The Cerveny Middle School in Northwest Detroit looks like any other aging public school in a depressed urban area. The ominous brick structure is checkered with Cold War-era bomb shelter signs, the linoleum tile floors are scuffed from years of foot traffic and a busted clock rests on a hallway wall in dire need of a paint job. But one classroom… return to article
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Reader Comments (32)Page 1 of 1 pagesThis program will be a definite success —
...at least for several years and $ billions. It usually takes that long for the people in the real world (in this case parents, students and eventually employers) to realize the end result.Yes the program will succeed, however, the children probably will not. Like most top-down planning it will be vulnerable to the application of street smarts. Just as individual learn how to work the system, so local and state tinkering will go for the money.
To get “credit” needed for per student federal funds, school districts hold short days (enough hours to qualify). Locally we have a big push to catch truants, parents are now being fined. This is to get thhe Federal dollars (ours which took a trip).I have heard from some in the schools that “adjustments” in testing will be made to make sure students can pass the test. They will still graduate without being able to balance a checkbook, read acceptably or speak coherently, but we willl get the money.
Well, what can you expect — fed agencies have been a good model. If things look bad, just change the measuring stick.
Life does not grade on the curve.
Posted by whattheheck on Feb 3, 2007 at 3:41 PM WTH…..I share your concerns….Recently in Prince Georges County, Md. , the county hired a new superintendent of public schools…Hornsby is the guys names…had all the proper credentials , highly recommended by the school district he left in Rochester , NY…
This guy Hornsby signed a contract worth approx. 275,000 dollars a year…first think he did was steal 1 million dollars in county funds buying so-called needed school supplies from a company that his live-in girlfriend was the sales representative of….He was also charged with extortion , because he of course asked for and was given kickbacks from contractors….275,000 a year , and all this guy can think about is how to steal more money…basically from the tax payer parents and students…
What is really fucked up is that , after the fact the school district in NY where he had previosly been employeed admitted that he had done the same thing up there…Now at 275,000 a year…if the guy wanted to make money on the side ...he could have invested in real estate…anything…but this fool steals…hadn’t been on the job 6 months…and he’s stealing….Just a low-life piece of shit.
The old wisdom is usually the best….no bad students , only bad teacher / administrators….
Posted by Redhorse on Feb 4, 2007 at 12:01 PM So the next observation is that the real problem is indifference from some parents and administrators/ politicians etc…...
Commonsense dictates that if we can improve the awareness of parents….along with simaltaneously clearing out the low-lifes in the system…make the priority that you hire motivated teachers…give them the needed support…and children WILL LEARN…..
Now the question is…because this isn’t rocket science…it’s just commonsense…been done before…
WHY ISN’T THIS BRING DONE…PERIOD…...
ALL THE TIME…...
SEEMS TO ME THAT THE REAL FAILURE IS IN THE ADULTS NOT THE CHILDREN…...
Posted by Redhorse on Feb 4, 2007 at 12:14 PM Having been entirely schooled in the US and now an ex-pat with a child attending grammar school in my host country, I am convinced that the US school system is very good. Beyond all the problems in the US public school system here some of the most important stuff it does brilliantly: provides kids a way to learn sociability, nurtures leadership and most importantly, facilitates creativity.
I’ve recently written a commentary about the school system where I live. Perhaps due to style and multiple subject matter the article is a bit off subject - it is in actuality just a long blog-rant - but it might give some people a different perspective on how schooling is abroad. Forget about all the stuff I write about women and Germans and…
Warning: there is strong language in this article and it is intended to be provocative.
http://worstwriter.wordpress.com/2007/01/31/when-bourgeois-women-cry-their-te ears-sting/
-tgs-
Posted by Tommi on Feb 4, 2007 at 9:49 PM RH, when I was growing up in Bethesda, PG was a Wallace redneck county, I read back in 1990 in the NY Times that it was largely black even back then. There is a large black middle class population that works for FedGov among others and fled DC. I still have relatives in
NE DC in the Brookland area. Doesn’t Stoney Heyer come from PG ?
