1c. Pedagogy? I Hardly Know Ye!
Welcome back to Safe White Space!
*Pedagogy: the art, science, or profession of teaching.
Back in Exhibit 3, we saw Donald Howard attempt to totally pwn all the libs everywhere by maliciously misquoting an actual philosopher as saying “There are no Absolutes.” In trying to discredit Hegel, Donald accidentally gave a great example of a Hegelian contradiction that concisely discredited his own counter-argument “Thou shalt not kill.”1
As he did with Hegel, in this post Donald is going to throw hands with the projection of his own shadow, and lose in the most pathetic way possible. Only this time, he calls out living people who are giants in their fields of study. If you have a degree in education, much of what you learned was rooted in or influenced by these doctors’ contributions.
In this very same section, Donald explained his pedagogy, which is entirely based on what it means to “train a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6). Back-dropped by his pithy insults, and what we’ve learned about Donald with regards to his self-absorbed motivations for rewriting Christian education, his pedagogy is going to blow your mind. It’s clear he spent more time thinking about the wondrous “awe and love” he should receive from children, than he did contemplating how to effectively educate them.
Lets get to it:
Exhibit 23
[Cont. on page 76]
The poem is from a book written by a Playboy magazine contributor and published by Evil Eye Music, Inc.
Now that is sick.
Teen Turmoil, page 75, 76
Here’s ‘Someone Ate the Baby’ by Shel Silverstein[1]2:
“Someone ate the baby it's rather sad to say
Someone ate the baby so she won't be out to play
We'll never hear her whiney cry or have to feel if she is dry
We'll never hear her asking why why why someone ate the baby
Someone ate the baby it's absolutely clear
Someone ate the baby cause the baby isn't here
We'll give away her toys and clothes we'll never have to wipe her nose
Dad says that's the way it goes someone ate the baby
Someone ate the baby what a frightful thing to eat
Someone ate the baby though she wasn't very sweet
It was a heartless thing to do the policemen haven't got a clue
I simply can't imagine who would go and (burp) eat the baby”
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed out loud at a poem, until now.
The reason for not naming the “Humanist Harvard educator,” is because he was the extremely overqualified Dr. Chester Middlebrook Pierce. Context, like Dr. Pierce’s long list of contributions to psychiatry and education (to name just two fields), would deflate the feeling Donald was trying to get across. Donald had no interest in contending with Dr. Pierce on the merits of his work. He just needed to selectively edit a quote that would make his audience mad enough to short-circuit their critical skills. That way, his audience isn’t mentally prepared to recognize that there is no correlation between Dr. Pierce’s quote and Shel Silverstein’s poetry. That is, other than the fact that Donald never read either persons work, and that he found them both sickening anyways.
*I don’t feel good about directing traffic to the following website, but I feel obligated to show my work.
To demonstrate this short-circuiting, here is a thread on libertytree.ca, a weird alt-right community that spreads all kinds of panic-oriented disinformation. Dr. Pierce’s quote appears at the top of the linked thread with tags like: ‘‘New World Order,’’ ‘‘Communism,’’ ‘‘Conformity,’’ ‘‘Children,’’ ‘‘Psycho-politics,’’…
The comments are wild. They range from 2005 - 2019 and, with few exceptions, they are exactly what you’d expect. From people calling Dr. Pierce deranged, to demanding he and similar thinkers be jailed or locked up. The vibe is reminiscent of Exhibit 6, where Donald claimed that Biblical character is expressed as indiscriminate violence against Lefties. None of them ask ‘gee, what was the context of Dr. Pierce’s words?’ or ‘Who is Chester Pierce?’ “Patriots” blindly hating Navy Commander Chester Pierce because of their national zealotry is peak mental illness. This forum is one of many I found still peddling Donald’s lie.
Leaving out Pierce’s title, “doctor,” is the type of intentional disrespect you can expect to find in Donald’s manifestos. He would take this petulant rudeness so far that some sections of his writing are utterly disorienting.
This one broke my neck:
Exhibit 24
Rebirth of Our Nation, page 259
Getting mad at fictional people was well within his character3. So, when he brought up Spock, it took me a good 2 minutes to make sure I hadn’t missed anything in the sections leading up to this. Nope. He’s just talking about weaning babies, and then he’s really mad at Spock.
Then, it took me another 10 seconds (google, not skills) to find out that ole Donny wasn’t upset at everyone’s favorite Vulcan. He is referencing Dr. Benjamin Spock - one of the most influential educators in the 21st century. He’s another overly qualified, world renown “HuMAnIsT eDuCAtOR,” who’s credentials betray Donald as nothing more than an edgy joke.
