What is the right question to be asking?

In these trying times of the COVID-19 pandemic, one might wonder what questions we should be asking.

There are plenty of people and websites telling us how to stay safe and healthy (i.e., minimize contact with others, wear a mask, maintain six or more feet from others, wash hands often, check your temperature frequently, eat your veggies, and say nice things to everyone you meet).

There are also people telling us what we should start doing as soon as possible (i.e., go out for dinner, get a haircut, meet your friends at a bar, meet those you want to impress at a place of worship, get a tatoo of Mara Lago, get a massage, and if you happen to have any finger nails left, get your nails done).

One might ask how many people in the USA will die of the virus this year? Will it exceed 100,000? Should we create a betting site for the unemployed as a new lottery game?

One could ask when a reliable vaccine will be widely available. Will it be this year?

Who is likely to win the next presidential election in these divided states of America? DJT? JRB? AMC? MLRO? I plan to vote for Elmer Fudd as I think that he also has an outside chance and I like his hair style.

When is Mara Lago going to be underwater as a result of climate change? “When will the American eagle really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right?” (LMH)  “Is there balm in Gilead?” (EAP)

Seriously speaking, though, should we be worried about the degradation of the rule of law? Of pervasive e and pernicious racism? Of another civil war, less civil than the last one? Of being overrun by people scaling the imaginary Southern border wall? Of a new CSA (not the Confederate States of America – the Canadian States of America or the Chinese States of America?) Of becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon? (If it involves the star of the recent Wonder Woman movie about an Amazonian princess, I will go for that option.)

More seriously speaking … I mean asking … what kind of country do we want our grandchildren to grow up and thrive in?

Is it the earth that the meek inherit or is it the dirt?

My new mantra for 2020 – bullies of the world unit and move to Mara Lago.

Easter

With more than a half million COVID-19 cases in the US and more than 20,000 deaths, many in the US are waking up to Easter Sunday to hail the size of tennis balls. Meanwhile, gun sales are at record highs, the stock market is doing well, and many are praising Trump, as he so much loves, while people are dying and crying. Instead of worrying if your neighbor is infected, now you have to worry if your neighbor is armed and dangerous. I have been watching the Andy Griffith show instead of the news while hunkered down at home, remembering how different things were in the 1950s - sure, the show exaggerates but I do recall simpler times and a more caring atmosphere back then as I was growing up in East Tennessee. Now I look at this map of the virus -  https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-us-maps-and-cases/ - and I see suffering almost everywhere. 

I read T.S, Eliot looking for something I know not what - "April is the cruellest month, breeding, Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing, Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain."

And then there is the voice of the Rock:

"o world of spring and autumn, birth and dying

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

And then I think of #45 ... maybe my neighbor with the 44 will do something about that ... maybe there is "balm in Gilead" ... 

maybe "truth crushed to earth will rise again" ...maybe "the American eagle will finally spread its wings and straighten up and fly right" ... 

Maybe some us will survive and learn to live in peace and respect those who are different and help those who are less fortunate ...

Meanwhile, #45 expands his fortune and disparages those who fail to praise his bone spurs ...

Meanwhile, the Rock reminds us:

" The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,
The desert is in the heart of your brother.
The good man is the builder, if he build what is good. " 

And #45 wants to keep building walls ... and dividing ... and gathering in all the praise and benefits he can at any cost ..

Today is a sad day but there are always little glimmers of hope ... someone bringing food to the elderly and disabled ...

and a still small voice voice still says, someday ...

Happy Passover, Easter and Ramadan ...

Unbelievable

I find it hard to believe, that when the international deaths from COVID-19 exceeds100,000 and American deaths from COVID-19 approaches 20,000 with nearly a half million Americans infected already, that someone can brag about how good the American response is working. More and more people are getting infected and dying and someone can look past that to economic recovery ... people are dying and crying and yet some are bragging and boasting ... it is not right ...