I largely agree with you but there are bad students too. Some kids are
just rotten to the core. An older black man I know has written off the black youth, I know he’s gone too far but many older blacks are not into this chuck and jive MoFo culture rap crap. It’s spread to the white, Asian
and Latin communities too. Who needs it ?
Posted by blondemike on Feb 5, 2007 at 10:35 PM The author states that companies such as McGraw-Hill stand to profit enormously from NCLB legislation. It is interesting to note that the Bush and McGraw families have enjoyed a close friendship over many years.
Posted by njmeyerh on Feb 6, 2007 at 1:47 PM RH,
I just read a report from the NYT, “What it Takes to Make a Good Student” by Paul tough.
It was given to me by a good friend who tutors at a local school in a poor neighborhood. He is a retired former director of a state mental institution, very active in several social programs and extremely concerned about the lack of parental involvement at the school.
There are a number of interesting points in the article, but my overall conclusion after reading it is the same as yours — it is the parents which make the biggest difference in kids learning ability.
Somebody probably spent a bundle to find that out.
Posted by whattheheck on Feb 6, 2007 at 10:19 PM In response to a comment about schooling in other countries, my children began school abroad (k - 3) in Mali and Botswana. They got off to a much better start than their classmates in Texas where they finished their secondary school education. I can remember my younger son complaining that they were still introducing math concepts in sixth grade that he had already mastered in 1st grade in Botswana. It is noteworthy that none of the students on his Math Counts team in Texas had gotten their early training in math in the Texas school system.
Furthermore, when both of them entered jr. hi., the guidance counselor, who later became the high school principal, stressed to the parents that they should not let their children do any advanced study such as take foreign languages or algebra for fear that they would find the study to be stressful. This attitude carried over into the whole administration and was responsible for active resistance on the part of the administration to any attempt by a child (not just mine) to take advanced courses. For example, my younger son had finished everything that the school offered in math by the time he was entered 10th grade. He took a 200 and a 300 level math course at TAMU, but the principal refused to let him graduate because he didn’t have four courses of math at the high school from 9 - 12 grade.
I suspect that this attitude is endemic in much of the US school system and that our children are being deliberately held back in order to avoid stressful learning experiences. In the case of my own children, their initial education experience was fun, not stressful, and they got as much in two years as their peers in the US got in six. This seems to be the problem with the US system, that learning isn’t regarded as fun when it actually is something that growing children enjoy if given the chance and their curiosity is not stomped on.
Posted by drdkm on Feb 7, 2007 at 2:30 AM drdkm…I wish I could say I’m surprized….but I can’t….I have many friends from Afrika…and the Caribean….all have had experiences like the one you have talked about….Many can read complicated literature in 2 or 3 different languages…it never fails to freak me out….Poor don’t mean stupid…..
WTH….Yeah….it’s not that this thing…the educational system , can’t be fixed…or made to work for your child…the old mentality that because people pay taxes…the schools should run well…don’t or rather isn’t good enough…PARENTS HAVE TO TAKE MATTERS INTO THERE OWN HANDS….they have to make sure that if the hired professionals don’t do their job….IT’S OVER…How much success would any of us have if we only did 50 or 60 percent of our jobs….the other 50 to 40 percent…..oh well…no big deal…You wouldn’t last to long in business or at a job…...true.
Posted by Redhorse on Feb 7, 2007 at 11:53 PM WTH , drdkm…Another thing that stands out as the problem , and that is that ...in the States….I don’t believe the majority of people understand…WHAT AN EDUCATION REALLY IS…OR HOW YOU SHOULD GO ABOUT THE ACTUAL BUSINESS OF TEACHING CHILDREN…The premise being that children learn or rather people generally learn by listening to the teacher instruct the class…The teacher teaches…and the students are expected to reproduce what the teacher taught….this is not learning…this is modeling….mimictry…not learning….True knowledge or learning has been shown to best represent itself…when the information is brought OUT of the student…..as opposed to being placed INTO the student…..It would seem that in general , the process is approached from the WRONG or what can be plainly stated as a BACKWARD perspective…..
