Some time ago I was reading a book [Lies My Teacher Told Me]. I didn’t finish it, not because it wasn’t good, but because it was thoroughly depressing, and I’m usually not the kind to be easily depressed. The author was pointing out case after case where textbooks and teachers were wrong. I got to thinking about his approach and realized that what he was often complaining about wasn’t about lies at all — but that teachers and textbooks all oversimplified everything to the point that those oversimplifications become simplistic and often were not technically correct.

Part of that is understandable — almost nothing is as simple as anyone makes it out to be, and few of us have the time and patience to learn the full story about anything. Life is really like fractals — while we seem to see regular patterns, those events aren’t all that regular, and the deeper one looks the more there is.

Yet, at times, overunderstanding can be counterproductive. I don’t care about impact physics when I’m stapling shingles or hammering in a picture hangar. The problem is that once some things, particularly economics and politics, are oversimplified, they are in fact lies, and those lies change the course of human events, while oversimplifying the impact physics of hammering nails generally has little effect on the ability to hammer in nails — or the rate of housing construction.

But failure to understand can be even more deadly, especially in a representative democracy where voters have to decide on who represents them and when those decisions are based on news so condensed that it’s essentially a lie, even if every fact presented is in fact accurate, because the facts not presented would have changed the entire slant of that news item. Unfortunately, in this day of instant news and instant information, most individuals don’t want to listen to the full story. They have a thirty second — or less — attention span for anything that doesn’t affect them, especially at that moment, and to cater to that, most information providers condense information and news to short snippets of quick and oversimplified material. Almost always, this results in distortion and can change popular opinion or reinforce already existing stereotypes.

Years ago, when I was legislative director for a U.S. Representative, he made the point that in an appropriations hearing there was more debate on a line item for mule barn than on research appropriations for a nuclear collider — because everyone knew what a mule barn was and wanted to voice their opinions. He was exaggerating, but not by much. In another case, the abandoned hazardous waste sites [Superfund sites] ignited a giant controversy during the Reagan administration because the American public had heard about Love Canal and could visualize the problem. The political uproar that followed because people felt that EPA wasn’t enforcing the law vigorously enough essentially resulted in the removal of 33 out of the 35 political appointees at the Agency, and all the top officials. Yet, several years later, studies revealed that there were nine other far more serious environmental problems that were killing far, far more Americans than leakage from abandoned Superfund sites, and that those problems couldn’t be addressed adequately because so much of EPA’s funding, as a result of the Superfund scandal, had gone to the waste site problem.

Virtually every government agency has similar stories, and so do many corporations. While absolutely egregious, the recent payment of bonuses to AIG executives tends to overshadow the far larger and more critical problem of a financial system that institutionalizes and rewards excessive risk and short-term profits and diverts funding and attention from basic reforms of that system, as well as from vital infrastructure, health care reform, and education.

In short, in a condensed, sensation-based news culture, what you hear is usually an oversimplified version that’s all too often a “truthful” lie because of what’s missing. And, more and more, such “truthful lies” lead to bad public policy and worse legislative fixes, which in turn create more problems reported in another set of “truthful lies”… and so it goes.

A number of years ago, a book called The Bell Curve was published and immediately became the center of an intellectual firestorm. In retrospect, one could almost say that it was a case of “While I don’t like your statistics, I don’t have any better figures, but because your statistics conflict with what I believe (or have seen on an individual basis), they can’t possibly be so.”

As Murray and Hernstein, the authors, stated, statistics are not valid for individuals, but well-developed statistics are almost always accurate for large populations. Their statistics appeared to raise disturbing implications in two areas: (1) individuals with higher IQs — on average — are more successful in our society, and (2) certain minorities, notably blacks — on average — have lower IQs. The authors also claimed that IQ does not change significantly for most people after an early (pre-school) age. Recent research has raised some issues with the last point, but only about the threshold age after which IQ seldom changes, although it seems clear that certainly IQ does not usually change significantly after puberty, and may be determined considerably earlier.

Whether the authors are correct or not should be assessed, not by philosophical predilections or by anecdotal evidence, since exceptions make both bad law and bad policies, but by a broad-based study which addresses such specific issues as:

(1) Is IQ a valid predictor of economic/societal success [not whether it should be, but whether it is]?

(2) If IQ does have validity as such a predictive tool, to what degree is IQ genetically determined, and what other factors can scientifically and effectively be determined to change IQ [i.e., do prenatal care, maternal nutrition, very early childhood education and support, etc., play a significant or a minor role]?

