What’s happened to us?

How did we sink into such an ugly circumstance that we dare use words like “grit and rigor” in the same sentence as “child”?

Who thought that was a good idea? And who permissioned that so-called “good idea” to become part of childhood education?

Childhood has no reality. It’s not supposed to.

Childhood is all about fantabulous fabrications, amusing imaginings, and daring daydreams.

Those are real jobs. Done by real children.

And not one of them has a whiff of rigor … or an ounce of grit. Nor should they … because these are the preoccupations childhood. And the job description includes grins and giggles … and tons of teehee.

Why is it we never know the names of these dark childhood exterminators?

These ghosty-theoritians who seem obsessed with hardship and tenacity and guts … for children not even 100 months old?

Let’s examine that sad psychosis.

And then let’s ask why they live in some peculiar shadowland … and never stand before real-deal educators and defend their dogmatic presumptions on early education? Why aren’t they identified … and ever confronted?

Who are these educational Scrooges anyway?

It’s stunning to have to defend recess … and play … and fun. And dance … and music ….. and art.  Astonishing to have to champion fantasies and whimsy as healthy and necessary exercises for brand new minds.

This manic era of reform seems in an absolute rush to dispose of every phase of childhood as hurriedly as possible.

And yet, too few ever learn the identities of those who advocate for this sick-sad competition.

These freaky theories just appear … and are shoved into practice as if they are infallible.

And it’s not just about recess.

Testing is the new pedagogical god. Close reading has made reading a special torture … and sabotaged joyful love of words for an entire generation.

Unrestrained technology is frankensteining classrooms into learning centers offering kiosk-educations from touch-screens that will supply the finger-pointer with all they need to succeed in a life of rich monotony.

And at every level, parents will lose more and more control of their children’s schooling. And that is all by design … because the very last thing these new educational absolutists want is any mother or father acting as though they have any regency at all over their own child’s education.

Orwell yourself and come to terms with what sits on the horizon of touch-screen scholarship.

Huxley yourself into the world where children will have been programmed and plugged into lifetime situations based not on their passions, but on some algorithmic prescription burped out by some electronic-ouija-motherboard.

And childhood is the greatest casualty of all.

An extraordinarily special part of life now routinely smothered by educational frauds who have flim-flammed an entire profession with dangerous nonsense.

How did this happen … and why did we let it happen? And how we will repair these children?

Denis Ian