CarolineC’s whereIstand Blog

The use of “God” in governmental oaths and political pledges seems to have two interesting and completely distinct sides. The first is that using God as a reference in such public forums as the Pledge of Allegiance, the swearing in of the President and of Congressmen, oaths in court, and many others, has become incredibly ingrained as part of these rituals—so much so, that for me at least, the “God” part almost slips by without notice of its significance and obvious Christian implication. The second point is how completely inappropriate it is to enforce Christian alliance in the public and political setting. No matter the subtlety of its inclusion, swearing to God should be an active decision and one amended or bypassed according to the person and their beliefs.

When I was growing up, we had to say the Pledge of Allegiance before class began every day. It never even occurred to me what the words actually meant—it just became routine. Just as hearing “do you swear to tell the true, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God” became white noise in criminal TV dramas and courtroom movies. I never thought “wait, what if that person doesn’t believe in God?! That’s not right!” but I also never felt that the oaths or words gained clout or legitimacy through their reference to God.

When I learned about the separation of Church and State, it didn’t take long to see the importance of such a rule, but it didn’t for a moment make me think back to the Pledge of Allegiance or listening to the Presidential induction ceremonies and its allusions to God. Once again, it seemed a harmless ritual, one as void of discrimination as it was of true religion.

But then I began to hear “God” thrown about in more political speeches. And hear stories about the GOP’s financial backing by Christian heavy-hitters. And it became clear the founding fathers had made the distinction between Church and State for a very good reason.

Last year, a bill was finally proposed that said people could use the religious texts of their choice (or lack there of) when swearing in to court. This seems to make sense. If people will feel more obligated to tell the truth if they swear to their god of choice, then by all means, let them swear. But the fact that for years, Muslims, Jews, atheists, (not to mention what I call “Christmas Christians”) etc have all been promising in court in the name of a Christian God to be honest, decent citizens seems to delegitimize the legal process and religion in general. People should only use religion in that situation if they make the conscious decision that their swearing by their faith will in the end, allow us to have more faith in their story.

Similarly, last year, a huge deal was made when Senator Keith Ellison asked to be sworn into Congress using the Koran instead of the Bible. Although it was a choice of all Congressmen how they were inducted, most chose to go with the Christian declaration, and many on Capital Hill and in the media took Ellison’s choice as a sign of immigration issues and threat of aligning with terrorism—when in fact the Senator’s decision should be irrelevant to the “goings-on” of Congress .

If swearing to the Koran makes him do a better job, why would anyone be against him doing so? If you are going to take an oath on a document, it should be with one that is consistent to your faith. Otherwise, what is the point?

Where we get into trouble is when politicians start to believe in the natural inclusion of the Bible into politics and policy. During the “trouble” with Senator Ellison, Senator Duncan Hunter declared that the Bible “is a common bond between the people of the United States…that holds out for the President or the Speaker of the House…right down into our townships.”

This is simply an untrue statement and pretty terrifying that it is held by someone in office. Our country is bound by the freedom of religious diversity, not a single Christian document, and the oaths, pledges, and promises our politicians and we ourselves make in the public setting need to hold true to this principle.

whereIstand Tags

• Should the term “God” be used in oaths?

People go to college to get an education. Obviously. But I think that the goal undergraduate experience has evolved into a complete education—beyond books, theories, and thesis—into a time of self, social, and intellectual development. And that is also why I think that athletes should receive preferential treatment in the admissions process.

Those may seem like two unconnected statements, so let me explain. I think that true excellence in anything should hold weight in the admissions office because just as colleges strive for racial and socio economic diversity, so should they attempt to fill their classrooms with people who have experience and success in many areas of life—even if it seems directly unconnected to the academic experience.

So yes, I think colleges should care if you are really good at soccer, just as they should care if you won the state chess tournament, directed a high school play, or can play Vivaldi on your violin. By assembling a student body where people have learned how to specialize and be great at something, colleges create not only a greater curve for social, individual, and cultural development, but also diverse points of view and ways of thinking within the classroom.