This is why Bill Gates was walking around not so long ago…making statements such as ” the traditional High School in Amerika is a thing of the past…it’s out dated…and doesn’t work anymore , in a word…....obsolete.
Something to ponder upon…..........true.
Posted by Redhorse on Feb 8, 2007 at 12:28 AM Wrong, Redhorse. The students are there to shut their traps and learn from the teacher. That’s why we have TEACHERS and STUDENTS. The student by definition is ignorant of the subject matter and frankly so are most of their parents. We need to emulate the Jewish idea of a reading culture, not the Latino idea of an oral culture. Disruptive students needs to be asswhipped on the spot and then expelled if that is necessary. We need to repeal the child labor laws and get these punks working at an early age. Only a very small minority of exceptionally bright kids should go to high school, much less college. We need to deemphasize credentialism, most jobs can be trained on the job. We have had 70 years of white left guilt tripping liberal scum mollycoddling minority and white criminals running our society. These scum need to be exiled to Pinochet Island off Chile near Antartica as the wise Chilean leader-hero did who saved his country from Marxist criminals. Most of the students do have enough inside them to bring out.They have to learn the subject matter first.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 8, 2007 at 6:20 PM Look BM…You’re an IDIOT…I do not wish to correspond with a ostentatious fool….........
This is my last response to you….
Posted by Redhorse on Feb 9, 2007 at 12:09 AM Redhorse, this is PUBLIC board, not you’re private bathroom. Once again, you have resorted to ad hominem namecalling. As a Maryland boy I never took ANY guff off of DC punks, you watch you’re nasty mouth.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 9, 2007 at 12:31 AM While Redhorse may have been a bit crude in his comments, he identified the problem. BM has demonstrated that he has no idea of how education occurs. Systems that do not allow student questions and comments have failed miserably, and for many reasons. Probably the most important is that without questions from the students, the teacher has no idea at all whether or not s/he is actually teaching or merely flapping his/her gums. Then again, questions from the students help them learn by dealing with the misunderstandings that may have occurred. It also keeps the students interested in their education and prevents them from tuning the teacher out.
As for the rest of BM’s diatribe, not only is it misinformed (a Jewish education involves a tremendous amount of teacher/student interaction, not just reading), but it is on the level of that Texan legislator who declared that foreign languages shouldn’t be taught in high school because if English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for us.
Posted by drdkm on Feb 9, 2007 at 2:42 AM Student questions are fine, student comments need to be limited. I was talking about the reading tradition in Jewish homes as opposed to the oral one in other cultures. Most Jews do not go to Jewish schools so your crude analogy fails. Tests are one way of measuring performance, written papers are another, raising your hand to ask relevant questions is another. Prompt attendance and looking alive in the classroom is another. Taking the subject seriously is another. Controlling the smiling and laughter is another. As Rand noted, the imbecile always smiles, the first frown is the first sign of god on the forehead. Not letting the class degenerate into a Chomskyite political bull session is another good sign. End of lesson for today, dickem.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 9, 2007 at 2:56 AM drdkm…..I fail to see what was crude about my response…direct maybe…. Redhorse can and has posted much more provocative comments to the particular individual in question…The lumpen , we speak of has managed to offend every individual on this site..regardless of political or social perspective…Micheal Hardesty trools on sites like ITT, so that he can air his more unsavory viewpoints without suffering the inevitable professional backlash….( Hardesty apparently is a fanciful freelance journalist….)
As best as I can tell…Hardesty is a wannabe Aryan Socialist Nationalist , he will make affirmative statements concerning any particular subject…then do an abrupt about-face , and argue against the perspective that he was advocating…
He uses ITT as his own personal ( but apparently very public ) social TIOLET…this is the origin of the BM moniker used in reference to him.
