Dan Erwin

So U.S. History Doesn't Flip Your Kid's Switch. So What?

Diane Ravitch, who recently changed her mind and decided to support public schools, took a look at the test, the scores . . . and blew her cork. "The answer was right in front of them. This is alarming."

The test was the National Assessment of Educational Progress given to 20% of our fourth graders, 17% of of eighth graders and 12% of high school seniors. It showed that our students are less proficient in their nation's history than in any other subject. The other subjects? Math, reading, science, writing, civics, geography, economics. No surprise. Students scored highest in economics. That won't, by itself, resolve 21st century corporate--or political--needs.

So why does it matter that kids don't know U.S. history? (Before I go any further, I need to 'fess up. I was an undergrad history major, who also took a bit of political science and econ. Smart advisor guided me. And that was the 1950s.) Sure, the data of historical events, dates, people, cultures, politics, wars and movements helps us understand what's going on in our world today. But there's also a second, far more important reason for understanding history. And it gets practically no press.

My answer to the question tells you why I nearly went bonkers when I read Penelope Trunk's blog telling her readers to avoid the humanities, of which history is one of the major disciplines. She couldn't have been more wrong. I was so pissed that I almost wrote a blog on why a business major is the absolute worst undergrad major to major in. If my daughters had even let business as an undergrad major cross their minds, I'd have indicated that they'd get no money from me for college. What a dumb major for smart kids. Might as well take cheer-leading or basketball. Ninety-five percent of the stuff you'll get at work anyway. The only thing it possibly offers is a faster track to your first job out of college. By your fifth year of work, practically everything you got in it is obsolete. Zip. Nada. Useless.

What history offers, instead, is a phenomenally important, permanent set of critical tools. History forces you to investigate an endless set of highly complex issues [religion, culture, politics, scientific thought (Ben Franklin, Benjamin Rush, David Rittenhouse), media, wealth, taxes (for the unenlightened, "taxation without representation"), natural resources or lack of (Jefferson, Lewis and Clark)] to enable you to figure why something happened, and what else might have happened, if. . . .

In short, there is not a single undergrad major more effective for teaching critical reasoning for a highly complex world. No critical reasoning tools is exactly why 95% or more of business people can't do strategic thinking and legislators have so damn much difficulty with policy-making. Simply no tools in the toolkit.

History is an inquiry-based study and a problem-solving activity. So it teaches you how to ask the really significant questions and deal with the complex problems that business and government people struggle over. (Here's a successful humanities grad who really gets it.)

History requires students to deal with social problems that are poorly structured, very controversial and with all kinds of reasoning and built-in illogic. It requires different kinds of thinking than a student would learn in the well-structured problems of philosophy and basic logic. Furthermore, it forces students to look at conflicting accounts of the same problem (the residents of Boston versus the British military perspective on the Boston Massascre). It also presents students with moral and ethical challenges (were the colonists justified in using violence against British authority?) Finally, students who study these challenges learn to recognize the different biases asssociated with perspectives. (Here's one ninth grader who gets it.) Significantly, they learn to compare their moral suasion against the different persuasions within a historical context.

There's endless stuff about all kinds of wars. Lack of historical tools is a major reason why Iraq, which the Bushies thought would be delighted with their intervention, blew up in their face. Lack of historical tools is why so few understand that you can't take a country like Afghanistan, that's living in the ninth century, into the twenty-first century in just ten short years. Lack of historical tools is why so few understand that the Medicare and Social Security systems impact all kinds of people, businesses, state governments, classes and generations of people in half-a-million different ways. Lack of historical tools is also why so many don't understand the conflicting perspectives and conflicting ethics of the different political parties involved. Lack of historical tools is why the resolution of the problems those programs have given us is evidently impossible to manage.

I think it was Senator Thomas Hart Benton, the first Senator of Missouri early in the 19th century, who commented about a certain decision and a certain legislator, that the decision was not nearly as simple as some simple-minded people would like to think. In today's highly complex world, "don't do nuance" and no critical historical tools can lead a person, a company and a nation into tragedy.

You can't possibly imagine how good it feels to vent my spleen and stick my middle finger into the air on this issue..#!%@!!

Can a Job Change Change Your Politics?

In an article by Gardiner Harris of the NYTimes, the writer says that as physicians' jobs change, so do their politics. Although doctors were once overwhelmingly male, usually owning their practices, more than 50% of the younger generation of physicians is now female and more and more physicians, male and female, are taking salaried jobs. That's especially true in the NorthEast, but even so in the deep South. What this also means is that as doctors switch from private ownership to shift worker, they are changing from Republican to Democrat.

