Arne Duncan blames irrational angst of 'white suburban moms' for common core pushback

[Rapunzel]

That my lady is the definition of indoctrination!

I know.

BTW Beck had a very interesting program on this very subject Friday night,  The expert he had on for the full hour - with a studio audience of parents - suggested parents need to take up the slack that it is as important at home to discuss things with your children in a manner where they are encouraged to "think" rather than regurgitate...  and if you think about it how many parents think it's great plop the kiddie down in front of a Disney movie or cartoons or Dora the Explorer or Sesame Street rather than sit at the dining room table and actually talk "with" (as opposed to TO their children)... I know I have seen it with my friends grandchildren when they come out here.  These are educated people yet it is so easy to just turn the TV on for entertainment... When they are here I sit and read to the little girl and we discuss the books and she just soaks it up - yet her parents never sit and read with her....

[GourmetDan]

The expert he had on for the full hour - with a studio audience of parents - suggested parents need to take up the slack that it is as important at home to discuss things with your children in a manner where they are encouraged to "think" rather than regurgitate...

This is what I do w/ my kids.

I explain how the material arrives at a certain conclusion because of the underlying assumptions that are being applied.  Then I explain how applying a different set of assumptions to the exact same material can arrive at a totally different conclusion.  They know that they have to regurgitate the expected answer to get their grade (and that's OK), but they also understand the material at a deeper level than even their teachers do.

They also learn not to accept something just because 'everybody believes it'.

[olde north church]

Yes, the Fabians have been a source of much of it, as was Gramsci's "long march through the institutions."  But you are 100% correct, it is the group(s) that never see the light of day that are indeed the biggest problem.

Well, you can keep you eyes on several small targets; media, education, government or grab a piece of that franchise opportunity!

[happyg]

It's not the teaching of possessive nouns that bother me, but the sentences, each of them created twice. Once by the teacher, then by the students.

[rangerrebew]

I see in the news this morning old Arne is on the hot seat over these remarks about white women.  Like any good liberal he says what he feels then "apologizes" when he gets busted so everything is just fine.

[EC]

It's not the teaching of possessive nouns that bother me, but the sentences, each of them created twice. Once by the teacher, then by the students.

Talk about subtle indoctrination! 

[mountaineer]

I see in the news this morning old Arne is on the hot seat over these remarks about white women.  Like any good liberal he says what he feels then "apologizes" when he gets busted so everything is just fine.

Another non-apology apology, looks like.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Monday said he regretted his “clumsy phrasing” in singling out white suburban moms for opposing new higher academic standards. ...

“A few days ago, in a discussion with state education chiefs, I used some clumsy phrasing that I regret — particularly because it distracted from an important conversation about how to better prepare all of America’s students for success,” Duncan said in his posting.

Duncan did not apologize and his statement was unlikely to quiet the outcry from his strongest critics, many of them online where anti-Common Core activists have organized. ...

More at NY Post

[rangerrebew]

Another non-apology apology, looks like.More at NY Post

I, most humbly, stand corrected on my "apologized" usage.  Hey, I'm talking just like a liberal.

[mountaineer]

I'm sorry if anyone was offended by my poor choice of words, but I don't apologize for an instant for saying them ...

[olde north church]

I know.

BTW Beck had a very interesting program on this very subject Friday night,  The expert he had on for the full hour - with a studio audience of parents - suggested parents need to take up the slack that it is as important at home to discuss things with your children in a manner where they are encouraged to "think" rather than regurgitate...  and if you think about it how many parents think it's great plop the kiddie down in front of a Disney movie or cartoons or Dora the Explorer or Sesame Street rather than sit at the dining room table and actually talk "with" (as opposed to TO their children)... I know I have seen it with my friends grandchildren when they come out here.  These are educated people yet it is so easy to just turn the TV on for entertainment... When they are here I sit and read to the little girl and we discuss the books and she just soaks it up - yet her parents never sit and read with her....

Sesame Street was the Trojan horse.

[rangerrebew]

Maybe we don't. Maybe we should stop chasing that rainbow of higher standards and start focusing on BETTER standards. As the old cliché goes, "work smarter, not harder."

A load of college  textbooks on the back of a jackass doesn't make it educated.

