Steven P. Barrett"POTTERVILLE'S" NEW SUPERINTENDENT JERE HOCHMAN: OPRAHESQUE EDUCATOR (LINK)
June 29th 2008 06:19
Steven Barrett
JUST WHAT THIS EDUCATION DOCTOR ORDERED: MORE OPRAHESQUE "EDUCATION"
Recently I'd posted some pretty tough pieces about the Amherst (MA) School Commttee's decision to outsource its Food Services staff ("Lunch Ladies") to save a paltry $150,000. While that messy situation still stands in a form of trench warfare, I had the chance to come across an interesting essay written by former Superintendent Jere Hochman that were published three years ago in Amherst College's "Amherst Magazine."
Hochman's elitist snobbishness towards cafeteria workers is demonstrably well known in Amherst, and is largely responsible for shaping the School Committee's inexcusably heartless, mindless and bullheaded treatment of the Lunch Ladies. Less known, however, are his views about the formation of public education teachers and the role of public education in society. A word of advice: if you value a traditional education, where the teachers teach, the students learn and any so-called "education" resting on how well the teachers are able to make their students "feel" about the subject matter -- this will be difficult reading. Still, it won't hurt to dig in.
After all, Hochman is now the Superintendent of the Bedford Falls, NY Schools and he's in a very good spot to make a name for himself, especially if Sen. Obama gets into the Oval Office. More on this later: here's the article along with some of my insights:
He had to be kidding. Absolutely. The same goes for Amherst College which published this drivel. Call me old hat: I'm of the opinion that the really great or even good solid teachers are those who see teaching as a calling, almost in a religious or super-secular sense. Where are these "talented teachers" going to come from? Teaching factories? What did he mean by "...then growing them for an entire career"? Pouring water mixed with Orthomix specifically designed for teachers?
This is the same kind of stuff many evangelical preachers keep reading these days in their push for creating larger and larger flocks and more "prospering" churches. And in public education, it seems as if teachers are being groomed to be nothing less than professionally trained employees who just happen to teach somebody's kids who won the Civil War (if the teacher actually knows it without having to look it up ahead of time.)
Call me old fashioned, but I always thought preachers and teachers ought to be more attentive to what goes into a person's soul and head as opposed to how one develops his calling or career. (Sadly, more preachers are confusing calling with career and not enough teachers are seeing their opportunities to help young people learn in schools as a worthy calling, secular or othewise. Professionalism and careerism are the bane of both.) Talking about "growing" teachers "...for an entire career" is much akin to the contemporary bastardization of how we describe the age-old task many parents have performed since Adam & Eve with Cain & Abel, "rearing children." Only now we call it "parenting" or perhaps in Hochmanese, "growing parenting skills for careers in child-begetting." Maybe "child-begetting's" too old fashioned for Hochman, et al.
Maybe some day Hochman will pore through a dictonary and all of a sudden discover a good old word to describe what he ought to be shooting for: vocation. Hopefully, his curiosity will nudge him forward. Hopefully. In the meantime, Amherst's parent's and their kids will have to endure more of what he's no doubt left behind: constructionist malarkey.
What kind of Oprahesque baloney was he trying to unload about some (no doubt) "talented" teacher walking " ... into a classroom full of students and teach, and students will either students will either learn and feel good or they won’t"?
Let's take that phrase and put into the setting of a social studies class, and the teacher's having to explain "socioeconomic justice" to his or her students the day after it was announced that Megafoods just took over the schools' cafeterias and all Lunch Ladies will be laid off, but with an option to seek re-employment at lower pay, bare-boned "benefit packages" and near zilch any paid time off. And, if the kids are attending schools in "right-to-work" states, such as Hochman's old turf, (MO) the ladies can kiss any chance of job security if they so much whisper the word "u n i o n." Of course, I forgot to mention, some of the kids in that class might have moms working in the various cafeterias throughout their town school's system. How good will they "feel"?
A. What's wrong with a "community of learners?" Doesn't that even describe the town he just left and it's primary "business," "industry," "line of occupation(s)" etc.?
