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Teacher Calls (Jewish) Parent ‘Neo-Nazi’ for Criticizing Eighth-Grade Project
The Other McCain ^ | November 5, 2013 | Robert Stacy McCain

Posted on 11/05/2013 7:34:41 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

A Pennsylvania father objected when his daughter’s middle-school history teacher assigned a project about a New York Times article blaming Republicans for the government shutdown. His complaint apparently made him the target of an orchestrated response by faculty at Camp Hill Middle School, and an English teacher named Cydnee Cohen left a voicemail message for one of the parent’s Facebook friends:

“We’re having some problems with a parent in our school district and on his page you are one of his friends…but I would like to know, some of it seems like he is a neo-nazi…call me…”

Bonus absurdity: The allegedly “neo-Nazi” parent, Josh Barry, is Jewish. Cohen is president of the local teachers union. Barry told the Daily Caller, “Her method is to go after the concerned parent and discredit and slander them.” He called it “big-time union thuggery on display.”

What’s happening here? Well, for one thing, we have further confirmation of what every intelligent American already knew: Public schools are staffed by Democrats, who not only vote Democrat and contribute money to Democrats through their unions, but consider it their professional duty to teach children to be Democrats, too.

But what about Cohen’s tactics? What’s up with that?

What Cohen was doing is consistent with a method of consensus building known as the “Delphi technique.” Originally developed as a way of organized discussion among experts, this method has been adapted and taught to school administrators. It is used to quell criticism of school policy by isolating and marginalizing critics, while creating the appearance of consensus in support of the policy.

Here’s what happens: You, the concerned parent, raise a question about some element of the curriculum or pedagogy. You contact the teacher who will then tell you there’s nothing to worry about, and that you’re the only parent who has complained. (Isolation.)

Suppose you’re not satisfied with the teacher’s answer, so you arrange a meeting with the principal. By the time you get that meeting, the teacher has already briefed the principal, so that he has a prepared defense of whatever it is you’re complaining about. The principal’s goal for the meeting is to placate you by convincing you that you are over-reacting because, after all, you’re the only parent who has complained.

It’s at this point that you start feeling like you’re in the Monty Python sketch, trying to get a refund for your dead parrot and being told by the pet shop owner that the Norwegian Blue is “pining for the fjords.”

You will encounter variations of this tactic no matter how far up the chain of command you take your complaint — the superintendent’s office, the PTA, the school board, etc. — and no matter what it is that you are complaining about. If you persist in your criticism, you will be labeled a troublemaker, an extremist, a kook, because the bureaucratic imperative is to marginalize critics, so that the bureaucracy can operate without scrutiny or opposition. (About 10 years ago, a slightly eccentric lady named B.K. Eakman published a book about this, How to Counter Group Manipulation Tactics: The Techniques of Unethical Consensus-Building Unmasked, which you might wish to examine.)

What every concerned parent eventually learns is this: The American public education system is profoundly undemocratic. The system is organized for the benefit of those who run the system. It’s not about teaching kids, it’s about providing lifetime employment, generous benefits and extraordinary political influence for education majors.

Keep this in mind: Whatever it is you’re complaining about — whatever specific grievance you have with the system — is merely a symptom of the disease. The problems of public education are not episodic, but systemic in nature. Public schools are not about teaching facts and skills, but rather are about teaching attitudes and beliefs, and the most important lesson they teach your kids is that you, the parent, are an ignorant idiot who should be ignored. No matter how many degrees you have, no matter how competent and skilled you are in your own profession, if your opinion about what constitutes an appropriate education differs from what the education system wants to provide, you will find you are regarded as inferior to the credentialed “experts” whose job is to undermine your authority as a parent.

You are only a “good” parent if you agree with the experts. You can have no autonomous influence over your child’s education, because your child exists only for the benefit of the system.

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.”

– William F. Buckley Jr., Up From Liberalism (1959)

Why aren’t you homeschooling your children yet?


TOPICS: Government; Religion; Society
KEYWORDS: democrats; education; leftismoncampus; pennsylvania; publicschools; unions
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To: realcleanguy

Well, Cohen must be Jewish as well. His last name is about as popular for Hebrew as Smith for English-speakers.


21 posted on 11/06/2013 1:26:03 AM PST by cunning_fish
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To: GladesGuru
Many Nazi and Commie functionaries were “decent people” - but they did very evil things while at work.

Should be posted in every newsroom around the country.

