Posted on 07/01/2008 10:40:58 AM PDT by wintertime
We must be willing to redefine education. What education looks like now is an artificial construct. It was not created by people who knew or understood children or teens. It was created by bureaucrats and special interests who wanted to control children and teens.
I talked with a young lady the other day – 14-years-old – who loves horses and aims to own stables and teach riding, among other things. She’s been working with horses since she was five. She’s good enough now that she “breaks” new ones and retrains ones facing changes in the use they’re being put to. She knows her stuff.
(snip)
Then there’s her other life – public school. She failed her end-of-year math exam by three points, so she’s going to summer school. She’ll have to pass the test to move on to the next grade. I’ve talked with her. She’s smart and highly competent – just not especially interested in algebra. She’s more accomplished than many adults (even ones who did pass algebra). But she has four more years of school to go, during which time she’ll have to pass endless tests and divert her efforts from what she knows she’ll devote her life to.
(snip) I get many calls a month from parents of teens who simply haven’t managed to fit into the school mold. They’re smart kids, often kids with serious interests they’re prevented from pursuing because so many adults in their lives are running them through the testing/counseling/therapy wringer.
(snip)
In order to redefine education, we will have to engage in some self-liberation, for most of us have a very hard time letting go (I mean really letting go) of the idea that the state knows some secret about education that we don’t and that if we defy their model we just might be sorry.
(snip)
**All** government schools are freedom of conscience and First Amendment nightmare. Why?
Answer:
You attended government high schools in the 60s but as you pointed out you had attended a Jesuit private school. There is a reason there was a Catholic system of schools. The reason is that the **non-neutral** religious worldview of **all** government schools in the 19th century was abhorrent to the Catholic leadership who responded by opening Catholic schools.
Even the “best” government schools violate the First Amendment and completely trash freedom of conscience. ( What did Thomas Jefferson have to say about the tyranny of having to fund philosophies he despises. )
I have been accused of being repetitious in my posts and not being “creative” in my posts but, honestly, in how many ways can I “creatively” make the same point?
1) NO school is religiously neutral. It is impossible. At the moment government schools are preaching the religion of Secular Humanism, and the government maintains a god-less worldview in **all** of its curriculum. The government is **establishing** the religion of atheistic/agnostic Secular Humanism with taxpayer money, and preaches this religious worldview every minute of every school day!
2) Government schools are compulsory for every child whose parent can not **ransom** them, or pay a freedom of conscience tax in the form of private tuition or home school expenses. Compulsory means police action will be taken if the child and parent do not bend to the iron will of the government school brown shirts.
Once in the government holding pens children ( and indirectly their parents) are told to shut up. They can not freely publish. They can not freely express their religion. And...the government chooses with whom they will assemble. In essence they are treated like prisoners. Prisoners have it a little better. Prisoners are not subjected to the constant unrelenting government preaching of the government religion of Secular Humanism. Even the **best** government schools are a First Amendment abomination!
” Mosby,
There are problems with the government schools that are **fundamental** to the system itself and can **never** be reformed. They were a problem from the very beginning.
I don’t know how to state this is a more “creative” way, but I will try.
The following problems are found in **ALL** compulsory government schools, even those that are considered excellent:
1)NO school is religiously, politically or culturally neutral. This means that **no** government school is religiously, politically, or culturally neutral. ( First Amendment problems here.)
2)** All** compulsory government schools favor and **establish** the religious worldview of some of its citizens, and **do** undermine the religious worldviews of others. ( This is a First Amendment and human rights violation.)
3) All compulsory government schools forbid the free speech, press, assembly, and expression of religion of the children ordered by the government to be in their buildings. And...All government schools *establish* the government religion of Secular Humanism. ( Major First Amendment and human rights conflicts here.)
4)All compulsory government schools are a freedom of conscience nightmare for those citizens who do not want their tax dollars supporting the government established school religion of Secular Humanism, the government anointed politics, and the government anointed culture promoted in their schools.
How else can I say this? How is it possible to be more creative?
The above can **not** be fixed. It is intrinsic to the system. “
However, so many other things that you say, are extremely offensive.
Additionally, the fact that you don’t say, “Mosby...you are a Blank blank blank”...does not mean that your name calling is not personal.
