Is Empathy Needed In Education?

Many people talk about the need for "empathy" when it comes to working in the field of education, particularly when it comes to being able to relate to, and therefor reach the hearts and minds of the students, ESPECIALLY YOUNG BLACKS.  

Definition of EMPATHY

1: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

2: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also: the capacity for this 

I stopped and thought about that (there's a tip for you), and then I remembered a scene from the movie "LEAN ON ME", and it occurred to me that, prior to the arrival of Principal Joe Clark, the teachers and administrators in the school were full of "empathy" for the students. Yet, the students didn't learn a doggone thing. 

It reminded me of a quote from THAT DUDE, Dr. Thomas Sowell, when he said, "The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling." It seems to me that far too many people in the education industry are much more concerned with the FEELINGS of the students, rather than teaching them HOW TO THINK!!

I thought about it a little more (there's another tip for you), and I remembered a particular quote from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., when he said, "The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering, some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality, birth within marriage, parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework?"

Individual parents, the Black community as a whole, and society in general seem to not quite understand it when someone like Dr. Thomas Sowell says, "Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late." Shame is we are now at a point where we have barbarians giving birth to and "raising" another generation of barbarians.

I think about how folks like to say "racism" is the #1 thing keeping Black folks back/held down, but then I think about something that was said over 100 years ago by THAT DUDE, Booker T. Washington, who was born a slave, and dealt with REAL RACISM. He said, "The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race."  Which lead me to think (it's become a habit) about something I heard from Ms. Danica McKellar, when she said, "Math proficiency is the gateway to a number of incredible careers that students may never have considered." I thought about this, because math knows no color. There is nothing subjective about math. Either you get the right answer, or you don't. No one can logically inject racism into math. When you learn how to do math, you learn HOW TO THINK LOGICALLY.

But even in subjective areas like literature, I agree with Ms. Bell Hooks, when she stated, "I'm so disturbed when my women students behave as though they can only read women, or black students behave as though they can only read blacks, or white students behave as though they can only identify with a white writer." Do you have any idea how limiting it is to the mind of a person, to be conditioned to primarily see everything through the lens of race, color or gender?? 

Bottom line, there is more than enough "blame" to go around, but as THAT DUDE, Dr. Walter E. Williams said back in 2003, "The route to greater academic excellence is nearly a no-brainer. There are three vital inputs to education: parents, teachers and students. You tell me: How much money does it take for teachers to assign homework, and for parents and teachers see to it that it gets done? How much money does it take to see to it that kids get a good night's sleep, come to school on time, don't fight in school and respect authority? If these no-brainer things aren't accomplished, there's no amount of money that's going to make much of a difference.

 The education establishment likes to blame poor parenting and rowdy and lawless students for educational mediocrity. Without a doubt, that's part of the problem, but incompetent, uncaring teachers are also a part of the problem."

Well, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's funny, because back in the 1980's, Joe Clark basically said the exact same things...but since YOU PEOPLE refuse to study and learn from the successes (and failures) of the past, here we are, once again, back where we were. "It's deja vu all over again"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKR_Tli5hbU

By: Christopher Harris. Follow on Twitter at @BlackSheepDawg

The Soft Blitz

In the Texas State House today, they will be putting tough new laws restricting abortion in the “Lone Star” state to a vote. As I read about the debates held on the state’s House floor yesterday, I was not surprised to see the accompanying optics featured a tight shot of mostly black Texas Democrats advocating for “Women’s Health” brandishing coat hangers, knitting needles, turpentine and oddly enough a large feather.

More often than not, when you have an article or story presented focusing on abortion, you will see black folks featured in the optics rather than whites. This is by design. There is no issue facing the American people more tied to an attitude of victimization than abortion rights and there is no more powerful symbol of victimhood in America than black folks.

So what you see on CSPAN or news shows covering these debates are speeches given by the likes of Sheila Jackson Lee, or Rep. Eleanor Norton bemoaning the attack on women’s health. The Right Reverend Al Sharpton and other liberal black men enter the fray as well.

Clicking on Sharpton’s name above will take you to a link demonstrating how they will use black folks to advance the emotional appeal and then bring in a white woman to give the "rational" perspective on the need to protect “Choice” at all costs.