[Bigun]

A load of college  textbooks on the back of a jackass doesn't make it educated.

   and 

Some years ago I was invited to give the commencement address at one of our local high schools. In the course of doing that I mention to the graduates the fact that for 12 years they had been mislead to believe that they were receiving an education. I disabused them of that notion and told them that what they had REALLY gotten over that time was a certain body of knowledge - different for each and every one of them dependent on their individual ability to retain what had been presented to them - and that they would not become truly educated until they had learned to practically apply what they had learned to the business of making their individual  ways in this world!

Need I tell you that I have not been invited to make any more such addresses?

[happyg]

  and 

Some years ago I was invited to give the commencement address at one of our local high schools. In the course of doing that I mention to the graduates the fact that for 12 years they had been mislead to believe that they were receiving an education. I disabused them of that notion and told them that what they had REALLY gotten over that time was a certain body of knowledge - different for each and every one of them dependent on their individual ability to retain what had been presented to them - and that they would not become truly educated until they had learned to practically apply what they had learned to the business of making their individual  ways in this world!

Need I tell you that I have not been invited to make any more such addresses?

If the kids were listening, most retained what you said, and it will come back to them in bits and pieces as they gain experience in the world. You did them a favor, even if they don't recognize it as one now.

[Bigun]

If the kids were listening, most retained what you said, and it will come back to them in bits and pieces as they gain experience in the world. You did them a favor, even if they don't recognize it as one now.

I have seen many of them since and to a person they have thanked me for my sobering address to them. The "educators" who were present had a decidedly different reaction however!

[Rapunzel]

  and 

Some years ago I was invited to give the commencement address at one of our local high schools. In the course of doing that I mention to the graduates the fact that for 12 years they had been mislead to believe that they were receiving an education. I disabused them of that notion and told them that what they had REALLY gotten over that time was a certain body of knowledge - different for each and every one of them dependent on their individual ability to retain what had been presented to them - and that they would not become truly educated until they had learned to practically apply what they had learned to the business of making their individual  ways in this world!

Need I tell you that I have not been invited to make any more such addresses?

This reminds me.... when we would hire new college graduates in our company one of the first things we would tell them is forget everything they told you in college, this is the real world now.

[happyg]

This reminds me.... when we would hire new college graduates in our company one of the first things we would tell them is forget everything they told you in college, this is the real world now.

I was told the same thing from my boss. Even before that, one instructor told the class the same thing. She said when we get out into the real world, little of what she taught us will matter.

[Liberal_Spy]

REAL science, and HONEST history instead of the garbage they are now pushing!

Can you elaborate on this?

[Rapunzel]

I was told the same thing from my boss. Even before that, one instructor told the class the same thing. She said when we get out into the real world, little of what she taught us will matter.

The new engineers used to drive my husband crazy, they were terrible on documenting changes  - and you HAVE to document everything. Pretty soon manufacturing would come over screaming about marked up drawings that were never finalized and they were not finalized because the engineer just did a red line change on the floor and never followed through with the official change which would trigger parts being ordered - this usually ended with parts not being ordered and production having to grind to a halt while we expedited product in the door at an inflated price.   One lazy person in can back up an entire schedule.

[Bigun]

Can you elaborate on this?

I will be happy to but you will have to answer a question from me first.

Since you are a student of history, please tell me if you have ever heard the name St. George Tucker prior to this moment? Please be honest!

[Liberal_Spy]

I will be happy to but you will have to answer a question from me first.

Since you are a student of history, please tell me if you have ever heard the name St. George Tucker prior to this moment? Please be honest!

I have heard the name, and am somewhat familiar with who he was, but I am by no means an authority on his life. Why?

[Bigun]

I have heard the name, and am somewhat familiar with who he was, but I am by no means an authority on his life. Why?

If you have heard the name you are ahead of most history professors out there today as the revisionists have done their best to erase his name from the history of the United States.

What did he do? Not much really. In 1803 He published a work entitled Blackstone's Commentaries:
with Notes of Reference (5 volumes) http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/tucker/index.html an annotated version of Blackstone's Law which incorporated the United States Constitution. The law books at every school of law in the country for the next 50 years!

So why has his name been largely erased?  Because his view of the founding, and the nature of the Republic, did not match that of those beginning to come to power in the mid 1850's. He is definitely not the only example either.

What do I mean when I say HONEST history? I mean history as it happened warts and all! Not the "history is what historians say it is" garbage being passed off on folks currently.

HONEST science is science that is provable and repeatable quite unlike the agenda driven drivel we see so much of these days.

Hope this answers your question. 

One more thing before I go. Be VERY careful with honesty in university history departments. The people who populate those places don't value it much and if you want to work there you need to be REALLY careful with it!