Children must be taught how to think, not what to think. -Margaret Mead
Today’s educational headlines: ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE PLUMMETS (Colorado Springs Gazette); THE LOOMING CRISIS OF KIDS AND COVID (U.S. News); MASK IT OR CASKET (USA Today); TEACHERS QUIT JOBS AT HIGHEST RATE ON RECORD (Wall Street Journal)
Today’s anti-democracy headlines: A CASE AGAINST DEMOCRACY (The New Yorker); THE RISE OF WESTERN ANTI-DEMOCRACY MOVEMENTS (harvard.edu); More Than 100 Scholars Issue Warning That American Democracy Is In Danger, Call For Federal Reforms (Forbes); DEMOCRACY IS TRULY IN CRISIS (New York Times)
What’s Really Wrong with American Education: Any political ideology with an agenda to change the fabric of a democracy or re-engineer its vulnerable children (either politically or physically), should not exist in elementary through high schools.
Why the two sets of headlines? American schools have fallen from sixth (1990) to 27th in the world according to Business Insider. Research shows Covid complete shutdowns or even hybrid learning set America’s children months behind (New York Times). Why don’t these statistics stop school boards, administrators and teachers dead in their tracks?
Yet, the public school curriculum, in many cities, reflects today’s secular progressive stance on “democracy bad, socialism good.” Or this philosophy “white children bad, children of color victims” expressed through critical race theory. And then there is the mind-boggling ideology that our children, born of a gender, can alter that gender by the very least changing pronouns to the constant change of identity though gender fluidity or the finality of gender reassignment. In my final years of teaching, I experienced all three in several of my students. Perhaps if those who implement these 21st century hot topics would step back and spend more time on why our children cannot read at grade level or do simple math, the American education system might have a chance in not plummeting to the abyss.
Solution: STOP re-writing or changing historical events to please those who hate this country. STOP putting down patriotism as racist. JUST STOP referring to everything as racist! STOP allowing a few with radical ideas to set the standards for the multitudes. STOP social engineering our children and START teaching them those necessary subjects which can really guarantee them success. I’ve seen students spend a year traversing pronouns, experimenting with their sexual identity and attempting to change their DNA through gender reassignment. Those students, in my experience, suffered from depression and did not move to the head of the class in academic achievement. Instead these children were bullied, slandered and targeted by constant pressure to be “normal.” To date, I do not know how to define that word! But I do know we must stop spending so much of our educational resources on re-engineering our children (both politically, physically) and utilize the education budgets afforded to our schools to teach survival in the new world: balancing checkbooks, understanding mortgages, reading contracts, writing resumes, and in particular, allowing the negative history of our country to remain in the text books so we can continue to learn from those events, never allowing them to repeat themselves.
I’m Paula Baack, the author of Rescue the Teacher, Save the Child!, TUNE IN TOMORROW. Here’s a tease: The stagnation of America’s school boards.
PLEASE SHARE THIS LINK WITH ANY AND ALL . If you’re experiencing unfair practices in your teaching position, please reach out to me at rescuetheteacher @yahoo.com! Oh, and buy my book TODAY and help a retired teacher pursue her purpose!