E Wayne Ross – Page 152 – Critical Theories in Education

Against objectivity

People are often misled to think that anyone who comes into a discussion with strong views about an issue cannot be unprejudiced. The key question is whether the views are justified.

Neutrality, objectivity, and unbiasness are often considered largely the same thing and almost always a good when it comes to teaching, journalism, and writing history.

But, consider the following. Neutrality is a political category, that is, not supporting any factions in a dispute. Holding a neutral stance in a conflict is no more likely to ensure rightness or objectivity than any other and often is a sign of ignorance of the issues. In a recent interview on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now!, Howard Zinn put it this way “to be neutral, to be passive in a situation is to collaborate with whatever is going on.”

Absence of bias in an area is not absence of convictions in an area, thus neutrality is not objectivity. To be objective is to be unbiased or unprejudiced.

The spring 2005 newletter of the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild included a brief quote from Zinn that objectivity in scholarship and in the media is not only “harmful and misleading, it’s not desirable.”

The brief quote in the PNHG newsletter is from an interview of Zinn by David Barsamian (founder of Alternative Radio) in 1992. The complete interview is available on the amazing ZNet web site.

Here is a brief excerpt from that interview, in which Zinn makes his case against objectivity:DB: You’ve made the astounding comment that objectivity in scholarship, in the media and elsewhere is not only “harmful and misleading, it’s not desirable.”

HZ:I’ve said two things about it. One, that it’s not possible. Two, it’s not desirable. It’s not possible because all history is a selection out of an infinite number of facts. As soon as you begin to select, you select according to what you think is important. Therefore it is already not objective. It’s already biased in the direction of whatever you, as the selector of this information, think people should know. So it’s really not possible. Of course, some people claim to be objective. The worst thing is to claim to be objective. Of course you can’t be. Historians should say what their values are, what they care about, what their background is, and let you know what is important to them so that young people and everybody who reads history are warned in advance that they should never count on any one source, but should go to many sources. So it’s not possible to be objective, and it’s not desirable if it were possible. We should have history that does reflect points of view and values, in other words, history that is not objective. We should have history that enhances human values, humane values, values of brotherhood, sisterhood, peace, justice and equality. The closest I can get to it is the values enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. Equality, the right of all people to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those are values that historians should actively promulgate in writing history. In doing that they needn’t distort or omit important things. But it does mean if they have those values in mind, that they will emphasize those things in history which will bring up a new generation of people who read history books and who will care about treating other people equally, about doing away with war, about justice in every form.

DB: How do you filter those biases, or can you even filter them?

HZ:As I’ve said, yes, I have my biases, my leanings. So if I’m writing or speaking about Columbus, I will try not to hide, omit the fact that Columbus did a remarkable thing in crossing the ocean and venturing out into uncharted waters. It took physical courage and navigational skill. It was a remarkable event. I have to say that so that I don’t omit what people see as the positive side of Columbus. But then I have to go on to say the other things about Columbus which are much more important than his navigational skill, than the fact that he was a religious man. That is how he treated the human beings that he found in this hemisphere. The enslavement, the torture, the murder, the dehumanization of these people. That is the important thing.

There’s an interesting way in which you can frame a sentence which will show what you emphasize and which will have two very different results. Here’s what I mean. Take Columbus as an example. You can frame it, and this was the way the Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison in effect framed it in his biography of Columbus: Columbus committed genocide, but he was a wonderful sailor. He did a remarkable and extraordinary thing in finding these islands in the Western Hemisphere. Where’s the emphasis there? He committed genocide, but … He’s a good sailor. I say, He was a good sailor, but he treated people with the most horrible cruelty. Those are two different ways of saying the same facts. Depending on which side of the buck you’re on, you show your bias. I believe that it’s good for us to put our biases in the direction of a humane view of history.