Here’s an example of Dr. Spock’s credentials, per the Washington Post. Mind you, this book and it’s impact on American culture is but one of our boy Benjamin’s contributions:
“The book's [Baby and Child Care] initial publication in 1946 coincided with the beginning of the post-World War II baby boom, and its author broke new ground by urging young parents to be flexible about raising their children and to have some fun in the process. So universal was its influence that the generation of children reared after its publication was sometimes known as the "Spock generation."”
Right-wing reactionaries in the 1960s and 70s blamed Dr. Spock’s pedagogy for the protests against the Vietnam War. This was an easy sell because Dr. Spock was already known for being pro-fun and anti-war. Which only makes sense, considering that it was his generation fighting and dying in the war. All to contract cancer and oppress people half a world away.
That Washington Post article goes on to quote Dr. Spock:
“"Don't be afraid to love {your baby}. . . . Every baby needs to be smiled at, talked to, played with, fondled -- gently and lovingly. . . . You may hear people say that you have to get your baby strictly regulated in his feeding, sleeping, bowel movements and other habits -- but don't believe this. He doesn't have to be sternly trained. . . . Be natural and comfortable and enjoy your baby."”
Spock clarified many times throughout his career that children need firm parents. That they benefit greatly from discipline. But he sux in the eyes of the Lord because he also believed in the super radical idea of loving your child, the dang Humanist. Either Donald was so lazy as to not bother with any due diligence, or he wasn’t being honest. Probably both.
Below is what Donald was clinging to when he claimed Dr. Spock realized his pedagogy didn’t work. Donald swung for the fences, all because our guy apologized like a human being [1,2]:
"I want to apologize to half the fathers and mothers who are going to read the book. I mean the parents whose first baby is a girl. Everywhere I've called the baby 'Him." I think girl babies are as wonderful as boy babies. But in every sentence I can't say "her or him" and I can't say "it" (parents would rather have their baby called the wrong sex than be called "it.") Why can't I call the baby "her" in at least half the book? I need "her" to refer to the mother. I hope the parents of girls will understand and forgive me."
Dr. Spock was apologizing, hoping “the parents of girls will understand,” because he needed his literature to be as clear as possible within the limited framework of our two-pronoun English language. I can’t imagine Donald apologizing for anything other than plagiarism.
Wait, we haven’t gotten there?
For the record, neither Dr. Spock, nor Dr. Pierce were perfect. Our understanding of child rearing moved so quickly in that era that mistakes were a guarantee, just like in any field of study as it’s undergoing rapid change. The difference between them and Donald is that they were willing to adapt to new information, admit their mistakes, and do better in the future.
If Donald had raised a specific issue with one of these educators, we could have a fun conversation, and could delve deeper into the pros and cons of their vast contributions. But we don’t get to have that healthy, productive conversation because we have to clean Donald’s puppy spills off the carpet.
Here on the next page, he is still talking about Proverbs 22:6 and laying out his pedagogy. I’ll post a pic in the footnotes so you know this is a real thing that an actual person said. Exhibits like this one demonstrate why few people in the real world took him seriously during his lifetime. It also goes to show why we have to take him seriously today.
If there wasn’t overwhelming evidence that the person, Donald Howard, actually existed, I would believe this was written by a drunk AI:
*David Gibbs is a piece of shit and friend of Donald’s
Exhibit 25a4
And maybe we don’t know what this word “train” means. That’s an interesting word. I did not understand that word, train, until I met a Christian attorney, Dave Gibbs who gave me an interpretation of it. Now this word train, the very first word in the sentence, is the word that a Hebrew mother used in weaning her baby. Today, we have Gerber’s super-strained baby food and a little silver spoon and when you mothers are going to wean your babies, you prop him up in your arm. The head flops around. You know, somebody ought to call up to Heaven and have them put a few more screws on that thing. So you prop the baby’s head up in your arms and try to get him to smile, and when he smiles you stuff that little spoon into his mouth. He spits it out and you take that spoon and scrape all around and stuff it in again. That’s how you train a baby to eat.
But.. you were explaining “what this word “train” means.”
Maybe he’ll get to it:
Exhibit 25b
The Hebrew mothers didn’t have Gerber strained, they had another way of straining food, and you know how they did it? They chewed it up, then, they’d put it on their finger, and stick it in the baby’s mouth. Now, if you put your finger in and touch the roof of your mouth, right behind your teeth it’s kind of firm, you keep sliding your finger back a little further, a little further; you touch the palate and what happens? You get a reaction. The mother puts the food on the end of her finger and sticks it back and touches the palate, and the baby automatically swallows. The word “train” is translated from a special word the Hebrew mother used, which means to “touch the palate”. The intent in use means, when she first begins to train him to eat she sets taste patterns which he follows for a life. What children are taught to eat as a child becomes a pattern for life.
The mental image of someone gagging themselves as they read this, well, it lives in my head rent free.
But I’ll shut up, he’s getting to it.
