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Next week I'll be attending a seminar about getting philosophy into American Schools. Wish us luck. From my personal perspective the primary point in the matter is that for democracies to function properly people have to be educationally equipped with functional BS detectors, and schools have failed to provide them with these. I take the existence of hate-mongering political movements which attempt to dismantle any public program designed to protect the human rights of "others" as the clearest evidence of this failure.

My good virtual friend Lyman, himself a retired public school principal, has a different view on this, however. He points out other factors worth noting: "With the advent of the Information Age, American voters seem to favor blatant ideology wars over sober decision-making. PC's and application-laden cell phones have given them instant access to whoever wants to write questionable facts and analyses that reinforce their most base biases and prejudices. Couple this with a rapidly changing value system as evidenced by church attendance declining and gay rights advancing, to mention just two indicators, and I posit that cultural constraints have yet to be reformulated in a meaningful context that fits the times."

So my question is, how morally responsible are schools to enable their graduates to sort through the information deluge that they face, and distinguish between facts, opinions and myths? Beyond that, if the society is becoming less religiously homogeneous and morally predictable, what should schools be doing to equip students to deal with this new reality? Anything? Are their risks of education programs providing their own alternatives to religion? What sort of cultural restraints and values should be part of the core curriculum? And what chance is there that we will succeed in adding these elements into the curricula?

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     This is such an enormous question in times when influences, and the spread of them, can change more rapidly, perhaps,  than at any time on earth before - courtesy of technology.

     But schools continue to have a big influence, and if they purport to in any way be preparing young people for life 'out there', then equipping them with thinking skills as well as facts and figures would seem to be an essential part of the curriculum.        

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"So my question is, how morally responsible are schools to enable their graduates to sort through the information deluge that they face, and distinguish between facts, opinions and myths?" My answer is, "It depends".

When I taught English in a grades 1-12 school for a couple of months in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China 6 years ago, I observed Chinese teachers being taught and students practicing rote recitation in unison from textbooks in all classes in all subjects. China's largely less-educated culture permits a more rigid governance ideology than does the USA, and I saw it reflected in the teacher-training conferences I attended and the classrooms I observed while there. Questioning the facts was neither expected nor done, much less questioning any 'politically correct' opinions and myths.

Here, in the USA, we had a similar methodology in the late 19th century that used rote recitation in unison when the public education of the majority of children did not got much beyond 'the three Rs'. Our American culture accepted it and our government enforced it with the culture's backing because that was all that farmers' children and factory workers' children were presumed to need to know. Since then, our tax-funded public education methodologies have expanded to meet the changing culture's needs, some meeting more success than  others. John Dewey's factory-model high school curricula consisting of segregated subject areas taught in rigid time periods enforced by ringing bells was a major innovation that caught on. At the same time, the letter-grade/grade-point system of grading was universally accepted as the most reliable method for judging student learning. Both caught on because the early 20th century American culture was still phasing out of the Agricultural Age as it fully embraced the Industrial Age. Dewey's high school model and the letter-grade system together effectively separated the educated from the uneducated, greatly helping the factory owners separate the workers from the managers and supervisors. Drop-outs became the workers and graduates became the managers. How convenient for the-powers-that-be at that time!

Sadly, our high schools are still using that Industrial Age model. Today, during the advent of the chaotic Information Age, meeting the needs of the more diverse American culture is not as simple (It probably  wasn't all that simple during the transition from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age either; it only appears that way in retrospect). For one thing, the culture has become more polarized in its ideologies and has more technology with which to voice them. Moral values are being redefined as a result, and, contrary to the opinion of those who espouse it, there is no 'Moral Majority'. I believe the USA is in a cultural/moral state of flux.

As a former public school principal, I hid behind the concept of 'community standards' when it came to deciding which and how many 'moral values' could be allowed to infiltrate the state-approved curriculum. If I was administering a school in a liberal community, I looked the other way when liberal morals crept in to any teacher's classroom. If I was in a conservative community, I reluctantly allowed conservative morals to be introduced in classrooms . (Yes, I value liberal moral values more than I do conservative ones, and it showed in my schools... whether I wanted it to or not.)

