Recent happenings from around the area, along with some thoughts on their connections to education.
- The Candidate and the Median: Recently, both the candidates for the Missouri Senate were discussing the minimum wage issue. Both claimed to be for raising it. One candidate went further: He claimed all workers deserved a raise, “especially those who make below the median wage”. A noble sentiment, assuming we know what he meant. Perhaps only math nerds and statisticians paused to smile at the statement.
The median of a set of values is a useful measure of ‘typical-ness’ and is often seen in news stories involving comparisons of numbers and data. But it is not the same as its cousin the mean, which is what we typically mean (no pun intended) when we say ‘average’.
The median is a middle value – a place where half the data is above and half below. That’s its purpose, as a measuring indicator, and, for that reason, is often more useful than using ‘average’/mean, which is greatly affected by extreme values. If the data changes, so will the median (and the mean, of course), but the nature of the median is there will always be roughly 50% of the data below it, no matter the numbers. That’s part of its point.
So, the candidate’s comment is reminiscent of Garrison Keillor’s humorous quip something to the effect that all of Lake Wobegon’s children were ‘in the upper half’ of their classes.
- Interesting Irony? Recently, the President of an area college conveniently decided – I’ll let you try to supply the logic for this self-serving interpretation – that Nike is ‘ashamed of our country’. So, in response, he decides that he and his college are ‘ashamed of Nike’, turns around and gets himself and his college exposure on Fox News, and then (apparently straight-faced) declares that Nike is “exploiting an issue”! Am I missing something to think that’s rich irony?
Do I sound jaded? Perhaps. But we’ve seen this from this man before, haven’t we? Not that long ago – what was the issue? – he decided he disagreed with something else political in nature and instantly yanked the college’s hosting of an entire national annual basketball tournament (breaking a contract?), leaving the entire area, as well as the tournament itself, under the wheels of his piety bus! And this is how he defines ‘principle’?
Oh, don’t get me wrong. It’s not like Nike is necessarily so noble or ‘principled’ either! Their stock has gone up dramatically, which is likely what they calculated in their decision to feature Colin Kapernick. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Should we acknowledge that both entities likely did what they calculated was best for their ‘business’ first/foremost? (The president’s decision has certainly appealed to the college’s donor base.) Nothing wrong with that, of course, but let’s not necessarily confuse it with principle on either side.
So, where’s the education connection, you say? Perhaps here? Wouldn’t you think that, of the two entities, the institution of higher learning (or rather, its President) might have been the one to see this as a chance to underscore our nation’s historical democratic exchange of ideas, and our freedom to express them (within limits) in many forms? Whatever happened to “I may disagree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it?”* Wouldn’t that have been a marvelous opportunity to reinforce those educational values?
*The quote is variously attributed to Patrick Henry or Voltaire but was apparently first used by Evelyn Beatrice Hall in 1906 to describe Voltaire’s attitude.
