NationStates Jolt Archive

Now that republicans control all branches of government, dominate almost all media outlets and have the support of big business and most influential churches they've taken to saying that the country is still under dire threat from liberals who dominate such vital strategic institutions as colleges, the internet and... well they're still saying that liberals control the media, but I don't know who the hell can believe that. Or the one about the internet for that matter.

Personally I'm more concerned about this (http://zerointelligence.net/) kind of political extremism on the part of teachers. It hasn't hit college professors yet, but I'm likely to be a school teacher by the end of the year and I really hope I don't end up working for such an idiot.

Does anyone else have an opinion about how politics is creeping over the education environment in this country?

Does anyone else have an opinion about how politics is creeping over the education environment in this country?
Well, it was one of the things that messed up most of my schooling for me, so yes I have an opinion.

Here is my opinion:
GAAAH NOO MAKE IT STOP PLEEEASE, PLEASE MAKE IT STOP I'M BEGGING YOU JUST MAKE IT STOP...

Public schools are crazy these days. They want robots for teachers, not human beings who can help their students grow.

Meanwhile, they want students to be sedated and completely PC-brainwashed.

Who're "they?" The public and those in charge.

Public schools are crazy these days. They want robots for teachers, not human beings who can help their students grow.

Don't forget that they expect us to be stuck at Pitt Greensburg...

How is the rubber-band thing political again? I read about that this morning.. seemed like the same old stuff we did in gradeschool...

Anyhow, we'll stop sticking it to liberals as soon as we've got 60 senators. ;) That should just about do.

Of course, the handicappers only have us picking up 2 senate seats in '06, so if you add Cheney presiding, that's only 58.. so either we outdo expectations or we get a good deal more bickering until '08..

after reading that, i couldn't help but wonder what's next--pens/pencils can be used to stab someone and a textbook could be used as a bludgeon! before we know it high school students will learn via the internet at home a la the wisconsin public education system.

I'm glad high school was a long time ago. These days I'd be in deep shit.

Ok, I knew there were civil liberty problems in the US and that the schools there were 'problematic, but after visiting the link supplied....er, well I guess I'm speechless.

I cant believe that Americans are willing to put up with this crap. There appears to be some notion that every 'not too nice' contingency can be prepared for by having millions of rules that in practise are a very poor joke. Why are citizens of the US putting up with this? I think they and their children deserve better. Frankly it's ominous. What kind of society is the US going to be once those indoctrinated into accepting this kind of nonsense as 'normal' (as opposed to absurd) make up the majority of 'main stream' adults, and just who are these nutters that making these ludicrous decisions?

Mmm, I guess I did have something to say after all, I'm only nearly speechless... :rolleyes:

Now that republicans... ...dominate almost all media outlets

I hate to crash your aluminum foil hat convention but you'll be hard pressed to defend this accusation, Mr. Liberal Extremist. For every media outlet that sings praise to President Bush I'll give you five that say President Bush has no 'exit strategy', even when there's other news to report on.

Also, the Republicans don't exactly dominate Congress. They might have a majority in both houses but there's still a lot of Democrats in there. There's enough in there that they, along with Republicans that might disagree with their party on any given issue, can block just about any legislation that they feel inclined to.

Personally I'm more concerned about this kind of political extremism on the part of teachers.

That's not political extremism, that's being suspended for tossing a rubber band on to a teacher's desk. It's stupid, but it's not politics.

Does anyone else have an opinion about how politics is creeping over the education environment in this country?

Politics as in 'informing students of what's going on in the world around them and encouraging discussion of those events', or politics as in 'George Bush is evil and a lair and needs to be brought before the world court because I said so now do your homework'? The former I am for. The less disaffected children this country has, the better. I don't care what their opinions are as long as they have one (aside from thinking that anarchy is real neat, which must be condemned). The latter is uncalled for because it doesn't allow discussion. If a teacher were first to give the facts as they were best able to and then tell the class that they thought that George Bush was a liar and evil it might be acceptable, as long as the teacher allowed dissenting opinions. This would be stating an opinion, and eveyone should be allowed to share an opinion in a classroom setting. The only problem I can see with this is students assuming that the teacher is pretty smart and knows what they're talking about and as a result blindly adopts their opinion. This is bad. Unfortunatly it wouldn't be any different then what just about every presidential candidate has done in the history of this country.

Ugh, this felt more like a stream of consciousness exercise then giving an opinion. I hope it makes sense.