For instance
Oh gawd..
Exhibit 25c
For instance in the Philippines the people eat dog up near Bagio. I didn’t, I ordered a type of a Sundae called “Mix Mix.” It contained a mixture of flavored ice, ice cream, sweet corn and soybeans. The mix was terrible, because it didn’t appeal to my taste buds. While in Ghana, nationals ordered a Ghana meal at my request. The bowl came with two potato-like patties, submerged in peanut gravy. The gravy was great, but the blending of bananas and potatoes together gave a sticky substance which stuck to the roof of my mouth like glue. It touched my palate and remained. In Barcelona, missionaries ordered a multi-course special. The first serving was barbequed boiled snails. They brought small sticks you used to remove the snails from the shell. I got two down successfully. The second course looked like onion rings, which I learned were squid tentacles, french-fried. The next course was omelets with little black inch to inch and a half threads in it. It was very tasty until I saw a pair of little eyes on the head end of what I learned were baby eels. Eskimos eat raw whale’s blubber. In parts of Africa and Mexico children pick jalapeno peppers off the plants and eat them like strawberries. And on and on. Why do we prefer MacDonald’s hamburgers? Our American parents touched our palates and we were MacDonald’s hamburger eaters for life.
Yes… other than the ice cream and MacDonald’s, he just listed things that made him gag… He also reinforced xenophobic sentiments of the world in general, and racist stereotypes of Africans and Mexicans specifically5.
If Donald wasn’t personally responsible for indoctrinating millions of children on Christian Nationalism and bigotry, I’d feel like a bully for beating up on him so. He continues:
Exhibit 25d
That is an illustrated principle found in the word translated “train.” The mother sets the taste patterns and those are the things we’re conditioned to, and respond to, for life. Likewise, from the very beginning, we are to “touch the palate and set the spiritual, mental, and emotional taste patterns of our children. You train up the child in “The Way he should go.” Make him do right, train him in “the way,” that’s the Bible way and don’t let anyone touch his palate with any heathen substance, which will ultimately become a practice. Christians are to train their children’s principles, values, life style, philosophy, and build their character on Bible principles and prevent them from any adverse or contrary training.
No serious educator would ever suggest that you shouldn’t explore different or contrary perspectives. Donald’s pedagogy is only viable if no other options are on the table, so of course alternatives are discouraged.
But! I’m a sucker for abusive relationships - so lets give him another chance to explain what this word “train” means:
Exhibit 25e
Let’s ask a very penetrating question. Do you suppose that God would have given the Great Commandment, to love Him. . ., to train their children “daily,” diligently, from the day the child is weaned, to train him only in “the way. . . while he is growing old. . .” to “beware” of “philosophy and vain deceit. . .” and then permit the Israelites to send their children back down that path, back into Egypt to go to school? Absurd? Ridiculous? God doesn’t major in foolishness. But, did you know that that’s exactly what most Bible believing parents around the world are doing today.
Rebirth of Our Nation, page 260, 261
And you were the one God chose to author Christian education?
He fucked uuup!
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Matthew 18:6
As discussed in post 1a, “Thou shalt not kill” is easily one of the most debated Biblical tenants. Christian sects everywhere have vastly different doctrinal positions on the many different types of killing - turning Donald’s pithy logic bomb on Christianity would nuke the whole religion.
Shel wrote some well known children’s books. One I loved as a kid was The Giving Tree.
Exhibit 26
I heard a preacher preaching one day who quoted Archie Bunker. Now I wouldn’t know Archie Bunker if he walked down the aisle. There is one thing I do know about Archie Bunker; he is an Egyptian and he is not going to teach my children! That is why I built a Christian school.
Rebirth of Our Nation, page 246
—
Exhibit 25
This is a bias that causes real harm:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843483/
“Specifically, this work reveals that a substantial number of white laypeople and medical students and residents hold false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites and demonstrates that these beliefs predict racial bias in pain perception and treatment recommendation accuracy.”
https://www.aamc.org/news/how-we-fail-black-patients-pain
“These disturbing beliefs are not long-forgotten 19th-century relics. They are notions harbored by far too many medical students and residents as recently as 2016. In fact, half of trainees surveyed held one or more such false beliefs, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. I find it shocking that 40% of first- and second-year medical students endorsed the belief that “black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s.””
https://batten.virginia.edu/about/news/black-americans-are-systematically-under-treated-pain-why
“As the researchers predicted, participants generally assigned lower pain ratings to the Black students. Surprisingly, however, there was no correlation between participants’ answers to the questions about their racial attitudes and the pain ratings they gave Black patients (relative to white patients). In other words, “even participants who have very positive racial attitudes show this bias,” Trawalter said”
Stay in your safe space. You were raised in an ashram? You were apparently raised in a toilet.