Finally, regardless of causal factors, the authors addressed one simple and basic problem: the fact that, in an information-based hierarchy, those who show higher IQs are more likely to be successful than those who do not. Even if methods and techniques can be developed to ensure all individuals realize their maximum potential IQ, in our society those with higher IQ levels will continue to become an increasingly powerful and self-selecting elite. Isn’t that really the controversy? That we have developed a culture where some individuals, no matter how hard-working, will never be among the most successful so long as success is measured by hierarchical power and economic success and that such success requires the skills measured by higher IQs?

We also seem ready to reject any “scientific” method that may indicate some groups will be either more or less successful than others in areas requiring mental prowess, even while we readily acknowledge such inequality in athletic areas. Why? Is it because we are unwilling to admit that most individuals cannot alter their basic mental capacities, and that such capacities are fixed by outside factors and the actions of others?

In the end, much of the controversy over The Bell Curve seemed to have been generated by individuals — on both sides — whose beliefs were deeply affected — those who either wished to use the statistics presented to justify their already-existing negative feelings and actions about minorities or those who rejected those findings because the findings were antithetical to their very beliefs.

Yet, more than ten years after the publication of The Bell Curve, I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever addressing the authors’ point that, like it or not, economic and professional success in the present-day United States can be predicted largely on the basis of IQ. I have to emphasize that I am not saying this is as it necessarily should be, but the fact that this finding has been quietly buried and remains unrefuted is more than disturbing in itself.

The in-depth and devoted study of music is perceived by many as either fluff or irrelevant to today’s education and world. It is neither. Archeological excavations have discovered various musical instruments that predate historical society, and every human culture, without exception, has some form of musical expression. Music, in particular classical music, is a discipline based entirely upon rigorously applied mathematics, requiring intellectual and physical abilities developed over a period of years. Music has been a key element in culture and politics for at least 50,000 years, and cultural musical achievements are inseparable from a culture’s political, economic, and even military power.

Yet, even today, some politicians and educators question the value of music as a subject of educational study, assigning higher priorities to everything from driver education and athletics. After all, with American Idol, the message is that anyone can sing. With such skepticism and ignorance about the disciplined study of music, one must ask the basic question: Is music important to a culture, and if so, why, and to what degree?

The music enjoyed, played, and composed by a culture defines the soul of that society, and how music is taught in that culture, and to whom, not only illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of its education system, but foreshadows the fate of that education system — and of the society itself.

Aristotle called music the keystone of education. In practical terms, more than any other single discipline, music improves intellectual functioning, emotional intelligence, and understanding of and ability to integrate multiple intellectual and physical activities. PET brain imaging studies show that sight-reading and performing engages more areas of the brain than any other activity.

As noted by a number of scholarly presentations over the past decade, music increases emotional intelligence, and as pointed out by the neurobiologist A.A. Anastasio [Decartes’ Error], intelligence devoid of emotional content is an impaired and reduced intelligence. It is not exactly happenstance that Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein were both violinists, or that a high percentage of physicians have musical talents and abilities.

Ensemble musical performances also require cooperation and coordination under time pressure. This is a useful skill in a society that exalts individual success at any cost, particularly since we live in a complex society that rests on cooperation. One has only to look a various third-world societies or Middle Eastern cultures — or even western situations such as Northern Ireland or Basque Spain — to see the devastating impact of societal divisiveness.

Although it is scarcely politically correct to declare so publicly, all music is not equal, either within a society, or in comparing music from different societies. Because almost every human being can do something that can be called music, all too many humans equate what they like with excellence. Such popular personal taste does not necessarily recognize or reward technical expertise and genius. As in many fields, understanding and appreciating excellence in music takes education and talent.

In terms of the larger implications for American society, all too often overlooked and obvious is the fact that for the past 600 years western European music has been the most advanced, most technologically diverse, and most multifaceted… and that western European culture dominates the world — politically and in terms of economic and military power — and has ever since its music developed in its present form. The only cultures that have been able to challenge western-European-derived ones economically, politically, and militarily are those that have adopted — if by adapting — western European music.

Music is indeed complex. Like all of the most worthwhile disciplines, it requires study, long hours of practice, and is expensive to teach. But… as in all matters, what is cheap and popular does not survive. In that sense, it is far too expensive for the future for universities, especially state universities, NOT to teach music. Americans live in a nation that is increasingly polarized by two opposing straight-line, single-value camps of thought. Americans also live in a nation whose popular music has been degenerating technically and compositionally as this polarization has increased. This is scarcely coincidence or mere happenstance correlation.

Likewise, music teaches its students how to handle multiply faceted values and inputs, a skill more and more valuable in a complex and multifaceted world. Because music does increase intellectual and practical abilities, eliminating and/or reducing the study of music at state schools is another critical factor in effectively limiting, if not destroying, the position of the United States as the principal dominant society of the world.

