The Lucrative Education Drama

So they keep writing books
about what's wrong with education.
Lemme give you an insight.

You see, they love to do these polarized debates
and take extreme positions
in the so-called "profession" of education
that turn into educational "movements,"
the educational trends for a decade or quarter century or more.

One of these classic debates has been
teacher-centered vs student-centered education.
They sometimes say "constructivist" for student-centered.

So, for teacher-centered, picture a nun whacking students' hands
with her pointer to maintain discipline (her primary objective),
or a bully jesuit like bill mclaughlin or bill o'reilly
making their students print latin vocabulary for the hour.
The students might remember some latin words,
but they'll hate it, and hate school,
and hate authority, and hate teachers,
and their time and energy is taken away
from learning something more useful.

So, for student-centered, picture a bunch of entitled
white brats who know they don't have to do anything,
or can do anything they want,
and they know they'll never get in trouble
because whatever they want to do is defined as the right thing to do,
and they know they can always get the teacher in trouble,
because the teacher is like their servant,
and their "very, very, very important" parents' servant,
and so on.
They take off their shoes and socks
and put their feet on the wall or on the desk
or get comfy on a couch or chair,
or read or browse sex sites on the internet,
or play games,
and speak to the teacher in sarcastic and condescendng ways,
and for entertainment often conspire against teachers,
conjuring up ways to make trouble.

A national magazine might show up,
take a few pictures of a big ugly white girl,
unattractively dressed in dirty jeans,
with her feet up on the wall,
sipping a soda and reading a book upside down,
and declare this to be one of the "10 best" schools
scattered around the country.

These are the children of the educated and successful middle class,
who will succeed academically because of their home environment
and because the other students in the school
and their friends also have educated and successful parents.

The highly disciplined catholic school
and the trendy liberal school
at least provide an environment where kids CAN learn something.

Many public schools are chaotic, violent,
and have immature, unprofessional teachers
who are very bad role models
(As a student teacher, I observed a middle school music
class in sacramento, and the young white female teacher
told the class that they had not won at a music competition
they had competed in.  "I think it SUCKS!"
she said angrily.)
Many or most of these teachers
are like bratty kids themselves.
These are not good learning environments.
Much of what the kids do learn is bad.
However, kids learn regardless,
and I'll get to that.

A very important point that I want to make first, though,
is that the teachers have cleverly
turned their poor performance to their advantage.

They fail to maintain a good educational environment.
They then complain about how hard and challenging it is
to be a teacher today, blaming it on "society" and Republicans,
the fact that kids talk back, act out,
get violent, and disrupt education all the time.
Then they argue that the solution is more education for teachers,
so they get in cahoots with their friends at the university
and take more "professional teaching courses"
which is basically just old ladies sitting in seats
socializing with their like-minded friends
about how bad Republicans and other men are,
and how it's all America's fault
and then, of course, they then demand more pay,
because they're "more qualified" because they took
these "professional education development classes."
It's all style over substance,
and they just babble nonsense
and drop names like Piaget.

So because they're entitled white women,
in our society structure they ALWAYS get their way,
so they get more pay and fancy degree titles.

It's a lot like the argument that in the medical field
they don't "cure" people,
they "treat" people.
They prescribe drugs that treat the symptoms,
the patients never get better,
but they're permanent patients
making the doctors lots of reliable money,
whereas if they were cured and healthy
they would only show up once a year for a checkup.

Or it's like a "criminal justice system"
that keeps arresting, convicting, jailing, treating people
because that's their bread and butter.

Or like fighting wars with other countries
to "keep the peace"
because it is so profitable,
and so on.

In other words, the chaos in the classroom
and the poor educational environments
are BECAUSE OF the teachers
and all the other culprits in the educational establishment -
schools of education, highly paid administrators,
and the state representatives they buy and elect
who pass onerous education laws
that make it unlawful to exercise common sense
in the classroom.

So they're the cause of the problem
because they created it
with their flaky thinking
and then they say that
they are the cure for the problem
because they'll take more classes in flakiness
and political correctness
and women right, men wrong, especially "whitemenbad" classes.

So the solution is SUBJECT-CENTERED education
and outsourcing
which I will get to next time
because the library is closing,
and so is my "office."