A recent study found that as much as three-fourths of the state schools were holding back the most talented and brightest students because they wanted to combat the scourge of “elitism.” These students were not being given more advanced work even though they were not being sufficiently challenged by grade-level material.
Instead of being allowed to progress at their own pace, the students were often asked to simply mentor the other students. The Ofsted study found that the school treated academic gifts as “not a priority” for teaching and that allowing them to work to their full potential would “undermine the school’s efforts to improve the attainment and progress of all other groups of pupils.”
Stephen Hawking, it appears, would have been a threat to the educational mission and told to eat glue with the rest of the kindergarten kids. Shakespeare would be told that he needs to return to those word group “mix and match” exercises and stop composing sonnets on the school computers.
What is interesting is that England has a gifted and talented program for the top five to ten percent, but these schools are choosing to ignore that policy.
With kids in the gifted and talented program in Fairfax, I can say that this view is inimical to the development of such children. These kids can actually do worse over time in standard lessons because they are not challenged and they tend to slip in their skills and interest. More importantly, by holding them back, you are denying them the opportunity to develop to their full potential. It is not more “elitist” in the pejorative sense than selecting the fastest kids for track and field competitions. Children have different skill sets and aptitudes. Finally, while such kids can be viewed as an elite group for their area, it does not make them elitists in the sense of people who believe that they are superior to others.
We have previously discussed the dangers of a “nanny state” with our close cousins in England. This would appear another such example of those dangers.
When talented children are not challenged, they can turn to less productive activities:
For the full story, click here.
The history of this country in the mid-twentieth century is not very well understood. And for many of those whose history studies did not extend beyond high school, which is most of us, it is essentially a mystery. I don’t recall ever getting beyond World War I before the semester ended. If I hadn’t gone to college, I would probably believe that the League of Nations exists somewhere.
I note the foregoing because the explanation I have read on this thread for the development of private schools by Christian fundamentalists is wrong. They were not a reaction to John Dewey, or government fascists or liberal values, although in the beginning some of those terms were used euphemistically. While Catholic parochial schools have been a fixture in American life for more than a century, the genesis of Christian fundamentalist schools was the delayed but inevitable implementation of the decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The formation of conservative Christian schools was purely and simply a reaction to the integration of the public schools. All of the alternative explanations are claptrap.
During the most intense years of the civil rights movement, the only active religious figures, aside from the pastors of traditionally black churches, were Catholic religious and clergy from mainline Protestant denominations. People like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson stood mute, quietly preaching to their segregated congregations and completely avoiding the social debates of the day. After the passage of voting rights acts and other civil rights legislation, southern politicians, primarily Democrats, continued to resist in a number of ways, eventually leaving the party by the tens of thousands and becoming Republicans. It was during this period of time that we witnessed the formation of the first “private Christian academies.” As they have continued to grow, they have benefited by a resurgence of fundamentalism around the country. With the growth in the number of fundamentalists, Mr. Falwell, Mr. Robertson and others came out of the shadows and marched into public life. Politicians, eager to pander to desired constituencies, responded with programs such as “faith-based intiatives,” another euphemism, as a means of funneling public tax dollars into sectarian institutions.
When I started first grade in a public school in 1951, we did not pray or read the Bible. We pledged allegiance to the flag and to one nation, but not under God. That was a later addition. We learned to read using phonics. There was no outrage over the teaching of evolution and there were no demands for the inclusion of “creation science,” yet another euphemism for a very specific and narrow religious viewpoint that has neither sound science nor sound theology behind it. There were no demands that schools pull books from shelves. There were no committees formed to enable uneducated fanatics to edit textbooks and censor curricula.
In short, the history of the development of fundamentalist Christian schools is not long and not complicated. Bob Jones University is still a racist and anti-Catholic institution, so let’s lighten up on the revisionism, shall we?
“vicious and disagreeable”
Since I’m dealing with a Jesus Nazi bigoted troll, that’s exactly what I was shooting for. Glad you noticed. I can play very nice. Your lot doesn’t get that ride. To be clear: that side is the side of irrational hatred and divisiveness. I’m as nice as people let me be. Sometimes I’m either nice or not nice just to prove a point.
Except when it comes to propaganda trolls.