B. He sure takes a "different approach." But his applying a "systems research to education" reminds me of a nasty boss I had while working as a state probation/parole officer in Central FL. This guy had a Tallahassee-backed system for this, that, you name it, but in six months he wound up throwing the damn thing out the window, publicly berated some of his officers as "incompetent" and in the end had to settle for us spending the first hour of every day in our offices,and every other day in the field after that first hour. The bad guys we had to supervise instantly developed their "systems research approach," to match ours. Guess what? They won hands down.
Unless he's into shipping logistics, the military or public transportation, he might as well do what that old boss of mine did, throw the damn plans out the window. But don't let the kiddies know you're gonna hide behind the teachers' desks you're circlin' (or faculty lounges) before you do it.
C. How the heck can he avoid "cookie cutter" officials if he follows a "systems research to education" philosophy? I'm not a Berkeley-trained "expert" in "public education policy formation" as is one of his buddies on the Amherst School Committee, but you don't need to be overly pedigreed to see through Hochman's double-talking gobbledygook.
For all his book smarts, he dropped the ball when it came to identifying who took up the initial responsiblity for public education back when the Constitution was ratified and up to at least some thirty years later in some states, providing public education was still pretty much a town-by-town matter, not something the states were very involved in. It wasn't possible! Hochman's insertion of his post-modern centralized thinking into a horse n' buggy social setting, etc., defies logic. (It's almost Hollywood-ish! The Disney Company understood educational history better than that and that's not Disney's main business.) States were responsible to some degree, but it mostly fell back on the towns. I'm a believer in strong government, but this guy gives that belief a black eye with his ignorance of basic history of his own profession.
His next paragraph belongs in some book!
That's a bold faced lie. The kids who have the least amount of rights are those who might utter a "politically incorrect" (or actually, politically uncomfortable) and smart-alecky remark and see the meatgrinder of "reeducation courses" he and his parents will get put through. Outsourced to the Amherst Men's Center? Not that kids should be allowed to pull that stuff, but kids will be kids, and for Hochman to also lie by saying gay and now transgendered kids have "no" rights or recourse to some justice or protection takes a lot of chutzpah. How'bout punishment for supe's who lie in magazines published by prestigious colleges? I ask too much.
GARBAGE, UTTER AND PURE GARBAGE! Our kids aren't so blind and dumb that they can't look around and see the impact of international events and trade, much less the many ways so many immigrants keep enriching our nation. Who and what does this man take us for?
I'll be among the first to admit this nation has a very short attention span and depth of world knowledge of what's going on beyond our shores. It's been like that for decades. Decades! The trouble nowadays lies in the ideological make up of the kind of people liberal school committees and superintendents are looking for to teach kids basic social studies. Instead of getting even just the basics of world history, geography, civics, economics and social studies -- these subjects are deliberately filtered through a prism of political correctness that'd be the envy of any former Soviet propagandist. We don't have to run these subjects under the watchful eye of James Dobson, either. Why the hell can't we find a middle path?
Who's fault is it that these kids didn't know Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan were Muslim nations? Hell, I knew that way back some 40 years ago. If the kids didn't learn this stuff in their basic geography and social studies classes, all the local committees on excellence will have a lot more than they realize they're biting into just to undo so many years of experimental and trendy liberal styles of education. Kids can't learn this stuff unless it's presented to them to learn it, memorize it and then talk about it as opposed to letting them "feel their way through it" and all that other gobbledygook stuff that kids in Amherst and many other liberally run schools have muddled through only to find out the world doesn't work along Mr. Rogers' ideas.
Dr. Hochman, you have a wonderful way with words. But words that aren't backed up by positive actions ring hollow at best. But when you wrote those words and undercut them with your contemptuous treatment of children of blue collar families, the Lunch Ladies, and anyone else who doesn't fit into your ideal kind of people to work with -- well, it makes you a plain damned liar with a fancy-schmancy degree and title to hide your dirty work and false pretenses behind what you really believe and strive for.