Undergraduate education grows more and more competitive with each year, with many of the top schools sinking to less that 10% acceptance rate. So imagine the admission process at a top tier school: students who apply average 1430 on their SAT scores, are almost always top 5 in their class, and no doubt have solid if not perfect GPAs. How are schools supposed to decide who is going to make the bigger impact on campus, when all empirical, academic data is so consistent? They have to turn to what sets students apart from the rest—and often that is athletics.
I think that athletes have a bad reputation for no contributing to the academic environment or for getting in with lower standards than say, the chess-match champion.

And yes, I have seen my fair share of “jocks” that seem unable to find the door into the classroom, let alone contribute to the conversation inside. But for every dumb, absent footballer, there is a dumb, absent non-athlete. It is just easier for them to hide.

Schools should have academic standards and undergraduate education should not be the training camp for the NBA or NFL, but if you have a student with only a 1500 SAT on their resume and one who scored 1280 but broke the state record in the 800m track race, I think the athlete deserves a second look. Diversity comes in many forms and college is a place to learn how to interact, study, and study with those with experience in many different fields.

whereIstand Tags

• Should student-athletes receive preferential treatment in the admissions process?

I think the role that celebrities are obligated to play in society is dictated by their form of art (or type of celebrity) and the demographic to which they direct their work. To support this idea, think of four the “tabloid stars” of our times: Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Brittney Spears, and Lindsey Lohan.

In my opinion, the former two celebrities are under no obligation to act as role models for the younger generation. Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie first became famous through their notoriety on the party/club scene and by working as runway models—both mediums that are clearly not directed to grab the attention of children or adolescents. Page Six of the New York Post is not exactly the first thing kids grab in the morning and while many may be in tune to the fashion trends, runway pictures and shows are difficult to find immediate access to.

As their fame grew, both girls turned to television and began the Simply Life on E! Network. Yes, this show left (and continues to leave) something to be desired in terms of “role-model-ship,” and we all hope that young girls can aspire to do more than make fun of themselves, each other, and of course, most importantly, everyone else that crossed their path, but this show is on E!. Not Nickelodeon, not the Disney Channel, not network television. And it comes on at 11pm weekdays. Not exactly prime time for the under 16 demographic. If kids are up that late, flipping through obscure cable shows, then a little self-deprecating ditsiness is the least we have to be concerned about.

If little girls have chosen Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie as role models, they have clearly had to work pretty hard to even give them a context in which to be admired. When I was little, I didn’t even know what E! was, care about perfume (another means for Miss Hilton), or search the internet for random pictures of weekend fun on Rodeo Drive.

What I did enjoy however were movies. And music. And this leads me to Brittney Spears and Lindsey Lohan.

Unlike the first two girls, Spears and Lohan are famous because of the support and admiration of teens and kids. “Hit Me Baby One More Time” was a huge hit for a startling undiscerning amount of the world, but her key demographic was young girls ages 10 (!!) to 17.

Similarly, Lohan became a star through early films like “The Parent Trap” and “Herbie Fully Loaded,” starting when she herself was young enough to relate to her main audience and holding their attention through a slew of Disney movies. These two girls were intertwined with adolescent, impressionable kids from the beginning and because their fame is the product of these youth, they are therefore obligated to act as role models to that same group throughout their careers.

Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie on the other hand never gained popularity or made money from that demographic and I think, can be free from this obligation.

whereIstand Tags

• Are celebrities obligated to behave as role models?

I went to public school k-12 and my mother was a teacher in the public school system for 35 years, so education is a matter close to my heart. I fully believe that standardized tests are not an effective tool for measuring students learning because of their socioeconomic and racial bias, their long term effect on the teaching structure of the public schools, and the lack of accountability and consistency across the board when states put No Child Left Behind into action.

The racial and socio economic bias of standardized tests is almost universally—and therefore disturbingly—accepted. A report from the US department of education admitted that “many were wary of the testing provision…and more tests alone would only demonstrate the widely known fact that poor and minority students perform at lower levels.” This trend is clearly not an indicator of racial or class intelligence or potential. First of all, students for whom English is a second language take the exact same test as the rest of the school, which means they enter the test at a supreme disadvantage to their fellow classmates. Of course their test scores are going to be lower—they have to spend have their time translating before they can even get to the content of the exam. Secondly, the very questions themselves are biased towards the white, middle class. Inner city students are faced with questions that involve cultural aspects of white America, once again forcing the rest of the students to go through one more step of understanding—first they have to “de-foreign ize “ the subject “going to the store,” or “taking a beach vacation,” or “mowing the lawn,” etc, before they can start the process of analysis.