22 posted on 11/06/2013 3:45:16 AM PST by GOPJ (Many Nazi functionaries were “decent people”-but did evil things while at work.GladeCuru)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

bfl


23 posted on 11/06/2013 3:57:47 AM PST by Skooz (Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

>> a method of consensus building known as the “Delphi technique.”

Study up on this, boys and girls.


24 posted on 11/06/2013 3:57:51 AM PST by QBFimi (When gunpowder speaks, beasts listen.)
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To: EEGator
Don't want to butt in to your discussion, but thanks for the support.

There are quite a few teachers here at FR.

This is my last year of teaching (32 years)

I've got to head off to school. Thanks again.

25 posted on 11/06/2013 4:09:42 AM PST by mware
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To: EEGator
I have known a lot of teachers over the years. Some of them were my teachers. Some I have met that quit teaching and went to work as contractors or government employees. Some are still teachers. And some of them were future teachers taking some of the same classes as I as part of their education major. The vast majority of those I have had contact with are dumber than dirt.

To put it more bluntly, most of them should never be allowed contact with any children. I thank God I never had children because I would be the kind of parent you read about that ends up being arrested due to interaction with a teacher.

26 posted on 11/06/2013 5:10:58 AM PST by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: EEGator
Evil can be benign as well as outright. Showing favoritism to certain students to segregrating them at lunch because of grades.

Do I have a bias against teachers? To a certain point, yes. My first four years in school, I was sent to the special ed class only because at the time I had trouble with s and th words. Not one teacher tried to work with me on that. For years and years my handwriting was atrocious. Only between my junior and senior year did it improve because my oldest brother saw I was holding my hand wrong. He corrected it and set up a system for me to write/print better. No teacher ever tried to correct that - just gave me bad grades. I had teachers make fun of me in front of the class because I did not know the answers to math problems. I had a teacher in the 5th grade that would angerly throw chalk and erasers from the front to the back of the class, hitting the wall. When I started school in Maryland, the bathrooms were labeled lavatories. In 67 I started going to a Virginia school and the students - led by the teacher - laughed when I asked to go to the lavatory.

I could go on and on. And I think the main reason this occurred is because I came from a dirt poor family, a broken home. Teachers knew that, put me in the discard box, and concentrated on the students from stable, middle-class and up, two parent households.

School was a hellhole for me. I started reading and learning on my own, picking up more information than the teachers knew. I have an excellent memory, able to remember what I read. I started coming to school only a couple days a week, read the assignments, pass the tests.

This crap about stuff being placed in your record is just that - crap. I did 20 years in the Navy, made rank, worked and set up equipment that my teachers would have to hire people to set up for them. None of the stuff from my past ever came back to bite me. And I firmly believe if you cannot do, you teach. And if you cannot teach, you become a librarian. And if you cannot be a librarian, than you get appointed to the education board where you make up rules to suit your socialist utopion fantasy world and make life more miserable for students and eventually the public.

Most teachers are dumber than dirt and by their very stupidity, cause evil to happen.

27 posted on 11/06/2013 5:29:04 AM PST by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: mware

My pleasure, take care.


28 posted on 11/06/2013 5:58:27 AM PST by EEGator
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To: 7thson

I’m sorry to hear about all your negative experiences with schooling. I personally had good experiences with schooling. I guess it shows just how much our childhood experiences influence our thoughts even as adults.

As an aside, thanks for your service.


29 posted on 11/06/2013 6:22:12 AM PST by EEGator
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
What every concerned parent eventually learns is this: The American public education system is profoundly undemocratic. The system is organized for the benefit of those who run the system. It’s not about teaching kids, it’s about providing lifetime employment, generous benefits and extraordinary political influence for education majors.

***************************************

The unvarnished truth.

30 posted on 11/06/2013 6:24:55 AM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: EEGator

“Most teachers are not doing evil things at work.

What do you suggest teachers should do? Not accept the paycheck...quit?”

Yes,Quit! - before an outraged public has them tried for assorted legal offenses and then all their ill-gotten pensions, policies, assets, etc are subjected to forfeiture upon conviction.

What should anyone do if their employer turned out to be part of a vast illegal enterprise devoted to destruction of the Republic?

“I was just teaching the curriculum” will work little better than did the “Good German” plea “I was just following orders.”


31 posted on 11/06/2013 1:36:21 PM PST by GladesGuru (Islam Delenda Est - Because of what Islam is and because of what Muslims do.)
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To: ReagansShinyHair

Homeschool PING!


32 posted on 11/06/2013 2:07:27 PM PST by Azeem (There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo.)
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