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Kend ~ You graduated? Wonderful news! Congratulations! From a Canadian High School I surly hope? I hope you realize that when you don't proof read or spell check what you write publically, it really reflects poorly on you previous teachers. If they really were good and kind to you, the least you can do is to be good and kind to them.
That being said, I couldn't disagree more about vouchers. They might work fine in Canada; but, in the USA we have separation of church and state. I suppose you could get around that by banning the teaching of religion in all schools; or, by requiring that private schools adhere strictly to a public curriculum.
There are, of course, inherited problems with this compromise. A) Parents who specifically want to pay for a religious education might not go along with the proposal. B) Even if the private schools did agree to the compromise, it would cost our society greatly in the educational diversity offered by the private school system the way it is. I don't think it would be a good idea for society as a whole.
Revisionist History is essential to maintaining an alternate reality ! But even the Left Progressives are being viciously attacked by the far Left Liberals who are frantically attempting to maintain their questionable doctrine in a country that has relinquished all control to the international corporate Gods and oligarchs that fully embrace a one world government where only they have access to any real rights and privileges !
rofo47, I agree that students should be exposed to all ideas but they are only get exposed to one side as almost all teachers are right of center. Do you think there has ever been any debate about global warming in any school at any level. Do you think any teacher in the public school system has had any debate for tax dollars being used for private schools if the parents choose that route. Of course not. So with all do respect how can they "use their critical thinking skills to form their own option" when they are only exposed to a left of center view.
I am a conservative and I am not afraid of change at all. I would love to see a voucher system so parents could choose the type of educaton they would like their children to have. I think the teachers are doing their best but the public school system is so top heavy it is failing our kids. In our city not even 60% of the public school system employees are in the classroom what the hell do the other 40% do? that ratio in the private schools here is about 85% in the classroom.
Kend - You state:
"No wonder they (meaning teachers, I assume) fight so hard to stop the privatization of schools they don't want to loose control of our childrens thoughts."
It is not the role of teachers to control our students thoughts. It is the role of teachers to give students the ability to critically think for themselves. Students should be exposed to all ideas and then use their critical thinking skills to form their own opinion. This is what conservatives do not like. Why else do Texas legislators want to ban critical thinking in Public Schools
Here is the actual language from a position statement in the 2012 Texas Republican Party Platform:
Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
What are conservatives afraid of? Is it knowledge? Free thinkers? Progress?
The answer is written into the platform. Conservatives do not like or want change that goes against their fixed beliefs. In their minds change is bad, status quo is good. If conservatives had their way we would all still be lighting fire with sticks and stones.
Humans are struggling to evolve ,we must all see this ,so what would work here's a start .Base the carriculum around three Core Concepts.
Awareness
Honesty
Responsibility
The entire educational model would be based around them why because your parents only pass on what has been passed onto them so the sins of the father have been visited upon the son .Have you looked the world lately ? It's not even a question of blame but choice but someone has to take responsibility for the choices humankind has been making ,and keeps making .
"We have met the enemy ,and they are us ".
Kend knows we think he doesn't know what he's talking about or is full of beans. He plays dumb a lot.
History tends to be written by people who want the children to see the world from a particular point of view .Not telling the truth about the past hides who and what you are !
The emperor is wearing new clothes for we can see right through you ,children taught to critically think and look at history see how the parents ,government and elders have deluded themselves .So you have to drum it out of them and take your view on the facts .
Education men's to bring out not to put in ....you do not want the children coming to there own conclusions but only to your own conclusions so the mistakes of the past are repeated.
The thing that would work is if we intensely scrutinised the so-called justifiable actions of the past because in societies where critical thinking and problem solving and life skills are taught ,rather than facts simply memorised the mistakes of the past would not be repeated as the behaviour is clearly self destructive .
What you memorize ,you memorialize .
Eisenhouer was less conservative than Obama.
Conservatives are authoritarian, we are egalitarian. They believe in governance by and privilege for elites, in hierarchies of privilege and entitlement.
Essentially, they commonly don't believe in anything but, as Bob Dylan said, just want to be on the side that's winning. They support the more powerful, the dominant group. They simply suck up to the ones they most fear and hope to profit by brown nosing to the dominant of society. They suck the ass of power,
Or they are the dominant and powerful and simply want to maintain their dominance and power.