It's things like this that make me glad to live in Australia. That is just plain ridiculous.

Ok, I knew there were civil liberty problems in the US and that the schools there were 'problematic, but after visiting the link supplied....er, well I guess I'm speechless.

I cant believe that Americans are willing to put up with this crap. There appears to be some notion that every 'not too nice' contingency can be prepared for by having millions of rules that in practise are a very poor joke. Why are citizens of the US putting up with this? I think they and their children deserve better. Frankly it's ominous. What kind of society is the US going to be once those indoctrinated into accepting this kind of nonsense as 'normal' (as opposed to absurd) make up the majority of 'main stream' adults, and just who are these nutters that making these ludicrous decisions?

Mmm, I guess I did have something to say after all, I'm only nearly speechless... :rolleyes:

i think it all started with a glut of lawyers who decided to start sueing for any frivilous reason so they could get rich off the judgement (e.g. mcdonald's cofee being served too hot). people continually see ridiculous judgements handed down from these judges and there is nothing we can do about it. everyone is so damned concerned about being PC these days, you can lose your job over saying something wrong. i think people just shrug their shoulders, know its ludicrous, realize there is little/nothing they can do, and move on (being sure to leave their rubber bands at home when they leave in the morning). just my $.02

My bf's going to be a teacher and he's worried about being sacked because he's a communist. :p

But seriously, it seems, at least here, that all everyone wants is for kids to walk out with a nice number at the end of school, and be able to regurgitate the syllabus. They don't want critical thinkers or anything like that. Teachers are reduced to just working through "dot-points" with students rather than actually imparting wisdom.
Thankfully I had teachers who were't all like that. They "wasted time" by diverting from the syllabus, like the maths teacher who used interest rates to teach us how to save money on mortgages, the chemistry teacher who made a homemade flamethrower and made a gherkin glow and the history teacher who got us talking about things completely unrelated to the syllabus.

My bf's going to be a teacher and he's worried about being sacked because he's a communist. :p

But seriously, it seems, at least here, that all everyone wants is for kids to walk out with a nice number at the end of school, and be able to regurgitate the syllabus. They don't want critical thinkers or anything like that. Teachers are reduced to just working through "dot-points" with students rather than actually imparting wisdom.
Thankfully I had teachers who were't all like that. They "wasted time" by diverting from the syllabus, like the maths teacher who used interest rates to teach us how to save money on mortgages, the chemistry teacher who made a homemade flamethrower and made a gherkin glow and the history teacher who got us talking about things completely unrelated to the syllabus.

Tenure is the word here...as long as he is not conservative...

As for your good old days, I agree whole-heartedly...teachers should ennact discipline and wisdom on students, unfortunately the definitions of both words are lost today. Wisdom means spread the liberal doctrine and discipline means whatever you saw here on zero intelligence.

Ah the good old days...if only you put all these kids into the 50's. Imagine a gangsta with pants down to his crotch, a comb in his hair, a foul mouth, drug tendencies and huge attitude. Now imagine him being smacked upside the head, cleaned up and made into a normal human being.

These "good old days" were actually a couple of years ago. I just had good teachers.

And on politics. I remember hearing that Liberal politics (And by that I mean economically liberal, socially conservative- i.e. the Liberal Party) wanted to remove politics from life, and politics from politics. That, I suppose manifests itself in the education system. Maybe. Just a theory here.

i think it all started with a glut of lawyers who decided to start sueing for any frivilous reason so they could get rich off the judgement (e.g. mcdonald's cofee being served too hot). people continually see ridiculous judgements handed down from these judges and there is nothing we can do about it. everyone is so damned concerned about being PC these days, you can lose your job over saying something wrong. i think people just shrug their shoulders, know its ludicrous, realize there is little/nothing they can do, and move on (being sure to leave their rubber bands at home when they leave in the morning). just my $.02
The McDonalds lawsuite is one that has been strongly misrepresented. If suing when someone hasnt taken reasonable steps to ensure that their product which they knew could cause severe damage to the interests of another, does cause such (easily predicted damage) is frivilous, then it is the law and not those suing that is at fault.
It's a bit much to blame lawyers when people who are taxpayers and voters, just shrug their shoulders ("hey it's not me, so big deal..., surely this will either never happen to me, or if it does people will care and kick up a fuss on my behalf, although certainly I have no intention of doing so for others....").

