few hundred, though you'll probably have less than fifty for most major papers.) Take each card and examine it, thinking about where it belongs in the paper; what is its theme or "chapter"? Then sort the cards into piles by topic or issue. Resort them into the most logical way of organizing your thought as you imagine making your arguments in the paper. When finished, you will actually have the outline of your paper in front of you!

When you finally sit at your keyboard, you first write your introduction and thesis then, just like with your bibliography cards, you take the first card and its data or quotation or whatever, incorporate it into your paper, write some more, take the second, and so on. Using this organization technique you can write a lengthy paper in a short period of time. Once I had organized the note cards and annotated and sorted them, I wrote my Master's Thesis, a paper of approximately 100 pages, in about three days!

Bibliography
When putting together your actual bibliography, do not number the entries and you must alphabetize the entries by author’s last name. For entries with no author, put them at the bottom of the listing, alphabetized by title of article or entry.

Examples of bibliographical entries

From a Book (Author, Title, Publication Data):

Prange, Gordon. At Dawn We Slept. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1985.

For a book with multiple authors (first author is last name first, others as “normal”):

Craddock, Martin, and James Durridge. Dickens and the Coalminers. London:
Infinity Press, 1993.

(Note that the second line of an entry is indented three spaces.)

For a book with multiple authors, edited by one of them, or as the major contributor:

Johnson, Alfred, ed. Essays on American History. New York: Dunham, 1996.

Johnson, Alfred, et al. Essays on American History. New York: Dunham, 1996.

From a Magazine (Author (if known), Title of Article, Name of Magazine, Vol:No, Date):

“Hemingway’s Tragedy.” Newsweek. Vol. 22:46 (December 19, 1984).

From an Encyclopedia (Author (if known), Title of Entry, Name of Encyclopedia, Edition):

Smith, James. “The Maya Indians.” The Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1994 edition.

From Encarta or another encyclopedia CD:

(Same as for a regular encyclopedia, but use Encarta for the name.)

From the Internet (Author (if known), Title of Entry, Internet Address):

Jones, Michael. “The Demise of Roundball.” Http//:www.basketball.com.

You may wish to buy a copy of Kate Turabian's term paper book. You won't need it for short high school term papers, but it will be a godsend when writing a scholarly paper in college, one with footnotes and a "professional" bibliography. It's available in long and short forms on Amazon.

Freud Encounters Nietzsche's Ghost

Freud Encounters Nietzsche’s Ghost

Scene: Vienna, 1922

Sigmund Freud: What is that spectral image in the likeness of the German philosopher Nietzsche doing in my study? Have you come to haunt me? I’m busy putting together my theories on the id and the ego. Be gone!

Friedrich Nietzsche: I just wanted to thank you for your determinism. Because of you, people believe that their unconscious desires control them, not their will. You will help remove from society all the idiots, imbeciles and dimwits that believe such nonsense.

Sigmund Freud: What do you believe, my long dead German friend?

Friedrich Nietzsche: We both write about the follies, the foolishness and sickness of humankind. I also write about its potential greatness, the coming of the Overman. One who is able, by the force of will, to overcome his limitations and reach his destiny. “If one has a why he can get through any how.”

Sigmund Freud: Very poetic. How do you explain the motivations of people?

Friedrich Nietzsche: Most people live simplistic, petty, useless lives and, lickspittles that they are, accomplish next to nothing. I care about the elite, the Overman. Women are not to be noticed. They are simply playthings for the warrior. “When you are with women, remember the whip.”

Sigmund Freud: Your misogynist beliefs are certainly not trendy. You do believe, as I do, in an unconscious?

Friedrich Nietzsche: Yes, instinct tells us to follow our ancient heroic values. We must show strength, not mercy. Mercy is for the weak and is a self-destructive cancer. We must move beyond good and evil. We can’t depend on gods or on conventional morality. The gods, listening to what men said about them laughed themselves to death.

Sigmund Freud: Your philosophy is dangerous. How would a people behave in a society that actually incorporated your teachings?

