Sunday, March 27, 2011

My Life as a Teacher

The thoughts expressed in this article are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views and interests of my employer. No proprietary information is contained herein. I shouldn't have to state these things, but it seems like all corporations just can't resist monitoring their employee's speech on the Internet, and making "friendly suggestions" as to what is or is not appropriate. As far as my employer should care, I am not divulging any proprietary, confidential, or private corporate information, so leave me alone. I'm entitled to my opinions and viewpoints.

2010 has been a peculiar year for me at my job. I teach at a proprietary post-secondary educational institution -- i.e. a for-profit college. In some quarters, the Federal government and certain other interest groups have been abuzz about how we -- and by extension, I -- do the job of educating students. I think we can all agree, we are not every graduating senior valedictorian's choice of college after high school. That's okay. My school serves the underserved: The housewife re-launching her career after kids. The autoworker laid off from Chrysler. The bright kid who chose the Marines first after graduation. The kid who wasn't expected by anyone to go to college but wanted to try after finding themselves in a dead-end spiral of fast food and telemarketing. In a very real way, we do sell dreams here. It is our hope that we help those dreams come true.

I'll state up front that I have little, if anything, to say about the marketing or admissions side of things. That's not my job, and that's the part of the industry that, if I were to begin to opine upon it, would give my employer the hyper-jeebies. I think that *any* college should be honest, forthright, and square-dealing with prospective students, whether that's a for-profit college, a private non-profit, a local community college, or a major public university. We aren't selling washers and dryers, or cars, or weight loss schemes. We are all selling a service that has a large human element. The philosopher Immanuel Kant considered "using people" to be immoral (the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative) and colleges of all types should be moral in their operations. I cannot speak on the way admissions or marketing are done. I've heard the same stories and read the same articles as you have. I hope that my school operates at the highest level of moral responsibility in that regard. But that's not what I'm about, and so I'm not going to pass judgment.

I'm also not going to talk about other schools. They may or may not be the same. I've only ever taught for this school, and I can only speak on my own experiences. I've read articles in the media concerning Federal inquiries, and I think to myself, "I hope *my* school never does *that*! That would be stupid." If any school of any type, not just for-profit, is acting unethically, immorally, or illegally, they are inviting action against themselves, and regulation of all of us. Of course, sometimes the regulators make crap up (such as in this article on The Motley Fool that dragged one school through the mud very unfairly). Never take a politician's word at face value.

What I really want to talk about is, what is it like to be a teacher? This matters, because a lot of the concern about for-profit schools is about outcomes. Do they teach students? Why do students quit? How many students graduate? How many students get jobs afterward? What if they don't get jobs, what then? This is germane, because the most controversial proposed regulation on for-profit schools, the "gainful employment" rule, all depends on how good a job a school does at what it purports to sell, which is an education. Millions of people depend on Federal backing of their student loans, and so eventually taxpayers become involved in the scheme of things.

I know how many regard us. They don't consider us a real college. Most people who think that are attached to public colleges and universities, who of course see us as a direct threat. I'm sure private non-profit colleges, such as my alma mater, probably just look down at schools like mine and say, how cute, the boys are "playing at college". Hey, my alma mater was a good one. But I'd be lying if I said it was anything like what my school was like. You're not even comparing apples and oranges. You're comparing apples and toasters.

I teach technology courses. My background is in database development and web development, and I've had broad professional experience that is perfect as a background for technical education. I've learned a little bit about a lot in my life, and I have the communication skills and teaching desire to pass that seed on to others. I can only speak on the educational programs I've participated in, which is mostly IT (information technology). So I can't comment on cooking schools or paralegal programs or auto maintenance or whatnot. Just computers, basically.

My programs are both Associate and Bachelor degree levels. I have a Bachelor's degree in computer science from Bradley University, Master's Degree in educational technology from the University of Missouri, and I'm on the cusp of my Master's Degree in information technology from Dakota State University (just gotta survive 2 more classes!). I also have a wide range of other interests that I enjoy sharing. I do computer and web stuff outside of work. I can practice what I preach. So if you're thinking, "those who can, do; those who can't, teach", I've done the do and found it lacking in satisfaction. Teaching, on the other hand, brings me great satisfaction. That's why I'm still here, after all. Sure, there are better paying jobs out there, but a paycheck isn't all there is to life.