The unreported Vietnam-Iraq parallel

In a recent ZNet commentary, news dissector Danny Schechter (editor of MediaChannel.org) offered a dozen unreported parallels between the Vietnam war and the current US war on Iraq:

l. Both wars were illegal acts of pre-emptive aggression unsanctioned by international law or world opinion. Earlier, U.S. interventions involved successive US administrations. JFK’s CIA helped put Saddam in power, Reagan armed him to fight Iran. George Bush, 41 led the first Gulf War against him. Clinton tightened sanctions. George Bush, 43 invaded again. Five Administrations–Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford fought in Vietnam.

2. Both wars were launched with deception. In Iraq it was the now proven phony WMD threat and contrived Saddam-Osama connection. In Vietnam, it was the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident and the elections mandated by the Geneva agreement that were canceled by Washington in l956 when the US feared Ho Chi Minh would win.

3. The government lied regularly in both wars. Back then, the lies were pronounced a “credibility gap.” Today, they are considered acceptable “information warfare.” In Saigon military briefers conducted discredited “5 O’Clock Follies” press conferences. In this war, the Pentagon spoon-fed info at a Hollywood style briefing center in Doha.

Read on for parallels 4-12…4. The US press was initially an enthusiastic cheerleader in both wars. When Vietnam protest grew and the war seen as a lost cause, the media frame changed. In Iraq today most of the media is trapped in hotel rooms. Only one side is covered now whereas in Vietnam, there was more reporting occasionally from the other. In Vietnam, the accent was on progress and “turned corners.” The same is true in Iraq.

5. In both wars, prisoners were abused. In South Vietnam, thousands of captives were tortured in what were the called “tiger cages.” Vietnamese POWs were often killed; In North Vietnam, some US POWs were abused after bombing civilians. In Iraq, POWs on both sides were also mistreated. It was US soldiers that first leaked major war crimes and abuses. In Vietnam, Ron Ridenour disclosed the My Lai Massacre. In Iraq, it was a soldier who first told investigators about the torture in Abu Ghraib prison. (Seymour Hersh the reporter who exposed My-Lai in Vietnam later exposed illegal abuses in Iraq.)

6. Illegal weapons were “deployed” in both wars. The US dropped napalm, used cluster bombs against civilians and sprayed toxic agent orange in Vietnam. Cluster bombs and updated Mark 77 napalm-like firebombs were dropped on Iraqis. Depleted uranium was added to the arsenal of prohibited weapons in Iraq.

7. Both wars claimed to be about promoting democracy. Vietnam staged elections and saw a succession of governments controlled by the US. come and go. Iraq has had one election so far in which most voters say they were casting ballots primarily to get the US to leave. The US has stage-managed Iraq’s interim government. Exiles were brought back and put in power. Vietnam’s Diem came from New Jersey, Iraq’s Allawi from Britain.

8. Both wars claimed to be about noble international goals. Vietnam was pictured as a crusade against aggressive communism and falling dominos. Iraq was sold as a front in a global war on terrorism. Neither claim proved true.

9. An imperial drive for resource control and markets helped drive both interventions. Vietnam had rubber and manganese and rare minerals. Iraq has oil. In both wars, any economic agenda was officially denied and ignored by most media outlets.

10. Both wars took place in countries with cultures we never understood or spoke the language, Both involved “insurgents” whose military prowess was underestimated and misrepresented. In Vietnam, we called the “enemy” communists; in Iraq we call them foreign terrorists. (Soldiers had their own terms, “gooks” in Vietnam, “ragheads” in Iraq) In both counties, they was in fact an indigenous resistance that enjoyed popular support. (Both targeted and brutalized people they considered collaborators with the invaders just as our own Revolution went after Americans who backed the British.) In both wars, as in all wars, innocent civilians died in droves.

11. In both countries the US promised to help rebuild the damages caused by US bombing. In Vietnam, a $2 Billion presidential reconstruction pledge was not honored. In Iraq, the electricity and other services are still out in many areas. In both wars US companies and suppliers have profited handsomely; Brown &Root in Vietnam; Halliburton in Iraq, to cite but two.

