tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post5446093602765182047..comments2024-03-29T04:34:05.185-04:00Comments on CURMUDGUCATION: An Educated PersonPeter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-4893750969136303632016-06-16T08:22:39.673-04:002016-06-16T08:22:39.673-04:00One of the best pieces I have read in the past yea...One of the best pieces I have read in the past year. As a recent graduate of a teacher education program, I have been trying to distill and integrate what I learned and experienced in the past two years. This helps immensely. New teacherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17136285175813516238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-31152690143779267822016-06-13T15:47:43.565-04:002016-06-13T15:47:43.565-04:00This is one of the things I most resent about &quo...This is one of the things I most resent about "reform," and why it makes me nuts that progressives haven't grasped how important this issue is. <br /><br />Beyond the immediate awfulness of BSTs, the horrible denigration of teaching and teachers, and the cowardly refusal to think about how poverty and race affect children's lives and prospects, the "reformers" have been quietly - sometimes implicitly - redefining education, and by extension, society. <br /><br />Nicknames like "Race To The Top" come closest to admitting: Life is about winning, and schools exist to sort out the winners. "Fairness" or equal opportunity means giving each child the chance to become one of those winners. And that means training them to do jobs associated with making money. A rich life? Passing on the culture? Cultivating creativity? Shaping civic values? Oh please. <br /><br />This vision is rubbish for the 98% of people who are not going to found a start-up or become successful litigation lawyers. It's especially rubbish for the 60% of people who do jobs that don't require academic training, but which are no less useful and important to do well - everything from cooking to laying tiles to cleaning houses - yet who have been given to understand, throughout their education, that they have a big L stamped on their forehead. It's ironic, of course, because it's not even true that college-level jobs always pay more. A good plumber makes a lot more than most college faculty, living on the adjunct salary wage. But even if you make a good living, it's damaging to believe that society sees you as one of the betas.<br /><br />And, also ironically, the Hunger Games society is even awful for the 5% who go on to "succeed." So many of them are driven by fear. Yes, their schools reserve more time for things like foreign travel or music, but only because you *need* those things on your resume to get into an Ivy League. So these students, too, often don't get to just spend time learning about the wonderful interesting stuff that humans have gotten up to. They're too busy downing Ritalin to cram through ridiculously demanding high school courses, getting about three hours sleep a night before getting up at 4 a.m. for lacrosse practice, living in fear that they won't get into Yale. Winning sucks almost as much as losing. Madeleinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16055922376249533020noreply@blogger.com