San Francisco? Berkley?
The problem with this is the fact they don’t know anything. They don’t read books. They don’t want to read books. There was a time when what posted would be true but in order to outgrow you need to grow. They lack the tools for that.
We are whittling down, which is my point. And SanFran is getting tired of the shit. Literally.
They don’t know anything. They’re young, impressionable dumbasses. Just like every generation before them. And they’ve been misguided by a concerted effort currently being dismantled.
I disagree tools are missing to grow. Information is ridiculously easy to come by today. The problem is that so much is available that it’s hard to know where to start, and their guides haven’t been the best. So far.
Worrying about where to start is for losers. Action is better.
Not really. We learned things in school. They don’t. People don’t realize the damage smart phones and social media have done to young people.
Yet, no one knows anything. Information has been easy to come by for a long time. Libraries are not new. But you have to want to go inside.
I don’t share the pessimism.
You haven’t been in a classroom lately. When I was in the teaching program a professor, who was also a middle school teacher, said that kids don’t need to know things. Her example, and she was supposedly a STEAM teacher, was the Periodic Table. She said kids could just look up the elements so knowing O is oxygen or C is carbon is unnecessary. The same with historic dates. Imagine a teacher devaluing knowledge.
In the case of Maine I see three major sources of woke entrenchment.
A very large percentage of state aid recipients who are unlikely to support an alternative.
Childhood indoctrination that seems more comprehensive than any normal religious upbringing. Many of these people are, in fact, religious zealots.
Empowering non citizens to vote with a voting process that looks the other way.
Those add up closer to victory every day for Democrats, especially as conservatives and Kennedy democrats flee the jurisdiction.
But hey, things can always get worse and maybe that will be enough to overcome the rigged elections in Maine.
She has a point. While I believe it’s important to have a fundamental understanding of things, I also believe in efficiency of time, and that the school system has been a failure in preparing kids for the real world for a very long time.
Meshing technology and modern efficiency / accessibility with delivery of knowledge makes sense to me. As long as they’re learning how to calculate moles, I personally don’t care if they have a handy reference guide for “O is Oxygen”.
It’s actually funny to remember teachers making comments like “you’re not always going to have a cheat sheet in your pockets”.
I think teaching application is more important than the prose of knowledge itself.
Having it in your brain will always be faster than looking it up. The thing is, you can have all of these theories but when it comes to the real world, the smartest people are usually the ones who also know things.
Applying what? Knowledge?
I almost commented about financial standing in my last reply so I’m glad you brought this up. Part of the recipe for entrenched liberalism, I believe, is low income relative to the rest of the country. Or at least low cost of living. The economic bottom rung of a more expensive area will move to a relatively cheaper area but maintain bottom rung mentality and live high on the hog, per their world view.
Of course it’s possible this was always a problem that just has a spotlight on it now. Poverty and government reliance is a dirty secret is small towns and rural communities.
They’re still the tail wagging the dog in the big picture. As the societal support around them fades, their enthusiasm will too. Sort of like the religious quitting church and fellowship.
Absolutely a problem. And frustrating at a national level. I’m curious to see what kind of attention this gets over time.
As an aside, I would actually prefer to trade Austin votes for family oriented, Catholic Mexicans.
Interestingly our border counties, rife with dual citizens, illegal voters and sympathetic American Tejanos (people who have been in the area since pre-America and are in our border by happenstance), started voting red after historically being nearly full blue at the onset of the far left shit. Their values simply don’t align. And I think we will eventually see more of this.
I don’t mean this in a snarky tone, but I’m in the real world. Less than half of the academic information I learned is useful. I understand the value of exposure to young minds as they develop interests and explore paths, but cheat sheets are super useful for the details as long as the gist is understood.
I can tell you it’s much more useful for me to know what exists and how to access it than it is to try to remember every detail. Like an index, sort of. Or a “bookmark” folder system.
I need to have an idea of what is between the covers on a given topic but using a quick reference index is much more efficient than learning and reinforcing every single thing.
Since this thread is about DEI, I’ll make a connection. DEI is related to wokeism. Wokeism is influenced by CRT. The advocates of CRT are socialists. They are against capitalism and believe in a collectivist approach. They will bring up the supposed African adage it takes a village to illustrate their point. Since I know facts, I know that there is no such thing as an African saying just as there is no such thing as a European saying.
Anyway, one of the books I had to read for teaching was written by one of the first proponents of CRT. So it is a lie of sorts when they say kids aren’t learning CRT because their teachers are being taught to teach under the influence of CRT. One of their tenets with regard to education is that students are to be taught to become activists in their communities. This is explicitly stated. They believe cooperation and collaboration should be emphasized at the expense of competition. This is part of the idea of equity.
Now, part of wokeism and CRT is this thing called my truth. It’s the belief that truth varies. Truth is mutable. This is how you end up with the 1619 Project. CRT, and remember it’s a socialist belief, doesn’t want kids learning facts, i.e., the truth. The person behind the 1619 Project made a claim, a claim that the entire project is founded on, but has yet to provide a source. She provided no facts (or truth) to supporters her thesis. This is basic scholarship even kids are aware of. Yet, people want this to be used in education. Why? One defense is that it tells a different truth. What does that even mean? It’s either true or it isn’t.
The point is, if someone believes knowing things, knowing facts, is unnecessary then they are agreeing with a position held by socialists bent on redefining American core values. Redefining Western Culture and Civilization. Rewriting history. Not acquiring knowledge is not acquiring the truth.
If you can’t remember O is oxygen, you have bigger problems.
I understood the point to be a little broader.
I don’t think the logic is this extreme though. Real life isn’t Trivial Pursuit. We have technology that makes certain endeavors irrelevant now. This doesn’t mean all education is pointless, it does mean we don’t have to use the Dewey Decimal system to build a report and then memorize laundry lists of mundane information to solve for “X”. We can just solve for “X” now.
Oh no. I get it from your perspective but it isn’t about having a wealth of knowledge that maybe you don’t ever need to recall. Although, the process of learning has benefits. I mean, if you can pay attention and learn something you aren’t interested in, it’s a sign of being disciplined and doing what you have to do even when it isn’t fun. It’s an adult skill. But it isn’t even that. They don’t want kids learning basic facts. They prefer they learn what I refer to as themes. The details of the American Revolution, for example, are not as important as the theme, or narrative as they call it, of it being about white men wanting to keep their slaves and money. This narrative approach, because it is a narrative, requires a good guy and bad guy. The actual ambiguities of reality don’t exist.
Only there is no X. Math is racist.
I remember this headline, but math is still taught in school.
Don’t misunderstand me, I do see where you’re coming from. I wish I could be optimistic but I’ve seen how entrenched this woke, equity, socialist, whatever you want to call it ideology is in education. If you want to become a teacher, at least in my state, you have to be woke. You have to believe in equity. Or, you have to be able to fake it. You cannot argue against the orthodoxy. Every job posting starts with saying how the school is looking for candidates who believe in social justice. I had to get out because I believe in results more than methodology and theories. I also think a teacher should teach kids how to think, not what to believe. These zealots control knowledge which means they control the truth. The less knowledge kids get, the less they think and the more they simply believe.
When I was a stupid youngin the cops would crank you up side the head with a blackjack for starters.
That would smarten ya up and cut through the fuckery real quick.