The prospect of Hochman making enough of a good impression with Obama's crew to earn himself a nice spot in the Dept. of Education, or worse, actually become Secretary of Education, is certainly enough to make this writer think more deeply about the risks of standing neutral in this presidential election.
JUST WHAT THIS EDUCATION DOCTOR ORDERED: MORE OPRAHESQUE "EDUCATION"
Recently I'd posted some pretty tough pieces about the Amherst (MA) School Commttee's decision to outsource its Food Services staff ("Lunch Ladies") to save a paltry $150,000. While that messy situation still stands in a form of trench warfare, I had the chance to come across an interesting essay written by former Superintendent Jere Hochman that were published three years ago in Amherst College's "Amherst Magazine."
Hochman's elitist snobbishness towards cafeteria workers is demonstrably well known in Amherst, and is largely responsible for shaping the School Committee's inexcusably heartless, mindless and bullheaded treatment of the Lunch Ladies. Less known, however, are his views about the formation of public education teachers and the role of public education in society. A word of advice: if you value a traditional education, where the teachers teach, the students learn and any so-called "education" resting on how well the teachers are able to make their students "feel" about the subject matter -- this will be difficult reading. Still, it won't hurt to dig in.
After all, Hochman is now the Superintendent of the Bedford Falls, NY Schools and he's in a very good spot to make a name for himself, especially if Sen. Obama gets into the Oval Office. More on this later: here's the article along with some of my insights:
I’d like to present four assumptions that I take with me when I think about schools today, whether here in Amherst or across the country. The first assumption is that the most important thing is hiring talented teachers and then growing them for an entire career. We could have the best school systems, the best curricula, the best rules and regulations, the greatest beliefs, but at some point, that teacher is going to walk into a classroom full of students and teach, and students will either learn and feel good or they won’t.
He had to be kidding. Absolutely. The same goes for Amherst College which published this drivel. Call me old hat: I'm of the opinion that the really great or even good solid teachers are those who see teaching as a calling, almost in a religious or super-secular sense. Where are these "talented teachers" going to come from? Teaching factories? What did he mean by "...then growing them for an entire career"? Pouring water mixed with Orthomix specifically designed for teachers?
This is the same kind of stuff many evangelical preachers keep reading these days in their push for creating larger and larger flocks and more "prospering" churches. And in public education, it seems as if teachers are being groomed to be nothing less than professionally trained employees who just happen to teach somebody's kids who won the Civil War (if the teacher actually knows it without having to look it up ahead of time.)
Call me old fashioned, but I always thought preachers and teachers ought to be more attentive to what goes into a person's soul and head as opposed to how one develops his calling or career. (Sadly, more preachers are confusing calling with career and not enough teachers are seeing their opportunities to help young people learn in schools as a worthy calling, secular or othewise. Professionalism and careerism are the bane of both.) Talking about "growing" teachers "...for an entire career" is much akin to the contemporary bastardization of how we describe the age-old task many parents have performed since Adam & Eve with Cain & Abel, "rearing children." Only now we call it "parenting" or perhaps in Hochmanese, "growing parenting skills for careers in child-begetting." Maybe "child-begetting's" too old fashioned for Hochman, et al.
Maybe some day Hochman will pore through a dictonary and all of a sudden discover a good old word to describe what he ought to be shooting for: vocation. Hopefully, his curiosity will nudge him forward. Hopefully. In the meantime, Amherst's parent's and their kids will have to endure more of what he's no doubt left behind: constructionist malarkey.
What kind of Oprahesque baloney was he trying to unload about some (no doubt) "talented" teacher walking " ... into a classroom full of students and teach, and students will either students will either learn and feel good or they won’t"?
Let's take that phrase and put into the setting of a social studies class, and the teacher's having to explain "socioeconomic justice" to his or her students the day after it was announced that Megafoods just took over the schools' cafeterias and all Lunch Ladies will be laid off, but with an option to seek re-employment at lower pay, bare-boned "benefit packages" and near zilch any paid time off. And, if the kids are attending schools in "right-to-work" states, such as Hochman's old turf, (MO) the ladies can kiss any chance of job security if they so much whisper the word "u n i o n." Of course, I forgot to mention, some of the kids in that class might have moms working in the various cafeterias throughout their town school's system. How good will they "feel"?
