Common Core is pure hemlock. However it’s rebranded, this reform has poisoned public education … and the profession has almost died off. No one wants to teach anymore. Master-teachers are rushing to retirement … and rookies are fleeing in mid-year. Teacher prep programs are starving for would-be teachers. And now we’re hearing from “lifers” … … Continue reading Common Core is Pure Hemlock
Tag: Teachers
The End of Wisdom
"After 32 years ... I couldn't take it any more. I vowed to fight CC ... It was killing me to do the ridiculous and stupid things that the supervisor and principal thought were necessary. They were able to brainwash the young teachers... [and] if teachers talked negatively about CC, they could be easily replaced. … Continue reading The End of Wisdom
Ten Commandments of Public Education
Perhaps we should all resolve to take back our schools. To reclaim our parental rights. To demand that schools focus on OUR CHILDREN ... and that those unwilling to put OUR CHILDREN first should ... perhaps ... stake out other careers. It is time to acknowledge the mistakes of the last decade ... and the … Continue reading Ten Commandments of Public Education
The Elephant in the Classroom
Time to talk about the elephant in the classroom. The kinky one. Why is it that everyone is now identified by a sexual descriptor? Is sexuality the new ID? Who are these creepy misfits who just can't resist sexualizing everything from pronouns to puppet shows? Insisting that everything be viewed through their Psychosexual prism. Categorized … Continue reading The Elephant in the Classroom
What’s Happened To Us?
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 … Continue reading What’s Happened To Us?
The True Sword
I possessed the True Sword. In fact … I‘d made it myself. From exotic balsa wood. Imagined in my mind … designed by my brain … and brought to life by my own curiosity. That’s what a mind is for. I was nine. I had dreamed myself Caesar’s body-guard. The boy-wonder of the Praetorian Guard. The … Continue reading The True Sword
Social Justice Junk
It's everywhere. No longer a one-off sort of story. Lots wonder ... What the hell has happened to their schools? And their children’s innocence? And their education? There’s rot leeching into your schools … helped along by social justice junkies who politicize classrooms … and dangle and yank your kids around. Bending their minds ... … Continue reading Social Justice Junk
We’re Doing This All Wrong.
We’re doing this all wrong. Some day .... somehow … education will discover a proper obsession. Until then … children will suffer these testing-despots … and too many adults will make believe it’s all okay. And it’s not. But let’s be certain about this … there are some things in life that just can't … Continue reading We’re Doing This All Wrong.
A Grave New World
The entire universe of education has been turned inside out over the last decade. Long-revered pedagogical precepts have been blue-penciled by classroom-allergic theorists now leveraged by profiteers who see public schools as the next sustainable profit-producing mother lode. And the political class … put into office by all of us … has mocked our vote … Continue reading A Grave New World
Lost Beans
On September 2nd, Diane Ravitch lost her beans. And she's never found them again. She skidded off into a rabid rant about Trump supporters and some "grizzled old man" in "a beaten-up, dirty truck" who "must have gone to public schools" because he didn't "look like a graduate of Andover or Exeter." I'll let you … Continue reading Lost Beans
Missives Worth Reading 