I didn’t mean to suggest that you’re ignorant any more than I’m sure you meant to suggest that I am silly.

I’m only saying that it seems to me that you don’t really know much about this, which is fine. There are many topics about which I am ignorant also (some would say politics is one of them).

If you did know about it, you would understand that the hiring process in academia is remarkably uniform. If you’ve had experience or been around the process of hiring professors, then I happily recant.

Whether you want to call me names or not is irrelevant. Hiring practices are pretty generalized even if slightly different. You’re saying that academia has a super-secret cool and better way of hiring someone? I find that difficult to believe. Simply calling me ignorant does not change the situation. I’m glad your university does that. However that is not the case with all of them.

You can’t compare the hiring process in academia with the private sector, and I assure you that if a person keeps their politics to themselves, there is no reliable way for a hiring committee to get at that sort of information. To suggest otherwise only exposes your ignorance of how professors are hired.

Fortunately, at the university I attend graduate students are very involved in the hiring process, and I honestly couldn’t tell you with any certainty anything about the political views of the 15-20 job candidates I’ve seen give job talks.

Congrads on your grades. Like I said, I got bounced from my Education School because I asked uncomfortable questions that went against
ideology. Even in the Masters degree that I got, Library Science, I got a D in a class because I disagreed with a professor making political comments that had no purpose in the classroom. Sorry, but I don’t buy your argument. David Horowitz wrote a pretty good book on this problem called “The Professors.”

Ok, regarding history, let’s use your examples to illustrate my point. Yes, Napoleon lost at Waterloo, but who won (or one could even ask how and why Napoleon lost)? Was it Wellington and the British, who withstood French attack after attack, or was it the timely arrival of the Prussians? Depending on who you ask, you’ll get different answers. Also, bear in mind the actual name of the battle itself is open to interpretation. Wellington coined it Waterloo because it sounded British. The Prussians called it the Battle of La Belle Alliance to signify that it was an allied victory. The French called it the Battle of Mont St. Jean. Who’s right? Who’s wrong?

To say that Hitler was a monster is one thing, but compared to what? As bad as Hitler was, Stalin was arguably much worse. Certainly more people died under Stalin than Hitler (though Stalin didn’t let race get in his way of slaughtering millions). Let’s face it, everyone talks about Hitler (and they should), but no one ever talks about Stalin. That goes back to leftist academia. Anything regarding Soviet Russia from the 60s through the 80s was met with a curtain of silence. Read through history journals of that period and there is very little on it. However, during the same time period (and even now) there are plenty of articles lambasting this country and all of its evils. Cripes, look at the 80s when academia had their panties in a bunch with Reagan. If one listened to them, Reagan was the anti-Christ. We hear a lot about American evil in Vietnam, but next to nothing on the Soviets in Afghanistan (or for that matter the North Vietnamese handling of the South after 1975).

Pearl Harbor might have brought the US into the war, but there are many ideas of how Pearl Harbor came about. Some say that the Japanese were just aggressive and we were just in the way. Others say that we had it coming (kind of like the leftists said after 9/11) because we threatened a trade embargo on Japan. Who’s right? Who’s wrong?

One does not necessarily have to literally turn history on its head. It can be changed in many tiny ways so that certain truths are hidden (this is true on both sides) and forgotten.

Come on, the BCE thing occurred because most professors are generally leftist in nature and to use BC goes against their ideology. I would argue that the world wasn’t majority Christian, well, ever (it still isn’t). But it didn’t seem to be a problem then. Why change it now and what is the real purpose of that change?

Ok, let’s take a look at what your state and region argument. I live in a Northeast state and I can tell you that there are major educational problems. I think the idea of NE good/ S bad is outdated. One also has to remember that Virginia, North Carolina and Florida went to the Democrats this year (the start of a trend, perhaps?) and even traditionally midwestern states (cuz they’re such “yokels” too) such as Indiana and Ohio went Democratic. Also, you simply look at presidential results. Who are the state senators or even representatives? I think that gives a clearer answer than simply red versus blue. I think the picture overall for education is pretty bad, so I won’t limit it to a region or a state.

Actually, hiring committees do ask questions to potential prospects that may seem innocuous, but end up telling the committee volumes on their ideas. I’ve seen it firsthand. One doesn’t need to wear a Rush Limbaugh t-shirt. A committee can simply ask around (I mean one does have a history, right?) to see how the person acted before. That’s pretty basic in any hiring process, period. To say otherwise is simply silly.