I don't think a government is responsible for incorporating in it's schools the moral values of the political party in power. I don't think a government is responsible for incorporating in it's schools the moral values of only it's church-attending citizens. I don't think a government is responsible for incorporating in it's schools the moral values of it's most vocal human rights advocates of the time. I don't think 'moral responsibility' should be foremost in deciding curricula additions or changes.

I do think that a country's government has a responsibility to introduce skills that benefit most of it's future citizens at any given time in the country's evolution. Introducing thinking skills into it's public school curricula, be it called critical thinking, values clarification, or philosophy; may be something the USA is ready for at this time. However, I think it is disengenuous at best (morally irresponsible at worst?) to label such curricular enhancement as 'morally responsible'. To do so introduces a subjective argument into what may be best served by as much objectivity as possible.

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Late edit. All of my "it's" should be "its"; and 'disingenuous' was misspelled. (and me a former English teacher!)

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I'm being intentionally a tad polemical about this, and I don't want to label any educators of previous generations as immoral, but I believe that we desperately need to improve the BS detectors we equip our students with.

This is something my father forwarded to me by e-mail:

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in  Salina , Kansas ,  USA . It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina  , and reprinted by the  Salina Journal.


8th Grade Final Exam:
Salina ,  KS - 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph.
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie,' 'play,' and 'run'.
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet Long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs, what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs for tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7percent per annum.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft long at $20 per metre?
8... Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which  U.S.  History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of  America  by  Columbus  .
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the  United States  .
5. Tell what you can of the history of  Kansas  .
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour)
[Do we even know what this is??]
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9.. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in  Kansas  ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of  North America  .
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and  Orinoco  .
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the  U.S.  Name all the republics of  Europe  and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the  Atlantic   Coast  colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9.. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.
HUH???  Are they kidding??? This is hard to believe....
Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.

Gives the saying 'he only had an 8th grade education' a
whole new meaning, doesn't it?!

The part of that test which was clearly least book memorization and most relevant to farmers' everyday life would be that math bit. Teachers considered it to be part of their job to teach kids not to be ripped off by banks, coal merchants, lumber dealers, etc. They also had to understand enough history and literacy skills to know what they were voting on in any given election.

If schools today take that level of responsibility and apply it to the current cultural situation, I'd say that it pretty much requires some courses in "BS detection", particularly in relation to politics and the media. Questions of "how do you know which information to trust" need to be addressed on a very basic, logical, philosophical basis if schools are doing their job right. Beyond that, historical awareness needs to include enough about the history of human rights, particularly since WW2, so that kids can make sense of foreign relations issues... including the implications of driving a gas guzzler and buying Chinese made sneakers, and complaining about off-shoring and the like.

More later.

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Let's dispense with the most obvious: Adding more standardized tests isn't going to prove whether learning is actually taking place or not.

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I'm not in disagreement with having some form of critical thinking (AKA 'BS' detection) instruction in the U S public school curricula. I just think that calling it a 'moral responsibility' to do so opens the door for anyone who believes their particular moral beliefs are more impelling and should therefore be instilled in public schools because their government has a 'moral responsibility' to do so. I understand that it may be necessary to use that label to gain public attention to the issue, but, as I 'polemically' stated before, "I don't think 'moral responsibility' should be foremost in deciding curricula additions or changes".

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OK, I'd agree that "moral responsibility" could be a loaded term, perhaps too subject to abuse. The question then is, what terminology can be used to draw Americans' attention to the importance of teaching kids basic principles on how to parse information so as to keep their minds from getting "messed" with?

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Perhaps one needs to look at the problem (kids not being taught critical thinking skills) from the persepective of pedagogics rather than curriculum enhancement. If teachers were trained in critical thinking skill themselves and at least partially evaluated on their ability to transfer that knowledge to their students regardless of subject matter (OK, maybe not math), there might not be a need to add Philosophy classes to try to solve the problem. There might be problems that could be solved by adding Philosophy classes to the public school curricula (to provide gainful employment for more Philosophy teachers might facetiously be one), but teaching kids how to think is not ipso facto one of them.