In the last two paragraphs of the article, Harris quotes the former president of Maine's Medical Association who describes himself as "very conservative." The physician's summary is a classic example to add to my store of beliefs, by otherwise astute people, who get caught in the "fundamental attribution error."

That "error" is the belief that our decisions are made primarily on the basis of our own psychological nature. Here's what the "very conservative" Dr. Kevin Flanigan of Maine's AMA has to say:

People who are conservative by nature are not going to go into the profession because medicine is not about running your own shop anymore.

Amusing--and wrongheaded. Especially the notion of "conservative by nature," or even the unstated, "liberal by nature." Far more important in how we make decision is not our inherent nature, but the situation in which we find ourselves. Although the trait psychologists would like us to believe that there is such a thing as our "inherent nature"--it would help sell more psychological tests--it just ain't true. What's true is that our situation has far more impact on us than any so-called "inherent nature." Actually, some of the well-known proverbs admit to that. And generous proverbs tend to reflect part of reality, so they do have importance. "What would you have done if you were in his shoes?" or "There, but for the grace of God go I." Each of those maxims points in the direction of role demands or situational determinants of behavior. Each also counsels against inappropriate interpretations of a person's "inherent nature."

You can always explain away the exceptions. But I don't expect most people to toss the notion of "inherent nature" in the garbage can. It has some use, but not nearly as much use overall as many think.

So what does this mean?

If you're an HR person and someone isn't performing, perhaps rethink that's person's situation--and try to work out an organizational change before a pink slip.

If you're unhappy or bored in your present role because you haven't been learning anything new, switch to a new setting with new demands.

If, in spite of your recognized performance, you're stymied in your attempts to get a promotion, move on.

If your role doesn't offer a promotion, either decide to accept the regular raises and reconstitute the role, or move on.

In the final analysis, your work situation is more impactful on your success and health than your own psychological disposition.

One of my best friends, a former faculty colleague, left our school after three years. When I asked him why, he responded that he didn't like what the situation (the school's values and attitudes) was doing to him and his wife. It took me far more than three years to make that decision, but since then I've realized how really thoughtful and wise his decision. So pay close attention to your culture and situation. Over the long run, it will have more impact positively or negatively on your career--and your health--than anything else.

You Are What You Blog

I'm quite familiar with "you are what you eat."  Now we have "you are what you blog."  That's spooky.

Research completed at the University of Colorado by Tal Yarkoni reveals a number of intriguing conclusions.  Contrary to popular wisdom, the study finds that we bloggers do not present ourselves in an overly idealistic way online--no differently online than offline.  Rather, our online selves reflect the way we see ourselves and how we are viewed by others offline.  

On numerous occasions I've had clients tell me they were different people at home than at work.  I regularly pooh-poohed that notion.  A number of times the spouse came in for the feedback conversation, and inevitably confirmed my conclusion.  We're the same person at home as at work. 

One thing is certain: Our words convey meaning, but our choice of words also conveys details about our personality.   

Several previous studies have identified a connection between language usage and personality.  But that research relied on limited writing or speech samples and focused on general personality traits.  In contrast, Yarkoni studied almost 700 bloggers who wrote a total of more than 115,000 words.  Significantly, bloggers provide a large sample because they write a lot, often over very long periods of time.  And so in contrast to the previous research, the blogging samples not only made identification of really large effects of personality upon language, but also the more subtle and nuanced relationships between personality and a person's rhetoric. 

The study also found a number of unexpected correlations.  For example, agreeable people often used sexual words that reflected affection or sex, such as love, loving, hugs, etc., but not terms like gay or porn.  He found that sports-related words from the school category like football, basketball or team correlated with excitement-seeking.  In contrast, words relating to the studious aspects of school like books, desk, etc., were not chosen by thrill seekers.  No consideration was given to the underlying meaning of the text--a significant limitation. 

Yarkoni's conclusion is enlightening: If you're sociable and like to seek out people offline, you're probably going to do the same thing online.  If you complain a lot when you're around your offline friends, you may very well complain about similar things in your online blog.  Our personalities don't dramatically change just because we've turned on our computers.

So in the future, add these insights to your blog reading, and recognize that there's a lot more going on in a blog than what a writer is blogging about.  Those of us in the field of rhetorical analysis have known this for at least 100 years.  Perhaps, the psychologists are beginning to catch up.  You can be sure about two things: when you read those happy blogs, you've got a happy person writing them, and when you read those whiny, complaining blogs, you also know what that person is like.  So choose poison or . . .  well, life.