Theory of Education
[Middle school student] suspended for twirling a pencil in math class. He says that a student (who had been allegedly bullying him) yelled to the teacher that "He’s making gun motions, send him to juvie." …would have to be evaluated by a therapist and cleared as a threat before being able to be around students….
teacher ...punished them for misspelling words by forcing them to trace the letters of the words on sandpaper with their fingers until their fingertips bled.
Young conservative Samantha Pawlucy was ridiculed this week for wearing a pro-Romney T-shirt to class. The teacher even compared Samantha to the KKK. [Video]
the school administrators, through Social Justice Week, gave a platform to community organizers who in turn provided students biased information and encouraged them to take specific steps to protest.... When we heard about the week, we contacted school officials requesting to observe and record the events. All parties consented. [video]
The dangers of academic deification are numerous. Those who dominate the educational language of the times determine the moral compass (or lack of compass) of the curriculum. They control who is accepted and who is rejected, not by measure of intelligence or skill, but by their willingness to conform to the establishment ideal. They construct a kind of automaton class, which has been taught not to learn independently, but to parrot propaganda without question. Simultaneously, those of us who do not “make the grade” are relegated to the role of obliged worshippers; accepting the claims of the professional class as gospel regardless of how incorrect they happen to be. To put it simply; the whole thing is disgustingly inbred.
WTF? I thought it was just a movie! [Tweets from twits]
These exercises are often called "evacuation drills" or "relocation drills" and they are more than a little disturbing. Sometimes parents are notified in advance where the kids are being taken and sometimes they are only told that the children are being taken to an "undisclosed location". In the years since 9/11 and the Columbine school shootings, there has been a concerted effort to make school emergency drills much more "realistic" and much more intense.
"Russell Hobby, of the National Association of Head Teachers, confirmed some schools were adopting best-friend bans."
By the same logic, romantic relationships will be banned, on the pretext that feelings will be hurt if they don’t work out.... A slave’s only meaningful relationship should be with his master: Big Government.
Cartoon Network’s new film, “Stop Bullying: Speak Out.” As its name suggests, the movie aims to teach kids to speak out when they witness bullying — and to not bully other children themselves. One of its many prescriptions: Don’t call classmates words like “stupid,” “fat” and “jerk.” "...But just saying, ‘Stop it! You know, you’re being a jerk!’–walk away, get away from this person can make a huge amount of difference.”
[h/t J on Moonbattery]
Hughes, a local union president, is pitching the idea that school board membership be limited to people who “have worked in the education field,” because the issues at hand are “so complex” and too complicated for average citizens.
I mean, really: parents having any say about schools? How regressive a notion is that?
So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a kid in fifth grade who has mastered high school trigonometry and physics—but is still functioning like a regular 10-year-old when it comes to writing, history, and social studies? Khan's programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who've seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it "to stop students from becoming this advanced." This attitude is a natural outgrowth of our decision to operate education as a monopoly. [h/t to Cuz BD]
Illinois will assess only reading and arithmetic now that high school juniors will no longer be tested on their writing skills during standardized exams every spring. [Soon, even reading and math will be gone, and only whether kids feel good about themselves will be tested.]
The California Federation of Teachers produced the perfect solution with "Trouble in the Hen House: A Puppet Show." To spare you the unpleasantness of reading this bilge, here's the basic plot: a bunch of hens feel "oppressed" by the farmer, so they band together and create Hens United. The angry unionized chickens are too powerful a force for the farmer to handle, so he capitulates to the hens' demands.
In the 1960s, America's education schools began conditioning teachers to peddle impossible social and economic theories to captive human sponges in K-12 classrooms. Since then, teachers taken in by progressive indoctrination have been planting fallacies in students' minds using a pernicious device: the "deconstruction" of reality.
Soquel High Senior Mikey Donnelly wore a white t-shirt for his senior class photo Tuesday. About 10 of his friends did the same. That decision may seem harmless. But Soquel High suspended Donnelly for three days because of it. Donnelly said the school told him people were offended and intimidated by his group, claiming they're a white supremacist gang. "I do think this is BS," says Donnelly. "I'm not a white supremacist in any way shape or form. If I did say white power, I would probably say it just as much as I say black power." He's not the only one upset. "I feel disrespected," says Soquel High Senior David Mine. Mine also wore a white t-shirt and was also suspended. He's missing out on finals and that could jeopardize his graduation. "I'm Asian," says Mine. "I don't see how I can be a white supremacist. I'm against it completely."
for Dale and Tara Cameron and their six children, what they expected to be a warm welcome at nearby Del Crest Middle School instead turned dark and ugly as the Camerons were initially greeted with a firm "no" from the school's assistant principal Sheila Wilson. It was only after the entire Cameron family appeared at the door — storm clouds growing darker behind them — that Wilson "reluctantly" let the Camerons into the school cafeteria where Wilson's family and pets were safe and out of the approaching storms. ...