None of us are born with critical thinking skills. We all have to be taught, and that is what our public education systems should be focused on. As others have already pointed out, an educated, critical electorate is the only hope for any democracy.

My sister teaches 5th grade in Kansas, and in that grade they are tested on reading. So, guess what. From the first day of school through about mid-April, when the tests are administered, she has been instructed by her principal and superintendent to teach nothing but reading comprehension. No math (they get that in 4th grade), no social studies (sixth grade), no science (7th grade) until after the tests, with about five weeks of school left. What is particularly troubling about this is that her school was recognized by the federal government in 2006 for being one of the best 200 elementary schools in the US based solely on test scores. And in the meantime the children in that school are being primed to fail by this ridiculous system.

I don’t know which four year college or university hires history professors who don’t have a PhD in history (not education), but if that’s the case then that professor was probably hired decades ago. In fact, it is becoming increasingly rare for 2 year colleges to hire history professors who aren’t at least ABD.

Graduate programs in history are very rigorous; it takes the average student 7.8 years to complete a PhD. I’m currently four years into a program, and I easily have four years left. Believe me when I tell you that no one would go through this process if they could get a job without a PhD.

I’m not burying my head in the sand, I’m trying to reconcile the experiences I’ve had in higher education with the experiences you’re describing. The experiences I’ve had in political science classes and history classes has not been wholly leftist, and when I’ve encountered professors who I disagree with, I have generally enjoyed a hearty debate over things. My grade certainly never suffered because I disagreed ideologically with my professors; I’d even argue that it made my papers better because I had to ensure that my arguments were near bulletproof. But I digress.

I would certainly agree that history is written by the victors, but I think that saying the “left” had won years ago is just silly. History can be interpreted, but Napoleon still lost at Waterloo in 1815, Hitler was still a monster, and Pearl Harbor still spurred US involvement in WWII. There’s no leftist conspiracy there. Saying the swap from BC to BCE is indicative of a leftist agenda is making a mountain of a mole hill. From an academic standpoint, perhaps they thought that the evidence for Christ was slim, but the evidence of a Christian Era was pretty strong. It’s not an ideological assault, it’s a simple redefinition based on evidence. Or maybe they just felt like unbolting the Gregorian calendar from Christ because 75% of the world doesn’t believe he was the son of God. That seems like a rational decision, no?

Your condemnation of the public education system as it relates to English literacy is correct in its statement that the execution is often flawed, but blaming that on the left is nonsensical. If it were solely a leftist problem, then why is the staunchly conservative South generally last in educational development? Why is the ultra-liberal Northeast highest? What’s up with West Virginia? Pretty conservative, not known for educational excellence. Are you going to tell me there’s some sort of leftist agenda to keep educational standards down in states which would traditionally support conservative candidates?

Most conservative thinking was in spite of, not due to, the American educational system. I didn’t come to be a conservative due to my educational experience, but in spite of it. I was able to ask hard questions when I was in Education School that the professors didn’t like. That’s why I was essentially booted from the program despite the fact that I outperformed my classmates in understanding history (which should be but isn’t a critical part of social studies). And yet, the stupid people were the ones who graduated because they swallowed the ideology hook, line and sinker. These are the people who are teaching in today’s pre-college schools. People like my classmate, who called me up one early evening to ask me if I knew where the Ohio River was (she was doing a geography project for her student teaching the next day). People who know little to no history or geography are now teaching the next generation. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

The reason for this is because social studies is an interpretive subject. In math or science, there are hard laws that one simply cannot ignore. There is no ideological way to get around the Pythagorean theorem. It’s there and it has to be adhered to.

However, English and Social Studies are highly subjective. History is written by the victors, so to speak. The leftists won that battle decades ago, so they decide what goes into the history books. If you don’t believe me, then explain why BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini or the year of our Lord) are now BCE (Before Christian Era) and CE (Christian Era). To put things in perspective, I am not religious at all, but it does seem rather creepy that the powers that be are changing things gradually to fit an ideological agenda. Those terms (among others) now inundate history books written by history scholars.

The same thing is happening with English. English teachers, in their haste to try to teach the students anything in order to get them to read, now leave out basic grammar and spelling skills (again, if you don’t believe me, just look at any reply post on blogs and you’ll see plenty of evidence). But English is also a “white” language, so we don’t want to teach students that. That’s racist. Try Ebonics instead. Yes, there are cultural implications to this subject as well.

Obviously, I can throw facts at you until I’m blue in the face and I’m not getting through. So be it. If you want to bury your head in the sand, then that’s what you’ll do.