So comforting to have a leader who has perfect phone calls, who always has someone else to blame,  who knows everything, and who is doing all the right things ... especially for the rich and powerful ...

Abou Ben Adhem (Leigh Hunt)

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou?”—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.

A True Story

This is a true story from my years as an Air Force Intelligence Officer during the Vietnam conflict. This happened when I was an analyst at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. I worked swing shifts gathering and reading and filtering and synthesizing information that came in through several top secret coded channels. Every Friday there was a briefing for Colonels and Generals that took a standard format to give the brass a weekly update of the state of the war. Some of my good friends who were also intelligence officers did those briefings. 

JC was one of my closest friends and this was his day to do the Friday morning briefing that I had prepared Thursday night. Rather than go home, I stayed for the briefing so that I could meet and talk with my friend after the briefing. So I sat in the back row of the briefing room waiting for JC to complete the briefing. One item that was always part of the Friday briefing was a casualty update – the number of Americans, South Vietnamese, and North Vietnamese killed in action that week. There was a bar chart on the slide I had prepared that showed virtually no difference in the number of Americans killed that week. The slide showed many more North Vietnamese killed that week even though I knew we had killed the entire population of North Vietnam several times over if one believed these reports. JC simply spoke the numbers ending with the American casualties, and JC said there was a significant increase in the number of Americans killed that week and then the next slide came up. 

The general stopped the briefing and said to go back to the casualty slide which the slide controller did. The general then said I thought I heard you say there was a significant increase in the number of American casualties but the slide shows hardly any difference and the numbers only show a difference of one. Without hesitation, JC said that if you were that one you would think it was a significant difference. I fell out of chair laughing and everyone turned around to look at me. After the briefing, the Colonel called both JC and me into his office. He gave JC a verbal reprimand and told him to leave. He then gave me a verbal reprimand and said he was putting a letter to that effect in my file, which I later learned that he did. The lesson I learned is that day was that the death of a single person is not a laughing matter, although I think the Colonel wanted me to learn a different lesson.

It is our responsibility to save lives in the midst of this pandemic.

Aging Thoughts

As I grow older (I am a crotchety 74 but who’s counting?), I find myself returning to thoughts of my youth. I recall my father, Rabbi Spector, talking about Job and found myself as a teenager immersed with the meaning of the words allegedly spoken to Job from the whirlwind in response to Job’s complaint that he was being treated unfairly and cruelly. Rather than respond to Job’s complaint, according to the account, God only asks Job where Job was when the mountains were created and the stars set in motion. My understanding of the Book of Job is that human knowledge is necessarily limited and incomplete. That understanding has stayed with me into old age. As a college student at the Air Force Academy I came across Martin Buber’s I and Thou thanks to my philosophy teachers. My early understanding of the limits of human knowledge and reasoning was extended to the implication that one should treat others with dignity and respect regardless of any other details about them such as race, religion, nationality, age, gender, and so on. While I have found it much easier to live with the notion of skepticism and limits to human knowledge and understanding that I found in the Book of Job, I have found it more challenging to live up to Buber’s implication that one should focus on I-Thou relationships rather than I-It relationships.

I recently experienced a near-death experience and fortunately escaped uninjured – I cannot say the same for my vehicle which was totaled. This is the second near-death experience I have survived and I am again wondering how fortunate I have been … and asking myself why? I am thinking I have been given a little more time to learn to live in the I-Thou world that Buber advocated for us all. So, “if not now, then when” as Hillel reminded us.

