By reducing "diversity" to something as shallow and meaningless as appearance, they reinforce the most dehumanizing stereotypes of all -- those that treat people first and foremost as members of racial, ethnic, or social groups. Far from acknowledging the genuine complexity and variety of human life, the diversity dogmatists deny it. Is it any wonder that their methods so often lead to unhappy and unhealthy results?I think Jacoby is overdoing it here. I don't know why textbooks need to have so many illustrations and photographs in them in the first place, but that's a different issue. If you are going to fill up the pages with pictures of kids instead of useful information and analysis, you might as well display diversity and of course you should avoid the stereotypes.
When I went to school, we were constantly looking at pictures of Dick, Jane, Sally, and Mother and Father, and they were all white and complete stereotypes of the blandest possible middle class American life. The diversity pictures of today are just a variation on the idea well-meaning adults have that they must feed inoffensive pablum to kids. I don't see how it's unhealthy in the way Jacoby is talking about though. We're talking about pictures. Of course, they're going to show what things look like on the surface.
There is another, more serious matter that Jacoby touches on, which is the manipulation of the text to favor "diversity" stories:
[W]hen reality conflicts with political correctness, reality gets the boot.I'm taking that phrase "on occasion" to mean Jacoby didn't encounter enough of this sort of thing to highlight in his column. (Note what he does highlight: the terribly unshocking news that the children photographed in wheelchairs are often models who aren't -- as Jacoby politically incorrectly puts it -- "confined to wheelchairs.") There's nothing wrong with finding some heroines and heroes to offer some special inspiration to some children. But you can't do it too much or it's just obvious propaganda that isn't even going to work. It's fine to get out the message to young kids that, for example, a black woman can be a pilot.
So, on occasion, does historical perspective, as for example when a McGraw-Hill US history text devoted a profile and photograph to Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman pilot -- but neglected even to mention Wilbur and Orville Wright. "A company spokesman," the Journal reports dryly, "said the brothers had been left out inadvertently."
When I went to school there was nothing like that. In fact, I was never given a shred of information that women could do anything not traditionally female. I can tell you horror stories, like the way my trigonometry teacher advised me not to take calculus because it's "for engineers" -- without the slightest acknowledgement that I might consider becoming an engineer (and I was the best student in her class).
But a textbook shouldn't be stuffed with inspirational material. It should make the subject itself an inspiration. Showing me a woman pilot is one thing, but making aviation fascinating is much more effective (and educational). Seeing a lady in a lab coat smiling at a test tube might tip you off that a woman can be a scientist, but the textbook ought to engage students to read and understand the science itself. A kid ought to decide to become a scientist out of real interest in science, not because she has become enamored of the image of herself as a scientist.
If you want to talk about happiness -- few things can make you as happy as genuine, deep interest in your work. Quit luring us into the shallow, narcissistic existence where we only think about how we look doing something. Make us see what is so intrinsically compelling about the work .
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From the article: "Well, you can always do what Houghton Mifflin does. The well-known textbook publisher keeps a wheelchair on hand as a prop and hires able-bodied children from a modeling agency to pose in it. It keeps colorful pairs of crutches on hand, too -- in case a child model turns out to be the wrong size for the wheelchair."
Perhaps the black female pilot, featured in the article, wasn't, you know, black, but from the same modeling agency.
Notice, that he also pointed out that your university also docktered a photo to include a black man in the picture, that wasn't originally there.
I thought his article was about what lengths the PC crowd will go to, to show diversity.
Well said!
I refer you to the words of Fabian Nunez speaker of California's Assembly:
"The real purpose of SB 1437 is to outlaw traditional perspectives on marriage and family in the state school system."He continued, "The way you correct a wrong (perspective) is by outlawing.’Cause if you don't outlaw it, then people's biases tend to take over and dominate the perspective and the point of view."
And this is not just a problem for California, because California drives the textbook market, and policies here effect the rest of the country.
