Posted by
Steve on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 1:56:23 PM
The past couple of days I have been hearing reports about proposals from the Obama administration on how the school year and school day need to be lengthened. As a teacher, those ideas caught my attention. I do teach at the Community College level so these proposals do not directly impact me. They undoubtedly would impact me in the long run if they ever got implemented.
The education secretary for the Obama administration has suggested that schools need to be the center of the community. To fulfill that function, they need to be open more. When asked what he meant by being open more, he replied that they should be open for twelve or more hours a day and 6-7 days a week. He did add that this extra time would be filled with all sorts of educational activities and physical education.
From what I know of the educational system in this country, I highly doubt that twelve months of school will produce better students than nine months. I also think that 6 or 7 days of school would produce the same level of student as the current 5 day system. The reason for my optimism is my great respect for the teacher’s union, the NEA.
In my opinion, the reason the Obama administration wants to have schools open longer each day and longer during the year is not to produce better students. Their goal would be to produce better Obamabots. Since a student has the potential to think for him/herself, they can be dangerous. That is because they spend so much time with their parents. Taking them away for twelve hours a day would remove much of the parental attraction. Then, you could indoctrinate the students into whatever you wanted without the influence of the parents.
Parents have the nasty habit of knowing things about the past. Since they have knowledge of the way things used to be, they tend to teach that to their children. That way they pass the knowledge from generation to generation. That is how it has been since time began. The way to break that cycle is to remove the impressionable children from the home and teach them what you want them to believe. Since children tend to believe all that adults in authority say, that would work wonders.
Right now, I only have one ten year old granddaughter at home. We talk about history, culture and our responsibility in that universe. That periodically conflicts with what she is taught at school. But, because I taught her at home, she can withstand the false teachings. What she tries to do is reconcile the differences between the two camps. Generally she sides with my camp, because we have a closer relationship than she does with teachers. It is interesting to see what she comes up with. We talk about her ideas and the pros and cons of her positions. It is interesting to see her grow because of these discussions. I think that is how it is supposed to work in all families. Parents teaching children at home one set of values. Students getting a second set of values presented at school. If you are doing your job as a parent, you will talk to your children about culture and reconcile those issues.
I can’t claim that I am the best father in the world and that all my children are wonderful perfect children. I have children that have made serious mistakes. But, when they do make those mistakes I am there to help them understand what went wrong in a loving way. It has taken some time for some to come around and others are still wandering, but eventually I believe that my children will see that the culture they were raised with is the best one for them. At least that is the father in me talking. Whether my belief that they will come back to the fold will ever happen is something that only time will tell. I hope I am still alive to see it happen.