Quid Pro Quo

The notion of compromise occurs in many contexts. The general sense of a quid pro quo is something like this: “If you do this for me, then I will do that for you.” Compromise is essential for progress in many cases. As a child, I had a football, but I was the smallest child wanting to play sandlot football. I remember telling my friends that I would let them use my football if they would let me play. I got to play as did my friends. In college, I played lacrosse and also taught an undergraduate logic course. Some of the younger lacrosse players asked if they could take my logic course and get a guaranteed passing grade. They really wanted an automatic A but only said a passing grade. One of them came to class regularly and earned an A. I gave the other two a C and they were very upset with me. I felt pressured to pass them as teammates and only gave them a C in return for them not isolating me on the team – that was never a direct threat but I thought it was a real possibility. I saw the Cs as a compromise – unfortunately, those two did not see it the same way. As an intelligence officer in the Air Force, I was told I needed to inflate the North Vietnamese casualties when reporting weekly statistics to the general if I wanted to be promoted. I refused and was sent to a remote assignment as punishment. There was no compromise and a punishment ensued. Fortunately, with some help, I recovered and came to realize that some compromises are okay but others are not okay.

In the area of educational technology, one has to make many compromises in order to see any progress occur. Some of those compromises are worth making but some may infringe on one’s sense of right and wrong or threaten one’s personal dignity. One may want to do a study in a school but the superintendent or principal or teacher may ask for a special favor in return for allowing the study to proceed. Some favors may be innocuous but some may be unethical or illegal. My advice is to take nothing in return and make no promises and offer no favors in return for your research other than improved learning and understanding.

Bouwsma described Socrates as someone who spoke highly and lived in accordance with what he said; others only talk high and live low, and a few speak low and live in accordance with their words, which are often aimed at others rather than at themselves. I suppose one could also speak low and live high, but I do not know anyone like that. Bouwsma also said you become more like one kind of person rather than another kind of person based on what you do and say. My father said something similar. I suppose Bouwsma and my father were promoting a deep sense of self-awareness and metacognitive understanding. One example of living in accordance with Socrates and Bouwsma is the life of Franz Jägerstätter (see Gordon Zahn’s In Solitary Witness). Another way to make a more clear distinction is to view compromise vs. extortion. Bouwsma also said “surely your life will show what you think of yourself.”

Principles for Living and Learning

Due to double vision, totaling my car, and having a pacemaker installed (in me … not in my car), I am missing the annual meeting of AECT  - my professional family and friends. I am basically confined to my home while trying to keep up with my two online doctoral courses. I have been thinking about how principles remain relatively stable while other things change dramatically. For example, the Hippocratic Oath and its principles to guide medical practice were developed more than two thousand years ago. Medical practice has changed dramatically in the years since it was introduced. It was an oath sworn to the Greek gods and has evolved somewhat from the original to include such principles as doing no harm, preventing disease, respecting all persons, and sharing knowledge to help prevent disease. That such basic principles of medical practice have endured so long in spite of how much medical practice has changed is remarkable.

In a book of essays honoring one of my mentors, M. David Merrill, I introduced what I called the Educratic Oath:

1.      Do nothing to impair learning, performance and instruction.
2.      Co what you can to improve learning, performance and instruction.
3.      Base your actions on evidence that you and others have gathered and analyzed.
4.      Share the principles of learning, performance and instruction that you have learned with others.
5.      Respect the individual rights of all those with whom you interact.

I was inspired to document those principles as I saw them practiced by Merrill, Gagné, Tennyson,Reigeluth, and so many others. I have been thinking that such principles could easily guide other disciplines, such as political discourse, economic policy, and engineering design by simply substituting the appropriate words for ‘learning, performance and instruction’.

The principles and values that guide decisions and actions in a sense determine who we become. As O. K. Bouwsma wrote in an unpublished journal{ “Surely your life will show what you think of yourself.”

Division and Mockery

Whatever happened to unity and respect?

There seem to be deficiencies in those two categories (unity and respect) all around.

There are the extreme rule followers and one-sided leaders in an institution who place obstacles and offer derision and reprimands, rather than asking how to help and promoting the ideas and efforts of others. This lack of unity and respect has a long history.

