Watertiger! Its a toofer, Monday and Tuesday both!

California seems to be taking its lead from the Texas Board of Education, which does not bode well for the fate of American education.

aqua kitty!

Clams got legs!

no dead zones,nothin to see here

where’s the chapter on the gulf of mexico’s walruses

Amen to that. It’s like getting Glenn Beck to develop a civics curriculum. Or Palin to develop…well, anything.

im going to bed,too much partying…nite,nite

What’s next?

John Yoo teaching at an accredited law school? Oh, wait …

You’ll find it in Chapter 17, “Aw, fuck it, they can live anywhere.”

and I even managed to stay awake tonight! Sorry about the no-show last night, pups.

g’nite sadly

Or their teaming up to write the American history textbook. Why the fuck is it that conservatives are so butt ignorant of just about everything? Don’t answer that, I know the answer (John Stuart Mill was far too generous).

Willful ignorance. Reality having a liberal bias, after all.

Please feel free to add your chapter titles to this list. God knows…

Despite a mixed completely fucked-up environmental record even before the Gulf of Mexico disaster…

Fixed. The editor over at the Bee must not have had her first cuppa yet.

Heh. Not sure how long I will make it tonight. I had one of those days which seemed to go nonstop from 7:30am-7:00pm. Nothing bad happened and nothing went wrong, but I was either running late or just in the nick of time all freaking day.

John Stuart Mill once said that while not all conservatives are stupid, stupid people tend to be conservative. He only got it half right.

“Giving Back to the Little People” must be one of the later chapters.

The one that they used for toilet paper.

…Officials with the California Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the curriculum project, said BP had a minor role in its early planning stages and was just one of dozens of stakeholders from a diverse range of interests.

Stakeholder…? Wtf…? *gah*

They probably threw that into the Gulf, too.

It’s all about the bottom line.

F*ck BP

watertiger, this is obscene.

They are the ones holding the stake that the corporations are preparing to drive through the heart of the American economy.

Letting BP in on an environmental science curriculum is definitely scraping the bottom of something.

Your shoe, after a walk through the dog park.

Chapter 14: Laboratory created Newly “discovered,” microbes are our friends. Everything is magically ecologically fixed back in balance!

Hey all you firepups,

Affluent conservatives and working class conservatives have different agendas. The rich don’t object to progress if it is profitable (such as progressively lowering taxes and and gutting social spending programs). Lower income conservatives want to turn back the clock to that golden age when women and minorities knew their place.

See why I had to retire early, people? Seriously, the school districts are are based on the military model of kiss ass to the right people and be promoted. No new ideas allowed.

On and on it goes.

Lower income conservatives want to turn back the clock to that golden age when women and minorities knew their place.

So do the affluent conservatives…and to them, ‘their place’ is basically a sweatshop.

Chapter 15: Nature Is Just Like and Etch A Sketch: Turn it Upside Down and Shake and You Start Over All Fresh!

I gave up when administrators gave Pizza Hut and McDonalds prizes for reading.

Why am I reminded of Principal Skinner’s alarm that goes off if a student is thinking?

Beat me to it. 8-)

Thinking is strictly NOT allowed in our public schools. Little bastards might realize that they are getting royally screwed by our corporate overlords.

“Make good money five dollars a day, made any more I might move away.”
The Grateful Dead, Cumberland Blues

I learned from the finest socialists money can’t buy.

Dunkin Donuts’ Award for Nutritional Excellence.

*heh* Ya ought to take a gander at my latest post…! ;-)

Poll: Half of Israeli teens don’t want Arab students in their class

Had to learn it on my own. They haven’t allowed socialists in Oklahoma since the 1930s.

I go a nasty note in 2008 for holding a mock election. 5th grade-US History.

Or even Democrats for that matter, eh…? ;-)

OK is a dangerous environment for socialists anyway, the habitat of their natural enemies Coburnus wingnuttus and Inhofus imbecilis…

You should never have run debates that weren’t soundbite competitions.

i remember when civics was a course that kids were graded on — sheez

Are you effin’ serious?!