Nunez's candor unwittingly exposes two tenets of the far left:
1) The use of public schools to inculcate and indoctrinate our children in their farleft ideology.
2) The need for Liberals and other leftists to silence their opponents rather than engage them.
Notice, that he also pointed out that your university also docktered a photo to include a black man in the picture, that wasn't originally there.
As reported here. Boy was that a clumsy photoshop.
I'm taking that phrase "on occasion" to mean Jacoby didn't encounter enough of this sort of thing to highlight in his column
I don't know if this is obvious or not, but the linked article has little original research by Jacoby. It is based largely on a front page article in the Wall Street Journal from last week (DANIEL GOLDEN
August 19, 2006; Page A1)
Here is an interesting quote from the original article:
Because photos of FDR and other people in wheelchairs can be hard to come by, publishers maximize the visibility of each image, worrying not just about numbers but placement on the page. "Make sure physically challenged people are visible enough to comply with state requirements" and "appear on right-hand pages for a 'thumb test,' " McGraw-Hill 2004 guidelines advise. Translation: Time-pressed state officials sometimes use their thumbs to flip through the pages speedily looking for images of minorities or the disabled. Generally, this results in examining only the right-hand pages.
A number of years ago, I worked as a consulting editor and content specialist for a series of grade school books on physical sciences for McGraw-Hill.
Every photo with a kid in it had a written specification that detailed its diversity breakdown. These would say typically something like "Asian-featured boy in wheelchair" or "African-American girl with lab hardware" or the like.
At first I was startled -- actually, I was shocked -- by the blatant description, then cynically amused. It struck me that if maintaining PC requires reality to be so carefully stage-managed, it (PC) has little chance of survival.
The irony of this topic is nearly too heavy to comment on, but WTH:
A great example of this PC'ness with regard to the disabled was the FDR memorial. As most of you know FDR was disabled with severe leg problems, which he went to great lengths to hide from the people in the normal course of events, but which of course people were aware of at the time.
And FDR was a chain smoker.
So when it came time to do the a bronze statue of FDR, they went back to old photos and wanted something that would display his disability, but couldn't find any shots. It seems that the WH photo crew didn't shoot FDR in compromising positions, and surprise by today's standards, neither did the WH Press Corps. (oh, how times have changed)
So what was done was to doctor (think photoshop in bronze) a real life photo image as the basis of the sculpture to reveal that FDR was sitting in a wheel chair (FDR used a normal chair with wheels to avoid the appearance of being in a wheel chair of course.
Then after altering reality to add his disability, they went on to excise the fact that the photo showed him holding a cigarette.
amazing.
Even assuming, arguendo, that we should spend time worrying about what is or is not politically correct, I'm not sure I understand why it is politically incorrect for Jacoby to describe the class of people who are confined to a wheelchair as persons who are "confined to wheelchairs."
Perhaps this is illustrative of the very worst feature of political correctness, which is the creeping euphemism. George Carlin has an absolutely lacerating skit about this truly pernicious practise. Apropos, thirty years ago, "persons confined to wheelchairs" would have been considered a politically correct euphemism for "cripples." But now, that euphemism is so widespread that it has itself (apparently) become politically incorrect. We will have to come up with a new euphemism: "persons choosing to make use of mobility assistance devices," perhaps.
I guess that the depth of my cynicism is evident in how I no longer get upset at this sort of thing.
I am though much unhappier with the concentration in so many history books on diversity of stories versus diversity of the pictures. The reality is that most of the really relevant history was made by dead white males, throwing in some Asian males when we get to world history and the Mongols. But the founding fathers were all male. The generals in each of our wars (up until now) were male, and mostly white.
So, what it seems like you end up in many of these situations is concentrating on what really isn't history and wasn't as important, and not what really was. And, thus, the example of showing a Black airwoman, instead of the Wright Brothers. That sort of thing.