I have to admit, the props were a new twist though, and it was these household implements, long tied to the images of back alley abortions painted by the advocates for abortion on demand that most got my juices flowing. It occurred to me that they may be against the use of these crude tools by the untrained, but they are in fact not all that different from the more refined instruments used by physicians to obtain the exact same goal—the destruction of human life.

You see the victim in this scenario is never the child robbed of the most sacred of inalienable rights, life itself, but rather the mother who in making the choice to kill her child puts her own health at risk at the same time. She is the victim of the back alley abortion, not the child. She is driven to the extreme of seeking a hand proficient at using large feathers and turpentine to kill her baby when she should be terminating her unborn child in a sterile environment with the aid of a professional killer.

This is the ultimate triumph of the racist Democrat party--they have got black folks advocating for the right to kill ourselves--to destroy our own babies! Somehow these people really think it is better a woman kills her child using a doctor than to kill her child with a coat hanger. It's about the health of the mother, but who cares about the health of the children they kill?

Using a doctor to perform the procedure is like a neutron bomb that leaves the building standing while killing the inhabitants. When one considers the disproportionate number of abortions performed on black women killing black babies, it reminds me of the watermelon bomb men from my father’s generation used to say white folks were working on. A weapon designed to kill black folks while leaving whites relatively unscathed.

People like Rep. Diana DeGette are the modern day Margaret Sanger’s who stood before crowds extolling the virtues of population control amongst certain peoples while using men like W.E.B. Du Bois and other prominent Black leaders and preachers to remove the fear from minorities that they were in fact being targeted for genocide.

Du Bois, in his article “Black Folks and Birth Control” clearly established the true nature of the debate when he stated there would be an: “inevitable clash of ideals between those Negroes who were striving to improve their economic position and those whose religious faith made the limitation of children a sin.” Al Sharpton and his ilk have taken up the same position today.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12

Sanger’s “Negro Project” is alive and well. Satan has always been in the business of destroying people as early as possible by convincing the people themselves it’s the right thing to do--he is marvelously adept. Whether he is whispering in the ear of the ancient worshippers of Molech, or Pharaoh, Herod and Barrack Obama, the result is the same, they all call for unrestricted infanticide.

This is not strictly a black issue, abortion is as ugly a stain on the fabric of our nation as slavery ever was, in fact it is worse—it effects everyone and reaches out to destroy without regard to ethnicity. That Satan has convinced so many that expedience whether it be economic, social or just plain “Choice” is more important than human life is a tragedy of Biblical proportions.

But just as Pharaoh brought down condemnation on his own house when he called for the death of Israel’s first born, so too will all of these advocates for the modern day version meet their just rewards by and by.

The left has their soft neutron bombs dispatched, blitzing cities like Detroit, East St. Louis and Los Angeles, but we know who wins in the end and how best to prosecute this war for the soul of the nation.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)” II Corinthians 10:3,4

Digital Publius

Homegrown Immigrants

Meritocracy; few words gall the liberal mind more. Meritocracy is the lynchpin that keeps the wheel of capitalism rolling and this more than anything places liberalism eternally at odds with a meritorious outlook.

It is difficult to isolate social “victims” if you introduce the idea that they can advance according to their own energies. You cannot remain a victim in a meritorious society unless one gives up—then you are a quitter and not a victim.

Quitters feel much better about themselves when they are able to blame others, or circumstances for their failures, this makes them easily manipulated and exploited by oligarchies. What you therefore find is a warped idea of the nature of hope being fostered in leftist philosophy.

Merit as it pertains to human interaction is a decidedly Biblical concept, this is the reason you only find true freedom in nations that at least at one time or another embraced Christianity. The idea one should be rewarded for hard work is intrinsic to capitalism, and it is taught with regularity throughout the Holy Bible.

Christ Himself taught: “¶Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. ¶Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. ¶Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:

Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.” Matthew 13:44-48

Christ begins each parable with “Again” to drive the point He is making home, He really wants us to get this. There are no fewer than twenty parables from Christ in the gospels alone dealing with work and wages, this does not include such lessons which may be found in the Old testament on the same principle, God seems very bullish on merit. You will also always find the element of sacrifice in all of the Biblical teaching on doing works deserving of meritorious recognition.