Friedrich Nietzsche: I predict that Germany will twist my writings into Social Darwinism’s ideas of racial superiority. Germany will then try to conquer the world.
___________________________________________________________



1. What is determinism? Who is the determinist, Freud or Nietzsche?






2. Define misogyny and spectral.





3. Who do you relate to better, Freud or Nietzsche? Why?

Social Unrest: Britain and Israel

Both Britain and Israel are in the news because of social unrest--British mobs continue to throw Molotov cocktails, set fire to cars and shops, loot smashed storefronts, attack police and innocent bystanders, steal, and commit murder.

The left blames the rioting on disenfranchised youth responding to government austerity programs. The right blames the social unrest on socialism--bad behavior should be expected when class warfare is encouraged and people expect to be supported without having to pay for it.

In Israel thousands continue to demonstrate in tent cities, calling for social justice:

Protesters are uniting over the high costs of housing, rearing children, fuel, electricity and food but the dominant slogan has been: "The people demand social justice."

A greater percentage of Israelis than British are involved in their respective protests, but there is much less violence in Israel. Like Britain, Israel has a large middle class as well as rich and poor, and Israel had a socialist past. People in both countries look to the government for a solution to their problems. Before the UN declaration of statehood, Britain controlled the area and many Israeli institutions are based on a British model.

Why then are the Israeli protests peaceful? I believe there are a few reasons. First, most Israelis are not religious but are still taught Bible and ethics in the primary grades of school. Second, almost all Israelis, men and women, have served their country, creating a population devoted to the state of Israel and bringing into society a general feeling of unity among the citizenry. Last, I believe Israeli society does not break down as neatly, as it once did, into the earlier fault lines of religious versus secular, Ashkenazic versus Sephardic, and Arab versus Jew. Britain, on the other hand, must still contend with a much more heterogeneous society--diverse peoples brought from 200 years of empire.

Postscript: The Israeli daily Haaretz saw the Israeli protests as predominantly a middle class affair. Predictably, the left-wing paper looked at little except class and race divisions. Link here.

Postscript late 2012: The European left and the Jewish problem here.

Teaching the French Revolution

Start off your World History or European History class by getting the kids out of their seats. After they read an overview about the causes of the French Revolution, try my dramatic enactment or compose a skit of your own. As you work through the French Revolution unit, assign all the students a position (1st, 2nd, or 3rd Estate) and treat them (within reason) accordingly. For example, at first I give the nobility free cokes and chips, which normally are never allowed. I instruct the nobility to keep the goodies for themselves. When the Jacobins take over, the more educated of the third estate get the goodies, etc. If you use the skit, please give me feedback.



Mike Spinrad/San Marin High School


Name_______________________________ Date __________________


“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” Skit

Instructions: If you were picked for a role, please come up to the front of the class. If not, please listen carefully to the skit and fill in the correct names below.

Characters
Guy Flambeau: third estate, peasant of the countryside
Ricard Poisson: third estate, cloth spinner of Paris
Cardinal Rouge: First Estate, Upper Clergy
Father Sympathique: First Estate, Lower Clergy
Baron Caniche: Second Estate
King Louis XVI: King of France
Queen Marie Antoinette: Queen of France
_________________________________________________________________
Scene…a salon, Paris, 1789

Guy Flambeau: The price of wheat is so high, I can’t feed my family. We pay so much money in taxes that I might have to sell everything and beg in the streets. We third estate peasants are all ready to revolt.

Ricard Poisson: I am with you my friend. I used to believe that it was G-d’s will that we should be poor, but I have been hearing about the ideas of the philosophes. We must fight for justice!

Baron Caniche: We will crush you scum if you dare to revolt. I can have you both put in the Bastille just for speaking out against the government. You third estate people do the work and pay the taxes. We nobles have fun at the king’s court.

Cardinal Rouge: We upper clergy have it even better! We pay no taxes, own ten percent of the land of France, and I rarely even attend church services. I just like hanging out in my chateau and scheming against certain nobles like your friends, Caniche.

Father Sympathique: Your behavior is scandalous, Cardinal. I spend all the day attending to the needs of the poor.

