We don't need no education

[ellyssian]

Global Learning Program in PA Spotlight

I'm pretty close to speechless.

Comments

[eyes-of-cyrene.livejournal.com]

As am I.

[eyes-of-cyrene.livejournal.com]

And in a random note, you are the second person on my friends list to refer to that song in the past three days... it had started to fade in my brain, but now it's back full-force.

[patrixa.livejournal.com]

hey, you've got Schwanda?

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Yep. Never heard it before. It was in the donate stack, so I figured I might as well check it out. Did you put it over there accidentally?

[blackbyrd2.livejournal.com]

Hmm..
Better to have one big mediocre curriculum than to have the option of challenging the better minds? There's sound reasoning.

Now, I never studied Marxism in school (probably because we had one of those mediocre, 'average' curriculums, mostly) but it seems to me that reducing everyone to the same level, eliminating the 'spikes' on the charts, and offering the same thing to everyone, regardless of aptitude or ability is more Marxist than the alternative.

I mean, Marxism is about eliminating classes, and bringing everyone to an entropic 'level' playing field, isn't it? If you grind down the high spots, pretty soon you have that level playing field, and everyone who would have been above the curve on the bell gets to waste away, unchallenged, providing no more than their neighbor, even though they have the ability to contribute giant leaps.

Of course, the biggest loss here is the exposure to other cultures and viewpoints. Nothing breeds hatred and bigotry faster than ignorance. There's some very short sighted people in this country.

[patrixa.livejournal.com]

probably. We played it maybe once or twice after the first "spin" (aside: hey, do cd's spin or flutter or what?) The last time was last spring. truthfully, I don't remember it, only that it was better than we thought it would be. enjoy,

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Oops, you replied to blackbyrd2's comment, not my reply to your comment! =)

[patrixa.livejournal.com]

Blakbyrd2, you got it right. But you forgot to add, that everyone will get what they need from the government and if everyone is the same, everyone will all get the same which will make will make life simpler and we can all live in ticky-tack boxes and ...OMG are we headed for 1984? Brave New World? Will we all be Waiting for Godot? You know this is pretty scary stuff.

Unfortunately, those in present day government at all levels seem to be doing their darndest to make everything so equal wthey are not even considering the consequences or recognizing the reality that differences will always exist. I guess the thinking is equality = equal.

[trouvera.livejournal.com]

Well, I can sort of see their point. The IB does, after all require you to acquire and engage critical thinking skills...that does seem to be on the list of things (some? most?) American's don't like or do these days.

[benponder.livejournal.com]

someone needs to rush a team of proctologists to upper st. clair to retrieve some peoples' heads.

If there had been a program like this in my school, I might've actually done okay in college, might have graduated and be working at a job with which I could afford to pay my student loans, or afford anything other than living paycheck to paycheck. Hell, I've not done laundry in three weeks because I've not had the spare cash.

Now, call me a conspiracy theory nut all you want, but the way the system works is people climb to the top and prevent anyone else from getting up top. They've been getting better at it as the years have gone by, but they've finally figured out how to break us when we're young so that we pose no threat to their politica/economic dominance. The public education system is designed to keep us stupid and easily controllable.

Any time you have something like IB which threatens to actually educate, rather than brainwash, the children of this country... it's a threat to the power structure and must be eliminated. They find our weakspots, such as religion and communism (or 9/11 for larger matters, anything that hurts the collective conscience), and exploit those triggers to activate those already "prepared" for the world to vote one way or another, or to somehow as a group force an action. While it disgusts me and makes me want to break things, this does not surprise me at all.

though it still fills me with hatred and anger.

[jenjiyana.livejournal.com]

>>Critics, however, have argued that IB's multicultural themes promote values that conflict with traditional Judeo-Christian values.<<

oh no..not that.

>>School board members in a Minnesota district call it anti-American and anti-Christian. <<

i love it how people think the universe revolves around america and its values. I wish we had something like this at my school. I took AP classes but nothing like this :/

IB

[sikander7.livejournal.com]

The IB is actually well set up, but of course I can see that it causes problems as the exams soon condemn some to fail. Given that mere attendance seems to get you out of US high schools, I wonder if high school students would be allowed to "fail".

A.

Re: IB

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

In all seriousness, they'd move them to another program, to ensure that no child gets left behind. There's always some program to keep them going - anything but letting them drop out.

A large part of funding is tied into a district's dropout counts.