Hostile Notice

On account of something I wrote a while ago, entitled “Something Called Education”, I have come to hostile notice. My criticisms have caused offence in the right circles and provoked a series of letters, published I know not where, but republished anonymously in the comments of the aforementioned post:

We read the shallow piece entitled ‘The Joy of Curmudgeonry,’ and we completely disagree with its limited and defensive stance. It’s always easier and more cowardly to blog without a real name and to quote scholars’ work out of its comprehensive and thoughtful context.

.....

Dr. James Andrews

Dr. Mary Evans

Dr. James Nardy

We applaud Drs. Andrews, Evans, and Nardy for their thoughtful response to the shallow and cowardly ‘The Joy of Curmudgeonry: Something Called Education.’ We read the original 30-page essay, which the ‘Curmudgeonry’ writer critized, and we are convinced that the ‘Curmudgeonry’ writer did not read the entire essay. In fact, he/she quoted only from the first paragraph of the essay, suggesting that the rest of the article was not read. This is shabby journalism at its worse, and the writer of this journalistic garbage should be embarrassed. As high school teachers, we would give him/her a failing grade in both process of writing and substance of ideas. In retrospect, the 30-page essay is receiving major recognition from researchers and classroom practitioners in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, and New Zealand. We therefore were dismayed to read the emotionally toned ‘Curmudgeonry’ response to it. Obviously, this limited writer and thinker knows little about education, about classroom practice, and about related substantive research.

Joel Rittler, Ph.D.

Barbara McNulty, M.S.

We read ‘Something Called Education’ and were extremely disappointed by its overt bias and narrow perspective. This so-called critique pretended to have substance, when it really demonstrated quite the opposite. As educated parents, we expect more from writers who are supposed to control their prejudices as they express their points of view and document them thoroughly. The author of ‘Something Called Education’ did neither. He also did not read the two articles that he critiqued. His review of the English Leadership Quarterly article was predicated entirely on a secondary source. It also was obvious that his critique of the progressive education article was equally ineffective because he quoted from the first paragraph only, and this quote was blatantly out of context. This lack of ethics, accompanied by poor research skills, would clearly be identified by most young school-age children. As parents, we demand more.

George and Rachel Clifton

Four Ph.Ds, one Masters, and a brace of demanding parents. Not a bad catch for murky waters.
.....Now, if I were to take these my teachers in earnest, and take chicanery to heart, then I should learn at least two lessons to be applied in all future controversy:

(1) When a man quotes solely from the beginning of an article, one can take it to suggest that he has not read the whole, wherewith one comes to the understanding that even if he had quoted from the beginning, the middle, and the end, performed for no other sake than to forestall idiotic objections, for which he might feel life is too short and pertinence too precious, he would not thereby prove that he had read the whole. Nor indeed would a quotation of the whole suffice for the proof that he had read it, though at least the latter would forestall accusations that he had quoted out of the context of the whole of the article itself, though not out of the whole of extended context, given that context can be extended to whatever bounds one sees fit for one’s purpose, including a “comprehensive and thoughtful context” in which any article can be said to rest, to which adepts can claim privy access, and to which they can always refer vaguely in their defence; — all of which in effect is to say: should one be of a mendacious cast, all one’s clearest assertions can be retracted into infinite context, all criticisms of one’s views made inadmissible, and all one’s bollix made defensible.

(2) When a man has no access to the primary source — perhaps even on account of an insurmountable unwillingness to pay a subscription to a journal he suspects would be of little use to him except perhaps to end up as expensive lavatory-paper — then any quotes he takes from a secondary source quoting that primary source are inadmissible regardless of whether the secondary source is true as regards the primary one, wherewith no onus falls on the criticiser to show that the secondary source is false as regards the primary one.

It is not that I am ungrateful for these lessons; it is just that, in the textbook of political chicanery, they are not very sophisticated ones, and, in any case, outside such a textbook, they are dishonourable. But the authors of the letters have missed an opportunity: in taking me to task for quoting out of context, as in the case of the quote from the primary source, they could have endeavoured to teach me — indeed the whole world — what the quote actually means in context rather than merely what it apparently means both in and out of it, and also of what that secret something is in the context of the article that gives the quote a meaning different from that which is apparent; moreover, in taking me to task for quoting from a secondary source, all they need have done is provide evidence of the falsity of it. It seems not too much to ask of teachers — sorry, classroom-practitioners — that they do what appears to be quite simple.
.....But that is enough: I shall not bother to address the accusations of shallowness, cowardice, and so on, but as to the charge of overt bias, I plead guilty: I should not wish such mind-blighters on anyone’s children, including their own.