I was leafing through the current edition of the magazine of educational propaganda called NEA Today. It is a platform for the Progressive (aka socialist, elite, Communist, Fascist, Democrat) movement in the U.S. I rarely read any of the articles but it helps me to see what current foolish theme they are harping on. It also helps me in voting. I check their recommendations and go the other way.
Since I am not going to waste my time reading the propaganda I was looking at the advertisements and was struck by one plugging a university that I had never heard of. In the picture is a young teacher standing in front of a class of elementary age actors, sitting at desks and trying to look like students. The teacher has a look of joy on his face and every child in the picture has a hand raised and is portraying an attitude of “Pick me! Pick me!”
I have to ask myself what question was asked. The only time I can get the kind of response in the picture is when I ask, “Who would like to leave early” or “Who would like a piece of candy.” Recently I asked, “What major event in history took place in 1492 that allowed Columbus to get funding to make his voyage?” I got blank stares. The fact that they did not know was not the problem. I imagine that even you don’t know. (The last Muslim army was driven out of Spain after a 700 year war called the Reconquista.) The problem was they did not even care.
Out school district, an I imagine yours too, makes a big noise about demanding rigor in schools. At the same time they close the library, lay off teachers and hire district administrators. If you compared our text books with the ones you had in Junior High you would not see rigorous. You would see rigor mortis.
When you see advertising for education, ask yourself what kind of questions the teacher is asking. How many difficult questions do you know that would have everyone raising their hands to answer? I don’t see any hands. I guess that answers my question.
homo unius libri
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Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.