broken dreams - the jobs they won't get

8/7/2019 Broken Dreams - The Jobs they won't get

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severe lack of prerequisite preparation for performing even the most minimallydemanding work.

Within this essay is a link to a number of job applications as they appeared in recentweeks in the Resumes section of Craigs List. Aside from the low potential for attracting

employers to this section of Craigs List, you will want to look for some commonalitieswhich severely limit the appeal of these applicants. Among them you will note:

Almost none of these young adults are capable of writing a single error freesentence, let alone a complete paragraph. Worse, they appear to be unaware and/or uncaring of errors they make.

Of equal importance is their apparent ignorance of the expected format expected inan application for employment. Applications are directed at marketing ones skillsand potential contributions to a specific employer, or to a well-defined segment of anindustry. Proof of formal education, work experience, peripheral skills and talents

possessed by the applicant are expected. Taken together, all are directed atimproving bottom-line performance and/or cost savings of the employer to which theapplication is directed. The application is formatted in one of a number of stylesrepresenting accepted presentation standards.

Employers are largely disinterested or negatively disposed toward informationregarding the applicants personal concerns. This, with the exception of those factorswhich may interfere with job performance. Instead, they seek pertinent informationregarding the skills the applicant can bring to a position. Yet, with few exceptions,these applicants focus largely on their personal concerns, instead of their potential

value to the employer. Studies by linguists and psychologists suggest disjunction between employer expectation and candidate submittals is attributable to measurable characteristics inresumes and application letters. Experienced subjectively, these differences rest on

such elements as the ratio of Function words such as articles and

prepositions convey no information, while content words (Nouns, Verbs, Adjectivesand Adverbs) are the meat, of a sentence. Actual resumes extracted from CraigsList make clear the stark difference between applicants potentially of value toemployers, and those not.

Perhaps what most affects the disregard of errors in applications is the lack of recognition that errors are present.. In a now widely accepted study. The Dunning-Kruger Effect asserts that the ignorant repeatedly demonstrate their lack of knowledge (ignorance) of their ignorance.

People who do things badly, Dr. Dunning has found in studiesconducted with a graduate student, Justin Kruger, are usually


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supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact,than people who do things well.

One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required forcompetence often are the same skills necessary to

recognize competence . The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly, they suggested in apaper appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psycholog y.

Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and makeunfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of theability to realize it

Ultimately, these applicants are unprepared as a result of the failure of PublicEducation to impart necessary knowledges and skills. A view by several writers isthat the educational apparatus is committed to purposes quite different than

is its constituency expectation for institutional intent. While purpose and practice are inseparably linked, teacher/administrator incompetence, stupidity, and, criminality are offered as the proximate cause for failure. This results in young adults unprepared to be successful in gainingemployment.

Can a few accurately represent the many?

Undoubtedly, legitimate questions can be raised whether the few samples to bedisplayed here are representative of the untold number of recent high school graduates,college students, or those who have just recently received undergraduate degrees. Therecently completed decennial census provides us with useful understandings of thedimensions of this problem. Readily apparent is the degree to which formal educationaffects job opportunities. Shown below is the variance in unemploymentoccurringbetween various levels of educational attainment in the adult population:


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Particular sensitivity is shown in periods of recession. Below, compare these levels of unemployment between the years 2006 and 2008. Green demonstrates a period of strong performance, with Red increasing, after the reported end of the recession in late2009. The y-axis represents the percentage unemployed by category (x-axis).

What becomes readily apparent is the large difference between good times and badamong those with differing degrees of educational attainment. College graduatesexperienced only modest differences in unemployment rates during the periodsexamined.However, those without a high school diploma found themselves hugelydisadvantaged from their better educated contemporaries.

Black, or Hispanic, first-time job searchers are at even greater disadvantage.. Those inthe 15-19 age range have demonstrably suffered to a far greater degree than even adultBlacks or Hispanics. If one is a member of either of these minorities and in the 15-19age Cohort, unemployment will approximatenearly 50%. Even in the best of times, thisage cohort exceeded 15% unemployment. During November, 2009 nearly 25% of themwere unable to find work of any kind.


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A Multi-Dimensional Problem

Equally problematic, as demonstrated in the resumes, is the self-important attitudes of many, in this 15-19 age group. Not only do they lack marketable skills, and essentialcommunication tools, they lack the capacity to divert attention from their personal

problems. Deviations from generally accepted content and formatting of application materials willgive rise to concern about the applicants ignorance of workplace procedures. Theemployer will additionally be concerned with the applicantscapability or willingness toconform to normal procedures expected of their employees.

After failing to ensure that high school graduates have even rudimentary writing skills,schools neglect to prepare them for successful workplace readiness.

Last, but far from least, resume placement on Craigs List of is likely to attract theattention of few employers. With all the resume resources available, Craigs list holdslittle appeal as a source for qualified applicants.

High school and college students have changed in the last 50 years

A half-century ago, I was a middle school teacher of English and Social Studies. I cansay with some certainty, that the intellectual capabilities of young people are differenttoday than they were during that period. Many reading this will suggest that I amresponding to anecdotal memory instead of evidence. Fortunately, the Internet providesa time machine, making it possible to compare writing skills of some long-ago studentsto their current writing product.

I have had the opportunity to reconnect with a number of my former students andemployees from many years ago. Generations ago, while employed in companies Ifounded, teens and young adults worked to design, produce, and market our products.The written communications they produced were markedly different than the incoherent,vapid, babblings of current employment seekers.

In the late 1990s Ebonics or Ghetto English became a part of the urban linguisticlandscape. It was, for all practical purposes, indecipherable by any who had been raisedin a home where Standard English was employed.

Ebonics is a term that was originally intended to refer to thelanguage of all people descended from enslaved Black Africans ,particularly in West Africa , the Caribbean , and North America .Over time, and especially since 1996, it has been used more oftento refer to African American Vernacular English (distinctivelynonstandard Black United States Englis h), asserting theindependence of this from (standard) English


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Readers of the above materials will find the comments I make markedly devoid of anycompassion for these writers. Most hiring managers will agree a majority of allapplicants show an astonishing ineptitude for any job which might be open .

It is particularly distressing to find this unfitness, since so many applicants indicate

college/university enrollment.

Correlation, causation, and conclusions

The content that you have been reading to this point is almost entirely factual. We havea number of disparate facts, the importance of which is perhaps less than evident. If wethink of these facts as dots, then conclusions are the glue, which links them together to provide useful meaning.

Each of these facts is, in some way related or correlated. with each of the others. In

this case, the facts which are available suggest a nation in serious trouble, the nature of which is seldom addressed in the Mainstream Media.

To further explore these facts, we must first detail some of the data earlier presented.

As the recession worsened, the number of unemployed in the 15 to 19 age rangerapidly deteriorated.

Not only was teen unemployment, even inthe best of economic circumstances, far worse than any other demographic, but itrapidly degraded as economiccircumstances worsened. The large variance in each year demonstrates the sensitivity of thismeasurement to changes in the economy.

The Boomerangs

Healthy Workplace reports that 9% of all respondents reported having an adult childliving at home. This reflects the results of the 2000 U.S. census, which showed that4 million people (10 % of the of that age cohort) between the ages of 25 and 34currently live with their parents; this is double the percentage of that age group wholived with their parents 50 years ago.