*facepalm*

That only happened in the 1990s, before that the state was controlled by the Democrats. A lot of them were Dixiecrats, but some pretty decent ones as well, like Carl Albert. The state was overrun with socialists in the 1910s and 1920s and actually elected the most socialists to public office of any state in the history of the US. It is reflected in the state constitution which is one of the most progressive in the country in many ways (at least as long as you are a white male). It is also one of the most detailed and Byzantine documents around. It is specified in the state constitution that insurance companies cannot charge any more in Oklahoma than the lowest rate paid anywhere else in the country.

Toxic spill (and dispersant spew) re-branded and simply becomes, “BP leftovers,” yum, yum how delicious.

The sagging oxygen levels also lend more weight to the government’s claims last month that microbes are consuming oil, because there would be no dip in oxygen if the bacteria weren’t feeding on the BP leftovers, Murawski said.

Lots of govmit experts in this piece.

Doesn’t seem fair when civics classes in Texas have mock executions.

Did you ever see the parody “Curious George W. Bush”? The part about his tenure as governor included something like, “One day some people told George that he could save a man’s life by signing a piece of paper. He decided to have ice-cream instead.”

Wasn’t so bad when I was there. They did not give the inmates charge of the asylum until after I left in ’87.

I’d held mock elections many times in the past as a social studies come-to-life activity with no problems. School-wide. And this was only in my classroom. Got the note from district level officials in 2008..Just for running a mock election.

Something is seriously out of whack.

As I said above, cannot let, let alone encourage, those kids think for themselves.

Very serious. Made me retire. I’d been prez of the union, VP, totally requested teacher, all of it.

God help you if you tell the kids they have rights.

Hey WT and all the other ‘lakers.

Yes, I believe irony is now officially dead. That takes satire with it, all we have left is sarcasm.

Ha!!!

My mother was a teacher for over 20 years and was finally driven to retire because of idiot administrators like that.

Conservatives drove a stake through its heart, cut off its head and stuffed garlic in its mouth, and burned it on a pyre of incendiary rhetoric.

Exactly. We cannot encourage thinking in schools. That would be unproductive for the richest among us.

Don’t forget bitterness.

Left a comment.

On a positive note, at least two teachers (my child’s a HS frosh, parent open house earlier tonight) have thrown away the regular text books and are going to ask the students to read several books, research and look at bigger ideas to learn to think, instead of memorizing dates. One teach asked me to come in to speak later in the year as, “living history,” contributor and talk to the class. OMG do I feel old, now.

Fistbump.

So what happened…? Too much Fracking fluid tainted the water table…? ;-)

Early class tomorrow, so I’m off to read a little before I turn in. Be excellent to each other!

we are so doomed

Loo,

Our local Hitler Youth Academy errrrr, Fundie Christian School is delirious. They held a school-wide (K-12) mock election in 2008, and thought the results (McSame in a landslide) had some bearing on reality.

A friend who teaches there said there were kids and teachers crying in the hallways on Wednesday after McSame was crushed in the election. Apparently being a Reich Winger means living in a fact-free zone.

g’nite edp

Not sure, but I think ultimately it was the Civil Rights Act and then the economy tanking in the 70s.

LMAO. Too bad it’s so not funny. Americans seem bent on being complicit in their own destruction. Another chapter could be “Why Americans really don’t need brains — we’ll do the thinking for you!”

Bitter sarcasm?

Are you sure you don’t teach here on my campus, EDP?

Apparently being a Reich Winger means living in a fact-free zone.

Just figuring that out?

Enjoy. Corrupt them good!

What!?
I’m so sorry they did that. I’m very glad you’re outta there.

Education for the little people

Niters EDP.

Think I will toddle off as well. No classes until 2:00, but I am fading fast her. Take care all.

g’nite dr dick

Pleasant dreams.

I’m reminded of Eco’s epigram for The Name of the Rose, Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemos. For the non-latinate, it’s more-or-less, “Yesterday’s rose is pure in its name, today we hold no names.”

Something like that can be formed (maybe ought?? to be formed) using irony and sarcasm…

On a completely irrelevant note, if ever I start a blog, it will be called Nomina nuda tenemos.

‘night, Dick, EDP.