It is offensive.
I also think (although I certainly do not have proof) that you ***know*** it is offensive.
I also ***think**** that you enjoy saying these things because they ***are*** offensive.
Lastly, you don’t have to be more creative.
It is crystal clear to me that you believe what you say!
I wouldn’t doubt, for 1 minute, that you are fervent in your belief.
There are many within the public school system who bash homeschooling...
I find it ironic that I am defending homeschooling as a wonderful option (while I’m at work or with other parents)...and when I’m here, I’m getting bashed by you for doing my job.
And of course, I can provide specific examples of you bashing public school teachers.
No, I don’t have any that begin with “Mosby”...
Like I said if you can't be considerate enough to use the correct terms then please (NOTICE the please for the second time) Don't post to me.
You sound like a hackneyed Rush Limbaugh impersonation, and I like Rush, but after a thousand times it gets a bit old.
The system is thoroughly infiltrated with Marxists and sympathizers of Marxism. They are Gramscian Marxists.
So...What would you call those teachers who are not Marxist, who are unaware of the socialist/Marxist philosophy dominating the schools, and unwittingly promote the system?
Answer: Lenin would have called them “Useful Idiots”.
Marxism is fundamentally freedom's **most** serious threat. Schools are the Marxists’ **most** important weapon. ( No, I do not have a more original or less boring way to state this)
By the way, a liberal is never satisfied until there is complete socialism. And...a socialist will not be content until their is communism. Communism is the final destination of all liberals and socialists.
Mosby, I don't often post to you. I really don't know you that well.
Please give a post number where I called **you** ( specifically, **Mosby**) anything at all.
If I have insulted you **personally** I will ask the moderator to remove the post, and I will apologize to you and every person on the thread.
I **seriously** mean this. Please give the post number. I sincerely want it removed from the board.
1) Schools can be simultaneously both god-centered and godless in their worldview, and be simultaneously and equally supportive of every religious and god-less religious worldview in the community.
2) Please demonstrate how the government school curriculum and policies will not have non-neutral religious, cultural, and political content and consequences.
3) That government schools can honor all First Amendment Rights and allow free speech, free press, free assembly, and free expression of religion, while at the same time not having chaos.
4) Please explain how government school laws are not backed by police power.
By the way, it is very difficult to criticize government schools (which are a First Amendment nightmare) without mentioning teachers, generally. Hey! They are the people attempting to give CPR to a First Amendment Frankenstein.
Also...Many of the most elite of the elite private schools take pride in **never** hiring an education major for a faculty position.
” Mosby, I don’t often post to you. I really don’t know you that well.
Please give a post number where I called **you** ( specifically, **Mosby**) anything at all.
If I have insulted you **personally** I will ask the moderator to remove the post, and I will apologize to you and every person on the thread.
I **seriously** mean this. Please give the post number. I sincerely want it removed from the board. “
_______________________________________________________
(((disclaimer...I DO NOT BELIEVE any of the following...))))
Homeschoolers are rightwing, wackjobs who drown their children in bathtubs...
Homeschoolers keep their children in buses and don’t allow them public contact...
Homeschoolers wrap their children’s heads in duct tape and allow them to suffocate....
Homeschoolers beat their children with rocks..
These are ALL personal attacks on people who homeschool.
They are ALL ridiculous!!
If someone posted any of this garbage, I would hit the ABUSE button immediately.
So..LET ME REPEAT..I cannot point to where you said, “Mosby, you are a blank, blank, blank”...
That does ***not*** mean your attacks are not personal.
Would you like the links?
LOL!
My Dad was the debate captain of his Catholic High School ~
(He actually won a partial scholarship there for beating a Jesuit priest in a debate in the 8th grade..)
Now, I’m not NEARLY as good as he is...but let me try....
He used to try to TRAP me all of the time...(for my own good you know)...
I didn’t say I disagreed with you...
YOU SAID THAT...
I actually said that there were many things in which I thought you were “right on”......
And I do!
What I find offensive is the way you characterize ***ME*** by making offensive statements about public school teachers/employees.
I pinged you in error.
YIKES!
I was thinking about referencing something you had said in another thread...but thought better of it.
I forgot to remove you from the TO: line.
