NC: Common Core Propaganda On a wall in Raleigh

 

Here are the statements, in quotations, followed by my comments in response.

"Let us teach honestly and boldly that education is not only the best thing for which public money can be spent, but that it is also the most expensive.  Nothing except ignorance is more costly than education."

How self-serving can you get?!  This is nothing less than an arrogant declaration by the elitist educational bureaucracy that, even as our public educational system continues to crank out graduates who can't even read their diplomas, they will demand more and more power and funding for their social engineering education monopoly.  This is not a reflection on dedicated teachers who do the best they can for our children, but on the corrupt system that pressures them to serve an agenda that is detrimental to true, worthwhile education.

"Love worked where discipline failed."

How preposterous!  Do these people not understand that discipline is an act of love?  Discipline is not synonymous with punishment.  Discipline may sometimes have to include punishment when punishment becomes necessary.  However, discipline is training.  Discipline is setting a positive example, sharing truthful knowledge, and influencing the student, or disciple, to deal responsibly with that training and to embrace self-discipline.  Caring enough for our children to urge them toward an informed, responsible and self-disciplined approach to life is a very loving thing to do, even if it sometimes requires punishment to get their attention and demonstrate the gravity of their actions.

"by example, almost never by words"

This is an insipid half-truth.  Certainly, an example that shows our words to be insincere benefits no one, and words are pretty empty if our example contradicts them.  Yet, without a cogent explanation, few will learn the meaning and value of the example or the value of following it.

"Learning in old age is writing on sand, but learning in youth is writing on stone."

There is a bit more truth to this one.  It is true that when we get very old, we retain less of what we once knew and find it hard to learn new things, while young minds normally can learn and retain knowledge much more easily.  For instance, it is much easier for a child to learn a foreign language than it is for an adult.  However, one glaring implication of this statement is that it is a waste of time trying to teach older people anything.  It implies that members of the older generation are old fogies and that young people know everything.   Therefore young people don’t need to listen to the older generation.  This tends toward a devaluing of the older generation, who have much to teach us if we will only give them a chance.  The idea that childhood is the time of perfection is wishful thinking.

So much for your tax dollars at work at DPI!  We'd be much better served by putting the authority in public education back at the local level, in the hands of parents and teachers, in that order. 
 
Representative Larry G. Pittman
North Carolina General Assembly
House of Representatives
1321 Legislative Building
16 W. Jones Street
Raleigh, NC  27601-1096
919-715-2009
larry.pittman@ncleg.net