Who are my students? Generally, they fall into a few easy-to-identify categories. I see lots of older people who have had it with their current jobs and careers and are re-training. I love these students. They're driven, engaged, and determined to do a good job. Sometimes they miss class because of family demands, but I admire them for doing the juggling. I see quite a few military veterans. Same deal, pretty much. They've learned discipline from the armed forces and are usually very reliable, though we sometimes have to juggle reserve and guard duty. I see younger folks who didn't go to college out of high school, kicked around in service or manufacturing jobs, are sick of it, and want to make something more of themselves. These folks are a mixed bag. I've met solid ones, and I've met plenty who still don't know what they want to be when they grow up. They can be a challenge to engage. Occasionally, I see self-made folks who are just there for themselves, or for the degree. They already have a lot of the skills, but they don't have that magic documentation that says "degree" on it, or they're looking to fill the gaps in their knowledge. I tend to like these students too, since they typically know what they want.

Then I see the young kids who are here because their parents are making them. My god, save me from these people. Parents, don't use school as leverage to get them out of the house. These are the students who struggle the most. Their heart isn't into it, and they do the minimum necessary to keep the privilege of living at home. Do them a bigger favor and just boot them out on their own. Kids have to decide for themselves what to do with themselves. Plus, you're racking up a big bill for your experiment.

There have been -- and please note, it's been rather rare -- students who can't really handle the material. Sure, they passed the entrance exam, and everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves, but some folks just aren't college material. I think in my almost 10 years time teaching, I can count the number of these folks without taking my socks off. So discard the idea that my school is taking in subliterate homeless people and siphoning them for money. Most of our students want to be here. There's no shortage of schools, and lots of programs of study, and they could have gone wherever they wanted to, and they chose to come here. It's my job to teach them.

Unlike some of our competitors, I don't think we have a ton of on-line students. I think that most of our students come to campus. While that may seem old-fashioned and against the trend, that is actually a good thing. On-line education is great, *if* you can make it work. I'm doing my Master's Degree in IT on-line. And yeah, I've gotten myself in trouble a few times being inattentive and unengaged and generally undisciplined. I've gotten a couple of B's that should have been A's. That's most colleges. Though you'll find individual exceptions amongst instructors and professors, generally speaking it's all up to you and they don't really care much either way if you show up or not. Many schools are, in fact, designed to weed out those who they don't feel are up to their standards. That's okay, they can do that, it's their privilege.

But I don't do that. I want my students to learn the skills that I know and are presenting to them. I want them to be as passionate about the topic as I am, and I can be a little deflated when they're not. We call students every time they are absent, to ensure that everything is okay, and to give them an opportunity to get the work they missed. See, a lot of our students, they may not have experienced a ton of success in the past, and rather than weed them out, they need a gesture of faith.

One of the things that we have, that typical community and public colleges don't have, are mandatory courses for learning basic coping skills. How to learn, how to study, how to use Internet resources to help themselves. "Lifelong learning" is the message. Another big thing is time management. Attendance is a huge emphasis. After all, if you show up for school every time, you're more likely to show up for work every time. So it's not just academic skills, it's career skills. It's learning how to be a professional. It's learning how to organize yourself so you can get everything done. Most colleges can teach you knowledge, but they don't teach you how to be successful. A big part of my job is exactly that, teaching my students how to be successful. Did your college do this? Why not? You see, other colleges just assume you know, or if you don't already have it, you won't ever get it. The despair.com poster about Achievement reads, "Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up."

The inevitable question always gets asked, do people actually get jobs after they graduate? Does their degree mean anything? Funny, nobody asks that about Mizzou, or even St. Louis Community College. I consider my students learning, excelling, and getting a job to be a matter of pride. And I do take it personally when one of my students doesn't get a good job in their field of study. But you know what? Those students who show up for class every day, and do all the work, and strive to be successful? They get jobs.

Not everyone does, of course. Why is that? The Feds and the public universities would like you to think that it's because we don't teach them anything, we just take their money. Overpromise and underdeliver. Well, let's just put the lie to that, shall we? Let's see, why do some students not get jobs?

* Sometimes, the economy sucks. Like now. Tough to get a job of any sort at the moment. It's an employers' job market. And my home city has been leaking corporate HQ's for 30 years. That tends to be where IT jobs are.

