712 Comments
тна Return to thread

This letter should be preserved for the ages and used in future classes of history and civics to clearly define the process of diminished statesmen who want to burn the country down because of their lack of ethics and commitment to the good of the citizens of the United States. Thanks Heather!

Expand full comment

". . . diminished statesmen," Christopher?

No, it's rather a phalange of evils; 1) a deeply corrupted, multiply-perjured Clarence court, six of the nine of them serving medieval mendacity and totally modern U.S. billionaire oligarchy; 2) an entire political party in sucking service to the many U.S. nihilist billionaires and the Rapture-mad evangelist, patriarchy demented; and 3) all those billionaires who pushed their group-think, abstracted-categorical-packaged, and neutered but linear simpleton standardized testing to strangle all U.S. ed.

Expand full comment

I was enjoying your rant until the last sentence. But it's your thing, Phil, so whatever! Just remember that pretty well everyone here has been the beneficiary of standardized testing, both pro and con.

Expand full comment

As a beneficiary of standardized testing who served eleven years as a high school teacher, I say standardized testing stinks. It measures how well you can take tests, with some cultural bias thrown in. It excludes creative thinking. It mischaracterizes students who know the material but donтАЩt test well. Among those who have the expected culture and test well, it can sort to some extent, but thatтАЩs not nearly as useful as the tests claim to be. In other words, they are at best a massive waste of time and money.

Expand full comment

This election is proving that our education system has failed many students. They have no critical thinking skills. They somehow think that a narcissist, sociopath, misogynist "man" is a good choice for President despite what he says and does. He is a vile disgusting piece of ЁЯТй

Expand full comment

They were inveighing against public education when i was a kid in the 50s. I remember reading a book So Little for the Mind complaining about rote education. As a fledgeling teacher I once was attempting to get a 12 year to think through a math problem. Just show me the steps, please, was her answer. I wouldnt totally take it out of "our education system". The LEAST popular part of math classes was problem solving. We're an "algorithm loving species", Judy, creatures of habit, among other things, mind you. There's a reason only relatively few sign up for scientific, mathematical, engineering careers and so on. It's "hard". As for the politics stuff, that's emotional indoctrination. I also remember a commentator remark on how difficult it is to "teach" critical thinking skills. That's at every level. Of course, you can have a genius car mechanic, a brilliant oil man, no mean feat, be a Trump fanatic, no sweat.

Expand full comment

тАЬWord Problems.тАЭ How many buses should be hired to transport 75 kids if each bus can take 30 kids? Easy! Two-and-a-half buses!

Now kiddies, draw a picture of the one-half of a bus. Or explain how the bus company would charge less if a third bus was half-empty.

Expand full comment

Many educated people vote straight Republican tickets.

Expand full comment

I was an Independent voter until Trump appeared on the scene. I changed my affiliation to Democrat. Voters need to think about the person they are voting for, not the party they are affiliated with, especially when referring to Trump.

Expand full comment

My dad used to say that ten yearsтАЩ experience was not the same as having one yearтАЩs experience ten times.

Expand full comment

Urge you, Frank, to read Diane Ravitch, "The Language Police."

Standardized testing has changed -- big-time. It stresses neutered language, going directly against, at odds with, anything human, individual, or personal. Homogenized instead, in service to the faceless corporate, the abstracted categorical, the group-fit, the unit-by-unit chronological linear.

Please read, too, the dozens of pages of appendices in the Diane Ravitch specifying how the actual tests level off, package what used to be human into what now generates group cultists, repetitive slogans, catch-words fit to demagoguery.

Standardized testing, Frank, has oozed its way into the wider public which is so poisoned now, intolerant, mass-angry, empty of the generous, patient human and instead massively full of hatred.

Expand full comment

Phil, I suspect standardized testing in Canada is pretty much the same as American, likely mostly imported from the states, and what of UK, for example. Yet neither country have remotely the degree of homicides, prison incarcerations, the degree of political incendiary, though certainly at times heated. So, what gives, Phil? I"ll google Diane Ravitch. I have heard similar complaints eg about gender neutral language as a token to acceptance of TSLGPTQ+ but that is political correctness. It used to be negro was accepted language, now it's forbidden. I have trouble trying to make sense of "faceless corporate, the abstracted categorical" etc here. I doubt that's got anything to do with why a couple of teens walked into Columbine with guns blazing, or Waco, or the Watts Riots. I'll mainly stick to my point for the time being but check around.

Expand full comment

Thanks Phil, yes I could have used stronger language but it would imply that everybody who votes for this side is evil which many of the advocates on Substack are working the phones, postcards, door to door connection with these voter to educate and embrace on the right side of history. Diminish is perhaps more applicable to my writing skills at 2:52 AM after being at a great costume party and finding a little bit of Joy (quoting Kamala) is this nauseating and traumatic time.

Expand full comment

Right you are Phil!

Expand full comment

Maybe our progeny will be more inclined to hear the truth.

Expand full comment

Christopher, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Letter from an American should be required reading in all civic and history classes.

I suspect it is already being used by many teachers.

Expand full comment