Schools slippery slope - by David Ramsden-Wood
Can you imagine a teacher putting this image up on the projector and then teaching... english?
Well, at some schools (I suspect more than we’d like to admit), it’s happening, with or without administrator approval. And unfortunately, I think the root can be found on the slippery slope that started when “climate change” started being taught in schools without any discussion of “where energy comes from.” How many schools discussed why a Tesla burned for 4 hours after a crash, took 32,000 gallons of water to put out, was charged with 56% natural gas (that being the make of of the Texas grid), and why batteries in electric cars can be risks to bridges and highways?
Instead, time and time again, my children would come home and say “My teacher said this about oil and gas..” and as many other parents have experienced, when I (or they) volunteered to present the other side of the debate with a guest lecture, it was not welcomed.
Schools are about learning and challenging. So I have no problem showing ‘that’ image, if there is an alternate image, a class room discussion, no consensus answer and an open and honest moderated dialogue. As you can image, that was not how it was presented.
So what do we do? We need teachers to teach kids how to research, how to learn, how to be resilient, how to not get participation medals, and how to deal with the fact that yes, you may be a short, ugly, fat kid, but the question is, how will you earn a opportunity? We are all born with gifts, deficits, and things we aren’t responsible for: skin color, height, IQ, athleticism, looks. You shouldn’t be proud of your gifts or focus on them, you had nothing to do with acquiring them. To me, you should simply be thinking about how to use the tools at your discretion to have the best life, and impact you can.
In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Sadly, we appear to have gone the other way.
ncG1vNJzZmign6nBorfEqJ2toJWZrrp60q6ZrKyRmLhvr86mZqlno5i1sLvLrGSspJmlvaa%2B2Gaqpaegmg%3D%3D