Activism Farms
We seem to be living in an age of extinction-level stupidity:
There is no such thing as learning loss. Our kids didn’t lose anything [during the pandemic]. It’s okay that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.
So says Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of the United Teachers Los Angeles union. A union representing 33,000 teachers and associated educational staff.
“Education is political,” says Ms Myart-Cruz, who boasts of her ability to act with near-impunity, and whose list of Intolerable Things includes cognitive testing, “structural racism,” border controls, policing, and the supposed “privilege” of parents who would like their children to actually learn things, including times tables. Our Mistress Of Higher Purpose struggles to comprehend why parents might object to their children’s education, even in basic skills, being supplanted by the nakedly self-serving and increasingly weird activism of the people paid to teach them those basic skills. Instead, she endorses claims that such objections must be driven by “white-supremacist thinking.”
Needless to say, the UTLA is vehemently opposed to voucher systems that would allow parents to spare their children a stay in what are not so much schools as activism farms. Where Ms Myart-Cruz and her “babies” can prioritise “fighting for… social justice.”
“We’re re-envisioning what the future of public schools will look like,” says she.
Via Darleen.
“We’re re-envisioning what the future of public schools will look like,” says she.
What a coincidence. The Taliban are re-envisioning what the future of their schools will be like, too…
“They learned to obey. And isn’t that what really matters?”
Today’s words are ideological capture.
Looks like a cult. Sounds like a cult. Smells like a cult.
Looks like a cult. Sounds like a cult. Smells like a cult.
I like a man who can laugh in the face of autocorrect.
I’ll just leave this here for anyone who might need it.
“They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”
Not if they only listen to the mainstream mediocres, or lefties, or YOU and your ilk, fem… And yes, I’m aware these are all facets of the same thing, but there you go…
“Theoretically, all 33,000 teachers in the union are allowed to vote for their president. In practice, though, turnout is minuscule. In the election of 2020, only 5,300 members cast ballots, or about 16 percent of the union. Myart-Cruz got 69 percent of that 16 percent,”
only 5,300 members cast ballots
Not sure what that says about the teachers in the union but either way it isn’t good.
We’ve noted the parallels to China’s Red Guard for years, but my gosh — they don’t even try to hide their intentions anymore.
This woman must have to bite her tongue not to blurt out the phrase “struggle sessions” every time she shares her plans.
Then again, the new jargon has developed its own momentum. “Struggle sessions” will return; they’ll just have a different name.
“They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”
Rioters are protesters with whom we disagree.
An insurrection is when we can get the people we disagree with arrested for disagreeing too vociferously.
Speaking of school boards…
Speaking of school boards…
Some of those were a stretch. Phil McCracken? Weak. But by the time he got to Eileen Dover a lightbulb should have gone off. But hey, they’re the smart people.
And speaking of school boards…what is with that scene? My local city council doesn’t have such a grand space nor so fancy. Never been to a school board meeting since I was a child but I figured they still met in a school auditorium or cafeteria or such.
parents who would like their children to actually learn things, including times tables
In Southwestern Ontario, multiplication tables are no longer taught at all in elementary school. Not because of the pandemic; they haven’t been taught for years.
Not sure what that says about the teachers in the union but either way it isn’t good.
You are assuming the elections are free, fair and legitimate, an increasingly unlikely supposition.
Fire them all. Decertify every teacher’s union. Shut down all publicly funded schooling. Return to the days when parents who wanted their children to get an education banded together, hired a teacher out of their own pocket, and held that teacher – and their own children – to account for their children’s performance.
The problem with this approach is that it won’t work for the growing underclass of children from welfare-addicted single mothers whose parents are either absent or apathetic. I don’t have a solution for that. Anything I can think of off the top of my head just looks like a variant of the current state-sponsored daycare system.
You are assuming the elections are free, fair and legitimate, an increasingly unlikely supposition.
I assume nothing. I highly doubt that the elections are free, fair and legitimate. This is one of the many ways “it isn’t good”.
“Cecily Myart-Cruz”
Again with the old pirate lore:
“If ye see,
names of three,
or a hyphen there be;
BEWARE!
For bat-sh*t crazy be she!”
Rioters are protesters with whom we disagree.
And in clown world, protesters are rioters with whom agree.
They know the words insurrection and coup.
And everything is coup coup ca choo.
Phil McCracken? Weak.
But still a classic. I was hoping the new NHL team the Kraken would adopt a mascot named Phil.
Speaking of classics, this SNL terrorist name sketch was hilarious in its time. I also remember one with more colourful names but can’t source it.
You’re not going to bring teachers unions to their senses by pleading with them. School choice is necessary. When public school teachers see their jobs jeopardized by falling enrollment, only then will they abandon extreme political agendas and start asking how they can serve parents and children better.
Sometimes they say the quiet part out loud.
hilarious in its time
Pah. Also Piffle. Which is not, I think, an improvement on the original.
Yes, but they couldn’t spell them to save their lives.
Rather a lot like the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region I would suspect.
