CURMUDGUCATION: Fake Slaughter And The Liberal Arts

CURMUDGUCATION: Fake Slaughter And The Liberal Arts

Fake Slaughter And The Liberal Arts

The interwebs are abuzz with a video shown in some side room by some assortment of Trumpists at the American Priority gathering held at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. There are questions about who brought it, who showed it, and how it had already been kicking around the internet, but there's no question that the whole thing is pretty brutal.

In the clip, a bunch of faces and logos have been cyber-pasted, Job-Jab style, onto a fight scene from the movie The Kingsman. As altered, it shows Trump kicking, stabbing, choking, shooting, and blowing the brains out of various enemies, from press organizations like CNN and even the BBC News, to individuals such as Barack Obama and John McCain. It is brutal and ugly (yes, even more brutal and ugly than Kathy Grffin's beheaded Trump), but at this point it's not entirely clear whether this was sanctioned and arranged by anyone with official standing, or whether some pair of sixteen-year-olds got all worked up by their copies of Atlas Shrugged and went rogue.

Either way, it's ugly, and its ugliness is about to be parsed at great length. So that's not where I'm headed.

Where I'm headed starts here-- the clip that all the faces and logos were pasted on is a clip from a mainstream film, a film often billed as an action-comedy. The movie is five years old, and was a middling success at the time. Nobody called it awesome, nobody called it terrible. But that scene of graphic, relentless and brutal slaughter was always there. The context doesn't really help-- both our hero (Colin Firth-- don't look, Pride and Prejudice fans) and the other  people in the church are CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Fake Slaughter And The Liberal Arts

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Brave New World for Kids

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Brave New World for Kids

Brave New World for Kids

I have often said, "I sure would not want to be raising a child right now."  It is a very different world than even 10 years ago and so much to watch out for without being a helicopter parent.  Kids absolutely need to know how to monitor their world and take hard (for their age) hits and get back up.  Meaning, you are there to always have that blanket of love and acceptance but your child needs to know how to put on their own coat of resilience AND zip it up.

The New York Times had two important parenting articles and both are issues I have raised before.

First up, your child and their (future) privacy.

“Privacy nihilism” is an increasingly familiar term for giving up on trying to control data about oneself in the digital era.  

“We have become accustomed to trading convenience for privacy, so that has dulled our senses as to what is happening with all the data gathered about us,” said Ms. Jones, the law professor. “But people are starting to wake up.”

Only you and your family can determine how much information you send out into the world. But here's one family's story about long-ago sharing of photos CONTINUE READING: Seattle Schools Community Forum: Brave New World for Kids

21 REASONS WHY BLACK MEN SHOULD CONSIDER TEACHING - Philly's 7th Ward

21 REASONS WHY BLACK MEN SHOULD CONSIDER TEACHING - Philly's 7th Ward

21 REASONS WHY BLACK MEN SHOULD CONSIDER TEACHING

Over the years, I have written ten books and about fifty articles and blog posts for educators. This is by far the shortest, but probably the most important piece that I have ever written.

Black men comprise between 1.2 to 1.3% of the total teaching force across North America! I will consider this to be a national emergency for Black children in general; Black boys in particular.

With almost 70% of Black children growing up without their fathers in their homes (and frequently out of their lives) and then going to school and in most cases having never been exposed to a Black male teacher or administrator, the question becomes, where is the Black man who is “holding his hand” and walking him through the process (and maze) of becoming a man?

The unfortunate reality is that far too many Black boys are deprived of the experience of a strong, positive Black man in their lives to help them navigate their journey and the consequences to this reality are all around us.

Resultantly, these 21 REASONS WHY BLACK MEN SHOULD CONSIDER TEACHING AS A CAREER OPTION serve as my clarion call to Black men that there are a plethora of Black children in general and Black boys in CONTINUE READING: 21 REASONS WHY BLACK MEN SHOULD CONSIDER TEACHING - Philly's 7th Ward

How the US stole thousands of Native American children - Vox

How the US stole thousands of Native American children - Vox

How the US stole thousands of Native American children
The long and brutal history of the US trying to “kill the Indian and save the man.”

For decades, the US took thousands of Native American children and enrolled them in off-reservation boarding schools. Students were systematically stripped of their languages, customs, and culture. And even though there were accounts of neglect, abuse, and death at these schools, they became a blueprint for how the US government could forcibly assimilate native people into white America.

At the peak of this era, there were more than 350 government-funded, and often church-run, Native American boarding schools across the US.

A rough map of 357 Native American boarding schools.

 Alvin Chang/Ranjani Chakraborty

The schools weren’t just a tool for cultural genocide. They were also a way to separate native children from their land. During the same era in which thousands of children were sent away, the US encroached on tribal lands through war, broken treaties, and new policies.

Native land loss from 1776 to 1930.

 Ranjani Chakraborty

As years of indigenous activism led the US to begin phasing out the schools, the government found a new way to assimilate Native American children: adoption. Native children were CONTINUE READING: How the US stole thousands of Native American children - Vox

Hall Pass | radical eyes for equity

Hall Pass | radical eyes for equity

Hall Pass

I noticed I had been tagged by a former high school student on Facebook a few days ago. “While looking for pictures of my Daddy in some old memory and picture boxes that I forgot existed,” she began, “I came across this WHS [Woodruff High School] artifact that became the deciding factor on whether or not I was punished with demerits for a week out of every month.”*

She posted these pictures of the artifacts, hall passes from my class:

The high school where I taught English for 18 years was the same high school I had attended. By the time I was reaching the end of my time there, the school had morphed into an extremely authoritarian environment—demerits issued to students for being late to class, simply going to the restroom during class (for any reason), eating in class or chewing gum, and the usual assortment of what most people would deem disciplinary issues such as fighting or causing a disturbance during class (“holding court” and talking back being the major offenses).