The second concern with standardized tests is the long term effect their dominance in the school system has on the teaching and education of students in public schools. There is such pressure to perform well on the tests that schools begin to filter out the other, non tested subjects, such as art, history, science, even P.E (can you say rising levels of childhood obesity?). The five core subjects in education (math, , reading/writing, history, science and art) have been widdled down to two in many schools—or even worse, the latter three are used as reward only for those students who have proved themselves to be proficient on the tests. In a 3rd grade classroom at the elementary school where I grew up, only three students are allowed to learn the “other” subjects, while the rest of their classmates sit in the same room, going over basic reading and math skills, simply because the school is on its last leg in terms of testing performance. Oh and did I mention that that other 32 kids in the class are first generation immigrants from Mexico, trying not only to learn English, but learn it with only one teacher for all 35 students?

It has been mentioned that if the teachers where doing their job correctly, that the tests would be passed anyway, and so teachers shouldn’t have to spend all this time of specific test preparation. But think of the time many high school students spend outside of class preparing for the ACT s and SATs—and then add the pressure the schools and teachers must feel when their salary, fiscal support, and the actual survival of the school itself depends on the results of the exams. The worse your school does the less money the state gives you. Does that make sense??? If anything, shouldn’t schools that are clearly suffering (at least according to the tests) demand more money for more resources to gain ground on the rest of the state? But no. Instead, many rural and ethnically diverse public schools in my home state of Colorado are on the brink of being turned into charter school or worse. I would start prepping my students 9 hours a day for the tests as well.

My final point is that for all their talk of “standardization” No Child Left Behind and the state tests that have followed are anything but consistent. First of all, each state is in charge of creating their own test. There is no federal standard for the requirements of the tests, so a student proficient according to Iowa’s issued exams might fail the tests given by Utah, or vice versa. And since the states are held accountable by the federal government, many states simply react to poor scores by making their tests easier—if all Washington DC wants is a passing grade, why not dumb down the test until the scores go up? The first year that CSAPs (Colorado State Aptitude Tests) were issued, only 14% of our 10th graders were proficient in reading and math. The next year, there was a huge statistical improvement as upwards of 25% of the same grade passed the “same” test. Sounds like good news until you talk to the teachers who just shake their head at the questions of the test, which had become uncomfortably easier.

The final inconsistency I will point out is that the tests track grade levels, not the kids themselves. Therefore, the tests don’t assess the learning curve or educational data of the students at all—it simply compares last year’s 4th graders to this year’s. Different class, different background, different kids.

How is that standardized and how does that measure anything of importance when it comes to the measurement of student learning?

whereIstand Tags

• Are standardized tests an effective tool for measuring student learning?

I have decided what we need in the next President. My proposal isn’t exactly based on candidates view on healthcare, foreign policy, their background or voting record—at least not directly—and so what I have to say may sound sort of superficial and, well, flaky. But I think what this country needs is an icon; a hero; an emblematic figure whose magnetism will be enough to bring this country back together, if under nothing else than from an undeniable pull from the oval office, the likes of which we have not seen in many years.

To put it bluntly: a person who, if they were assassinated or die in office, the country as a whole would be brought to their knees. Wow, that is a morbid way to head to the voting booth.

I guess it is a little strange to evaluate a future leader based on the reaction to their death, but I can’t forget the stories from almost all members of the baby-boomer generation of where they were, or how their parents cried, or how their teachers prayed the moment they heard JFK had been killed. And then I try to imagine a similar situation with the current administration…and I can’t. It would still be a tragedy—that can’t be denied—but would it have the same devastating effect? Would the majority of America feel intense sorrow and loss, on both a human and a political level?