Apologies!
Just wanted to say “Good Morning!” before I go wake up the Offspring and the Herpets. How are you? I’m another day older, but it feels like two ... nightmares about Girl Scouts all night long ...
And a dog returns to their own vomit, I won't bother asking you to document your claim since you won't anyway.
I will just add this to the ever growing list.
Certification by gummint bureaucrats is a total insult to actual human intelligence and competence.
What would or could an education major teach??? Educational mythology and "methodology???" Most competent schools, elite or not, wouldn't hire an "education" major on a bet. Without a mastery of the subject matter, how can there be any teaching?
Don't get me wrong. I believe as much as you do in the abolition of PS 666. However, fair is fair. If a hospital in Outer Slobovia has no CAT Scan device and no thermal imaging technology, that will have negative results but those results are NOT the fault of the doctors who practice there as best they can. There will be instances in which such doctors will do a very fine job against great difficulty and intimidating odds. There are young women who, despite grinding poverty, carry their pregnancies to term because they will not kill their flesh and blood. Those doctors and those women are heroes for their fight against the odds. So are good public school teachers. We owe it to them to abolish PS 666 and provide the good ones with the opportunity to teach in quality non-gummint schools where their efforts are appreciated in the delivery of actual learning and separate them professionally from those who actually believe in Horace Mann, John Dewey and Antonio Gramsci.
Anyone tempted to think that public schools and their unions are not a toxic problem ought to go to the hotel where this year's convention of the National Education Association is held or this year's convention of the American Federation of Teachers and stroll through the area where various moonbats are hawking their "curricula" to the delegates. When I happened, thirty years ago or so to do this, I found "curricula" including every form of exotic flora and fauna as to the "oppression" of lavenders and of Latin American communist activists "oppressed" out of control of Chile when Allende got his at the presidential machine gun and of the evils of military leaders and what not. It is also useful to peruse the resolutions passed by these conventions and by their delegates.
Your apparent insight that nothing can "reform" gummint skewels since someone's views must prevail, since we are not interested in imposing our views on other people's children any more than we want them poisoning our kids' education, since no sane person wants to waste endless hours wrangling in vain against lavishly paid, thick-headed, impenetrable school commissars when the time can be far more profitably spent living and teaching our own kids, is very well founded. And, of course, who wants to waste ever-escalating amounts of tax money to promote the ideas that Americans despise, that Catholics despise, that Christians despise, that many Jews despise, that Mormons despise, that sensible pagans and atheists and agnostics despise, that you and I despise?
That you understand the term Gramscian and that I understand it and that not one PS 666 denizen in a thousand understands it is reason enough to abolish PS 666. That gummint skeweling has long been dominated by the secular humanists, by the Deweyite "progressive" "education" establishment, by an ideology hostile to our nation and our faith is reason enough to abolish PS 666. And, in both cases, more than reason enough to erect a will of separation between education and gummint extorted tax money.
One final tiny disagreement. Unlike most nations, ours has had socialists who actually favored basic civil liberties like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly for those of us who disagree with them. That sort of socialist (the late Sidney Hook, the late George Meany, the late William Green) did not look forward to communism but rather fought communism knowledgeably, vigorously and effectively. Their conservative critics wisely pointed out that freedom of the press was only theoretical if the gummint owned all the presses. The AFL-CIO was more of a bulwark against communism than Barry Goldwater ever dreamed of being. That was then. This is now after the repeal of those clauses of the AFL-CIO constitution and by-laws which prohibited communist involvement at any leadership level even shop steward.
“Just wanted to say “Good Morning!” before I go wake up the Offspring and the Herpets. How are you? I’m another day older, but it feels like two ... nightmares about Girl Scouts all night long ...”
Uh oh...Girl Scout nightmares AND Hungry Herpets???
That sounds frightening!
You must expound!
How IS your large brood??
My small brood is well...although satisfyingly odd...
The 8 year old proclaimed our dinner last evening to be “an interesting blend of flavors”, leaving us sure that we’ve watched too many Alton Brown DVD’s (but Alton is SO FUN..and the science of cooking SO INTERESTING!)
The 5 year old continues to baffle me in the “gaps” of understanding in his little machine of a mind..
