Every teacher I know says the problem with their classes is not enough resources, too much focus on teaching to tests, and too many students per class.
And I heard Obama on the radio today talking about his Race to the Top plan, where schools compete to show their compliance with standards to get money from the federal government. Obama said we need accountability from teachers. His plan amounts to a test, with a list of requirements and a total score possible for each item. Making education funding a priority gets ten points at the most, sufficiently focusing on private and charter schools is worth forty points. There's all kinds of crap to get scored on. This is what they call stimulating improvement, about four billion dollars to stimulate education by top down standards.
We do want accountability. We need it from our spouses, our police officers, our employers, our employees, our landlords, and our neighbors.
And with accountability there is one who does the accounting, and that which is accounted for.
Race to the Top, aside from bringing to mind the undignified scramble to a single, coveted position, by desperate and grasping teachers, also brings to mind the pyramidal, top down nature of our school system, which is precisely what's jacking it up.
Back in good old Red China, I was able to give my students a competitive edge in learning English by working equally with the parent and education administrators. Everyone had slightly divergent interests, but we all had a common goal, getting these children to speak the best English possible.
This is what I focused on. I had seen other teachers always blaming the students, or the culture, or anyone else beside themselves. And I knew that I couldn't do this. I also knew that the people hiring me didn't know how to get Chinese students speaking fluently, since this was the biggest problem in English education at the time, and still is.
So rather than looking for people to blame, I took responsibility for my own students' success. They were not responsible for their success, for they had not chosen to be there, and had no choice in how they spent most of their time. The parents were not responsible, because their English levels were inferior to my own. The school administrators were interested in general parent and student satisfaction.
But, in order to help my students, I also had to be free to change what I needed to change and learn what I needed to learn.
I would have had a much more painful time of things if I had been teaching in an American public school. The teachers I work with now are hindered by paperwork, overloaded with students who blend into a vague crowd control issue, and isolated form the people making the decisions on how their classrooms are run. When new research catches the administration's or principal's interest, new rules get laid down over the teachers.
Before stressing accountability for teachers, Obama also made kind remarks about our Nations teachers. But this appreciation didn't extend as far as granting more power to educators in determining educational policy. Instead, he's lumped teachers into a big pile called "schools", and said that if the "schools" fail, it's the teachers fault.
Thus, teachers will continue to suffer for things they can't control, and be blamed for it, not just by ignorant politicians and right wing blame-the-lowest-first windbags, but by the president himself.
The accounting Obama wants with his new policy is accounting for standardized tests, which themselves are unaccountable to teachers and students. What Obama wants is for bureaucrats to do the accounting, and these bureaucrats are unaccountable to the teachers and students. Teachers and students can make no demands on their superiors, the students cannot direct their own education, and the teachers cannot direct the educational policy they work under. Whatever methods currently claimed to allow such direction are invalidated by Obama's ignorant policy. If he had asked public schools teacher vote on it, or asked a wide spectrum, they would have said no way.
Obama of course, is quite educated, as was his mother. I doubt if his education is comparable to that of middle and lower middle class American children, herded in and out of underfunded classrooms, and ignored and dehumanized in favor of abstract standards developed by administrators who ignore and dehumanize teachers. And as for the input of parents, where I work, among preschool children, many parents are unable to speak much English and likely disadvantaged when it comes to shaping educational policy.
The pain and suffering, dreams and hopes, personalities and talents, of America's students and teachers, will continue to be ignored.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
NEXT DIMENSION EDITORIAL: Is the Radical Left's Attack on Lynching Rights Anti-American?
What you are not likely to hear from Carey Mcwilliams is an outcry against the murder of white men carried out by radical Mexican insurgents.
He spends an awful lot of time laying out a tale of infamy in which the starring villain role is played by none other than Anglo-Saxons. He refers to the God given plan of Anglo-Saxon domination of this continent as empire, but says nothing of the corrupt, excessively demotic Mexican radicals from whom we rescued these lands.
Would Mr. Mcwilliams (who writes for the radically Marxist The Nation) prefer that we had left the free white Americans who lawfully inhabited the lands west of Oklahoma at the mercy of the mestizo hordes?
Like many advocates of mob rule, negro emancipation, and every other sundry cause that hinders the free development of the American spirit, Mr. Mcwilliams regards lynching as a tool best kept out of the hands of White Christians.
And this is where the democratic hypocrisy of people like Mcwilliams reveals itself quite plainly: While appealing to populist, mob-rule rhetoric, he also seeks to disarm white folk of the one tool they have against crazed Mexicans and other unchristian races: Lynching.
Lynching is a process of communal justice, in keeping with the laws of our republic, and the spirit of law bequeathed to us by those great patricians that sloughed off the yolk of mad King George.