I see it as being more a symptom of 'control freakism'. You cant control life, you cant remove every danger before it occurs, living entails risks, and the absolute certainty that one day you will die. I agree with reasonable steps taken to protect people, but what appears to be happening is an unreasoned attempt to remove the possibility of risk, not just of physical injury, but even the risk of being offended....really why cant we get rid of common sense in favour of good sense, sooner rather than later?

i think it all started with a glut of lawyers who decided to start sueing for any frivilous reason so they could get rich off the judgement (e.g. mcdonald's cofee being served too hot). people continually see ridiculous judgements handed down from these judges and there is nothing we can do about it. everyone is so damned concerned about being PC these days, you can lose your job over saying something wrong. i think people just shrug their shoulders, know its ludicrous, realize there is little/nothing they can do, and move on (being sure to leave their rubber bands at home when they leave in the morning). just my $.02

I'm gonna jump on this one - in terms of the McDonald's coffee case being "frivilous"...

I'll post a link because I don't want to clutter up the thread with text, I'm hoping anyone who thinks that the McDonald's coffee case was an example of stupid law suits PLEASE read. You don't have to agree, just get the full story.

Tort reform (http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp)

McDonald's Coffee Too Hot (http://www.atlanet.org/ConsumerMediaResources/Tier3/press_room/FACTS/frivolous/McdonaldsCoffeecase.aspx)

Now that republicans control all branches of government, dominate almost all media outlets and have the support of big business and most influential churches they've taken to saying that the country is still under dire threat from liberals who dominate such vital strategic institutions as colleges, the internet and... well they're still saying that liberals control the media, but I don't know who the hell can believe that. Or the one about the internet for that matter.

Personally I'm more concerned about this (http://zerointelligence.net/) kind of political extremism on the part of teachers. It hasn't hit college professors yet, but I'm likely to be a school teacher by the end of the year and I really hope I don't end up working for such an idiot.

Does anyone else have an opinion about how politics is creeping over the education environment in this country?

Well, as kids don't have money to lobby Congress or state legislatures, and they can't vote, teh politicians will never care about them (except maybe the occasional photo-op). :(

Tort reform is a ruse. To suport tort reform is to support the only legal recourse consumers have against the multi-billionaire corporations that dominate the economy. Don't be fooled.

I hate to crash your aluminum foil hat convention but you'll be hard pressed to defend this accusation, Mr. Liberal Extremist. For every media outlet that sings praise to President Bush I'll give you five that say President Bush has no 'exit strategy', even when there's other news to report on.

I'd like to hear about them, but if you're going to tell me that some pirate radio station in the middle of nowhere counts as one to my major TV network then I'm not sure I trust your math. I have yet to hear a network news show point out that Bush's plan to save social security will cause every problem that he says he wants to prevent and will bring it about as soon as his plan is implemented, just to pick a prominent current example.

Also, the Republicans don't exactly dominate Congress. They might have a majority in both houses but there's still a lot of Democrats in there. There's enough in there that they, along with Republicans that might disagree with their party on any given issue, can block just about any legislation that they feel inclined to.

I don't know if you ever listen to C-span but it's pretty clear that there isn't much that the Democrats can do these days. And when they say so it's usually a dialogue along the lines of democrats pointing out several underhanded strategies that republicans have been using and the republicans saying something along the lines of nyah nyah ny-nyah nyah. And you haven't exactly knocked down my point by arguing "they don't have a 3 out of 3 stranglehold on government it's only 2.67 out of 3.

That's not political extremism, that's being suspended for tossing a rubber band on to a teacher's desk. It's stupid, but it's not politics.

Well when you're about to make it your profession it looks a lot more political since schoolboards and local politicians run schools and the administrators follow these stupid rules in anticipation of their wishes.



Politics as in 'informing students of what's going on in the world around them and encouraging discussion of those events', or politics as in 'George Bush is evil and a lair and needs to be brought before the world court because I said so now do your homework'?

Neither. I'm not talking about political education, I'm talking about the effect of the political process on education.

At the state and federal level that would include things like liberals wanting there to be one black historical figure for every white figure and conservatives wanting history books to say things like "the gilded age was a period of great prosperity where everyone knew the value of hard work and got paid handsomly for it, and then unions ruined everything."

At the local level it includes people declaring keychains and rubber bands to be weapons in the name of gun control and pictures that declare "I'm bored to death" to be terrorism or suicide threats.