NEWS
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13 Feb. 2014
Moore speaks out on the Core Ramona Tausz Collegian Freelancer
Assistant Professor of History Terrence Moore spoke about the Common Core and his book, “The Story Killers,” at the Kirby Center on Jan. 9. (Courtesy of Alice Arnn)
The College Republicans hosted a talk by Assistant Professor of History Terrence Moore about his new book, “The StoryKillers: A Common Sense Case Against the Common Core,” on Feb. 6. The book argues against the Common Core educational standards. These guidelines, published in 2012, are now implemented by schools in 45 states. Moore believes the Core’s increasing use of informational, non-fiction texts rather than literature is a danger to both the minds of students and the fate of classic books. Moore pointed out that informational texts allow the Common Core designers to feed students political propaganda through superficial readings. In his lecture, he said the Common Core is ostensibly designed to promote college and career readiness. “Since when is education
merely for college and career readiness?” Moore asked the audience. He mentioned the inability of informational texts to teach students the true aims of education: truth, beauty, and virtue. Moore began speaking out against the Common Core last summer. He now speaks regularly, including before state legislators, in debate with the Alabama state superintendent of education, and at the Allan P. Kirby Center. Although he’s been involved in educational reform for years, Moore describes the resistance to the Common Core as unique because it is a “grassroots effort.” “These resistance movements have started up almost exclusively because mothers have been bothered by the kinds of lessons that are coming home with their students,” Moore said. Courtney Meyet, assistant professor of chemistry, has similar concerns as a mother. Meyet, who attended Thursday’s lecture, says she is troubled by the
fact that the Common Core is untested, with no demonstrated success. “I have two boys, one in eighth grade and one in high school, so I’m definitely interested,” she said. “What I find disturbing is that we’re looking to implement another set of standards that haven’t been tested.” Moore said that public interest in his message has been a pleasant surprise. “One of the things that I’ve been happy with is that a lot of tea party folks and parents are reading the book, but then so are state legislatures,” Moore said. “I was even called by a superintendent of education that wanted to talk about the book. So it’s having some influence with some people who are in education at the moment and may or may not be able to do something.” Hillsdale students also appreciated Moore’s lecture. “My mom is a teacher, and I have become infected by her passion for Common Core, so
learning more in-depth details about how it’s destroying our education system was very interesting,” said freshman Abby Bell, events coordinator for College Republicans. Moore sees hope for future educational reform in three main areas. “I think if we could continue with classical homeschooling, beef up classical charter schools, and then also see a resurgence of classical Catholic schools, it would continue this reform and would show more and more people what a real education would look like,” he said. Junior Kirby Hartley became familiar with the Common Core when he saw the methods used to teach his little sister in school. “They were judging based not so much on comprehending the reading, but looking more for rate of speech, like how quickly you could read aloud,” he said. “Basically, they want individuals who can repeat information, not people who are actually thinking.”
month, he said, “They’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love it. It’s so good.” Kirwan said that almost all of the students he talked to were glad to have the burger bar instead of tacos. He said he talked to students in the dining room during the meal and they were in favor of the change by a margin of 50 to one. The sausage bar has not been quite as popular, but was still widely appreciated. Kirwan said the ratio was more like 25 to one for the sausage bar. Gage described the sausages as, “Not as good as the burger bar, but still great.” Sophomore Katie Keane said she likes tacos, but is happy for the variety. “You get into a routine with tacos every single Tuesday,” she said. “So it’s nice to have a change. It adds some excitement to lunches.” Sophomore Luke Frerking has a different opinion. “They need to stop skipping it every other week, because tacos are the best,” he said. “I’ve been
devastated whenever I go in there because there’s not tacos.” Frerking said he has not heard many people complain about Taco Tuesday, but if they do, it’s probably because they are from the South, where people differentiate between different kinds of tacos and consider some better than others. “I’m from Iowa. I don’t care. They’re tacos!” he said. Sophomore Colin Wilson said he has only eaten tacos in Saga twice. “For a long time, I thought they were grinding up freshmen who got bad grades into the meat,” he said. Kirwan said the change came because he had begun to wonder if students actually liked having tacos every week, so he asked a few students about it, and decided to try doing something different for a week. “I thought, ‘We’ll try it. It’s only a Tuesday. If they don’t like it, we can go back to Taco Tuesday,’” he said. “But they liked it.”