If we continue with that trend, those who are between the ages of 18 to 34 will nowtotal a little over 55 million. Extending the earlier 10% figure to today, a minimum of 5.5 million or 1.5% of the total population will fail to leave or subsequently return tothe homes of their parents. If instead, we use the 2010 unemployment rates


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gone completely mad. Such work still remains in the domain of what human beingsalone can do.

In an extensive study conducted by the previously referenced authors, the numbers of words used by literate adults in conversation is in the range of 100,000. Yet, a group of

approximately only 400 words compose almost half of what we say or write! Thesewords are designated as Function Words, with some of those classified as such, shownbelow;

These words communicate little. Instead, they are the cement, which makes our speech smooth, uninterrupted, and comfortable for the listener. The heavy lifting of communication is done by Content Words.

In a .pdf authored by Chang and Pennebaker, titled T he Psychological Functions of Function Words , we are introduced to the role of the brain in processing these quiteseparate and distinct elements of speech.

Sex and Age There are sex differences in the use of virtually allfunction words: pronouns, prepositions, articles, and auxiliary


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verbs. In a study of over 10,000 text files, Newman et al. (2003)found that women tend to use first person singular pronouns at aconsistently higher rate than do men.

Possible reasons for this difference could be that females aregenerally more self-focused than men, are more prone to

depression than men, or that women have traditionally held lower status positions relative to men. Another large sex difference isthat males natural speech and writing contain higher rates of article and noun use, which characterizes categorization, or concrete thinking. On the other hand, females use more verbs(especially auxiliary verbs), which highlight females relationalorientations.

Age differences in function words are also robust. Pennebaker and Stone (2003) found that people use fewer first person singular words and greater first person plural words with age. This, alongwith the greater use of exclusive words, suggests that as peopleage they make more distinctions and psychologically distance

themselves from their topics. In other words, older people speakwith greater cognitive complexity. Interestingly, the analysis of their auxiliary verbs indicates that people use more future tenseand less past tense the older they get, suggesting a shift in focusthrough the aging proce ss.

Ultimately, the essence of a communication comes from the nouns and verbs. Whilethey do the primary work of communication, the adjectives, adverbs, and interjectionsenrich and enhance the communication of spoken words. Content words and functionwords are stored and processed in two separate and distinct sections of the brain.

In general, the majority of language functions are housed in thetemporal and frontal lobes. Within the left temporal lobe (at leastfor most people) is Wernickes area . Wernickes area is critical

for both understanding and generating most advancedspeech including nouns, regular verbs and most adjectives. Brocas area on the other hand is situated in the


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left frontal lobe. Damage to Brocas area while Wernickesarea is intact results in people speaking in a painfully slow,hesitating way. People with a functioning Broacas area, but with damage to Wernickes -- exhibit a completely differentsocial style. These people often speak warmly and fluidly whilemaintaining eye contact with the target person. The only problemis that they primarily use function words with no content at all.

In the aggregate, the resumes consisted of some 2,024 words. Fully 49.38% of thewords in the aggregate application are words which are Function words. Theycommunicate little or no relevant information to the potential employer .

How much is too much?

For resumes and application cover letters, Function Words should be held to aminimum, Content is focused on providing value to the employer. Comparing normativevalues of Published Content, to that produced in the sample resumes, there is animportant difference.


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For the statistically minded we find a 2,56% difference between the top 50 words in thetest group, and the texts made available for review. In the test group of published(written) text, Function Words occurred in 34.55% of the total, where in our test sample(Sample Resumes), the number was 37.11%. Our confidence that this represents astatistically significant difference at the 5% level is reflected in the paired T-Test shownbelow:

Machine assessment of applications

The larger the employer payroll, the greater is the likelihood that resumes and cover letters will be machine screened, before human intervention occurs. There are anumber of factors which can be readily assessed by computer which provide HumanResource personnel, and/or hiring managers with candidates most likely to besuccessful if hired,

Subtleties such as whether the ratio of will seldom , if ever, be considered by the candidate in his preparation of application documents.Yet, when this ratio exceeds this value, readers become increasingly suspicious of

the lack of substantive content contained inthese documents.The Department of Education maintains a downloadable list of all accredited post-secondary institutions in the United States . Verification of degree achievement canbe readily obtained with automatic querying of institutions claimed as having issueda degree. Such queries require permission by the candidate, secured for use duringthe execution of the background check. The current world of Distance Learning and


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Online Courses requires a determination, not only of the candidates achievement,but verification of institutional accreditation.

Finding the right person for a particular job is currently a very much heuristic (hit andmiss) proposition. A number of Linguistics researchers have posited that much can

be obtained by looking for particular markers, in the speech and writtencommunications of persons being evaluated. The work of Pennebaker and Stonewas earlier briefly mentioned. A paper published in the Journal of Research inPersonality , was directed at a linguistic analysis of four of the 2004 presidentialcandidates. Previously their work was mentioned in a 2003 study, where they werePrincipal Investigators. Summarized below are some of their findings:

For example, depressed individuals and those who are low inself-acceptance tend to use more 1st-person singular pronouns(e.g., I, me, my) compared to non-depressed individuals andthose higher in self acceptance (Rude, Gortner, & Pennebaker,2004; Weintraub, 1981). Use of 1st-person singular has also beenshown to be related to honesty. In a series of linguistic liedetector studies, when people were being honest they were morelikely to use words such as I, me, and my, [make] morereferences to other people, more exclusion words (e.g., except,without, but), and fewer negative emotion words (Newman,Pennebaker, Berry, & Richards, 2003).

Linguistic style can also yield clues to a persons thinking style,such as complexity of thought. For example, the use of insightful(e.g., think, understand, realize) and causal words (e.g.,because, cause, effect) has been linked to higher gradesamong college students (Pennebaker & Francis, 1996) and higher

levels of Openness to Experience (Pennebaker & King, 1999).Indeed, analyses of causal words and statements have proved tobe powerful predictors of peoples traits and behaviors (Zullow etal., 1988). Word use can also reflect age, sex, and other demographic variables. For example, with increasing age,individuals tend to use more positive emotion words, fewer negative emotion words, more future tense and fewer past tenseverbs.

With many more candidates than jobs available, focused evaluations of candidateswriting can greatly improve the likely quality of ultimately selected candidates. Thiscan be achieved by removing many of the failures elicited by gut feel, during an

interview. A nd then there is Education

There is one skill, totally essential for the acquisition of any disciplines mostrudimentary knowledge. That skill is the ability to read, and integrate complexinformation with that already known. Formal learning may broadly be divided intotwo classes Skills and Content. After teaching basic reading skills and arithmetic


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operations, much of the remainder of public education is directed at rote learning of content .

Talk to any manager of employees, and you will get essentially the same complaint employees lack Critical Thinking Skills. Except for leading edge companies like

Google, where only the most talented are hired, many agree that current (especiallyyoung) employees Lack initiative. As an example of this, managers complain that their reports come to them far too often for direction regarding assignments. Conversely,some will complain of impulsive decisions resulting in unwanted consequences.Ultimately we have to look at the institution of Public Education to understand how thishas happened.

