The Taliban Has Not Changed

Afghan girls go to school in the western Afghan city of Herat on March 23.

When the Taliban returned to power, they promised a softer rule compared with their first regime from 1996 to 2001.

However, the Taliban has returned to its former repressive ways. They have imposed restrictions on women, banning them from many government jobs, policing what they wear, preventing them from traveling outside of their cities, and visiting medical facilities without a chaperone. 

Taliban militants have erected posters in some areas to inform residents of the new regulations. In other places, insurgents have driven around with loudspeakers and made announcements at mosques.

Sara, a 17-year-old student, says the Taliban shut down her school in the district of Aqcha, in the northern province of Jawzjan, after the militants captured it two weeks ago. 

Adeeba Haidari, age 13, feels as if she is in prison. She is one of thousands of jubilant girls who flocked back to secondary schools reopening across the country for the first time since the Taliban seized power in August.

But just hours into classes, the education ministry announced a reversal that left schoolgirls feeling betrayed and the international community outraged.

“Not only me but everyone you asked believed that the Taliban had changed,” said Adeeba, who briefly returned to Al-Fatah Girls School in the capital, Kabul.

“When they sent everyone back home from school, we understood that the Taliban were the same Taliban of 25 years ago,” her 11-year-old sister Malahat added.

“We are being treated like criminals just because we are girls. Afghanistan has turned into a jail for us.”

Read more here and here.

A Muslim Kid with a Clock

Alice C. Linsley

The 14-year old Muslim boy who brought a homemade clock to school was arrested on suspicion of bringing a bomb. The boy was handcuffed and questioned by five police officers at MacArthur high school in Irvine, Texas. Was this over-reaction or proper security?

Ahmed Mohamed

This wasn't a school project. Ahmed said that he wanted to impress his teachers. One teacher said he shouldn't show it to the other teachers. It beeped in 6th period class and he showed it to that teacher. She said it looked like a bomb and reported it. Ahmed said, "From my perspective it didn't look like a bomb."

Here is the statement from one of the White House staff, DJ Patil, on Ahmed Mohamed: 

"Yesterday, a 14-year-old student named Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for bringing his engineering project (an electronic clock) to his high school. Officials mistook it for a bomb.

When I was growing up, my friends and I were fortunate to know how to use soldiering irons, circuit boards, and even a bit of duct tape when nothing else worked. We played, experimented, and learned through trial and error.

The best part? When I brought my work in, my teachers loved it. And that fed my desire to embrace science, engineering, and technology. That learning to play with technology -- that curiosity -- has helped me on every step of my journey so far.

That's why I’m so proud to see people across the country standing up for the innovation and intellectual curiosity that Ahmed has shown.

That includes the President."

President Obama Tweeted:

"Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great."

The President and his wife are known to encourage young people in the sciences. But is this really about education? Would this even have made national news if the boy had been a Christian? The President's praise is for a Muslim boy who the President thinks has been treated unfairly. Would the President have noticed a Christian boy arrested under the same circumstances?

Personally, I think that was a nice gesture on the part of the President. It may soften the boy's trauma at being handcuffed and questioned, assuming Ahmed was traumatized. He strikes me as a young man who enjoys the attention. That is what he wanted when he brought his clock in a briefcase to school.

Richard Dawkins tweeted similar suspicions. Dawkins said: “If this is true, what was his motive? Whether or not he wanted the police to arrest him, they shouldn’t have done so.” In a subsequent tweet, Dawkins said: “Assembling clock from bought components is fine. Taking clock out of its case to make it look as if he built it is not fine. Which is true?

“Yes, there are other reasons why a boy might take a clock out of its casing and pretend he’d made it. Trying to impress teachers, for instance."

Dawkins doubts the boy designed the clock. Yet this young man won a robotics contest in junior high. His family is of Sudanese heritage and his older sister was suspended for reportedly threatening to blow up the school. You would think that Ahmed would recognize that the need for better judgement, but in general teens notoriously are lacking in good judgement.

