Penn State Scandal

I posed a question today on my Facebook page, asking if Penn State and the Catholic Church would have reacted differently to sex abuse allegations if more women served at the top of these institutions.


My local paper's cover displayed the pictures of the late Joe Paterno and three other top administrators at the school, which caused me to consider this question. In a report published Thursday, which I have not read yet, these men are portrayed as consciously trying to keep information about Jerry Sandusky's unlawful assault of a child from the police, seemingly to protect their careers and the reputation of Penn State University.

 I received one response, and it was a thoughtful one:

"Yes, too simple. It's not inertia either. It's a conscious decision to protect power - both personal and institutional - and reputation, the underpinnings of which are quite common among the leadership of large organizations. In my experience, women and men behave no differently in these situations. In fact, it's very unlikely they would have ascended to such professional heights without having the instincts to protect the institution first and foremost."

I posted the following comments next: "We start my govt class with the Federalist papers, which acknowledge repeatedly the need to disperse power and fight ambition with ambition. This model doesn't fit naturally into the business world. In business (Church included), unless the consequences of these scandals impact the bottom line, I guess little changes."

I'd like to explore further some of the themes raised in this exchange, especially my question about females in leadership roles and how they may or may not handle crisis situations within a business. What do you think?

 

What are others saying?

David Brooks of the New York Times made the following comments, which are relevant.

 

"Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: “How could they have let this happen?”

The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive. That was the proper question after Abu Ghraib, Madoff, the Wall Street follies and a thousand other scandals. But it’s a question this society has a hard time asking because the most seductive evasion is the one that leads us to deny the underside of our own nature."

There are over 400 coments to his post. I'd like to read some of them.

US Health Care

For the past four years in the United States health care has dominated Washington politics. Many Americans, including mainstream commentators and partisans on the left and right, claim that the current health care system in this country is broken. What, exactly,  is broken? And  what can be done to repair it?

            Two charts are often cited as evidence of a broken health care system. Americans spend significantly more on health care and achieve results that are similar to countries spending less (1). Also, as a percent of GDP, health care spending eats up more than 15% of total spending, which ranks highest (2). And despite all that we spend on health care, we do not manage to provide health insurance to all.  Millions of Americans remain uninsured.

1

Where to begin? I think it is important to review some fundamentals of Economics. First, we live in a world of scarcity. There is only so much health care to go around. Currently, our country allocates health care in a very inefficient manner. And second, all decisions we make require trade offs. While simple ideas, sometimes it seems like people forget these Econ 101 concepts. I think that a rational way to approach this issue involves us pursuing policies that will allow us to maximize our strengths, while simultaneously reducing costs and making health insurance readily available to all. In future posts, I will explore many of the issues that surround this hot button issue.    

What, in your opinion, is a strength of the American health care system? And what stands out to you as dysfunctional?

2

Had a short letter to the editor published in my local paper! The topic was the frequency of Supreme Court decisions with one vote majorities. Not as frequent as you may think.

Paris Peace Conference

Reflecting historical reality, I hope, I teach World War I as a transformative moment in Europan history. Historians have long argued that the modern world began in 1914, with the start of World War I. High school students, understandably, do not know this coming into my class, and, I think, it is one of the major lessons that sticks with them long after my course has ended.

Margaret MacMillian's book Paris, 1919 focuses on the intricate diplomacy that occurred after World War I ended. In particular, it examines the relationship among the leaders of France, United Kingdom, United States and Italy. Temperments of the various leaders are explored, as well the reasoning that guided their decisions and the constituencies they represented.

This is the first time I am learning details about Wilson. A Democrat, Wilson comes across as principled and prickly. He is a big thinker, and often to the frustration of those around him, does not let details shackle his vision of what is right.

When I present WWI in class, my goal is to help students gain an understanding of how this cataclysmic conflict connects to previous topics we have studied. This topic bears the heavy burden of foreshadwing World War II.

To what extent were the decisions made at this Peace Conference responsible for the war that would erupt in Sept. 1939?

It is common, and all too easy, to connect the Paris Peace Conference directly to the WWII. The two conflicts, while connected in a variety of ways, should not be taught as one leading directly to the other. To do so, is to distort the two topics.

