The recent Democratic "debate" in Pennsylvania provided an example for present educational theory in this country. It was a classroom, broadcast to the nation and the world. No journalist was left behind. Yet, when the long hour was over, many viewers were wondering just what happened.
The ABC extravaganza is yesterday's news. But, like a plastic flower, it does not fade.
At the time of the debate, people were losing their houses all over the country because of the unregulated greed of mortgage lenders. Oh yes, there were folks who thought that they could make a killing on their houses but the banks were the ones who profited. And, when it came time to pay the piper--when the house of cards collapsed and millions faced foreclosure--the government came to the rescue. It came to the rescue of the banks. The taxpayers of the United States bailed out the banks compliments of the present Republican administration.
At the time of the debate, the war in Iraq was moving towards draining a trillion dollars from the United States. The taxpayers of the United States were supporting a war that had lost all of the original excuses for waging it. Everybody knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. That had been conclusively proved . That was the first major rationale of the Bush war--down the drain. Then, on the same day that the press danced its righteous dance over the governor of New York's dalliance with a prostitute, the second pillar of the war collapsed. The report of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense officially declared that there was no evidence (that's no evidence) of any connection between the government of Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The second pillar of the war in Iraq crumbled even though Vice President Cheney repeated the fictional connection on the same day the Department of Defense made the report public. But, hey, who cares about facts?
A few facts do remain clear, however. On the day that George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson confronted Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, the economy was going down the tubes, the rationale for the war in Iraq had disappeared, billions were flowing out of the United States into the coffers of Halliburton. And United States servicemen and women were dying as well as hundred of thousands of Iraqis in the war that had no rationale.
Health care is deteriorating in this country. The economy is going down the drain. Gas prices skyrocket while oil companies boast windfall profits. The government is no officially tied to torture. The United States has lost the respect of much of the world. There is certainly no shortage of issues this presidential campaign year.
ABC News' Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos used up the first fifty minutes of the debate asking why Obama Baraka did not wear an American flag in his lapel or whether his minister loved America as much as he did or whether he disavowed his association with a political activist who had been a Weatherman when Obama was eight years old. (I am surprised that Obama's early toilet training didn't enter the debate).
Now some people, like Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe, have suggested that Gibson and Stephanopoulos were biased. Some folks have noted that when the now sanctified Ronald Reagan began his presidential campaign in 1980 he chose a spot in Mississippi near where the three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964 to proclaim his loyalty to "states rights" (i.e. segregation). Nobody from the media ever questioned Reagan about that in subsequent debates.
Some people have suggested that, as long as we are on the question of racial hatred, it is strange that neither Mitt Romney nor George Bush senior nor George Bush junior were ever questioned about their endorsement of and by Bob Jones University, a place that banned black students until the 1970's and prohibited interracial dating until 2000, just in time for the election of George junior.
Some people have suggested that the press, as represented by Gibsonstephanopoulos, is biased. Some have suggested that Stephanopoulos was a senior adviser to Bill Clinton might have some effect on the gentleness of his questioning of Hillary Clinton.
All of this may be true. But let me suggest that these two journalists are poster children for our present educational system.
The manic devotion to testing children has been rendered national in the "No Child Left Behind" act. Now, children are being tested from the first grade on. Simultaneously, play time, recess time, is disappearing throughout the country. When my daughter and I were investigating schools for my grand daughter in New Haven, we found a public magnet school that had a lovely feeling to it. The school boasted of two ten minute recess times for the kindergarten kids. That's twenty minute of play a day for five year olds. That qualifies as child abuse. But, the "No Child Left Behind" act deprives money from schools that don't meet the tests. And schools across the country, starving for funds, just aren't doing as well as, say, the mercenaries that taxpayers finance in Iraq.
The French educational pioneer, Jean Piaget, said famously that "play is the work of the child." These days there is no play and children are studying from the age of six to pass standardized tests. And teachers are teaching for the tests since they can lose their jobs if the kids don't score high enough.