This perception of the lack of these skills is often translated as the employee beinglacking in, common sense. At times, in demonstrating the lack of self-sufficiency suchemployees may be perceived as being lazy or disinterested in their work. C lassifying desired behavior

This problem of defining desired behavior was greatly ameliorated when, In 1956,Benjamin Bloom, with a group of educational psychologists, found a definitionalsolution. They created a classification system which came to be known as BloomsTaxonomy . That classification system uses action verbs associated to each of thebehaviors shown in the table following.

BEHAVIOR DESCRIPTIVE VERBS

Remembering: can the student recall or remember the information?

define, duplicate, list, memorize, recall,repeat, reproduce state

Understanding: can the student explainideas or concepts?

classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify,locate, recognize, report, select, translate,paraphrase

Applying: Cann the student use theinformation in a new way?

choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ,illustrate, interpret, operate, schedule, sketch,solve, use, write.

Analyzing: Can the student distinguishbetween the different parts?

compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate,

discriminate, distinguish, examine,experiment, question, test.

Evaluating: can the student justify astand or decision?

appraise, argue, defend, judge, select,support, value, evaluate

Synthesizing/Creating: can the student assemble, construct, create, design, develop,


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create a new product or point of view? formulate, write.

These skills can be represented by a triangle, with Analysis Evaluation and Synthesisskills demonstrated by many fewer individuals, than those shown at the bottom of thefigure.

Few would disagree about the importance of the last three elements.Yet, we see K-12Education eliciting few, if any, of these most important skills. In the Primary grades (K-3)teaching is directed, almost exclusively to Remembering and Understanding.

At these grade and age groups, such a limited focus is justifiable. This, because thesestudents have not reached the point in brain development, where more complexlearning and conceptualization can be successfully achieved. Two areas receive thegreatest attention.

With much of early reading currently taught using the Whole Word Recognition ,initial reading skills, focused on vocabulary development, relies heavily on rote memory.

Lacking the word attack skills common to the Phonics method, learners are deprived of the ability to incorporate new words into their vocabularies. The ultimate consequenceof having a limited vocabulary is a distaste for reading the printed word.

In the case of the teaching of basic arithmetic, teachers utilize learning tools such asflash cards to instill addition and subtraction facts along with multiplication tables. Whenit comes to understanding higher order mathematics such students are almost invariably


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at a loss. Thus, 20 years later, needed mathematicians, statisticians, and talentedprogrammers are difficult to find.

Those in Upper Elementary grades (Grades 4-6) experience the introduction of limited Application or Problem Solving skills.

These are almost entirely focused on Arithmetic operations, and are at the lowest levelof the three kinds of tools for problem solution. Most problemsolving usually entails oneof three methods:

Algorithmic: This is another way of saying Rule Application. Using this method, allproblems of the same type are solved using one or a series of rules applied to theproblem. Example: C onvert a mixed number to a fraction with a singlenumerator and denominator.

Heuristic: When a trial and error approach is applied to a problem, the approach isdesignated as employing Heuristics. Example: Find the fastest route through amaze. (Few would say that rodents running through a maze do anything more thefirst time through, then use heuristics.)

Stochastic: This method involves he making of a Best Choice, based on theprobability that desired or undesired consequences will occur . It is used insuch diverse situations as economic Cost Benefit analyses, Game Theory

Applications, and Decision Theory. Example: You have a 65% chance of winning$25.00, and 35%chance losing $21.43or you have aa 65% chance of winning $0.00and only a35% chance of winning $5.00. Which do you choose?


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Note that in repeated trials of both choices, you are likely to average exactly the samewinnings of $8.75 whether you select CHOICE 1 or CHOICE 2. Most will choose Choice#2, because, in the worst case they lose nothing. This choice will be made, even whilethe player has a better chance of making $16.25, then of losing $7.50

Why this choice? Because the majority of people tend to be highly risk averse, or riskavoiding. While CHOICE 1 offers a much better opportunity, the small chance of losinganything scares most away. The reverse is true when applied to the raging hormones,(adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, et al ) which inform the behavior of the pubescent teenmale. The greater is the risk, the greater the Rush. This is true to a somewhat lesser,but equally alarming degree with teen girls. (Teen pregnancy or STD, anyone?)

Implications for the Clasroom

There is a whole world of information out there, free for the taking. For many, child or adult, that information is either unseen or unprocessed.

G ame Theory and StochasticsVery few teachers have the necessary knowledge to teach these more complex skills. Itshould be noted that the very foundation of public education is premised on there beingonly one right, answer to every question.

The use of heuristic and stochastic methods leads to a variance in acceptablesolutions . A foundation upon which school curricula are based is an expectation thatstudents will conform, and thus produce a single correct answer . This is theanswer which is most often provided by either textbook or teacher .

For this to occur there can be little deviation from acceptable answers.

While the problem above appears artificial, we all make many decisions each day.While the magnitude of decisions made by school children infrequently approaches theimportance of those made by adults, an understanding of the processes involved throwslight on the mystery of the poor choices made by so many.

It seems safe to say that few public school teachers have any working familiaritywith these tools, let alone, able to teach them in the classroom .

A situation, often experienced in real life, and even more frequently portrayed ontelevision is aptly named, the Prisoners Dilemma :

The Classic Prisoners Dilemma (Kid Version)

The following is the scenario given to both players:

Last night, your school was vandalized. Classroom furniture was broken, walls weredefaced with graffiti, and a lot of other damage was done. You and another individualare blamed by the principal. The principal does not yet have all the information heneeds to take action. Both you and the other person are placed in separate offices.


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If you identify the other individual as having done the damage, while claiming your innocence, before he does the same thing ( You Defect , from the other person) whilehe remains says nothing to blame you, ( he Cooperates , with you), then you get nopunishment and the he is expelled and police charges are filed against him.

If he Defects (Rats you out, while you protect him, he goes free, you are expelled withthe police charging just you with the crime.If both of you blame ( Defect ) blame the other, each of you is suspended, and thenrequired to make restitution (pay for all the damages, but no charges are filed with thepolice..

Finally, both of you can Cooperate, with each claiming not only his innocence, but, noknowledge of what the other person was doing. (I wasnt there, so how do I know whatthe other guy did?). In that case, both of you receive a short suspension, but theprincipal can do nothing more.

Each of you must choose to either betray the other or to remain silent. Each one isassured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of theinvestigation. How should you act?

His Choices

Your Choices

Both Cooperate(Stay silent)

Both Get In SchoolSuspension

You Rat him Out (Defect), HeStays silent (Cooperates)

You go Free, He is Expelled

He Defects (Ratsyou out), YouCooperate

You are expelled,prosecutedHe goes Free

Both DefectBoth must share in payment of restitution and are suspended,but not expelled

Since this is played as a game for points, these results can be translated into a pointschedule: Use the colors as the result for each player in each situation.