‘Related’…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83b_u5V51U8
We’re re-envisioning what the future of public schools will look like.
Rather a lot like the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region I would suspect.
Or the way Hong Kong schools are going.
When the leader of the school teachers tells her community that their children should not attend school any more, it’s not a sign that civilization is in decline, but rather that the stopper has already been pulled and it’s only a matter of circling the drain a few times before it’s all over.
I trust that there will remain a few tropical islands where rum will continue to be distilled. I encourage you all to join me in my anchorage where we can raise a glass to the setting of the sun and the burning of the West, grateful that we are far away from it all.
(Will a Mai Tai still be called a Mai Tai after the Chinese take over? What about a Singapore Sling?)
Or the way Hong Kong schools are going
Five arrested for seditious children’s books.
When the leader of the school teachers tells her community…
I propose a drinking game. Every time the word “community” is used unironically you have to take a drink. We’ll all be hammered before noon. Cheers
(Will a Mai Tai still be called a Mai Tai after the Chinese take over? What about a Singapore Sling?)
In protest, I will substitute a Yellow Bird for the Mai Tai and a Hurricane for the Singapore Sling.
But still a classic. I was hoping the new NHL team the Kraken would adopt a mascot named Phil.
What’s funny, funny peculiar not funny ha-ha, is hearing the guy trying to pronounce such a foreign…foreign like Canadian foreign… sounding name, the way he stumbled over it, the humor was lost on me. Though after typing it out, posting it, and then later reading it, thus pronounced ‘correctly’ in my head, it is damn funny ha-ha. Funny, that.’
Also, perhaps the school board could find an eighth grader somewhere….somewhere…to review their speakers list for joke names. Gotta give props to the incredible restraint from putting Biggus Dikkus on the list. Probably if given a second chance though…
She’s 100% right that education is political. And it’s damn well past time that everyone here learn that as well. Education is EXPLICITLY POLITICAL and, as such, it is imperative that every American insist that all children are taught to be politically patriotic. That they learn western, American values. If you’re not learning American values, then, by necessity you’re learning non-American values. Which leads to the destruction of American values.
Take your children out of the camps.
Anything I can think of off the top of my head just looks like a variant of the current state-sponsored daycare system.
My compromise with the statists has always been to break up school classes based on what the various parents actually want, which falls into only one of three categories: challenging school, not-as-challenging school, and daycare.
It would make explicit what tax-funded schooling advocates desperately wish to keep implicit, but I thought it had a snowball’s chance of gaining traction since dullard bureaucrats would see a potential tripling of their budgets. The most ideal compromise with the statists educrats would be unlimited charters and vouchers, but that is far, far too much freedom to ever be considered, especially in deep red* districts.
*F@%& every boomer republican who’s told me “well I went through public school and it was fine”
I like a man who can laugh in the face of autocorrect.
I missed this riposte the first time through. Well done, Hono(u)rable Master Singg!
@ Darleen
Five arrested for seditious children’s books.
Further, three have now been charged with incitement to sedition and denied bail.
Unlike the situation in the US, in Hong Kong it is the administration (for which read Chinese Communist Party) and not the teachers that is fucking the school system under the pretence of “National Security”.
Russian translator needed here.
The private schools have been slowly corrupted as well. The wokeness infected corporations over the last several decades. No one stood up to stop it there. Why would it be just a public school phenomenon? We don’t have just a school problem, just like we don’t have just an advanced education problem. We have a cultural rot on our hands that has so eaten through our society that a previous-generation idiotic moron who hasn’t gotten any brighter with the onset of dementia can “lead” an unmitigated disaster of a defeat of the greatest political/economic/military power the world has ever seen by a bunch of goat fuckers and our idiotic military “leaders” will go along with the plan, no matter how stupid. And the majority of the Western civilization that he’s supposedly defending will continue to make excuses for him. And on top of that, getting rid of him is a problem because his second in command is a cackling whore who “kneeled” her way to power. And even behind her is another alcoholic geriatric disgrace of a woman. This sort of cultural rot did not happen overnight. People, millions and millions of “reasonable” people…many known as the “grownups in the room”…watched as this slow train plowed through our culture and assured us, “Oh, don’t worry about this stuff. Everything will be fine. Perhaps you need medication?”
I am surprised to learn my 3-year-old grandson knows the difference between an insurrection and a coup. I was under the mistaken impression that he was still learning the difference between a horse and a cow.
“They know the words insurrection and coup.”
But if this is a representative example of who’s teaching them, I very much doubt that they know what they mean.
“The private schools have been slowly corrupted as well.”
Leafing through the magazine my alma mater still sends me twice a year, it’s hard to argue. But it isn’t nearly as bad as the state sector. The parents still have some power, and while there’s a load of wishy-washy Green nonsense and some lip-service to “diversity” because the parents themselves have been taken in by the relentless media bombardment, there’s none of the batshit-crazy, overtly Marxist, garbage we often read about on these pages. I’m reasonably confident that there haven’t been any drag queens reading to the kids in my school. The parents would refuse to pay for it.
