History

tempo_n_groove

what dreams said:

It will be portrayed as the period in time where Americans completely lost their minds over Twitter arguments that have very little resemblance to the actual world people live in.

You seriously underestimate the way tech ed companies have reshaped American education. I could argue all day -- but won't because I've got papers to grade -- that the crisis isn't what people think it is. There is in fact a crisis in education. I won't deny that. It's true there are some marginal nutters pushing their culture war into schools. But that's not why our graduates are dumber than they have ever been. We are where we are because the whole standards based movement -- pushed by the tech companies who make BILLIONS in profits -- has narrowed the curriculum to a mind numbing set of "skills" that involve nothing more than regurgitation. The education consultant industry that has grown up around the testing industry has reduced teaching to a scripted performance of: diagnose (with an electronic test), teach (everything in a group where nobody has to do any work on their own), test again (to see if they got it), reteach (if they didn't), -- rinse, repeat. Kids get 50% for literally doing NOTHING because an actual zero, the truth, will hurt their poor little feelings and make them so demoralized they'll stop trying; they can turn in anything whenever they feel like it for full credit, nobody assigns actual reading or writing anymore -- when it's not a multiple choice test on a laptop, or a Kahoot on their phone, it's all coloring diagrams and cutting out and gluing vocabulary into an "interactive notebook."

I could go on and on about how utterly, horrificly terrible the system has become, and not a word about any of this reality on Twitter. It's all Texas and CRT and bathrooms that may or may not be happening in a small number of schools. In just about every school in America, though, the reality is that Big Tech has taken over, and the "accountability movement" has driven the expectations lower and lower every year because it's easy to look good when you don't ask for much. I will go so far as to say that all the crap that is now being done in the name of "equity" has absolutely nothing to do with equity at all. I've seen more Hispanic and African American teachers than white ones leave the profession because of non-existent discipline in the schools. You gotta stop the "school to prison" pipeline, you know, because "equity." One recent principal at an almost 100% Hispanic school relaxed the dress code so girls can walk around in their bras and said out loud because "It's their culture." A Latina teacher said, "Um, no, it's not." She quit before the year was out. If you disagree and talk about what's really happening, you get called a racist or end up on TikTok and have your career wrecked. I had to endure a white privilege lecture in the same principal's office for telling an African American student to quit calling a classmate an "f-ing n-word" during the middle of a silent reading session. It's their culture, you know. I put my hand up, said stop, and also resigned. I'm in a better place this year -- still woke as hell around here, but people leave me alone and let me teach. I had my first evaluation last week and was told "It’s been a long time since I've seen a good old-fashioned reading lesson" and it was a compliment, not a smack down, for making kids read out loud, take notes with a pen and paper, and actually discuss the ideas on the page and think about hard questions.

The vast majority of teachers just make sure they say the words right and nod their heads yes, just to survive. I'm about to vote for Republicans at the state level for the first time in my voting life because I can't stand this shit anymore. I did not vote for Glenn Youngkin for governor but he is 100% correct in pointing out the joke that our education system has become. If he were able to run again, I would have no problem bubbling in for him. (Plus, he just sent me a $250 check because of the abundance of Covid money they can't even find ways to spend out of the treasury . . . )

So history? This will be the era that America collapsed because they got distracted by the wrong things. Texas, for example. Who cares about Texas, if you don't actually live there, it doesn't freaking matter what they do!

Now I really gotta get back to work....

Bravo!

I talk w my GF about teaching everyday and how kids don't give a shit.  I applaud the few parents that reach out to her and it's not many.  The parents have thrown up their hands for the most part too and school is just a babysitter for them while they work...