Category Archives: women

Go Virginia!

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Virginia has had enough of dismissive politicians who circumvent the people whom they represent and they have filed suit against what is basically taxation without representation.

 

In other education news,  Diane reposts about the Gesell Institute’s take on Common Core…waay back in 2010.

From the statement:

We urge the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to respect the individual developmental differences of children and revise the K-3 standards based on research and the advice of experts in the field of early childhood.

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In the comments, someone provided a link to Bill Moyers’ program on Glitz and Greed in D.C.  I haven’t viewed it yet, but knowing Bill Moyers, it will be eye-opening.

Oh….the irony…

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Let’s play “Spot the Irony”  today.    I’ll put up three stories in the news and you can guess at the irony….

First, in what is entirely too common, we have a woman in a military/police occupation being sexually harassed.  Why should she or the others who complained have to resign their positions?  What about the mounties who harassed her?  Meanwhile, there are stories over the net of gang rape and assaults against women**…the police, who are doing their own share of harassing are supposed to investigate these incidents in a fair and just way??

Secondly, women who are breastfeeding their infants are asked to use the bathroom to nurse their child.

Meanwhile….a Victoria’s Secret store opens in B.C.

See…nourishing your child is something to be ashamed of while sexy lingerie that promotes boobies are perfectly fine….just as long as you don’t pop one out.

Oh…the irony…

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**I am in awe of her courage–as one commenter put it:  a warrior woman!  Not only that, but the two bears showing up and not harming her also leaves me in awe.

This is why I love teachers

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Diane Ravitch has this up on the last day of a First Grade teacher.

As I said in the comments section:

This is why a child sitting in front of a computer to “learn” is a fallacy. A stone cold computer could never teach the powerful lesson this wonderful teacher taught. A stone cold computer would not allow the kids to “make a mess” and express their creative talents as well as analytical skills.

God Bless and please write that book someone else suggested.

A Charter Founder Indicted

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I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not.  These folks are greedy opportunists who look at schools and our children with $$ in their eyes. 

I AM surprised and disappointed that more of them aren’t indicted….if not for these schemes, but for seeking to get rich and destroy public education. 

First Graders expected to know 6th through 12th grade levels **edited

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This is outrageous.  There is no way a first grader, who can barely tie their shoes, can be expected to understand subjects that are more geared towards 6th through 12th grades.

I mean just look at the complexity:

Explain the
importance of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the use of
canals to support farming and the development
of the city of Babylon;

Explain the significance of the
Code of Hammurabi;

Describe the city of
Babylon and the Hanging Gardens;Describe how a civilization evolves
and changes over time;

Explain that much of what we know about ancient
Egypt is because of the work of archaeologists;

Identify Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as major monotheistic world
religions;

Answer questions that require making interpretations, judgments, or
giving opinions about what is heard in a nonfiction/informational read-aloud,
including answering why questions that require recognizing cause/effect relationships;

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This is but a glimpse of it–see more on Diane’s website.

Unreal.  I didn’t even learn about the code of Hammurabi until I was in college studying ancient Greek history!!  As you can see by the link, this is complicated material–too complicated for a first grader to know!  OMG. As others commented, this is child abuse.

And let’s touch on the elephant in the room–the teaching of religion in a public school.  It does not belong there.  If one wants their child to have religious instruction, they can enroll them in a parochial school.    After all the bloodshed throughout the centuries over who had the “right” religion, it is stunning that people continue to try to force religion upon others…the lesson lost is that we have no right to push our religion upon others–everyone has the right to find their own spiritual path.

And what is glaringly omitted from the religious instruction, as seen here, are what Jesus taught–he provided loaves and fishes when people were hungry; he healed the sick and touched those with leprosy when no one else would (much like AIDS); he overturned the tables of the moneychangers (bankers) whom had set up shop in the temple–something the religious leaders had allowed.   He had a woman as a trusted companion, in a time when women were not respected nor regarded as equals.  He lived the golden rule of doing unto others as one would have done to you (this is also noticeably absent from the requirements–they fail to mention that all religions have that belief.)

Jesus promoted things that the conservatives rail against….

Anyway, these requirements are not psychologically sound.   No one in their right mind would think these requirements are in line with the brain and social development of a seven year old.

Hey, I know what–let’s drive these poor children into depression and low self-esteem so that Big Pharma can make more $$ drugging them up with antidepressants and happy pills…./snark

**edited to correct psychology

NCLB is a failure…

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….so the natural thing to do is require it for colleges and universities, too. /snark

Be sure to click on the link Diane has provided.  The speech she gives is outstanding in outlining exactly what is wrong with testing, testing, testing.

One of her points is that they are subjective social constructs.