So by far the most important thing the Tories could do in Britain right now is reinstate the Assisted Places Scheme (which helped the parents of bright kids pay school fees, and was abolished by That Nice Mr. “Education, Education, Education” Blair) and extend it beyond the Left’s darkest fears. Because be sure that nothing terrifies them more than children educated outside the System they’ve captured and subverted.
there’s none of the batshit-crazy, overtly Marxist, garbage we often read about on these pages yet.
FIFY. It’s a culture problem. We have a cultural rot on our hands that has so eaten through our society that a previous-generation idiotic moron who hasn’t gotten any brighter with the onset of dementia can “lead” an unmitigated disaster of a defeat of the greatest political/economic/military power the world has ever seen by a bunch of goat fuckers and our idiotic military “leaders” will go along with the plan, no matter how stupid. And the majority of the Western civilization that he’s supposedly defending will continue to make excuses for him. Including parents who send their children to such schools. Parents who didn’t need no education, didn’t need no thought control. Dark sarcasms in the classroom and all that jazz.
Education is EXPLICITLY POLITICAL and, as such, it is imperative that every American insist that all children are taught to be politically patriotic
And the class should be taught by a citizen.
“some lip-service to ‘diversity’”
I say that, but now I come to think of it, by far the most ethnically diverse school class I’ve ever encountered was my own, in P1-P2 (5-6 years old) at a small genuinely private prep school (in that it was owned by the headmaster). We had West Africans, South Africans, Indians, Caribbeans, Hong Kongers, Malaysians, Italians, Swedes, Spaniards, a French kid, and an American. Not to mention a few from various parts of Britain itself.
It’s a culture problem. We have a cultural rot on our hands…
Agreed.
“Nigerian students amass degrees to stay in Europe”, by Nduka Orjinmo of the BBC…
This person was unemployable in Belgium (1) After her Nigerian degree (2) After her Belgian primary degree, and (3) After her Belgian masters degree. At what point does the Belgian system decide that this is not a high-quality immigrant, and should have her student visa terminated instead of being subsidized for another degree?
An African studying African studies is pretty silly. She’s wasting time until the Europeans offer her a job that’s worthy of her wonderfulness, a white collar job with visa sponsorship. It’s in her interest to stretch this out, but why is it in the interest of the Belgians? It’s not like she’s studying chip design and might have useful skills for the economy. And the Belgians have no shortage of Belgian-born Congolese and Moroccans to fill their diversity quotas and anti-white bureaucracies.
Attractive for Nigerians. But why are the Belgians subsidizing it?
They find it offensive that they can’t just fly into a foreign country and get a high quality job. And that employers even in globalized Airstrip One don’t value them as highly as they value themselves.
And some countries spitefully put up barriers to entry by speaking languages that are foreign to Nigerians. Normally we credit Africans with language skills. Why don’t you speak English, says the cartoon racist, only for the cartoon African to answer in an Oxbridge accent that English is one of the seven languages he’s picked up. But this is somebody who’s studied for four years in Belgium without bothering to step out of the English speaking international student bubble (where, by her own account, she’s not overburdended academically) and learn one of the local languages of the country she thinks should grant her permanent residency.
Again, these are not high quality immigrants. They’re not high quality in their talent, and they’re not high quality in their attitude or their interest in their host country or their willingness to integrate.
What part of temporary visa did she not understand? She’s offended that she might have to go home.
But again, we know why she’s doing what she’s doing, but why are the Belgians indulging it? She imagines herself to be entitled to all sorts of things from her hosts – if they don’t give her a comfy job, they’ll have to subsidize another Mickey Mouse qualification for her, at the end of which she’ll be even more ungrateful and resentful and unemployable. But neither of those options are a moral obligation on Belgians. If they had a sane immigration morality, the Belgians wouldn’t even have to do anything to do the right thing – application rejected, visa allowed to lapse, but she’ll have gone home by the closing date because that’s what people with temporary visas do.
home by the closing date because that’s what people with temporary visas do
Seriously?
Again, these are not high quality immigrants.
Setting aside the particulars of Ms Osunkoya, I suspect that the idea of filtering would-be migrants by quality, by their benefit to the host country – the idea of being discerning – would be considered alien, or indeed scandalous, among many BBC journalists.
The problem with this approach is that it won’t work for the growing underclass of children from welfare-addicted single mothers whose parents are either absent or apathetic.
I think your approach would work a treat. There would be no recognisable difference in outcomes for the children of the underclass.
the way Hong Kong schools are going
Hong Kong kids will get brainwashed by commies, but at least they won’t be taught to hate themselves and they will be literate and numerate when they leave school.
There would be no recognisable difference in outcomes for the children of the underclass.
I’ll just leave this here. For no reason whatsoever.
I suspect that the idea of filtering would-be migrants by quality, by their benefit to the host country – the idea of being discerning – would be considered alien, or indeed scandalous, among many BBC journalists.
It is certainly anathema to American liberals.
…they will be literate and numerate when they leave school.
What? Are you implying ours aren’t?