King Louis XVI: I am the king to the whole nation, rich or poor. I am of the long running Bourbon dynasty. I have a right to rule France that was given to me by G-d. The nobles refuse to pay any taxes. If I can’t get more tax money from the peasants, I just don’t know what I will do. I think I will take a break and fix some clocks in my shop next to Versailles.

Queen Marie Antoinette: Your highness, I’ve almost finished making you a nice sweater.

Which characters support the following policies?
1. Bourbon dynasty:_______________________________________
2. Divine right to rule:_____________________________
3. Privileges of the Second Estate:____________________________________
4. Desperation of the peasants:_______________________________________
5. Third estate pays the taxes and does the work:_______________________________
6. Influence of the philosophes:__________________________
7. Attends to the needs of the poor:__________________________________
8. Is attuned only to the needs of the king:________________________________
9. Is not particularly religious:__________________________

Extra Credit: What is the difference in point of view of Guy Flambeau and Ricard Poisson? Why do they look at the situation differently?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Is Project-Based Learning Overrated?

Project-based learning grew out of the architectural and engineering education movement that began in Italy during the late 16th century (Knoll, 1997). However, in America, William Heard Kilpatrick is credited with pioneering project-based learning. A protégé of educational theorist John Dewey and a leader in the progressive education movement, he is also credited with popularizing Dewey’s theory.

However, Kilpatrick is best known for popularizing “The Project Method” in a 1918 essay.

Dewey’s theory of experience was the springboard for the theory of “The Project Method”. In “The Project Method”, Kilpatrick explained that the interest of children should be at the center of the project approach. This interest serves as the “unit of study.” By utilizing topics of interest, learning becomes more relevant and meaningful. Solving problems within a meaningful social context is how knowledge is best constructed. “Purposeful” learning, therefore, becomes the motivational factor for children to engage in the project. According to Kilpatrick, there are four phases to a project: “purposing, planning, executing and judging. The student ideally, should initiate all phases, not the teacher (Provenzo).

Knoll (1997) notes that Kilpatrick was actually more influenced by Edward L. Thorndike’s psychology of learning than Dewey’s theory of experience.

According to Thorndike's "laws of learning," an action for which there existed an "inclination" procured "satisfaction" and was more likely to be repeated than an action that "annoyed" and took place under "compulsion." From this, Kilpatrick concluded that the "psychology of the child" was the crucial element in the learning process. Children had to be able to decide freely what they wanted to do; the belief was that their motivation and learning success would increase to the extent to which they pursued their own "purposes" (Knoll, 1997).

Would Kilpatrick be pleased with how project-based learning (PBL) has evolved? He probably would be delighted to see the popularity of PBL. Today PBL is ubiquitous. It is a model for classroom activity that emphasizes student-based education, longer thematic units, interdisciplinary instruction, collaboration, feedback, and is “integrated with real world issues and practices” (San Mateo County Office of Education, 1997). Students are also more engaged and focused when engaged in PBL, because they are provided more choice over what topics to pursue and how to find answers to problems. Since students are allowed to choose their topics, they become more motivated to work hard and strive for the highest quality (Wolk, 1994). PBL users typically use technology to communicate with professionals and experts outside of school and use multimedia for presentations, which, in itself, is an attraction for students. Instead of pouring knowledge into the student, teachers of PBL act as coach, facilitator and co-learner, a collaborator (San Mateo County Office of Education). PBL promotes many types of collaboration.

PBL accommodates and promotes collaboration among students, between students and teacher, and ideally between students and other community members as well. This component is intended to give students opportunities to learn collaborative skills, such as group decision-making, relying on the work of peers, integrating peer and mentor feedback, providing thoughtful feedback to peers, and working with others as student researchers (ibid.).

PBL may connect to real world issues through topics that “are relevant to students’ lives or communities” (ibid.) or connected to actual professions. Other researchers (Ayas and Zeniuk, 2001) propose PBL to enable long-term reasoning, knowledge creation, and sharing beyond the individual. So how might an instructor use PBL?

