You Must Be Assimilated

Within the slick marketing package of the Common Core, you will often hear the term 'lifelong learning'.  Sounds like a good thing, right?

Wrong.

Education reformers have created their own definitions for words.  Therefore, a word like innovation doesn't mean creativity, but rather connectivity.

The same has occured with 'lifelong learning.'  When we, the 'uneducated' masses hear 'lifelong learning', we think of pursuing knowledge all throughout our lives.  We want our children to be lifelong learners.  Seekers of truth.  Lovers of literature. We eagerly embrace this vision for our children.

The educrats embrace a completely antithetical vision for our children.

Shared-knowledge, innovation, personalized learning.

(Remember those words don't mean what the dictionary definition says.  We need to find a new dictionary.)

"Elitist Educrat's Glossary of Terms"

Shared-knowledge -- Information that is carefully managed and infused into the group.  The 'basis and goal of collective intelligence is mutual recognition and enrichment of individuals rather than the cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities.'  In other words, the needs of the group override the needs of the individual. Independent thinking is therefore quashed. There is no learning beyond what they want you to learn.  No knowledge beyond what you are given. 

Innovation -- Connectivity to the whole. (Think of the Borg for all you sci-fi fans.) A constant stream of data being distributed and the reactions to the data recorded.  

(Source)

Personalized learning -- A learning plan designed to alter specific behaviors, beliefs or attiudes. 'Undesireable' learning traits will be weeded out through curriculum and learning projects.

Educrats are actively pushing an educational reform model that requires our children to become lifelong learners. The collaboration aspect is written into every standard of the Common Core State Standards Initiative and must be demonstrated. Communication, or what we think of as the ability to transmit ideas, is used to persuade members of the student's sphere of influence to the groupthink consensus.  Creativity is being used to show the evaluators that the material (propaganda) has been thoroughly absorbed.  Critical thinking teaches a student to bypass rational thought about a subject and internalize social-emotional connections to the material being taught.   

A good lifelong learner embodies all of the above 4 C's of 21st century skills.  

Educating the whole child includes the re-education of a child's inherent sense of self-centricity.  And while we will all agree that a sense of compassion and regard for others needs to be taught to a child, let us also remember that without free will compassion is meaningless.  When it is simply a duty to care for a piece (person) so that the needs of the whole collective are met by that piece, the act of caring for that piece of the collective becomes no more compassionate than repairing a broken engine part on car.  

A good lifelong learner ceases to utilize inquiry, rational thought or independent thinking. They have successfully been assimilated into the collective.  Their own well-being, dreams, and desires have been cast aside for the good of the community. 

It is our individuality which makes us human beings.  We are not parts of a system.  

Resistance is not futile.  Don't let your child be assimilated.

The Freedom Of Choice

Since the beginning of time, we have been offered choices.  We see a myriad at our local coffee shop, shoe store, grocery store, etc.  Choices are freedom.  Choices are expressions of who we are.  Choices offer us the chance to embrace our individuality, express our creativity, and tell the world that we are in control.

You don't have people in your local coffee shop condemning your choice of a chai latte with whipped cream.  You don't overhear people laughing at your decision to buy wheat bread intstead of white.  But for some reason,  we all feel entitled to judge others' choices of education for their children.  This rancor over choice gets highly caustic when one is embroiled in the battle of the schools.

                    (Photo credit Google Images)

Primarily, it's public school vs. charter, but you can switch up the combatants any way you wish.  Charter vs. homeschool, private vs. virtual school, public school vs. homeschool, ad nauseum.

You see, parents are on either side of the battle lines, and in that moment of picking our sides, I think we forget that we are all just parents.  We are too busy trying to justify our choices to those on the other side of the invisible line of 'school-choice' to look over and see that mom or dad on the opposite side trying, just as hard as we are, to give their children the best education.  We desperately want others to affirm our decision to public school, charter school, homeschool, or virtual school our children.  We look to their failures to bolster our conviction that we made the right choice.

Isn't someone else's choice resulting in failure, an affirmation that I made the right choice and mine will result in success?

No.

We fail to realize that we are unique and like us, so are our children.  One-size-fits-all does not work for all children.  The only children that will succeed under this rigid educational mold are the ones that can manage to squeeze themselves into it, thus abandoning their individuality in the effort to fit in.

My choice of how I educate my children is not a commentary on your choice of how you choose to educate yours.  We have to avoid the temptation to turn our choices into weapons that we hurl across to the other side.  Because if we could see past the insecurities, we might see ourselves reflected in the eyes of those across the battle lines.

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Parents Advocating for Children and Teachers embraces a family's right to choose what method of education works best for them.  We believe in 'parent-choice', as parents should be the ultimate decision-makers regarding their children's education.  Under the Common Core, parent-choice becomes a moot point.  Don't let your freedom and right to choose be quashed. Stop Common Core.

(Posted with permission from www.stopcommoncoreinoregon.com)

The Product of Education?

When you are manufacturing something, you need a uniform, standardized end result that you can market to your customers.  People want a product that is without deviation from the original.  They want it to be identical to what you have advertised.  If any nuance is found, they believe that they have received an inferior product. Which is all well and good when you are discussing cars, baked goods or cell phones.  But why do we hold to the same approach in education?

(Source)

Do children come into this world on an assembly-line?  Are their personalities picked from a "personality chip" and downloaded?  What a ridiculous notion.  Of course not!  Children are born into families. Personalities are innate and behaviors are learned.  There is no standardized product for human beings. 

Though many would have us believe that there could be.  

Is that what education has come to now? Programming?  A transfer of data from the the transmitter (teacher) to the data receptacle (student)? Are we talking about computers or children?

At a town hall I attended recently, I was greatly disturbed to hear how our children were referred to as a "product"; over and over again it was a point that was reiterated by the elected officials present.  I wholeheartedly disagree with that industrialized notion that my children are an end product of education.  If that were the case then education would solve all of society's ills.  It is a lie that has been perpetuated throughout the years.  Early education, longer school days, more of society revolving around the schools will not solve our problems.  Society should be family-centric not school-centric. Families are the foundations of society, not education.  Children are the end result of families, not schools.

Why does our government seek a standardized product?  It is because they have customers (corporations and special interest groups) who have invested large amounts of capital in the schools and those customers are demanding what they have paid for.  Our nation's educational choices are being driven by the needs of those "customers."  

Does anyone else feel like your children have been sold to the highest bidder? Perhaps we should inform the government that our children are not "human capital", "future workforce" or the "end product."  Our children are OUR children not their children, and they were not created to fulfill the needs of the State.

(Post reprinted with permission from www.stopcommoncoreinoregon.com)

Fordham Fools

This is the Fordham Institute's idea of an April Fools' Day joke.  They sent this offensive mockery of a map out via Twitter @educationgadfly.  Supposedly these were to depict the state's individual standards prior to the coast to coast cure for individuality -- the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

We're not laughing.

But we are smiling.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

                                                                                                      -- Ghandi

Saddle up your oxen.  We're headed into battle. And we will win.