And now mob-rule supporters, like Michael Moore and Sean Penn, deny the right of self defense to white, free men, while supporting the anarchy of the Mexican race, whose incessant attacks on white settlers are second in vehemence only to those perpetrated by the red savage.
Is this charitable populism? Is this the demotic spirit that our republic needs?
And what is lynching? They will tell you it's racist, but, in fact, free white men are lynched too. And this is utterly flawed reasoning, since the greater likelihood of vice and evil is with those races who are in fact more often lynched.
Do not blame lynching of Mexican greasers, who have attacked and raped, on the white men who enact justice.
And the ultimate irony is that lovers of the mob like Mcwilliams are really after government intervention into the western territories. What they really want is for the Hamiltonians to have their day and the continent to be subdued by those distant powers of the capitol.
All across our Republic, northern libertines and other radicals are proposing the dissolution of our way of life. Negro emancipation to destroy the southern economy and right to property, women's suffrage to allow easily misguided women (who are perfectly happy as it is) the power to tyrannize their fathers and husbands, and now they want to take our right to execute justice in defense of our communities.
They want federal judges, controlled by the president and congress, to be sent out into the western territories to interfere with the liberty and free development of sovereign Americans.
We cannot let this stand. We cannot sit by, as our liberties are ripped from our hands, as the lesser sex and lesser races our given the whip over us.
We know what becomes of causes initiated in the name of lesser peoples: the tyranny of the French Revolution and the Bolsheviks.
If you, Americans, let them wrest the lynching rope from your hands, than you might as well give them the rest of your belongings, and your very life, for if they can take away the communal justice of lynching, than there is, truly, no stopping them.
He spends an awful lot of time laying out a tale of infamy in which the starring villain role is played by none other than Anglo-Saxons. He refers to the God given plan of Anglo-Saxon domination of this continent as empire, but says nothing of the corrupt, excessively demotic Mexican radicals from whom we rescued these lands.
Would Mr. Mcwilliams (who writes for the radically Marxist The Nation) prefer that we had left the free white Americans who lawfully inhabited the lands west of Oklahoma at the mercy of the mestizo hordes?
Like many advocates of mob rule, negro emancipation, and every other sundry cause that hinders the free development of the American spirit, Mr. Mcwilliams regards lynching as a tool best kept out of the hands of White Christians.
And this is where the democratic hypocrisy of people like Mcwilliams reveals itself quite plainly: While appealing to populist, mob-rule rhetoric, he also seeks to disarm white folk of the one tool they have against crazed Mexicans and other unchristian races: Lynching.
Lynching is a process of communal justice, in keeping with the laws of our republic, and the spirit of law bequeathed to us by those great patricians that sloughed off the yolk of mad King George.
And now mob-rule supporters, like Michael Moore and Sean Penn, deny the right of self defense to white, free men, while supporting the anarchy of the Mexican race, whose incessant attacks on white settlers are second in vehemence only to those perpetrated by the red savage.
Is this charitable populism? Is this the demotic spirit that our republic needs?
And what is lynching? They will tell you it's racist, but, in fact, free white men are lynched too. And this is utterly flawed reasoning, since the greater likelihood of vice and evil is with those races who are in fact more often lynched.
Do not blame lynching of Mexican greasers, who have attacked and raped, on the white men who enact justice.
And the ultimate irony is that lovers of the mob like Mcwilliams are really after government intervention into the western territories. What they really want is for the Hamiltonians to have their day and the continent to be subdued by those distant powers of the capitol.
All across our Republic, northern libertines and other radicals are proposing the dissolution of our way of life. Negro emancipation to destroy the southern economy and right to property, women's suffrage to allow easily misguided women (who are perfectly happy as it is) the power to tyrannize their fathers and husbands, and now they want to take our right to execute justice in defense of our communities.
They want federal judges, controlled by the president and congress, to be sent out into the western territories to interfere with the liberty and free development of sovereign Americans.
We cannot let this stand. We cannot sit by, as our liberties are ripped from our hands, as the lesser sex and lesser races our given the whip over us.
We know what becomes of causes initiated in the name of lesser peoples: the tyranny of the French Revolution and the Bolsheviks.
If you, Americans, let them wrest the lynching rope from your hands, than you might as well give them the rest of your belongings, and your very life, for if they can take away the communal justice of lynching, than there is, truly, no stopping them.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Fiction: Darrens Perilous Journey Page 586 I Feel Me Up
Even though this chick was some kind of fascist, and her face was kind of mannish, she was still a woman, and she was pretty thin. Plus, I hadn't been laid since I was like, well like a long time ago.
So I went at it, got all up on me, rubbing and kneading and poking. After a few minutes, I was naked and glistening, rolling all over the floor. My eyes were closed to the world, heedless of what might happen when I wasn't looking.