Basic level projects include a social studies project focusing on a particular state; a science project involving building a bird feeder; and a language arts project in which students interview senior citizens to write a biography. Intermediate level projects are a health/language arts project regarding human anatomy; a science project in which teams design an irrigation device; and a visual/language arts project in which students create a field guide for manufactured objects (Berman, 1997).

A video of young students exploring the world of insects is an example of PBL. After choosing their insect and researching its characteristics, students interacted with professional researchers using an electron microscope. Students showed high interest and worked hard on the project. The amount and level of learning appeared to be high. PBL has been used successfully in many different settings. Outside the mainstream classroom, an instructor can use PBL with adult English language learners of varying levels of English proficiency (Moss and Van Duzer, 1998).

However, not all researchers believe that PBL should be used in education. Many experts criticize PBL and Kilpatrick’s methods and practices. Most notably, E. D. Hirsch in The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them is highly critical of the progressive approach and Kilpatrick in particular (Provenzo). Hirsch’s criticism of Kilpatrick and his methods can be summarized in the following statements:

There is no substitute for the acquisition of commonly held knowledge, skills, and dispositions. "Natural" child-centered methodologies are patently false and harmful…. Educationally progressive methods actually create, not solve learning problems. Educationally conservative methods offer the best means and widest opportunities for learning for all children and research from fields other than education proves it” (Saxe, 1997).

PBL is a time consuming method of teaching and an inefficient method for teaching large amounts of knowledge in a short time. Simply reading text or listening to lecture is a more efficient use of scarce class time, and that is why teachers still assign so much reading and give lectures. Secondly, if PBL and other progressive methods worked as well as their proponents claimed, the educated of 150 years ago would compare unfavorably with today’s children. The opposite is true. The American high school entrance exams of 1850 would stump a college freshman today. Have PBL and other progressive methods been responsible for this change? The controversy over the efficacy of PBL is far from over.

References

Ayas, K. and Zeniuk, N. (2001). Project-based Learning: Building Communities of Reflective Practitioners. Management Learning, 32 n1, 61-76.

Berman, S. (1997). Project Learning for the Multiple Intelligences Classroom. K-College, SkyLight Training and Publishing, Inc., Arlington Heights, IL.

Knoll, M. (1997). The project method: Its vocational education origin and international development. Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, 34(3), 59-80.

Moss, D. and Van Duzer, C. (1998).Project-Based Learning for Adult English Language Learners. ERIC Digests (073).

Provenzo, Jr., E. F., Contemporary Educational Thought. Retrieved October 12, 2002 from http://www.education.miami.edu/ep/html/william_heard_kilpatrick.html.

San Mateo County Office of Education, 1997-2001, Why do project-based learning. Retrieved October 11, 2002 from http:pblmm.k12.ca.us/PBLGuide/WhyPBL.html.

Saxe, D W. (1996). The Books We Need. Network News & Views, Retrieved October 13, 2002 from http://www.edexcellence.net/library/saxe.html.

Wolk, Steven (1994). Project-Based Learning; Pursuits with a Purpose. Educational Leadership, v52 n3, 42-445.

My Crazy Cat

I usually blog about economics, history, and other serious subjects. Let's have some fun with pictures of my cat.

Yoga

You need to feed me first.

Hand me the remote, will ya?

I've been waiting an hour and that spider still hasn't come out.

Time to get up? You gotta be kidding. It's not even noon.

Stop! I am turning into a zombie-cat!

Uh, it's tough gettin' old. Give me a hand up.

Seconds of tuna? Don't mind if I do!

The lazy cat's workout.

Hope you enjoyed these. My cat, adopted from the Marin County Humane Society, is well-loved.

Why Don’t We See More Employee-Owned Corporations?

I am enjoying the dated but wide-ranging Bill Moyers: A World of Ideas: Conversations with Thoughtful Men and Women About American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future.

The book was finished in 1989 and most of the intellectuals interviewed grapple with the Reagan revolution one way or another. Moyers interviews 41 famous American intellectuals, and I was especially taken by his interview with iconoclast Noam Chomsky (pp. 38-58).