Ahmed's arrest triggered allegations of racism and Islamophobia from the Left and caution from the Right. Kevin Jackson discussed the Muslim with the clock, insisting that this is a set up; a crying wolf so that next time a Muslim kid brings an electronic device to school in a briefcase people will not react so quickly.

There has since been an outpouring of support for the young man in a NASA T-shirt and handcuffs. Ahmed has received a gift of a Surface Pro 3, a Microsoft Band, a 3D printer, an Office 365 subscription, and much more. These were delivered to him by a Muslim woman Alia Salem who Tweeted: "Enjoyed delivering box of tech goodies gifted by @microsoft to Ahmed! Mashallah!"

Ahmed will continue to receive attention from this incident and much sympathy. Sympathies will swing to Muslims as a whole. Rights groups will jump on this, and the police of this Texas town will likely face litigation for doing their job. Lots of trouble will come out of Ahmed's attention-getting behavior.

Related reading: Why a ninth-grader's arrest struck a cord across America; Ahmed's sister was suspended for threatening to blow up the school; Students say Ahmed's clock looks like a bomb; Facing the Facts About Islamic Extremism

Why North Koreans Can't Write Research Papers

Born and raised in Seoul, Suki Kim posed as an English teacher at an all-male university in Pyongyang run by evangelical Christians; she spent six months teaching the 19-year-old sons of North Korea’s ruling class. In this excerpt from her investigative memoir, she describes the experience.

“Essay” was a much-dreaded word among my students. It was the fall of 2011, and I was teaching English at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology in North Korea. Two hundred and seventy young men, and about 30 teachers, all Christian evangelicals besides me, were isolated together in a guarded compound, where our classes and movements were watched round the clock. Each lesson had to be approved by a group of North Korean staff known to us as the “counterparts.” Hoping to slip in information about the outside world, which we were not allowed to discuss, I had devised a lesson on essay writing, and it had been approved.

I had told my students that the essay would be as important as the final exam in calculating their grade for the semester, and they were very stressed. They were supposed to come up with their own topic and hand in a thesis and outline. When I asked them how it was going, they would sigh and say, “Disaster.”
Read it all here.

Good Friday Denied to Cranston Teachers

For the first time this year, the Cranston Rhode Island school committee eliminated Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and Good Friday as school holidays. Instead, it negotiated a collective bargaining agreement that allows teachers to take up to two days off each school year if they are required to attend religious services during the school day.

AP reports that on Monday the union filed suit because the school system has denied requests from some 200 teachers to take Good Friday off, even though they allowed teachers who requested it to take Rosh Hashanah off last fall. School Superintendent Judith Lundsten says that the Good Friday requests are not covered by the collective bargaining agreement because Good Friday does not require attendance at religious services during school hours. According to the Cranston Patch, the suit claims that the discriminatory denial of religious leave here is a breach of the collective bargaining agreement and a violation of the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

The reasoning of the school committee is flawed. Good Friday is properly a full day of fasting and prayer. It may or may not involve a church service, but it does involve fasting, prayer and quiet contemplation of the Lord's Sacrifice. These activities cannot be done in the context of a routine work day.

Thomas Jefferson's Philosophy of Education

Thomas Jefferson’s Theory of Education

By Andrew Calvert (Grade 11)

            Jack Kerouac, when speaking on the highest level of individual freedom he had known in his life wrote:

“Because the only people for me were the mad ones, the ones who were mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones you never hear yawn or say commonplace things, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous Roman candles, exploding like spiders across the stars.”[1]

            If ever these attributes were embodied in one man, it was in the person, mind, and soul of Thomas Jefferson. He was the scientist, lawyer, author, musician, student, and philosopher-king who wrote the United States of America into existence and who defined what it was to be an American citizen for generations unborn. He was to be America’s lighthouse of wisdom, vanguard of thought and science, and navigator of philosophical waters no man had ever ventured out upon. Jefferson took the mere thought and conjecture of European Enlightenment thinkers and built an American empire upon it. Though many ideals Jefferson held in esteem he did not personally accomplish, he defined what he hoped the future course of America would be. This definition began with education. Thomas Jefferson’s theory of education formed a deeply interwoven epistemology centered around his views on religion, politics, and the essence of human nature. For Jefferson, his educational theory also defined what it meant to possess natural human rights and the drive to impart those rights to all Americans became the sole purpose of the last half of Jefferson’s life.

