The goal, the only goal, of "education reform" is the disciplining of the labor force.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of ken hanly Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 11:59 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Yong Zhao
I flinched at that too at that entreprenurial student bit but did you read his critique of the Common Core and other programs? There is a satire too on how the U.S. can catch up and surpass China in education. http://zhaolearning.com/2012/05/10/what%E2%80%99s-still-missing-in-american- education-and-how-to-out-educate-china/
Here is a bit of the satire. As with much satire these days you might think at first he is serious.
In America, the land of innovations, technology has not been used nearly as much as it should for enhancing test results. Those teachers in Atlanta public schools were so out of date in terms of using cutting edge technology to boost their students test scores. They used erasers and pencils! Moreover, so far such test score performance enhancing behaviors have only been found in Atlanta, Washington DC, Houston, Los Angles, Boston, Baltimore, and a number of other places. American students’ test scores will surely go up if all teachers and students begin to use high tech devices to send answers around while taking the test. And this could be a great new industry that could take us out of the economic recession. Just imagine how much money can be made from the millions of student and teacher consumers in America who are dying to improve their test scores. Then of course, we will need companies to develop anti-cheating technology and monitor the tests. It’s a never-ending business, much more lucrative than textbooks or data-driven systems. More importantly, in the interest of the nation, we have to out-innovate China in order to out-educate it!
Cheers, ken
Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
----- Original Message ----- From: Chuck Grimes <c123grimes at att.net> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Cc: Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 8:51:35 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Yong Zhao
Anyone know this education prof. at the U. of Oregon? He seems to have some interesting criticism of U.S.. educational policy. Ken Hanly
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``His next book, World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students.''
I don't trust anybody who uses a phase, `entrepreneurial students' or writes a book about these sorts of students. I read entrepreneurial as equivalent to asshole sociopath who engages in lying, cheating, stealing, and bullying.
Anyway, dispite this almost absolute prejudice, I went to look through the Common Core curriculum in California and was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't as bad as I thought. I didn't see Darwin or Marx, but you know, you can't always get what you want, but you might find, what you need. There were pretty demanding math and english requirements. The poetry wasn't half bad, sure. They had Langston Huges. Carl Sandberg, John Steinbeck, Emily Dickenson, Walt Whitman. Even the art wasn't half bad. Nice essay on the Pyramids, more as impressionism, even mentioned spiritual in the experience.
What's really missing is probably the core of teaching, which is to help creat a conceptual grasp of the world and its peoples. Maybe its my religion or something. We are not Americans. We are one of thousands of peoples of the world and its history---that's the story I want kids to discover. They can see it in their own bodies and features. Nobody but the Native Americans were from America. They are from just about everywhere but the Americas.
About the only saving grace of my mis-spent childhood was going to so many different schools in the LA basin, that I have forgotten most of their names. For grades k-6 thirteen is the number. I saw and played with kids from all over the earth. It's lesson was itself a radicalizing experience. I looked like Huck Finn, being mostly Irish and all. I was a serious chow hound and eat everything, which the Chinese immigrant community cooked at Danny Choy's father's laundry. Our after school job at eight was to greet customers, and find their laundry from a tag they brought in, collect money, put it in the register and made change. In slow hours we put cardboard rollers on coat hangers with a nice little piece of paper with the store name on it. The Dad, Henry was in back steam pressing suits and jackets. The traffic on South Hoover was smogging up the south central flats of miles and miles of millions. The asshole cop on a motorcycle was stationed behind a
liquor store blind in the ambivalent shade. Me and Danny used to watch him out the window across the street. I once asked this prick something about his motorcycle and he told me to go away. Nice. I guess black and latino kids learn much earlier than I did that cops are assholes.
So there is that missing from the schools. And, of course the idea that sex ... nevermind. Do I need to mention that sex was on my mind about every twenty minutes for at least five minutes, from ages 11-25. I finally got a construction job that boiled the sex right out of me. I wanted rest more than sex... And I don't know how, but sex or its thoughts, desires, syndrome if you will was integral to creativity and don't ask me how. I have no idea.
Meandering thoughts ...
CG
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