Just A Thought, But Hear Me Out
Maybe the racially neurotic should not be teaching children.
Say, the kinds of people who insist that maintaining discipline in class and ejecting those who seriously misbehave – thereby enabling the rest of the class to have some chance of learning something – is merely “upholding white supremacy,” and so, by implication, very, very bad. The kinds of people who, when their own words are quoted verbatim and they consequently encounter pushback, seemingly for the first time, complain about the stress of being disagreed with.
As we’ve seen many times, when said neuroticism is made modish, statusful, and an institutional obligation, the practical results are not entirely inspiring. With six experiments in racial immunity from discipline, in six different cities, resulting in six surges in violent classroom assaults, up to and including actual riots. And with apologists for the policies doubling-down and subsequently claiming that “African-American boys” are more “physical” and “demonstrative,” and so punching teachers in the face, and groping them, and setting other students’ hair on fire, is how those students “engage in learning.”
And when educators have practised such dishonesties and have learned to perform the required mental contortions, the results can be quite eye-widening. We might, for instance, turn to Dr Albert Stabler, an assistant professor at Appalachian State University, whose thoughts are much aligned with those of our TikTok teacher linked above.
Writing in The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, Dr Stabler confessed his innate wrongness – “I am a white teacher” – before disdaining the “white feelings” of fellow educators who objected to being punched and humiliated with increasing frequency, and with something close to impunity. Among them, our woke educator’s immediate predecessor, a female art teacher whose hair was forcibly cut by a black student. These objections were denounced by Dr Stabler as constituting “white supremacist violence,” while the actual violence – the punching and cutting and so forth – was waved aside as a display of the students’ “cultural knowledge” and “kinetic” creativity.
Not, I think, a happy trajectory.
Update, via the comments:
Regarding Dr Stabler and his peers, and their merry mental dance, Mike says, not unreasonably,
These people aren’t just pathetic, they’re twisted.
Well, pathologically unrealistic, certainly. The term that comes to mind is pretentious degeneracy. Again, the kinds of people to whom one probably shouldn’t entrust one’s children.
The feats of mental contortion – and the sheer, practised dishonesty – are, it’s true, quite something. Oddly, it’s often the small details that give the game away. For instance, Dr Stabler’s airy dismissal of what was done to his predecessor – because she, the victim, was white and therefore, it seems, undeserving of redress. As if forcibly cutting a female teacher’s hair, leaving her in tears, wasn’t obviously done to dominate and humiliate her. As if a person’s willingness to gratuitously punch someone, or grope them, or gleefully violate them in some way, couldn’t possibly tell us quite a lot about that person’s character – and about how much, or little, their wellbeing should concern us.
Instead, these acts of (often quite ingenious) malice are construed as innocuous and forgivable, while objections to being assaulted and humiliated are framed as the real problem, the thing we must correct. All those “white emotions.” A term used repeatedly, disdainfully, and generally as a euphemism for physical safety and expectations of civilised behaviour. And so, the aggressors, being supposedly oppressed, must forever be indulged and with ever greater latitude. As if an imperviousness to normal consequences will do anything but inspire more of the same, only with more daring and inventive sociopathy.
As a blueprint for a Really Bad Situation – a demoralised and hopelessly dysfunctional environment – it’s hard to fault. A blueprint, one assumes, to be extended beyond the classroom. 
Not entirely unrelated I don’t think.
It’s from 2017, so not recent, but it does include some quite remarkable claims, some of which I suspect would be unlikely to bear up to even relatively cursory inspection.
And when educators have practised such dishonesties and have learned to perform the required mental contortions, the results can be quite eye-widening.
F*cking hell. Eyes widened.
Eyes widened.
The unrealism and moral perversity are things to behold. Imagine being inside that head, every day.
Imagine being inside that head, every day.
Giggity.
sprints towards exit
Giggity.
And so, we’ve arrived at a situation in which a great many of the people entrusted with the education of children seem profoundly ill-suited to the task – among them, the chronically pretentious and the morally perverse – and they, if not the children, seem to be thriving and ascendant. Theirs is the worldview currently in fashion among their peers and employers.