Another important point she makes is that we can’t fully comprehend what will happen when children are subjected to  this nonsense testing year after year, trained like Pavlov dogs to get the “only” correct answer.  And the weight of the world upon that  “only” correct answer–if they are fond of their teacher, their principal, their school, but fail to get the correct answer and that teacher loses her/his job, and the school is closed…well, that’s a lot of pressure to put upon a child who will then blame him/herself for failing a test that was designed for them to fail.

About ten minutes in, Diane brings up the very important point that a university professor would expect the student to come to college prepared for it–to be able to comprehend complex texts and use critical thinking skills to analyze the ideas.  She states that the students won’t be able to ask “why”?

I don’t know about other universities, but Purdue was already gravitating towards lecture-only courses that were not designed to have robust classroom discussions.  That was one of the things I looked forward to when I began my college career….I was very disappointed with the lack of classroom discussion on the subjects–very few of the courses I took made sense to have lecture-only.  Most would have enriched the subject and expanded one’s worldview by new ideas being discussed.  As I write this, I can only think of five classes where we had good discussions.  And one of those classes–sociology, where I had open classroom discussion, had changed when one of my children took the very same class—it had been turned into ALL lecture and she did not have to read the five books I was required to read for it.  I was shocked.  Diane touches on this point at about 20:00 in to the speech–cram as many students you can into a lecture hall to have cost savings and….more profits.  Meanwhile….we’ll build a million dollar new sports stadium….

Diane brought up something the charter school movement would rather people not hear–that teachers are demoralized by the testing, too.   They hate what it has done to their profession.  In other words–teachers care and want their students to do well.  And it’s not because of the pay!

As I’m listening to this, it pops into my head what my college adviser had told me when I said I wanted to be a teacher–she discouraged me because she said there would not be that many jobs.  How did she know this?

And I for one cannot figure President Obama out–I know that he cares about this country.  I know he is an intelligent man.  What I can’t figure out is why he is promoting this failed policy?  Why isn’t he listening to these impassioned teachers?

A scab by any other name

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Diane Ravitch has an excellent link up to Black Agenda’s take on the charter schools takeover.  I am glad there are voices coming from the African American community against charters.  Up until now, I haven’t heard their voice being raised at what is surely a stealth racism of closing public schools in poor and minority neighborhoods and replacing them with deficient charters run by well-paid CEO’s.

I hear plenty against Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel, but I’ve yet to hear any voices raised against Oprah for promoting charters out the wazoo.

Rape is Not A Joke

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Ever. Black or White.

Thanks to Michael Twitty for speaking out on rape.

He is speaking about slave rape, but the post is just as relevant to today.

I wish we had white men speaking out against Robin Thicke’s rape song “Blurred Lines”....but no….they’re actively promoting it….along with white women gushing over it.  Makes me want to throw up.

Here’s a piece on the controversy of Thicke and how others have not been held to the same standard.  It seems a little on the apologist side….a weird thing I’ve noticed with the Thicke crowd…”he really is for women’s rights”  and “you’re just not understanding the meaning of the lyrics…”  Oh, really?? What don’t I understand about “I’m going to give you something to tear your ass in two” or  “I’m gonna take a good girl….you know you want it” or “not many women can refuse this pimpin'”  or “do it like it hurt”  ??

I can tell you that I didn’t know about the others’ songs.  I don’t listen to rap.  The only way I knew about Thicke is because it’s being heavily promoted all over the place, from the web to TV.  I’m sure if the others were that heavily promoted, there would be some backlash.

Rape is not fun.  Rape is not a joke.  And making your money off of promoting rape is the lowest of the low.

All things ALEC

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Center for Media and Democracy has several links up on ALEC:

(most of these are from the week prior to the 40th birthday bash in Chicago)

They long for the bygone era.

ALEC agenda.

More *cough* scholarship funds for those poor, poor legislators…

I, for one, would like to know the reasons that Larry Summers, a hedge fund manager, would be the optimal choice for Federal Reserve.  WTH?

Pissed off at how much you’re taxed….well, how does this grab ya?  You at least expect your taxes to go towards useful things like roads, police, fire, schools….but, no, it is going to subsidize these folks.

This is the latest–the treatment of the protestors by Chicago P.D.  A note in the comments section said that over 900 people were arrested.

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On to other things–

Pandora’s lunchbox. Basically, like Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride tells GAPS patients….nothing processed is good for you–avoid it like the plague.  Try to eat more raw than cooked food.  Cooking destroys the enzymes in food–enzymes are used in all processes in your body.  This includes digestion of proteins and other nutrients so that your body can utilize them.  It won’t do your body any good if it lacks the enzymes to digest the nutrients.

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Lastly, there’s nanotechnology everywhere.  Is anybody regulating it? Well, yes and no.  The FDA is regulating silver nanoparticals, but you know the FDA on the nanotechnology as a whole….throw it out there and hope nobody notices.  Be sure to click on the links for Grist’s take (I knew there was a reason that I felt like I had sludge in my gut after eating M&M’s); also the link for Purdue’s report on the fish; and  the effect on DNA.  Yep.