The good thing is that in another generation, they aren't going to have to concentrate on minor blips in history in order to portray women and minorities as being central to it. We now have a female Secretary of State, following another African-American. Black and Hispanic generals are now common. I fully expect a female president in the next decade or two, as well as one who is either Hispanic or Black.
Following up on my post earlier about state officials judging text books by thumbing through and bean counting ethnicity.
A year ago, I was writing software for the elementary school market. The products we produced were of professional quality, educational, attractive, reasonably engaging, and based upon research into how children learn math. They were the product of a number of talented people: researchers, programmers, artists, actors and producers; everyone interested in making a product that would actually help children learn math, especially the special needs children.
I worked very hard for a year and a half of my life polishing products which I hope will give hundreds of thousands of kids a leg up in understanding math; for some the software might be the difference between being employable and not.
It is distressing to think of how little state purchasing agents think of our products if they were to judge our product by the primary criteria of how many brown faces they saw on the cover of the instruction manual.
The real question to ask diversity dogmatists is "Under what set of circumstances would you consider the world 'fair' or 'diverse'?"
The most likely answer "When every profession and socio-economic class is represented by ethnicity and gender proportional to population demographics."
Never mind such insignificant factors like free will, biology, and culture.
Only two outcomes are possible:
1. People will remain (somewhat) free, to work, to hire, to choose schools and neighborhoods, and to write textbooks as they wish, to the eternal dissatisfaction of diversity advocates.
2. Diversity advocates accumulate enough power to realize their vision through coersion. They're already halfway there.
"if maintaining PC requires reality to be so carefully stage-managed, it (PC) has little chance of survival."
That's what everyone has been thinking since PC's inception decades ago. Somehow it never happens.
Jacoby's story highlights the superficiality of this "diversity" exercise. It's harmful in the same what it's harmful to confuse a fairy tale with history -- all this happy-face diversity stuff offers a false picture of reality, and kids are quite likely to be pretty quick in figuring that out. I suppose the point of the exercise is to get kids to broaden their horizons, to recognize that they can overcome handicaps or problems and can ultimately control their own destiny and life choices if they are willing to work at it. I don't see how a few pictures in a textbook can do anything useful to accomplish that goal, but I don't have a problem with the goal. Ann's take on it sounds right: "Showing me a woman pilot is one thing, but making aviation fascinating is much more effective (and educational)."
CriticalO says: "Thanks Plato." Well, at least it's good company.
But, really, you seem to be off in the wild blue yonder (grad school perhaps?), having lost all contact with terra firma -- these are faked photos in grade school textbooks Jacoby is talking about.
You say: "What if fairy tales consisted of plausible narratives that could become true in the likely future, but only if they were believed in ardently by a lot of people? Then, of course, they aren't "fairy tales"; they're political ideologies or political philosophies or dispositions."
So the point of these faked photos in grade school textbooks is to convey "plausible narratives that could become true in the likely future" and "political ideologies," as opposed to, say, history or whatever the textbook is ostensibly about? Oh, boy. That's a thought, I suppose, but not a particularly apt or persuasive one.
Emerson once wrote that, in order to read well, one must first learn to put aside all of the cant (Harold Bloom offers a slight amendment, and suggests that "academic cant" is the real fog-generator today). Talk about "plausible narratives" and "political ideologies" in this context sounds like a textbook example of what Bloom had in mind.
On the plus side, Dick, Jane, Sally and Mother and Father showed a fuctional family. Maybe this is exactly what kids are missing today.
...thirty years ago, "persons confined to wheelchairs" would have been considered a politically correct euphemism for "cripples." But now, that euphemism is so widespread that it has itself (apparently) become politically incorrect. We will have to come up with a new euphemism: "persons choosing to make use of mobility assistance devices," perhaps.
Ahem. They are "differently abled."
Please try to keep up.
Hopefully, we will be able to replace those awful old children's books with this wonderfully enlightened resource.
