Ok, I've kept a bunch of my political views under my hat for the most part so far, but when education came up in tonight's debate, my entire head exploded. The fact that he thinks that you can't throw money at a problem and help solve it when it comes to education makes him so out of touch with reality that I want to chuck him out a window. Obviously he has never gone to a school where there are 30 books for History class, which have to be shared among 120 students throughout the day. He's never been in a school where there aren't enough teachers to adequately teach students due to funding cuts, so they chuck 40 kids into a classroom and grades suffer. He has never tried to teach in a school, or heard that you have to provide special education for every student who needs it but you get no additional funding to do it. He repeatedly said that they need to stop trying to throw money at a problem. The problem is the lack of money fucktard! He then started praising the voucher system, which means that you can choose what school your kid goes to and there's a voucher system to fund that. The problem is that you have people fleeing schools instead of fixing the problem.
And then his argument that we should create a "troops to teachers" program that allows people who have served in the military go straight into the classroom without having to take classes to be certified as a teacher. Are you fucking kidding me right now? No offense to the many great people who have served in the military, but in case John hasn't been paying attention, the vast majority of those people have barely graduated high school, if they graduated at all, and we're going to put them in a classroom and assume that because they were trained to follow military procedures and to perform a defensive skill they are now qualified to teach children? You have to be out of your batshit crazy old mind. I am so angry I could spit fire right now. I have to go through 5 years of school to be able to teach someone's children. I have to study child development, different ways of learning, classroom management, writing curriculums, ways to assess students fairly and how to create an environment that produces thinking, productive, conscientious young adults. You don't learn those things through military service. You learn those through study, practice, and understanding. Just because you can shoot a gun does not mean you can teach a child. They're two very different things. Military teachers produce students who can do little more than follow procedures, and life is about much more than just following directions. So what makes these people qualified to teach?
Obviously John doesn't know anything about education in America these days, which is understandable since he was probably educated in a one room schoolhouse, and while slates and chalk are cheap, computers and projectors cost money. Fuck him.
5 comments:
And yet we can throw ten times as much money into correctional facilities!
I find that ironic, since it's been proven that education helps to prevent people from becoming criminals in the first place, and education has proven to be one of the best forms of rehabilitation of someone who has committed a crime. But, we would rather pour our money into locking them up than educating them.
Money isn't the enitre problem, but clearly when you have 30 books for 120 kids, in the case the problem is money. I've seen that first hand, I've been to observe in a school in downtown Detroit. Those situations are money. The other problem is parents. It's not some strange coincidence that involved parents have higher achieving kids... If you want better results you need to get involved in your community, and parents need to get invested in their children. You can't just send the kids to school and expect that to be the extent of your involvement. You've got to get involved too. Some people are real ass hats.
And the whole Troops to Teachers thing is utter bullshit. You're right, that just creates students who can follow directions, we need people who can think, not simply follow the rules. If I were on the fence, that single issue would have pushed me off the fence and well into the Obama camp...
Jason is right. . .a lot of it boils down to parent involvement and the importance they place on education. In a school of nearly 800 students we have 6 parents show up for PTO meetings. Sad very sad!!! And I could excuse that if they would help in the classrooms, but they don't. I could go on and on. Money is needed, yes, but parents need to get off their asses!!
Well that would leave more money to bail out Corporate frauds and their croanies- good to know his priorities.
It's the American way...
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