Make no mistake, one cannot earn ones own salvation, the “Hope” preached in the Holy Bible is completely detached from the world—we as Christians are not taught to ever put our hope in the character of men and their ability to do “good” or grant rights. The Founders of our nation understood this full well, and it was because of this basic truth they codified the fact that rights are unalienable and granted not by men but the universal Creator of men.

Hope in the Holy Bible is always attached to God not man, wealth, or politics, whether it be for salvation or earthly comfort: “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;” I Timothy 6:17 It is our job while on earth to conduct ourselves in a way that is positive, industrious and sensible.

For the liberal leftist and the oligarch, this is anathema; they must be seen as the benevolent source of blessings—they must then always ensure a healthy supply of people willing to look to them to provide those blessings, the liberal left feeds on this.

We have been afforded a keen example of how the left cultivates, how they nurture the circumstances that perpetuate a steady supply of people looking to them for hope, in the unlikely form of Rachel Jeantel, the young woman at the center of the trial now being heard against George Zimmerman, who stands accused of murdering Trayvon Martin.

I am not taking a stand as to whether or not Zimmerman is guilty or innocent, nor am I taking a position on the character of Trayvon Martin, which may have played a roll in his untimely demise. This is instead a look at the ideology that makes it possible for far too many minority youths finding themselves in bad situations.

The tools most often used by leftist to cultivate their crop of perpetual victims are acquiescence and a fatalistic belief that one should be resigned to things being what they are. They teach that because of institutionalized racism, Black youth will always be looked down upon. So why not embrace what you are even if you have self-destructive qualities?

This is at the very core of multiculturalism, as long as you instill the idea it is not necessary to assimilate in a culture to survive, you will always have a core of people who will never thrive in a society which depends on certain norms being observed in order to climb socially. One of those norms is the ability to communicate effectively, ergo the ability to speak, read and write colloquial English in America is an important thing. So are good manners and vigilance regarding the company one keeps.

That is off course unless you have a talent that precludes you having to make a living via conventional means, such as rap music artist. Then you can conduct yourselves any way you wish, as long as what you create is commercially viable amongst a certain segment of society. It may be profitable, but then so is trafficking in drugs. Coarse behavior and language may indeed “Get you paid” that doesn’t mean it is good for society or even for the beneficiaries when the deal goes down with finality.

The left has written books on the idea that so-called “Black English” is culturally acceptable, coining scientific terms like Ebonics to lend credence to their guff. There was a time when Immigrants worked fiendishly hard to erase every vestige of broken English from their tongues and the language of their children.

This does not mean you forget your native language or culture, but rather you recognize there was a reason you left the old country to come to the new in the first place—That you are at a distinct disadvantage in the new if you cannot effectively communicate, failing to learn to do so is a hindrance to advancement. Not recognizing this is madness, to deny it’s relevance and to advance the very idea of Black English as a viable alternative to Standard English in America is nothing short of evil!

And yet we find just that being done regularly by the left:

I can’t help but remember a scene in the classic Sidney Poitier film, “To Sir With Love” where his cockney students found it remarkable that though “Sir” like them, had come from humble beginnings, he sounded so “Posh.” Sir explains: “When I was your age, I used a patois, a kind of simple English… The point is: if you’re prepared to work hard you can do almost anything. You can get any job you want. You can even change your speech if you want to.”

“Wanting to” is the key; the key to wanting to is motivation. The killer of motivation is excuse making and a lowering of standards. Where is the motivation to change going to come from when you hear on TV and from your leaders that you are fine just where you are and it’s the other guy’s problem if he can’t understand you or doesn't want to accept your mode of communication? This is how children think, not functioning adults.

All people like MSNBC host, Chris Hayes and so-called intellectuals like John McWhorter do with the kinds of analysis we see above, is sustain the idea in the minds of Black youth that they will always be looked down upon, that it is in fact useless to do things like improve your speech. Society is against them no matter what, so why bother?

