From a reader: please sign!
A Declaration of Independence from Corporatist/Behaviorist Education
Posted on February 7, 2014
When, in the course of a teaching career, it becomes essential to break from excessively rational beliefs and schemes and to begin thinking openly and freely, disregarding the dictatorial influences of political hacks, the insidious prodding of education gurus and the bleating of complacent peers, it is necessary that the thinking educator admonish the world with the whys and wherefores of their intended independence from those scourges of productive learning, Corporations and their Behaviorist lackeys.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that education is best described as a journey, not a destination; that education is not a medicine or treatment to be inflicted upon learners; that a partnership between willing learner, skilled teacher, and supportive guardian forms the foundation of productive education; and that a democratic society sustains itself by practice of its ideals within the educational environment. Numerous corporations and anti-public education fronts—including, but not limited to, the Gates Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, ALEC, State Policy Network, Teach for America, Stand for Children, and Teach Plus— plot and contrive to dictate educational policy, conduct and beliefs. When unelected billionaires use their financial clout to promulgate a destructive vision for American education, it is the right—nay, the obligation—of every educator to break all the Windows® they can, chop down every Solution Tree that stands, consign their Common Core lesson plans to the reformatorium, and renew their commitment to student-centered instruction in order to preserve their claim to professional status, ensure their future happiness, and maintain their present sanity.
A glance at the attempts by corporatist forces to deform public education provides ample evidence that ideas and opinions formed in the business world are all too tempting to politicians who rely on corporate funds for re-election. Behold: political narrow-mindedness, focus on data rather than humanity, the tendency to blame those who teach for the ills of society, and an unwillingness to consider humane methods of instruction as acceptable alternatives to techniques of indoctrination serve as warnings to the nation’s teachers and learners that they, too, are doomed to a future of boredom and inner turmoil if they do not act against the domination of Corporations and their Behaviorist toadies in public education today.
When narrow-mindedness reaches that point where afflicted educators are shamed for considering alternatives to the shallow reasoning and attitudes taught them by the nefarious Dufour Duo, their uprising is most justified. So have I and my fellow educators suffered. We rise above this morass of ridiculous ideals today to present several of the offenses of the Corporatist/Behaviorist Cabal for consideration:
They assert a corporation’s right to legal status as individuals in order to exert unrestricted financial influence over public policy, while also enjoying exemptions from the obligations which citizens affected by those policies must endure.
They degrade democracy by excluding teaching professionals from the process of creating standards and imposing those standards without public debate.
They devalue the professionalism of teachers by demanding the surrender of all autonomy in favor of scripted lessons and prescriptive standards.
They claim without evidence that setting “standards” will transform education for the better.
They threaten the privacy of students and seek to transform public schools into another source of profit.
They demand unswerving loyalty and obedience from educators, rather than encouraging professional discourse and promoting respectful dialogue.
They vilify the professional associations of educators and encourage citizens to view teachers and other public servants as parasites on society.
They use non-profit fronts to conceal profit-seeking enterprises.
They alienate youth from their educations by placing undue emphasis on outcomes as opposed to personal investment in the process of learning.
They reduce the beauty and complexity of academic endeavor to atomistic standards as part of their crusade to deprive educators of professional discretion.
They strip seasoned professionals of dignity and destroy their morale.
We, therefore, educators of America, straightforwardly and without dissembling, appealing to the Master Instructor for the iGeneration, do, in the name—and assuming the authority— of public school teachers throughout this Land, brazenly publish and declare that we are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent of Corporate Influence; that we are absolved of allegiance to Arne Duncan and his ilk, and that all connection between educators and Bill Gates’ connivances is hereby dissolved, and that as Free and Independent Tutors, we have full power to offer learners a democratic environment, disregard the CCSS, ignore John Hattie’s latest work of fiction, and do all things that free-thinkers of the world might do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the dearly-departed Socrates, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives (such as they are after semester grading), our meager salaries and 403(b)s, and what little honor we have left after attending PLC conferences.
WE SIGN OUR NAMES…
David Sudmeier
outcave.wordpress.com
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Bravo!
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So where do I sign?
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I’m glad the “Declaration” has struck a chord for many–you can “sign” by sharing the document with others, and by encouraging your peers to demand that educators and students be treated with respect.
…more to come soon on http://outcave.wordpress.com .
David Sudmeier
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I’m in.
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This should include the President’s name and Hillary Clinton’s name as these are their policies too. Then how about starting this as a move on petition with a million names?