I’m going to screw with your lot simply because 1) any time I puncture your bullshit and keep you from winning a convert to the hatred side, that’s a win and 2) you’re jackasses supporting the agenda of corporatism which would qualify you as “evil puppets”. I have no issue making you lot look as vile as possible. If I hurt a few feelings along the way? So what. Are those bad bad words going to get you? Awwww. Be glad they aren’t broken bones. Pick up your word games if you’re tired of getting your asses kicked around here. Most of you don’t understand propaganda well enough to use it seamlessly. Some of you trolls are much better educated than you let one. You’re just not very good at what you do and quite frankly the resident troll killers here are all way out of your league. To that point: you still haven’t addressed the fundamental flaw underpinning your bigotry rationale.
Care to blather any more of your nonsensical hatred, Toolie, or do you want to address the fact that you’re an anti-Semite working for a Jew?
Really. I want to hear this one. I want to see if you can tie your logic in pretzel knots and TRY to address that basic hypocrisy of your bigoted positions.
Gonna pass on defending the hole in your logic large enough to drive an aircraft carrier through? Can’t say I blame you, Twaddles. Arguing from a position of hypocrisy, lies and hatred is going to meet the same fate of all arguments of that nature. They get dismantled and their hateful speakers have their facades shredded into unusable caricatures of their vile intent. We’ll gladly keep revealing your true nature: hateful little spoiled children.
See. Because unlike you Neocon zealots who want everyone dead who doesn’t tow their “Jesus is an American Fascist Capitalist” line, my goal isn’t your outright destruction. No. The shape of victory for this liberal isn’t concentration camps for you theocrats. No. The shape of my victory as that all you Robertson/Tilton/Hinn types get greeted in public with the same approbation a Minstrel Show would earn in Watts. I just want to make sure every time your hateful little tribe opens their vile mouths about how “we’re special and all you are going to Hell” that they are laughed out of any given room. From the Quiky Mart to the White House. This goes for Neocons fascists as well as the Insane Religious Right. That’s right. I used the word “insane”. Because that’s what turning a teaching of peace and love into a rational for hatred and killing is . . . it IS insane. Fundies are all brain damaged or they are ex-Fundies. Not a lot of middle ground there. Lots of people look to positively influence their life with the teachings of Jesus. Sometimes they get off on the wrong foot. But only the insane ones think Jesus wants death and global destruction so he can pull off his “disappearing believers” trick. Jesus didn’t write Revelations and would have thought it antithetical to his teachings. This very argument waged for weeks at the Council of Nicea. Revelations is a basis for a death cult and has NOTHING to do with the rest of the Bible – other than it’s purposeful introduction to the finalized New Testament by people who wanted a Fear stick to beat followers into submission and making them capable of being manipulated into doing things amoral or unethical to the Church leader’s Earthly benefit. And doing in “God’s Name” too. The non-insane realize that God is Love, He doesn’t need a building or your money, and that anyone saying “Jews need to die” or “Screw those niggers” or “Let’s go roll some fags” or “women should be pregnant and seen, not heard and it’s not rape if the man liked it” or “we are special saved people and the rest of you are vermin are on your own by default” and calling yourself a “Christian”?
All rational people realize that’s insane too.
That would be really entertaining if it weren’t so pathetic. Entertaining in that train wreck sort of way. Every time you try to force your beliefs on others, I want the ones you are attacking to ridicule you until you are neutralized and marginalized. Sputtering and angry that your attempts at brainwashing has failed. I want them to taunt you until you cry like a baby. I want people to think of fundamentalists of ANY stripe as something lower on the sanity scale than Tom Cruise or the Crazy Old Cat Lady from The Simpsons. Someone to be taunted and pointed at as a primitive: “Hey everybody! Look at the Neanderthal! So easy even a caveman can screw it up!” Every time you have the arrogance to say something bigoted, stupid and hatefully confrontational to someone who is simply minding their own business? I want everyone not blinded by your Pastor Polyester to just point and laugh so hard that you clowns hatred will be drowned out by the sounds of people’s laughter at morons.
Laughter is the best medicine for hatred. But simply stomping it out works too.
Tootie,
I’ll bite, let’s see some facts backing up your claims. Let’s start with this one:
“It was only after the fascist state seized the school systems and wholesale took them over, that a hysteria on the left about the traditional customs stemming from the original Christian influence became a problem. To hear the leftist heathens tell it, it was the other way around. They stupidly act as if the government started education in America and those evil Christians have continually tried to violate the separation of church and state ever since.”