            Thomas Jefferson was born on April 2, 1743 in Albermarle County, Virginia, to Peter Jefferson and Jane Rudolph.[2] While Jefferson was not born to the wealthiest of families; he was still from a rather distinguished line of descent. His father, Peter, was a self-educated intellectual and the first source of knowledge for a man who would remain a student until his last moments on Earth. After his father’s death in 1757, when Jefferson was only fourteen, Thomas was sent to receive a classical education in Greek and Roman literature and grammar under Dr. James Maury.[3] Maury would give Jefferson the key to unlock prior millennia of thought and philosophical contributions and further the yearning Jefferson had for knowledge.[4]

            By the time Thomas Jefferson decided to attend the College of William and Mary at seventeen, he was extraordinarily proficient in nearly all academic disciplines.[5] B.L. Rayner remarked on Jefferson’s intellect saying that:

“His course was not marked by any of those eccentricities which often presage the rise of extraordinary purpose, but … by that bold spirit of inquiry, and thirst for knowledge, which are the surer prognostics of future greatness.”[6]

            It was during the time that he attended William and Mary that Thomas Jefferson received the three most profound influences on his life and thought. These came in the persons of Dr. William Small, Governor Francis Fauquier, and George Wythe. This intellectual triumvirate often hosted dinners at the Governor’s house where Jefferson once remarked:

“I have heard more good sense, more rational and philosophical conversations [at the Governor’s dinners], than in all my life besides.”[7]

            The crux of Jefferson’s philosophy was formed from these men. Jefferson was endless in his praise of Small, Wythe, and Fauquier. He attributed his “great good fortune” and “what probably fixed all the destinies of my life” to William Small.[8] About Wythe, Jefferson wrote, “No man ever left behind him a character more venerated than George Wythe”, and Jefferson also proclaimed “[Wythe was] honor of his own, and model of future times.”[9] It is apparent then, that to understand the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, which is the intellectual font of his educational theory, the prior philosophy of his mentors and their predecessors must be known.

            Small and Wythe no doubt reflected the predominant philosophy of the 18^th century, which can be generally described as the Enlightenment. In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, growing religious skepticism coincided with watershed advances in science and mathematics that led certain thinkers to question whether man was entirely dependent on God, where mankind obtained true knowledge, and even the very existence of the Christian God.

            Thomas Jefferson based his philosophy on the belief that Christianity was not a perfect source of knowledge or even the only source of truth. Jefferson averred David Hume and Francis Bacon among others in his skepticism of the dogmatic Christian Church. To Jefferson and other Enlightenment intellectuals, Christianity, among other religions, had caused such repeated injuries to mankind that it was not fit to be the basis of civil government.[10] Enlightenment thinkers, following the teachings of Aristotle and subsequent philosophers, sought true knowledge from observation, experimentation, and sense experience since the Church, the only other traditional authority, could not be trusted.[11] This influence on the physical and empirical world led to the proliferation of a materialist worldview that placed scientific knowledge and governmental or political philosophy at the forefront of human understanding.

            However, the humanistic influence on Jefferson does not justify classifying Jefferson as agnostic or atheistic. Jefferson does not deny the existence of God or of some other supernatural Deity.[12] That being said, Jefferson’s skepticism does echo Enlightenment rationale by limiting his Gospel reading to that of Jesus’ direct quotations alone. He saw the followers of Jesus Christ and the subsequent Catholic Church as the source of corruption within Christianity, not Christ himself, whom Jefferson viewed simply as a great moral teacher. Jefferson once very bluntly wrote that Christ’s writings were “as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill”[13] when compared to the writings of the Apostles. While Jefferson did convey an impersonal tone in his discussion of God, it is equally apparent that Jefferson did not go to the extreme of denouncing religion, but denounced the corrupting human influence upon it. Jefferson then, seems to be acting mostly politically when he described himself as “rational Christian”[14] since Jefferson’s personal beliefs do not appear to align with the Protestant Evangelicalism that was prevalent in the United States’ population at the time, as it is today.[15]

