Re: Andrew Rasiej Closing the Achievement Gap

["Peter Majoy" <pwmjoy@earthlink.net>]

This exchange is a good example of "even the devil can quote from
scripture." I have my opinion who the proverbial devil is here but that
does not really matter. One could probably guess correctly after what
follows: Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" is a cosmos away from NCLB's
continued oppression of students and teachers. Experiments in education?
What experiments? NCLB? Hardly anything new! SOS! Just a new wrapping!
Choice for students? NCLB represents this? It has never been the case that
NCLB type movers and shakers in education give a damn about choice! What
they give a damn about is conformity, not critical thinking, not
creativity, not even good science, the kind reflected by Einstein's
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."  "Establishment treadmills"
is phrased in such a context as if the person using the phrase here is not
part of that treadmill crowd. To me, such rhetoric is vintage treadmill; in
fact, I imagine such bs as characteristic of "treadmillitis", a kind of
disease of the mind in which people who can't really think for themselves,
because they never have, attempt to appear above the fray and use language
to distance themselves from the common folk out there who are confused. The
semantic inverting of anything anybody says by someone with "treadmillitis"
is an addiction. Public education has major faults and major triumphs.
Private, parochial, charter, and home school education share this same
profile of success and failure. NCLB is no medicine to help cure the
failures. The fact that it is presented that way is a shame. It has several
well intentioned points and, as so many have said, it's ultimate goal
cannot be denied. I think of NCLB as a lifeguard with no experience, no
training, no insight about those who must be saved, and possessed of the
most profound naivete. He/she can strut up and down the beach and claim the
high ground, but when it comes time to save someone, watch out! Such a
lifeguard never returns to land with a life saved. In fact, the person in
danger would have been better off without such attention!

> [Original Message]
> From: <aburke5054@aol.com>
> To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
> Date: 8/4/2005 3:51:34 PM
> Subject: Re: [arn-l] Andrew Rasiej Closing the Achievement Gap
>
> ----Original Message-----
> From: James Horn <jhorn@monmouth.edu>
> To: arn-l@interversity.org
> Sent: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 14:21:03 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: Re: [arn-l] Andrew Rasiej Closing the Achievement Gap
>
>  ...The oppressors use their "humanitarianism" to preserve a
> profitable situation. Thus they react almost instinctively against any
> experiment in education which stimulates the critical faculties and is 
> not
> content with a partial view of reality ...
> __________________________________________________________
>
> Freire is absolutely right on target.  This is exactly how the 
> education establishment reacts against, for example, choice for 
> students and parents or criticism of establishment treadmills for 
> preparing teachers and administrators.
>
> Art
>
>
>
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