yep, i hear ya Brendan. even in higher ed, the attempt to standardize is present tho (knocking on wood with both hands) i am grateful that my department is for the most part resistant. it’s so dissonant to teach students how to teach critically, outside the box and within it at the same time, but it does at least lead us into a conversation about why this is happening, who really benefits and what is the true purpose of education in amerikkka these days. not that most of them want to hear it tho…
Stormi – I am so much more conscious of what I say to the kids now, it’s not funny. Little pitchers have big ears and all that. The curriculum across much of the country is becoming the same too, with what is called “common core” being adopted in something like 40 or 45 states so far. That means that the same subjects are taught in the same years across all states, so that ‘mobile’ children aren’t caught out of sync should they move somewhere other than where they started that subject.
It is another means to put us all in lockstep, with little to no variation allowed, period. Just another “thing” to be skeptical about when it comes to education in America. Or is that Amurrika?
yea i thought the list was beyond WTF? banning authors from most ethnic backgrounds, tho latino/a dominant. i was also shocked at shakespeare (the tempest is my favorite), not so much at thoreau and howard zinn considering they’ve been on someone’s list for awhile now but still. texas has gone just as batshit crazy banning latin american history. i can only imagine students going in to those classrooms and learning only the racist revisionist history and (hopefully) telling teachers they’re full of shit. goddess help us in between, and the likes of yourself brave enough to stay in the system. 😉
Stormi – thanks for the link, I checked it out, and boy, that list is extensively non-racist…
“The Tempest” is banned? Sherman Alexie, a noted Native American, non-Hispanic author? How sad and pathetic. I had heard of the movement, but I had not seen the list. More power to them I say.
The entire Tucson school district ethnic studies issue is, on the face of it, completely racist. They were forced to ban only Mexican-American studies, not African-American, nor Asian-American, and well, you get the picture. Which is silly: probably about 50-60% of the districts’ students are Hispanic (although not entirely Mexican in origin), so you’re saying they shouldn’t learn their own history? Idiots.
hey Brendan, not sure if you heard/know about this guy – he toured through here last week offering some relief to the insanity … have you seen the banned books list? http://librotraficante.com/
On that issue it’s just hitting the news, and I had to read about it on Daily Kos, if that tells you anything! Not much traction yet, in other words.
As it seems with conservatives of all stripes, the cons here are introducing wave after wave of absolutely ridiculous bills, and killing those that actually make sense. A very comprehensive anti-bullying bill that was agreed to by everyone in the senate and a majority in the house, was killed by a lobbyist! She’s a real homophobe, and declared this would allow the homosexual agenda into the classroom, so it died at her command. Positively asinine! She won’t answer questions, no one in the house who didn’t allow it to go forward is talking, and the guv says nothing.
Last, fatal burst of the megalomaniacs, I sincerely hope. Hitler and Himmler would have been proud of these people…
Brendan:
Hats off to you for putting up with this, as best you can. How intense is the outrage there?
A small correction: not a felony, but a Class 1 misdemeanor. The fine and incarceration are correct…
Some of the morans here, er, legislators up in Phoenix, have proposed a change in the legal charges of resisting arrest to include passive resistance, i.e. do nothing when told to disperse, risk a felony charge. Very specifically they are aiming this at the OWS Phoenix (and elsewhere) demonstrations. A fine of up to $2500, and max jail for up to 6 months, IIRC.
Heil der Führer! Sieg Heil!
I guess a mammoth protest of something like 20,000 people asking to be arrested would be in order, all of them asking for a jury trial too. Clog the courts, make the gov’t spend money it supposedly doesn’t have to prosecute.
I think the state senate and house Republicon’s need a nice stay in a hospital somewhere, for about 5 years, with enough daily Thorazine to keep them comatose at best. The Guv too.
