Veteran social studies teacher Gerald J. Conti, is one of those at the end of his rope. He has submitted a resignation letter to Westhill High School in Syracuse, N.Y., saying that after 27 years at the school, he can no longer continue.
Conti explained how he devoted his free time immersed in research, always wanting to be on top of the topics covered in his classroom, but “never feeling satisfied” that he knew enough.
“I now find that this approach to my profession is not only devalued, but denigrated and perhaps, in some quarters despised,” he wrote. “STEM rules the day and ‘data driven’ education seeks only conformity, standardization, testing and a zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core, along with a lockstep of oversimplified so-called Essential Learnings. Creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation are being stifled in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education and particularly not at Westhill.”
Boo, hoo, hoo.
This is nothing but crocodile tears over having one's ox gored. The telltale? This: "STEM rules the day"
STEM is an acronym that stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It identifies a class of education policies and curricula that emphasize those areas, and the disciplines that they depend on, including chemistry, biology, computer science, computer engineering, and, ovbiously, mathematics. STEM
does not have anything to do with "'data driven' education, conformity, standardization, testing or, most definitely, zombies.
BTW, if zombies are your thing, you can find them aplenty over in the English departments of many so-called universities, where one can earn a doctoral degree with a dissertation on zombies:
The Zombie: "A New Monster for a New World", by UA doctoral student Kyle W. Bishop.
Why is STEM important? If you're reading this, it's because of STEM disciplines. If you use your smartphone to call friends, text 'em, find information, etc, etc, etc, it's because of STEM disciplines. If you drive a car that's less than 30 years old, it's because of STEM disciplines. If you think national defense is an urgent priority, then STEM is an urgent priority. If you think rebuilding and maintaining America's dominant place in the world economy is a priority, then STEM is a priority.
On the other hand, if you think that social criticism, racial quotas and tribalism, and other liberal nonsense are a priority, then STEM is the absolute last thing in the world you want students to be taught.
Social studies is
not STEM - obviously, or the author wouldn't have this obnoxious fear of it - and, as generally taught in the United States, is most decidedly amongst the class of liberal nonsense.
So, if you want the US to remain competitive - economically, politically, and militarily - in the 21st Century, then you should want more of our limited educational resources spent on teaching STEM and less spent on teaching socio-cultural criticism and liberal/leftwing politics.