an educated view of education

This is a little different blog for me. This is a response to my niece's fb post of an education advocate explaining the cause and solution to the performance deficiency of Black students. The researcher presented facts showing the gap between black and white student scores was reduced by desegregation practices during the 70's and 80's, but has reversed in the past 20 years as segregation increased from "white flight" to the suburbs.

As she and I have bantered around social and political ideas, I have expressed my greatest concern is the "stinky narratives" that have emerged in public discourse, more than the specific people and party styles and ideologies.



My niece has 2 infant boys and, like her view of mommy hood, she loves her boys but the stinky diapers are quite distasteful.

I kicked back to her that this presentation on education fell into the category of "stinky narrative." I have quite a heart for education's role in making society healthier in many ways. I also recognize the issue with education gaps among various ethnic and socioeconomic groups. BUT, I find the discussions of "solutions" stem from asking the wrong questions. When i explained to my niece that the gap between races is not the right issue but raising the overall education of our youth, which includes raising the level for Black students. She responded with a willingness to see the overall decline as long as the gap closed. This is precisely an example of a "stinky narrative" because we do not have to settle for massaging symptoms that do not address the right problems.

Here is a point by point outline of what I consider a "clean diaper narrative":

1.   When we say race is the the cause of the education gap, we are by definition being racist. If we view the conditions that constrain the education of society, race should not be a factor because we have seen that there is nothing inherent in race that constrains learning.

2.   The problem with disparate and ineffective education in society stems from institutional, educational elites who protect their self interest by perpetuating the status quo. This is quite typical of many areas in society that need transforming. While employee Unions can and have played helpful roles at times, this is one area where they are a stumbling block to reform.

3.   These problems with education require missional oriented organizations that are innovative and competent in motivating students and engaging parents. This is not the government's strength, so privatizing education with market based practices and professionals will drastically enhance outcomes with equal or less resources.

4.  Partnerships with local businesses can encourage students with greater hope for their future careers as well as provide guidance and resources the education process can use.

These are not new ideas. They have been tested and proven in small and isolated areas. What is needed now is for these ideas to frame our dialogue, not racist focused symptoms that miss the mark of greater education for all.

How do I KNOW for sure?

One ageless and universal questions young people ask parents and friends is "how do I know for sure this is love?" The question involves a knowing with little or no uncertainty that "I love him/her" and "he/she loves me."

"Knowing for sure" is definitely key in relationships, but "knowing truth" or "knowing for sure" is fundamental to all that we think, feel, and do. A required 2 year course for all International Baccalaureate high school degrees is "The Theory of Knowledge." Premium education recognizes "knowing" as vital to the narratives such as economics, government, and religion.

Stephen Hawking has spent a lifetime pursuing his passion for The Theory of Everything. His best selling book, "A brief history of time", which explores a model that can explain what is true about every object we ever encounter, seems to be the ultimate achievement and contribution to society. Yet, can his brilliance actually help a 17 year old "know for sure."

Let's take a common example to see what is involved with "knowing for sure." Suppose I claim I know that you are beautiful. Most people will focus on how you look, feel, smell, and sound. These are observable data that anyone can process against their criteria for beauty to infer if you are in fact beautiful. They may or may not come to the same conclusion of you based on their definition or criteria of beauty.

But, its common to say, "not only is she beautiful on the outside, but she is beautiful on the inside too." Wait, I cannot observe her "insides" with the same senses I observed her "outside". Knowledge of her beauty becomes more difficult. What do we mean when we say "her beauty is more than skin deep?" We are in fact referencing two forms of knowledge. The Greeks recognized these two forms and called them eido and gnosis. Eido means "head knowledge" or what we can infer from observable data. Gnosis means "heart knowledge" or what we can infer in ways that do not involve physical senses. I know your kindness, your gentleness, your loyalty, your passion, your soul's desire to be with me in somewhat mysterious ways that come from close relationships. My intimate knowledge of you is how I know you are beautiful on the "inside". I can tell others about my gnosis, but they must experience or gain their own gnosis to "know you on the inside".

Ultimately we must trust our gnosis knowledge about an object to act consistently with what we eido know about the object. How do I know for sure you love me? I observe your actions and hear your words, but ultimately I trust your heart. A HallMark movie captures this notion of trust with a line in it from a young lady, "I trust my heart more than any spreadsheet."

Stephen Hawkins is a physicist and maybe one of the greatest eido people in the world. His Theory of Everything seems to discount or ignore gnosis knowledge. It would be interesting to "know for sure" if the IB program is helping young people understand eido knowledge only, or whether it helps students understand the role gnosis plays in "knowing for sure."

I can ponder this or better yet, I'll ask my grandson who took the IB course ....

FootNote: the above discussion is based on the core assumption that "knowing for sure" is a process of trusting the inference an observer makes about an object. There is another core assumption that I have blogged on and embrace more - "knowing for sure" comes from trusting the inferences I make about the Originator of the object, not the object itself. It's like trusting what the architect says about a building than what I infer from observing the building. Likewise, God made you beautiful so that makes you beautiful. With regards to "knowing for sure he/she loves me and I love he/she", again I must ask the Originator of our love for each other, God, what He thinks. Only His revelation insures I know for sure.

