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K-12: Three Card Monte {BACK TO SCHOOL INFO]
Religion.rantrave.com ^ | Sept 7, 2016 | Bruce Deitrick Price

Posted on 09/13/2016 2:04:04 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice

Welcome to the land of the giant hustle...

I saw my first exhibition of three-card Monte on Manhattan's Upper West Side, a dozen blocks from Columbia's Teachers College. There's a connection.

A young man shuffled three cards side to side on a cardboard box. Red queen, red king, black ace, something like that. Pick the ace and win $20 for a $10 bet.

A half-dozen people clustered around, betting, figuring out the game. New people walked up, others left. Some happy tourist won $20. Easy money.

Sometimes the dealer bent one of the cards on the corner. You knew you had a sure thing. Sometimes the dealer turned away because of a distraction. A second man flashed one of the cards so we all could see it. How could you lose?

I thought several times that picking the ace was easy. I didn't know until much later that the dealer and his shills never lose.

The shuffle takes a lot of practice but, once mastered, it fools everyone. If the dealer thinks he might lose, he can accept a bigger bet from another player, who is of course a partner. If the dealer is losing control, a shill shouts "Cops!" and the hustlers run in different directions.

Wikipedia says: "…a confidence game in which the victim, or mark, is tricked into betting a sum of money, on the assumption that they can find the 'money card' among three face-down playing cards. In its full form, three-card Monte is an example of a classic 'short con' in which a shill pretends to conspire with the mark to cheat the dealer, while in fact conspiring with the dealer to cheat the mark. The chances of a mark winning are almost nil…."

"Pretends to conspire…" Hmmm, that's deep. Come to think of it, three-card Monte sounds like a perfect symbol of K-12 education—reading in particular. The mark doesn't have a chance.

Little kids go off to school, happy and optimistic. They actually think they can win. They can learn to read!! The kid, and his family as well, are the mark; they will be shortchanged and abused. They never realize that most of the people who flow in and out of the game, apparently by chance, are shills.

The con requires a team. You have, apparently, the principal, superintendents, union officials, administrators all over the place, accomplices from the Chamber of Commerce and the local media, and unfortunately teachers, all working an often-repeated scam.

The beauty of the thing, whether three-card Monte or dysfunctional instruction in the school, is the constant promise of easy money, of gain, of moving higher. Hope springs, as they say, eternal. In fact, many kids don't have a chance.

You wouldn't imagine that these ingenious frauds could be tossed off by amateurs. No, some of the smartest people in the country, people with PhD's in Education at places like Columbia's Teachers College, spend their careers devising ways to teach reading that don't work. And not just reading. Virtually every course in K-12 is deliberately rigged. (See articles below by same writer for examples.)

W. C. Fields made a movie in 1941 called "Never Give A Sucker An Even Break." That states the philosophy of three-card Monte and too many of our public schools.

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Three-card Monte tutorial — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2kO_5cNF5k

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Bruce Deitrick Price explains theories and methods on his education site Improve-Education.org.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat; Conspiracy; Education
KEYWORDS: crime; education; illiteracy; sightwords; socialism

1 posted on 09/13/2016 2:04:04 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

Seems like no one can be a teacher these days without embracing and actively promoting the whole Leftist fraud that is now NEA dogma.


2 posted on 09/13/2016 2:22:59 PM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: Jack Hammer

Can you imagine just what is going into the minds of these precious children for 7 hours every day. . . .the future of America and its families are at stake.


3 posted on 09/13/2016 2:41:23 PM PDT by Maudeen (No one on this earth is too far gone for Jesus.)
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To: Maudeen

Yes, I can imagine. Although I’m a doddering Old Man with one foot in the grave, I can actually remember my school days - they’ve stuck with me that long.

These kids are acquiring nonsense and prejudices that will last their entire lives.

It’s a terrible pity this is happening.


4 posted on 09/13/2016 2:48:25 PM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice
Blend Phonics has a free phonics primer for schools, parents, anyone.
5 posted on 09/13/2016 2:55:01 PM PDT by \/\/ayne (I regret that I have but one subscription cancellation notice to give to my local newspaper.)
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To: \/\/ayne

Yes, there are some excellent phonics programs, some cheap. Thanks for mentioning Don Potter’s work.

Nobody should tolerate the sight-word instruction so common in the public schools.


6 posted on 09/14/2016 12:43:07 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice (education reform)
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