12. In Vietnam, the Pentagon’s counter-insurgency effort failed to “pacify” the countryside even with a half a million US soldiers “in country.” The insurgency in Iraq is growing despite the best efforts of US soldiers. More have died since President Bush proclaimed “mission accomplished” than during the invasion.

Country blue-grass blues (other music for uplifting gormandizers)

Last year the Bottom Line bit the dust. Now, another lengendary New York rock/punk club is in trouble. Reports are that CBGB’s next (improbable) home might be Las Vegas.

CBGB is the famous/infamous launch pad for punk bands Television, Talking Heads, Ramones, Sex Pistols, etc. Its existence is now threatened by the gentrification of of Manhattan’s Bowery neighborhood. The club’s landlord, the Bowery Residents Committee, is raising the club’s rent to market levels, which would mean doubling (or tripling) its current $20,000 per month.

There is now a project to save the club, which includes a “Save CBGBs” box of chocolates.

How to hit a fastball

I don’t usually read the American Scientist, but the cover of the May-June issue caught my eye with a colorful painting of the Phillies Hall-of-Famer Robin Roberts cutting loose with one his fastballs. The Roberts painting (by official HOF artist Dick Perez) was hyping the cover story, “Predicting a Baseball’s Path.”

The article is quite techinical, but it’s worth the read if your baseball fan (some nice illustrations too). The basic physics of a pitch, various grips, cataloging curvatures, seeing and concealing are all examined. The authors (including Dave Baldwin, Ph.D., who pitched for the Senators, Brewers, and White Sox in the 60s and 70s) conclude: the pitcher should use a four-seam grip for fastballs and curveballs and the two-seam grip for the slider.

If I had read an article like this earlier in my life I wouldn’t have been any better as a hitter, but I might have been a more motivated physics student.

(BTW, turns out that Baldwin is not only a systems engineer, geneticist, and former major league pitcher, but also an artist. You can check out his artwork here.

Class size and learning

In their ongoing war against the BC Teachers Federation (which has recently launched a campaign to reduce class size), the Vancouver Sun ran an editorial on May 9 claiming that “good teachers” matter more than class size.

Teachers are key to good education. But, class size does matter because good teaching and learning requires the right conditions.

The Sun frequently endorses policies intended to create (what they consider) positive conditions for the economy. See, for example, their May 10 editorial touting the BC Liberal Party in which they claim “governments cannot create a vibrant economy, but they have a vital role to play in helping the private sector to create the revenue, jobs and taxes that underpin it.” The same logic applies to the classroom.

It’s one thing to argue against policies to lower class size and quite another to misrepresent what the research says about the issue. Unfortunately, The Sun chose the latter course in their May 9 editorial that says “researchers have been unable to consistently demonstrate that reducing class size yields an increase in student performance.” The Sun is patently wrong on this.

Today’s paper runs three letters, including a heavily edited letter by yours truly intending to correct The Sun‘s claims. Read on for those letters and see my blog entry for April 21, 2005 for more on the class size debate in BC.Vancouver Sun
Research and observation link class size to learning

Letter

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Re: Regardless of class size, good teachers are the main factor in education, Editorial, May 9

The research evidence on the impact of class size is clear, consistent and powerful. Smaller classes allow for changes in teachers’ classroom practices that help students learn more. Teachers in smaller classes spend more time teaching and less time managing behaviour. They know more about the needs and interests of their students and give them more attention.

All research studies are not equal. To support The Sun’s claim about class size research, the editorial cites economist Eric Hanushek at the conservative Hoover Institute at Stanford University. Hanushek consistently fails to acknowledge studies that contradict his own analyses and, more importantly, does not provide experimental evidence to counter the results of the most acclaimed experiment in the history of educational research, the Tennessee class size study known as STAR.