To give you as selection of what I consider facts, I’ll give you a few interesting tidbits I learned from a quick Wiki search” “A 1647 Massachusetts mandated that every town of 50 or more families support an elementary school and every town of 100 or more families support a grammar school” Sure sounds like way back in 1647 the “fascist state seized the school systems.” Oh and in case you wear simply referring to the history of public schools in the U.S, the Land Ordinance of 1785 set aside a part of every township in the U.S. for public schools. Those crazy fascist Founding Fathers. Sixty or so odd years later, Land Grant colleges were established. The Mann reforms (1837 saw his appointment to the Board Education of Massachusetts) were in part based on the idea “that such education should be paid for, controlled, and sustained by an interested public.”
Now you might wonder what my point is. The point is simple, for the majority of the existence of the U.S. as an independent country, schools have been at least partially controlled by the government. Hell, it even looks as though the Government did help to start education in this country.
Of course what do I know about history?
Byron:
You said that it was vicious of me to call everyone baby killers? Get out! I wouldn’t call EVERYONE baby killers, just all democrats.
If it is bad to call those who deny life to others vicious, then call me vicious,
PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
But that is not why I called Buddha vicious.
Mespo:
You said:
“Tootie inadvertently raises an interesting point, to wit, do Christian Fundamentalists share the same compulsion to say irrational things like some of those poor souls suffering from Tourette’s?…”
Ah, I don’t think your theory will work. Falwell’s and Robertson’s field of study is the human condition, ergo they commented on it according to their understanding of what that is. They had professional (spiritual) standing, so-to-speak, even though you don’t like what they said. Theirs wasn’t a knee-jerk response, as was Mike’s.
Mike is not an educator (that I know of) or a researcher who can confirm to us that Christians are the ones responsible for the crummy public schools. On the other hand we can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that leftists are responsible for the mess because they run the schools at virtually every level imaginable with few exceptions.
So his comments were likely knee-jerk in nature as I indicated but took to a higher level because it seems to be almost pathological.
Falwell and Robertson at least had SOME justification for their statements even if you don’t like that justification.
No offense to the Tourettes folks, they cannot help it.
Mike Spindell:
Sorry, Mespo posted the quotes from Falwell, not you.
Byron,
Sierra Nevada is in (or near, I forget exactly where it is, and sick kid has sucked away my extra energy for research) the primary hop growing region of the U.S. with water that chemically favors hoppy beers. There’s a very distinct West Coast beer making style, and it’s basically: take your average beer, add half again as much hops. That being said, Sierra Nevada does a better job of giving enough malt backing then some (couSTONEgh). For the absolute best balanced super-hopped beer you can find, get a bottle of Dogfishhead’s 120 Min. IPA. It’s an (fairly expensive) revelation.
anon nurse:
How true. Also, have you heard the latest? Now almost all our kids have autism.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
and etcetera.
Byron:
You misunderstand, Buddha was vicious and disagreeable. You are nice and disagreeable.
See the difference?
Mike Spindell:
There is nothing wrong with anyone preferring a certain type of candidate and your opposition to Christians doing that is just sours grapes or worse (likely worse). And anyone calling themselves a Christian, but is a racist, isn’t a Christian. And anyone who thinks all Fundies are racists is just as bad as a racist.
Fundamentalist churches are generally the most open and friendly churches in America because the bible teaches that Jesus Christ died for ALL, and all happens to include people of color. Racism in America stems from slavery. Many Christians kept a pattern of racism born of slavery in their customs for too long, like Bob Jones University. But, they learned the error of their ways and I say that is wonderful.
Jerry Falwell said a lot of stupid things, like we all do, but there is nothing about this issue and the destruction of American education that has to do with fundamentalist Christians since the left owns the schools and has owned them for decades.
And I don’t find anything awful about the comments Falwell made (which you posted), but there is probably one misspoken phrase. He said “let them be hanged”. I imagine Falwell didn’t want to say, let them be damned (which is the colloquial phrase he was likely reaching for). He would probably not say that because it was something the bible forbids. I would disagree with him if he actually wanted them hanged for homosexuality. On the other hand, even the leftist Camile Paglia has outed democrats their their hypocrisy on abortion, she says they should just come out and admit it is murder. If it is murder, then, what Falwell and Robertson implied about “hanging” anyone (if that is what they implied) isn’t far from what most nations consider justice for mass murderers.
I will openly admit that many Christians like Falwell (including our own Pilgrims) do greatly err by insisting on Old Testament punishments in some things: like homosexuality. Christians get in trouble when they insist on Old Testament justice. Old Testament law was meant for the Jews and the nation of Israel.
