Teacher Steve Singer wrote a terrific post responding to the insulting comments made by Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon, about American students.
He writes to Rex:
My daughter just turned seven during this holiday season.
She loves to draw. She’ll take over the dinning room table and call it her office. Over the course of a single hour, she can render a complete story with full color images supporting a handwritten plot.
These narratives usually star super heroes, cartoon characters and sometimes her mommy and daddy. In these flights of fantasy, I’ve traveled to worlds lit by distant suns, been a contestant on a Food Network cooking show, and even been a karate pupil to a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sensei.
That little girl is my pride and joy. I love her more than anything else in this world.
Make no mistake – She is not anyone’s product.
She is not a cog to fit into your machine. She is not merchandise, a commodity, a widget for you to judge valuable or not. She is not some THING for you to import or export. She is not a device, a gadget, a doodad, a doohickey or a dingus. She is not an implement, a utensil, a tool, or an artifact.
Her value is not extrinsic. It is intrinsic.
She is a person with a head full of ideas, a heart full of creativity and passion. She has likes and dislikes. She loves, she lives, she dreams.
And somehow Tillerson, this engineer turned CEO, thinks she’s nothing more than a commercial resource to be consumed by Big Business. He thinks her entire worth as a human being can be reduced to her market value. It doesn’t matter what she desires for herself. It only matters if she fills a very narrow need set by corporate America.
But what else should we expect from the man in charge of ExxonMobil? The corporation has a history of scandal, corruption and malfeasance going back decades.
Steve’s daughter is a child, a wonderful joyful child.
Exxon on the other hand is a corporation that was responsible for a major oil spill that damaged the pristine environment in Alaska (remember Exxon Valdez?) Exxon threatens the environment. As Steve shows, Exxon underwrote the cost of climate change denial groups. Exxon supports fracking. Rex is paid $40 million a year to run a corporation that pollutes the water and the air.
Hey, Rex, you owe Steve’s daughter an apology. You owe the children of America an apology.
Until you apologize, I will buy my gasoline elsewhere.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They have to say something to justify income inequality and wage stagnation. It doesn’t surprise me at all that they’ve settled on blaming a “defective” workforce.
How much does Exxon invest in training their employees compared to what they invest in huge compensation packages for tippy-top tier managers? Maybe we could ask him about that.
I’ve been boycotting Exxon/Mobil and BP for years now. I plead with all to do so!
Thank you so much, Diane, for writing about my article. This one is personal for me. I think it is for most people. Tillerson’s comments show in stark detail how cold and callously the corporate world views our children. It took me a while to write about it, because I was so angry I couldn’t form a coherent sentence. It was a real challenge to set down my thoughts without resorting to a string of swear words. I tried my best. I’m glad that some folks are finding it valuable.
I agree. THANKS, DIANE. And also THANK YOU, STEPHEN SINGER. Good one.
Has anyone looked into whether there’s a correlation between reformers and their possible position on the autism spectrum? Lack of empathy and love of numbers and measuring comes to mind.
Some have claimed that Mr. Gates is autistic. I don’t know if that makes him good or bad (are autistic children “good” or “bad”?), but his policies toward public ed are harmful, whether he intends it or not.
Most students on the autism spectrum that have taught have FAR MORE empathy than these deformers do.
Let’s not give excuses and just call them what they are: evil, cruel, selfish people.
I’d have to say the “narcissist” and/or “psychopath” spectrum would be more applicable.
Lack of empathy is a key element of both.
Lack of Empathy: The Most Telling Narcissistic Trait
Don’t expect them to listen, validate, or support you.
It is also found in full blown psychopaths.
see linked story on the sidebar of the above article
“Joran, Casey and Psychopathic Narcissism: A Forensic Commentary”
The whole of Singer’s piece is great, but the latter part especially resonated with me:
– – – – – – – –
STEVE SINGER:
“Yet Tillerson is somehow worried about American workers being up to snuff? Why? The corporation outsources a steadily increasing share of its jobs overseas. Those that it does keep in the continental US have been subject to massive downsizing efforts. As employees have decreased, corporate profits have increased.
“And Tillerson expects anyone to think he’s concerned about the well-being of the American worker!? Give me a break!
