Rumination upon Education

As the daughter of a teacher, I KNOW what my mother put into her four decades as both a fifth grade teacher and a high school teacher/college counselor.  She brought her job home every single day and most weekends.  That job dominated her life; she loved it and influenced countless lives positively.  She elevated the prospects of thousands of kids in the San Joaquin Valley and 29 Palms, California. A great many among them were children of seasonal migrant workers, mostly from Mexico, kids who lived with entire families in rooms the size of a small bedroom. 

At her funeral in 1994, I met a wonderful gentleman, at that point head of the local junior college, who told me that she was the reason that he, the American born son of Mexican migrant workers, was able to turn his passionate desire to succeed, help others, and prosper into reality.  I heard this said about my mother over and over again as she fulfilled her passionate desire to enlighten receptive minds.  That is what a Teacher does.

She was always passionate about her job.  One person CAN make a difference, and the public service workers of our country -- the teachers, the nurses, the firefighters & police -- each ONE of those people dedicate their lives to making a difference.  I believe they should be able to RETAIN the RIGHT to bargain with the Big Boss Men, who already, it seems, believe they should be as kings unto their workers.  Gah!
 
United (Union!) we stand, divided, we are cracked like dried twigs, which is pretty much what they want, isn’t it?

The sneak attack by the GOP in Wisconsin that killed collective bargaining in Wisconsin smacks of tyranny to me.  For example, when these slick creeps demean teachers, they are attacking societal fundamentals.  Do we, as a nation, value education?  Do we value educating the blue collar/middle class family as much as we value educating their peers at a higher social level?  If not, why not?


We’ve always had issues with class in this country.  We’ve had slavery, indentured servitude, the plight of women, children, the sick and the elderly who can’t fend for themselves.  And there has always been the model of the Banker (Big Business usually = GOP) with the cold heart in this country – plenty of those around today.  (“If you don’t give me the deed to your ranch I’m gonna tie you to the railroad tracks”)

Tell me, O weasel-eyed Governors with eyes of flint - I would like to know how destroying our precious national safety nets will do anything but impoverish those too weak to pull themselves up, thereby weakening our national fabric.  These “nets” are in place; they serve the people.  Honestly, really – what will take their place?  Smile, say "charity" and I will laugh in your face.

What happens when there’s no protection for the firemen, the teachers, the police, the drivers -- the We that are the People?  For Governor Walker to act like an over-confident bully, smashing the long-held values and Rights of a state known for securing those Rights, thereby paving the way for the rest of us, was viscerally shocking to me.

Governor Walker appears to be a mini-dictator, and there are several others of his ilk governing other states.  Their aim is to strip the Democratic Party of their one power base, the Unions, and to prevent President Obama from being elected or from achieving policy objectives.  It is also Karl Rove’s Machiavellian goal to achieve total GOP dominance within all systems of government.  If that happens, kiss the idea of America goodbye.

The state of Wisconsin is not supposed to be a dictatorship, run by a Governor with an unseemly urge to please billionaire businessmen such as the Koch Bros. His mini-dictatorship is somehow protected by states-rights while the rest of us watch in horror, wondering what next parliamentary bit of deviance will be used inappropriately.

In my state, California, a Democrat Governor was recalled a few years ago for NOTHING compared to what Governor Walker is doing, and I mean NOTHING.  I have nothing against Governor Schwarzenegger - I came to be quite fond of him -- he's MY kind of GOP-GOV.  I like moderate Republicans -- we do have a lot in common. I want to cultivate that love of the moderate which is unfamiliar to the flaming Progressive!

It's time to unite from within the center, reaching out -- reaching out to one another with a sense of inclusion towards ALL except the bat shit crazy.  I refuse to take this challenge to our working people without reacting in a protective fashion -- as they have protected us.  I refuse to watch a challenge to education in this country without working to educate people about why it matters!

People must know why a wide, stimulated, open & well-trained mind is worth more than gold.  The fewer great minds we have, the lower is our status as a country, period.  I would feel more comfortable with the direction of our country if we pointed our kids in the direction of math/science/saving the earth than by bombing the crap out of it.

When we stop respecting education, we are stale, through.  Do you hear me, America? WE – the almighty paragons of remarkable excellence, are on the verge of being  finished, second rate.  Our worth, capacity, flexibility and vigor as a nation are diminished; our educational scores are mediocre, our intellectual appetite dulled.   The mediocre are easily led like sheep, which makes me wonder if it’s too late already.  Again, how have we arrived at this point?

We have failed to educate our people. When people are not trained to think, they cannot discriminate.  Lack of discrimination leads to collective failures in judgment, resulting in cultural lurches like allowing GW Bush to invade Iraq (President Clinton was impeached for infinitely  less), forgetting the Bush years so easily, forgetting who the real Party of the People has always been, which led to the stupid, impatient results of the last election, etc.