There are a couple of flies in this testing ointment. For one thing, you can't test creativity. Creativity is based on what is not known. It is based on the ability to go beyond knowledge. The person who invented the wheel would not have done well on a test administered by the "No Child Left Behind" act. You can't test the ability to think for yourself. (Do you think it's possible that the authors of the "No Child Left Behind" act did not want kids to think for themselves?) You can't test thinking outside the box since the whole idea of standardized testing is a nationalized, standardized box. The idea is that if you can't test it, might as well throw it out. So art and music are joining recess as school districts across the country streamline for testing. You give the right answers for the right question so you won't be left behind.
In Japan there is a saying that "the nail that sticks up will be pounded down." The message is clear: you try to be unique or original you will be "pounded down." Seems like our educational system is taking a few pages from the Japanese book. Difference is that, in Japan, the trade off is that the individual is cared for by the society. No fear of that here where even wounded veterans are nickeled and dimed out of treatment and benefits by a government that needs to save its money---for war.
Messrs. Gibson and Stephanopoulos are poster children for our educational system. they are children who have not been left behind. Far from entering into the creative or original thought they stay comfortably within the journalistic box. Why Stephanopolous even took his questions from Fox fulminator Sean Hannity.
Of course the question is who administers the tests. After all, the person that poses the questions determines the right answers. Who pays the piper calls the tune. Gibson and Stephanopoulos were following scripts that had been prepared by other journalists. Who know where it began? Just gets digested, redigested and re-redigested. There wasn't a single original question during the whole debate.
Not a single original question. Rehash of old stuff--old accusations--old red herrings. These guys passed their test well. These journalists would not be left behind.
Self appointed teacher, David Brooks of the New York Times dutifully graded his fellow journalistic students. ABC got a grade of "A" from the Times headmaster. Clinton got a "B" and Barak Obama got a D+. I think that Brooks was being kind to Obama. Maybe it was because he was Black. After all, Obama has been doing the unthinkable. He has actually tried to raise real issues and has, more and more, been thinking outside of the box.
The ABC extravaganza is yesterday's news. But, like a plastic flower, it does not fade.
At the time of the debate, people were losing their houses all over the country because of the unregulated greed of mortgage lenders. Oh yes, there were folks who thought that they could make a killing on their houses but the banks were the ones who profited. And, when it came time to pay the piper--when the house of cards collapsed and millions faced foreclosure--the government came to the rescue. It came to the rescue of the banks. The taxpayers of the United States bailed out the banks compliments of the present Republican administration.
At the time of the debate, the war in Iraq was moving towards draining a trillion dollars from the United States. The taxpayers of the United States were supporting a war that had lost all of the original excuses for waging it. Everybody knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. That had been conclusively proved . That was the first major rationale of the Bush war--down the drain. Then, on the same day that the press danced its righteous dance over the governor of New York's dalliance with a prostitute, the second pillar of the war collapsed. The report of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense officially declared that there was no evidence (that's no evidence) of any connection between the government of Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The second pillar of the war in Iraq crumbled even though Vice President Cheney repeated the fictional connection on the same day the Department of Defense made the report public. But, hey, who cares about facts?
A few facts do remain clear, however. On the day that George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson confronted Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, the economy was going down the tubes, the rationale for the war in Iraq had disappeared, billions were flowing out of the United States into the coffers of Halliburton. And United States servicemen and women were dying as well as hundred of thousands of Iraqis in the war that had no rationale.
Health care is deteriorating in this country. The economy is going down the drain. Gas prices skyrocket while oil companies boast windfall profits. The government is no officially tied to torture. The United States has lost the respect of much of the world. There is certainly no shortage of issues this presidential campaign year.
ABC News' Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos used up the first fifty minutes of the debate asking why Obama Baraka did not wear an American flag in his lapel or whether his minister loved America as much as he did or whether he disavowed his association with a political activist who had been a Weatherman when Obama was eight years old. (I am surprised that Obama's early toilet training didn't enter the debate).