These strict rules meant some students found themselves issued in-school suspension (ISS) for nothing more than very minor infractions, such as CONTINUE READING: Hall Pass | radical eyes for equity

Let the Children Play | Live Long and Prosper

Let the Children Play | Live Long and Prosper

Let the Children Play

Pasi Sahlberg came to the U.S. as a visiting professor at Harvard to help American educators learn how the Finnish school system became the world’s best. William Doyle won a Fulbright scholarship to move to Finland to study the Finnish system. Let the Children Play: How more play will save our schools and help children thrive is the result of the collaboration they formed.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY

Let the Children Play begins with a discussion of the research into play and its benefit for children. Groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Centers for Disease Control agree that play and physical activity are of critical importance to growing children, and are beneficial to their academics, and future skills.

Despite the science, however, play is disappearing from school due to so-called “education reform.”

Despite this strong medical and scientific consensus that play is a foundation of children’s lives and education, play is an increasingly endangered experience for many of the world’s children.

Why is play dying in our schools? There are many social and cultural factors, and one major political reason is “GERM,” or the “Global Education Reform Movement,” a term that co-author Pasi Sahlberg has coined to describe an intellectual school reform paradigm that places academic performance as measured by standardized tests before children’s engagement, well-being, and play in schools.

The authors discuss and analyze Finnish schools. What makes them so successful? How can we learn from them? How have they used play to help their CONTINUE READING: Let the Children Play | Live Long and Prosper

Indigenous peoples day and how the Italians became white. – Fred Klonsky

Indigenous peoples day and how the Italians became white. – Fred Klonsky

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY AND HOW THE ITALIANS BECAME WHITE

The good news is that Columbus Day will not be celebrated this year in at least six states and 130 cities and towns in the U.S.

It is now being replaced with the recognition of the history of indigenous people and, to a lesser degree, the horrors and brutality of the European invasion of the Americas.

There will be an old fashion Columbus Day parade down Chicago’s State Street this morning.

Too bad.

The first Indigenous People’s Day parade was in Berkeley, California almost 30 years ago.

Chicago and Illinois should follow the lead of the other states and cities and dump Columbus Day.

If Alabama can celebrate today as Native American Day, Illinois should be able to manage it.

Although Alabama splits it in two and also celebrates today as Columbus Day.

Two Alabamas.

Did you know that the Confederacy had three capital cities at varying points: Montgomery, Alabama; Richmond, Virginia; and Danville, Virginia. But thanks to the CONTINUE READING: Indigenous peoples day and how the Italians became white. – Fred Klonsky

State Punches Youngstown with New HB 70 Assault on Local Control of Public Schools | janresseger

State Punches Youngstown with New HB 70 Assault on Local Control of Public Schools | janresseger

State Punches Youngstown with New HB 70 Assault on Local Control of Public Schools

Officials from the Ohio Department of Education have begun replacing the locally elected school board in Youngstown with a mayoral appointed school board.

This week we learned about one more extension of autocratic state power backloaded in 2015 into the HB 70’s school district takeover of Youngstown. Because at the end of four years of state takeover, the Youngstown school district earned another “F” on the state report card, the state is now imposing a previously unknown provision of the 2015, HB 70, which established state takeover in the first place.

The replacement of the elected school board in Youngstown with a state-approved, mayoral-appointed school board is designed to punish Youngstown for not raising its grade to “C” during four years of state takeover. What is particularly shocking about the new development is that the locally elected school board has had no role to play in the operation of Youngstown’s schools since the time of the state takeover in 2015. The state has been running the district through a state appointed Academic Distress Commission which appointed a CEO to lead the school district.

Krish Mohip, the state-appointed CEO whose term ended on July 31, was never happy in his position, and last spring, several months prior to the end of his term, Mohip took family medical leave. At the time The Youngstown Vindicator‘s Amanda Tonoli reported that Mohip explained: “I’m going to take care of some issues that have accumulated at home, and I’m going to focus my attention there… I don’t see my absence as being a hindrance to all the great work that’s happened and will continue to happen over the next few years.” Mohip left, but he did not resign.  Instead he collected the rest of his $170,000 salary.  Tonoli added: “A longevity provision in Mohip’s contract allows him a $10,000 payout if he completes his full contract.”

Nobody was sorry to see Mohip go. The chair of the Academic Distress Commission explained: “We have to uphold what the contract says… We are following the law and following the CONTINUE READING: State Punches Youngstown with New HB 70 Assault on Local Control of Public Schools | janresseger

Louisiana Educator: LABI and out-of-state donors still dominate BESE

Louisiana Educator: LABI and out-of-state donors still dominate BESE

LABI and out-of-state donors still dominate BESE

It is so painful to me personally to review or recount the results of the BESE election this past weekend that I am grateful to Mercedes Schneider for having done an excellent job of telling the continuing sad story of the LABI victory over education. I urge all of my readers to take the time to read Schnieder's post.

I want to express my sincere appreciation to the excellent and independent candidates who did their very best to present themselves to the public as good alternatives to the insanity that has controlled and will continue to control education in Louisiana. Unfortunately they could not compete with the effect of big money on an election that most voters know little about. Most of the voters in our state continue to assume credibility for those candidates who spend enough to get their signs and ads out in the media. Most people do not take the time to read facebook posts from candidates who do not enjoy funding by the real decision makers in this state.

For my part, I will continue to monitor and report the actions of BESE as well as the legislature for as long is I am able to do so. I am very hopeful that at some time in the not-too-distant future we can restore the creativity of teachers and make effective attempts to better prepare our students for life using our K-12 public education system.

Louisiana Educator: LABI and out-of-state donors still dominate BESE