I recall the bumper sticker that said “America – Love it or Leave it.” I suppose the Divider in Chief (DiC} with the appropriate pronunciation) would send us all back to Africa where the human species might have originated. When several states were suffering the worst Hurricane ever in the Southeast, the DiC is mocking more than half the American voting public, who failed to vote for him. Then, the DIC decided to deny entry into the USA to most of those escaping a sustained hurricane 5 in a nearby peaceful island nation. Division and mockery served up in a cold-hearted stew reminiscent of the incarceration of small children on our Southern border/
 
So soon has Aretha Franklin’s rendition of Otis Redding’s Respect (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C06IINMQzsY) been forgotten. 

Wordsworth was right: “The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers…”

It remains to be seen who will eventually be locked up.

Mike Spector

October 2018

What If?

What if the grim reaper (a.k.a., the DJT’s guard dog) were to allow the Senate to vote on the bill passed in February of 2019 on universal background checks on all gun purchases? It is time that everyone does their job.

What if more companies refused to sell AR-15, AK-47 and similar assault weapons and large capacity magazines (e.g., more than 15) for all weapons?

What if cities and counties refused to allow gun shows to be organized in their jurisdictions?

What if the sale of weapons of any kind through the Internet were made illegal?

What if everyone knew what was actually written in the second amendment to the US constitution:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." 

What if the second amendment were to be expanded to include bazookas, grenades, surface to surface and surface to air missiles? Tanks? 50 caliber machine guns? The slippery slope slides both ways.

What if we, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, decided to stand up and be counted in opposition to the separation of families and the incarceration of immigrant  children, or in opposition to denying temporary protective status to neighbors escaping the devastation of a sustained hurricane 5, or against sending back to countries of origin those previously granted protective status so as to provide them with life-saving medical care … what if we, the people, really understood the blessing of liberty and decided to be a shining country on the hill of humanity?

What if the justices on the supreme court were to actually behave like impartial and independent justices interested in the welfare of all as in “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all …” as stated in the Declaration of Independence as the obligation of governments in response to absolute despotism, which is the current direction of these divided states under #45.

What if people everywhere embraced the following from the Book of Leviticus  in the Hebrew Bible:

⁹ “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. ¹⁰ And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.

¹¹ “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. ¹² You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.

¹³ “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. ¹⁴ You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

¹⁵ “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. ¹⁶ You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life^[a] of your neighbor: I am the Lord.

¹⁷ “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. ¹⁸ You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

What if the temporary resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC understood and lives by those words?

What if the “American eagle were to really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right?”

What if you were to add ideas to this short list of musings of worlds yet to be realized?

Reacting to two statements about my university.

1.   Our recent brand audit showed that we see our university as creative, caring, and gritty.

2.   Our current mission statement is “our caring and creative community prepares students for careers in a rapidly changing world”.

I can think of individuals who are creative (e.g., Prof. Dave Merrill), caring (e.g., Prof. Barbara Lockee), or gritty (e.g., Prof. Glen Bull), but I cannot think of anyone who has all three of those characteristics. So, that led me to wonder about applying descriptors that normally apply to people to organizations or institutions. I know some organizations that are large and some that are small, some that are diverse and some that lack much diversity, some that are hierarchical and some that are relatively flat, and so on. I am also aware of organizational cultural descriptions, but those typically refer to how decisions are made and how people interact at different levels. So, I start out confused thinking about this.

Then I think about what we are preparing students for. We recently had an invited speaker in the Discovery Series who assumed that higher education was aimed at preparing students for jobs of the future, although he admitted to not knowing what those jobs would be. My own view of education is dramatically different. When I was accepted as a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of Texas, the letter of acceptance contained an interesting statement – namely, do not expect to find a job in philosophy upon completing the program. I went anyway and was the only graduate in my class who did get a job in philosophy the year I graduated. But I did not go because I wanted a job. I went because I wanted to study philosophy. So, I am not convinced that the main purpose of higher education is to prepare people for jobs, known or unknown. I think it is up to students to decide why they are pursuing higher education. My offhand thought is that higher education in general helps a person to better understand the many complexities of our world. Understanding and appreciating those complexities can lead to personal fulfillment and an enriched adult life. Sometimes. Maybe. In some cases.