Now some people, like Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe, have suggested that Gibson and Stephanopoulos were biased. Some folks have noted that when the now sanctified Ronald Reagan began his presidential campaign in 1980 he chose a spot in Mississippi near where the three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964 to proclaim his loyalty to "states rights" (i.e. segregation). Nobody from the media ever questioned Reagan about that in subsequent debates.
Some people have suggested that, as long as we are on the question of racial hatred, it is strange that neither Mitt Romney nor George Bush senior nor George Bush junior were ever questioned about their endorsement of and by Bob Jones University, a place that banned black students until the 1970's and prohibited interracial dating until 2000, just in time for the election of George junior.
Some people have suggested that the press, as represented by Gibsonstephanopoulos, is biased. Some have suggested that Stephanopoulos was a senior adviser to Bill Clinton might have some effect on the gentleness of his questioning of Hillary Clinton.
All of this may be true. But let me suggest that these two journalists are poster children for our present educational system.
The manic devotion to testing children has been rendered national in the "No Child Left Behind" act. Now, children are being tested from the first grade on. Simultaneously, play time, recess time, is disappearing throughout the country. When my daughter and I were investigating schools for my grand daughter in New Haven, we found a public magnet school that had a lovely feeling to it. The school boasted of two ten minute recess times for the kindergarten kids. That's twenty minute of play a day for five year olds. That qualifies as child abuse. But, the "No Child Left Behind" act deprives money from schools that don't meet the tests. And schools across the country, starving for funds, just aren't doing as well as, say, the mercenaries that taxpayers finance in Iraq.
The French educational pioneer, Jean Piaget, said famously that "play is the work of the child." These days there is no play and children are studying from the age of six to pass standardized tests. And teachers are teaching for the tests since they can lose their jobs if the kids don't score high enough.
There are a couple of flies in this testing ointment. For one thing, you can't test creativity. Creativity is based on what is not known. It is based on the ability to go beyond knowledge. The person who invented the wheel would not have done well on a test administered by the "No Child Left Behind" act. You can't test the ability to think for yourself. (Do you think it's possible that the authors of the "No Child Left Behind" act did not want kids to think for themselves?) You can't test thinking outside the box since the whole idea of standardized testing is a nationalized, standardized box. The idea is that if you can't test it, might as well throw it out. So art and music are joining recess as school districts across the country streamline for testing. You give the right answers for the right question so you won't be left behind.
In Japan there is a saying that "the nail that sticks up will be pounded down." The message is clear: you try to be unique or original you will be "pounded down." Seems like our educational system is taking a few pages from the Japanese book. Difference is that, in Japan, the trade off is that the individual is cared for by the society. No fear of that here where even wounded veterans are nickeled and dimed out of treatment and benefits by a government that needs to save its money---for war.
Messrs. Gibson and Stephanopoulos are poster children for our educational system. they are children who have not been left behind. Far from entering into the creative or original thought they stay comfortably within the journalistic box. Why Stephanopolous even took his questions from Fox fulminator Sean Hannity.
Of course the question is who administers the tests. After all, the person that poses the questions determines the right answers. Who pays the piper calls the tune. Gibson and Stephanopoulos were following scripts that had been prepared by other journalists. Who know where it began? Just gets digested, redigested and re-redigested. There wasn't a single original question during the whole debate.
Not a single original question. Rehash of old stuff--old accusations--old red herrings. These guys passed their test well. These journalists would not be left behind.
Self appointed teacher, David Brooks of the New York Times dutifully graded his fellow journalistic students. ABC got a grade of "A" from the Times headmaster. Clinton got a "B" and Barak Obama got a D+. I think that Brooks was being kind to Obama. Maybe it was because he was Black. After all, Obama has been doing the unthinkable. He has actually tried to raise real issues and has, more and more, been thinking outside of the box.
