“So what are the real issues? First, the permissive, undisciplined environment prevailing in most schools makes good education impossible. And this gets at a simple, universally-missed point: Discipline and obedience are prerequisites for learning. Why? Well, how can someone learn from you if he isn’t first willing to listen to you? Memorize this last sentence, by the way; it’s something we should make a mantra.
“But while instilling obedience wouldn’t be difficult, the methods necessary are so politically incorrect that few will contemplate them. It requires punishment — sometimes corporal — harsh enough to deter offenders. And it requires that we place incorrigibles in military-style schools so that they cannot poison the well for all. As it stands currently, however, teachers have to spend so much time on “crowd control” and coaxing kids into cooperating that little time is left for actual learning”
This hits the bulls-eye. A reasonable fear is a great motivator.
Colonel, USAFR
If you don’t know history, you don’t know socialism or communism has never worked.
Coincidence?
Read the book “The Light and the Glory”. by Peter Marshall and David Emanuel, and you will see why we are exactly where we are today. I have never read a more beautifully written or better researched book on the history of early America from l492 forward. You can order it from Borders.
It is a book every American should read!
They don’t even know pop culture history from the 80’s and 90’s. Popular songs and bands that were around back then draw blanks. Youtube anyone? Even I knew my dad’s 50’s and 60’s music well when growing up. The memory hole astounds me.
Why beat up on the kids? We have a president (Obama) who knows nothing about either American or world history!!! I being to bet that POTUS Obama could not name three American Generals or British Generals in the Revolutionary War, except possibly George Washington. And.....folks keep them union & tenure professors & teachers there and it will only get worse!!! Remember, if you do not know where and who you came from, you cannot know where you are going!!!
But the students MUST know history.
After all, they’ve been taught by the best union members.
With degrees in ......”Education”.
And we’re spending thousands and thousands per student.
And we’re also (sometimes) even teaching in English...and even less sometimes teaching real citizens.
So, unions, degrees in “education”, sometimes English, and lots of money.
What could go wrong?
Check out your child’s history text book. In the 70’s there was one paragraph only on Abraham Lincoln in my child’s text book!
Read the book “The Light and the Glory”. by Peter Marshall and David Emanuel, and you will see why we are exactly where we are today. I have never read a more beautifully written or better researched book on the history of early America from l492 forward.
You can order it from Borders.
It is a book every American should read! I’ll bet you won’t be able to put it down.
The left - via unions and compliant, liberal teachers and administrators aided by the ACLU that has helped make classroom discipline impossible - has effectively destroyed the integrity of Americans once-excellent public education system - and we’ve allowed them to do it. Of course the left is delighted with youths that know nothing of American history and are consumed with Lady Gaga and other nonsense. This makes them malleable and easy to persuade with catchy slogans when election time comes around. In politics, we have effectively lost our youth to liberal ideology and sheer, carefully cultivated ignorance of American exceptionism. Nothing good can come of this.
Thirty years ago when I graduated from high school, the only reason I could have correctly answered many of those questions was due to factors outside my formal schooling. History was something we memorized, regurgitated for a test, and then promptly forgot. There was never any real importance attached to it, other than getting a good grade. Test scores were important, understanding was not.