            So, after rejecting Christian doctrine and the Church as the sole source of human knowledge, Jefferson had to offer another in its place. The foundation of Jefferson’s educational theory can be seen in one sentence taken from a letter to a younger pupil of his:

“In morality, read Epictetus, Xenophantis Memorabilia, Plato’s Socratic dialogues, Cicero’s philosophies, Antonius, and Seneca.”[16]

            On a superficial level, it appears that Thomas Jefferson is only suggesting sophisticated classics to his student, but his recommendations have much deeper meaning than what is apparent on the surface. All of the philosophers, emperors, and thinkers Jefferson listed belong to the tradition of Stoicism, the belief that a truly educated and intellectual person would not experience the degrading emotions of human life that so often ensnare and entangle mankind, keeping man from reaching the true potential of his life.[17] Among these philosophers are also a number of early materialists and empiricists, who were the origin of the humanistic philosophy that it appears Jefferson is upholding. Jefferson also lists Plato’s Socratic dialogues that teach that Knowledge, above all else, is the prime virtue, that Knowledge precedes all human action, and that Knowledge is the foundation of all the good a man can do in his life.

            When Jefferson’s suggestion of these philosophers is viewed in the context of offering them as moral teachers, his educational theory begins to take its shape.[18] Jefferson was, at heart, saying that in order to live a good life, a person must be educated thoroughly so that he may avoid life’s most harmful experiences, and so that he may have intimate knowledge of “the good”[19] in order that he may perform it. Proper education, then, must begin with those men that first articulated those ideas: the Greek and Roman philosophers. Jefferson also saw this form of enlightened or educated man, as the individual upon which society must be built.[20] Dumas Malone, the chief biographer of Thomas Jefferson’s life described Jefferson’s belief when he stated:

“He was convinced that only an enlightened society was capable of genuine self-government and that no ignorant people could maintain their God-given freedom.”[21]

            It is at this junction that Thomas Jefferson tied proper education to the realization and preservation of natural rights. Jefferson defined these rights as “derived from the laws of nature and not as the gift of the Chief Magistrate [George III]”.[22] According to Colombia University historian Adrienne Koch, Jefferson’s views on natural rights could be described as:

“…the living individual creature who issues from the hand of the Maker with the right to live, to work, to realize and enjoy the fruits of his work, to govern himself by choosing his own type of government by law, which is to operate on the soil which he has made his own…”[23]

            With Jefferson’s well known usage of phrases like “inalienable rights”, it is easy to assume Jefferson believes that the natural rights of man are present from his first breath until his last. However, this is not a complete analysis of Jefferson’s thought. When Jefferson stated that government should be built upon the enlightened, he tied his belief in government as a natural right to his belief in government being the right of the educated. Therefore, government is a natural, God-given right of the enlightened, for only the enlightened are capable of exercising their natural rights justly. This is not an elitist view, but one grounded upon honest logic.[24] An uneducated populace would be unable to govern themselves, or in Jefferson’s own words:

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”[25]

            The question of the chronology of natural rights is not, then, a clear cut one and the argument could be reasonably made that Thomas Jefferson sees natural rights as only being actualized in the thoroughly enlightened individual.