In fact, the very idea of linguistic and behavioral assimilation becomes a negative in the Black community as anyone who grew up in a home with Black parents holding exacting ideas regarding proper manners, English and good diction can attest to. You will most surely be reminded on several occasions that you “Talk white” or “Act white” and may from time to time have to physically defend yourself for these perceived crimes against “Blackness.”

So what you have is a permanent “Homegrown Immigrant” class within our society, one that keeps itself in place through conditioning and an ever shrinking number of self aware people amongst them seeking to get out. This is exactly what the left wants, a truism confirmed by the constant castigation of anyone who suggests ideas like school vouchers.

Leaving children in failing school systems without choice and excuse making for Miss Jeantel’s poor language skills does her and the rest of our children a great disservice, it keeps them strangers in a their native land. It is also a part of a system that keeps the left furnished with a steady supply of Trayvons and Rachels empowered to stay blissfully ignorant and uninspired.

The rejection of meritocracy by the left is not merely a tool used to keep them relevant, and in positions of power, but it also speaks to an overall rejection of the primacy of God Himself and a rebellion against His tenets and right to judge us for our behavior. God taught so often about merit not just so we can live comfortably on earth, but to teach us that we are ultimately responsible for all the decisions we make, this includes what our reward will be come judgment day.

We will not be judged because He rejected us, but rather because we have rejected Him and the unmerited gift of grace He bestows on creatures that so often show our hatred towards Him when we spit on the sacrifice He made for us through His Son. Lets go back to Matthew 13 and see how Christ ends the parables on work and wages we began earlier, verses 49 & 50: “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

When we accept ideas in the Black community like “Black English” we are separating ourselves from society just as the wicked separate themselves when they reject the precepts of God and His sacrifice uswards. It is plain dealing rebellion for which only the rebel is responsible.

Digital Publius

The Truth About Comic Book Movies

I don’t care how many films about costumed heroes Hollywood regurgitates, the truth of the mater is Hollywood hates comic book superheroes and they have nothing but contempt for those of us who love them. Hollywood thinks comic book characters are silly. This is true because most people think they are silly, this is a fact those of us who don’t think they are silly have learned to live with.

Most people don’t read comic books, never have, never will. Most people look at Superman and ask, “Why can’t everyone see that Superman is just Clark Kent without the glasses?” So when a person who doesn’t really like Superman makes a Superman move, he makes sure to show that in the “real world “ Lois Lane would have no problem discovering Superman’s identity, getting the full story on her own with very little effort.

This may in fact be more realistic, but it sure isn’t any fun, that is unless your name happens to be Diogenes. I never picked up a superhero comic book expecting to find anything remotely related to the real world—that’s rather the point of superheroes. This should be OK, but it isn’t.

Hollywood reinforces the notion with every superhero film they make, that superheroes are intrinsically silly, so we will change them so they can be more readily accessible for a wider audience. I have no problem with this attitude, I would just prefer you apply it to your own creations.

If you think it’s absurd that Oliver Queen calls himself Green Arrow, then create your own urban crime-fighting archer and call him “The Hood” or the “Vigilante.” But if you are going to do Green Arrow do Green Arrow. You are after all counting on me as a fan of Green Arrow to watch the show. Green Arrow has been around as long as he has, because people like Green Arrow, not the Hood.

It is Hollywood’s way of trading on beloved character’s brands while denouncing the genre. No other industry allows their brands to be similarly misused. You can’t be a bottler in Detroit who decides to change the formula of Coca Cola because you think the general public will like your formula more and still put it in a Coke bottle.

Just as a person who buys a bottle of Coke expects Coke—A comic book fan wants to get the Mandarin he grew up reading about when he goes to see Iron Man 3 not an out of work drunken British actor with no powers. You see, Hollywood really thinks people go to see a superhero movie because they care who plays Iron Man.

That’s why they don’t put Jeremy Renner in a mask when he plays Hawkeye or they choose not to put a helmet on Thor. It’s why they continuously have heroes unmasked in every movie and why most of the time Iron Man has his mask flipped up so we know that Downey is playing Tony Stark. or we see his face inside the helmet constantly in the middle of every fight scene.