I think American’s need to feel that almost reverent connection again that they felt with presidents like JFK or FDR. When people discuss George W. Bush, you often hear the comment, “yeah, I’m not sure what kind of a president he is, but he seems like a nice person…the kind of guy you would like to have a beer with.” (I personally would not want to have a beer with the man, but that is not the point this time around). To me, this just doesn’t seem right. I am not sure I want the word “nice” to be the most obvious adjective used when talking about the leader of the free world. Brilliant, diplomatic, sharp, logical, even charismatic—those are more the words I think of. Someone we can connect to, not in a “beer drinking” sort of way, but with an unequal relationship, for the president of the United States should not be an everyman, but a person above the fray, able to see into it, but be above it.

At this point, Barack Obama seems to be the candidate most likely to fill this role. He is young, charming, fresh, and speaks with a voice that almost seems to resemble the speeches of the 1960’s counter-culture and civil rights movements. That truly is a huge part of what I am basing this theory on: the voice. It may seem irrelevant at a time of international and domestic crisis, but imagine the places, people, and policies that this voice will dictate. If it can catch a hold of the people through its mere intonation and tone, maybe it can draw the radically partisan sides of the country slightly closer together, maybe even give our leader some respect with other nations.

That said, other candidates have the potential to rise to this position. And maybe I am giving to much credit to the sound of a man versus the words that are coming out of his mouth. But I want to be drawn in with respect for the person elected, overwhelmed with his leadership…instead of tearing off a new version of my “bush-ism a day” calendar for the next four years.

whereIstand Tags

• GeorgeWBush
• BarackObama
• [Open Thread]

My friend sent me a funny card the other day: the cover was just a list of texting abbreviations (LOL, GTG, even, HOHTP), and then on inside, a list of what they stood for (which is how I found out HOHTP means, Hold On, Have to Pee…seriously, it does). The extent of the acronyms was pretty hilarious and since then, I have been texting that same friend using basically only the language of the card, but then I realized: I had gone almost a full week without actually communicating anything real—or even anything using a full word—so while we had been in touch more than ever, I actually had very little idea how my friend was actually doing. All I knew was that, yes, thank goodness, she did LMLAS (love me like a sister).

And I got to thinking about my average day. First, I check the headlines on some standard server like AOL or CNN. But if I read a story, I often head straight for links to YouTube or some other form of visual, image based communication, happy to bypass the rest of the article for the big PLAY button that starts the video.

Then, I go to email, where I write and read in messages where the content usually leave something to be desired and abbreviations and summaries take precedence over that old fashioned notion of complete sentences.

I am lucky I can still read and write at all. But I am 23, so on the sort of “google-cusp” generation, meaning I grew up without the complete influx of these kind of technologies—so what about the kids who are using them all the time, during their early, crucial years of education and development? Maybe they are fine.

But I can’t help but notice how my former grade school in Colorado has seen decreasing scores on standardized testing in reading and writing each year. And last December, I was helping a younger cousin (who by all means had had access to a solid education) and was shocked at the…quality of the essay. It’s not that she is any less smart, it was almost as though the skills and structure for writing were just absent.

Gregory Pence alluded to this issue in the August 6th issue of Newsweek. In his article titled, “Let’s Think Outside the Box of Bad Cliches,” Pence (a professor of bioethics) talks about an experience where he “spent the afternoon not grading essays [as planned], but cataloging the many trite or inaccurate phrases students rely on to express themselves” (Newsweek, August 6, 2007, p. 17). Instead of adapting the formal essay style, the students seemed to have slipped into cultural innuendo, abbreviation and cliché—something that seems tied to the fact that all other forms of modern communication these days rely on just those “tools.”

Pence’s concern was that “clear writing fosters clear thinking,” not always the other way around. So if we by pass the first—with the language of texting, email, and even video—are we going to forfeit the ability to just think in normal words and sentences? Maybe this is an over-apocalyptic view of what could be harmless time savers (I mean, its hard to write with those little cell phone keys, right?), but maybe it’s a cultural change that will impact the way this next generation thinks and can communicate with the world.

whereIstand Tags

• [open thread]
• What effect do technological advancements have on human life?