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Move On is financed by George Soros, a sociopath who makes money by collapsing economies and crushing opportunities for others. He supports the U.N. control of all guns in America and world wide. This is not because he is a peaceful man who looks for the end of wars. He has been supporting communism and fomenting wars for years working against the best interests of the U.S.
George Soros is a globalist who supports the U.N. and Agenda 21 and the inventory and control of all resources including “human capital.” The Common Core with its emphasis on data collection is exactly what George Soros knows is needed to crush dissent and end our republic.
Many things are not what they seem to be. There are many good people who participate in Move On protests that have no idea what George Soros really stands for. That is the purpose of my post.
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Another kook with money controlling the politicians.
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Amen! And again I say, Amen!
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The comments are short because he said it all.
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Thank you, David Sudmeier. Thank you!
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Fantastic
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Yes, this.
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Brian Ehmann
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Well said.
G. Michael Abbott
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Dave may be the new “Pied Piper” of Education for his call for DIRECT action, if indeed
he is calling for a nation wide STOP enabling the abuse. STOP the complicity required
for the corporate deform.
“we mutually pledge to each other our Lives (such as they are after semester grading), our meager salaries and 403(b)s, and what little honor we have left after attending PLC conferences.”
How many are willing to put their “meager” salaries and 403(b)s on the line and
STOP , REFUSE, to be a “Cog” in the Abuse Machine, remains to be seen.
It’s one thing to claim the abusive, non-educating, destructive nature, of the changes
underway as being BAD. It’s CLEAR, it is BAD, and has nothing to do with Education.
Many parents view this crap underway as being abusive and bad.
When push comes to shove, ACTIONS define Values, not Talk.
Talking how “Bad” it is, and THEN enabling it through complicity and enrollment.
rings hollow. For the money, be it Corporate take-over or meager salaries and 403(b)s,
IS for the money, no matter how you color it.
Yes I know, Financial obligations, a family to support, and on. The corporate goons
play the same card. For the money is for the money, no matter WHO does it and WHY.
“Money, it’s a “Hit”, Don’t give me that do goody good bullship.”
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Simple question: How many teachers on this blog have stood up at faculty meetings or professional development sessions and stated that they do not want to be “trained” how to implement the CCSS because it is developmentally inappropriate for young children and educationally unsound for all?
It is not about signing a petition. Many of us have signed Carrol Burris’ Principal’s Letter. How far did that get us?
It is about expressing in real time at the grade level meetings where the Engage NY curriculum is being discussed and disseminated, that we as teachers with masters degrees in education can not do this because it is pedagogical malpractice.
How many?
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At least one that I know of.
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“At least one that I know of”
My WAG, It’s the “Blazen” Spanish teacher who speaks Mexican…
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Man, you got me on that comment NoBrick. Please translate!
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We’ll, I’ve tried to fight that good fight, but I have an unusual situation with enlightened teachers and an “old school” principal. My message has been that we are better teachers than those ingratiating vendors and SED pawns and, well, king Cuomo. Others (brilliant colleagues in neighboring schools) have had those silly modules imposed on them, however, and struggle under the oppression of the ignoranti. I (and my colleagues) are from the school of “adapt” and “exceed the standards.” We will fight here as long as we can. I appreciate your knowledge and passion, Dawn, and would dearly love some of that knowledge you possess. disEngageNy-especially since they have “vetted” “authentic” materials that contain words that Dr. Ravitch would frown upon on his site.
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Duane, My Wild Ash Guess is it’s you that signed, considering
your correct “Take” on testing, a “Bewlay Brother” of sorts.
And so the story goes
they wore the clothes
They said the things
to make it seem improbable
The whale of a lie
like they hope it was
And the Goodmen of Tomorrow
Had their feet in the wallow
And their heads of Brawn
were nicer shorn
And how they bought their positions with saccharin and trust…
I was Stone and he was Wax
So he could scream,
and still relax, unbelievable
And we frightened the small children away
And our talk was old
and dust would flow
Thru our veins and Lo!
it was midnight
Back o’ the kitchen door
Like the grim face
on the Cathedral floor
And the solid book we wrote
Cannot be found today…
The Factor Max that proved the fact
Is melted down…
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I was one. Virtually ignored. Downgraded in evaluation because I would not use the denigrating behavior modification schtick or the “rules” of the book “Teach Like A Champion.”