A Hartford teacher accused of forcing students to clean the classroom toilet with paper towels and a cleaner with bleach is on administrative leave. For two years, Catherine Saur required any student who used the bathroom to clean the toilets, even if they only went to the bathroom to wash their hands. .. [Mother] complained when her son had an allergic reaction to the cleaner and told her what his Kennelly School art teacher was requiring student to do in the bathroom of a portable classroom....
a teacher found bags of heroin in the backpack of a 7-year-old student. ... 7-year-old kindergarten student cut his finger with a razor blade. His teacher started questioning him and discovered 18 suspected heroin stamp bags in his backpack and locker. ... told them he got the drugs from his father's bedroom. Police searched the boy's home, but did not find any drugs. The boy also said he gave heroin to three of his friends. ...
Some students say Principal Kenney has been hypnotizing students for a couple of years, either in a classroom group setting or individually one-on-one. But school district officials say, while they were aware of Kenney's technique, his permission had limited use." "He was authorized to demonstrate in psychology class with parent permission," says Leatherman. Kenney reportedly had permission from Wesley's parents to use hypnosis on their son. "It's ridiculous to hold him responsible, to say because that child was hypnotized [and] he killed himself, that's just wrong," says parent Vincent Giacinto.
The family of Frankie Girard is claiming that their son's civil rights were violated after a teacher allegedly told him that hanging his picture of the American flag would offend another student. ... [Superintendent Dr. Paul Burnim said] nobody ever told Franklin the drawing was offensive, and said the only reason it wasn't hung was because Franklin was supposed to be doing other work; not drawing a picture. ... [Hmmmm]
instead of the usual way of asking her to the senior prom, Tate and two friends went to the high school campus in the middle of the night and posted 12-inch tall, cardboard letters on the outside of the building -- at the main entrance. The message that many saw when they arrived to school Friday, read: "Sonali Rodrigues, Will you go to prom with me? HMU Tate." She said yes. "It took a lot of effort," said Tate. He posted the letters, one at a time, in a "safe and thoughtful way" to avoid trouble. ... Because of what he did, Tate can't go to the prom. Tuesday, after meeting with his headmaster, Tate and his two friends were each given one-day, in-house suspensions and banned from the prom. Tate was told the administration felt what they did was a safety risk.... [If only we had zero tolerance for educator insanity]
...Adam Powell Grade School... "It hasn't been a problem all this time and all of a sudden they can't have breakfast because of their shoes," Kahlia Edwards, the boys' mother, says. Edwards says the boys have been wearing the shoes all year and administrators never complained. She's confused. The boy's great aunt is livid. "I don't care if they had on orange shoes, they were in line to eat," Robin Price says. "I'm not going to feed you because you have the wrong shoes? Shoes? No, no." ...
A new study presents evidence that more than a quarter of sociologists (27.8 percent) would "weigh favorably" membership in the Democratic Party by a candidate for academic appointment, and nearly 30 percent would weigh favorably a prospective candidate's membership in the ACLU. More than a quarter (28.7 percent) would disfavor hiring a Republican, and 41.2 percent would weigh negatively a candidate's membership in the National Rifle Association. The study shows even greater bias against candidates with particular religious affiliations. Substantial numbers of the sociologists surveyed said they would be "less likely to hire" evangelical Christians and fundamentalists if they were aware that a candidate fell into either of those categories. Evangelicals face the barrier that 2 out of 5 sociologists (39.1 percent) are disposed not to hire them. Fundamentalists fare even a bit worse: 41.2 percent of sociologists say they would take such an affiliation negatively into account.
So how does brokeass, dumbass, redneck Texas stack up against progressive unionized Wisconsin?... To recap: white students in Texas perform better than white students in Wisconsin, black students in Texas perform better than black students in Wisconsin, Hispanic students in Texas perform better than Hispanic students in Wisconsin. In 18 separate ethnicity-controlled comparisons, the only one where Wisconsin students performed better than their peers in Texas was 4th grade science for Hispanic students (statistically insignificant), and this was reversed by 8th grade. ...
Arizona school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old girl when they strip-searched her on the suspicion she might be hiding ibuprofen in her underwear, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The decision put school districts on notice that such searches are "categorically distinct" from other efforts to combat illegal drugs.... What was missing, Souter wrote, "was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear."... Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. "Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment..." [Oh, go back to your hairy Coke, Clarence!]
Bad practices that many students believe will make them become expert engineers are the ire of managers who hire recent engineering graduates.
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