* Sometimes, when training for a new career, a student who has been in one job for a long time, making decent money in a job they dislike, can't afford to take the pay cut necessary to get the entry level job in their new field. You really need to plan ahead and rejuggle your financial obligations. Taking a $10k a year pay cut, even for a year or two, is too scary for some people with families to support.

* Sometimes, especially in IT, the folks who are forty-something and up face significant age discrimination. While I see a disciplined hard worker who has paid dues and could be a potential leader, some employers see an expensive, stuck-in-their-ways cost sink who will ask for benefits and resist 80 hour work weeks. It's not fair, but it's out there.

* Sometimes, a student goes their entire academic career putting in the bare minimum. You need a GPA of 2.0 to graduate. But seriously, if you were hiring, would you want someone who eked by with a 2.15? This isn't grad school, where a C is basically failing. Show me someone who graduates from Mizzou or SLCC or even Rolla or Wustl with a 2.15 and I'll show you someone who will have a tough time getting a job no matter what school they attended. The school you attend isn't nearly as important as what you do when you're there.

And there's another reality to education: Not everybody graduates. I've often been perplexed as to why a school's graduation rate is significant to their quality. I always figured that if a school graduated half of the students who start, they're probably doing a fair job. You don't want to drive everyone away, but you don't want to just give diplomas to your students either. If a school has a graduation rate of 25 percent (which I believe was the figure for my alma mater, does that mean they suck and people are quitting to go elsewhere? If anything, it's a sign that they're challenging, perhaps overly so. A high graduation rate doesn't mean a school is doing anything well other than retaining students. It says nothing about why they're staying or what their academic success is. A proprietary school has to weigh retaining students (who pay us, after all) against maintaining standards. Let's say a school on the quarter system has a goal of retaining 80 percent of their students per quarter. After 8 quarters, for an Associate Degree, that works out to a graduation rate of 20 percent. That's not how it works in reality, of course. Any school is going to lose more students in the early quarters, and should be fairly stable in the late quarters. Still, bump the success rate up to 90 percent, and you're still seeing a graduation rate of almost right on 50 percent.

Why do people quit school?

* The most common reason is that they simply decide they don't want to be in school anymore. It's nothing against the school, they just decided they didn't want to attend anymore. Maybe they feel family pressures of working and going to school at the same time. Maybe they decided they didn't like computers after all (though many of these students will choose to transfer to other programs rather than drop outright).

* Every so often, the school does contribute, usually by being inflexible. My school gives courses frequently, and will work with students to ensure they get the classes they need. They'll offer classes in the morning and evening -- in fact, the majority of our classes are in the evening, because many of our students work for a living. Occasionally they'll be given the opportunity to complete a course by independent study, if they meet certain requirements, which can be the difference between graduating on time or not. Contrast that with traditional colleges, whose courses are overwhelmingly in the daytime, and are frequently given on a fixed schedule. At DSU, I fell a year behind to graduate because I missed *one* summer course, because classes are scheduled on a fixed rotation, and not because students need the course.

* Many of the students who are being made to go by Mom and Dad, or who are chronically unreliable, end up getting dropped because of lack of attendance. If you're getting Federal aid, which includes student loans, if you miss class for 3 weeks in a row, the school must drop you, no matter what your grade was at the time. If you get dropped from enough classes, you start running up against an accreditation regulation called "Percentage Time to Completion". Roughly, it means you have to complete around 2/3rds of the courses you attempt. This is the Feds trying to protect their investment in you. If you don't deliver, they don't want to keep giving you money. Very rarely, students flunk out. They cannot maintain the minimum GPA to remain in school, 2.0, and after various levels of probation, must be shown the door. In my experience, academic performance strongly correlates to attendance. That's why all of this is under the heading of "poor attendance". Simply put, you can't learn if you're not here.

* Some students get burned out and have to take time off. That's not an ideal thing to do, since the Feds will start your repayment clock -- after six months out of school, you gotta start paying them back -- but I'd rather my students have their wits about them and in a learning state of mind, and come back after they get their head straight, rather than force themselves to go straight through with their head somewhere else. A great many students who drop out because of stress will re-enter school later.

* Sometimes, bad, bad things happen. In my time here, several students have died. At least one was murdered. At least one committed suicide. Occasionally, students do deeds serious enough to warrant imprisonment. It may shock you to know that, yes, these students are counted against our graduation rate. We don't make the rules.