—————-
EXXON : PROFITS vs. EMPLOYMENT – 2005 – 2008
2005 — $ 36.1 billion — 83,700 employees
2006 — $ 39.5 billion — 82,100 employees
2007 — $ 40.6 billion — 80,800 employees
2008 — $ 45.2 billion — 79,900 employees
————-
“I suppose it’s not that surprising though that someone who makes $40 million a year, himself, would expect a paycheck to be the ultimate display of personal significance. After all, he probably thinks his exorbitant salary proves that he’s very important.
“Albert Einstein never made that kind of money. Heck! Neither did William Shakespeare, Dr. Martin Luther King, Marie Curie, or Abraham Lincoln. So by Tillerson’s ethos, all of these people were defective products unfit for the corporate world. Or at the very least our estimation of them is flawed.
“After all, what need have we of Shakespeare’s poetry in the exercise of buying and selling? Perhaps the greatest author ever to write in the English language might find merit in the advertising department.
“Likewise, Dr. King’s ethic of equality might be useful in human resources. Marie Curie? She’d find gainful employment in research and development but any patents she generated would undoubtedly be held in the corporate interest.
“And Mr. Lincoln? Perhaps he could be useful as a low level administrator but, no, such iconoclasm as he possessed would probably not be a good fit. He’d end up freeing the wage slaves or other such unprofitable nonsense.
“Is this really the American Dream? Find an occupation producing monetary wealth, or else lose all claims to value? If so, how loud must history be laughing at us?
“The post-Impressionist artist Van Gogh created 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches. Many of these works now adorn museums around the globe and have forever changed the way we see the world. But during his lifetime, he sold only one painting. So by Tillerman’s logic, he was a defective product, a failure.
“This is the sickness of the profiteer – to be forever appraising worth, but unable to see true value. It is the disease eating away at the soul of our country. It’s the same mindset that justifies anything in the name of short-term gain – credit default swaps, the housing bubble, charter schools and Common Core.
“After all, Tillerson’s notorious quote above comes from an infamous article in Fortune magazine, in which the CEO threatened the former governor of Pennsylvania that he’d pull ExxonMobil out of the state if the legislature didn’t adopt some form of Common Core. And so the state gave in to the whim of one man with no experience, knowledge or wisdom about how children learn. And students in more than 500 public school districts are thus constrained by this legal economic blackmail.
“I am but a simple man. I don’t bring in a six-figure salary. I’m a teacher in that same public school system. I’m also the father of an elementary student. I am a man of no monetary means and thus little merit.
“But I say this: the Tillersons of this world are wrong.
“Our children are worth more than these tiny bean counter brains realize.
“The purpose of education is not to provide more resources for their pointless game of Monopoly.
“My daughter has a life, and her education is a tool to enrich that life. It is her vehicle of understanding the world around her. It is a process to invigorate her sense of wonder. It is a method of understanding how things work and where she fits in the universe.
“Yes, she will one day need to seek employment. But what she chooses as her occupation will be up to her. SHE will decide where she fits in, Mr. Tillerson, not you. SHE will decide what is valuable in her life. SHE will decide if she wants to spend her hours in the pursuit of profits or less tangible enterprises.
“As such, she needs literature – not standardized tests. She needs mysteries to solve – not Common Core. She needs equitable resources – not charter schools. She needs teachers with advanced degrees and dedication to their jobs – not Teach for America temps.
“Don’t you dare try to justify all that with some narrow economic view of monetary value.
“Some things have no price. My daughter is one of them.”
One more thing, Singer did a great job putting hyperlinks to the text, linking to outsides sources that provide evidence backing what he writes. That’s why it’s also good to read it where it was first posted, and click/follow those hyperlinks:
https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/my-daughter-is-not-a-widget/
Corporations have no right to dictate to our educational system. Their bottom line is profit and greed.
One could also make the argument that Exxon’s main product, oil, is defective since it’s use is melting the polar ice caps!
Also (while we’re at it) Exxon’s entire business model is defective since it’s growth depends open ended, unsustainable, consumption!
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
More on Exxon’s CEO Rex Tillerson’s comments, from the perspective of a parent (who is also a teacher). And an excellent response it is. Kudos to Steve Singer.
Boycott ExxonMobil. Money, and the loss of it, is the only thing they understand.
People who live in glass houses …shouldn’t call young people products. Looks as though rocks are being thrown.
What a jerk this guy Tillerson is.
I am not sure boycotting means anything to him. Better a full page ad in WSJ if they dared to print it!
“Until you apologize, I will buy my gasoline elsewhere.”
That should be easy. At least in Memphis, their gas costs twenty cents more than others. It’s weird.