Bookstore to hold Saga says ‘adios’ to ‘Taco Tuesday’ signing event Evan Brune News Editor
Instead of quiet students searching through textbooks and T-shirts, the College Bookstore will soon host both authors and readers in its first-ever faculty book-signing event. The first book-signing is on Feb. 18. The featured authors are Professor of Political Economy Gary Wolfram, Associate Professor of History Richard Gamble, Professor of Economics Ivan Pongracic, and Visiting Assistant Professor of History Darryl Hart. “It’s only natural. I mean, we have so many books authored by faculty,” Trade Book Coordinator Angie Berry said. “They can share their knowledge. They’re here to teach, and we’re here to learn, so it’s a win-win.” The event will be held from noon to 1 p.m., and the featured books will be on sale at 15 percent off. The February book-signing will inaugurate what Berry hopes will be a regular event at the college bookstore. “One of our goals is to unite students and faculty. We’re here to support the college,” Berry said. “The bookstore is trying to reach out more to the college and to the community as a whole. We’re trying to get the bookstore out there.” Wolfram said he was looking forward to participating in the first book-signing event. “I think it’s a good idea. I think it’s fun. It’s sort of like a baseball card,” he said. “There are lots of people out there who are fans of Hillsdale College. I wish I had gotten more books signed while I
was at Berkeley. I had professors who have won the Nobel Prize, and I have their textbooks.” Gamble said he was honored to be asked to participate. “I think it’s a great idea for the bookstore to feature books from the faculty,” he said. “I think it’s a great opportunity for students.” The next event will be on March 18. The two confirmed professors are Assistant Professor of English Dutton Kearney and John Miller, director of the Dow Journalism Program. “We’ve had such favorable responses. We’re really looking forward to it,” Berry said. “My original goal was to feature every author who has written a book. I’m hoping that next year, we’ll be able to expand on this.” Wolfram said the book-signing offered good opportunities for students and other readers. “I think it’s good to know your professors are out there,” he said. “If someone gets a signed book, maybe it’ll get them to read it or maybe it’ll get others to read it.” Gamble said the event also benefits authors as well. “So often, writing and publishing can be a faceless activity,” he said. “When writing a book or an article, it often ends up in the hands of people you never meet. You’re writing for a nameless, faceless audience. That’s not easy to do. It’s very rewarding for authors to meet flesh and blood people.” Berry said the signing also offers students a chance to meet faculty members they might otherwise never have met. “We’re all people, and we all have something to share,” she said. “Our faculty is full of fascinating people.”
Daniel Slonim Collegian Reporter
Some love it, some hate it. But it has always been there, every week, without fail. But not any longer. For 10 years, Saga has served tacos at lunch every Tuesday. Now, every other Tuesday will come and go without a single taco to be found in Saga. Saga Inc. General Manager Kevin Kirwan said a new rotation for Tuesday lunches began this semester. The first week, it was tacos as usual. The second week of the semester, students encountered an “All-American Burger Bar.” The following week, it was a nacho bar with taco fixings available. After that, it was a sausage bar. Kirwan said the rotation will continue this way so that students will be served tacos every other week. “It’ll be cycling through. So every other week, there’ll be something that doesn’t look a thing like tacos,” he said. Kirwan said the change is a response to different opinions he hears about the meal from students he talks to. “There is still a great number of people, believe it or not, that love Taco Tuesday. But there’s also a lot of people that say they like tacos, but not every week,” he said. “It was done in an effort to give variety and to provide those kinds of things that we’ve gotten feedback on that students enjoy.” Saga has recently instituted several changes in response to online student surveys about how to make healthier meals. For example, spinach is now available in the salad bar three times a week. More chicken is served, as
(Anders Kiledal/Collegian)
well as more vegetables, and the latter are more often steamed and served without oil or butter. All of these have been in response to student requests in online surveys, Kirwan said. The most notable change has been the yogurt bar that was added last semester. Kirwan said he decided to add the bar in response to another student request. “Kevin had the idea for the yogurt bar, and we just kind of put our heads together,” said Production Manager Doug Rogotzke. He said he has come up with a lot of ideas for toppings based on what he saw at a yogurt bar in Atlantic City, N.J. He also looks at the kinds of yogurts for sale when he goes to Kroger. Rogotzke said he thinks the yogurt bar has been one of the most successful innovations. “We’re going through 30 to 35 pounds of yogurt a day,” he said. “It think it’s been well-received.” Senior Evan Gage described the yogurt bar as “transcendent” and said it has changed his life. Of the hamburgers that are replacing tacos roughly once a
Charter schools seek Hillsdale students Panel speaks on
Roe v. Wade
Abi Wood Arts Editor