As far as education is concerned…we can all see the results…his opinions have produced in himself….Just a wordy clown…severely lacking integrity…
Ad hominem attack no…you have to have a person-ality to attack. Hardesty lacks this basic quality…
Posted by Redhorse on Feb 9, 2007 at 12:54 PM Gee, what profound comments, horse. Now if you would kindly translate them into english….............
Posted by blondemike on Feb 9, 2007 at 5:25 PM Now how would you know said comments are profound…if you can’t read the language…Interestingly foolish response Hardesty….?
Posted by Redhorse on Feb 10, 2007 at 7:38 PM Redhorse,
My mother started teaching in a one room country school at age 17 right after graduating from high school. Her first year she had a boy in eighth grade older than she was. Back then parents pulled kids out during spring planting and fall harvest so it took a while.
She attended state teachers college each summer, got certified and taught for several years. She was required to quit when she and my dad got married.
My father nearly finished high school, but had to drop out in his senior year when his father (a coal miner) had a stroke and black lung disease. Since he was the oldest unmarried son, Dad became the bread winner for his mother, father, two sisters and baby brother.
With the education they received they were more ready for self sufficiency than most college kids are today. There was no federal government involvement — just state. The same was true during my school days. If the cities and states had provided integrated education we could have avoided federal intervention — which seems to always screw things up. Closer to the problem is IMO usually better.
I believe the biggest difference today is the low regard for education. To my parents learning was deemed something special and highly valued. They both read a lot and my dad worked up into a supervisory position at the only two jobs he ever had — 22 years at one and over 25 at the other.
Maybe it is just human nature to place less value on “rights” as opposed to privileges.
Posted by whattheheck on Feb 10, 2007 at 10:30 PM WTH….I feel where you are coming from….The difference now, as opposed to then is that…back in the day , a man could make a deciet living without a so-called formal education…Even in the Black community , with all the limitations imposed…if you had a WILL you could make a way….My grandfather was born in rural southern Virginia , had only a third grade education…but with the help of family( an older brother ) moved to the Washington,D.C. area…worked as a mechanic, and cab driver…Later he was able to secure employment at a job that no blackman in that day held , dredging the Potomac River for a sand and gravel firm…No blackman in that day would have been hired in that position..( foreman of a steam dredge )but he was…My father and uncle used to wonder how he was able to do this( Pops was a talker..he talked to everyone ) thru these associations, he meet the owner of the sand and gravel firm…and was evenually hired. By the time my father was born…in the late 1920,s ( depression era ) , my grandfather( Pops )was well established…owned his own home and car…and his wife ( whos maiden name is my given name / not Redhorse )...never had to worked…Those days are gone….but the WILL is not….just relaying that story fills me with the strength to continue on…There are solutions…but just as your family and mine made the best of the situation then…we must do the same now….true.
Posted by Redhorse on Feb 11, 2007 at 3:33 PM The main problem in my viewpoint is that there is a lack of integrity and true perspective from the top down…which means it’s on you….it’s on me….it’s on all of us , who don’t have a true voice…to make a way…whether it’s in the realm of education or whatever…we are the masters of our own lives….
Now Gov’t was created by humans to govern humans in their affairs…thru history this has proven to be a pretty sound arrangement…in general…but what we have now is the same problem we have always had…and that is greed…Greedy people in power create their own monopolies using Gov’t powers as the shill ( Fascism is real , did the Nazis really lose WW 2, or just relocate to the States…)
Amerika has never been a panacea…not supposed to be…can’t be…But if Gov’t can’t perform basic functions like education, whether municipality, county,state or federal…what good is it…?
I personally believe in public education( I was sent to Catholic and public schools )but nowadays home schooling looks to be a pretty sound idea….
Posted by Redhorse on Feb 11, 2007 at 4:03 PM Obama declares his candidacy….the more I see of this guy the more I LIKE….still concerned about his young family…but I’m sure he and his wife are intelligent enough to shield them….Plus his lack of experience…may play to his advantage…at least that’s his spin….
