This Is The Future

You think anyone is concened with being educated? MUHAHAHAHA!!!

Nah ... it's a day off for some and an inconvenience for others. Sad.

 

My wife is a teacher, and I could not agree more with this quote:

"One of the raps on elementary social studies is that it is all about heroes and holidays, and with standardized testing, it often becomes that," said Andrea S. Libresco, an education professor at Hofstra University in New York who teaches prospective teachers how to use the holidays as teaching opportunities.

Her and I had a conversation one night about how kids know everything there is to know about "the pilgrims," but nothing about World War II, which essentially established the world they live in today. Year after year after year they spend a week learning about the pilgrims and "Indians," as well as Christopher Columbus, and they get a skewed viewpoint of history. A teacher in my wife's building put up a bulletin board at Thanksgiving that had a tee pee for every kid and was headlined, "Me Got 'Em Smart Class." Honest to God. That's how fucking out of touch teachers can be when it comes to teaching social studies to kids, because they never learned it themselves, so the cycle repeats itself.

As a newsperson, I understand the focus on "heroes and holidays." It's no different from our approach of trying to tie features into the news of the day (i.e. star quarterback recruit takeout runs on signing day). But they need to broaden their approach instead of just pulling out the same stale history lessons year after year after year. There is no reason that lessons on the civil rights movement, the Reagan revolution, World War II, Vietnam, the industrial revolution, etc., couldn't be integrated into lessons on reading, math, etc., etc. Our history is too rich and meaningful to just keep rolling out the pilgrim bonnets and construction paper cornucopias year after year after year.

 

At least it's not merely cause for a sale-a-bration at the J.C. Penney.

And at least we're decades away from it being the chosen day for, um, a white sale.

 

Yet more people are getting four-year degrees than ever.

 

And people wonder why some Native Americans are a tad uncomfortable allowing mainstream America to decide what is and is not offensive to Native American culture.

 

It's an almost all-white school, which, as a white person, embarrasses me. Worse than the 23-year-old teacher thinking that's OK, however, is the fact that the principal doesn't even notice. Nor is any teacher in the building - including my beloved - offended enough to pursue the board's removal.

I've told friends about the whole thing, thinking they'll realize how unbelievable it is. Some do. Some kind of nod. Some say I'm being too sensitive. That she's "not being racist."

But the fact is that it teaches kids early on that Native Americans are cartoon characters to be made fun of.

 

I am constantly amazed at how bad kids' spelling is. A quick look at sites such as MySpace realize it is almost an epidemic.

I am curious about a point made above. If more people are getting four-year degrees, then why does it seem the average American is dumber? Are there more diploma mills out there now? Or is the curriculum at four-year universities/colleges become worse?

 

That's rich.

 

Did I misspell something? Dammit. People's and mine and the spell checker's - spelling still sucks.

 

I wonder Frosty Hardison from the Al Gore & Condom thread will force schools to teach that the other side of the MLK story, the version that southerns who still fly the Confederate Flag would be likely to tell.