Utterly Meaningless

I’m going to let my kids watch it, just to spite the idiots.

I think that’s an excellent idea! Spread the word!

[…] has an excellent suggestion to counter the g-school […]

Hey, I’m in!

I don’t consider myself a wingnut (though I may be mistaken since I don’t really know what it means). I think the biggest issue is preparing lesson plans that talk about why kids should listen to figures of authority, like the president and any other elected official no matter how minor (like mayors). Not whether or not what the president is saying is a good idea and then if it is a good idea how will you participate. I know it’s a subtle difference. It is likely that I hold an unpopular opinion in wanting my children to think for themselves instead of being led by figures of authority into a conclusion, though I hope not.

And to be fair for those who are claiming they believe the president is going to include a lot of policy talk, the lesson plans were released (as far as I can tell) before any speech content was discussed. The lesson plans do not talk plans for education at all. One of the questions suggested was “how will you help the president?” Since no one knew the content of what the speech entailed at the time that question came out, I believe some serious questions were in order.

And now that people have pointed out that those particular phrases seemed to ask for assistance from elementary students for some unknown request, the president’s people have clarified an agenda for the speech (showing that it is limited to a positive message about education) and they seem to have updated the lesson plans to be somewhat less vague about their intentions. Though it has probably come too late for those who have formed a negative opinion about how the White House behaved in this manner.

Yes–that is a moderate view from what some people are espusing, but it may be a view that is slightly more understandable and less wingnutty in your opinion.

Hmmm — if you send your kids to school, that’s what you get all day long, every day, from all the authority figures. My doctorate is in education — that DOE discussion guide suggested for teachers (before and after editing) was standard boilerplate educationese. Check the questions at the end of every chapter of every textbook in every curriculum sold for school OR home. Same stuff.

People who don’t want THAT for their kids, I respect. I didn’t want it either. And so I didn’t buy textbooks for our unschooling and I didn’t send mine to school for the mind-numbing, though I would take them for all kinds of good stuff. If the president had been in Tallahaasee on nine-eleven instead of Tampa, I would taken Favorite Daughter to see him in person, and did in fact take her to a friend’s school to see Barbara Bush when she was Big Mama or Dowager Hump (or whatever we call someone who had been the president’s wife and the governor’s mother and would soon be the president’s mother too.)

And then FavD turned 18, registered to vote, and went to see Joe and Jill Biden on campus last fall. I’d like to think it’s because I like America, found power of story in everything, and have helped her develop those same predilections.

But I’ve been shocked, dismayed, infuriated even, to hear from a couple of nice-enough-seeming young conservative Christian moms that they simply hate and distrust the current president as the Devil. So moderation in opposing him is no virtue, right? They are a bundle of fear and rage and talking points; they can’t analyze this issue, can’t even see their own ignorance and lack of thinking skills, resulting from them having been miseducated themselves. So they can’t educate their kids to think.

That’s what America would be most concerned about if we all WERE one united country all working for the common good, and able to analyze and think about what’s gone so wrong out on the wings.

Those looking for an evil plot will find one somewhere.

In a talk to ps kids, the “how will you help the President” is in the context of helping him to encourage kids to do well in school. Insisting that it is or ever was about helping the President to achieve world domination is just dumb.

But since anything — real or imagined — can be evidence of the grand sinister plot, why not this? If these Rs are willing to look like lunatics, time and time again, this was a perfect opportunity.

Nance