We will see….........
Posted by Redhorse on Feb 11, 2007 at 4:50 PM Sorry, Redhorse, my reading comprehension is limited to the ENGLISH language. My French and Spanish are rusty. My Ebonics is so-so. When I said you were profound I was being IRONIC. Look it up. Only good candidates are Kucinich and if he runs, Feingold. Obama’s ok and I would never vote for Hillary. Total AIPAC pawn. Obama MAY have substance but I see too much slickness. WTH, people of both races opposed integrated schools. As long as the segregation wasn’t compulsory as it was in the Jim Crow South the Feds or any govt should stay out. Brown was the most disastrous decision under Warren Court possibly excepting Miranda. My parents were third generation Washingtonians on my Dad’s side and second generation on my Mom’s side. Both grew up in SE DC near the Hill and I still have relatives in Brookland NE near Catholic U.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 11, 2007 at 9:52 PM Here are a few thoughts on improving schools from one who’s been in the biz for 20+ years. I’ve worked in public and private schools, had all different types of kids from dead-broke migrants to the nieces and nephews of ruling class oligarchs, both in the US and abroad. There’s barely a skin color or accent on Earth that hasn’t had a representative in one class of mine or the other.
Yeah, maybe that doesn’t get me any street-cred, but I’m just saying, I’m no outsider to this question.
1. Push public education. That means you have to be willing to pay for it, via taxation primarily. But the benefits of having a broadly educated society (as opposed to the alternative) are so numerous that, even if you never have kids, it’s in your interest. I don’t have a problem with private schools, my kids have gone to them because we raised them overseas, but good public schools are what strengthen a country most.
2. Reduce the differential between poor and wealthy school districts’ revenue bases. That means sharing among districts. Wealthy localities will likely complain, but their complaint will be rooted most in their wish that “their” tax revenues go to benefit only “their” kids. I submit that this is an unsuitable and unrealistic mode of thinking in this century. Money makes a difference. How could it not? Do kids from depressed areas need less well-funded schools than those from rich neighborhoods? School isn’t just about doing things for “your” kids.
3. Corollary to #1 and #2 above, propagandize the benefits of living in an educated country, including emphasis upon how an intelligent society understands the necessity to educate everyone’s kids. (Propaganda can be true you know: “Smoking tobacco will fuck up your lungs!” is both propaganda and a truthful statement) Energetically oppose those elements of culture that say it’s cool to be simple-minded, uncool to want to be educated. Exalt those who break free of culturally enforced levelling pressures. Promote excellence instead of equality, with the single exception of the equality-of-value of all people regardless of descriptive characteristics. But really, push an appetite for excellence.
4. At younger grades, push basic reading, writing, and math skills. Little kids should have books in their hands all the time. They should never have a calculator in their hands, not until they show they can do appreciable head-math. When they acquire strong literacy and numeracy skills, they’ll be all the better equipped for history, art, music, science, etc. If all they know how to do is “work with technology”, i.e. “surf the web in search of entertaining websites”, the development of their actual learning tool, their brain, will suffer.
By the way, they can learn to write with a pen as well as learning to keyboard. These things are not mutually exclusive. Do you really think they’ll be able to keyboard their way through every situation in life? InfoTech is not a problem in and of itself, but the cult-like focus upon it as the single essential skill for the young is short-sighted and anti-developmental. You should hear some of the crap I’ve had to sit through in IT “workshops” that were more ideological than educative! “Kids don’t need to know any grammar, they’ve got GrammarChecker in the software bundle”. F’n crazy. Just an expensive mechanism for dumbing down.
continuing…
Posted by Kuya on Feb 12, 2007 at 10:35 AM ...continued
5. Parents should hold their children accountable for good behavior in the classroom, rather than threatening lawsuits against the school or the teacher when their little darling gets pissed off at being corrected. This really seems axiomatic. How on Earth can we conduct class when we know some attitude-case teenager is allowed to tell us to fuck off, and that neither his parents nor our administrators will back us up when we try to gain control?
