Comments for Teachers in October

     Educational Abolitionist

For the month of October I was assigned Mr. Joe Bower's blog entitled for the love of learning.  There you will find an abundance of quips yet highly academic for-thoughts on the education plateau of the 21st century.  This is where I found the letter from Bill Ayers to President Obama after he won the election urging him to put education on his "reflective agenda".  A hearty feel of Americanism seeps from the lines of text Bower writes himself.  On the first lines you see under his picture he states:

I am Joe Bower and I teach in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. I wish to challenge 'traditional' 

schooling while exploring more progressive forms of education. I intend on using 

this blog to uproot some of the most deeply rooted myths that continue to distract people from 

a love for learning. 

And I am going to have fun doing it!

             Comment 2.1

This was the first post I was assigned from Bower's blog.  He titled the post What won't we do for High Scores?.  At the front of the post he placed the cartoon you see above pointing out the crude and unusual lengths teachers and schools are going to for higher grades on standardized tests.  The point is that teachers are placed between this "rock and a hard place".  They must choose to educate their classroom in their own personal way in fear of job loss because of failure on a state test.  Bower lays down 3 simple facts:

"Put enough pressure on teachers to get high scores...

Convince parents that high test scores are the ultimate achievement...

Push children to grade grub their way to high scores..."

Where will I place my focus as I shape young minds?  As we scream to abolish standardized tests and pray that our educational system reverts to it's former glory, Bower challenges these educators to realize the path we are going down when making decisions.  As an aspiring educator I feel as though, however cliche it may seem, I will be that iconoclastic educator that defies the administration.  The teacher that cares nothing about the rules or regulations, but i keep my job.... How outlandish it may seem; I hope I am some form of that.  
In my comments on Mr. Bower's post I reflected on what was stated above but in a slightly more reserved, academic demeanor.  I talked about the reality of educational financialization along with the decay of public educational policy.  I also included an interesting piece from the Huffington Post that spoke about the torture of standardized testing and the asphyxiating affect it is having on the student's ability to learn.   

             Comment 2.2

After the election.  I wasn't surprised to be reading a blog post about the world's most tuned in event in history.  According to Network World Obama's post-tweet was the most viewed tweet in history.  So, again I was not surprised to be reading some type of reflection or biased remark on how the election turned out.  I was again surprised to read the second post I was assigned from Bower.  A funny caption was included that sums up the feelings of many American educators, which was tagged at the center of his post.  As if it were the heartbeat of this body of text. 

The post spoke of the mandates that Obama's policies lack, but the core of educational conservatives (even Fox News) supported Obama as the lesser of two evils.  My favorite quote from the post was "Mitt Romney could have been trusted to carry on and intensify Obama's current education policies, but only Obama can be trusted to be courageous enough to rethink his first term of cancerous education policies."  Cancerous.  Bower's last words spoke of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his extraordinary will to change what was broken.

I read the comments left by other viewers and all were on another level of political knowledge than I was currently at.  Set back by some of these thought my comments on the post were substantive and bifurcated.  While I believe myself to be a Republican it is hard to argue with the facts at hand.  The country, no matter the President, must turn it's focus to a set of core principles.  I spoke of the quandary I have been in since reading all of the blogs, tweets, articles, videos, etc. about the commercialization of a six billion dollar industry, also known as education.  Titans of finance who seek to privatize deals with schools to provide a higher education to the acolytes.