I started out thinking I could assert that the school curriculum (the “what” of instruction) is irrelevant but that is of course not what I would mean to say. Rather, curriculum is ALL possible responses to all possible utterances.* That means the space of instruction (fancy critical theory calls this the “scene”)–home, church, playground, friend’s [...]
Tag Archives: schools
The Value of Employment in Education
Here are some things I noticed today looking at the HR postings for a local school corp. High School Guard (one really ought to train in law enforcement): $14.70 per hour, 8 hours. Preventionist: GED. Aids in literacy education: $8.70 per hour, 6.5 hours Locker Room Aide: No clue what this is: $8.70 per hour, [...]
The Manufactured Ant
The hominid is not an ant. The Machine is modeled on Ants. Coded directions. Social organization requires hierarchy. Culture instructs us, directs us to pattern life “appropriately.” Managing the massive polis requires NOT democracy but instead predictability. The machine is predictable because it is prescribed in its actions. As an example simply imagine driving a [...]
Economics and Kindergarten
I would like to offer the following as a critical warm-up to the following “economics” article from the Times (from 2010) about the “value” of the Kindergarten experience. First, be clear, I think these early grades are THE most important in terms of the relationships we maintain with institutional power and control. After two centuries [...]
From Foreign Policy to School Systems
Recently I started working in our school system as a “preventionist.” This is basically an aide position and paid that way. The job posting required no degree and simply a GED as education level. Preference would be given, though… All that was indicated otherwise was, “should be able to work closely with a literacy coach.” [...]
Against the Digital Nursery
Against “technology” consultants “integrating” education and technology “in the classroom.” Against the Society of ED TECH creating the professional “experts” that insist schools MUST HAVE iPads etc. in the classroom in order to prepare for the “future.” Today’s news: iTeach. Mindless drone teaching–how to make distraction prettier and make it seem like “learning.” First iTeach [...]
Circus Freaks by Design
Not long ago, one our most compromised academics (by that I mean paid shill), Jay P. Greene, posted to his blog an abstract to a journal article about “fellatio narratives” in order to point out that academics besides himself are full of shit. It’s a professional hazard it would seem. Here’s his post in full [...]
The Unexceptional, Unsurprising Success of America’s Bully Class
Here is a paragraph from Salon.com’s Andrew O’Hehir on the MPAA’s choice to rate the documentary about school bullying “R” and thus limit and restrict access to the kids who already live worse lives than the movie might “expose them” to. The MPAA is ridiculous on its face. Any movie you can think of with [...]
You Are What You Eat
You remember the 70s PSA “Time for Timer?” No? C’mon! How old are you? I still sing them to myself, but mostly the one about cheese: the lyric “I hanker for a hunk of cheese” could hardly be more apt for me. Another of the PSA messages offered by “Timer” was “you are what you [...]
Desertification, or Living Nowhere
Here are things I cannot change that make me angry and perhaps you might share a similar list: War; anything that is war dressed up under other terms; fraud; exclusionary self-interest; that same interest commended and encouraged as something natural; profit calculated via actuarial risks. And so on. In other words, American culture, American economy, [...]