6. Teacher tenure should be earned, and should not be a mere function of years served. In the interest of fairness (i.e. not relying on just our direct admin’s opinions of our work), a collection of more objective measures of performance could be used. I really have no problem with the idea that I have to demonstrate that kids in my class actually make gains in learning. In one private school I was in, I had to do this yearly. I know some of my colleagues will freak out at the suggestion, but come on, we’ve all known teachers for whom tenure was the end of their development as a professional. The proverbial 20 years of experience that was really 1 year of experience repeated 19 more times. I sat through their classes and so did you. I was in the Teachers’ Lounge with them at lunch, and so were you.
By the way, if you want your teachers’ energies focused upon school, instead of upon their additional job, you’d better pay them a decent living wage. That seems axiomatic too.
7. Articulation between school grades should be prioritized. Your district’s elementary schools should be reliably able to show that they prep kids for your local middle schools, which should be prepping them for high school. High school should prepare young adults to be the kind of highly literate, mentally numerate, inquisitive, conversant, learning-enabled, flexibly-thinking citizens worthy of a dynamic democratic republic. They’ll then be able to meet the challenges associated with training for better jobs and/or university-level studies.
8. Instead of continuing to get all hung up on this cultural agenda or that one, celebrate everyone. Set aside the majoritarian/minoritarian obsessions and encourage the groups in your school to include their songs, dances, languages, foods, histories, and belief systems in school life. Don’t let your school be a casualty of idiotic and self-defeating cultural wars. Culture-warriors are not going to win, and in the meantime we all lose.
9. There should be a refundable deposit given to the school by families in order to support provision of supplies like textbooks, lab materials, etc. I emphasize, refundable. Parents should then feel free to hold their children accountable for the care of these materials. No one gives a damn about things they get for free; they have no stake in keeping the materials in good shape. If a particular family is thoroughly broke, some kind of assistance can be figured out, but in general I would advocate a reasonable but not-trivial investment by families. Refundable, OK, you can get the money back. Just make your kids take care of their books, take it out of their allowance if they lose them or mistreat them. It’s not unfair.
10. Promote global perspectives in your kids’ high school classrooms where possible and appropriate. There are lots of possible and appropriate applications of this concept. Take a page from international education and implement it in public schools. Face it, your kids will grow up in an even more intricately connected world than yours. The more provincial and inward-looking they are when they finish school, the less able they’ll be to figure out the right path when they’re deciding things for themselves. Do you really want your kid to be allergic to books, stuck with only one language, and hard-up for the few worthwhile jobs they can actually qualify for, because they can’t compete with the multi-lingual scholar whose parents actually insisted they knuckle down and work on their studies? Well, do you?
Posted by Kuya on Feb 12, 2007 at 10:37 AM Kuya, I agree with points 2,3,5,6,9. Actually in the case of 2 only as long as we have public schools, which I do not support. I also qualify 3 because the schools are already government brainwashing centers. I think 4 has to be much more qualified, there are already too many nutcase parents who are robbing children of their childhood. I like kids to learn but they should NOT have books in hand all the time. 10 is simply UN-World Government propaganda and we don’t need it. Of course, people should learn about other countries but we don’t need some propaganda campaign here.
I totally agree on 9, 5 and 6 without qualification. I don’t agree with 7 because the schools should NOT be vocational training centers but to impart knowledge regardless of its employment
practicality. On 8, celebrate NO one. Sick of this endless racism and groupthink and balkanization.