His Choices

Your ChoicesBoth Cooperate(Stay silent)

5,5

You Rat him Out (Defect), HeStays silent (Cooperates)

10 ,-10


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He Defects (Ratsyou out), YouCooperate

-10, 10

Both Defect

0,0

The key to making this decision is in an estimation made by each of what the other player is most likely to do, if each takes the safest course that of defecting. They willreason that if the other player is foolish enough to cooperate, then there is a big win for the defecting player. Thus, the safest course for both players is to defect. Conversely,Risk Takers will assume that both players are rational, and will wish to maximize their point gains. If the Risk Taker is right, both will cooperate.

Typically, the game is played with more than one round or trial. Both players know whatthe other has done during the first trial, so each will have some greater basis to predictwhat the other will do in subsequent trials. Rational players will match the tactics of theof the other players previous trial. This strategy of matching is referred to as, Tit for Tat, and is generally conceded to be the safest for all concerned.

When both players receive the same score, they are said to be in Equilibrium, thatstate named for its discoverer, John Nash, thus designated as the Nash Equilibrium.(As a side note, Nash is the subject of the Hollywood movie A Beautiful Mind . Thefilm is loosely based on the biography of the same name , focusing on Nash'smathematical genius and struggle with paranoid schizophrenia .)When irrationality Rules the modified Chicken Game

When Prisoners Dilemma (PD) is played with many players, all behaving rationally, it

quickly settles into a boring Tit-for-Tat response,(Each player does what the other player did in the previous round) ending up with both players typically cooperating. Thisbecomes an all too predictable (and boring) process.

The Chicken Game, modified by this author provides much more opportunity for irrationality, especially when one of the players is a computer.

The Scenario

As you can see in this photo, the road which allows for one car heading in eachdirection narrows to a bridge, accommodating only one car on the bridge. Each player has the objective of driving across the bridge before the other does the same thing.


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Scoring

Each player, of course has two, choices. The first is to drive (Defect) hoping to cross thebridge without incurring a collision, A Successful Drive yields 20 points to the player . Acollision gives each player -5 points . Three collisions and the game is over, regardlessof the trial when the 3 rd collision takes place. Players are thus extracted, both having ascore of -15 points, and the game for them is over.

The second choice available to each player is to Swerve ( Cooperate) . Here the scoreis variable, counting down from 10 seconds to the last second when a swerve ispossible. Beginning with 10 seconds the score increases by 2 for each second closer to0 the player elects to swerve.

Thus at 10 seconds, the score is 0, at 9, 2, at 8, 4, etc. However, just as in real life, the

closer one gets to the bridge the more chance there is that car and/or driver will beinjured and/or the card damage by losing control, colliding with the metal fence, or rolling into the gully crossed by the bridge.

The chance of this happening is in direct proportion to the time remaining. Thus at 10seconds there is 0% chance of injury, while at 1 second there is a 90% chance of injury.If injury occurs, the driver gets 0 points, but this can happen many times without thedriver losing points already earned, or being removed from the game.


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Since the Risk Averse player is likely to make very few tries at driving across thebridge, he is given a number of times after which he must drive through. This is countedfrom the last trial a drive was attempted, regardless of whether both players collided.

Many of these permutations, of course, require a computer and accompanying software.Decision time for each player is recorded, and at the end of each round, the play madeby both players is displayed.To make driving simple, forward drive continues until the Space Bar is pressed, at whichpoint the player has swerved.

There are two obvious challenges to each player in mastering this game. First, eachplayer must assess the intent of the other player, based on tactics undertaken inprevious rounds of play. At the same time, each player must insure that he stays withinthe metrics which are personally applicable to him.

The Role of Technology

Many who have read the materials above may reach the conclusion that complexcomputer technology is essential to game play. Not so. While access to a computer for each player, projection of results, and a programmer to implement sophisticatedcountdown software are all highly desirable, that is best-case, seldom seen technologyavailability.

Many classrooms or even informal gatherings of friends will have none of this. Instead,an understanding of the intent of the game and the mechanics of play make any level.(including nothing but pen and paper) of technology no barrier to play of the game. If scoring is to be manually done, the two players sit facing the class, with a divider between them. The Game Manager (Usually the teacher) uses a stop watch to orallycount down the time remaining. Players indicate a swerve by raising the arm furthestfrom the opposing player. The Scorer (a student) uses at least one computer togenerate a random number to determine whether the Swerve resulted in an injury or not.

With not even a single computer available, all swerves have a 50% chance of injury,determined by a coin toss.


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All of which is connected to education, how?

Success in this game is entirely based on risk taking, rational betting on the odds, and

reading the intent of the other player. In many ways the challenge of these games is notunlike that experienced by players of Texas Hold em.

The Game Manager (teacher or someone chosen by the players to referee) tunes,game play to the Instructional Objectives. Here are some possible variants to theknowledge available to players:

Players play complete strangers, so all have they to go on are the previous plays inthe game to make predictions about what the opposing player will do in the currentround of play.;

Players are furnished game patterns from a number of previous game plays of theopposing player;

If played by members of the same class, players are told who they are playingagainst. They may also receive ratings by other class members regarding thedegree of risk taking predicted to be engaged in by both players;

In another variant of the game, players are able to see each other, potentiallyreading tells, (facial expression, body language) before a Drive or Swerve, etc.(anyone who is a Texas Hold Emplayer instantly knows the importance of this!)

The above games by no means exhaust the variety of single player, two player and

multiple player games available. There is the detection and use of patterns of player behavior.

Yet, what the student learns at school counters and is in direct opposition to thisprocess . There are no bets, no gambles . Since all information either comes from,or is approved by the teacher the, Probability of correctness of any teacher instigatedanswer is ( p) =1.0. All is Black or White, with no G reys . A nswers areeither Right or Wrong . There is little or no tolerance for, let alone learning from,mistakes .

Schools are busy hiding in plain sight

The Little Red Schoolhouse, is not there for what you thought it was!

For all those who believe that schools have as their primary invention the teaching of intellectual skills and important content, some would suggest that there is nothingfurther from the truth


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The great satirist, H. L. Mencken, wrote in T he American Mercury for April 1924 that theaim of public education is not:

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awakentheir intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. Theaim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to thesame safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to putdown dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States...and that is its aim everywhere else.

Retired Educator, John Taylor Gatto , in 2001, delivered a scathing attack on PublicEducation, with his article, titled, Against Education . He begins by positing a Prussianinfluence on educational goal setting, noting:

The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops upagain and again once you know to look for it. William Jamesalluded to it many times at the turn of the century. OrestesBrownson, the hero of Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, T he T rue

and Only Heaven , was publicly denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s.

Horace Mann's Seventh Annual Report to the MassachusettsState Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to theland of Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to bebrought here. That Prussian culture loomed large in America ishardly surprising, given our early association with that utopianstate. A Prussian served as Washington's aide during theRevolutionary War, and so many German- speaking people hadsettled here by 1795 that Congress considered publishing aGerman-language edition of the federal laws.

But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational systemdeliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstringthe inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, andto ensure docile and incomplete citizens - all in order to render thepopulace manageable.

Having established this view, he refers to Alexander Inglis 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education , in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of arevolutionary."Inglis posits six purposes for U.S. Education, which taken together,suggest that the world of 1984 had its birth long before Orwell even considered itswriting:

1) Th e adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are toestablish fixed habits of reaction to authority. Thi s, of course,precludes cr iti cal judgmen t comple t ely. [Emphasis Author] Italso pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interestingmaterial should be taught, because you can't test for reflexiveobedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, anddo, foolish and boring things.