As part of his critique of American society of the 1980s, Chomsky stated that corporations should not be run by their shareholders—private owners or public stockholders. Instead corporations should be run by their employees [what we used to call, “the workers” --MS] because employees would get more share in how the corporation should be managed. Otherwise, a few wealthy shareholders that own most of the stock make the decisions on how the company is run. Chomsky stated that shareholder ownership is anti-democratic because the wealthy own more shares and thus control more votes. The poor are shut out of corporate governance. Chomsky’s argument, radical sounding as it may be, is not a Marxist argument—workers’ labor exploited by the capitalists. Rather, he complains that the workers (or employees) don’t control the corporations that they run. The corporate world is completely controlled by the rich, and corporations act in ways that favor that class and only that class.

Fortunately, employee-owned “cooperatives” do exist, so we can analyze them as an alternative to the traditional corporate structure of outside ownership.

Perhaps the most famous of the San Francisco Bay Area cooperatives, the Cheese Board Collective makes and sells pizza, breads and pastries, and cheese. It has operated in (the People’s Republic of) Berkeley, California as a “worker-owned collective since 1967” (website). Both the products and pizza restaurant are successful—lines stretch around the block every day at lunch and dinner—for good reason. The pizza is very good. The fresh ingredients are organic, local and vegetarian except for the cheese and given to you right out of the oven. The Berkeley community also wants to support the Cheese Board for political reasons (it closes every May 1st), and the Cheese Board donates to non-profit community projects. The Cheese Board’s employment application contains a brief description of their philosophy and how it works. (See also the Cheese Board’s self description)

The Cheese Board Pizza Collective is an independently operated adjunct to the larger Cheese Board Collective. Currently, we are a collective of sixteen people. Everyone who works at the Cheese Board Pizza is a member of the collective with equal decision-making power. There is no boss, manager, or employees—it is worker-owned. Everyone makes the same hourly wage, currently $21 per hour. We receive paid time off, medical and dental benefits. (http://www.cheeseboardcollective.coop/uploads/Pizza_Application.doc)

San Francisco Bay Area cooperatives try to support each other and the Israeli kibbutz movement was the inspiration for the Cheese Board Collective. Sheirin Iravantchi writes in the Daily Californian that the cooperatives share a philosophy: employee satisfaction and ownership are most important.

More specifically, by “giving members more freedom of choice and more conducive work environments, these cooperatives attempt to increase employee satisfaction rather than profit margins…”(Daily Cal, December 7, 2000)

Why are cooperatives so rare in the corporate world? Why don’t we any cooperatives among the larger corporations? I believe that there are a number of reasons. First the cooperative structure does not allow enough flexibility for rapid growth. A growing business must take risks, often taking on debt or a increased monetary investment from its owners or venture capitalists in order to expand. Members of a collective would be less likely to take entrepreneurial risk and unlikely to take money from outside investors.

Secondly, cooperatives hire new employees quite carefully if not painstakingly. Each new employee must serve as a generalist, not a specialist, and must work with everyone, not just within a small department. The cooperative’s employment style slows down the pace of hiring.

Third, only those in the bottom half of the labor pool would be interested in accepting a San Francisco Bay Area job for $21/hour with no possibility of promotion. It’s nice not to have a boss, but it’s also nice to be a boss. It is nearly impossible to buy a house in Berkeley or afford the finer things in life at $21/hour, even if $21 is a generous and superior wage for a food-industry job. The most talented in the labor pool may pass if that’s the best they can do.

The above three explanations show the inflexibility of cooperative labor. Ironically, some investors claim that many corporations are run for the benefit and enrichment of top management, not the shareholders, and CEO pay has reached astronomic levels. Stockholders elect a board of directors, and that board is supposed to monitor management expenses, so if there is a problem with executives grabbing too much of the company cash, it is the stockholders’ fault.

