I cannot believe the 180 degree turn education has taken in a blink. We went from child-centric, individualized instruction to one-size-fits all. We went from self-esteem building to homework hell and classroom ridicule. We went from creative classroom strategies by master teachers to demanding conformity and mediocrity. We went from local control to centralized education ... tethering the state and the feds ... and empowering both. We went from balanced curricula to socially, politically-correct designs with a definitive tinge of social engineering and American bashing. Weve gone from empowering parents to shoving them aside. And then ridiculing those who speak up. Weve gone from lauding teachers ... and their profession ... to ridiculing them. Weve gone from demanding competent, prepared and well-educated teachers to camp-counselor-like Teach for America fraud-educators ... with zero professionalism and little preparation. Weve gone from the educational cutting-edge to asinine curricular contraptions. Weve gone from engendering creativity and innovative thinking to plodding, boring and absurd linear demands. Weve gone from championing all things classical ... and proven! ... to the bizarre. Weve forsaken quality literature for something called close reading ... which will serve robotic instruction readers ... but seal shut their imagination. Weve gone from valued evaluation options to antiseptic and inhumane, abusive over-testing. Weve traded the tried and true for the untested and theoretical. Weve gone from listening to master teachers and wisened educationalists to egghead theorists who have never spent a full day in a classroom environment. Weve gone from teaching appreciation for this nations past achievements to highlighting every misdeed to utterly ludicrous heights. Weve gone from honoring our founding documents and theories to subverting the spine of American cultural. Weve replaced individual achievement with mandated group-think. Weve gone from valuing the American dream to cursing every aspect of it. Weve gone from valuing childhood to praises sick-rigor. Weve gone from strategizing in the way we assist underachievers to forcibly and unfairly demanding the impossible. Weve gone from caritas to frigid coldness. Weve gone from promising to lying. Weve gone from hope to despair. All of this .. all of it ... on the scene in a finger-snap. What hath God wrought? Denis Ian
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 02:05:11 +0000
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