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2) T he integrating function . This might well be called "theconformity function," because its intention is to make children asalike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this isof great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a largelabor force.

3) Th e d iagno s ti c and dir ec tiv e fu n c tion . School is meantto determine each student's proper social role. This is done bylogging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulativerecords. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) Th e diff e r e ntiating fun c tion . Once their social role hasbeen "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trainedonly so far as their destination in the social machine merits - andnot one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) Th e selec tiv e fun c tion . This refers not to human choice atall but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what hecalled "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along

by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schoolsare meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement,and other punishments - cle arl y e nough that th e ir pee r s w ill a ccep t th em a s inf e rior and e ff ec tiv e l y b ar th em fro m th er ep rodu c tiv e sweeps ta kes. That's what all those littlehumiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: washthe dirt down the drain.

6) Th e p ro p a e d e uti c fun c tion . The societal system implied bythese rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, asmall fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage thiscontinuing project, how to watch over and control a populationdeliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that governmentmight proceed unchallenged and corporations might never wantfor obedient labor.

It will come as little surprises that those who choose preparation for teaching as their intended college major are less than the brightest of the Freshman classes, as indicatedin this study of the estimated IQ by Intended Major of college Freshmen.

Assuming the mean IQ of SAT test-takers included in a report by theCollege Board to be 103*, the estimated average IQ of students byintended college major follow. The estimates exclude writing results,which were added in 2005 and constitute what is generally consideredthe least objectively reliable part of the test**. The critical reading and

mathematics (previously known as the quantitative section) portions areequally weighted:

Nothing too terribly surprising, Education is at the bottom of the degreefields not typically offered at vocational schools. The kids who want tostudy religion through a lens of mythology are a little smarter than the kidswho want to be practitioners of it. All but the smartest kids tend to shyaway from degrees requiring high level math courses, and while still inhigh school the sharpest of the sharp plan on double majoring.


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N o Brains, Zero Tolerance

Listed Below are a number of incidents enumerated in a site named, Losing myTolerance for "Zero Tolerance. "

We begin with these incredible bits of administrative stupidity:

Candy, Little Boy? A Colorado Springs, Colo., school district says it didthe right thing when it suspended 6-year-old Seamus Morris under theschool's zero-tolerance drug policy. The drug? Lemon drops. Taylor Elementary School administrators called an ambulance after a teacher saw the boy give another student some candy.

Wonder what happened to American inventiveness, and innovation? It might be partiallyexplained when we see this opportunity for motivation inspired by the actions taken byan Arizona school:

Rocket Scientist: David Silverstein, 13, was inspired to build a modelrocket after seeing the movie "October Sky", a biography of NASA rocketscientist Homer Hickam. The boy took his rocket, made out of a potatochip canister and fueled with three match heads, to his Glendale, Ariz.,school, where it was found in a search of his locker. School officialsclassified the toy as a "weapon" and suspended him for the rest of theyear based on its "zero-tolerance" weapons policy. The police were alsocalled, and the case is being referred to juvenile authorities

From the site, Weird Universe , comes this story, How to Destroy the Lives of Children ,referencing teacher, administrator, and police overreaction to an incident of Sexting,between a 13 year old girl and a 12 year old boy:

Two Indiana middle schoolers have been charged with two felonies each

for child pornography. What horrible thing did they do to deserve suchserious charges? Both the 12 year old 6th grade boy and the 13 year old7th grade girl sent naked pictures of their genitalia to each other.

"Common Sense," uncommon at this school.

On Monday, a teacher at Junior High School 190 in Queens caught 12-year- old Alexa Gonzalez doodling on her desk with a lime green magicmarker. Instead of just erasing it, the school called police and the girl waswalked out in handcuffs.

A day later, Principal Evelyn Mastroianni of Public School 52 on StatenIsland nearly suspended 9-year-old Patrick Timoney for playing with anaction figure who had a 2-inch gun.

Topping off our exploration of blind stupidity, is this final gem: Teacher puts student indetention for using Linux Showing what is easily one of the greatest over-reactions inrecent memory, middle school teacher Karen X (not her real surname), placed the'offending' student into detention and confiscated his CD's, then fired of this letter to KenStarks at HeliOS Solutions.


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"...observed one of my students with a group of other childrengathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I sawhe was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student wasshowing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a conference with the student andthat is how I came to discover you and your organization. Mr.Starks, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but Icannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in myclassroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing islegal. N o software is free and spreading that misconceptionis harmful . These children look up to adults for guidance anddiscipline. I will research this as time allows and I want to assureyou, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges asthe law allows. Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linuxduring college and I assure you, the claims you make are grosslyover-stated and hinge on falsehoods. I admire your attempts ingetting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people butputting Linux on these machines is holding our kids back.

This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all . I am sure if you contactedMicrosoft, they would be more than happy to supply you withcopies of an older version of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..."

To Which Stark makes a partial response:

I suppose I should, before anything else, thank you. You havegiven me the opportunity to show others just what a battle we facein what we do. "We" being those who advocate, support and useFree Open Source Software and Linux in particular. First off, if there was even the slightest chance that I was

doing something illegal, it would not have been done. To think thatI would involve my kids in my "illegal" activities is an insult far beyond outrage. You should be ashamed of yourself for puttinginto print such nonsense.

And please...investigate to your heart's content. You are about tohave your eyes opened, that is if you actually investigate anythingat all. Linux is a free as-in-cost and free as-in-license operatingsystem. It was designed specifically for those purposes. Linux is

used to free people from Microsoft. The fact that you seem tobelieve that Microsoft is the end all and be-all is actually funny in asad sort of way. Then again, being a good NEA member, youwould spout the Union line. Microsoft has pumped tens of millionsof dollars into your union. Of course you are going to"recommend" Microsoft Windows". To do otherwise wouldprobably get you reprimanded at the least and fired at the worst.You are only doing what you've been instructed to do.

You've been trained well.


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The shame of it is, you are trapped with millions of other teachersin obeying the NEA and preaching the goodness of Windows andMicrosoft. A superior, free and absolutely entertaining method of operating your computer is within reach and you are unable tograsp it.

The most disturbing part of this resides in the fact that the AISDpurchases millions of dollars of Microsoft Software in a year's timewhen that money could be better spent on educating our children.

A dedicated School Teacher would recognize that fact and lobbyfor the change to Free Open Source Software and let the moneyformally spent on MS bindware be used on our kids.

A teacher who cared about her students would do that.

That is sad past my ability to express it to you. Don't shackle your students in your prison Karen.

Now. You give that boy his disks back. Aaron is a brilliant kid andhe's learned more using Linux than he ever did using Windows.Those disks and their distribution are perfectly legal and even if hewas "disruptive", you cannot keep his property. I have placed acall to the AISD Superintendent and cc'd him a complete copy of your email. It looks like we will get to meet in his office whenSchool starts again after the holiday. I am anxious to meet aperson who is this uninformed and still holds a position of authorityand learnedness over our children.