It’s worth contrasting the above with the attitude (and the results) of, say, Katharine Birbalsingh.
and they, if not the children, seem to be thriving and ascendant.
That.
And so, we’ve arrived at a situation in which a great many of the people entrusted with the education of children seem profoundly ill-suited to the task – among them, the chronically pretentious and the morally perverse – and they, if not the children, seem to be thriving and ascendant. Theirs is the worldview currently in fashion among their peers and employers.
The Long March through the institutions: The left set out to infiltrate culturally influential professions such as teaching, social work, and journalism. And once established excluded those who disagreed. (My liberal alternate between denying that this has happened and saying that it is a very good thing.)
Correction: My liberal friends alternate…
That.
Well, it seems obvious that children are more likely to succeed in life if they have boundaries and order and responsibilities, and a reciprocal expectation of those things, rather than being handed pre-emptive, ready-made excuses for their own increasingly delinquent behaviour, and unilateral exemptions based on race from normal, very basic proprieties. And for children from homes where incompetence, disorder and selfishness are defining features, it scarcely seems less important.
Again, Ms Birbalsingh.
That this kind of thing should need saying, as if it were some shatteringly new development and previously unknown, is itself a little odd.
You need to discipline children at a young age, to stop hitting others and screaming, to say please and thank you. You never hit a child–they learn that violence is acceptable if you do. Poor families of all races have a tendency to no talk to their kids, not discipline them in this sense. The kids grow up wild. This is made much worse when there is no father present, as in 70% of black households. The effect on boys of no father is to make them unruly in the extreme when combined with other factors.
In middle class families you can observe parents giving intense attention to the children, affirming when they do something right (putting on a shoe), talking to them constantly, and repeating when they say a word. If you observe black families when out in public, no one is talking to the children. There are also no books in the home. This accounts, in my view, for a big part of the fall-behind in education.
Educators: Education methods that work are boring to teachers and not that rewarding, so they would rather do exciting (and easy) things like indoctrinating children in absurd wokeness. Lazy bastards.
Birbalsingh.: her critics would rather she just spend time railing against capitalism than teaching children. wow. Let’s attack what works for kids!!
Capitalism is the worst system ever, except for every other system that has been tried. These people don’t even know what the word means. If a kid uses his allowance to open a lemonade stand, that is capitalism. There is no conflict between capitalism and “community”. Do they seriously not understand that under communism there is still injustice, inequality, and brutality?
I highly recommend a new book How the World Became Rich.
Education methods that work are boring to teachers and not that rewarding, so they would rather do exciting (and easy) things like indoctrinating children in absurd wokeness.
This just arrived in my mailbox, as if on cue.
Antiracist math: with kids below the national average–note that this isn’t even a high bar. When we have reached the stage of culture where inter-racial dating and marriage is common, where POC are on every TV show and news show, where the best-selling movie in history (more or less) black panther had black main characters, where there is no red-lining, and where almost all the black disadvantage is self-inflicted (gang violence, divorce)–this is the moment where the Left wants to talk about racism 24/7/365 because it is their new religion and they have nothing else.
30 years ago there were items proclaiming that feminists were going to produce a “feminist math” which of course came to nothing because there can be no such thing. Now we see “anti-racist math” which of course means “instead of” math.
Education methods that work are boring to teachers
I’ve told this story before, but: I once knew a teacher who had rocketed to the top of her profession partly because she was exploiting the diversity hire thing (“there aren’t enough female principals!”) but also because she knew how to game the system. She would present papers every year at academic conferences, and she picked her topic by looking up whatever was hot ten years prior, picking a well-received paper and plagiarizing it. Because academic fads in pedagogy rotated roughly every ten years.
So you’ve got a school vice-principal openly admitting to academic fraud and that none of the faddish pedagogies used by schools make any difference. Or are never tested to see if they make any difference, po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
Daniel: it is worse than that. Pedagogies that do not work keep being used and those that have been tested and work (drills for example) are not used because teachers hate them. Fads rule.