He lectured me yesterday for not telling him that he’s supposed to swim “on top” of the water...
Who knew????
This week we’ve had a funeral for a beetle...
been to the movies (we NEVER go to the movies...but the free summer showings are SO GREAT!) with our homeschooling cousins..and yesterday we also joined them at “their” waterslides!
My cousin’s family has a membership to a small waterpark.
She then shares the cost of our entrance fee as it’s worth it to her to “share the joy” with another adult!
LOL!
Any other FREE STUFF that your homeschooling family can share with us would be SO LOVELY~
Herpets...hmm.....
A search on Herpets...gets me YOU~ on FR..
Who knew?
(and a Spanish site on slithery things...)
Thank you for your words about teachers who are doing a “good job”.
I hope, that if you were to see me teach, you would include me with those who are doing a “good job”.
Since you cannot “see me” however, I will continue to do “my best” to teach the children who have been entrusted to me. (Sometimes I have to “go find them” as they forget where their classes are, but once found, they are generally amenable to instruction :-)
Ironically, I’m a good example of the certification issue, as I am NOT a certified teacher.
But, I “teach” all of the time.
Much of what you’ve said, I agree with...
MUCH OF IT!!!
I am certain that after exchanging thoughts with SoftballmominVA, you know that WE (as those who work WITHIN the schools) know just how deep some of these problems run.
Also, some of what you’ve said, I don’t understand...
But, as a lifelong learner, I will endeavor to educate myself!
Good day to you.
Thank you for indicating you respect ***some*** teachers.
Certainly you are correct to not respect ***all***.
As you may remember, I used to live in Connecticut where Lowell Weicker became governor to punish normal Americans for removing him from the Senate. Connecticut folks remember him for instituting a state income tax. Many of us also remember him as a mouthpiece for Planned Barrenhood who used the governor's mansion to raise money for NARAL as well as Planned Barrenhood. In that capacity, he instituted school-based health clinics. The rationale was that, if Jezebel's or Bronco's parents would not treat their sniffles, it was somehow the gummint's job with full confidentiality to protect the "medical" care from parent's prying and, well, judgmental (!!!) eyes (read abortions, birth control and treatment of STDs) and to hire an army of stooges trusted to carry out the social elites', errr government bosses', policies. If Weicker thought he could have gotten his paws on the children of those he deemed less "enlightened than he" 24/7 he would have done so.
In Weicker's hometown of Greenwich, there was a program of taxpayers subsidizing a junior year in Paris (apparently on the gummint dime) for the children of the fashionable. I confess that it was a formative experience for working class urban me to learn that taxpayers in Greenwich were paying for such absolute luxuries. Public high school sports has been funded by taxes for a very, very long time in Connecticut. Whatever I may sometimes sound like, I don't resent basic sports for boys and girls as such, but then moral and economic relativism takes over along with arguments from equality: "My kid likes archeology not football. Why can't the school send him to Egypt this summer, all expenses paid by taxpayers???"
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has forced school systems of very modest means to provide breakfast as well as lunch to the children in schools with high poverty rates. Not that there is not a food stamp program in place already. If one is an elitist like Blumenthal (wealthier by far than even Weicker), one just don't trust the poor to feed their own kids when you can expand public expenditures on bread and circuses through court order.
One Frank Yulo, a municipal school superintendent in Hamden, CT, who also was employed teaching "education" at the former state normal school (then Southern Connecticut State College and now University), actually proposed a new high school complete with polo in a town that was urban ghetto in the southern end, working and middle class in most of the rest with slices of wealth in the northern end and on part of its eastern side. No one suggested paying stipends for access to polo ponies but some kids might not drop out if taxpayers provided ponies for them to play with. We honestly feared that, if a motel closed down, some liberal genius would suggest acquiring it for the high school as a sex ed laboratory. If so, stipends would not have been charged lest the poorer kids be embarrassed by not being able to afford sex ed "lab."
Taxpayer paid high school sports in Connecticut has been around for a very long time. I believe that Levi Jackson played football for Hillhouse High School (public) in New Haven before playing for Yale. I believe that baseball programs were universal from the time of the War Between the States. Academics-related programs like debate teams are rather long-standing and ought to be since rhetoric (in the non-pejorative sense) was part of a classical education.
