Dear Mr. Howell,
The answer to your baseball question : Shoeless Joe Jackson. I confess that I am blissfully unaware of anything related to baseball and got the answer from google so I can have a shot at getting your book !
Thanks
- Kamath

I'm not sure if you are complaining about education and teachers, or the issue of Global warming and Al Gore, either way you have no expertise in either subject. You are in my view one of the sources of the problem in this country, and you article expresses that fairly well. You are a columnist who writes with a one-sided view asking us to look at “both sides” as you promote your side. Self-interested idealogues offer nothing to the improvement of our society.

I have been a teacher for many years and I do not recall a situation in my experience where a teacher set out to “indoctrinate” a student/students to their belief. Does it occur? Probably. Any profession has its share of those who abuse their position. Of all the concerns facing education and teachers this is a complete non-issue. Students will always be exposed to a variety of viewpoints and teaching styles due to the individuality of each teacher.

My goal in the classroom has always been not to offend or belittle student views. I generally welcome any opinion because a student with any opinion who is willing to voice it is rarer than it should be. I have always had a mixture of political persuasions in my class just as we do in society at large. That to me is the basic proof of the inanity of your argument: America is essentially evenly divided along conservative and liberal lines. If our schools were “indoctrinating” students to the politically correct views of teachers then the result would be an overwhelmingly liberal sided society.

The American public faces many problems these days but in my opinion this is not one of them. Teachers overwhelmingly do their best to educate their students and set them up for a successful life. Whether or not we are turning out democrats or republicans is the least of our concerns or worries.

Professor Sowell, the strategy I have always found most effective in convincing anyone, including my six children (all now young adults) has been to suggest they consider the source of their information. What are the informant's qualifications, agenda, associations, record of accuracy, and reputation? Why do you consider him or her reliable? You're a good example of why that approach is useful. If any of my children should ever be stupid enough to get opinions from any of your current popular writing, I'd merely point out your track record. You started out as a brilliant economist with provocative opinions based on impressive research. You attracted quite a following among people who shared your opposition to governmental attempts to level the economic playing field. However, your supporters were mostly comfortable beneficiaries of the tilted playing field, including "Joe-the-plumber" type wannabes. You sold out to that crowd, and now you're their designated expert on everything from global warming to the supposed perfidy of anybody who disagrees with your claque about anything. Perhaps your problem with young people is that they don't find you persuasive at all.

There is a logical fallacy in Mr. Sowell's strategy for partents coping with "liberally indoctrinated" students: What happens when the student says, "Well, mom, have you seen "An Inconvenient Truth" or are you only parroting what you've heard on Rush Limbaugh?" Mr. Sowell is obviously giving too much credit in the assumption that the parents themselves have gone to primary sources on both sides of whatever issue and then come to their own idealogical conclusion based on logic. In fact, almost no one basis opinion on having gathered information from primary sources. Does Mr. Sowell indirectly suppose that it's ok for the parents to just repeat what they have heard in the mass media because the conclusion is a conservative one, but it's not ok for students to do the same because the conclusion is a liberal one? Either way, no one is making an opinion based on studying logical, scientific facts.