On the whole, a successful student will be a successful graduate and get a job in their field of study. The hope is that even though entry-level jobs usually don't pay well, after awhile, if you do good work, you'll be rewarded. That is exactly why at my school we focus on learning how to be successful, not just learning the academic stuff. I'm frequently amazed that people on the street are surprised that we teach classes on math (at least three, programmers get four), writing and composition (at least two, more on the Bachelor level), working in groups and public speaking, economics, and creating portfolios and interviewing for jobs. My programmers take a business class. We have classes like ethics, environmental issues, and research methods on the Bachelor level. People usually seem to think these "gen ed" courses only get taught at "real schools", i.e. public colleges and universities, but seriously, think about it, would you want to hire someone without basic math and writing skills? And those other colleges can frequently leverage high school experiences. We get people 10 to 20 years after their last math class.

The people I see most frequently be successful as students and then in their career typically do these things:

* Show up at least 90 percent of the time.
* Do most of the work on time.
* Contact me when they will be absent so I can keep them current in the class.
* Do not believe that homework is something that only happens to other people.

Generally speaking, successful students have turned that key inside their head that says, "I'm gonna do this". I can't do that for them. They have to do it themselves. Like someone having a religious epiphany or an alcoholic finally deciding to quit drinking, the student has to make that decision that they're going to do it for real and not just play at it. That, right there, is perhaps the biggest predictor of future success, in my opinion.

So when the Feds, or "public interest groups", begin making noise about whether or not for-profit colleges do their job, ask them why they're not concerned about traditional colleges and universities. They may start to tell you about loan default rates and graduation rates and what-not, but what do those things really mean? Pin them down. Make them explain the numbers. What's the whole picture? If they want to regulate for-profits, would they be willing to regulate *all colleges*? If the answer is no, then be suspicious. Find out who is punching their meal ticket, where their biases are, and what their true motivations are.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Politics and Religion and Science and Truth

Quick, identify the following quote:

"The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims."

President Obama? Ted Kennedy? Barney Frank? Nope. Try The Treaty of Tripoli. It wrapped up free America's first war, against the Barbary pirates. In 1797.

Contrast this with the advocacy of the Christian voting bloc of the Texas State Board of Education, who for the last decade have been bringing up educational areas for review, which have a profound influence on not only Texas public schools, but the public school curricula of just about every other state in the nation except California and New York. According to board members such as Don McLeroy and current board chair Gail Lowe, their aim is not to force Christianity upon the state so much as it is to restore it from exile. In their opinion, Biblical ideas dominated the creation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. While McLeroy et al. have legitimately drawn ridicule for their attempted elevation of intelligent design and the role of neo-Conservatives like Newt Gingrich, it would be a mistake to dismiss their efforts as the exploits of the lunatic fringe. America is a Christian nation, and it isn't a Christian nation. It was founded on the Christian Religion, and it wasn't founded on the Christian religion. It all depends on who you ask, and which Founding Father you examine. The Founding Fathers were devout Christians -- John Adams, John Witherspoon, John Jay -- except for the ones that weren't. The Founding Fathers were Deists -- Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin -- except for the ones that weren't. As it is with any large gathering of politicians, the Founding Fathers were all over the map when it came to religious orientation and attitudes.

One enduring Constitutional principle since the beginning of the country, enshrined as it is in the 1st Amendment, is the separation of church and state. The phrase itself was actually coined by Thomas Jefferson, after his election in 1800, in his response to a letter from a group of Baptist ministers. Back then, most states had state religions, usually Congregationalist in the north (descended from the Puritans) and Anglicans in the south (descended from the Church of England). Most other Christian denominations were minorities, and treated about like religious minorities tend to get treated. Jefferson expressed his belief that the First Amendment’s clauses — that the government must not establish a state religion (the so-called establishment clause) but also that it must ensure the free exercise of religion (what became known as the free-exercise clause) — meant, as far as he was concerned, that there was “a wall of separation between Church & State.” Religion wasn't trivial to early America. In fact, a lot of early domestic policy depended on it.

This seems to have motivated present-day Christian education activists to propose that Christianity be placed in a prominent position in American history. One recurring theme in Christian activists' advocacy is the concept of American exceptionalism, and their firm belief that Christianity was the driving force behind what made America great. This is the point, though, at which Christian activists overreach and begin illegitimately conflating history with present-day domestic policy. If America is no longer great, it must be because Christianity has been removed from its rightful place as the cornerstone of our country. Now, it is beyond dispute that America was and is a Christian-majority nation, but that is no more extraordinary than the Ottoman or Persian Empires being Muslim-majority. The fall of those empires is no more caused by Islam than any future decline of America would be caused by Christianity or our society's lack of it. Correlation does not prove causation, and one could argue that any religion could have been at the center of America's development.