Ken StarksHeliOS Solutions

The Predatory Teacher

Every profession has its share of both incompetent and corrupt practitioners. In this2007 story, L.A.' s Public Health Crisis , the closing of Martin Luther King Hospital,resulting from excessive mortality rates, a total disregard for its patients, and removal of accreditation is detailed.

The news of its closing perhaps pales, when compared with the probable effect of teacher incompetence and criminality on those who are its victims.

Using this search:(Teacher OR Coach) + (Sex OR Molest OR Porn OR Drugs OR suspended)


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It yielded these numbers of news stories for the years referenced.

Shown below is a random list of teachers being investigated accused, convicted or sentenced for criminal acts involving either students at their schools, or in the general

population. It should be noted that this list was pulled in mid-July, 2011, with schoolsclosed for summer vacation. The daily take from the above search yields five to 10teachers each day!

L I teacher pleads not guilty to abusing 14 kids

Former Magoffin County School Teacher Pleads Guilty To Gun And Drug Charge

Coach enticed teens to do sex acts

Ex-coach guilty of harassment after thousands of texts, calls to teen

Defense grills alleged victim in coach sex case

Not guilty plea from coach accused of molesting boyEx-El Capitan Swim Coach Guilty of Molesting Teenage Student to be Sentenced

When Teachers C heat

Cheating by students comes as no surprise when the same behavior is engaged in bytheir teachers. In the last several years. Heating, as a tool for increasing school fundinghas become commonplace, as illustrated by this 2006 story from New Jersey. By nomeans are limited either to place or time, here are some additional stories whichillustrate the magnitude of the problem:

A 2004 report of teacher cheating while responding to the No Child Left Behind Act(NCLB) requirements, related to school funding was issued. It showed that, schoolshave seized on test score manipulation to get a piece of the promised funding instead of reporting pupil achievement

In April, [2004] eighth-graders at Sunset Ridge School inNorthfield, Ill., a wealthy suburb north of Chicago, reported a

0

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oach Arrests 2005-09


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troubling incident to school officials: Someone had changedanswers on the math portion of the end-of-the-year stateachievement test they had just taken. An inquiry found alteredmultiple-choice answers on 90% of the tests the school's 80eighth-graders had been given under the federal No Child LeftBehind law. But it wasn't kids using crib sheets or stealing intoclassrooms to tamper with tests. Instead, suspicion fell on aneighth-grade teacher who denied cheating but promptly resigned,school officials say. (His name hasn't been released, so hecouldn't be reached for comment.)

Now the Illinois Board of Education is investigating. Andadministrators there and elsewhere are worried that even amongwealthy, top-performing schools like Sunset Ridge, teachers whoare under pressure to show stellar results on state standardizedtests may be cutting corners. "Teachers and administrators, likerabbis and priests, must be held to the highest standards becausewe are role models for kids," says Sunset Ridge principal HowardBultinck.

A 2007 report of California school initiated cheating seeks an explanation(rationalization?) for this increasingly ubiquitous activity:

Teachers have helped students cheat on California's high-stakesachievement tests -- or blundered badly enough to compromisetheir validity -- in at least 123 public schools since 2004, aChronicle review of documents shows.

Schools admitted outright cheating in about two-thirds of thecases. And while the number reporting problems represents asmall fraction of the state's 9,468 public schools, some expertsthink the practice of cooking the test results is more widespread

-- Teachers in East Palo Alto, Los Angeles and Alhambra (Los Angeles County) let students consult world maps or helpfulreference sheets as they took their state exams.

-- In Modesto, a teacher let his eighth-graders use calculators onthe 2006 math test.

-- Teachers in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, SanJose and elsewhere simply helped students answer the questions.

These are among the known examples of cheating. ButCalifornia's method of checking for cheaters makes it impossibleto know how common the practice is.

Each year, California scans millions of tests in search of unusually high numbers of erased answers changed from wrongto right. The tests were the California Standards Test and theCalifornia Achievement Test Sixth Edition, given annually tostudents in grades two through 11.

Between 2004 and 2006, the scans found suspicious erasures in459 classrooms at 162 schools.


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The refrain, It cant happen here, perhapsmakes some feel immune to the problem.But no one is. A New York Times article reveals an entire urban school system whichhas built its reputation as a sterling example of educational reform. The scandalaffecting the city of Atlanta, GA goes back to 1999, when a new prize winningsuperintendent took control. For several years suspicions ere aroused but only now, dowe get full confirmation of the magnitude of the systematic cheating requiring at least12,000 students to take remedial classes , while involving more than 200 teachersand/or administrators. The incompetent Teacher

Many years ago a Supreme Court justice reacting to a case involving alleged obscenity,said something like, I cant define it, but I will know it when I see it. Making theassessment of teacher competency is much like that statement. Anyone observing aclassroom can immediately determine whether students are engaged, giving their attention to the instructional activity, and demonstrating interest in the content being

taught. Conversely, the classroom filled with bored, inattentive, and disrupting studentsgives clear indication that the teacher is failing in her instructional responsibilities.

In a list of a Estimated IQ by Intended Major, Education ranked 28 in a total of 28college majors. With a imputed IQ of 99.3, those who have chosen teaching as aprofession are near the bottom of students who will assume leadership roles in comingyears. Another more intensive examination of this problem demonstrates the degree towhich there exists a major difference between teaching and other professions.

While high school teachers are significantly ahead of their elementary schoolcounterparts, whether we look at Maximums, Minimums or Medians, the differencebetween these and other professions are startlingly apparent.

This graph was adapted from Figure 12 of Hauser, Robert M . 2002 . "Meritocracy,cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success ." CDE Working Paper 98-07 (rev) . Center for Demography and Ecology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin . The figure is labeled "Wisconsin Men ' s Henmon-Nelson IQ Distributions for 1992-94 Occupation Groups with 30 Cases or More"and is found at http://www .ssc .wisc .edu/cde/cdewp/98-07 .pdf .


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While it may be difficult to quantify reasons for seeking work in other professions, theattrition rate is greater than many other kinds of work, and suggestive of the stresswhich accompanies this job. Another explanation is that such work is merely a waystation while the incumbent completes his education, lessening the economic demandsof achieving an advanced degree. Approximately 50% teachers beginning their in-service positions, leave to do something totally unrelated to teaching within the first fiveyears followinginitial hire.

As a measure of the degree to which incompetence is a part of what must be dealt withon a day to day basis by school administrators this investigation of the New YorkRubber Rooms ,", where some 700 teachers sit day after day, costing the city somesixty five million dollars for the 700 suspended teachers who do nothing but receive their pay.

Those who come to the teaching profession have the same kind of problem baggage asdo workers in any other profession. Nonetheless, young children and teens often useteachers and coaches as role models. Thus, teachers and other professionalsinteractingwith them,if notheld to higher behavioral standards than otherprofessions, can do enormous damage. Rigidity of teacher beliefs oftenreadily adopted by their students

People tend to think of perception as a passive process. We see, hear, smell, taste or feel stimuli that impinge upon our senses. We think that if we are at all objective, werecord what is actually there. Yet perception is demonstrably an active rather than apassive process; it constructs rather than records reality. Perception impliesunderstanding as well as awareness. It is a process of inference in which the individualconstructs his own version of reality on the basis of information he receives through hissenses,

Many experiments have been conducted to show the extraordinary extent to which theinformation obtained by an observer depends upon the observers own assumptionsand preconceptions. Yet, little or no classroom attention is directed at the sharpening of these missing skills.