Back to the side issue of a government's 'moral responsibility', I came across the following information (below) from what appears to be a credible source. I have edited it for brevity but the organization's website is included in the title for those who want to see the full context. I insert it here because it speaks to how various cultures perceive their governments' responsibility to provide public education. (Notice that the word 'moral' is not used as justification, so I would suggest it is not necessary to use it as an adjective to justify teaching thinking skills in public schools.)

"World Publics see Government as Responsible for Ensuring Basic Healthcare, Food, and Education Needs:
13th November 08 - WorldPublicOpinion.org

A new poll of 21 nations around the world finds that large majorities in every country say their government should be responsible for ensuring that citizens can meet their basic needs for food, healthcare, and education. Interviews were conducted in 21 nations, including most of the largest nations--China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia--as well as Argentina, Azerbaijan, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, the Palestinian Territories, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, and Ukraine. Interviews were also conducted in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

The poll of 21,321 respondents was conducted between July 15 and September 26, 2008 by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a collaborative research project involving research centers from around the world and managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. Margins of error range from +/-2 to 4 percent.

On average, across all countries polled, nine in 10 say that their government has the responsibility to ensure access to food, healthcare, and education. However, the poll found major variations in how well people perceive their governments to be fulfilling these responsibilities.These results show overwhelming public support for the principles presented in the (UNs) Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. It states that: "Everyone has the right to...food, medical care...[and] education." Signatories to the declaration commit "by progressive measures, national and international, to secure" these rights.  

Government Responsibility for Basic Education Needs

On education, majorities ranging from 64 to 98 percent also see the government as responsible for ensuring that people can meet their basic needs. The average majority is 91 percent and in only six nations do majorities of less than 90 percent take this position. Egyptians have the largest minority saying the government is not responsible for education (19%), followed by Americans (16%).

These results show overwhelming public support for the standards offered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ...Article 26 states that: "Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary stages." (The Declaration does not imply that state education should be the only means to achieve universal education; in fact, the article also states that "parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children."

Assessments of Government Efforts on Education

Fourteen out of 21 publics polled have majorities or pluralities saying the government is doing a good job ensuring citizens can meet their need for education. Publics in six others have majorities or pluralities saying it is not doing this very well, while one public is divided. On average, a slight majority (52%) says their government is doing a good job ensuring citizens can meet their need for education, while 44 percent say it is not doing this well.

Developed countries have mixed views on their government's performance on ensuring its citizens' educational needs. In four countries, majorities say their government is meeting this need well: Great Britain (66%), the United States (61%), France (55%), and South Korea (54%). However, half in Germany (50%) believes their government is not doing a good job ensuring its citizens can meet their basic needs for education. Opinion in Italy is divided (46% well, 48% not well), where school dropout rates are higher than the European Union as a whole and national reform of its system is underway."

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The US, as a signatory to the UDHR, has a  statutory responsibility to teach people what they are entitled to as people, and to progressively learn to live up to the governmental responsibilities outlined in said document. If the US education system was living up to these responsibilities, the US would not be second worst among those serveyed in terms of awareness of these rights, and the new ultra-right extreme never would have been born. I'm just sayin'... your quotes there make me all the stronger in my opinions on this matter.

As to pedagogical vs. curriculum reform, I'd still argue that they need not be mutually exclusive, and one of the best ways to bring about the former is through the latter. If kids are expected/enabled to know things that are relevant to life as they know it and that allow them to embarass old guard teachers about their own ignorance, pretty soon those teachers will start looking into the subject matter so as to be as smart as 9th graders themselves, and before you know it they could be spontaneously including bits and pieces of it in their own lessons... says the ideological dreamer in me.

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Mission accomplished! I like your use of 'statutory' much better than I did your use of 'moral' in trying to convey the imperative of governmental responsibility for teaching children thinking skills that relate to today's world. I am also happy to see that the survey article I quoted reinforced your convictions on the subject. They did mine, too. And I can see that a marriage of pedagogics to curricular enhancement could be more beneficial than one or the other. Thanks.

I hope our discussion here is helpful in your upcoming seminar.

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The postings here are long and look interesting, but I have not read them yet. However, good luck David, with your meeting next week. Much needed work..  :^)