A primary motivation of Christian activists appears to be a reaction to what they see as overcompensation on the part of secular America to even the playing field amongst faiths. I find it amusing, and a little pitiful, to hear Christians bleat about how they are persecuted in America. They desperately grasp a kernel of truth, that the de-religioning of our government has at times gone too far. Searching the Internet, one can find examples of Christian activities and sentiments being shut out of public facilities. They gleefully trot out stories of how Christian student groups are prohibited from meeting in public school classrooms after school, or how Christian students were ordered to remove crucifix jewelry, or how students were admonished for bringing bring Bibles (or, in one bizarre case, a book by Rush Limbaugh) to school.

One massive mistake that I see Liberals make is that they don't seem to know where along the "separation of church and state" spectrum to stop, and they don't seem to recognize when they're being inconsistent. A lot of their attitudes are not so much secular as they are anti-Christian. One common example I see consists of Liberals roundly condemning Christianity as paternal, closed-minded, authoritarian, hostile to women, homophobic, and unyielding to criticism. And don't get me wrong, Christianity is usually all of those things. However, Islam is also usually all of those things, but I seldom see a Liberal characterize Islam in those terms, or denounce them as harmful to society like they do conservative Christianity. If I were to guess why, I think it is because Islam is a minority religion in America, and Liberals consider criticism of minority viewpoints, especially non-white viewpoints, to be rude. (Although I think its noteworthy to observe that this tolerance does not extend to primarily white-male-oriented minority religions like Scientology. In contrast, Wicca is mostly white, but also predominantly female.) Who are we to criticize?, they maintain. Christians attack Islam, therefore Islam must be defended, regardless of any other considerations.

Part of the reason, I think, is that most Americans, not just Liberals and/or Conservatives, are ignorant of other cultures and religions. But we know Christianity. We know their excesses, their prejudices, their past sins and present vices, and to be progressive means to resist those excesses. Most Americans, myself included, just aren't well-versed in the principles of Islam, so we assume that when Christians attack it, it can't be justified. Obviously they're attacking it because they're bigoted. And perhaps they are. But again, correlation does not prove causation. On the other hand, I know Wicca, and most Americans don't, and then from my perspective, Christian Conservatives' attack on it and Liberals' defense of it makes sense, more or less by accident of course, because I know what I'm talking about when I talk about Neo-Pagan religions in general, and Wicca in particular.

I have, in the past, blogged a bit about my attitude toward Islam. We all have prejudices. The most thoughtful among us, though, don't wish to be bigots. We want to find the truth. This pursuit of the truth can only take place when there is not the spectre of government force hovering over it. If we inject Christianity into public schools, for example, we are automatically throwing a wet blanket over its objective examination. Liberals complicate matters by attempting to bleach the religion out of our public lives. We don't permit Christians to ban non-Christian groups from using public facilities. Likewise, we can't ban Christians from using public facilities unless we ban ALL religions from using them. But if it's okay for a Wiccan student group to meet at school, it must be okay for a Christian student group to meet at school. We do not need to behave unfairly in order to "compensate" for any perceived excesses of Christianity. That is exactly the sort of thing that invites Christian activists to push back and emboldens them to make assertions about "restoring" Christianity to its proper place in history.

The separation of church and state is real. The reason we don't see the word "God" in the Constitution, and the reason we see circumspect references in the Declaration of Independence such as "Creator" and "the laws of Nature and Nature's God" (which I could just as easily interpret as an endorsement of Wicca) is because even the most religious of Founding Fathers were products of the Enlightenment, where Reason was frequently given precedence over Faith, even by the most devout of them. We cannot establish state religions, and we must ensure the free practice of religion, and we must prevent a religious majority from suppressing religious minorities. But most people are not atheists or humanists. They have religious faith and they get pissed off when high-minded Liberals tell them they're primitive and deluded. The imposition of no religion is no more correct than the imposition of Christianity on our public institutions.

