I warned you that I'd get my revenge by writing something terribly philosophical--or, in this case,
policktical. Those of you who don't care can go back to yesterday's post and look at the baby pictures again, I won't mind.
The topic of today's post is a speech the President is giving to school children on September 8 and the associated
lesson guide the Dept. of Education has put out.
John Lott has written an article about why it's generally unacceptable to require schoolchildren to listen to a politician during their school day, but what struck me (as it so often does lately) was the shock displayed by the DOE when anyone so much as blinked at study questions such as: "What do you think the President wants to inspire us to do? Do you feel inspired?"
I don't know that I'd go so far as to say the DOE is attempting to create a "cult of personality" the way totalitarian countries do. (Although I get awfully tired of seeing posters of the President everywhere alongside pictures of Elvis, people can decorate however they like.) But it is odd that the DOE doesn't attempt to teach children critical thinking skills at all in their lesson guide. Critical thinking applied to any Presidential speech would necessitate study questions like:
1. In your own words, re-state what the President has said.
2. What are the things the President is asking you to do?
3. Do you think he's right? Why or why not?
4. Why might the President be asking you to do these things?
5. In a speech, people often present one side of an argument and leave out others. What arguments might be made against the President's position? Do you think the arguments would be right? Why or why not?
Note carefully that none of these questions imply the President is evil, lying, and manipulative, or contrawise, right, noble, and good. Critical thinking by definition cannot decide an issue out of hand.
The argument could be made, I suppose, that the President is only going to tell children to study hard and work to achieve their goals, and who could object to that? Nobody, but if the President was only going to say "Study hard and work hard to achieve your goals" I doubt he'd have so many minutes set aside to say one sentence. Of course there will be illustrations and a lot of uplifting puffery--er, I mean rhetoric-- and the President will most likely tell the children
why they should work hard and study.
The
why for politicians is almost inevitably political. For instance, during the 1950s the
why children were handed to explain why they needed to study hard was
because otherwise the Soviets will win the Cold War! The
why of the 1980s, as far as I can remember as a girl, was
because otherwise you'll be an oppressed woman who can't get into medical school! or perhaps
because otherwise you won't be able to participate as a global citizen! I'll be very curious to hear what the current
why is, because of course the
why is what people might object to. Education as a path to good citizenship, for example, is only palatable to most folks as long as they don't go into what "good citizenship" means too closely. I suspect that often for government "good citizenship" means "fairly docile" and for most citizens it means "the ability to engage in my political process and understand it, and to change it sometimes". These are not always compatible goals, and so it behooves the citizens to watch how the government decides to train up the next generation of citizens.
This is only looking at something as inoffensive as good citizenship; what if the
why turns out to be something as nebulous as "environmental stewardship" or "being change agents"? A sticky place to be ethically, and nefariously difficult politically.
Miss Boo just woke up from her nap, so I'll close there.
Cheers,
Breanna
...the garden looked like this?
Miss Boo has been eating tomatoes, because--
--now the garden looks like THIS.
Brother has been cutting a tooth. (Or two. Bottom incisors.) I think the drooling must help.
Opa was here today, to play with Miss Boo, who asked him to "draw cowboy!" over and over again. We are all about cowboys lately. 
An apple pie from our apples, because you can't can up ALL of them.
Miss Boo eventually got tired of the cowboys.
Which was good, because I had turnips, tomatoes, carrots, and green beans to put up. (Freeze. I'm not canning green beans--I'm not crazy.)
Here am I, ladling, from behind, because the Husband knew I'd have thrown a ladle of hot apple pie filling at him if I'd seen that he was taking my picture.
And here's another Brother pic, just to keep you interested.
What color do you think his eyes are going to be?