As in keeping with my heedlessness, induced by my misguided ecstatic indulgence, I was unawares of what the deal was as the crashing of the door shook me into opening my eyes to see what had made the sound.
Arthur stood there, with his sword out, straight pointing at me. He looked all mad, like he was all like "I'm a kill you!" I threw my hands from this borrowed body and was all "It's me, your liege, don't stab me!"
When I heard my voice, I realize that I totally sounded like a bitch! How would he know it was me? I had to rack my brains thinking about that.
I had to tell him things that he would know it was me. But then, all suddenly, he was clear about what the deal was. He had gotten the big picture. Seeing the note on the table next to him, he read and said "This fascist wench has taketh thy form and figure! Then you must be, indeed, my chosen hagriographer."
Oh what a relief. I got some tissues from that chicks purse, and wiped all the stuff off myself. Then, I said "Check it out, my bro. Here's what she was like putting out there about whats like happening and what not"
As Arthur listened, he looked really pissed. He took his sword and stabbed through the scientific-ish equipment all around the room, frenzying around in fury.
When all the stuff in the room was bashed beyond recognitions, he sheathed his sword in its holder, and wearily shook his head, from side to side. "Them that broughteth me thusly hath ever been struggling to desodomize my soul."
I felt so sorry, cause I had been all getting it twisted, in regards to the plot and like you know.
He forgave me and said "We must be off from here. At last, the time has come to begin your hagriophical mission, foretold in times past by men bold in rooms grand!"
Finally, I thought. But then I was all, Am I ready? I mean, I'm like, not really good at essays. But it was finally time to do the do, be I ready or not.
"Rand Coultier wants your body to take to the fair and wondrous, yet thoroughly corrupt with corporate gold, Freedom Peoples Congress of Common Folk, sequestered on the Zarcon planet, and now contesting the august issue of Gay Space Exploration."
Uh-oh, I thought. I wasn't a homophobe or nothing, but wasn't that gonna change the definition of Space Exploration, which was for straight people and aliens only?
But, then, I thought, maybe I've had enough of all this. My family taught me to stay out of politics. But then, on the other hand, I knew a lot about politics from games, like the massive multi-players they used to have when I was but a lad, whiling away the innocence of my childhood days, games like "Parley Mount", and "You Knighted States". I still had a cent a mental attachment to these games of yore.
Athur was looking at me, intensely, and that was freaky, cause he was like six feet four and all mythically buff looking. "And what lies still unbeknownst to those minted, gilded parishoners of that church whose sole edifice is the cross of corruption, is the persistence, the utter, dogged persistence of mine own heroism, ever recurrent amid the tremulation of history, to arise against the tide of injustice, in the name of the people, yearning in their huddled masses for that salvation which I bringeth unto them."
I felt the tears running down my cheeks. It was such a powerful message! And I looked down and - Oh no, I was still naked, I looked at this pale naked body and felt a little sickened, it was totally time to get back to my own body, although I liked the idea of being thinner, since a lot of chicks didn't like me cause of my little sum'in sum'in i had going on round my waist.
The only clothes I had to wear was the red dress she had left on her body before jacking mine. "Sir," I said, keeping my spitting it in appropriateness to his majesty. "Doth ye think that hereabouts might be sequestered garments and/or rainments befitting this ghastly form which I doth inhabit presently?"
He went out the room and briefly came back with a folded bundle of sweats and t-shirts. Thanks a million, I thought, now at least I can get a little comfy going on. I got dressed while he went and got me some socks and shoes, equally comfy.
Then I was all like, thinking how we gon' get out here if ain't got Merlyn to bust us out magical style?"
He winked at me, "The email hath already been loosed and replied to."
Just then, a burst of magic exploded beside me, while at the same time, the little jelly roll figure rolled up behind Arthur, with a gun, a 67-fenmeister zeppelin to be exact. "We tried to help you, you damn faggot."
But Merlyn instantly zapped him. Rushbo screamed, jiggling all over and flapping his hands around, as the drool continued to flow out of his mouth.
As he collapsed to the ground, he managed to be all like "The kids body is toast, I mean, like to the max! Rand Coultier is gonna chop his thing off if you guys try to interfere your homonazi crap on the space congress hearings."
Merlyn zapped him again, and he shut up. He was all "Me thinks thou has had too much of commotion for the nonce, be it suitable to my liege, I should want you to divert your attentions for the while."
Oh what? They gonna let me rest for awhile with all this stuff going on? We gotta get my body back, and I gotta get the hagriography written like quick like.
Page 23232 I go to rest, and feel up me again.
Page 42 I take a break and just chill
Page 5343 No, let's get out of here!
