Nov 15 2006
Tsunami Of Educrat Stupidity
no, make that st00pidity. First up is this gem from the SFgate story about dumping JROTC:
“We need to teach a curriculum of peace,” said a former teacher quoted by the SF Chronicle.
Would that be in math class? English class?
Then, from Joanne Jacobs:
In the New York Times story on Washington state’s math meltdown, a mother discovers her high-achieving sixth grader hasn’t been taught long division. A teacher explains, “We don’t teach long division; it stifles their creativity.”
Isn’t that speshul! And again, from Joanne Jacobs:
When I asked whether the school taught grammar at any point, the head of school told me that teaching grammar thwarted students’ creativity and stifled their interest in reading.
Oh no! Not that! Anything but … thwarting their creativity!
From D-Ed Reckoning comes the tale of this Einstein, who unfortunately actually had to teach reading (instead of fluff):
When Sarah talked with me (her English education lecturer) some time after this experience, she had mixed emotions. After an exhausting week of planning, teaching, marking, staff meetings, in-service activities and much more, this scripted curriculum seemed a welcome relief. “I didn’t have to think,” she said.
She laughed, although it was clear she was still ambivalent about the experience. Then she asked: “But what sort of teaching is it when I’m not required to think?”
Then, to frost the cake, we have this example of educrat administration:
PUTNAM VALLEY - The parents who threatened to take legal action against school officials after their 10-year-old son was suspended for asking his teacher for a hug said yesterday that they would be willing to abandon their case in exchange for an assurance that the suspension was not racially motivated.
Putnam Valley Middle School fifth-grader Aaron Perez was suspended for two days last week, which was about a month after he had been reprimanded for calling the same homeroom teacher sexy.
As a Hispanic family, parents Samuel Perez and Lira Garcia-Perez said concerns about racial discrimination first arose when the parent of another boy, who is white, called them and said the boy had also asked for a hug from the same teacher and was only reprimanded, not suspended. The Perezes refused to name the other family.
The parents continued to defend their son’s actions as being entirely innocent, saying he is an affectionate person and he only meant to tell the teacher she was pretty by calling her sexy. In today’s culture, they added, the word “sexy” is all over television and the boy did not mean it in a sexual manner.
“A 10-year-old, at his age, he’s not interested in girls yet,” said Samuel Perez, a New York City police officer. “It’s just not him. You have to know the kid to judge him.”
Examples of administrative stupidity abound, but this is stupider than usual.
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One Response to “Tsunami Of Educrat Stupidity”
[…] Consider the number of times educrats refer to such leftist leprechauns as “social justice,” “equity,” or “institutional racism.” Teachers who say, “We need to teach a curriculum of peace,” or “We don’t teach long division; it stifles their creativity,” or “But what sort of teaching is it when I’m not required to think?” And consider how rarely educrats refer to learning — as in mastery of the material, not the deliberately undefined “authentic learning” or “higher level thinking.” […]