            In lieu of this, Jefferson offered two core principles of education, according to former Princeton University president William G. Bowen. Those are that “...educational theory was inseparable from political theory”[26] and that “freedom in all of its forms—political freedom, religious freedom, and intellectual freedom—was essential to both a sound educational system and a well-functioning ‘Republican polity.’”[27]

            To pull the different strands of Jefferson’s thoughts together before proceeding any further, Jefferson’s view was that education, which is paramount in securing man’s natural rights, is inseparable from political education because the role of government is the preservation of those natural rights secured by the enlightened, but also that education must be separate and free from hegemony by one religion, since that system can be schismatic and destructive to society.[28]

            It was with these ideals in mind that Jefferson expounded his educational theory from his own mind into the world around him, and it was this venture that brought Jefferson from the prime of his life through his last half century. Jefferson’s quest began on June 18, 1779 with the drafting of Jefferson’s Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge.[29] The Bill was a preventative measure on Jefferson’s part to ensure that the freedoms the fledgling nation was fighting for would not be quickly lost or forgotten. Even though it did not pass, Jefferson’s Bill was an early outline of the system of education he would advocate throughout the remainder of his life.[30] The first level, or grade[31], of schooling would consist of Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and the reading of ancient Greco-Roman works to serve as historical education.[32] This curriculum was replaced in a second grade by Languages, Mathematics, and Philosophy, with Philosophy being defined as Ideology (which Jefferson associated with the French definition more closely associated with Science than with Metaphysics[33]), Ethics, the Law of Nature and Nations (Political Philosophy), Government, and Political Economy.[34] The third, or professional grade, consisted of Theology, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, Surgery, Architecture, Military and Naval Projectiles, Technical Philosophy (more closely associated with Metaphysics), Rural Economy, and the Fine Arts.[35]

            In his Bill, Jefferson also outlined a hierarchical structure to education, with all students, male or female, being admitted without charge for three years to the public schools within their ward[36], and the highest achieving echelon of those students being transferred to the university or college level with others being discontinued from the school system, in hopes that, at the end of what we would refer to as secondary school, only the most elite intellectuals of the state would be admitted to the College of William and Mary.[37]

            During Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, his ideology took another step towards fruition. This began with the founding of West Point in 1802, but Jefferson sought much more than a mere military academy. He strove to establish a state university that offered education to the highest intellectuals of the American populace, in order that they might serve the remaining population through sound government and advancement of knowledge.[38] The Albermarle Academy, which Jefferson saw as the next tangible opportunity to further his educational theory was a beginning step, but was not broad enough in its reach to accomplish Jefferson’s vision.[39] Not accepting defeat, Jefferson petitioned for legislation that would create lower tier public schools in Albermarle County which would then feed into the newly christened Central College (a rejuvenated Albermarle Academy).[40] This legislation, which would have placed the financial burden on taxpaying citizens currently over-encumbered by a severe drought, was not passed. The proposition would be revisited again and finally passed on January 25, 1819.[41] This was the first major step towards what would become known as the University of Virginia.

            In 1819, Thomas Jefferson’s life’s work was accomplished. The University of Virginia obtained a charter from the state legislature that affixed it atop the state’s hierarchy of public schools and proclaimed Thomas Jefferson as its father.[42] The immediate ramifications were important, but the philosophical implications were truly profound. Thomas Jefferson had, in his seventy sixth year of life, achieved the realization of the sum of nearly two and a half millennia of thought. He had obtained for the United States of America a universally accessible system of thorough public education. It is critically important to remember what forces drove Jefferson to an almost lifelong pursuit that culminated in the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.[43]

            Thomas Jefferson had, in his view, obtained the salvation of his country. Jefferson had given the gift of thorough, right-minded, free-thinking education to Virginians that would allow them to claim their God-given natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson had redeemed his constituents and countless generations of Americans by raising them to the ability to truly own their rights, something that only the aristocratic classes of the Old World had previously obtained. Jefferson now offered true human citizenship and identity to the citizens of the United States.