I agree wholly with altoids1306. I was scratching my head this morning over Dahlia Lithwick's and the NYT's astonishing premise that the demographics of SCOTUS clerks is an issue (this is an issue Ann talked about months ago). I am not sure what difference a clerk's (or Justice's) gender makes to the question of whether the due process clause "prohibit[s] Arizona’s use of an insanity test stated solely in terms of the capacity to tell whether an act charged as a crime was right or wrong," Clark v. Arizona, whether a dam "raises [sufficient] potential for a discharge ... [that] §401 [of the Clean Water Act] is triggered and [thus] state certification is required," S.D. Warren Co. v. Maine Bd. of Environmental Protection, and while one's gender might, dubitante, have some effect on one's view of whether abortion should be protected by the Constitution, it should have no effect on one's view of whether it is, or still less, one's view of whether sections of a law restricting it are severable, Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood. I do not see how the posession of either breasts or bollocks changes either the answer or the process of determing the answer to the question of whether "[a] plaintiff in a retaliatory-prosecution action must plead and show the absence of probable cause for pressing the underlying criminal charges," Hartman v. Moore, still less whether "[a] refusal to apply the Federal Tort Claims Act’s judgment bar is open to collateral appeal," Will v. Hallock. I know the adherents of living constitution believe that its meaning evolves with society, but what a truly astonishing feat that -- like the child's toy that shows a different image depending on from which angle it is viewed - its meaning changes depending on the gender of the interpreter.
Lithwick and the diversity dogmatists are absolutely wrong. The issue is not, as Lithwick contends, why Justices Scalia and Kennedy don't care about the gender of their clerks, it's what on Earth would motivate any to care. What a bizzare view of the law one must have in order to think that the gender of the clerk - as opposed to, say, their legal or political views - writing the cert pool memo for an ERISA case will change whether they think it is worth granting cert. What kind of bizarre parallel universe does Lithwick live in to believe that the meaning of RICO varies depending on whether a man or a woman looks at it. What is a "female" perspective on the Detainee Treatment Act? What is THE "female" opinion on third party standing? Aren't feminists supposed to be OPPOSED to the dehumanizing of women, OPPOSED to ascribing characteristics to persons based on gender, rather than doing everything possible to further such classifications?
class-factotum said...
"But I suppose they consider Magellan an honorary "dead white European" guy."
Interesting point. If the diversity dogmatists of the left are as reactionary as they often appear -- that is, if the underlying motivation is iconoclasm and contrarianism -- then there is a pretty good argument from their perspective that Columbus and Magellan are dead white Europeans. Why? Because arguably, the diversity dogmatists are not objecting to the whiteness, deadness or europeanness of dead white europeans, but rather, the mere fact that they are venerated by traditional education. I thinkI'm suggesting that their goal is not diversity, any more than the goal of the liberals who tout tolerence is actually tolerence: the goal is power. The goal is to be the ones setting the agenda.
Why are there pictures in books past the fifth or sixth grade, anyway?
Because (unfortunately) today schools are expected to entertain students as well as educate them.
I was never given a shred of information that women could do anything not traditionally female.
Yeah, me too.
It should make the subject itself an inspiration. Showing me a woman pilot is one thing, but making aviation fascinating is much more effective (and educational). Seeing a lady in a lab coat smiling at a test tube might tip you off that a woman can be a scientist, but the textbook ought to engage students to read and understand the science itself.
True, but if you never saw a picture of or heard of such a thing as a female pilot or scientist, your burgeoning interest in the subject might be nipped in the bud, or blighted -- almost subliminally.
Or, you'd express your interest by trying to marry a pilot or a scientist -- or encourage your son to be one. That stuff happened a lot in the fifties and early sixties.
I like Bruce Hayden's idea:
The good thing is that in another generation, they aren't going to have to concentrate on minor blips in history in order to portray women and minorities as being central to it. We now have a female Secretary of State . . .
Right, exactly. You're going to see images of women pilots, judges, etc. (you already do) not because someone is bending over backward to portray diversity, but because there simply are quite a lof of women pilots, judges, etc.
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