On the February 19 show, Mike Malloy sympathized with a school teacher who had to teach about democracy as ours falls apart. He then generally sympathized with us overall for the way we are underappreciated and for the fact that we have to try to teach ideals we can't often live.
Of course, he's very right.
So why isn't education talked about more often on liberal talk radio. Now, on this very same day Randi Rhodes did note that "No Child Left Behind" requires sending male students' grades to the pentagon, and I first learned about the pentagon's involvement in NCLB from "the most dangerous [Canadian] liberal in America" Jon Elliot. I'm not saying some folks are not doing their parts.
Teachers aren't news, however -- let's just admit it. If we all went on strike....well, people would have to call babysitters, or something. It's not like GARBAGE would be left on the street. Heck, the kids cut school more often than not anyway. Why not just put them in jail and get it over with?
I know. Katrina. 9-11. Cancer. AIDS. Darfur. Iraq. Poverty. Homelessness. Homeless cats and dogs.
Not necessarily in that order.
We live in the only country in the world that doesn't care about education and which could afford to do so. Every day, millions of children go without educations. Oh yeah, some of them go without lunch, too. One of my students had a Heineken for breakfast because that was what was in the refrigerator.
There are 9-11 accountability conferences. There are even conferences for parents of kids with selective mutism -- an anxiety disorder which makes kids afraid to speak in class. Anybody think some of these kids are afraid to speak because...well, because of the state of their schools?
Well, I'm fairly disollusioned. Soon you can count me among the millions -- the disaffected.
2 comments:
I think the not caring about schools is just a natural extension of the American tendency towards anti-intellectualism. You know, the same kind of thinking that is delighted to know that the President doesn't know or understand complicated concepts and words.
That's absolutely true. We only built public schools to keep poor kids off the streets -- they were stealing, causing fires, etc.
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