I totally oppose 1 because I am opposed to compulsory funding and compulsory attendance. I’m sick of the American mania for coercing everyone on everything. But I do thank you as always for your thoughtful contributions.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 12, 2007 at 6:09 PM Hello mike,
Really, you’re out on public schooling? I’m curious to know why. I’m in favor of it because I see so much fragmentation of US society already, I fear that cancelling public schooling would only accelerate the disintegration of the country into little localized tribelets (your mention of “balkanization” fits the idea). Not to say that public schools all by themselves will automatically bring America into the state of a conflict-free utopia, but they could be used (after some serious reforms) as part of a broader approach to national culture that aims to counter the fragmentation. Also, I think living in a more-learned society is far better than less-learned. If you would say that private schooling can fill that bill instead of public schooling, I am willing to hear arguments, but I’d be concerned about those without the means or the will to educate their kids. Or, more accurately, I’d be concerned for the kids themselves, who would be the big losers on behalf of their parents’ deprivation or obstinacy.About #10, I do think globalization is here to stay for generations yet to come, and some of my thoughts about schools do rest on that assumption. This could be a mistake on my part, of course, but it appears that way to my eyes. Also, (this is more of a personal note) having traveled abroad quite a bit, I find it distasteful and frankly embarrassing when I spot Americans out in the world who are so vividly unable to harmonize with local ways and, even worse, insistent that the rest of the world should adapt itself to their narrow expectations. Admittedly, this is muddled up with my further distaste when Americans act stereotypically confrontational, obtuse, aggressive, self-obsessed, all those things I wish weren’t true but often are. I’ve seen it many, many times, all over the world, but perhaps I shouldn’t identify with those rude Americans quite so much, might not irritate me so. But in general, I’m not alienated by the world-citizen concept, seems just about as valid as nation-statehood, in terms of a community with which one might identify. I’m comfortable with the species/planetary orientation, as my propaganda about leaving behind the racial paradigm (on other threads) implies.
My point in #4 is mainly about educating kids’ brains, equipping them with internal skills and learning abilities, rather than constantly focusing on computers and calculators. Believe me, in my business, it’s a litany, an endless mantra, and then when I examine the skill sets of kids entering my class, they need a damn calculator to do simple arithmetic and they can barely make sense of text at a Grade 8 reading level (I teach high school). Call me antiquated, but I have this idea that today’s 21st century youths ought to be at least as able as I am to use their heads to work numbers, compose a literate sentence, comprehend what’s in books, etc.
It’s a teacher-ish prejudice, I acknowledge.
Your point about not drowning kids in schoolworks, refs obsessive parents, is quite correct. Some of them really do hijack their kids’ young years, and maladies related to academic stress are no joke. I was just more concerned with convenience-mechanisms hijacking their brainpower.
Lastly, I’ve seen some pretty great benefits for kids when cultural celebrations are part of school life (refs #8). It’s about having fun, sharing cool aspects of our various backgrounds, broadening people’s horizons. There’s an intangible quality to what I’m focusing on, unfortunately, but I’m thinking about the differences I’ve seen in schools where cultural celebrations are included in the mix, contrasted with when they’re not there. I liked it better at the schools that included them, and more importantly, it seemed good for kids too.
Thanks for responding to a longish post.
Posted by Kuya on Feb 13, 2007 at 9:41 AM Thanks again for your thoughtful remarks, Kuya. I don’t think teachers should collect their students by compulsion and their fees by coercion. And it’s not only teachers about whom I think this way. I think they become government brainwash centers and the prototype of the one size fits all philosophy. I realize there are delinquent parents who don’t give a damn what their children do, we have a neighbor like that and they are not fun. But I do think that different kids have different needs, I believe it is possible to teach the basics in a wide variety of settings. The Balkanization is partially occurring as a result of the overcentralization, people rebel and then want to hang out with their own group. You see it now, blacks lunch with blacks, whites the same, etc. The kids who are more enlightened will associate with others not of their group as they do now. Of course private schools now are more elitist since people have to pay twice to go there, the regular taxes for the government schools and then now hefty fees for the private schools. Analogous to if the state always supplied shoes or clothes and then if someone proposed to change it, people would be concerned that the poor couldn’t afford shoes or clothes. But they in fact do. I largely agree with your extended comments on point 4 above, thanks for the clarification. Globalization has been going on for hundreds of years, it was interrupted by the rise of welfare states and even socialist states after 1914 but has quickened since 1992. Now there’s a reaction setting in. The GOP used to be for high tariffs but the free trade policies, so-called, have hurt US industry and workers. Globalization is a fact of life like the weather, we don’t need to celebrate it. Or mourn it but figure how to deal with it. On point 8, I see your points above but I get the impression that that also contributes to tribalism or Balkanization. The downside of these celebrations.
