MindSpinner

Anybody who cares about teaching, schools, and our what government really ought to be doing shouldn’t miss Michael Winerip’s NY Times piece today, “Teachers, and a Law That Distrusts Them.”  The sad part is that this piece concludes Winerip’s four-year stint writing about education for the Times. I wish he’d open out this piece into a book showcasing what education should be and debunking nonsense that passes for attempts at progress.

But don’t stop there.  Also read, at Creek Running North, Chris Clarke’s account of his wife Becky’s teaching experience in a school district obsessed with implementing “progress” from above. Somewhere buried down in the comments I put in my two cents worth, from which I’ve excerpted the last paragraph:

There’s something truly insidious about the kind of education Becky was being required to implement, especially if it’s stretched over twelve years.  It’s mind-numbing, and it rewards compliance.  It’s a torment and a deterrent to creativity and curiousity.  Who wants that?  I’ve begun to think that there are those who do indeed want to produce a skilled population of workers trained to comply and long discouraged from asking big essential questions like “Why are we doing it this way?” or “What are the larger consequences of this course of action?” These graduates are likely to depend on others to think for them without deeply analyzing and are thus fairly easily manipulated by those who know how to orchestrate their prejudices, fears, and desires to net votes at the ballot box.  One can fleece their futures and simultaneously make them grateful for crumbs, lead them off to war waving flags, keep them stirred about minor moralities instead of issues of global consequence.  The result can look like a democracy when really it’s a ruling class managing its sheep.