That is not to say that Old Testament law is unjust or that some of it isn’t applicable or transferable to the modern state. Punishment for murder, rape, and kidnapping are as much recognized among Christians as they are among non-Christians, and the Christian viewpoint of it is solidly Old Testament.
Regarding the schools, Christians have a legitimate claim based on their having founded them here. Christians are only trying to maintain what was once their territory since Christians (including Catholics) were the main force for establishing education early in our history.
Contemporary Christians attempted to maintain this religious tradition and custom in the schools which once had allowed bibles and praying. They didn’t try to maintain this because of some overt intention on their part to violate the Constitution. It is leftists who portray it as such and continue to demonize them for it. Christians were carrying forward what had always been: a Christian influence in American schools. This is what civilizations do. They carry things forward. Of course, some thing have to be left behind because they are no longer viable.
It was only after the fascist state seized the school systems and wholesale took them over, that a hysteria on the left about the traditional customs stemming from the original Christian influence became a problem. To hear the leftist heathens tell it, it was the other way around. They stupidly act as if the government started education in America and those evil Christians have continually tried to violate the separation of church and state ever since.
Leftists do this because they are either ignorant of the history and development of American education, or they know the history are just plain hateful.
Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and many more very old and distinguished (cough) schools were all started by Christians as devout as Jerry Falwell (but certainly smarter than him). Most were in fact devoted to the very cause of Jesus Christ and said so in the founding statements, some of which were chiseled in stone.
I know this embarrasses many of the heathens, atheists, and haters on the left.
Now, I admit that Fundies haven’t handled their opposition very well and they should just give it up now since the fascist leftists have seized the school systems Christians laid the foundations for centuries ago apprehending that they would be run by the people.
That war is lost and they need to move on.
Nevertheless, parents of any or all stripes still have every right to have textbooks eliminated from the public schools which are offensive (in their judgment) for any reason whatsoever. To help stop Christians from doing this, the left demonizes them. They, continually lie and spread the myth that Christians are opposed to science. We have only to look at recent events with the global warming hoax to know that it is not Christians who oppose science or truth.
Many of the greatest scientists in history were devout Christians (Mendel, Boyle, John Dalton, George Washington Carver, Charles Babbage, John Bartram, Descartes, Faraday, John Fleming, James Joule and many more). These are among the greatest ever.
There are many Christians throughout the sciences today. There is no conflict whatsoever between being a Christian and supporting science except in the mind of those who hate Christians and lie that there is.
You appear to think that only Fundies shouldn’t have the right to say what books should be in our schools and everyone else should. It is fascistic to think only government officials should have that power. That is what the communists think as well.
If it not government officials, then it is the people. But in your mind it is the people minus the ones you don’t like.
The only person, if any, that you drew out and exposed, was yourself.
I know of exceptional students who have been routed to “special ed” programs, ostensibly for the purposes of securing additional funding for the school/s.
Mike S.
You said: “While good parenting with school can help children the system is still messed up. I believe that is so because schools are set up like factories and because of that don’t take into account that children learn at their own pace. The school systems in america and most of the world prize conformity, over intellectual curiousity and due to that too many children with potential get left far behind.”
That criticizes all schools with a broad stroke. You don’t have to go from state to state to witness different types of schools that take different approaches to education–you can go from community to community in a state and find huge disparities. There are countless schools that are not set up like factories.
There have been plenty of schools in the US that have provided American kids with a quality education–and have viewed children as individuals and not little automatons who should spend their valuable classtime prepping for mandated tests. Unfortunately, with the new mindset in this country to have test-driven education, I think we may be seeing the demise of such schools.
Gyges:
My wife bought a bottle of Sierra Nevada Wet Hoppe Ale. It was good but man was it hoppey.
You could really taste the hoppes, they did a good job with that beer if you like hoppes. That was about all you tasted. I dont know why they even bothered with the malt. Just throw in some sugar and some hoppes and yeast.
Buddha,
Look at Byron, our little conservative’s getting so grown up.
Byron, Buddha, and any other beer drinkers,
I suggest that if you can get your hands on a bottle of Traquiar’s House Ale you do so. Especially since I believe the two of you appreciate beers on the Maltier side of things.
Tootie:
“I understand how that works. It’s like how my experience with you leads me to believe everyone else who posts comments at blogs and has beliefs similar to you are mean and vicious.”
So someone that disagrees with you is vicious but you can come in and call everyone baby killers and destroyers of American society, etc., etc. and that is not vicious? Why because you think God is on your side? Sounds like someone is not thinking quite right.