As Thom has mentioned many times, Conservative in the States is not Conservative in the rest of the world. It was a social Conservative, Count Otto von Bismarck that thought the state, in his case what was the German Empire, to ensure the basic economic and social rights of its citizens in a rational, economic fashion with a means of funding, and rules of entitlement. That system was copied throughout Western Europe, and in other parts of the world, except Great Britain aka the United Kingdom and the States.
From the little I have read President Theodore Roosevelt , a Republican, no less, thought it was a good idea, but for some reason so-called Conservatives forget to mention him among thier heroes.
In that regard, what do these anti-Liberal Conservatives do with another Republican, for I, personally long, in spite of my Democratic past. When he was president, we would joke about how he played golf, recieved vicuna coats, and other curiiousities. Looking back, though, considering all the conflicts where American soldiers are being sent, what we know about, and likely the covert actions we we will never know about.
That Republican president looks more and more attractive to me. There was peace, and the nation enjoyed a peacetime prosperity. There was even progress on social issues, yeah, the schools in the South were desegregated, and that Republican president promoted racial equality. Indeed, he succeeded, in his own way to remove McCarthy, perhaps not as "actively" as some might have wished, but . . . he did it.
Right, I wonder what the Conservatives would do with those eight years of genuine peace and prosperity. It wasn't without its "issues", but the bottom line was an America that was stable, where a person earned his living honestly, and even the "rich folks" knew to pitch in their share. Yeah, when he left office he, a military man, warned us of the Military Industrial Complex that would lead us into conflicts that would cost the lives of Americans. Yes, I must admit it--I am beginning to like Ike, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was a good president, and I wish some of his wisdom was present among the leaders in Washington these days.
ezwriter--right on the money
DHBranski--ex. info.
Kend--
thanks for your thoughts too. We can all learn from each others experience. No ONE person is always right, no matter how hard they try.
Being conservative means that people most of the time stick to the old laws and the traditions. which is not fair being human.like the equality for the women and the other issues which conservatives oppose.
Yeah Kend, education and enlightenment will do that to ya. That's why they wanna keep kids ignorant.
It's not that we wanna take away your, or those lawmakers', comfortable ignorance and superstition but we think it'd be good if somebody knew what they were talking about sometimes instead of knowing "just enough to be dangerous" about everything.
This is really irresponsibly screwing the kids, condemning them to perhaps a life of ignorance - which is not always blissful, Kend not withstanding. Eucation isn't keeping "control of chilren's thoughts" , Kend, it's freeing their minds. You wouldn't know about that, of course, but take my word.
It's criminal. A lawsuit theoretically should fix that like in New York when a guy sued the school board. There had to be two suits, though, 10-15 years apart, the verdict of the second reversing that of the first that ruled against the guy saying that he was only entitled to basic literacy so he could get a job as a janitor.
Also, the judiciary is stacked too from so many years of Republican rule and Republicans blocking judicial appointments even when Democrats were in the majority. Why does one get the impression that Republicans are only trying to see how quickly and easily they could undermine and destroy the great founding principles of America and its constitution and way if life, as if on a dare or a game out of boredom..
The Democratic policies and programs implementated from FDR to Reagan -- including, dare I say, our former welfare aid programs -- took the US to its height of wealth and productivity. From Reagan to Obama, those programs and policies were reversed, and liberal media became a tool for promoting middle class elitism, deeply pitting the "masses" against each other. The overall quality of life in the US was rated at #1 when Reagan was first elected, launching the long campaign against our poor. By the time Obama was elected, this had already fallen to #43. Reversing the progress that had been achieved via our former poverty relief programs played a very important role in causing the US to steadily fall behind 42 other nations, in roughly 30 years.
Interesting bit of history: What came to be called AFDC was actually first included in FDR's Social Security Act. At its highest, back in the 1970s, AFDC used a mere 6% of the federal budget, yet enabled some 80% of recipients to quit welfare for jobs by the time their children started school, with the majority of these being able to work their way out of poverty. They worked their way up, earning wages, paying taxes, ultimately repaying all the aid they had received via their own taxes.
Clinton got rid of that, of course, and Dems and libs have erased the success of those anti-poverty programs from the discussion, prefering to maintain a long pep rally for the better off alone, the middle class. Rewriting our history.
Off Topic @ DAnneMarc and Kend. I was dismayed to see DAnneMarc's snipe at Kend with it's erronious assumption and put-down to Kend's intelligence. I wish blogging commenters would refrain from needless insults, sometimes devolving into offensive/scatological language (Marc, I'm not implying that to you here, but this happens way too much in blog comment sections). These take the direction of the topic off-course and do not lead to any intelligent exchange of ideas - just a whole bunch of nastiness. I appreciate those who respectfully contribute to the topic under consideration, no matter what their political persuasion. In fact, I very much appreciate conservative ideas in what otherwise could become a liberal-minded "chior."