That is because music will only be taught at elite state and private universities, and, when taught at other schools, educators are increasingly pressured to simplify and dumb-down the curriculum, because true musical education on the collegiate level is anything but easy, and difficult courses are less popular and have lower enrollments. This combination of exclusivity and content degradation will only help to increase the division between the privileged and the rest of the population at a time when the economic gap between these groups is already increasing. In addition, it will contribute to other trends already reducing the proportion of the population with the range of skills necessary to analyze, manage, and innovate in a complex world society.

From all the articles and cases, there’s clearly a problem in U.S. schools with cheating, and another one with grade inflation. There’s also a problem with too many students not mastering skills. All three problems are linked to a single societal perceptual problem — the false equation of credentials with skills.

In music, for example, mastery of an instrument or the voice is not demonstrated by how fast a musician can get through the piece, nor how many works can be quickly learned, nor by a piece of paper that says the student has a B.M., M.M., or D.M.A. Mastery is singing or playing on key, in tempo, with flawless tone and/or diction, and precise emotional expression.

In recent years, time after time, various studies have trotted out statistics to show that people with degrees make more money than those without degrees. Seldom, if ever, has anyone addressed first, what the studies actually show, and second, their actual applicability to life. The initial studies reflected the difference in earnings between those with a college degree and those without one. And the key term remains “degree.” Once upon a time, a degree signified a mastery of a certain set of skills, and the degree was the certification of those skills. Today, a degree is viewed by students and society alike as either a passport to a better job or the credential to another degree which is a passport to an even better job. The emphasis is on the credential, not on the process of education, not on learning the skills necessary to do the job. Given this emphasis the symbols of success — the grades, the honors, the degrees — is it any wonder that students — and their parents — cheat?

Those teachers who try to emphasize the need to learn fundamentals well, to master skills, and who grade rigorously, are overwhelmed by a society that wants quick results and easy-to-verify credentials and that has lost its understanding of the true basics. The “answer” to a test is only a small part of the learning process. The idea behind learning is to gain the abilities and understanding necessary to find answers on one’s own, especially in new and different situations. This emphasis is being lost behind the demands for testing and accountability.

Students are far from stupid. They see that only the result matters in most cases. The answer obtained on-line or through cheating, if done successfully, counts as much as the one sweated out the hard way. The well-publicized Kansas case of several years ago was not an exception, but far more common than most politicians and school boards want to admit. Just talk to the teachers — well off the record.

This emphasis on the credential, rather than the skills, is everywhere. High school students want to get into the prestigious college so that they can get the good grades there in order to get into the prestigious graduate school in order to get the best job/highest compensation. More and more money and effort are being poured into testing students as to what they are learning. Here, again, we run the risk of focusing on “credentials” — the good test score. Tests like the SAT and the ACT, the GRE, the LSAT, the MEDCAT all purport to measure two things — a certain level of knowledge and the ability to recall that knowledge in a short period of time. Individuals who know their subject matter in great depth, but do not recall the material either swiftly or under time pressure will score less well than those with lesser knowledge but greater test-taking skills.

While there are certain occupations where time is of the essence, and one must act in seconds or minutes — most high-level occupations don’t — and shouldn’t — require such haste. Most occupations are those where a thoughtful complete mastery of the subject and skills is far more preferable to incomplete knowledge and speed. We don’t need an architect who can design a building quickly; we need one who designs it well and safely. We don’t need medical researchers who experiment quickly, but ones who do so thoughtfully and thoroughly. We don’t need financial analysts who can design new financial instruments that magnify credit and the money supply nearly instantly — and then crash and plunge us into financial and economic chaos, but analysts and “quants” who fully understand the ramifications of their work and who can also explain it clearly and concisely… and who will.

There is an old proverb that seems to have been forgotten in our desire for easy credentials, quick measurements, and instant gratification: Haste makes waste.

Never before was this more applicable than in education today. “Accountability” and all the other buzzwords being used are in danger of creating an even greater charade in education than the present sad situation. Universities tout the percentage of their faculty with a Ph.D. Can all those highly degreed professors actually teach? How many actually do? Which ones are effective? Is there any serious effort to evaluate whether candidate A with a masters degree is actually a better and more effective teacher than candidate B with a Ph.D. or candidate C with a mere bachelors degree, but with twenty years practical experience?

A number of studies and articles have also appeared recently suggesting that student evaluations of professors at universities have become both omnipresent and are focused more on the grades that the professors give than upon their teaching effectiveness. That is, in general, the more high grades a professor gives, the better the student evaluation. Once more, both the students and the administrations which rely on such evaluations are focusing on the “credential,” the grade given by students largely ignorant of the requirements of the discipline they are learning, rather than on the process of learning and the skills attained by the students. Yet when such elite schools as Harvard set the example by giving half the student body As in all courses, it becomes increasing difficult for others to go against the example. In the state of Utah, the governor and the legislature have been pressing the universities to graduate students more quickly so that they can get into the work force more quickly, and presumably pay taxes more quickly. Yet, even as the number of students swells, the resources available on a per student basis decrease, and the buzz-word “efficiency” gets bandied around wildly, as if the only important measure is how quickly students get a piece of paper in hand — a credential.