It’s not that Hollywood has a problem with asking movie patrons to suspend belief. We watch cars do things in the latest iteration of Fast and Furious that defy physics and the survivability of the person behind the wheel—They didn’t care if people thought it silly that Neo could learn Kung Fu by plugging him into a computer via a spiked USB cord that would destroy his brain stem and probably sever his spinal cord and there seems to be a lot of room between the mask and Tony Stark’s face.

No, the biggest problem Hollywood has with comic book superheroes is that they are not their own idea, so each director’s ego follows it’s own prime directive to leave a mark of their own on characters already fully fleshed out.

When you make Spiderman’s webbing organic and not a brilliant feat of chemistry combined with mechanical engineering, you downplay one of Peter Parkers most important characteristics, his incredible genius and wherewithal. It was that very genius that leads him to the science exhibition, which lead to his encounter with the radioactive spider in the first place.

But what guides the disdain for comic book superheroes in film and even in the contemporary comics themselves—is the concept of hope they represent. No character embodies hope and wholesome American idealism more than Superman so they had to darken him up.

Liberalism makes much ado about “hope”; they just can’t stand it in the framework of hope attached to a set morality. They particularly abhor the idea of hope tied to faith or patriotism—So Superman can no longer represent “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” but rather a nebulous ill defined hope unattached to any real philosophy…a sort of hope…ishness. Hollywood likes the idea of hope, just don’t tell them what hope is.

As a life long comic book purist, I loathe the overwhelming majority of the comic book based movies Hollywood produces. The audience for these films fall into two categories: Those of us who love superhero comic books and those of you who could not care less about comics or their history, you go because they are there.

The latter may manifest in a person just wanting to see the latest blockbuster, your boyfriend dragged you, or whatever motivates a person to see any other movie, maybe you like popcorn in the dark.

I am an unapologetic nerd! I never hid the fact that I loved comic books from girls or anyone else—I had friends who would shush me if we were talking comics and a girl walked up. Meanwhile I was never at a loss for attractive female companionship in my single days. It didn’t hurt that I was co-owner of three comic book stores back then, you see, we turned our obsession into a business, girls like that sort of thing.

Most of the filmgoers have no idea why these movies are bad in the purist’s view,  it is just a spectacle, lots of special effects and explosions… You don’t know that Batman would never give up being Batman because some villain made a threat as portrayed in Dark Knight. But I freely confess I find it perplexing that someone can claim to love the superheroes they grew up with while offering apologetics on behalf of filmmakers who utterly mutilate them.

Superheroes, invented during some of the darkest periods in America’s history, the Great Depression, World War Two... were created as an escape from reality featuring characters representing what was best in America, the ideal and the hope that whatever crisis we faced, ultimately good and the USA would eventually prevail. You didn’t become evil to vanquish evil—you overcame evil and you found a way to do it with honor. It may not have been realistic but it was good and it was inspiring. When did striving to reach an ideal become quant and old fashioned?

What are bloodthirsty characters like Wolverine and The Punisher with their gritty realism inspiring in our kids? When you saw the bad guy in the comics I grew up with being lead away in chains courtesy of “Your friendly neighborhood Spiderman.” Or a villain meeting his just desserts after falling victim to his own scheme, justice had been served and it reinforced the rule of law as a worthy notion.

We now live in a period where the ends justify the means. This is a very deadly state to be in when the “Ends” and what we seek to accomplish, are so poorly defined. So I reckon a Man of Steel who summarily snaps the neck of the bad guy is precisely what we should expect from a culture that thinks hope springs from pretty speeches and rhetoric, as opposed to immutable ideals and unalienable rights granted to all by a Creator. Now we look to privileges dolled out by flawed men.

The Disciples of Christ were falsely accused of lying to spread the gospel and the question was asked whether this was OK if it leads people to the truth of God? The answer was concise:

What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written:

“So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.”

But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” ⁸ Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just! Romans 3:3-8

These are the values I would prefer my kids were exposed to, and that is the morality heroes like Superman used to represent, not the relativistic Bizarro world Superman of the new hope paradigm. Why is it suddenly wrong to hold up the ideal? Why does a guy with a red cape, an “S” on his chest who flies need to reflect the real world? That the question needs asking is what is truly absurd and breathtakingly sad.

Digital Publius
(Official First Appearance of "The Geek Who Sits On High")