I’m all for free travel, exchange of ideas, persons and goods but totally opposed to any super world government, the EU is already taking on many totalitarian aspects, the damn Krauts are trying to legislate everything for all 27 member states and the disintegration of the EU would be very welcome. The larger the governmental unit the less control anyone has over it.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 13, 2007 at 6:05 PM I wonder sometimes about how well people of disparate communities would get along in the absence of an authority above them to essentially punish fighting or discrimination between them. I’m not fond of overweaning authority, and in the past I was a pretty vocal proponent of libertarianism. Some parts of it still appeal to me intellectually, but I became disaffected when too many people in the LP I spoke with said things like, “The Libertarian Party wants people to be allowed to discriminate.” Considering US history, I found that to be a gravely problematic statement. (aside: I do discriminate in a fashion, of course; I won’t kiss or make love with just anybody, won’t give “A” grades to every student, and I’m selective about who I’ll do business with or donate to. It is discrimination, of a kind, though I don’t think of it as harming anyone).
I think of some examples from history in which local people were only kept from victimizing each other because The Man prevented them, and when that deterrent was gone, the victimizations started immediately. For example, when the Union forces left the former Confederate states and ended the occupation in the later 1870s, the Jim Crow laws forcing African people back into the segregated bottom of society sprang up right away, i.e. the disappearance of the threat of reprisal spawned another century of apartheid in America. Also, when the Red Army bailed out of several of the former Soviet republics, they also had a surge of communitarian violence, as did the ethnic groups of the former Yugoslavia when it split up.
To the question, “Was it the presence in the first place of the US Army, the Red Army, or the Yugoslav military that infuriated people, such that the groups they were holding at bay blew up as soon as the authoritarian lid was off?”, I don’t know the answer for sure, but I suspect it was the prior existence of ethnic hate that preceded the use of armed forces to suppress it.
We’ve gone beyond schooling, and gotten into broader questions of culture, but I wonder what would happen in the US if there was a perception in the country that there would be no response from law enforcement if ethnic groups in America went after each other, in the form of discriminatory or brutal behavior. Like I said, I have deep misgivings about authority, not really trustful of those who seek to have it for themselves, but I also don’t have a lot of faith that enough Americans would take the higher road if that perception was out there. Maybe I’m wrong. It would be nice to be wrong on that one.
Posted by Kuya on Feb 15, 2007 at 8:05 AM People have an absolute right to discriminate. Governments do not. We are forced to support governments and they cannot take your money by force and then discriminate against you. The trouble is that we went from forced segregation a la Jim Crow Laws to forced integration a la federal and state and local laws. The USA has a very bad record on individual rights and these warmongering neocon morons totally overlook our incredible history of statism. Libertarianism is the radical alternative, neoconism and social democratism is the same old, same old. Discriminatory behavior can be fought and challenged by boycotts, by alternative businesses, brutal behavior is per se illegal and an initiation of physical force, so don’t mix up the two. What problem was there in Afghanistan prior to the Red Army ? Sure they were backward and the Soviet failure is exactly what is wrong with force to change things, ergo for the Yugoslav Army in Bosnia and the US Army in Iraq. All interventions made things worse. Artificial states like Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union will always eventually split up because a forced union is a hopeless attempt by one group to keep another under control by force as the French found out in Algeria and as we will find out here in the Disunited States.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 15, 2007 at 6:25 PM This was an interesting exchange, mike, gracias. I will consider what you’ve said.
Posted by Kuya on Feb 16, 2007 at 1:54 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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