Daniel: it is worse than that. Pedagogies that do not work keep being used and those that have been tested and work (drills for example) are not used because teachers hate them. Fads rule.
Children would be much better served if schools of education were abolished, an education degree was treated as a sign of incompetence, and teachers for reading and basic arithmetic were chosen by their ability to read and do math, their ability to explain and drill, and their ability to get along with children.
The kinds of people who, when their own words are quoted verbatim and they consequently encounter pushback, seemingly for the first time, complain about the stress of being disagreed with.
If there was ANY silver lining to the year-long (in places like CA) lockout of students from their schools and subjecting them to Zoom classes, it was that parents got a ringside seat at what was really going on in the classroom – and how much they were lied to by teachers.
Aside: back in the day a parent could drop into school, appear at the office then proceed to their child’s classroom and observe. Now you have to have been fingerprinted, background checked and make a specific appointment subject to teacher’s and principal’s discretion.
Now that school is starting, 100s of thousands of kids are “missing” from public schools. A lot of parents are scared to death of what is going to happen now that the cameras are turned off and teachers are arrogant enough to go on places like Tik-Tok and state out loud “fuck parents, we are going to still do what we want”. And that would include chasing the sane teachers OUT of the profession.
and teachers for reading and basic arithmetic were chosen by their ability to read and do math, their ability to explain and drill, and their ability to get along with children.
The sheer hysterical reaction of the educrats in Florida to De Santis’ program to have vets and first responders go in and teach (after passing basic competency in subject test) is something to behold. The appeals to credentialism are so shrill what they reveal is a true contempt for ANYONE – including parents – who would dare presume to teach their kid “See Jane run.” or “2+2=4” without possessing the proper education degree.
The appeals to credentialism are so shrill what they reveal is a true contempt for ANYONE – including parents – who would dare presume to teach their kid “See Jane run.” or “2+2=4” without possessing the proper education degree.
One of Ms, er, Randipandi’s followers tells us it’s an outrage that teachers are being “told they’re wrong by people with zero education and training in that field/topic.” In this case, the field of propagating obnoxious and destructive racial neuroticism.
“We didn’t choose to be treated the way that we are being treated,” says our intersectional educator, almost choking back tears. You see, when the TikTok videos you’ve been making, while fishing for approval from other educators, reach a wider audience, including parents – and including parents of minority children – and that wider audience doesn’t agree with your pernicious flimflam, then it’s all just so upsetting.
Speaking of neurotics:
Annnd … the rest of the story …
Annnd … the rest of the story
For many years it was thought that Borderline Personality Disorder had a genetic component, since so many women with BPD had children who also presented with BPD symptoms.
Proving once again that society will do just about anything to avoid connecting the obvious dots.
“My spouse and I are also transgender”
Well colour me shocked. At best we have a bloke who thinks he’s a Sheila and a Sheila who thinks she’s a bloke. Chances are it’s a whole lot weirder.
Yet thanks to the fruition of their 10 year project they are going to be very very rich.
Asylum seeker:
https://mobile.twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1562197393159778304
You never hit a child–they learn that violence is acceptable if you do.
No. They learn, directly and in no uncertain terms, that what they just did, which itself may include violence, is not acceptable. While corporal punishment should be a last resort, in certain circumstances it is a necessary tool that should not easily be dismissed by civilized people.
Darleen, I just heard Al Carvalho on NPR. Superintendent of LA Unified School District, largest in the US. Fretting about a drop of 10% (?) in enrollment for this year. He offered no speculation about possible causes, just said his people were out beating the bushes to “encourage” kids to come back. Also no speculation about where they might have gone. The NPR interviewer was similarly incurious.
And when educators have practised such dishonesties and have learned to perform the required mental contortions, the results can be quite eye-widening. We might, for instance, turn to Dr Albert Stabler,
These people aren’t just pathetic they’re twisted.
These people aren’t just pathetic, they’re twisted.
