time to go back to basic education

Well said, and thanks for the welcome home, Miriam.
What an interesting time. Getting away from Paradise and trundling
about the back roads and small towns is something I'd recommend for
all us Ivory Tower Progressives and Stay-at-Home Radicals. Twenty
days on the road gave me first-hand information that strengthened my
resolve to continue expanding my list of contacts.
It's going to take us a few days to get our clients back on line and
served, flush out the important emails among about a thousand posted
to me, put the house in order, bring Marlene's horse home, and
celebrate our eldest grand daughter's ninth birthday. So most posts
will be short.
But I do want to make an observation or two while they're fresh in my
creaky old mind.
Once South of Portland, Oregon, all through central California, East
to Phoenix, Arizona, on to Sedona and a couple of nights at Flagstaff,
then over to Henderson, Nevada, and a night at Carson City and one
night in Klamith Falls, Oregon, before finally reaching our daughter
Jennifer in Ellensberg, Washington, the only so called Liberal or
Progressive news media was NPR and PBS. We chatted with lots of
friendly folks of all ages, most of whom had no opinion on the future
of our nation. They sure cared about local problems, water shortage,
unemployment, local crime, immigrants taking jobs away from
locals...as if there were jobs to be taken, we saw lots of vacant
shops and boarded up buildings in the many small towns we passed
through, and mostly where we traveled, the concern was on who got
first grab at the dwindling supply of water. It's amazing to see a
small town built on the banks of a flat sand plain. Obviously there
had been water there at one time. We passed two of these dry lakes in
Nevada, and one very large lake with real water near Klamath Falls,
Oregon. But there was no conversation on the Media or in the cafes
and shops about this short supply of water indicating a coming blight.
The radio is chock full of channels, both A M and FM, mostly
commercials spaced with a little music, and stuff that passes for
music, we only heard three classical stations during the entire trip.
Mostly the radio was divided between sports talk, preachers, right
wing talk jocks, preachers pretending to be right wing talk jocks,
vicious hate mongers, sneering at anyone who was not White, Male and
filled with Jesus. These folk were so filled with hate, people like
Mike Savage, or so contemptuous, like the sneering Rush Limbaugh,
blaming Government for all our troubles. These well paid Jocks are in
business to stir up fear and mistrust. They are not fools, even if
they appear to be. They offer no solutions, but keep fanning the
flame of resentment and anger toward Obama and making fun over any
position or decision Obama makes. But enough of them. My point is
that there is no real information on the airwaves. Nor is there any
balance to offset the hatred being spread. We have been exposed to
the same sort of programming for so many years that we forget that we
might have gone a different route when Radio was Young. The potential
existed to use this new mass media to transmit information, teach,
debate and explore new ideas. Instead, we turned it into a junk
store, peddling Snake Oil to Americans.
Some of the very small towns along our route consisted of a few shops,
about half of them boarded up. and a collection of single-wides and
shacks. Junk was scattered around the barren yards. But the folks we
talked to and eavesdropped, were certain that Big Government,
creeping Socialism, was at the root of their troubles. These were not
angry men and women, they were friendly and especially helpful to a
fault when they saw my white cane. But they had been trained to not
think for themselves. Americans, for the most part, have been truly
brain washed. So brain washed are we, that we even believe that we
are free to think and say whatever we want. It reminds me of Saint
What's His Name, who threw himself into the briar patch whenever he
had a "wrong" thought. Eventually he said that he was free to think
whatever he wanted to think. This is where we find ourselves, in the
briar patch. So, we wandered among friendly people, through wide open
space, faced with a grim reality that we just might not make it
through to a better world.

Carl Jarvis


On 4/23/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Welcome back, Carl.
>
> Actually, I don't think that the corporations who design the tests, care
> about what children are learning in school. They want to earn money by
> selling their tests to the states and the federal government. And behind
> the
> plan to give tests which will ensure that children will be found wanting,
> is
> the plan to close the public schools, blaming them for the fact that the
> children aren't doing well on the tests. Then the corporations and hedge
> funds who own the charter schools, present them as a solution to what have
> been defined as failing public schools. This is the plan. It has to do with
> corporations privatizing just one more public service in order to earn big
> bucks. Education is irrelevant.
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blind-Democracy [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On
> Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2015 8:25 PM
> To: Blind Democracy Discussion List
> Subject: time to go back to basic education
>
> Whether you are testing the students or the teachers, all the clever tests
> in the world will not bring about a higher level of education.
> Are we going to focus on teaching or are we going to focus on testing?
> They are not the same thing. Better testing does not result in better
> education. It merely results in students learning to score high in tests.
> But then we do keep going around on the subject of what education really
> is.
> The people in power, the Ruling Class, determine what skills, which tools
> the young will need to master in order to serve the Ruling Class.
> Go on line and Google that Eighth Grade Test from back around 1890.
> Think of what these children were being groomed for.
> True, the children of the Ruling Class were sent abroad to be educated in
> the accepted ways of the Genteel, speaking French, drilled in Latin, Greek
> Mythology, the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, and all the trimmings
> that
> went into grooming them for their future role as leaders. But the vast
> majority of children were learning the skills that would enable them to do
> the young Empire's grunt work. They needed to be practical generalists.
> They needed to be problem solvers, able to be creative when the need arose.
> Today's Ruling Class does not need the same sort of education for its
> workers. Today it is more important to "fit in" as a supporter of the
> Establishment, willing to do the bosses work, right or wrong.
> Those who, like Edward Snowden, who question or disobey the rules, are a
> threat to the Empire.
> The real question should be, are our children receiving the sort of
> education we want for them> Or are they receiving the education that
> prepares them to become mindless servants of the Empire?
> Think about this, the Ruling Class educates its sons and daughters to be
> the
> leaders and the thinkers for the Empire. All this talk about our children
> falling behind the children in other Lands is simply not true. Our Working
> Class children are being well groomed to serve in the armies of the Empire.
> All the talk about our failing educational system is simply a part of the
> dismantling of public education. The schooling being promoted for our
> children is producing exactly what the Empire needs. And the Empire
> understands that this level of education can be delivered by private, for
> profit schools, as well as it is being delivered through the public system,
> and much more profitable to the Empire.
>
> Carl Jarvis
> On 4/2
>
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