All of these examples have one factor in common — the failure to understand that education is a process, and that mastery of the skills involved is what leads to eventual long-term success for the student — not merely a credential that, without the skills mastery that it is supposed to represent, means little. Most Americans understand that a basketball or football coach cannot merely have a players attend three practices a week for nine months for four years, give them high grades without rigorous examinations, and then graduate them all to a professional sport, saying that they are all equivalent. Yet, in many ways this is exactly what the American public is asking of its undergraduate colleges and universities.

Unfortunately, the problem doesn’t end with graduation. It goes on. Credentials take the place of judgment in the business and academic hiring world. The recommendations of the highly credentialed analysts at the Wall Street brokerage houses were accepted unquestioningly in the cases of Enron, Tyco, Global Crossings, and all the other high-level corporate disasters. So were those of the accountants at Arthur Anderson, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and innumerable banks. Everyone focused on “credentials” — reported profits — rather than on the process of the businesses at hand. Instead, the financial world went on focusing on paper credentials, just as the education world seems prepared to do.

Credentials have become more and more divorced from the abilities and results they were once supposed to measure and have in fact become almost a substitute for ability and accomplishment, yet so long as this continues, we as a society will continue to pay the high price for that practice.

A week or so ago, a number of Facebook users got extremely irritated when Facebook tried to change its terms of service to claim the rights of all content posted there in perpetuity. On the surface, that seems to be a bit extreme and might warrant an outcry.

Except… is anything electronic and on the web really permanent? Just look at how fast sites change. Exactly where is the record of what was there yesterday… or last week… let alone last month or last year?

I got to thinking about this for the latest time when I considered my Boeing Graph program. It was a wonderful graphing tool back when I was doing computer graphics for various businesses. It still might be, except that I never bothered to convert the 5 1/2 inch floppies into another format, and I haven’t had a computer with that capability for years, nor have I seen a version of it for sale in an updated format. In fact, I still use 3 inch disks, and I’ve been informed that they’re nearly obsolete. And I’m still using Word 7.0 to write books, because it will also access all the older WordPerfect files so that I don’t have to convert some twenty years of writing and notes. And besides, it doesn’t require as much use of the mouse, which is an advantage for someone who likes the keyboard. Yes, I know, I could program or learn all the alternative keystrokes for the current version of Word, at least until there’s another newer and improved version. But it’s not just me. There’s all sorts of NASA data that’s virtually lost because the electronic systems have changed and because no one thought to convert it — or perhaps they didn’t have the budget to do so.

That’s the thing about paper. We still have books that are hundreds of years old. They may be fragile, but just how much of all the electronic data we’re archiving right now is really going to be accessible in a decade or two, let alone a century? My wife has pointed out that all the old letters in her grandmother’s trunk were priceless. They showed how people thought and felt. Somehow, I don’t see my grandchildren being able to even find my emails. More than a few times, I’ve been able to go back and dig out data from my old consulting reports — those that I was smart enough to print out. I’d be surprised if much of that data exists anywhere else.

And, by the way, there are a few institutions and even one religion that keep revising their tenets. You can see this when you compare print versions, but such comparisons get harder and harder when everything’s electronic.

I haven’t mentioned the problem of servers and their impermanence, either. Or electronic worms and viruses. The old-fashioned book worms took months, if not years, to destroy a single book. The electronic variety can wipe out entire databases in instants. Something like ten years ago, a movie called The Net came out, and it showed exactly what could happen in a society with too great a reliance on electronic systems and too few safeguards. Certainly, there are greater safeguards today than people envisioned back then, but think about the President’s proposal to set up universal electronic medical records. Yes, those records can be accessed from anywhere, but that also means they can be altered or destroyed from anywhere. With paper records in each hospital, someone intent on destroying large amounts of records would have to visit every hospital. Not so once everything’s electronic.

The most obvious price for easier electronic access and convenience is potentially greater vulnerability. There’s also another price, and that’s mandatory standardization, because standardization also increases vulnerability.

It’s certainly a lot more convenient to manipulate electronic text, and it’s been a boon to all of those of us who write, but I would note that all my contracts with my publisher specify that I’m supposed to keep a “hard” copy of every book… just in case.

What will happen if we end up going to E-books, because paperbacks and hardcovers are too expensive?

We can still read Sumerian, Babylonian, Hittite, and Egyptian texts thousands of years old, especially those inscribed on clay. I have my doubts about the survival of much current and future “literature” disseminated as electrons on a screen, but then, given where entertainment is headed, that might just be a blessing.