The second assumption is that the unit of change is the school. We can talk about the system, we can talk about structures, we can talk about federal policy, but the unit of change is the school. We don’t want cookie-cutter principals, and we don’t want cookie-cutter schools. Each one is unique, and the only way that we will see progressive change in education is one school at a time. We do need to change the system, but it will still be at the school level.
My third assumption is that we need to approach all this systemically, that we need to think of schools as learning communities. It’s almost a catch phrase now, to say that we want to become a community of learners. I take a different approach. I apply systems research to education. A school should have a shared vision, should engage in team learning, should think about its work systemically and connect the dots—it should operate on the mental model that says that we’re all in this together and not one that says we’re in two different tracks.
A. What's wrong with a "community of learners?" Doesn't that even describe the town he just left and it's primary "business," "industry," "line of occupation(s)" etc.?
B. He sure takes a "different approach." But his applying a "systems research to education" reminds me of a nasty boss I had while working as a state probation/parole officer in Central FL. This guy had a Tallahassee-backed system for this, that, you name it, but in six months he wound up throwing the damn thing out the window, publicly berated some of his officers as "incompetent" and in the end had to settle for us spending the first hour of every day in our offices,and every other day in the field after that first hour. The bad guys we had to supervise instantly developed their "systems research approach," to match ours. Guess what? They won hands down.
Unless he's into shipping logistics, the military or public transportation, he might as well do what that old boss of mine did, throw the damn plans out the window. But don't let the kiddies know you're gonna hide behind the teachers' desks you're circlin' (or faculty lounges) before you do it.
C. How the heck can he avoid "cookie cutter" officials if he follows a "systems research to education" philosophy? I'm not a Berkeley-trained "expert" in "public education policy formation" as is one of his buddies on the Amherst School Committee, but you don't need to be overly pedigreed to see through Hochman's double-talking gobbledygook.
My final assumption is that the ultimate mission is democracy in learning. Even though we use the term “public education,” it was really not until the second half of the 1900s that we truly became public. Let me just give you some dates and see if this helps trigger some thoughts for you.
1787 is when the Constitution was written, and it pretty much left education to be determined by the states, not by the federal government. 1918 was the date of the Cardinal Principles of Education, the first set of professional standards that we could look at and say, “Okay, this is what public education should be all about.” In 1954 the landscape changed with Brown v. Board of Education: For the first time, our schools were not to be segregated. 1972 was when Title IX was enacted, based on the idea that we needed federal legislation to protect women and their rights in education, that we should have a level playing field there. In 1975 we saw Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. We had integrated the schools by race and created a level playing field for women, but there were still students with disabilities being kept at home, being taught in isolated buildings or just not being taught, and the law said that they will be included in our schools, as well they should be. 1984 is when the Macintosh computer came to be. That had the potential to level the playing field for everybody, because finally you didn’t need anything more than your library card to have access to all the knowledge around the world.
1787 is when the Constitution was written, and it pretty much left education to be determined by the states, not by the federal government. 1918 was the date of the Cardinal Principles of Education, the first set of professional standards that we could look at and say, “Okay, this is what public education should be all about.” In 1954 the landscape changed with Brown v. Board of Education: For the first time, our schools were not to be segregated. 1972 was when Title IX was enacted, based on the idea that we needed federal legislation to protect women and their rights in education, that we should have a level playing field there. In 1975 we saw Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. We had integrated the schools by race and created a level playing field for women, but there were still students with disabilities being kept at home, being taught in isolated buildings or just not being taught, and the law said that they will be included in our schools, as well they should be. 1984 is when the Macintosh computer came to be. That had the potential to level the playing field for everybody, because finally you didn’t need anything more than your library card to have access to all the knowledge around the world.