            Thomas Jefferson’s theory of education, then, is one that was layered with strata after strata of philosophical thought and reasoning that, when viewed through Jefferson’s epistemological lenses, made the founding of UVA absolutely imperative. In offering the mission of UVA and his educational system as a whole, Jefferson was quoted as saying:

“This institution [the University of Virginia] will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor [afraid to] tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”[44]  

            Jefferson’s theory of education, at its very core, was not merely the reading the Greco-Roman classics, or being well-rounded in thought. Jefferson’s theory of education was the process by which men could come to “…hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”[45]

            Near the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson, in his own Autobiography, asked himself, “Is my Country the Better for my Having Lived at All?”[46] The conclusion that must be drawn is that Thomas Jefferson not only lived, but he burned through his life like a supernova echoing throughout the cavernous voids of the heavens, never ceasing, but resonating throughout the Universe in a myriad of forms.  Jefferson’s thought is similarly omnipresent in modern America, ranging in influence from a drizzle of nostalgic remembrance, to an intellectual deluge; the kind of gully-washing thunderstorm all too common in the dog days of a Virginia summer.

Works Cited

Addis, Cameron. Jefferson's Vision for Education, 1760-1845. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 2003.

Gish, Dustin, and Daniel Klinghard. Resistance To Tyrants, Obedience To God. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013.

Kerouac, Jack. On The Road. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1959.

Koch, Adrienne. The Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1943.

Malone, Dumas. The Sage of Monticello. Boston, MA: Little Brown and Company, 1892.

National Intelligencer. 8 August 1776.

Okeshott, Michael. "Two Treatises on Government." Two Treatises on Government: By John Locke 5 (1962): 100. Accessed November 11, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3020511?uid=2134&uid=3739656&uid=2129&uid=2484590587&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=2484590577&uid=3739256&uid=60&sid=21105174660713.

Rayner, B.L. Sketches of the Life, Writings, and Opinions of Thomas Jefferson. New York, NY: A. Francis and W. Boardman, 1832.

Wagoner, Jennings. Jefferson and Education. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

"The Declaration of Independence." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.

---

[1] Kerouac, Jack. On The Road. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1959.

[2] Rayner, B.L. Sketches of the Life, Writings, and Opinions of Thomas Jefferson. New York, NY: A. Francis and W. Boardman, 1832. Page 19.

[3] Rayner, Page 21,

[4] Rayner, Page 21-22.

[5] Rayner, Page 22.

[6] Rayner, Page 22.

[7] Wagoner, Jennings. Jefferson and Education. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Page 22.

[8] Rayner, Page 23.

[9] Rayner, Page 24.

[10] Gish, Dustin, and Daniel Klinghard. Resistance To Tyrants, Obedience To God. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013. Page 23.

[11] Gish, Klinghard, Page 23.

[12] Koch, Page 39.

[13] Koch, Adrienne. The Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1943. Page 23.

[14] Koch, Page 25.

[15] Koch, Page 35.

[16] Koch, Page 7.

[17] Koch, Page 7.

[18] Koch, Page 7.

[19] Jefferson most likely viewed “the good” very differently than Plato, whom this phrase is referencing, did.

[20] Malone, Dumas. The Sage of Monticello. Boston, MA: Little Brown and Company, 1892. Page 15.

[21] Malone, Page 15.

[22] Koch, Page 135.

[23] Koch, Page 136.

[24] Okeshott, Michael. "Two Treatises on Government." Two Treatises on Government: By John Locke 5 (1962): 100. Accessed November 11, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3020511?uid=2134&uid=3739656&uid=2129&uid=2484590587&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=2484590577&uid=3739256&uid=60&sid=21105174660713.

[25] Wagoner, Page 19.

[26] Wagoner, Page 9.

[27] Wagoner, Page 9.

[28] "The Declaration of Independence." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.

[29] Wagoner, Page 34.

[30] Wagoner, Page 35.

[31] These grades did not directly correspond to age as in modern schools (i.e. 6^th grade for 12 year olds, 7^th grade for 13 year olds) but grades are only graduated from after content mastery had been achieved.

[32] Wagoner, Page 35.

[33] Koch, Page 68.

[34] Koch, Page 58.

[35] Malone, Page 243.

[36] A term used by Jefferson referring to a system of urban organization that was never implemented (square townships of approximately 100 square miles each).

[37] Wagoner, Page 38.

[38] Addis, Cameron. Jefferson's Vision for Education, 1760-1845. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 2003. Page 25.