Well, pathologically unrealistic, certainly. The term that comes to mind is pretentious degeneracy. Again, the kinds of people to whom one probably shouldn’t entrust one’s children.
The feats of mental contortion – and the sheer, practised dishonesty – are, it’s true, quite something. Oddly, it’s often the small details that give the game away. For instance, Dr Stabler’s airy dismissal of what was done to his immediate predecessor – because she, the victim, was white and therefore, it seems, undeserving of redress. As if forcibly cutting a female teacher’s hair, leaving her in tears, wasn’t obviously done to dominate and humiliate her. As if a person’s willingness to gratuitously punch someone, or grope them, or gleefully violate them in some way, couldn’t possibly tell us quite a lot about that person’s character – and about how much, or little, their wellbeing should concern us.
Instead, these acts of (often quite ingenious) malice are construed as innocuous and forgivable, while objections to being assaulted and humiliated are framed as the real problem, the thing we must correct. All those “white emotions.” A term used repeatedly, disdainfully, and generally as a euphemism for physical safety and expectations of civilised behaviour. And so, the aggressors, being supposedly oppressed, must forever be indulged and with ever greater latitude. As if an imperviousness to normal consequences will do anything but inspire more of the same, only with more daring and inventive sociopathy.
As a blueprint for a Really Bad Situation – a demoralised and hopelessly dysfunctional environment – it’s hard to fault. A blueprint, one assumes, to be extended beyond the classroom.
You never hit a child–they learn that violence is acceptable if you do.
Do you perceive a difference between “hit” and “spank”?
Do you believe that violence is never acceptable?
Ah, @WTP beat me to the underlying issue.
Not entirely unrelated.
Not entirely unrelated.
Holy cow!
Not entirely unrelated.
The enemy declares itself. As Instapundit often quips, “Maybe letting the enemies of our civilisation teach our children was a mistake.”
As a blueprint for a Really Bad Situation – a demoralised and hopelessly dysfunctional environment – it’s hard to fault.
The end point of that Really Bad Situation is societal collapse, replaced by anarchy or thugocracy, both of which feature nightmarish levels of violence, terror, and poverty.
As a blueprint for a Really Bad Situation – a demoralised and hopelessly dysfunctional environment – it’s hard to fault. A blueprint, one assumes, to be extended beyond the classroom.
That.
…the actual violence – the punching and cutting and so forth – was waved aside as a display of the students’ “cultural knowledge” and “kinetic” creativity.
Typical of the Devout, he really does see black people as monkeys performing in his own self-flattering circus.
Typical of the Devout, he really does see black people as monkeys performing in his own self-flattering circus.
It’s not unheard of among the type. And he is very much of a type.
Holy cow!
The full article for them as are interested.
I flirted with going into teaching after leaving the Service and still follow a portion of UK EduTwitter. There is a somewhat reassuring trend of people looking at evidence of whatf works rather than just what feels good – the ResearchEd conferences a particular example – but it’s by no means universal and seems actively opposed by higher ups in the ghastly NEU and the hollow Chartered College of Teaching. Gove’s Blob is alive and fighting.
My spouse and I are also transgender,”
So, “nuts”. As in whackerdoodle. Poor kid.
Spank or hit: of course spanking is less bad, but we did just fine raising 3 without either, ever. But in poor minority households, it is hitting, as in beating, that is common. If you don’t think that being beat desensitizes you and makes you more out of control, you need a timeout.
One of the fundamental mistakes we have made was to tolerate leftists.
One of the fundamental mistakes we have made was to tolerate leftists.
“You’re not hearing me,” says she.
Then, as if the level of farce weren’t quite sufficient, “Dangerous driver!” And a tinkling bell.
Frankly, I’m surprised these narcissistic little bitches don’t get beaten insensible then run over repeatedly.
Frankly, I’m surprised these narcissistic little bitches don’t get beaten insensible then run over repeatedly.
Undoubtedly they morally deserve it, but the Ruling Class finds them very useful.