Book Reflection- Paris 1919

Paris, 1919

As a member of Generation X, I can thankfully say that I have never lived through a world war. When I was born, World War II had been over for thirty years. It is not diffciult to imagine, and photographs I've seen prove this, that when the hostilities of a world war finally end, there is a tremendous outpouring of emotions, among combatants and non combatants. Such intense feelings contain the seeds of joy as well as the roots of misery. The book I am currently reading, Paris, 1919, focuses on the Paris Peace Conference that culminated with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, a treaty that many argue helped contribute to the rise of the Nazis and the start of World War II.

While widows wept and surviving soldiers struggled to adjust to peace, the world's most prominent politicians entered into a delicate game of chess. France, Great Britain, Italy and the United States were the four most influential participants at the conference. Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States, traveled to Europe with over a dozen principles for peace in hand. These were his Fourteen Points. Wilson feared the catastrophy that would ensue in Europe, and eventually the world, if the current peace conference failed. The status quo of ending wars needed to change, and Wilson believed only he could bring about a new, more peaceful world order. His biggest idea was that an international body, called the League of Nations, would foster political cooperation and guarantee that never again would it be necessary, or even desired, to use war to solve disuputes.

Historically speaking, peace agreements usually involved taking land and resources from the defeated nations. Add in a few parties, and that was about it. The Congress of Vienna of 1815, after the Napoleonic wars, was the last peace agreement of the same scale as the Paris Peace Conference. Wilson, with his lofty proclamations of self determintaton and justice, had inspired in the minds of many the expectation that the peace of 1919 would be something different.

"We Bought a Zoo"

When was the last time you went to the zoo? If you're like most people, trips to the zoo conjure fond childhood memories. And if you're like most people, you would never consider buying a zoo. By the way, how much does a zoo cost?

In the movie "We bought a zoo", Matt Damon's character does exactly what the title states. He purchases a zoo.

Inspired by true events, Damon plays a character who is grieving his wife's death, as he adjusts to life a single parent. He has two children, a teenage boy and a daughter who is probably six or seven. After his son is expelled from school for stealing money from a donation box, Damon decides to sell the family house and start over.

He ends up purchasing a financially failing zoo, replete with staff and animals. The staff is skeptical of Damon, who has no business owning and operating a zoo. And whether or not he will provide the leadership necessary to get the zoo up to code provides much of the film's drama.

On a deeper level, the viewer is observing a family coping with the death of a wife and mother.

Will the move and the challenge of rehabbing a zoo provide the therapy that the family needs?  

The movie "We Bought A Zoo" should appeal to both juvenile and adult audiences.  

Some personal connections, thoughts.

Have you ever wondered to yourself how captive animals must feel about their confinement? If given a chance for freedom, would the animals leave the zoo, the same way a convict flees prison? Or do the animals enjoy the zoo and feel a kinship with the caring people who meet their needs day in and day out? And maybe we don't really care that much about the animals. If they look like they are content, and we get to enjoy a day out with the kids, they have done their job.

First Post

You can only teach as effectively as you think. That is, if you want to help students think deeply about a topic or subject, you must be able to think deeply about the material you are working with. I definitely feel that I can achieve more in the areas of thinking and teaching. Thus, my mission.

A little bit of context here. I have been teaching for over a decade, and I feel like if I continue to approach the job the same way that I have year in and year out, then nothing will change. If I do not change anything, then I will be sitting here next summer similarly feeling like I need to create better assignments and activities that get students to think deeper about the topics we are studying.

So my biggest theme is that for students to think deeply, they need a teacher who is able to think deeply.

Do I approach my classes with a desire to think deeply about the content? What is deep thinking? What is shallow thinking? What do each of these look like?

This blog will be a place where I will record my thoughts and the thoughts of others. I plan on focusing on the courses I teach, as well as newsworthy topics.

What are some examples of the type of thinking I'd like to emulate? If I had to point to examples of deep thinking, I would point to Russ Robert's Econtalk podcasts, books like Howard Zinn's A People's History of the US, and columnists like Nicholas Kristoff.

I know that reading is intimately connected with what I am trying to do. I need to feed my mind by reading a variety of materials and couple that with writing about the ideas I am exposed to. By constructing my own ideas and questions and making a variety of cognitive connections, I will further develop as a thinker and, it is hoped, as a teacher.