So I went at it, got all up on me, rubbing and kneading and poking. After a few minutes, I was naked and glistening, rolling all over the floor. My eyes were closed to the world, heedless of what might happen when I wasn't looking.
As in keeping with my heedlessness, induced by my misguided ecstatic indulgence, I was unawares of what the deal was as the crashing of the door shook me into opening my eyes to see what had made the sound.
Arthur stood there, with his sword out, straight pointing at me. He looked all mad, like he was all like "I'm a kill you!" I threw my hands from this borrowed body and was all "It's me, your liege, don't stab me!"
When I heard my voice, I realize that I totally sounded like a bitch! How would he know it was me? I had to rack my brains thinking about that.
I had to tell him things that he would know it was me. But then, all suddenly, he was clear about what the deal was. He had gotten the big picture. Seeing the note on the table next to him, he read and said "This fascist wench has taketh thy form and figure! Then you must be, indeed, my chosen hagriographer."
Oh what a relief. I got some tissues from that chicks purse, and wiped all the stuff off myself. Then, I said "Check it out, my bro. Here's what she was like putting out there about whats like happening and what not"
As Arthur listened, he looked really pissed. He took his sword and stabbed through the scientific-ish equipment all around the room, frenzying around in fury.
When all the stuff in the room was bashed beyond recognitions, he sheathed his sword in its holder, and wearily shook his head, from side to side. "Them that broughteth me thusly hath ever been struggling to desodomize my soul."
I felt so sorry, cause I had been all getting it twisted, in regards to the plot and like you know.
He forgave me and said "We must be off from here. At last, the time has come to begin your hagriophical mission, foretold in times past by men bold in rooms grand!"
Finally, I thought. But then I was all, Am I ready? I mean, I'm like, not really good at essays. But it was finally time to do the do, be I ready or not.
"Rand Coultier wants your body to take to the fair and wondrous, yet thoroughly corrupt with corporate gold, Freedom Peoples Congress of Common Folk, sequestered on the Zarcon planet, and now contesting the august issue of Gay Space Exploration."
Uh-oh, I thought. I wasn't a homophobe or nothing, but wasn't that gonna change the definition of Space Exploration, which was for straight people and aliens only?
But, then, I thought, maybe I've had enough of all this. My family taught me to stay out of politics. But then, on the other hand, I knew a lot about politics from games, like the massive multi-players they used to have when I was but a lad, whiling away the innocence of my childhood days, games like "Parley Mount", and "You Knighted States". I still had a cent a mental attachment to these games of yore.
Athur was looking at me, intensely, and that was freaky, cause he was like six feet four and all mythically buff looking. "And what lies still unbeknownst to those minted, gilded parishoners of that church whose sole edifice is the cross of corruption, is the persistence, the utter, dogged persistence of mine own heroism, ever recurrent amid the tremulation of history, to arise against the tide of injustice, in the name of the people, yearning in their huddled masses for that salvation which I bringeth unto them."
I felt the tears running down my cheeks. It was such a powerful message! And I looked down and - Oh no, I was still naked, I looked at this pale naked body and felt a little sickened, it was totally time to get back to my own body, although I liked the idea of being thinner, since a lot of chicks didn't like me cause of my little sum'in sum'in i had going on round my waist.
The only clothes I had to wear was the red dress she had left on her body before jacking mine. "Sir," I said, keeping my spitting it in appropriateness to his majesty. "Doth ye think that hereabouts might be sequestered garments and/or rainments befitting this ghastly form which I doth inhabit presently?"
He went out the room and briefly came back with a folded bundle of sweats and t-shirts. Thanks a million, I thought, now at least I can get a little comfy going on. I got dressed while he went and got me some socks and shoes, equally comfy.
Then I was all like, thinking how we gon' get out here if ain't got Merlyn to bust us out magical style?"
He winked at me, "The email hath already been loosed and replied to."
Just then, a burst of magic exploded beside me, while at the same time, the little jelly roll figure rolled up behind Arthur, with a gun, a 67-fenmeister zeppelin to be exact. "We tried to help you, you damn faggot."
But Merlyn instantly zapped him. Rushbo screamed, jiggling all over and flapping his hands around, as the drool continued to flow out of his mouth.
As he collapsed to the ground, he managed to be all like "The kids body is toast, I mean, like to the max! Rand Coultier is gonna chop his thing off if you guys try to interfere your homonazi crap on the space congress hearings."
Merlyn zapped him again, and he shut up. He was all "Me thinks thou has had too much of commotion for the nonce, be it suitable to my liege, I should want you to divert your attentions for the while."
Oh what? They gonna let me rest for awhile with all this stuff going on? We gotta get my body back, and I gotta get the hagriography written like quick like.
Page 23232 I go to rest, and feel up me again.
Page 42 I take a break and just chill
Page 5343 No, let's get out of here!
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