Preparations are underway for the sixth annual classical schools job fair, hosted at Hillsdale College on Feb. 27. Director of Career Services Joanna Wiseley said 42 classical and charter schools will be represented this year. At the first classical schools job fair, six years ago, only 13 schools were represented. Wiseley credited the growing number of schools seeking Hillsdale students with the college’s reputation for being strong educators of classically-minded students. She named schools from 16 states, including schools from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and California. Teachers travel in on Wednesday night for a conference. The job fair is from 10 a.m to 4 p.m. on Thursday. The fair will provide students the chance to meet school representatives and get acquainted with some teachers. Additional interviews that come out of the process will happen Friday in Curtiss Dining Hall. Director of the Barney Charter School Initiative Phillip Kilgore said the initiative supports the classical schools job fair, because it is a major way the initiative can promote the spread of classical education in classical schools by providing schools with talented, liberallytrained teachers. Kilgore said Hillsdale students are a good fit for classical school teaching positions be-
Jordan Finney Collegian Reporter
The sixth annual classical schools job fair is planned for Feb. 27. The fair will feature 42 classical and charter schools from across the country. (Anders Kiledal/Collegian) cause there is a continuity that flows out of their experience as an undergraduate here at Hillsdale. “It’s the teaching style, but its also the content,” he said. “It’s the right kind of education for human beings, quite frankly, because its something that is consistent with our nature in terms of how we learn and what we should be learning –– things about humanity, our relationship with each other, and our understanding of the natural world.” Students understand an educational philosophy that ex-
plains what the purpose of education is in the first place. Assistant Director of Career Services Keith Miller said 20 percent of Hillsdale College graduates became teachers last year. “The secret is out that if you are a charter school and can snap up a Hillsdale grad, you have scored,” he said. “I feel like we could place twice as many. We just don’t have enough students.” Miller suggested underclassmen attend the job fair to find out what the schools are looking
for, get to know different educational philosophies, and to become more involved early on. Kilgore agreed. “It’s not just a one-way street where the schools want to find out about the student,” he said. The fair gives students the opportunity to learn about the schools as well. Career Services will offer a series of brief lectures that will serve as a crash course on how to work a job fair, what it means to be a part of a classical school, how to create an effective lesson plan, and more.
Forty years after the Roe v. Wade decision, the legal debate is still not over. Assistant Professor of Politics John Grant and Associate Professor of Philosophy Nathan Schlueter joined “Abuse of Discretion” author Clarke Forsythe for a panel discussion about the legal aspects of Roe v. Wade on Tuesday, Feb 11. Students For Life hosted the event in order to bring attention to newly-released legal documents surrounding the historic case. “After 40 years, so much information has come out about Roe v. Wade that no one really knew,” SFL board member and freshman Cheyenne Trimels said. “Mr. Forsythe has researched the case for 20 years and has written down the behind-the-scenes mistakes the Supreme Court made without foreseeing the consequences that the law would have.” The event began with a 30-minute lecture from Forsythe, followed by remarks from Schlueter and Grant, and concluded with a longer Q&A session with the audience. “A lot of pro-choice arguments lack up-to-date medical facts, and a lot of pro-life arguments become too emotional. You don’t often have the chance to see the legal perspective,” Trimels said. While the majority of the conversation centered on the legal debate, Grant framed his remarks from a primarily moral perspec-
tive. “People are really interested in Roe v. Wade but don’t tie it into the larger cultural movement toward sexual liberation, no-fault divorce, and the collapse of the family,” Grant said. “Most abortions are procured by unmarried women, who are also the No. 1 group in poverty in America.” Legal topics that came up during the event were such questions as what point a fetus becomes a human being, the circumstances under which Roe v. Wade was passed, and current pro-life legislation being proposed by Forsythe’s organization, Americans United For Life. “Part of the reason we are doing this is to show people diversity in the pro-life movement,” SFL Secretary and sophomore Mattie Vander Bleek said. “You have to fight fire with fire. The moral side is great, but it doesn’t make abortion illegal. Laws make it illegal. People say you can’t legislate morality, but laws inform the social conscience of a nation.” Vander Bleek had the opportunity to work for Americans United for Life as an intern last summer and became acquainted with Forsythe as a professional mentor. “Mr. Forsythe is a great writer and very helpful for anyone who wants to be involved in the prolife movement,” Vander Bleek said. “I’m glad he came, because we have a problem with apathy on campus and, after listening to his talk, students have an opportunity to be optimistic.”