Undoubtedly they morally deserve it,
Well, I can’t see from the clip what their purpose is, i.e., why they’re blocking traffic and refusing to let the driver get home, even slowly. Except, of course, accompanied and on foot. Is it a protest, or a permitted event of some kind, or some combination of the two?
Despite the fact that his job apparently keeps him on the road for 7 days the driver still chooses to live in Portland.
It’s not inconceivable that he votes Democrat. This was the day the madness finally affected him personally and he’s pissed about it.
He’s going to be really really pissed once the Karen’s on bikes publish his address online for their black-clad (and 100% immune from prosecution) enforcers.
Holy cow!
If the school and parents were even slightly competent, those 4th and 5th graders would have been taught to read using phonics 4 years ago. Then the poor teachers could indulge their current fantasies, and cause a bunch of novel problems. Win-Win!
Parsing through the Time piece, it is heavy on emotion and slant, low on objectivity. Notably risible: teachers are ‘underpaid, nurturing souls’ -this left-leaning myth has been shown to be untrue in comparison of salaries. But, what are facts when the chosen in-group has a perfectly good narrative they prefer? As for the not punishing students, and I suspect it will always be ethnic minority students who go unpunished in the ludicrous female’s classes, what better way to begin the expectation of committing crimes with no punishment?
Phonics: my parents taught me to read using phonics when I was 7. By 5th grade I was reading at 12th grade level. I taught my kids that way and they were likewise so far ahead. It baffles me that teachers hate it.
Phonics: my parents taught me to read using phonics when I was 7…
My grandmother drilled me and my sister using phonics and traditional methods of teaching arithmetic. My grade school was already playing with whole language and the New Math, but fortunately my grandmother coached me and my sister using phonics and traditional methods of teaching arithmetic.
…It baffles me that teachers hate it.
It’s boring. No exciting theories to study and apply. And worst of all, anyone can teach children using phonics.
I have read that in the 19th Century America had the most educated populace in the world, and this was before you had to have a degree in education to become a teacher. The hegemony of schools of education have only done harm.
If you don’t think that being beat desensitizes you and makes you more out of control, you need a timeout.
Beating is beyond spanking. There’s quite the broad line there but doing physical harm requiring even something as minor as a bandaid should be a line clear enough for any reasonable person to understand and of course a line that should not be crossed. You bring up poor minority households and such, a bit of a stereotype. Yet keep in mind that historically and even to a significant degree today, the poor face a far greater risk when their children stray and they generally have far fewer tools, and time, at their disposal to enforce discipline. Much of the extreme beating is generally drug or alcohol driven. Far worse damage can be done psychologically with the spoken word in many instances. Better to give a child a smack on the fanny than call him or her “stupid”.
But more in general, the go-to attitude of our society that “all violence is wrong” and even further, that being angry is some sort of moral failing is a big, big problem that has brought us to where we are today.
my parents taught me to read using phonics when I was 7. By 5th grade I was reading at 12th grade level.
I had a similar experience – phonics was used in school and reinforced at home. And my parents were readers too and I got full access to their books and magazines – westerns were a particular favorite, some sci-fi and then the stories in everything from Reader’s Digest to Saturday Evening Post. We didn’t have TV in the house until I was in grade school and, even then, it was restricted. So reading was a big deal.
Oh dear, my white privilege is showing!
Phonics: my parents taught me to read using phonics when I was 7. By 5th grade I was reading at 12th grade level. I taught my kids that way and they were likewise so far ahead. It baffles me that teachers hate it.
It had generally fallen out of favor when I was in grade school, at least in south Florida. Such that the mothers in the neighborhood bought phonic workbooks for us kids that we all had to work through. Which wasn’t much appreciated at the time after a day in school. I found them rather boring and easy/obvious but they seem to have worked. If only there was a “phonics” for math, maybe the 44 year old woman that we play poker with could make 20 cents change from 50 cents for a 30 cent bet.
The current fad around here in high school math is “no textbooks” just online stuff. Maybe saves $ but very bad for the kids.
The full article for them as are interested.
