In 1996 physicist Alan Sokal famously exposed the intellectual vacuity of the postmodernist, ?critical theory? dogma that dominates the humanities, when the peer-reviewed journal Social Text published what was in fact a load of utter gibberish, deliberately written in nonsensical postmodernist jargon and spouting fashionably leftist dogma. Sokal was particularly spurred by the intrusion of idiotic feminist and Marxist dogma into supposedly intellectually rigorous fields like maths and physics.
Unfortunately, in the two decades since the Sokal Affair, things have only gotten worse. The lunatics are not just running the asylum, they?re teaching the next generation of wardens. Quote:
A row has erupted in education circles over a push for rigorous scientific research to inform classroom teaching practices, after a prominent education academic described it as a ?masculinist fantasy? that would create a workforce of ?phallic teachers? obsessed with ?data, tools and ? probes?. End of quote.
?Education academic? too often seems to be an oxymoron; at best, an exemplar of Kerry Packer?s dry observation about ?educated fuckwits?. Quote:
Lucinda McKnight, who educates trainee teachers at Melbourne?s Deakin University, has called for ?an urgent halt to the imposition of evidence-based education?, arguing that ?pretending teachers are doctors ? leaves students consigned to boring, standardised and ineffective cookbook teaching?. End of quote.
Despite academic theorists? blithering about ?critical thinking?, it?s plain that an inability to think critically starts at the very top. McKnight?s analogy is a fundamental failure of critical thinking: not only denigrating the role of evidence, but relying on a false analogy. Quote:
In an article on the Australian Association for Research in Education website, Dr McKnight and her co-author, Monash University academic and doctor Andy Morgan, takes aim at the push for education to embrace randomised controlled trials (RCTs), which are used in medicine to test the efficacy of a new drug or health intervention.
According to the article, encouraging teachers to be like doctors seems like a good idea but is ?problematic? and ignores the fact evidence-based medicine is itself in ?crisis?. End of quote.
Randomised controlled trials are the basis of much of modern science, even sociology, not just medicine. Not only is this analogy basically wrong, but the claim that ?evidence-based medicine is itself in crisis? is also utterly wrong-headed. This is irrational dogma parading as scholarship.
Of course, no postmodernist garbage is complete without a spurious appeal to feminism. Quote:
?Teaching is a feminised profession, with a much lower status than medicine,? the authors wrote. ?It is easy for science to exert a masculinist authority over teachers, who are required to be ever more scientific to seem professional.
?They are called on to be phallic teachers, using data, tools, tests, rubrics, standards, benchmarks, probes and scientific trials, rather than ?soft? skills of listening, empathising, reflecting and sharing.? End of quote.
This is nothing but pure gibberish. Quote:
Pamela Snow, an expert in language and literacy at La Trobe University, described as ?insulting? the assumption that ?poor feeble women ? would not be able to cope with the rigours of science?s analytic tools?.
?There is no connection ?between genitalia and the tools of scientific inquiry,? she said.
Dr Snow said teachers had an obligation to be aware of the latest research studies. ?No one is pretending teachers are doctors but if they want to be afforded at least some professional autonomy then they have to accept professional accountability.? End of quote.
theaustralian
Accountability often seems to be the last thing that teachers want, as shown by their fierce resistance to performance-based pay. But any profession that delivers constantly declining results while demanding more and more money, clearly needs to be held to account. Trying to fob off criticism by spouting nonsensical leftist gibberish just isn?t good enough.