We need to have faith that, when people are treated as rational moral agents, they will do the right thing. After 11 years, McLeroy was defeated in the March 3rd Republican primary election, and Dunbar is not running for re-election, so it appears that the wheels are coming off the conservative Christians' cart. They pushed too hard, and Texas voters decided they'd seen enough. They'd had enough of being embarrassed nationally over their science and social studies curriculum debates and the Christian activists' pushing of their agenda. I believe that people want balance in their lives, the right amount of secularism and religion, a recognition that both are important, but an unwillingness to enshrine one viewpoint at the expense of others. The Christian activists on the Texas board had made the same mistake as the secularists before them. They overreached. They mistook the desire for a minor course correction for an endorsement of revolutionary overhaul. It is easy for activists to get elected, but difficult for them to keep their elected offices, because they tend to be ideologues first and thoughtful legislators second. When the backlash comes, they're the first ones bounced.

I have little doubt that the Tea Party Republicans will learn this the hard way very soon.


* Key portions of this article were derived from "How Christian Were the Founding Fathers?" from The New York Times Magazine, 2/14/2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Thursday, March 10, 2011

The Elephant in the Mosque

Today, New York Congress Rep. Peter King (no relation to the CBS reporter) begins hearings today on radical Islam in the United States. He is expected to take testimony from all sorts of people, such as family members of converts to Islam who consequently committed violent acts, as well as the National Intelligence Director. One presumes that members of the American Muslim community were invited to participate, but likely declined because they were reluctant to walk into a Bill O'Reilly-style confrontation, such as Barbara Walters et al. faced when Bill appeared on her ABC talk show, "The View". Bill, in a fit of emotion, blurted out "Muslims killed us on 9/11", to the outrage of a couple of the show's panelists. Certainly, no Muslim would wish to be confronted in the same manner.

I don't know Rep. King, so I don't know if that's something he is likely to do, but that appears to be the fear. Critics are already calling it McCarthyism. Supporters are calling it a common sense response to Obama's own concerns about radicalizing influences in America. It's not like we don't have our own radicals already. We've had a smattering of Christian radicals cropping up every so often, though they seldom blow things up (Timothy McVeigh the exception proving the rule). Usually they'd rather keep to themselves on their own little communes, which is fine with me as long as they're not keeping women as prisoners and having sex with minors. As a Christian-majority nation, we don't have a problem with radical Christianity.

Likewise, there are countries around the world that are Muslim-majority, but strikingly, nearly all of them have problems with radical Islam. Those that don't were, until recently, ruled by secular dictators: Mubarak in Egypt, Ben Ali in Tunisia, and Qaddafi in Libya. All abolished Islamic organizations for reasons of security, national and personal, and used the spectre of radical Islam to rationalize their style of rule. Most other Muslim countries have issues with radical Islam as well, to greater or lesser extent.

Whether or not Islam is an inherently violent religion has been the topic of great debate. A Wikipedia article (yeah yeah I know, work with me here), "Islam and Violence", gives an overview of the ongoing discussion. Some historians have argued that violence in religion is unavoidable because churches wield power and typically believe they have God's favor. We cannot dispute that most religions have instigated violence at various times in history. The Christian endorsement of war can be traced to Augustine of Hippo, whose concept of "just war" was eventually subverted to justify all sorts of aggression in the name of Christ. Likewise, Muslim analysts of the Koran have suggested that the answer to the question, "Is Islam violent?" is "it depends". Like Augustine, the Koran lays out conditions for when violence may be justified, although some may be alarmed at the relative looseness of some of those conditions by Western standards. The nature of jihad has been discussed and debated, and many Muslims have used both to emphasize peace and the "inner struggle" that is an obligation of all Muslims, and in a way that makes it seem that being "not Muslim enough" is enough justification for violence.

It is, then, little wonder that Islam has been perceived by Americans as fundamentally incompatible with American culture. While gestures such as the Oklahoma state legislature passing a law forbidding the consideration of Sharia -- Islamic law -- in jurisprudence have been ridiculed by many as prejudiced, it reflects a real fear among Americans that we are harboring a subculture that benefits from our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights and yet cannot peacefully coexist with those rights in the end. In any given person's mind, perception is reality. That does not mean that their perception is an accurate depiction of objective reality, but it does mean that people will tend to make decisions about threats to themselves based on that perception. The flipside of this is that this gives cover to intolerance and the persecution of people who are different, which the Bill of Rights is designed to prevent.

