Month: April 2022

RatS 21: Taibbi – Twitter’s Chickens Come Home to Roost

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April 27, 2022

12:37 pm

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(29/04/22 Update below) We had thought about posting on this one but, given the paywall, we had decided against. Now we’ve decided for it. With Elon Musk having arranged to buy Twitter, and given our post yesterday on Twitter Fun, it seems worthwhile.

People are going nuts at the prospect of Musk controlling Twitter. They’ve been going nuts since it became clear a couple weeks ago that Musk was eyeing the company. It is appalling. One doesn’t have be a fan of Musk to be disgusted by the manipulative, hypocritical and, most importantly and nauseatingly, censorious twaddle that would-be-respectable journalists are currently spewing.

Continue reading “RatS 21: Taibbi – Twitter’s Chickens Come Home to Roost” →

Governor DeSantis’s Critical Race Theory and the Rejection of Mathematics Texts

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April 23, 2022

4:07 pm

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Last week, the big, crazy news out of big, crazy America was the Florida Department of Education’s decision to reject 54 school mathematics texts. The reasons? Well, supposedly the rejected texts

included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics.

The claim was immediately undermined, however, by the FDOE’s declining to provide any such references, or to even identify the rejected texts. Continue reading “Governor DeSantis’s Critical Race Theory and the Rejection of Mathematics Texts” →

Keith Devlin and His Struggle with Maths Non-Experts

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April 22, 2022

2:36 pm

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Is it significant that Keith Devlin’s twitter handle has “prof” in it, and that the name of Devlin’s website has “prof” in it? Maybe not, but at the moment it feels significant. Greg “Non-Prof” Ashman could reasonably regard it as significant.

Last week we wrote a bit about Slow Jo Boaler, her threat to call the cops on a critic of her California Curriculum work, and Keith Devlin’s slippery and silly defense of Boaler and her work. Greg Ashman had also been commenting on this, including a snide but pretty innocuous response to a tweet of Devlin’s. This inspired Professor Smarts to block Ashman and to dismiss Ashman with a wave of his lordly professorial hand:

What a dick. Continue reading “Keith Devlin and His Struggle with Maths Non-Experts” →

RatS 20: Michael Lind – The End of Progressive Intellectual Life

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April 20, 2022

11:17 pm

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Following on from Laura Kipnis, we had also never previously heard of Michael Lind. Unlike Kipnis, who seems consistently great, Lind is a mixed bag. He has a superior tone, which doesn’t sit well with some of his less-than-superior judgments; anybody who writes a book titled Vietnam: The Necessary War is on the thinnest of ice. Nonetheless, Lind is smart and thoughtful and, critically, he is willing to write what he thinks, is willing to annoy anybody.

Last week, Lind had an excellent essay published in Tablet. Titled The End of Progressive Intellectual Life, it begins,

Continue reading “RatS 20: Michael Lind – The End of Progressive Intellectual Life” →

RatS 19: Laura Kipnis – Why Are Scholars Such Snitches?

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April 12, 2022

11:17 pm

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Last week, Matt Taibbi published a book review/interview with Laura Kipnis (paywalled, but a decent chunk is freely available). We hadn’t previously heard of Kipnis, but she seems great: smart and literate and brave and funny. Taibbi’s piece was prompted by a great essay Kipnis had published last month in The Chronicle of Higher Education, titled Academe is a Hotbed of Craven Snitches. It can naturally be read together with two of Kipnis’s earlier essays, Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe and My Title XI Inquisition.

But of course we in Australia don’t have to worry. This is all just an American thing, isn’t it?

Read Kipnis’s essays, and then scream.

Continue reading “RatS 19: Laura Kipnis – Why Are Scholars Such Snitches?” →

Professor Smarts Defends Professor Karen

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April 12, 2022

11:30 am

25 Comments on Professor Smarts Defends Professor Karen

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Yesterday we wrote about Jo Boaler, her latest own goal and some of her checkered history. But her defenders are coming out as well to, well, defend her. Fair enough. Except, that their defense is dishonest and farcical. As it must be.

Yesterday, Keith Devlin took time off from trying to start World War III to retweet support for Boaler:
Continue reading “Professor Smarts Defends Professor Karen” →

Jo Boaler Shows Her True Colours, Again

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April 12, 2022

12:08 am

4 Comments on Jo Boaler Shows Her True Colours, Again

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There’s something poetically unfair about Jo Boaler being whacked this way and that for gouging some poor school district, and for threatening a black guy with calling the cops. The gouging was real and the threat was undeniable, and undeniably nasty, but none of it was surprising for Boaler and none of it was the point. Her gouging and her being a Professor Karen are not the main reasons why the people now whacking Boaler are so enjoying whacking her. But, God it is fun to watch, and God she deserves it. Continue reading “Jo Boaler Shows Her True Colours, Again” →

A Bita Crap

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April 3, 2022

11:23 am

7 Comments on A Bita Crap

ACARA

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We’ve been trying to tone down the language on this blog. Honestly. But education reporters make it so damn hard.

To be fair, most of the reports of the passing of ACARA’s curriculum have been ok. Not good, not exhibiting much in the way of thought or memory or reflection, but ok. Sure, the reporters could have pointed out that the Wonderful New Curriculum is still secret, meaning nobody really knows whether the media releases are remotely accurate. They could have reported that the participants in ACARA’s final charade are still bound by ACARA’s insidious NDA and so have been cowed into not commenting. They could have reported that AMSI and AustMS have been silent, and most definitely have not signalled endorsement of the new mathematics curriculum. They could have pointed out that ACARA had screwed up royally, for years, and that the alleged improvements to the mathematics curriculum, if real and meaningful, only came about because of a massive campaign, a campaign which, until the very end, ACARA treated with utter contempt. But, after all, they’re education reporters; you can’t expect too much. Continue reading “A Bita Crap” →