For all his book smarts, he dropped the ball when it came to identifying who took up the initial responsiblity for public education back when the Constitution was ratified and up to at least some thirty years later in some states, providing public education was still pretty much a town-by-town matter, not something the states were very involved in. It wasn't possible! Hochman's insertion of his post-modern centralized thinking into a horse n' buggy social setting, etc., defies logic. (It's almost Hollywood-ish! The Disney Company understood educational history better than that and that's not Disney's main business.) States were responsible to some degree, but it mostly fell back on the towns. I'm a believer in strong government, but this guy gives that belief a black eye with his ignorance of basic history of his own profession.
His next paragraph belongs in some book!
1986 is a date you won’t find in any textbook on this subject, but I think it’s important to put it out here today in the context of education. That’s when my best friend from high school and junior high school died of AIDS. He did not let anyone know that he was homosexual throughout high school; it wasn’t until afterwards that he came out. But in that last year we had communications about what life was like for him in high school. I still have some of those letters. Unfortunately, today there’s no legislation to protect people like him; it’s still up to individual teachers and administrators to make sure that our schools are havens for students regardless of their beliefs and also their sexuality.
That's a bold faced lie. The kids who have the least amount of rights are those who might utter a "politically incorrect" (or actually, politically uncomfortable) and smart-alecky remark and see the meatgrinder of "reeducation courses" he and his parents will get put through. Outsourced to the Amherst Men's Center? Not that kids should be allowed to pull that stuff, but kids will be kids, and for Hochman to also lie by saying gay and now transgendered kids have "no" rights or recourse to some justice or protection takes a lot of chutzpah. How'bout punishment for supe's who lie in magazines published by prestigious colleges? I ask too much.
We all remember Sept. 11, but probably not in terms of school. However, that’s another landmark day for public education, because on that day quite a few schools across the country for the first time became aware that our schools are international, that our country is international. There had been no knowledge whatsoever about the religion and politics and backgrounds of folks who lived in Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan or the fact that their students were in our schools and, in many cases, having to hide the best way they could. So if there was one tiny bit of silver lining about that event in history, it was that it opened our eyes to the fact that we are living in an international community and that we need to learn how to live together.
GARBAGE, UTTER AND PURE GARBAGE! Our kids aren't so blind and dumb that they can't look around and see the impact of international events and trade, much less the many ways so many immigrants keep enriching our nation. Who and what does this man take us for?
I'll be among the first to admit this nation has a very short attention span and depth of world knowledge of what's going on beyond our shores. It's been like that for decades. Decades! The trouble nowadays lies in the ideological make up of the kind of people liberal school committees and superintendents are looking for to teach kids basic social studies. Instead of getting even just the basics of world history, geography, civics, economics and social studies -- these subjects are deliberately filtered through a prism of political correctness that'd be the envy of any former Soviet propagandist. We don't have to run these subjects under the watchful eye of James Dobson, either. Why the hell can't we find a middle path?
Who's fault is it that these kids didn't know Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan were Muslim nations? Hell, I knew that way back some 40 years ago. If the kids didn't learn this stuff in their basic geography and social studies classes, all the local committees on excellence will have a lot more than they realize they're biting into just to undo so many years of experimental and trendy liberal styles of education. Kids can't learn this stuff unless it's presented to them to learn it, memorize it and then talk about it as opposed to letting them "feel their way through it" and all that other gobbledygook stuff that kids in Amherst and many other liberally run schools have muddled through only to find out the world doesn't work along Mr. Rogers' ideas.
That’s what it’s all about. Our schools are among the last common spaces in this country. They are the last place where we put up the Statue of Liberty, put it out in front of the building, and say, “Anybody who wants to can walk through this door; we accept you no matter who you are. We will work with you, we will teach you, we will invite your parents in; we want you to feel like you belong here, and we want everybody to have a voice in how the school operates and where it’s going.”