Let’s step back and compare the structure of for-profit corporations with cooperatives. Most corporations respond to the concerns of their owners, shareholders, which are, in order of importance, profitability (passed onto the shareholders through dividends and capital gains in share price), good citizenship and community. Profitability is necessary but is less emphasized in a cooperative. Cheese Board pizzas may be characterized as gourmet pizzas, the restaurant bakes only one type every day and the pizzas are not price competitive. The cooperative is less efficient than for-profit companies and its prices will be higher. (In the words of economists, the cooperative is inferior to the for-profit firm in both productive and allocative efficiency.) In a nutshell, the cooperative produces fewer goods and its prices are higher. Consumers spend more and receive less. Cooperatives have their place, but Chomsky is wrong. For-profit corporations do a better job raising consumers’ standard of living.

Postscript: Shaila Dewan's March 30, 2004 NYT article, Lose the Boss is worth reading for an update on co-ops and inequality.Jonathan Kauffman's August 9, 2015 San Francisco Chronicle article, Food Co-op Survivor Thriving for 40 Years gives the history and management structure of co-op Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco. Could it have thrived anywhere else?

How Budget Cuts Lead to Greater Debt

How can budget cuts lead to greater government debt? Allow me to illustrate with a story.

My friend Cindy is $50,000 in debt after getting her PhD in British literature. She recently reached the maximum limit of debt allowed on her credit card, another $20,000. Thus she has a total debt load of $70,000. She pays a total of $6,000 in interest alone each year to the bank and credit card company.

Her credit card debt came primarily from Cindy’s one weakness—buying shoes.

She loves everything about the latest fashions and just can’t stay away from department stores. She rarely leaves a store without a purchase of $150 or more.

Cindy started a job last year as an Assistant Professor at a small liberal arts school. Her salary is low--$40,000--until she gets tenure. Her take home pay after taxes and retirement contribution is $34,000.

Here is a list of Cindy’s expenditures for last year.

Rent: $12,000
Debt servicing: $6,000
Car payments, insurance, maintenance and gas: $5,000
Food: $4,000
Health Care: $3,000 (subsidized at work)
Clothes and shoes: $3,000
Books and entertainment: $1,000
Religious affiliation and charity: $1,000

Total: $35,000

Cindy increased her debt by $1,000 last year.

This year she is determined to cut her debt. She is going to buy shoes only if they are on sale.

Unfortunately, inflation has affected the price of shoes. A good shoe shopping trip, buying only sale items, will cost her $175.

First, she must get more credit. She signs up for another credit card.

Cindy says she needs more credit because she is cutting her budget. She only buys shoes on sale now. She has never done that before. Before this year, she increased her charitable contributions by ten percent each year. This year she cut that item in her budget as well, decreasing her charitable giving 50 percent by increasing her giving by only five percent instead of ten percent.

Here’s a list of Cindy’s expenditures after she made the cuts noted above. She still netted $34,000 from her salary. She didn't get a raise. Times are tough in academia.

Rent: $12,000
Debt servicing: $6,200
Car payments, insurance, maintenance and gas: $5,000
Food: $4,000
Health Care: $3,000 (subsidized at work)
Clothes and shoes: $3,800
Books and entertainment: $1,000
Religious affiliation and charity: $1,050

Total: $36,050

Despite her intention to live within her means, Cindy increased her debt by $2,050 last year, a 105 percent increase! What happened?
• Cuts aren’t really cuts but simply slowdowns in the growth rate of spending
• Interest service on the debt becomes a larger and larger part of expenditures
• Total debt increases, leading to even larger interest payments
• Eventually, creditors see that the debt has snowballed and cannot be paid, and credit dries up

Feel free to apply this story to our current predicament—the increasing debt of the federal government.

How Boys Can Do Better in School

I highly recommend that all parents and teachers read or reread Deborah Tannen’s 1990 bestseller, You Just Don’t Understand (HarperCollins Publishers: New York). (Buy it for a penny plus postage.)
The book describes the different world views of girls and boys, women and men. Girls and women value rapport, connection, intimacy, and balanced communication and relationships. Boys and men, on the other hand, are tuned into status and power and participate in asymmetrical and agonistic relationships.

Tannen’s book illustrates how men and women relate and communicate. Men see the world as ordered by a status hierarchy, but women yearn for close relationships. Men prefer “report talk” but women prefer “rapport talk.”