"all men are created equal"

Jefferson penned this phrase in the US Declaration of Independence and has been called by many as the "immortal declaration." The phrase has grown as the mantra for contemporary progressive cultural mandate for our country. BUT,

did you see Dustin Johnson blow away the filed at the US Open at Oakmont? He and Zach Johnson didn't look like they were "created equally".  Dustin has been voted the most athletic on the PGA tour (a comparative declaration). What about Michael Phelps amazing medal run at the Olympics. He was described as having physical attributes that made him the perfect swimmer. Didn't look like he was "created equal" to all other swimmers. MY grand daughter is a fantastic dancer. At age 15 she entered a special high school for dancers, not very many others could get into the program. She has an identical twin sister (same DNA), but they were not "created equally" when it comes to dance ability and determination.

These are just a few of the millions of ways people are different, not the same. This discounts "sameness" as the meaning of equal. So what does the "immortal declaration" mean and why/how has it been hijacked by cultural progressives? When so many millennials flock to socialism, are they "hood winked" by the way the culture has distorted this declaration?

A recent survey found that a majority of the young people in the US prefer socialism because it is more compassionate. This is interesting because experts have found that the dominant concern of human beings is justice. Justice is hard. Reciprocity can be painful. Receiving in proportion with what we give puts pressure on us and restricts what we can get out of life. I would love to be a professional golfer, win a medal in the Olympics, and dance like a butterfly. BUT, I can't, no matter how hard I try. Where's the compassion in justice?

The progressive cultural agenda has redefined justice to mean "sameness" to make it more "compassionate." My granddaughter has a fellow student who claims to be a socialist. However, she is proud that she makes the grades to stay in the special dance school, She works hard to be selected to play a role in a dance program for the public. There is much about her motivation and value that comes from being special, not the same. Compassion exists because someone has provided the opportunity to succeed and grow, not because someone gave her what she has that she did not earn.

There is a lot that can be said about this, but blogs are short and to the point, so here are a few points to ponder:
1.  Socialism is NOT just. Socialism is a system, a set of rules that require a few people to determine what everyone "deserves" to receive through redistribution based on their own (subjective) idea of justice. Justice (equity) is a system where performance rules are determined by a group of people and rewards are distributed objectively based on reciprocity or adherence to performance standards.
2.  Because of how motivation works, objective justice produces more total goods and services for everybody than socialism. Justice is more compassionate in that more is made available.
3.   In the secular mindset, "created equal" applies to the notion that justice provides everyone the same opportunity to acquire goods and services, not that everyone receives the same amount of goods and services. Differences in people's abilities and motivation influence who gets what, but everyone is intrinsically valued equally. From a Biblical view, "created equal" refers to every humans' fallen nature in need of grace. God makes no distinctions.
4.  Justice, not socialism, offers the opportunity for individuals to be compassionate. When someone decides to give from what they earned through just practices, then unmerited favor is expressed in acts of compassion. It is not compassion for me to give you what someone else earned. Systematic, expected unmerited sense of deserving as a perversion of justice is entitlement.

Those who cry out, "socialism is best" usually means they do not personally win in reward/punishment systems or they themselves are not prone to compassion, but want everyone else to be. Had The US Open Championship rewarded Andrew Landry the same as Dustin Johnson because Andrew tried hard and had less to start with, then the quality of golf would have suffered and there would have been little enjoyment in viewing the event. Why? Because the human soul yearns for justice, not entitlement. We all want to ultimately influence what we receive. Reciprocity is our human nature.

Its hard to see some win and some lose, but if we cannot fail, then we cannot succeed. How unloving is that? Justice is what has made America great over the last 200 plus years, not socialism. This is the way the world works best.

BUT, if we are in the world and not of the world, then there is more to our story. When we come to The Kingdom of Grace, we see compassion from the One who satisfied all the requirements of justice. This is unmerited favor we do not deserve because we have no way to earn the reward. Its from this gratitude to God that we share compassion.

It is so easy to get all of this confused ... That's why I blog and we ponder ...

The Gospel according to Jeff

A recent article was  posted on the web entitled

"How Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has inspired people to change the way they think about failure". 



Like many other social media articles, it had an amazing number of likes and comments. Amazon has had great success and Bezos is recognized by millions of people as a mover and a shaker, turning the retail and technology world on its head by meeting consumer needs in new and fresh ways. He has indeed inspired people, both employees and customers, to change and see things that they once feared in ways that do not constrain their thoughts, feelings and actions. 

For this impact on the world, Jeff is to be commended. But, the message is not new. You may have heard the statement, 
                                "be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

The Apostle Paul, 2000 years ago wrote about how thinking differently can result in amazing newness of life. He spoke and wrote about a different gospel than Bezos, but this gospel is generally persecuted. Paul's ideas about "changing the way we think about failure" involves trusting something that Bezos does not advocate.

But hey, Bezos brought us Amazon and Paul's only message was eternal life.

Maybe the world needs to ponder whether social media and our business giants will be around in, oh, lets say, forever ..... 

the passing of time

My daughter sent me this picture

and it started me pondering about the passing of time. I recognize that for many people, the passing of time represents loss and maybe even intensifies bitterness, shame or guilt. I saw something different when I looked at this picture.

I saw my daughter (2nd to left), who had risen up out of the rubble to become one of the most amazing woman and mother I know. I saw her family (husband left and daughter to my daughter's left and son on right end) that has developed into quality people and a blessing to their school and community. I saw my niece (2nd from right) who was born in incredible circumstances, growing up to be so lovely, so beautiful and such a great dancer.

I thought to myself (that's pondering), maybe this is what it means for God to be a creator and redeemer. Maybe the passing of time is His instrument of Grace. Maybe we should all look not at what we are doing but what He is doing with us.

I sure am ..... at least for this moment ....