I so hope that teachers are taking that tack now. I could get nobody to join me is saying f&#k the tests a couple of years ago. Imagine the cost of sending out 30 page booklets of single use tests, answer sheets, rulers, teacher guides, affidavits stating that nobody cheats, admin guides to every school, every year. Then, the cost of sending back all of it, including scrap paper. Pencils.

Every year. Every school. Every kid.

All done after every kid is so freaking sick of being tested to death that they couldn’t care less about the results, which they don’t see for many months. The teachers never see the results of the test either until the following schoolyear. NUTS.

Aloha, Dr. D, EDP, and other sleepyheads…!

I remember the Good Auld Daze when we got IBST once a year, which involved most of that c***.

I remember taking that in my fourth grade year, and I really needed to use the personal facilities after I’d finished a section, the last section before a recess. Miss B. gave me permission, but I’d have to turn in my paper and stay out until recess. Oh, and I’d better score a 99+ on that section, since I didn’t want to check my work…

The results came back, and I got the grade she insisted on… did I get any brownie points from her for that? Naaaahhhhh.

A couple of relatively young people in History and English.

Imagine the profits for those test writing companies.

These union members are actually going into the history of unions from two different perspectives.

A good night to all, early start scheduled for tomorrow. Its good to not feel alone in this whole mess.

g’nite nonq

Geez. This is exactly what the parents who complained about me were pissed about.

Nonquixote,

Your reading assignment for the next week is du Bose and Ivins, Bushwhacked, and specifically the chapter on Bush the Edumacation Preznit.

G’nite. Think I will power down too. Thanks to Watertiger. Splendid evening to all.

g’nite rat

My younger son had a great 5th grade teacher. She made a big difference in his life…the first day, she sent home a note saying “I think your son is such a joy in the classroom and we’re going to have a great year.” He said, “Mom, I think this year is going to be better.”
But the principal didn’t like her. She confided in me that the principal told her in no uncertain terms to change the answers on the tests if they were wrong. She refused and her contract was not renewed. But her kids, her class, got great scores.

Nite RF

Good night, Nq and RF.

that is just sad Margot, do you know where she went, she seems like a wonderful teacher

A teacher makes an incredible difference in the lives of their students. It can be a good difference, or a bad difference. I had some elementary school teachers who were really incompatible with me, to the point that I was labeled a disruptive, underachieving student.

My parents, god bless and keep them, wouldn’t send me to the school’s pshrink. They got a recommendation from the pediatrician they took us to, and he said (after a bunch of testing) that the problem was that I was bored.

I didn’t get any really good teachers until I was in college, and especially grad school. I’m sorry your son’s teacher got shipped out.

I’m fading way fast. Good night, folks.

g’nite bct

OMG! People wouldn’t believe how political educational careers can be, but it’s true. Especially for people without tenure. Tenure is absolutely necessary. Administrators can fire people in the first three years, then NOT.

Jeebus, I thought that headline came from The Onion.

Watertiger !

Sad, no…? Aloha, dood…! ;-)

CT !

There’s Fuckery afoot …

This, I love.

Evenin pups…

actually none of this surprises me…the corps dumb down the restless masses with mis-info and lies repeated over and over again, while they try to seduce everyone with their ‘but we’re good folk’ routine, and then continue their rape and plunder while the serfs are caught up being mesmerized by the shiny objects they offer daily on the squawkboxes.

Oh, and teach the children well, so they can grow up and join the robot legions of cardboard, soul less, automatons! Ha!

KMA asshat BP!!

Hiya Christine !

But you love Jimmy Fallon more, right ? *g*

I just crashed in here at 102 CT’s Fuckery afoot. We watched a movie called “Max” for the last two hours.

The whole plan with NCLB is to make kids dumb. That is all. Obama is doubling down on the dumb, which really worries me. He needs some advisers. Not saying Obama is part of the stupid, just saying that he’s been duped.

True, but I left Jimmy some months ago.

D’oh !

He was great hosting the Emmys.

I do love him! Watching him makes me feel young and happy.

Jimmy is infectious … I think he’s the best Late Night Host since Johnny Carson.