Moreover, poorly implemented class size policies — as in California, where the rush to implement reductions failed to consider the shortage of teachers and classrooms needed to meet the mandate — do not negate the fact that small class size has been shown to have a causal connection to sustained increases in academic achievement.

Reducing class size is not a cure-all for low academic achievement, but it’s clearly a powerful tool in improving the effectiveness of schools.

E. Wayne Ross
Acting Head
Department of Curriculum Studies
University of B.C.

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Letter

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

I’m a teacher with 30 years experience, 15 of them as a learning assistance teacher. My own observation is that when class sizes were reduced significantly, the teachers I supported did change their teaching approaches to much more individualized instruction. Many of the students whom I supported achieved successes that I attributed directly to those smaller classes and to that individual help they received. I saw the results myself.

Christina Schut
Vancouver
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Letter

May 11, 2005

If class size has no impact on student learning, why do virtually all private schools use smaller class size as a selling point in their advertising literature?

Michele McManus
White Rock
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Editorial
Vancouver Sun
Monday, May 09, 2005

Regardless of class size, good teachers are the main factor in education

The impact of class size on student performance is one of the most studied issues in education. But for every study that concludes smaller classes improve learning, another finds no statistically significant correlation between class size and student achievement.

Nevertheless, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation has launched a campaign focused on class size, releasing with some fanfare data obtained through a freedom-of-information request showing that some classes exceed limits of 30 students for English and social studies and 26 for science.

CLASS SIZES NEARLY THE SAME

The BCTF lost the power to negotiate class size when the provincial government enshrined limits in legislation. Individual classes could not exceed 22 students in kindergarten and 24 in Grades 1 to 3. District-wide class size averages were restricted to 19 students in kindergarten, 21 students in Grades 1 to 3 and 30 students in Grades 4 to 12.

Forced by the media to disclose what it called the “shocking” result of its findings, the BCTF sheepishly revealed that about 16 per cent of 267,000 secondary students were, for certain subjects, in classrooms that could, at times, have as many as 32 students.

The BCTF claims class size has grown since the Liberal government removed class size caps from the collective agreement. In fact, average elementary class sizes have remained virtually unchanged for a decade (23.2 in 2004-05 and 23.5 in 1995-96.)

Even if the BCTF had a strong case that smaller class size was the principal factor in improving education outcomes, its latest exercise in numeracy is pure spin and should earn a failing grade.

As to the merits of the more fundamental argument, that smaller classes lead to better learning, the evidence is inconclusive.

Researchers have been unable to consistently demonstrate that reducing class size yields an increase in student performance, surely the only valid reason to invest in hiring additional teachers and building more classrooms.

In fact, what research has found is exactly the opposite of the desired result. In one study, when class size was radically reduced, it created a demand for teachers for which the system was unprepared, so qualifications for teachers were dropped, and the performance of schools, particularly those serving disadvantaged students, actually declined.

Stanford University professor Eric Hanushek argues persuasively that accountability and teacher quality do more to improve student performance than small class size or increasing overall spending.

Of 277 estimates Hanushek used to attempt to capture the effects of either teacher-pupil ratios or class size reductions on student performance, only 15 per cent were positive. The remainder, 85 per cent, were either statistically insignificant or negative, suggesting that raising the teacher-pupil ratio or lowering class size did not improve student performance.

TEACHING DOESN’T CHANGE

The claim that teachers have more time to give to each student and can use more innovative instructional approaches has not been borne out by observation, which has revealed that teachers tend to use identical methods whether they are teaching a class of 16 or 30 students.

Regrettably, New Democratic Party leader Carole James has picked up class size as a campaign theme, ensuring that the myths will continue to be promulgated.

While the benefits of class size are difficult to pin down, common sense tells us that good teaching is the main factor in student performance. If we invest in training and retaining the very best teachers, the result will be engaged, high-achieving students.