We've resisted this before. Witness the defense of the rights of Neo-Pagans, especially Wiccans, over the last fifty years. In spite of the clear, if Old-Testament, admonition that "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", Christians do not have carte blanche to murder Wiccans. And in spite of the widespread misbelief that they are agents of Satan, Wiccans have nearly the same rights as Christians in things like child custody cases and the tax exempt status of faith-owned property. Likewise, no part of the Koran should ever have the authority to excuse any number of acts of violence. The Bible is not the supreme law of America, and neither is the Koran. It is the Constitution, and we'd best remember that.

The other side of the argument, that Islam is a peaceful religion misunderstood by a bigoted Christian populace, is just as naive. One cannot wish away the portions of the Koran, explicit and implied, that appear to incite Muslims to violence, particularly against non-Muslims. Muslim countries typically have an absymal record of women's rights, and honor killings (murder of a female family member by a male for perceived sins) are commonplace, even in the most liberal nations, such as Jordan and Turkey. While the meaning of Sharia is wider than most Americans perceive -- it has much in common with Jewish Halakha, rules for living a good life -- Americans are understandably alarmed when they witness purported attempts at applying Sharia law on a national level, only to see it descend into barbarism, such as in Afghanistan under the Taliban. There are an alarming number of issues of conscience whose Sharia penalty is death or dismemberment: criticizing Muhammad, being gay, adultery, polytheism (the former), and theft (the latter). So application of Sharia is something that alarms Americans.

I have, in the past, called Islam a violent religion (see my previous article, Violent Religion Threatens More Violence Over Accusations of Violence). Perhaps I'm mistaken. I, like most Americans, am not an expert on Islam. But as a non-Muslim living in America, I believe the burden of proof lies with Muslims. Just as white people are indicted as racists for not denouncing instances of racism against other groups, Muslims will continue to be indicted as violent for not denouncing radical Islam's violence. Unfortunately for them, criticizing Islam, and how people interpret and practice Islam, can get you killed. Christians have had to tolerate centuries of having the Crusades thrown in their face. Muslims will have to come to grips with the fact that the world views them in the same fashion, and the burden of proof is ultimately on them.

Can Islam be reformed? While there are denominations that nibble around the edges, much in the same way that Christian denominations tweak their approach to the Bible, most do not have meaningful differences. The only major post-Islamic religion is Bahai, whose followers have taken it in the teeth worse than most non-Muslims because of the widespread accusation of apostasy. See, you can convert to Islam, but you can't convert away from it. The penalty, again, is death.

So, what does that have to do with Rep. King and his hearings? This should be treated as a learning opportunity for everyone. That Islam can and does inspire people in this modern age to commit heinous acts of violence against innocent people is something Europe has had some experience dealing with. America, up until 9/11, had not had to deal with Islam-inspired violence much. I don't envy American Muslims right about now. I'd bet that many of them came to America, not to spread Islam, but to flee its excesses elsewhere. A free society needs to keep an eye out for any dynamics that seek to limit that freedom, whether it's radical Islam or Neo-Marxism or Christian-influenced neo-conservatism. In the end, the problem is not about faith, it's about power and the ability to wield it over others.

In that case, Islam is by no means alone.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

More Proof That Sex Makes Conservatives Loony

Two different events hitting local media have underscored, for me, the bizarre love triangle between conservatives, freedom, and sex. In both cases, the typical reaction was "The country is ending because of those wanton Liberals." Both of them involved schools.

Up in Evanston, the "OMFS!" moment occurred at Northwestern University, one of the most selective and highly respected private universities in the country. In the psychology program is a course offering titled "Human Sexuality", which is very popular on campus for reasons I would characterize as "duh, they're college students". Professor John Bailey's class is known for being a bit risque, what with its topic and all. For a discussion on fetishes, the professor brought in a guest speaker, Ken Melvoin-Berg, who had a couple who assisted in the display of sex toys along with video depictions. The woman accompanying the guest speaker expressed the opinion that the orgasm depicted in the video was not realistic and -- here's where it starts getting strange -- offers to demonstrate the device herself.

You can see where this is going. And yes, it went there. The professor postponed the offer until after the class was over, made it clear that the demonstration was optional, and gave anyone alarmed by the idea ample opportunity to leave. To my surprise, some actually did. And then, in front of about 120 of the luckiest students on the North American continent, the woman demonstrated the device, a motorized phallus called a "Fucksaw", stimulating herself to orgasm.