[39] Malone, Page 242.

[40] Malone, Page 247.

[41] Malone, Page 21.

[42] Malone, Page 21.

[43] read hereafter as UVA.

[44] Wagoner, Page 9.

[45] The National Intelligencer. 8 August 1776.

[46] Koch, Page 189.

Saying Goodbye

Alice C. Linsley

Endings produce mixed emotions. Certainly that is the case for me as I close the door on a relationship with Midway College where I have taught as an adjunct for twelve years. The first eleven years were wonderful, but this last year was disastrous.

Five years ago I was asked to develop an online course for Midway College on the History of Ethics. I spent the summer break doing the research and writing an eight-week course that covered key ethical concerns from 3000 B.C. to the present. It was a course I loved teaching and each year I made small changes to improve the course. The improvements included images, color, subheadings, hot links, related readings, and lesson summaries. The course grew in popularity. The student evaluations of the course included comments like these:

"This class was very interesting! The professor was very interactive and provided tons of feedback."

"I really enjoyed the class. The instructor was very attentive and answered my questions in a timely manner."

"This class was very interesting and kept my interest the entire semester. It was probably my most favorite college course I have taken."

Last Fall I was under contract to teach the course again, but to my dismay when I went online, the course was not the course I had developed. Instead there were eight cut-and-paste, very dry, lessons beginning with Aristotle. (My course began with archaic communities.) I communicated with the college contact person and asked to have my course restored. The course was to launch one week later. After some conversation with the Dean of Humanities, it was agreed that I should be allowed to teach the course that Midway had paid me to develop and which I had taught for the past five years. However, Midway no longer had that course because it was posted on a platform with a company the college stopped employing as a cost-saving measure. That meant I had to reconstruct the course, which I did, staying one week ahead for the students. This extra work was in addition to teaching six classes at another school. My stress level was high, but the course was improved even more. I was told that this would be the "approved" Philosophy 301 course and I was asked to teach two sections of the course in the Spring 2014. I agreed to do so, confident that the new, updated course would stimulate students to think more deeply about key ethical concerns throughout the ages.

Spring came and I went online to check the Philosophy 301 course and again I found that it had been changed. This time the material was even worse than the first change. Once again, I contacted the Dean of the Humanities Department. I was already under contract to teach the course, but I explained that I could not teach such an inferior course and asked the college to restore the course that I had re-written and which had been approved the previous semester. This request was met with silence and the course launched.

Only lessons 1 and 2 of my work were retained.  All the other lessons were short shallow essays and YouTube videos. However, whoever decided to make the changes kept my original quizzes and final exam which were based on the readings that had been removed. Talk about confusing! The students were emailing me like crazy. Again I appealed to the Dean of Humanities to restore my lessons, but no response. This time I copied the message to the college President and to the Academic Dean. No response from anyone! So I took the lessons that were missing and I posted them at Philosophers' Corner and I messaged my students to be sure to read those lessons before they took the weekly quizzes and final exam.

I also emailed the Dean of Humanities, who is the party responsible for the Philosophy courses. I explained that this would be the last course I would teach for Midway College and she finally responded! Her two-word message was, "Thank you."

This ending has left me with feelings of anger, frustration, disappointment and sadness. I tell this story because Ethics Forum started almost seven years ago as a resource for my Midway College philosophy students. As I am no longer teaching Philosophy on the college level, this blog will no longer be active. The last post will appear on June 30, 2014.

It is with regret that I now say goodbye to readers and thank you for checking this blog regularly for the latest news and developments in Ethics and Moral Philosophy. I am grateful for the years of interaction with you and for your thoughtful comments. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors!

Alice C. Linsley

Harvard's New Honor Code

Michael Cook

Did you know that Harvard, America's oldest, richest and most prestigious University has just endorsed its first-ever honour code? This is a polite way of saying that that there is so much cheating in a university overflowing with geniuses whose motto is Veritas (truth), that a whole new bureaucracy had to be set up to deal with it?