Consider the information shown in the Figure below:

Did you perceive the information correctly? If so, you have exceptional powers of observation, were lucky, or have seen the figure before. This simple experimentdemonstrates one of the most fundamental principles concerning perception:


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We tend to perceive what we expect to perceive.

A corollary of this principle is that it takes more information, and more unambiguousinformation, to recognize an unexpected phenomenon than an expected one.Expectations have many diverse sources, including past experience, education and

cultural and organizational norms. Perception is also influenced by the context in whichit occurs. Different circumstances elicit different sets of expectations. People are moreattuned to hearing footsteps behind them when walking in an alley at night than along acity street in daytime, and the meaning attributed to the sound of footsteps will varyunder these differing circumstances tuned to perceive indicators of potential conflict.

Patterns of expectations tell us, subconsciously, what to look for, what is important, andhow to interpret what is seen. These patterns form a mind-set that causes us to thinkin certain ways. A mind-set is akin to a screen or lens through which we see andinterpret the world .

There is a tendency to think of a mind-set as something bad, to be avoided. Accordingto this line of argument, one should have an open mind and be influenced only by thefacts rather than by preconceived notions! That is an unreachable ideal. There is nosuch thing as the facts of the case. There is only a very selective subset of the overallmass of data to which one has been subjected that one takes as facts and judges to berelevant to the question at issue. Mind-sets tend to be quick to form but resistant to change.

This principle is illustrated by showing part of a longer series of progressively modifieddrawings that change almost imperceptibly from a woman into a man.

The center drawing, when viewed alone, has equal chances of being perceived as aman or a woman. When test subjects are shown the entire series of drawings, their perception of this intermediate drawing is biased according to which end of the seriesthey started from. Test subjects who start by viewing a series, changing from the right toleft beginning with a certain male face to one that is uncertain, will classify the boxeddrawing as representing a male face.


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Conversely, test subjects who start at the woman end of the series are biased in favor of continuing to see a woman.

C linging to beliefs

It is not only visually that we stick to beliefs we first form . Increasingly, evidenceappears to point to a phenomenon psychologists call the C onfirmation Bias . A llthis means is that belief comes before fact, and once established, we seek factsthat confirm our beliefs, and reject those which do not .

Reported in The Boston Globe an article titled, How facts Backfire , clearly contradictsThomas Jefferson, who, in 1789 said, Whenever the people are well-informed, theycan be trusted with their own government.

Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover ahuman tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in thepower of information. Its this: Facts dont necessarily have thepower to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a seriesof studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly politicalpartisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, theyrarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became evenmore strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were notcuring misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, factscould actually make misinformation even stronger .

This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters the

people making decisions about how the country runs arentblank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodgedin their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they thinkthey know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differentlythan the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds toreflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves evendeeper.


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The general idea is that its absolutely threatening to admit youre wrong, says politicalscientist Brendan Nyman, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon known as backfire is a natural defense mechanism

Once an observer has formed an imagethat is, once he or she has developed a mind-

set or expectation concerning the phenomenon being observedthis conditions futureperceptions of that phenomenon.

In this next drawing some viewers see one image, while others see something quitedifferent. What do you see?

For some, they are certain that they see an old woman, while others see a young girl. Are you able to switch between them? Many find it very difficult to switch between whatth ey fir s t s aw, and th e oth e r vi e w .

This phenomenon is very much like the unwillingness that many have to give up beliefsthey originally acquired. This resistance to changing b e li e f s i s oft e n m aintain e d in th e

fa ce of c om pe lling e vid e n ce of th e fal s ity of th eb

e li e f . As but one example of this,a series of articles in Scientific American point to the continuing battle to eliminateCreationism or, Intelligent Design, from American classrooms. One telling number asserts that only 28% of H igh Sc hool Biology t e a c h e r s p rovid e a rigorou sp r ese ntation of Darwinian E volution


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At the other extreme, 13 percent explicitly advocate creationism,and spend at least an hour of class time presenting it in a positivelight.

That leaves what the authors call the cautious 60 percent, whoavoid controversy by endorsing neither evolution nor its

unscientific alternatives. In various ways, they compromise. The survey, published in the Jan. 28 issue of Science , found thatsome avoid intellectual commitment by explaining that they teachevolution only because state examinations require it, and thatstudents do not need to believe in it. Others treat evolution as if itapplied only on a molecular level, avoiding any discussion of theevolution of species. And a large number claim that students arefree to choose evolution or creationism based on their ownbeliefs.

Beliefs anchored in concrete

The propensity to cling to beliefs, once acquired is referred to as Confirmation Bias . An understanding of this bias makes clear why a change in a belief, once firmlydeveloped, is often impossible to achieve. An in-depth article in the Skeptics Dictionary serves to illuminate and make explicit this all too prevalent phenomenon.

Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking wherebyone tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs,and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of whatcontradicts one's beliefs. For example, if you believe that during afull moon there is an increase in admissions to the emergencyroom where you work, you will take notice of admissions during afull moon, but be inattentive to the moon when admissions occur during other nights of the month. A tendency to do this over timeunjustifiably strengthens your belief in the relationship betweenthe full moon and accidents and other lunar effects. The samegoes for the unproven relationship between naturally blondewomen and breast reconstruction surgery.

This tendency to give more attention and weight to data thatsupport our beliefs than we do to contrary data is especiallypernicious when our beliefs are little more than prejudices. If our beliefs are firmly established on solid evidence and validconfirmatory experiments, the tendency to give more attention andweight to data that fit with our beliefs should not lead us astray asa rule. Of course, if we become blinded to evidence truly refuting a

favored hypothesis, we have crossed the line fromreasonableness to closed-mindedness.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that people generally givean excessive amount of value to confirmatory information, that is,to positive or supportive data. The "most likely reason for theexcessive influence of confirmatory information is that it is easier to deal with cognitively" ( Gilovich 1993). It is much easier to seehow a piece of data supports a position than it is to see how it


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might count against the position. Consider atypical ESP experiment or a seemingly clairvoyant dream:Successes are often unambiguous or data are easily massagedto count as successes, while negative instances requireintellectual effort to even see them as negative or to consider them as significant. The tendency to give more attention andweight to the positive and the confirmatory has been shown toinfluence memory . When digging into our memories for datarelevant to a position, we are more likely to recall data thatconfirms the position.

On average, children and adolescents spend more time with their teachers (and athleticcoaches) than they do with any other adults, including parents. Even in homes whereboth parents are present to give attention to the children, direct contact time is sharplylimited. While families may have meals together, and assemble for planned activities,the children soon go off to private space to do schoolwork, or spend time with their friends.

Consequently, especially in the elementary grades, statements made by teachers arelargely accepted as being factually grounded. Few children have either the inclinationor the capability to disagree or reject statements made by their teachers. Thus, themany opinions and conclusions stated by teachers are on most invariably accepted asbeing fact. These conclusions, opinions, or deliberate attempts to affect beliefs all arereinforced with repetition

Thus, mythology associated with American history, the Constitution, and patriotism ispropagated from one generation to the next. For many, these concretized assertionsbecome anchor points for the worldview which is ultimately accepted by most Americanadults. Unfortunately there is wide divergence between these assertions and reality.