The students who attended all said it was a worthwhile experience that added to the educational value of the course, which I know sounds fake, but they're sticking with their story. The professor admitted to being a little unsure how this was all going to play out, and the school administration was two or three different minds about the whole thing before finally settling on "we support our professors' academic freedom". As you might imagine, the response from the peanut gallery ranged from "awesomeness!" to "Liberals are murdering America with their dildos!"

Several people I saw posting to the article about it on Yahoo News were outraged to the point that they exclaimed if that happened at their children's school, they would pull them out immediately (I suppose suddenly forgetting that college students are typically adults -- legally if not emotionally). I asked a few of them what particularly upset them about the demonstration. None of them replied to me. I suppose the most likely reason they didn't is because they took my question as proof that I was mentally damaged. Some of the more reasoned responses seemed to object to the "animalization" of human beings. They compared the spectacle to studying the large intestine and colon in anatomy class by watching someone taking a dump. While I myself would not wish to witness such a thing, just as some students declined to attend the sex demonstration, I can imagine a plausible scenario where students might watch someone take a dump in the name of education.

In this incident, all of the attendees and participants were adults, 18 or over, who willingly attended and/or participated. Contrary to some critics, it wasn't public sex. A college classroom is not "the public". If you don't believe me, try wandering into one off the street. While the demonstration may have been startling, and was certainly explicit, nothing about it was illegal. Immoral, you say? Now we're crossing from science to religion, and let's face it, anyone who looks at it that way probably objects to the very existence of a course titled "Human Sexuality" anyway.

The other incident occurred closer to home. Here in St. Louis, a public school teacher essentially suspended herself (she requested to be placed on administrative leave) after being outed for the second time in her teaching career by her students for once having made pornographic movies. Even though she stopped making sex videos 15 years ago, she lost a job as a teacher in Padukah in 2006 once her students found out. She fought her termination, but teachers can be terminated without cause within their first few years of employment, so she lost, in spite of overwhelming support for her from the community. She changed her name, moved to St. Louis, and went to work for Parkway North in 2007. This time, when she got outed by her students, I suppose she chose not to fight it, knowing it was pointless.

Once again, the response from the public was mixed. Many responders to the news story on stltoday.com (the Post-Dispatch's web site) screeched at Parkway North for not vetting her properly on her background. Several writers applauded her firing, as if it was some small victory against the Liberal teachers unions. (Never mind the fact that in both cases, the union was unable to help her.) But a significant number of people said, "So what? She's not doing it anymore, she's worked hard to reform her life, and so she should be forgiven." At least in this case, more Christians seem to be speaking up for her. A few people have criticized Parkway North for being hamfisted and short-sighted about the whole thing, and feel that Parkway North should have kept her, or at least reassigned her.

This situation is even more tragic. Here is a woman who regrets what she did, got educated, found religion on top of it, and is trying to make the world a better place by being a teacher. The reaction against her is almost incomprehensible. And yet, there they are, trying to turn this into a "Liberal" thing, or dismissing her efforts with "actions have consequences, too bad she didn't know that". The only glimmer of hope for a just, compassionate community someday is that at least some Christians are willing to forgive her and rise to her defense.

Even if she didn't have regrets -- suppose instead she said "Yeah, I made pornos, so what? I'm not doing that anymore. I've moved on." -- why is this an issue? Making an adult movie is, in every state in America, a legal endeavor. Every sex act in an adult movie is, in every state in America (thanks to the Supreme Court ruling that struck down sodomy laws as unconstitutional), legal. Gateway North's background check didn't turn up anything because there was nothing to turn up. Background checks are for finding out about criminal activity, and there wasn't any. This woman is being persecuted for no good reason, period. Of course, now she has to leave anyway because she's "a distraction". That's a convenient excuse for the school district so they can take the spineless way out. For how long would her past film work be a distraction? Until the novelty wore off. By that standard, Kurt Warner or Rush Limbaugh teaching high school would have the same issue. Would they not be distractions until people got used to having them around?

This too would have passed, and Gateway North would have gotten to keep a good teacher, but they were too impatient and risk-averse. If only she had gotten past her probationary period and gotten tenure, at least she would have had a chance to defend herself, because then the school would have to show cause, and it's not necessarily a given that having made a porn film 15 years ago constitutes "cause". And then the conservatives would have held this up as yet another instance of the excess of teacher's unions. You all know the song by now.