The move for an honour code came after nearly half of the 279 students who enrolled in an introduction to the workings of Congress were caught cheating a couple of years ago. Harvard being what it is, a good handful of these could end up in Congress at some stage.

"The impact will probably be small," one of the students who sat on a committee which drafted the code admitted, "but I think over time it will help to create that culture shift where people really value academic integrity and personal integrity."

How much time will be necessary, do you think? This unintentionally hilarious remark reminds me of the Groucho Marx quip: the secret of success is sincerity; fake that and you've got it made. Isn't there something sad about this divorce between IQ and ethics? As I recall, some of those smart guys at Enron went to Harvard. Oh well, the honour code is going to change everything.

Related reading:  Harvard's Dance With the Devil; Academic Integrity: What's That?; Cheating to Get Into Business Schools

Spanish Teacher Stabbed to Death in Leeds

A teacher has been stabbed to death in front of pupils inside a school in Leeds.

Spanish teacher Ann Maguire, 61, was taken to hospital following the attack but later pronounced dead.

A 15-year-old boy was detained by teaching staff at Corpus Christi Catholic College and later arrested.

A pupil at the scene told the BBC that children were seen screaming and running from a classroom following the attack.



Lauren PottsBBC News, Yorkshire

At a school well regarded by the pupils milling around outside, it seems none of them can quite believe the tragic events that unfolded today.

A student sits on the pavement in tears while others cautiously approach to lay the first of what is likely to be many floral tributes at the gates of Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds.

A distraught woman stands at the roadside, inconsolable at the loss of the teacher she called a friend.

Talking to those gathered at the Neville Road school, 17-year-old Aine Arnold summed up the feeling amongst her peers.

"She was lovely, I can't believe that anyone wanted to do something so horrible."

Ch Supt Paul Money of West Yorkshire Police said the victim received a number of stab wounds and a knife was recovered from the scene.

He said the 15-year-old pupil was detained by other teaching staff and arrested in connection with the stabbing.

"The incident itself was over very quickly and no other pupils or staff were threatened or injured. However this has clearly been a very traumatic situation for those involved," Mr Money said.

He said the attack was an "unprecedented event" and schools in Leeds were "generally very safe places" to work and study.

Read it all here.

Schools as Sexual Playgrounds

By Kevin Ryan

If students attend schools which are run as sexual playgrounds, is it any wonder if they fail to learn?

Over the last three decades, social scientists, educational researchers, and pundits have probed for the reason why educationally the US on the fringe of being a Third World country. In particular, why does the academic achievement of American students begin to fall off during junior high and plummet during the high school years?

The “failure theories” are many: our schools are too big; our schools are too small; our school year is too short; our school day is too long; our teachers are too dumb or too lazy or under paid; our parents don’t care; we don’t give the schools enough money. Critics endlessly opine that our students don’t have enough arts, enough sports; enough science, enough math. They don’t have enough homework; they have too much homework. What is being missed from the analyses is the teenagers’ elephant in the room, their Kim Kardashian at the Sunday school picnic: sex.

Read it all here.

Related reading:  Sexual Abuse of Adolescent Boys; McCain Right on Illinois Sex Ed; Einstein Was Right About Education; Straight Talk on Public Education

Malala book launch stopped in Pakistan

Malala Yousufzai

PESHAWAR: A ceremony to launch Malala Yousufzai’s book ‘I am Malala’ scheduled at the University of Peshawar on Tuesday was stopped by the university after intervention by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

The Bacha Khan Education Foundation (BKEF), Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO) and Area Study Centre had planned the ceremony.

“It is against the spirit of freedom of expression and promotion of education because holding a ceremony in honour of Malala Yousufzai means to scale up awareness about child rights,” Dr Khadim Hussain, director of the BKEF, told Dawn.

He said they had been informed by police late on Monday that they could not provide security for the programme.

“I was stopped by many people, including ministers, the vice-chancellor, registrar and police, from holding the programme,” Area Study Centre’s director Sarfraz Khan said.

Source: Pakistan Dawn


Related reading:  Malala's Book Expected to Make Millions