IMHO this sentence really nails it:
Phonics: having first learned Polish, then French – phonics for English was much more hit and miss. By the time I went to English school I went mostly by the “whole language” approach. The requirements in my day to read out loud in class provided ample opportunity for correction of English phonics outliers. Years later, when it came time to teach my daughters, we started with a phonics based approach – it worked well for one, the other just learned the words in English rather quickly. I think the lesson here is not to be dogmatic about any one approach.
Priorities. Because we are ruled by the best and the brightest.
I think the lesson here is not to be dogmatic about any one approach.
I think the key factor here is how quickly each child progresses beyond needing phonics.
Priorities. Because we are ruled by the best and the brightest.
Freeman Dyson has said many times that a key factor in his disenchantment with elites was what he saw during WWII in RAF Bomber Command: Thousands and thousands of deaths due purely and simply to bad decisions made by people who, being in positions of authority, were supposed to be wiser and more knowledgeable than their subordinates.
What *am* I looking at?
:::snort::: I don’t see how anyone could tell the difference between the AI and “real rap” stars in the first place.
:::snort:::
Hard to know where to start, really.
“amalgamation of
gross stereotypesaccurate depictions”“It would be a shame if you shared this anti-rape poster.”
Anti-rape: as the brits say, better dead than rude.
Item: Some years back, I read of a student-athlete at the University of Illinois, a football player. The young man was smart enough to know that he would never play professionally, and determined to use his sports scholarship to get a proper degree. He got respectable grades, but had to work very hard for them, because he was dyslexic.
Then a counselor recommended that he take Latin for his foreign-language requirement. Latin instruction began with its rules of grammar and spelling. As he mastered Latin’s rules, he also came to understand English’s similar (though less consistent) rules, which he had never been taught, and his dyslexia went away.
He said it was like someone turned the lights on.
[Above previously posted here.]
Item: During WW II, the US Army tested all recruits for literacy. Of recruits who had at least five years of school, less than 1% were illiterate. (There were many illiterate recruits, but those had no schooling.) During the Korean War, that same group tested IIRC about 15% illiterate. The difference was that in the 1930s, many American schools adopted the “look-say” method. This was after the WW II recruits had completed their first years of school, but before the Korean War recruits.
After almost 25 years of living and working in rural Africa with my K-12 teacher wife, neither of us can recall a single incident by a student that even remotely resembles these feral beasts,’ “African-American boys” [who] are more “physical” and “demonstrative,” and so punching teachers in the face, and groping them, and setting other students’ hair on fire, is how those students “engage in learning.”
African families cherish educational opportunities and make great sacrifices to attend school. amd African children, as a rule, are exceptionally well behaved. The difference between Africans and Negroes is a matter of culture, not race.
In African urban centres, one will occasionally observe upper grade secondary students and some college students trying to emulate American Negro culture with their dreadlocks, ass-crack baring trousers, and rap music, but they are a definite minority.
To use blackness as an excuse for such behavior when it is simple evidence of cultural rot, then blaming it on white supremacy, is pure horseshit.
Phonics: my parents taught me to read using phonics when I was 7. By 5th grade I was reading at 12th grade level. I taught my kids that way and they were likewise so far ahead.
There’s a pretty obvious confounding factor here.
If there was ANY silver lining to the year-long (in places like CA) lockout of students from their schools and subjecting them to Zoom classes, it was that parents got a ringside seat at what was really going on in the classroom – and how much they were lied to by teachers.
And let’s not forget this rather telling incident:
Needless to say, one of many.
It’s boring. No exciting theories to study and apply. And worst of all, anyone can teach children using phonics.
Among educators, not least leftist educators, there is a tendency to self-flatter and inflate their own importance. For instance, taking credit for other people’s ability, i.e., a child’s cleverness, as if the child’s IQ were something that had been bestowed by the teacher, whose role in that matter is somewhere between slim and pretty much irrelevant. The idea that a clever child might be clever despite their education – say, at the hands of leftist educators – not because of it, is practically anathema.
