Just Let Me Teach

While busily engaged in killing time while I was supposed to be working in the lab, I ran across these Just Let Me Teach wristbands at Live Long and Prosper.  He said he found them on Facebook. If you go to his blog and scroll down you'll find a link to the Facebook group if you're interested in getting yourself one. While you're there, check out what he has to say about the new governor here in Indiana and what he's done to strip power away from the new Superintendent of Instruction. Is this what educational reform is all about? Petty politics?

I recieved the new Imprimis from Hillsdale College the other day. The lead story this issue is by Nathan Harden, author of Sex and God at Yale. I'm not exactly a prude, in fact, far from it, but after reading this story I can't imagine sending my kid to Yale. Here's a school that definitely needs a good healthy dose of reform. Sex Week? Hard-core porn films, porn star look alike contest? Admitting a sworn enemy of America, a former diplomat-at-large for the Taliban, as a student?

As Mr. Harden mentions in the article: "Yale has educated three of the last four presidents, and two of the last three justices appointed to the Supreme Court. What kind of leaders will it be supplying in ten years, given its current direction?" Click on the link above and read the story - it's short but vital.

There's just too much craziness in education these days. Try this question from the quiz that was linked in at the Live Long and Prosper blog as Exhibit B:

8. Common Core Standards in literacy were written by

a) classroom teachers.

b) child psychologists.

c) university researchers.

d) business leaders.

e) a lawyer who specializes in "standards-driven reform" and someone whose background is in Management Consulting, who once tutored children while studying at Yale.

The answer of course is "e". I do like the fact that not only is the author of the standards a lawyer, he also studied at Yale, home of Sex Week. Even more ironic is the fact that I was listening to Merle on the MP3 as I wrote this and Okie From Muskogee followed by The Fighting Side of Me came up. Besides Stan the Man, we definitely need more Merle Haggard, and Johns - Brother, Wayne and Cash.

On a more positive note, besides the Super Bowl, World Cyclocross Championship in Louisville this weekend. In spite of the two degree temperature yesterday morning, I'm thinking garden. I picked up some cedar 2x6's to start my Square Foot Garden this spring. More to come on that.

Have a good weekend.