From the point when children are first exposed to formal education they areconfronted with a barrier to rational thought, deterring them questioning informationpresented as irrefutable truth.

In a review of Founding Myths: Stories T hat Hide Our Patriotic Past , we get anopportunity to see how Public Education shapes the readiness of its students tounquestionably accept the heroism, benevolent intent, and unquestioned character of our past and current political leaders.

Here are some illustrative comments made by reviewer, Kam Williams:

Think about how quickly the killing of NFL star-turned-Army Ranger Pat Tillman byfriendly fire was spun into a valiant death while leading a counterattack against Talibanterrorists in Afghanistan. Or how rescued POW Jessica Lynch, praised as a hero for shooting numerous Iraqis till she ran out of bullets when her company was ambushedduring the early days of the Iraq War, later confessed that she had never used her weapon that day.


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similarly, the so-called patriots who declared their independence in 1776 havebenefited from a bounty of equally-outrageous tall tales, many of which are carefullyexposed for the outright lies that they are in Founding Myths by Ray Raphael

For instance, he sets the record straight about Paul Reveres fabled midnight ride,

explaining it away as essentially a fabrication dreamed up 85 years after the fact by thepoet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

According to Professor Raphael, Longfellow conjured up events that never happened,including that claptrap about warning The British are coming! The British are coming!or signaling One, if by land, two, if by sea. Apparently, British soldiers were alreadystationed all over the colonies, and Revere was arrested by loyalists soon after arrivingin Lexington on the night in question.

The fanciful legend of Molly Pitcher is another doozy, having mysteriously surfacedsome 70 years after Battle of Monmouth, during which she is said to have carried water to soldiers until turning her attention to manning a cannon after her husband had beenfelled by enemy fire. Now we know that no such person ever existed, yet in 1876, inconjunction with the countrys centennial celebration, a headstone with that name wasplaced, with much pomp and circumstance, on the unmarked grave of a vulgar andprofane hard-driving, cursing, old woman with bristles in her nose who had died ahorrible death from the effects of syphilitic disease.

Others knocked down off their pedestals, here, are Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson,George Washington and Patrick Henry. Raphael also indicts typical school textbooks for either ignoring the black perspective during the Revolutionary Period entirely or misrepresenting African-Americans as having been content with their lot in the face of research which reveals that even more slaves fled from the South during the AmericanRevolution than the Civil War.

Then of course, there are the two presidents, who, as a result of being assassinated,live on in American history in our list of greatest American heroes. They are etched inthe memory of every citizen. Given the contributions they made to the progress of our country, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy will forever live on, as heroic figures in

American history.

Yet, with every new edition of high school history textbooks, the characters of both aresanitized with their human frailties and weaknesses stripped away, leaving them ascartoonlike superheroes. Although there are 951,000 Web pages devoted tospeculation regarding Lincoln's sexual orientation, it seems safe to say that no such

reference is likely to be found in any high school history textbook. Nor will referencesbe made to Kennedy's association with organized crime figures, his frequent dallianceswith women to whom he was not married, and his determined efforts to hide the manyillnesses from which he suffered.

Here are some other common myths, found in United States Myths - and their realities :"The US separates church and state,""Justice will triumph,""We have self-


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government,""You cannot be forced to incriminate yourself,""Americans have freespeech,""Americans have free radio and TV,""No man is above the law."

An OpEdNews writer laid it right on the line, when he wrote,Breaking The Real "Last Taboo" - The Things No One Dares To Say . Many of the

statements found here could well result in physical violence, should they be uttered inplaces where there is a collection of those who believe in the religious dogmarepresented in them. We have no better illustration of the emotional investment thatpeople have in the sanctification of religious leaders and dogma.

At his 1962 Yale Commencement address, President John F. Kennedy told thosepresent:

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate,contrived, and dishonest, but the myth - persistent, persuasiveand unrealistic. Belief in myth allows the comfort of opinionwithout the discomfort of thought."

Important to our understanding of how myths shape our the way we view the world isthe concept of bounded rationality . It is based on the fact that rationality of individuals islimited by the information they have, the cognitive limitations of their minds, and thefinite amount of time they have to make decisions. Another way to look at boundedrationality is that, because decision-makers lack the ability and resources to arrive at theoptimal solution, they instead apply their rationality only after having greatly simplifiedthe choices available. Thus the decision-maker is a satisficer , one seeking a satisfactorysolution rather than the optimal one.

The summer of 2009 brought us illustration of just how irrational and emotionalcommitment to wrongheaded beliefs can interfere with reasoned discussion of issues.

Assertions that Obama was never born in the United States, or that he is a Muslimcommitted to, and the agenda of Muslims everywhere were frequently propounded byright-wing talk radio hosts, as well as on blogs with similar positions. So too was thelunacy advanced, that the health-care reform legislation included a systematic processof ridding the country of the elderly or the disabled. All fly in the face of refutation byconfirmed factual data. Yet that the disruptions in town hall meetings elicited by suchstatements were prevalent throughout the country, provides proof of the irrationality of at least a segment of the population.

By the time the adolescent graduates from high school, the divergence betweenmyth and reality becomes painfully evident . Yet, young adults have few, if any,tools to reconcile this difference . This translates into the ineffective attemptsmade, which were demonstrated in the application letters earlier presented .


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Some Closing Thoughts

Here are some myths to which the writers of the sample resumes apparently subscribe

Success will eventually come to those who put effort into their work;

Demonstrating Team Skills, i.e., being a good team member, is an essentialelement to getting a job.

Employers are altruistic, and can be expected to lend a helping hand, to deserving job applicants.

It is important, if not essential for an employer to know about an applicants personalsituation.

Burdened with these and many other such myths, lacking the ability to communicate,and having few, if any skills to offer, the young job applicant faces difficult odds whenattempting to secure meaningful work.

Notonly is he not competitive with those of his contemporaries who actually have havingskills, training, and experience, he is competing with the older worker, laid off from work,with competing for work previously only in the domain of the young worker.Dont expect it to get better any time, soon!

With the economy showing little sign of strong recovery, with a continued crisis inhousing, health care costs, and government worker layoffs, the plight of the youngworker is very low on the priority listing of those who might be in a position to begin toattack the problem.

The rising costs of Higher Education,with no guarantee of a job after graduation,increasingly makes this an unappealing option. With the failure of public education, it isnot even reasonable to expect that a large number of high school graduates are actuallyprepared to make use of a college education, even if they meet admission standards.Many of them do not. It seems safe to say, after examining those sample resumes, thatcollege students are no better prepared to construct written communications that arehigh school students.

It seems to me that an attack on the problems of unemployment regardless of who hasbeen impacted is going to take that sameintense commitment that John F. Kennedymade in his assurance to the American people that we would make a moon landing

within a decade. Until, we, as a nation, our lawmakers, and the corporate world, makesuch a commitment our economic problems will remain unresolved.

broken dreams - the jobs they won't get

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