And simultaneously, we see great efforts being made, by leftist educators, to eradicate reliable tests of ability, which are deemed racist and unfair, and to shut down programmes for gifted children, on grounds that the reality of “natural gifts and talents” is something to be rejected as inegalitarian and ideologically offensive.
This bit from the above, among others, seems apposite:
Very much related.
The University of Texas at Austin is offering a “brand new” course on Democrat activist, pro-abortion, pro-China, climate change hypocrite pop star Taylor Swift this fall semester, titled “Literary Contests and Contexts — The Taylor Swift Songbook.”
As I have no idea who she is, I may have to take out a student loan to help me negotiate the years of rigour and dedication that this course will demand.I say this because success with the Taylor segment opens the doorway to an Honours course in English.
I am slowly coming to the conclusion that a good number of the problems we are dealing with, especially from the left but a significant number from the right as well, a good number of these problems could be solved, and especially avoided, if we simply stop taking women seriously. Seriously.
Item: During WW II, the US Army tested all recruits for literacy…The difference was that in the 1930s, many American schools adopted the “look-say” method…
I wouldn’t be surprised if the correlation is not spurious. And I am certain that the education establishment would not change its ways even if a connection were proved.
Seriously.
What was it Gene Wolfe wrote?
“Only women and flakes see ghosts”?
Item: During WW II, the US Army tested all recruits for literacy…WWII…Korean War…
However, other factors seem likely. For instance, science fiction writer Gene Wolfe wrote in his Korean War memoir that many of the recruits around him were not very suitable, having physical and mental problems. I’ll speculate that the Army was not calling up WWII veterans and thus, only a few years after WWII, was faced with a very limited pool of quality candidates–although one might also allow for the possibility that he saw a non-representative sample.
After almost 25 years of living and working in rural Africa with my K-12 teacher wife, neither of us can recall a single incident by a student that even remotely resembles these feral beasts,’…
I have read that African immigrants have a very low opinion of black Americans in general, seeing them as grievance-obsessed fools, and especially despising ghetto blacks as, well, barbarians.
Squires: What??
There is a strange cultural thing in black culture in the US where black girls get the ok to dress nice and study, because it doesn’t conflict with being feminine (of course some of them go gangsta) but the model for black boys is gangsta, so they won’t study, act out to prove how tough and cool they are. The result is that far more black girls graduate college and their earnings are better.
The movement to get rid of grades and valedictorians and honors classes is so twisted. Very smart kids can be way ahead of the slow kids, like 3 grades ahead. To make them take all the same classes together is a guarantee of dysfunction and failure.
“Only women and flakes see ghosts”?
Exactly. Similarly, I was thinking this last night during a lull in our poker game, the inability of certain generations to make change, maybe it’s not so much a generational thing. Maybe it is more a function of more and more women taking cashier-type checkout jobs combined with the types of women who used to do those jobs well enough moving on to other positions up the Peter Principle ladder. I honestly cannot think of a single man that I know, not even one “mentally challenged” guy, who cannot make change out of 50 cents.
What??
From the short story Try and Kill It.
[ Sounds of tomorrow’s Ephemera being compiled. ]
[ Wipes sweated brow. ]
From the short story Try and Kill It.
Could those have been words spoken by one of the characters, but without any indication that the reader should accept that point of view? Gene Wolfe has, on occasion, said that he finds the existence of ghosts quite plausible. (I’ll hesitate to say that he firmly believed in the reality of their existence because it’s been a while since I have read or heard him talk about that.) Bear in mind: (1) Wolfe works very hard to have his characters say what fits their personalities, not what suits any “message” Wolfe wants to promote. (2) Wolfe often writes stories in which characters are “unreliable narrators”: They lie or forget or get confused, and one has to pay very close attention.
[ Sounds of tomorrow’s Ephemera being compiled. ]
So that’s what that sound is. I was about to call the RSPCA.
So that’s what that sound is. I was about to call the RSPCA.
Yes, and there’s more swearing than you’d imagine.