We need cartoonists, walkouts, poster carpet bombs, state boycotts, and sit-ins at state legislatures.
yep, i hear ya Brendan. even in higher ed, the attempt to standardize is present tho (knocking on wood with both hands) i am grateful that my department is for the most part resistant. it’s so dissonant to teach students how to teach critically, outside the box and within it at the same time, but it does at least lead us into a conversation about why this is happening, who really benefits and what is the true purpose of education in amerikkka these days. not that most of them want to hear it tho…
Stormi – I am so much more conscious of what I say to the kids now, it’s not funny. Little pitchers have big ears and all that. The curriculum across much of the country is becoming the same too, with what is called “common core” being adopted in something like 40 or 45 states so far. That means that the same subjects are taught in the same years across all states, so that ‘mobile’ children aren’t caught out of sync should they move somewhere other than where they started that subject.
It is another means to put us all in lockstep, with little to no variation allowed, period. Just another “thing” to be skeptical about when it comes to education in America. Or is that Amurrika?
yea i thought the list was beyond WTF? banning authors from most ethnic backgrounds, tho latino/a dominant. i was also shocked at shakespeare (the tempest is my favorite), not so much at thoreau and howard zinn considering they’ve been on someone’s list for awhile now but still. texas has gone just as batshit crazy banning latin american history. i can only imagine students going in to those classrooms and learning only the racist revisionist history and (hopefully) telling teachers they’re full of shit. goddess help us in between, and the likes of yourself brave enough to stay in the system. 😉
Stormi – thanks for the link, I checked it out, and boy, that list is extensively non-racist…
“The Tempest” is banned? Sherman Alexie, a noted Native American, non-Hispanic author? How sad and pathetic. I had heard of the movement, but I had not seen the list. More power to them I say.
The entire Tucson school district ethnic studies issue is, on the face of it, completely racist. They were forced to ban only Mexican-American studies, not African-American, nor Asian-American, and well, you get the picture. Which is silly: probably about 50-60% of the districts’ students are Hispanic (although not entirely Mexican in origin), so you’re saying they shouldn’t learn their own history? Idiots.
hey Brendan, not sure if you heard/know about this guy – he toured through here last week offering some relief to the insanity … have you seen the banned books list?
http://librotraficante.com/
On that issue it’s just hitting the news, and I had to read about it on Daily Kos, if that tells you anything! Not much traction yet, in other words.
As it seems with conservatives of all stripes, the cons here are introducing wave after wave of absolutely ridiculous bills, and killing those that actually make sense. A very comprehensive anti-bullying bill that was agreed to by everyone in the senate and a majority in the house, was killed by a lobbyist! She’s a real homophobe, and declared this would allow the homosexual agenda into the classroom, so it died at her command. Positively asinine! She won’t answer questions, no one in the house who didn’t allow it to go forward is talking, and the guv says nothing.
Last, fatal burst of the megalomaniacs, I sincerely hope. Hitler and Himmler would have been proud of these people…
Brendan:
Hats off to you for putting up with this, as best you can. How intense is the outrage there?
A small correction: not a felony, but a Class 1 misdemeanor. The fine and incarceration are correct…
Some of the morans here, er, legislators up in Phoenix, have proposed a change in the legal charges of resisting arrest to include passive resistance, i.e. do nothing when told to disperse, risk a felony charge. Very specifically they are aiming this at the OWS Phoenix (and elsewhere) demonstrations. A fine of up to $2500, and max jail for up to 6 months, IIRC.
Heil der Führer! Sieg Heil!
I guess a mammoth protest of something like 20,000 people asking to be arrested would be in order, all of them asking for a jury trial too. Clog the courts, make the gov’t spend money it supposedly doesn’t have to prosecute.
I think the state senate and house Republicon’s need a nice stay in a hospital somewhere, for about 5 years, with enough daily Thorazine to keep them comatose at best. The Guv too.
We need cartoonists, walkouts, poster carpet bombs, state boycotts, and sit-ins at state legislatures.