I eventually resigned and in doing so, sacrificed some retirement benefits.
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how do we sign?
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Yes, where can I sign?
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Be aware that the League of Women Voters are doing an educational study involving the Common Core and some leaders seem to think they ought to aid the National Chamber of Commerce in their support in bringing about forums to local chambers of commerce organizations. Check out for a policy paper by the LWV on the Common Core.
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No Child Race to the Top
by Jack Burgess
Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams die,
life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
Langston Hughes
If up were down, and black were white,
if Jesus were Satan, and you made a sect
of that, if yin were yang,
blood came from turnips,
and penciling bubbles was as
beautiful as painting
or singing, or god forbid,
daydreaming or writing poetry,
it would be possible to combine “No Child
Left Behind” with “Race to the Top.”
If John Dewey were alive today,
he’d be turning over in his grave.
Learn by doing, his legacy,
so kids today learn to take tests,
learn to get grades,
learn how little
we value them,
how bright we are.
We who sang songs,
read poems, wrote essays,
leave them the finger twitches,
the brain bending, standardized
multiple guess.
No wonder they turn away
to video mayhem,
noisy inanities,
thinking Reagan the Great
was the beginning of history.
Schools will be strip-mined,
will be squeezed until
all the dollars are fracked.
But can the imaginations
of childhood be wrung dry
for corporate profit?
Will children really stop
gazing at the moon
and loving one another
for either political party?
Or just burrow more deeply
into the sweetness of cyber space?
Orwellian logic would have
it that love finds a way
when Big Brother
is not looking.
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Jack,
Do you mind if I copy and distribute this?
Thanks!
Duane
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Please do. Any writer likes to see his works circulated. I sent this, though I could have said Amen, to the Declaration. I am a retired teacher, association staffer, who took part in strikes, etc. to build what we have had. It makes me so very, very sad to see what is happening to American education.to the children and the teachers. Please, everyone reading this, sign on to fight back.look at Seattle, Chicago, and all the places teacher have stood up. Contact your association and union leaders and tell them you want them to fight for you and for the kids!
Jack
_____
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Beautiful poem, Jack. However, please revisit your tribute to John Dewey and consider rewriting that stanza. I am continually amazed at the love of Dewey for his thoughts on learning by doing. It sounds great on paper. But in reality this man, John Dewey was powerfully influenced by Darwin, an avowed eugenicist. Dewey was a great proponent of “socialization” which is nothing more than mind control really. Dewey believed the state would do a better job bringing up children than any parent could. He purposefully replaced phonics with the “look/say” method of reading and immediately the literacy rates dropped. He believed man has no soul and children could be trained like rats.
“I am often asked to name those educators responsible for the change in primary reading instruction which has led to the decline in literacy in America. People ask this because by the time they understand the history of the reading problem and of the dumbing-down process that has been going on in our public schools for the last 60 years, they recognize that all of this is not the result of a series of accidents but of conscious, deliberate decisions made by our educational leaders.
After 35 years of research, I can state without equivocation that the prime mover in all of this was none other than John Dewey, who is usually worshiped by liberals as the father of progressive education. We all know that he was the philosophical leader of the movement, but few know that he attended to such details as to how children should be taught to read. Yet, the change in the teaching of reading is probably Dewey’s greatest contribution to the transformation of American education from an academically oriented process to a social one.” – Sam Blumenfeld
http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/12048-john-dewey-and-the-decline-of-american-literacy
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I learned by the look-say method with phonics on the side. L.A. was forced to use Open Court for many years and many children didn’t ‘get it’. They were visual and kinesthetic learners. Teachers have to use all methods at their disposal to help the most students learn.
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all methods, as appropriate. exactly
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I have original pages from Look-Say big books framed on a wall in my home, for their nostalgia value. All that See Spot Run stuff is very kitch now.
But, nonetheless, I think that the evidence is pretty clear about Look-Say. And there are reasons why this is so. See
McGuinness, Diane. Early Reading Instruction: What Science Really Tells Us about How to Teach Reading, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2004.
Diane McGuinness, Diane. Language Development and Learning to Read: The Scientific Study of How Language Development Affects Reading Skill, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2005.
However, the titles of these books are HUGE misnomers. Unfortunately, “What Science Really Tells Us about How to Teach Sound-Symbol Correspondences” isn’t the sort of title that an editor at a publishing house is going to get very excited about.