Dr. Hochman, you have a wonderful way with words. But words that aren't backed up by positive actions ring hollow at best. But when you wrote those words and undercut them with your contemptuous treatment of children of blue collar families, the Lunch Ladies, and anyone else who doesn't fit into your ideal kind of people to work with -- well, it makes you a plain damned liar with a fancy-schmancy degree and title to hide your dirty work and false pretenses behind what you really believe and strive for.
The prospect of Hochman making enough of a good impression with Obama's crew to earn himself a nice spot in the Dept. of Education, or worse, actually become Secretary of Education, is certainly enough to make this writer think more deeply about the risks of standing neutral in this presidential election.
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
My grandkids used to go to public schools until my daughter discovered that all they were learning was was politically correct, sociologically engineered crappola. She was horrified when she found out all the "little things" her children had not learned. Like fractions? Accurate history? Spelling? But they both knew all about what a mean-spirited, racist country the USA is! They both knew all about sexuality (in every form). And they were becoming indoctrinated in the far left belief that feeling good was the most important factor in education. Learning was vastly over-rated!
She removed them from the public school system immediately and started teaching them herself, at home. The result was that my grand daughter just graduated from high school and passed the ASFAB test with more than double the passing score! She's a Marine with an excellent future. My grandson is going into the 6th grade and reading on an adult level. He plays math games on the computer and is crushed if he makes one error out of a hundred problems! By getting out of the public school system, neither of the kids has been imbued with the moral relativism that runs rampant in public education. They know the difference between right and wrong and they act accordingly.
I've written extensively on the subject of education over the last couple of years and it's nice to see that you will keep the proverbial ball rolling! Great post!
Comment by Anonymous
This man's a real piece of work, and so remains the entire school committee of Amherst, MA (Berkeley's East Coast Cousin--perhaps even worse than Cambridge to the east of me by 90 miles.) Hochman, the committee and the UMass Ed School are all one out of the same batch of weak clay.
I'm working on a piece about Hochman and his cockadoodle "constructivist" crap that no doubt he'll be dumping on and persisting his principles accept at his infallible dogma. (Strange, I've never seen this guy wearing all white clerical garb. And if he was, then I'd know for sure the gates of hell surely opened wide!
What you said about your kids and grandkids reminded me about the QUALITY of education my wife and I received back in the Amherst schools and Amherst Regional H.S. back in 70 & 78. I graduated in the bottom quarter of my class and managed to make it into four colleges, and I graduated a half-semester ahead of my class, no less. And while today's administrators love to slobber all over to the press about how many kids they put into the college factories, they never let on to the fact you only need a checkbook and a passing EKG to get into a local CC. Well, how 'bout the graduation-on-time-percentage results (academia's version of baseball's "slugging percentage") ... well, uh, sputter and more uhs. Two of us in my class graduated on time, myself and a friend who went on to teach at Brown. And I'm white and he's black -- but he succeeded on his own merit and he had tons of it. But unlike Obama, he's a lot smarter.
I've read more of Hochman's other baloney which I can't divulge, but he's persistent in giving the old "it's for the kids" line when in fact these careerists administrators only give a damn for themselves, certainly for THEIR kids, their buddies and fellow travellers kids, but for middle class and working class parents' kids. We know the answer to that question.
Congratulations for your family's success and tell the world what they're doing. You're not bragging. You're giving witness to the fact that good old fashioned methods still work.
Funny, how I've been writing for newspapers, etc. for 25 years and I rely on my wife who graduated 8 years behind me when Amherst still offered a higher quality education, to edit my work. Oh, but she's only a "lunch lady."
Well, the people who are mistreating her in Amherst and likewise her sisters across the nation as many other eggheads and academic administrators are wont (or wonkish) to are ONLY just pencil-pushing and scandalously overpaid/overrated pinheads.
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by Anonymous
But I still have all my hair!
Ruth is well educated and has far more inside with a h.s. diploma than quite a few piled high and deep folks we know. By the way, you'll be pleased to know the Romanian girl's plight has been picked up by the Catholic News Agency today (or yesterday.) Let's keep it up!
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Let's hope and pray that the Church can make the family see reason and give the baby a chance!