On Topic. Since I knew nothing about this AP History controversy, I followed Thom's link above (beginnig with "So Conservative's...") to a sample AP History test to see what might be 'the problem.' I only spent about 20 minutes (obviously not finishing), going along question by question and found, in my opinion, that it was not an easy test. It required a rather high level of reading comprehension just to be able to answer the questions. Could this be the real problem? - that someone (even like me, who thinks she has been well educated) might feel too challenged, maybe even threatened, by how much harder it was than the tests we took in years past?
Americans have not been pleased to learn that our high school students do not compare well on the international educational scales. Tests like these challenge students to strengthen their intellectual muscles in ways that some threatened politicians "fear to tread." Wonder how many of our politicians could pass our current high school exams??? NO POLITICIAN LEFT BEHIND!!!
Did you know Thom that our government was supposed to be a republic, not a democracy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bqsIjnpZGA
Ben Franklin said, "A democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner, and a republic is when the sheep has a gun".
This illusion that a democracy is 'fair' for all people is just that, an illusion. As long as we can commit to the axiom to treat others as we would like to be treated, then there is no need for a democracy. For the most part people are good-hearted, and want world peace, harmony, and justice for all. That should be the basis for living together in a society.
Your points about what the conservatives have done and been against throughout our country's history is spot on Thom, but the progressives don't have the whole story either because they have bought into this idea of a democracy.
Our country and it's citizens haven't been free since the Act of 1871. That's when our government sold us down the road. The government was bankrupt after the Civil War, and the banksters of that time offered to bail the government out and in so doing, made our government a CORPORATION! Look up the pdf files from Judge Dale, or dozens of other documents. It's all there in black and white. Time to wake up folks!
First, Thom, thank you very much for featuring this story today. I heard it this morning on N.P.R.'s "Morning Edition," and I hoped the story would not get lost in the day's other news. I'd like to gently shift the focus away from "Progressive" versus "Conservative." Instead, to me this is an issue of people who are too timid (scared ?) to have a calm, thoughtful discussion about the darker aspects of American history. How in the world can we expect our children and grandchildren to become better citizens if they are "shielded" from knowing about....discussing...and learning from our American experience--whether good or bad ? Are we so afraid of TRUTH ?
Marc, for the record I did graduate from high school, I also take full responsibility for everything I have done I my life. I would never blame any of my teachers for anything. They where all very good to me.
10k. I wish that all the above is what our students are learn. But they don't. They can barely read. I am a perfect example as you can tell by the mean thing other readers on this blog say about me.
Hey there, "Roland in the deep"...You need to sit in on some raucous "hen parties" when stories are being shared.....You'd soon learn it's an extremely rare woman that hasn't had plenty of orgasms in multiple ways....."And they're SPECTACULAR"!
....But there comes a time in most everyone's life when things are meant to naturally slow down, and it seems a bit silly to automatically fret that it's a disorder in need of treatment.
Returning to a less hectic "time of innocence" is what makes Grandparents so wise and wonderful.
Kend ~ Don't be angry with all teachers just because you didn't graduate from High School. It's not their fault you know. After all, Progressive or Conservative, teachers are only human; and, can only do so much with what they have to work with. It's not their fault; and, it's not the curriculums fault. It's your fault.
The list of states Thom puts down are of no surprise. Only in these reddest of the red states have people already been dumbed down enough to accept further sabotage to the school curriculum. It's no wonder that Conservatives want to attack American history. Not only did they oppose every progressive improvement that was made to make this country strong, they were also directly responsible for all the greatest crimes ever committed. Ever since the middle of the 19th century, Republican Conservatives in office have committed every crime under the sun for their Corporate benefactors. The greatest of these crimes was committed on behalf of the Railroad. It was the deliberate and planned genocide of the native American Plain Indian tribes. It is no wonder the Republican party wants to black out our history. What innocent young person would want anything to do with them after learning about that travesty alone.
https://consortiumnews.com/2010/100610b.html
Kend: Are you trying to tell me that algebra, geometry, biology, chemistry, physics, geography, history, economics, literature, grammar, foreign languages, arts , physical education, computer applications...etc.... are all liberal thoughts being pounded into students heads?
"The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them."
In other words......." Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals."
Mark Twain 1898....LOL