This is a Facebook link so don’t know if everyone can view it…protest and counter-protest in NZ where the white people are stand strong and all anti-fascist against the mix of whites, asians, Maoris, etc. Way to go, white people! Way to go!
https://fb.watch/f7f1zO7AvN/
Not a new thing… In 1992 we moved to a new neighbourhood, and I went to the nearby Safeway to buy groceries. My bill came to $28.35 or something. I gave the cashier (I would guess, just out of high school – maybe 18?) a twenty and a ten and then fished in my pocket for change, coming up with a quarter and a dime. She looked at me like I had two heads, so I explained “that’s so you can give me a toonie (two-dollar coin for you foreigners), so I don’t have to carry as much change.”
She continued to be confused, but entered the $30.35 cash tendered into her cash register – miracle of miracles, it indicated change due of $2.00 on the nose! She was openly amazed, saying “Oh right – wow, you old people are really good at that stuff.” I didn’t appreciate being classed with ‘you old people,’ being in my mid thirties at the time.
I didn’t appreciate being classed with ‘you old people,’ being in my mid thirties at the time.
[ Slides comfy chair, blanket to dcardno. ]
Not a new thing… In 1992
Well, 1992 is new to some of us old people. That was about the time it started to get embarrassing. You will note the “she” there. More to my point.
I didn’t appreciate being classed with ‘you old people,’ being in my mid thirties at the time.
Started happening to me in early thirties. Didn’t like it either.
I didn’t appreciate being classed with ‘you old people,’ being in my mid thirties at the time.
A week or two ago, while grocery shopping, I was referred to as “young man.” The lady in question was, I should point out, pushing 80 and her vision possibly not what it was.
There have been many videos, dating back to Jay Leno, of interviews of young people on the street who literally know nothing, not who the VP is, not when WWII or civil war were, what communism is, how many people on earth (7 million hahaha was one answer), nothing at all.
Hey, where’s my comfy chair and blanket? And hot tea? I feel aggrieved, too!
A week or two ago, while grocery shopping, I was referred to as “young man.”
That happened all through my forties and fifties. Felt odd. On the other hand, it was annoying when, in my teens, an elderly person would address me as “boy”.
I want my own reparations. I’ll found the League of the Easily Offended. All of you are invited to join. Demonstrations will be conducted for maximum hilarity.
This is very disappointing. Can’t we do anything to provoke you?
There have been many videos, dating back to Jay Leno, of interviews of young people on the street who literally know nothing, not who the VP is, not when WWII or civil war were, what communism is, how many people on earth (7 million hahaha was one answer), nothing at all.
Granted. Many of my classmates in school, many who got better grades in certain subjects than I did, didn’t seem to know much about those subjects just a few months later. And many of them that I am still in touch with seem to know even less today. But making change from 50 cents is a basic life skill. As I said, mentally challenged people…well men according to my limited sampling of just one anyway…can do this. But even in the context you speak of, what do you suppose the male/female ratio is there? And keep in mind that Leno is an entertainer and thus things will have a significant PC bias. I also find a lot of people are actually embarrassed to know many things so they pretend not to know. I have seen friends in certain situations pretend to not know things that I know that they know. It’s shocking. But knowledge of stuff you need to know to get by in basic life…it’s pathetic. And it is thick especially among the homochromosomal.
Re ‘Not entirely unrelated’ it’s fascinating how the left-leaning and uselessly educated in-group manage to combine the very worst of white savior complex with the Noble Savage racist tropes. Then, nobody challenges them, they only hear similar viewpoints, or if they hear something objectionable, let the emotions flow.
Those clips prove that there are some dummies in the general population, but not that the general population are all dummies. Somebody answering correctly isn’t funny, so we never see those clips – instead we see people guessing that there are 10 stars on the US flag, or not knowing what country California is in. Admittedly, at least when doing these man-in-the-street gigs at elite universities, they shouldn’t be able to find anyone who doesn’t get the right answers (unless they set up shop near the grievance studies end of the campus), but at Disneyland (etc) it’s not surprising to find a moron or ten over the course of a day.