Open letter to all teachers (esp history teachers)

[tombldr]

Moses: I've meant to ask you for some time, you involved in education? I'm guessing because of the quantity of education stories you post. I'm childless so tend not to get to emersed in education issues. I'm also the product of catholic grammar school and public HS and College around the Bay Area. So I don't have a horse in that race other than having to live in the societal/cultural outcomes of the institutionalized education. As I've fallen increasingly down the CT rabit hole the past year or two, I do come across quite a bit of chatter about the elite's secret agenda, for decades at least, to "dumb us down", with the intent to make us good corporate cogs and easier to rule, with less of the "critical thinking" nuisance gumming up the machinery. And on the physical level they're pumping the willing up with prozac and MSG and ridalin. Anywho thought you might enjoy these:

MP3 radio program, description at the site:

"Jennifer Washburn: University, INC.- The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education"
www.suesupriano.com/article.php?&id=64

And then this article at the superb "real news" site, onlinejournal.com.

Open letter to all teachers (history teachers especially)

By Bob Risse
Online Journal Contributing Writer

June 11, 2005—What is your reason for being?

Is it to promote your worldview? If so, do you have the experience to pull this off in the face of conflicting ideas? If not, then this is not a good place to experiment, unless you are willing to argue other worldviews.

Is it to propagate an idea of a just society? If your idea of a just society excludes anyone then, again, you need to rethink your intentions.

Is it to guide and further the budding intellect of a singular mind? I would commend you indeed for one mind saved equals one that is not lost. However, in our positions (as teachers of the whole rather than teachers of the parts) this goal is impractical in the long run just because of the numbers involved. Moreover, don't give up on the individual; just remember you have an obligation to the whole.

Is it to keep your head down and gain the tenure you crave? You are indeed in the wrong profession and it is because of your kind that education in this country is replete with mediocrity and even debasement.

Or, is it because of your passion for youth and the ability within yourself to place them and their learning above all else no matter what the situation? To you I cry, "so be it."

These are only a few of the questions we must ask ourselves in these troubling (interesting) times. What are we? Are we the dumbstruck propagandists that uphold state theory (and historical revisionism) without question or remorse? We, my friends, are the last line of defense against the overwhelming dumbing-down of our civilization. We are the cornerstone of our future. We have chosen to use our lives for one purpose; education of our young. I have seen the educational system inundated with those who truly despise children and who feel they should be put under the thumb of authority before any learning can continue. This is wrong thinking. Discipline in action is not necessarily reliant upon discipline in thought. The heavy hand of authority is a wall to the undisciplined mind. Energy wasted to combat authority eats up the spirit; authority seldom loses. "I fought the law and the law won." When the spirit is lost, so is the passion.

Every three or four years some bureaucrat somewhere decides that the focus of education must change in order to be "more" effective. Who are these ivory tower nutjobs? I can speak for a lot of teachers here when I say, "enough of this bullnuts, already." We don't need more studies, we need more support. Most of us know what we have to do without your interference. We have managed to survive despite this intellectual constipation and waste of time and of course, money. However, as above mentioned, our ranks are becoming thinned out by automatons in lockstep with a paradigm I am unable to fathom from a creative level. I see it realistically as an attempt to turn our young into the very automatons that they represent. This saddens me, but strengthens my resolve. I am not afraid of truth.

So, what can we do? Do we not realize that we are the most powerful voting bloc in this country? Our unions could be the answer if they would choose to represent all of us, but unfortunately that is not the case. We are the answer. We are not like the air traffic controllers of the Reagan years (they were naive when it came to their respective power and, unfortunately, not aware of the disdain for ordinary working people that Reaganomics entailed.) We have the numbers to stop this crap in its place. The problem lies within ourselves and what our reason for being is. If it is selfishness born of a desire for money and security, we have lost because of the mediocrity inherent in such a desire. If it is the growth and inspiration we desire in our students at personal cost to ourselves, then we are on our way to a point where we have the power, not the bureaucrats. I know this may seem hard to understand and believe me I have not thought this out completely, but I know in my heart and my mind that this is attainable.

Help me sort through this mess and we can achieve that which we hope will be a better nation and world. My only worry is that we have been so inundated by the pod people (authoritarian whack jobs) that we will never know the fruits (let alone the seeds and sprouts) of true education. Then, my friends, we have lost before we have begun.

Bob Risse is a history teacher.

[Moses]

No I am not in education but public education is a major means of subjugating US citizens by the neocons, who regard us as a mere colony. As Scott Ritter said, the US is simply their host. Speaking of History, you can get some parallels by looking at how the British regarded Public Education in Ireland. None of the political factions or religious factions were interested in provision of education for the Irish (Catholics) but the Church was interested in patronage, and thus wanted to be part of the public education system (the current voucher movement being an alliance between the Catholic Church and the "free market" theorists, who are essentially foreign reactionaries) and the British "liberals" wanted to kill off Irish identity and nationalism.

Our policy-makers do not respect the citizens, the families, or have an interest in provision of education to them. The testing regime that is being imposed is not only a means of subjugating US citizens to the models of the neocons, they openly regard and promote their testing regime as a means of training workers to fit with their economic models, and to stamp out diversity in terms of talent and outlook.

Everyone should take an interest in public education. One of the ways the educrats keep people from participating is to have created an entirely different language of education that causes people's eyes to glaze over. Ignore their patter and look at it in human terms because they succeed in this imposition of tyranny in an arena where a large proportion of American families are forced to be subjugated.

One of the things they are doing is closing gaps in their government database by insisting on databases for those who are in public education, and now, all those who go on to secondary education, and they plan, using their testing regime and the need to track drop out rates -- to insist that all parents register their children and keep the government updated on their whereabouts.

And yes, there is very little talent left in the ranks of history teachers because no one with a brain can stand to "teach" under these circumstances.

I think that the neocons in both parties want to reduce the labor costs (another reason for vouchers-- priests and nuns work for free) and are forcing rote curriculae and lesson plans throughout the system, so that they can McDonaldize the public schools and the personnel.

Think of public education as a kind of concentration camp, in which your fellow citizens are interred, and their children are being made miserable and twisted and whose brains are very literally being rewired/miswired. Prominent neuro-doctors have stated that they are actually mis-wiring childrens brains by way of their inappropriate teaching/testing methodologies and the really sick psychological environment that they are imposing.