Courses not related to curricula: State Assemblyman Bozo needs an excuse for his re-election. What to do? Sponsor a bill to require consumer education (especially if they will use that nifty new text written by his first cousin) or sex education (Planned Barrenhood will love him and the local liberal rag of a newspaper will too) or "student rights" (for credit no less) to help the crumb crunchers feeling appropriately alienated and rebellious so that they will be more likely to lead lives in thrall to the Demonrat Party.
The impetus for unnecessary courses and activity is that time-honored friend of the Demonrat mentality: I want mine!!! It does not much matter what so long as there is more of whatever it is. Another is: If the kids in East Pennsyltucky have courses in sado-masochism, why can't MYYYY kids have such courses? Also, we, (not just you or I and probably not even you or I) as parents and taxpayers and citizens have fuzzy ideas and allow emotion to interfere with common sense. We want our kids to have SOME fun. As Latin and Greek and German and calculus and physics and philosophy and other challenging courses disappeared from curricula, we substituted more and more bubble gum like consumer education or "student rights."
It is fair to criticize parents for gutlessness when they want to impose all the bad guy roles on the teachers while scrupulously avoiding wearing the black hat themselves. More and more parents, poorly educated themselves, side with their kids on the traditional stupidities and whining of students that they will never use geometry (oh, yes they will) or trigonometry or Latin or Greek so why should they be forced to learn such subjects. Many parents would gladly have taxpayer 24/7/365 daycare. They are frustrated at their own unwillingness or inability to stand up to their kids.
Title IX??? Another horror of gummint administration.
As to your last question: for the same reasons that Demonrats control the US Senate and House: laziness and greed triumphing over responsibility and morality.
God bless you and yours and your every effort at teaching in your public school.
Consider yourself included! God bless you and yours!
I think the first thing that people have to do is to get over the idea that education is limited to school, or stops after high school or college.
Since we as a culture aren’t prepared to do that, nothing much is going to happen.
Most people here look at education from the top down - as in they are at the top educationally and so are their children. The best types of parents are here on this board. If we had a community made up of any random 1000 freepers, we would probably blow the lid off the scales in terms of ability and achievement in terms of our children.
But MOsby and I look at the educational system from the bottom up. I could list dozens of system wide problems and yes, in even a semi-perfect world a series of small schools and tutoring situations would be ideal. But because we work with the kids who often have no one at home that gives them more then 10 minutes of notice a week, we are therefore cautious of any wholesale changes that puts these kids further at risk. As bad as the system is, it is currently the best thing in the lives of millions of children. And in a very large way, that's very sad.
Now, in my own two girls, the public schools were a good choice, but honestly if schools hadn't existed, my husband and I make enough and know enough, they would have both been fine - but I think we are the exception and not the rule.
BTW, that is where I disagree with many posters. Many believe that if schools didn't exist, parents would just 'figure' out a way to get their child educated. I'm not that optimistic. Without some form of public schools, I firmly believe that millions and millions and millions of kids would be completely illiterate - and that's scary. Illiterate citizens are easily controlled by a dictator and our great country would be unrecognizable in a generation or two.
I support any idea in education as long as it protects those whose parents will not or can not protect them. That's why I teach who and what I teach, so that maybe each year I send out a dozen or so kids that have a chance to break the cycle. I've been teaching long enough now that I'm starting to hear back from graduates - the overwhelming majority have gone into the military, one died in Iraq, one lost a limb, 4 are leaving Monday, many others are around the world. Some are just folks working and I'm touched when they email or call and ask for advice on 'what books should I be reading to her now?" or "He's 3, should he know his alphabet? I don't want him to struggle like I did." None of these kids could read within 5 levels of their grade when I got them when they were 12. I take credit for their success in only one way - I showed them how to read and I motivated them to work, but they did everything else. There was no magic or anything mysterious in what I did - I just did my job. I love my students and I'm proud of them.
I would guarantee you that every conservative teacher on this forum could share stories like this, much more meaningful than mine. So while some may look at it as propping up a failed system, they get to do that from a position of far above what any of my students will ever have financially or intellectually. I just do my job, stay away from the moonbats at school, and use my influence 180 days of the year to create literacy where there was none before.
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