I think you need some real works in logic, may I suggest that heathen Aristotle for starters.
Mespo,
In my amusement I failed to note that Tootie had also shown further ignorance by invoking Tourette’s Syndrome. Only a small percentage of those with this syndrome shout curse words. The majority have tics, or make involuntary sounds. Those that shout curse words suffer from what I believe, remember I retired some time ago, is called Copralallia. I’ve treated a few people with Tourette’s, not for the syndrome per se but the stigma that goes with it and I know that these responses are totally involuntary leaving the sufferer blameless.
Now in the case of Falwell and Robertson, their verbal productions were done with malice aforethought, mainly to stir up their base and keep the cash rolling in. They deserve blame and opprobrium and censure. I gues that in Tooties case that translates into adoration and donation. Can others judge us by those we admire? I believe they can.
Mike S:
“…just had to attack Christian fundamentalists like a Tourretes Syndrome patient shouting out potty words,…”
**********
Tootie inadvertently raises an interesting point, to wit, do Christian Fundamentalists share the same compulsion to say irrational things like some of those poor souls suffering from Tourette’s? An example from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson following 9-11, two notorious, in-insufferable “fundies”:
JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I’ll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”
PAT ROBERTSON: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we’re responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system..
JERRY FALWELL: Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang “God Bless America” and said “let the ACLU be hanged”. In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time – calling upon God. ~~~
PAT ROBERTSON: Amen
“I think that many of the problems described in this thread result more from the lack of responsibility on the part of parents, rather than problems with the system.”
Chris,
Some of what you say is true. My parents, while they loved me and wished the best for me did not oversee my schoolwork as my wife and I did with our children. In their defense my father was a 9th Grade dropout and my mother had heart attacks, strokes and suffered from being clinically depressed, so homelife was rather disrupted and I was left on my own.
While good parenting with school can help children the system is still messed up. I believe that is so because schools are set up like factories and because of that don’t take into account that children learn at their own pace. The school systems in america and most of the world prize conformity, over intellectual curiousity and due to that too many children with potential get left far behind.
“You just couldn’t help yourself, could you? You had a nice post until the end when you just had to attack Christian fundamentalists like a Tourretes Syndrome patient shouting out potty words, picking his nose, and farting at a luncheon.”
Tootie,
It was my way of bringing guys like you out of the closet and I don’t care whether you think my post was nice or not. Christian Fundamentalists have in the last 30 years been working on the destruction of the basic freedoms of this country and have played a major role in dumbing down education.
1. By supporting candidates based solely on their alleged adherance to Christian principles, while overlooking the fact that these same people legitimized greed as the absolute value of American life.
2. By taking over local schoolboards and working towards the removal of textbooks with which they don’t agree, primarilly those in science and history.
3. By allowing con artists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell to become billionaires by convincing the faithful the Jesus was a Republican.
4. By supporting illegal, unjust wars and torture, while sending the less wealthy of their own young men to die.
5. By electing racist legislators.
6. By believing in the tenets of a secondary role for women and supporting misogyny.
The sad, silly fact of it is that Christian Fundamentalists are no better than Muslim Fundamentalists, Jewsih Fundamentalists and/or Hindu fundamentalists. Fundamentalist religious belief is a cancer on humanity. The worst part of it is that all of these fundamentalists are influenced by sociopathic religious leaders who preach the opposite of what their original prophets believed.
They all use God’s name in vain for earthly power and in doing so have helped to cause much of human strife.
Notice tootie I didn’t say religious belief was bad, just the people who shape it into something their prophets would not recognize. Do you think that “The Golden Rule” and “Turn the other cheek” are consistent with Christian Fundamentalists? I could do the same with other faiths and show the inconsistencies but why bother. If you yourself as a Christian don’t have the sense of reading your bible and making up your own mind as to what it means, then you yourself are doing Jesus a misservice.
Elaine,
This is a take off on your comment, not a contradiction of it.
I have noticed that many parents don’t seem to understand how to take care of their child(ren). I’m not certain what is going on here but I have some ideas. I notice that children are put in front of the TV and computer very early on. I see their toys are substitutes for human interaction. The toys “talk” instead of having the child and parent read together. “Musical” toys aren’t small instruments but again, things which the child presses instead of uses to make music. The whole idea of genuine creative play has almost vanished. I see parents with cell phones glued to their ears while they are with their children. I watch all of this with dismay because I don’t see these people as trying to be bad parents, yet I would have to say the substitution of electronics for human interaction is a really bad choice.