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Darwin, Dawn, was no eugenicist. Emphatically not. He found social Darwinist ideas thoroughly appalling and explicitly renounced them again and again. See Rachels, James. Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism. New York: Oxford UP, 1990, for an excellent, thorough treatment of that nonsense.
Here’s Darwin, in his own words:
“As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts, and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shows us how long it is before we look to them as our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions . . . . This virtue, on of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings.”
–Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871
Darwin was a gentle, good, wise fellow who hated all forms of cruelty and exploitation. His compassion for others and for members of the other tribes of animals with whom we share this planet, has rarely been equaled. Go to the source. Read his books The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals and The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits. Darwin, who studied them carefully for years, thought worms conscious and thus requiring moral consideration. Worms! In the middle of the nineteenth century, he held such views! He was an independent thinker. He was far, far beyond the callous, stupid average of his day. To have been such a man as he, in a time when Europe was basically raping the rest of the world, was remarkable, to say the least.
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With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
[Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871 edition), vol. I, p. 168); emphasis added]
– See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2005/12/suppressing_the_truth_about_da001682.html#sthash.h9AMSAZL.dpuf
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Dawn, you left out the rest of the passage. Darwin continues:
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.
So, he says that taking those eugenics approaches would be a “deterioration in the noblest part of our nature” and that “if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless,” this would be “an overwhelming present evil.” Overwhelming. Meaning that this evil trumps other considerations.
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So, yes, by selectively quoting him, it is possible to misrepresent him as a proponent of eugenics.
Similarly, President Reagan said that “Heroin is a great scourge on our land,” and I can quote him like this:
“Heroin is . . . great.” –Ronald Reagan
But it wouldn’t be right of me to do that, would it?
http://thesoundof-myownvoice.blogspot.com/2011/07/ronald-reagan-was-hooked-on-heroin.html
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Point taken, Robert. You are correct that he was a kind and gentle man, loyal and generous too.
He may be rolling over in his grave considering the death and destruction his racist ideas have inspired. At the very least he was very short sighted or dimwitted about the ways his ideas might be used socially and politically. I will have to do more reading of Darwin’s books to know exactly how much blame to lay on him personally for the eugenics movement which is still alive and well today. His descriptions and ideas were quoted by H.G. Wells, Margaret Sanger and Hitler. His influence on eugenics is undeniable.
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Yes, Dawn. I believe that Darwin would have been completely aghast about the distortions of his ideas. The same was true of Nietzsche. Nietzsche had weird notions about Jews that we would consider clearly racist and false, as a reading of Beyond Good and Evil will clearly show, but he was adamant in his opposition to anti-Semitism and spoke out against it forcefully, and he also wrote, again and again. But his sister and executor was a Nazi tool and fool and “edited” The Will to Power to turn it into the Nazi tract that Hilter’s government distributed to its servicemen.
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Have you see the presentation of Dr. Andrew Kern titled “Why Literature is Essential”?
You can view it here:
He explains the huge effect Darwin had on education through Dewey.
“When Charles Darwin wrote his Origin of Species if Darwin introduced an intellectual revolt, that introduced a new intellectual temper.” (Dewey) Against what was he revolting? Absolute truth. He was revolting against knowable truth. Dewey uses Darwin to argue that truth is not something that we perceive with the soul, after all we don’t have a soul, but truth is the ability to adapt to circumstances, knowledge is the ability to adapt to circumstances. There is nothing transcendent about it. Once knowledge is reduced, the know-er is reduced. And The fundamental problem with the things we read and that we have our children read in our culture is that it is all rooted in a reduced view of man.” (Kern)
http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/dewey/darwin.htm
“The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy” by John Dewey
This is the problem I have with Darwin and Dewey. They try to convince people that our children do not have a soul and that we should feel free to manipulate (socialize) them, drug them, make them think they are just animals. This philosophy allows people to say stupid things like, “you have your truth and I’ll have mine.” It encourages political correctness to the point where it is seen as acceptable for everyone to lie all of the time and say absolutely nothing meaningful. I believe that children deserve a classical education filled with truth, beauty and goodness and exposure to great literature in which some of the characters actually believe in God. We have gone about as far as we can go away from that model in our schools and in our culture with five year olds witnessing pop musicians performing Satanic rituals on stage in full costume. So let’s swing that pendulum back and see if we can offer the next generation something better.
I appreciate your efforts to educate us all on the specific shortcomings of the common core ELA standards. Thank you Robert for your expert analysis.
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signed
and bravo!
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