Now what my gripe comes into is the name calling the denigration of ideals into an image to invoke an emotional response. This break down of intelligent discourse is a dumbing down of society. And before the Roger Ailes types start in by asking if I think Americans are dumb I am not saying that at all. To quote Men in Black;
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
Blame who you wish politicians, pundents or the media but the United States is becoming a nation of name calling school children. Can't debate the issue call the opposing council a jerk. It wreaks of school children level of discourse. If you don't agree well you are a dooty head.
Seemingly Republicans are a non starter one important issue to me and that is education. Education is so important to becoming a productive member of society. But education is complicated way more complicated than we give it credit. ultimately the complexity comes down to people aren't widgets. What sets off understanding and comprehension in one person isn't what sets it off for the others in the class. Lot of factors that go into it based on the individual learning the subject. Stating that somehow its teachers fault because they are not accountable. Money is a good motivator but its not the only one. Neither is having a job that fires teachers on poor performance. Sometimes its as simple as a student later stating hey you were the best teacher I ever had. Sometimes the joy of something is its own reward. But its for nothing if the student isn't motivated to learn. The low pay long hours are for nothing if the parents don't stay involved. Republicans tend to take direct business model approaches to fixing these issues. Often times they don't work for the same reason that the markets around the world crashed, they were being supported on foundations that depended on conditions to be ideal. In a perfect system everything works but an imperfect system falls apart. Takes creative solutions to work around the imperfections.
Current Republican nomination for instance wants to do away with public education and go to a voucher system. This relies on there being the same affordable access to education for everyone which is an assumption at best but more a denial of the real conditions that many Americans face. Its also ignorant of the system that is in America. If you go to an Ivy League school your chances of getting better opportunities are much better than a community college. Consider our countries system of importance similar to a monopoly. A private school system doesn't just compete for the students it competes for the prestige and conception of others. Making some schools despite the actual quality of education more likely to win over others. Meaning that the more money they can charge and the more likely the students who go there come from wealth. This is stacking the deck in the favor of those with means. It also guarantees that the less fortunate are under-educated. The system we have now isn't perfect. Its still stacked in the favor of those with means but its less so and for now that's what we have to fix. This voucher system continues the tradition but lessens the burden of taxes of rich campaign donors. Its a matter of pride that we continue to believe in education. The US used to be a leader in the world and is falling behind. An under-educated populace guarantees that we fall behind.
It comes down to what do we do about it. I'm not one to gripe without offering my suggestions. First is stop de-funding education. I am not at all saying that we should throw money at a problem but at least stop giving less for the system to work with and hope it works out either. Stop blaming teachers, you know teachers are one professional that doesn't get the same credit they used to. Over a lifetime how many students does a teacher pass through? How many did they have an impact on? Its thousands over a teachers lifetime. Thirdly get parents involved which is a herculean task these days when many parents are overworked underpaid then have to come home and be a full time parent. I'm a parent I know, there is part of me after a long day wants to just go home and give up for the day. It doesn't end there for many of us. Its come home take care of the kids make sure they get the attention they need and still take care of all the things that are needed for upkeep of the home. when i say home I mean where you live apartment house etc. Its a lot of work to do all that needs to be done around the home. Lastly is to engage the kids. Kids all learn at different paces which I learned from having two kids. Its probably a struggle to balance making sure all the kids learn the same curriculum over a year and keep all of them basically on the same time frame. Kids want to learn and they will but its an impossible balancing act to keep them going not let any fall behind.
Its a frustrating thing to keep up a positive outlook on our countries future. Most people don't have the facts or really some don't really care about the facts. All that we have is emotionally driven rhetoric without anything to base them on. Its certainly frustrated me that I get pigeon holed because I don't agree obviously on education or the way we offer debate. I state that its important that we all are educated but more importantly that we all can think and reason. Emotions and rhetoric wind up just spinning their wheels in the mud. You may not have a need to understand the whole complexity of biological evolution but should have the ability to reason that since there is more evidence that the world is millions of years old and not 6000 that it can be thought that maybe its not. That believe it or not goes a long ways to learn to remove politicians from office who don't back up what they say with facts.
thats all for this rant I have many more gripes but this has gotten way to long as it is.
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