Teachers Who Shrugged: Messages from Galt’s Gulch
It is time to have a serious discussion about education outside the realm of simple difficulties in funding it. It is time to challenge any assertion that government schools have of taking American schools into a realm suitable for a “global marketplace.” Any educator who says such things should be instantly terminated for non conformance by American standards. As proven, the rest of the world has been corrupted by the Cold War of the 20th Century where communism spread through virtually every institution of academics in the world, from Jakarta to Cambridge, to Yale. To understand more clearly, read the book We The Living. It will tell all everything they need to know about the current problems in public education. There is NO doubt that the conditions described in that book are what’s causing our present problems in education. Yet only in America has any real economic progress of any worth taken place. If American economic markets failed, the car industry in Japan, China, Korea, Germany and elsewhere would be destroyed, the iPhone factories in China would whither away. Many other products that are produced by American companies in oversee markets essentially to run away from American labor unions and the tyranny of the Department of Labor, and the EPA would cease, because the initiative to create those markets started in America and no place else. It is time to have a heart to heart discussion of just how bad the situation truly is and to stop apologizing to the world for being so damn good, and America has been. The rest of the world should try to be like America, not America trying to be like everyone else corrupted by communist attempts to alter their economies.
After my article the other day about the OEA union in Ohio, I received a lot of interesting feedback from my friends in Galt’s Gulch, it’s an online community who have created in cyberspace the kind of Atlantis found in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. The filmmakers created the place to promote their Atlas films, but the site has taken on a life of its own where really intelligent people from all levels of society are spending time with like-minded enthusiasts who are generally philosophic Objectivists. I would say that the intellectual capacities of the typical people who spend time in the Gulch are well above average, so feedback from them is very valuable to me. After my article, I received two comments from Gulch members who have been involved in education for a great many years and left their impressions. Those impressions were worth noting and have been listed below along with the links to the place in the Gulch where the original comments can be found. They are worth reading as specific entries into the education argument and I offer them here for that purpose. These are not people who are like me in that they just despise public education as a primary infringement on personal liberty. These people tried to work within the system and have turned away to report their experience—something which I think is just the tip of the iceberg. I have spoken to quite a few teachers in person, on the phone, and am friends with quite a few, and they all reflect these next two entries. Once a few teachers see others breaking ranks and voicing their opinions, I am confident that many more will follow—and they need to.
Posted by Susannah 2 hours, 33 minutes ago
I retired from teaching 7 years ago, after 20 years in education, for several reasons, one of which was that the Progressives had completely taken over public education. I taught American History to 11th graders. The textbook I was to teach from was ridiculously slanted left: half a chapter on the American Civil War, 1 chapter on WWI, 2 pages on the Spanish-American War, on 3 chapters on Progressivism, 3 chapters on the New Deal, 1 chapter on WWII, lots of information on LBJ, Nixon was the anti-Christ, the usual leftist views on Vietnam, etc.
I usually assigned the textbooks to the students because I was required to do so, then taught from my own notes and my own materials. Until the last few years, I had an assistant principal that did not concern himself with what I was doing and so I taught American History, not Revised American History. The last few years I taught, though, I had a new assistant principal who was a dyed-in-the-wool Progressive. The woman hounded me like a coon dog on the scent. I was reprimanded several times for not using the textbook, subjected to unannounced observations, and once suspended without pay for 2 days.
Common Core is the Progressive’s wet dream. It does not teach any higher thinking skills, no extended thought processes, no critical thinking. It turns out nice, stupid automatons who will not question TPTB. It destroys any interest in life-long learning, because learning under Common Core is so tediously not fun.
I don’t know how much this adds to the discussion, but I want to add my conviction that public education is broken … has been broken for some time. There is no quick fix; I don’t believe it can actually be fixed at all. At this time, charter schools or private schools are a parent’s best bet.
Posted by Stormi 3 hours, 38 minutes ago
This is definitely representative of what is happening in Ohio schools (as well as across the country), and has been for 15 years or more. 15 years ago we had Maslow group therapy and group hypnosis on all classes in grade schools here, instead of academics. We had history teachers teaching kids they had “rights” with no mention of responsibilities. We have ongoing values clarification in required health classes. It leaves one asking, “Where’s the academics!”
These teachers are brainwashed, either by the colleges where they get their free Masters degrees or by their unions. Our local union leaders once admitted to me they were turning children against their parents, because THEY thought it was best for them. Kids are taught, “There is no I in team.” – at which point I gave our daughter “Anthem” to read. khalling just talked to the father of a 7 year old the other day, who said he could not understand why his daughter suddenly acted to disrespectful to her family – I filled him in..Teachers and even administrators are all in for this collectivist agenda. I thank Tom DeWeese (Ohio guy) of American Policy Center for letting me know 15 years ago.we were facing a nationwide agenda. Actually it is UN driven at this point. Kids will be taught to embrace UN Agenda 21, and already learn property rights must go.
Yeah, I too started out the 60s as an anti-Vietnam liberal, while my grounded brother told me another Civil War was in our future. He read history more than I did, but being curious, I started reading history. Mao did it for me, I began to see the agenda around me, I began to learn that McCarthy was right, there were commies in the government and other professions, trying to turn the US. I should have known, living in North Dakota in the early 60s, my Dad moved us to Texas, after he felt overwhelmed by the scope of an active CPUSA up there at the time. I hated Johnson, still do, and that also helped wake me up.
Believe me, what you see on the excellent post by overmanwarrior is not just Ohio, it is coming for your kids as well, and Common Core is their hammer.
Read more at http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/4f180f8/becky-higgins-oea-introduction-a-tribute-to-communism-if-i-had-a-hammer#aWHMYbBHAMspMJWC.99
Rich Hoffman