Remember the old adage about getting the Government one deserves?  It seems that most of Congress has been bought off and now these Governors too. What do the Koch Brothers have to do with all of this and HOW do they stand to gain?  AND DON’T THEY HAVE ENOUGH WEALTH, NOW REALLY?? The idea that they have anything to do with policy that impoverishes the rest of America sickens me.

If you haven't noticed anything peculiar yet, to arms, to arms -- the Corporations are coming! 

Education and the Demise of the American Empire

ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

I have to wonder what is going on in our country, our beloved but not very United States of America.  I have a lot to say about the troll-making as opposed to education taking place in our schools.  Since when did we as a country lose our respect for learning?

All over this land -- and BRAINPOWER used to be our chief, most prized commodity -- we belittle the funding of education and higher education.  The new word for “intellectual/s” is “elite” or "elites" -- said with a sneer -- an absolute and utter misuse of that word.  The word "elite" is defined as:

"A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status: "In addition to notions of social equality there was much emphasis on the role of elites and of heroes within them" (Times Literary Supplement)."

We are right to distrust the Plutocracy, and those like Karl Rove behind the scenes actually encouraging lack of real, thoughtful debate among our people. Our contempt of the intellect breeds nothing but the same among the People  when the very Representatives, who speak for our vast nation can barely read, much less put a cogent sentence together.  Some of these people are so poorly educated that it is painful to watch.  I can’t stand it!  We’ve gone from being the nation of George Washington to the nation of War, Walmart and Warcraft.

Maybe there are some in the body politic who think this is a GOOD thing, but I’m not getting it.  As the daughter of an educator I believe in education.  My mother was one of the first women to enroll in the Chemistry Program at UC Berkeley; in those bad old days in the early 1940's she was told that women didn’t belong in Chemistry because they lacked the necessary intelligence!!

After having been blacklisted during the McCarthy period she spent what could have been an academically brilliant career in the backwater schools of California. And you know what happened?  My mother, because of her passionate dedication to education, influenced thousands of lives over the course of her career, people who have attributed their successes directly to her.   

That is what happens when you take your best people and seed them throughout the country -- for a while there our school system was fantastic.  My mother was an excellent teacher and counselor, but not any better than the thousands of adults with their firm commitment to educating America’s youth, scattered all over the country. That was our brief love affair with education, that 20 year period or so.

Mom was so angry when I elected to send my kids to private schools. My former husband, who could afford it, paid for their education.  They did their part by excelling. I did my part by instilling the “reading virus” (the most important thing I could pass on to ANY MOTHER -- get your kids into reading, no matter what it is they read). My mother thought it so important that the systems remained -- democratic, so to speak, and she was honestly enraged and disappointed that I would take my brainy little kids out of the public system.

By the end of her life she was so profoundly disillusioned by the fate of the public schools that she actually admitted I’d been right all along!!   The differences had become so pronounced that she knew it was much harder to get a quality of an education without extra help. So,and ONLY because their dad could do this, we sent them to the best schools, where they thrived. One graduated from Columbia University and is a free-lance journalist living in Pau, France, with her wonderful David from Venezuela -- ahem, who has his Masters in Geophysics and works for Total, a French company.

My youngest daughter has a Masters in classical Shakespearean acting.  In Tea Party/GOP terminology, we sound like the dreaded “elitists” -- don’t we? Boy, do I feel like an elite?  I’m mentally ill, on the brink of foreclosure and homelessness, and people like Sarah Palin are screaming about people like me because I can read.  What in the world is the MATTER with people?  It seems to me that we are all turned upside down.

Today’s politicos consider education to be of so little consequence that it’s constantly being de-funded.  Forgive me my cynicism, but it seems to me that if even one of their rich cronies had to do without a meal of an endangered species at least once a week, damn it, why should the poor learn to read?.  We’ve experienced a long period of “de-volution” (thanks forever, Devo!) and I am suspicious, wary and annoyed at politicians who don't value the enlightenment of the body politic as one of the most important achievements of political Leadership.

One wonders if a great social experiment is occurring here:  It seems as though our country is engaged in an horrific bout of Orc and Troll-breeding.  Think about the patterns in terms of what we as a culture are being exposed to!  First, there is the increasing lack of a superior education available to all. We've bled ourselves dry with profitless wars, after the fashion of all declining empires, no matter what history has demonstrated to us. 

We watch too much pro-wrestling, reality television - and nobody's reading anymore. I personally think home-schooling is an option that should be chosen by the very few -- the elite, if you will -- the capable, highly organized households that can manage it.  The results are in.

These kids, schooled by Creationists, or parents without the training to properly instruct their children, OR lousy teachers, combined with a nearly universal U.S. contempt for the intellect has begun to produce a thick mashup of American Beef Stew for Brains, you betcha.

And then we become what we are beginning to see -- obsolete, second-rate, dull and incapable of rational thought. Remember the statement: we get the government we deserve?

So go ahead, you bloody vicious Masters of War -- let the children you have groomed with your dark, violent video games and sub-standard education,  prepared for nothing but war,  bleed and die while you grow fat with profit.

It makes me wanna holler.