Perhaps Tannen’s work can give us some answers to the gender gap we are currently seeing in school. Twenty years ago men were graduating college at a higher rate than women, but Sarah D. Sparks of Education Week (April 27, 2011) reports that this is no longer true, and the difference is not close. “36 percent of women ages 25 to 29 held a bachelor’s degree or better, versus only 28 percent of the men in the same age group.” Similarly, Cecilia Simon of the New York Times’ Education Life Magazine (July 27, 2011) reports that “as a proportion of the population, the growth among women has been particularly striking, although they still lag behind men at the highest [professional and PhD] levels” (P.18). There are now more women than men (age 25-64) with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and this has happened during a time of stagnating opportunity for the less educated. We can look at Education Life’s conclusion another way. Men have not significantly grown their numbers with a bachelor’s degree--a pitiful 2.7 percent in 19 years. Women have grown their numbers 6.0 percent over the same time period.

Anecdotally, I remember a shortage of available dates as a male heterosexual Cal undergraduate, 1978 to 1982. My problem may have had its roots in the college demographics and not just because I needed to learn better social skills! Cal was predominantly male. As of October, 2010, however, the ratio of men to women has changed: 53 percent female and 47 percent male (U.C. Berkeley Facts at a Glance). At Sonoma State University, less than an hour away, the numbers are skewed even more: 62 percent women, 38 percent men (CSU Mentor). Women are increasingly dominating the undergraduate pool at college campuses. We are seeing what women can do when societal barriers are removed. Unfortunately, it appears that at the same time that women are exceeding, men are failing, starting early on. Language and reading deficits appear in grade school. Twenty years ago boys would catch up by high school, but that is no longer true.

What is going on with the boys? “Scientists have said that boys are born with smaller language centers in their brains—and larger spatial centers—than girls and that boys develop language abilities at a slower rate, though eventually they catch up” (Straus, 2005). This biological explanation does not explain why boys have performed worse over the last 20 years. Perhaps video games are the culprit. “A new study suggests owning a video game system could hinder academic development, at least for young boys” (Rettner, 2010). On the face of this research, it appears that limiting electronic media, especially video games, may improve boys’ school performance.

Yet Deborah Tannen’s analysis of women and men in conversation may reveal deeper reasons why boys are underperforming in school. Boys are always aware of the pecking order—who is in charge and when they get to be in charge. (See Tannen, pp. 203-204.) They have chaffed for 150 years under the authority of public school teachers and administrators, and have tried to escape situations in which they were the “man down.” What has changed is the introduction of electronic media and its corrosive effect on school performance. Girls are accomplishing much more in school, and many boys are achieving less. The boys, ever cognizant of their status, notice that they are "losers," and everyone knows. They have lost this competition. Since they feel they can’t win, many boys quit and retreat even further in to the fantasy world of video games.

I recommend that we parents and teachers work together to eliminate or limit the use of video games and replace that leisure time with real-world competitive games in school: sports, music and the arts, chess, robotics, and small business. Over time we may see a more equitable graduation rate between the sexes.


Bibliography

CSU Mentor, http://www.csumentor.edu/campustour/undergraduate/24/Sonoma_State_University/Sonoma_State_University5.html

Rettner, Rachael, Video Games May Hinder Learning for Boys, Live Science.com, March 16, 2010, www.livescience.com/10965-video-games-hinder-learning-boys.html

Simon, Cecilia Capuzzi, Return on Investment. Does Grad School Pay Off? The New York Times’ Education Life Magazine, July 27, 2011, pp.18-19

Sparks, Sarah D., Census: More Adults Earn a Diploma, More Women Earn a Degree, Education Week, April 27, 2011, http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/04/census_more_adults_with_diploma.html

Straus, Velerie, Educators Differ on Why Boys Lag in Reading, The Washington Post, P. A12, March 15, 2005, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35057-2005Mar14.html

Tannen, Deborah, You Just Don’t Understand, 1990, HarperCollins Publishers: New York

U.C. Berkeley Facts at a Glance, http://berkeley.edu/about/fact.shtml