(no title)
alaxhn | 9 months ago
> I'm taking an apolitical position We've been over this already.
Just because you do not wish that your position is political doesn't make it so.
> Your job is to help all those people succeed at math.
Yes. Well our job is at least to help some of them succeed at math because they won't all succeed statistically https://umbc.edu/stories/math-awareness-needed-to-raise-math... "For instance, in 2022, only 31% of graduating high school seniors were ready for college-level math – down from 39% in 2019.". We disagree on how best to accomplish this but metrics (e.g. PISA, NAEP or any way we have come up to evaluate this) indicate we have not achieved any incremental progress in decades even though cost per pupil has dramatically increased (e.g. student teacher ratio has declined dramatically). So I might humbly suggest that the approaches we have taken so far have not been successful.
> Most online culture warriors are talking about people they'll never meet in hypothetical situations
Are you trying to suggest that most of us who disagree with you and others like you haven't set foot in a classroom? This is unhinged.
> There are real language and cultural barriers, as well as disability barriers that an instructor needs to consider. How can this be done in a way that is acceptable to "the right"?
It's likely that many of your goals regarding language, cultural, and "disability" (I put this in quotes because some are real and other times people pretend to have a "disability" in order to turn in their homework late) cannot be met in a way that is acceptable to the right so you need to either drop these goals or accept that you are going to lose funding in support if you attempt to accomplish these goals.
"We" are asking you to drop things that "we" consider harmful. Initially "we" attempted to negotiate (https://president.columbia.edu/news/our-next-steps, https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...) but "we" were rebuffed. I believe the strategy now is a to make a few prominent examples of what will happen if "your" side is unwilling to budge on "your" position regarding things like diversity letters in the hiring process in the hopes that the next tier of institutions has a change of heart or at least pretend to for a few years. You and I have a difference of opinion much like I might have a difference of opinion with a fundamentalist christian who wants to use taxpayer money to teach about creationism. I and many others like me will happily vote for candidates who will take a sledgehammer to any institution that wishes to institute things like diversity statements. Now that "we" are in power the onus is on educators to decide if this is the hill they want to die on. I still find it very sad that we couldn't reach a compromise that left American institutions in a strong position to be scientific leaders in their space but unfortunately the levers available to political leadership are crude and time is short (I would also argue that "my" leadership is headed up by a geriatric unintelligent narcissist who does a lot of damage when he lashes out but I guess that can't be helped right now).
I hope you have a great rest of your day - I'm done here but I do wish you all the best!
ModernMech|9 months ago
Look, I get the idea that "everything is political" because of how politics touches every aspect of life. But that doesn't actually mean everyone who has an opinion on a topic that is hot in the political arena is a political actor, nor does it make their opinion political. People working in universities have had to deal with the question of how to build a close-knit diverse community long before DEI became a hot-button issue. So I'll throw it right back at you: just because you want my opinion to be political, doesn't make it any less based on a practical reality of my job.
> So I might humbly suggest that the approaches we have taken so far have not been successful.
These stats are about graduating seniors so now I'm unsure of the relevance of why you brought this up.
> Are you trying to suggest that most of us who disagree with you and others like you haven't set foot in a classroom? This is unhinged.
Yeah that would be unhinged if I said or suggested that, alas I did not. But you yourself have made it clear that while you have experience taking a class, that has not qualified you to have a cogent opinion on the topic of how to manage a classroom. The same way the experience of eating food doesn't necessarily qualify you to have an opinion on how it's made.
> in a way that is acceptable to the right
Again... this elusive "acceptable way" is left unstated. I guess we will never learn what that might be.
> but "we" were rebuffed. I believe the strategy now is a to make a few prominent examples
Of course you're going to be rebuffed if your position doesn't even pretend to understand the other side of the issue. So then apparently instead of gaining an understanding and working toward common ground, the next step is domination in hopes of total capitulation. And you call this democracy?! The current actions against Harvard are a mockery of democracy.
> I and many others like me will happily vote for candidates who will take a sledgehammer to any institution that wishes to institute things like diversity statements.
And yet, despite wanting to destroy them so badly, you have admitted you have no real understanding of why they exist, how they are used, nor can you offer a suggestion for how to replace them in a way that is ideologically palatable to you. That is a political opinion. If you want to draw a distinction, your impulse to smash diversity statements has a political impetus that you can't really define; whereas my impulse to defend them is based on the fact they demonstrably help me do my job.
> I do wish you all the best!
You spent an entire paragraph before this statement talking about how you want to come into my place of work, disrupt it for no reason that you can articulate, and that if I don't like it tough, because you're in charge now. If that's you wishing the best, I'd hate to hear you wish someone the worst.