"An uneducated voter is our best voter", said not-so-quietly in Republican statehouses across the land. Par for the course. Underfund education, infrastructure, health etc. - then decry the poor conditions of same. Write your state representatives and senators. Better yet, go visit them. Tell them you want schools funded. You can do it! I triple dog dare you!!
Um.... no. Clinton ushered the party into its corporate oligarchy current model. Obama would've loved to have tore it down but he was not in a position to between the DNC and Mitch McConnell is a wonder he got anything wasted one of the most brilliant people ever sit at the Lincoln desk.
Democracy is not inherently intertwined with a macro economic model. Capitalism should be implemented. The "rape and pillage" model we currently exist under is correctly labeled iMPERIALISM. That is where big money rape the planetary resources, kill the biosphere but the wealthy and corporate interests control government.......Sound familiar?
As David Pepper writes, state legislatures are our “Laboratories of Autocracy.” In addition to contacting our state legislators (regardless of party, since their staffers track incoming communications), we need to support progressive Democratic candidates through strategic donations. That’s the mission of The States Project Giving Circles.
Seriously? Calling your federal government representatives?
Where have you been since 1980? Both parties only answer to the donor class benefactors.
We need to take to the streets. On a general strike, practicing peaceful civil disobedience with a list of no compromise demands by the tins of millions. Not leaving until that list is fulfilled.
First, REMOVE and PERMANENTLY BAN the damn money! I don't care your political ideology, your policy acumen, party allegiance for lack there of, legislative mandate policy should never be for sale! It is by definition, anti-the ideal that is The United States of America.
A conscious and patriotic citizen would fulfill his or her #duty as per the Declaration.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
We're lucky. At the moment all we need to do is remove most of the people and barely tweak the architecture. If we wait any longer, we will have to start all over. #ConstitutionalReaffirmation is past due.
You're suffering from the illusion of choice. Tribalism, the coach that ushered us to their 3rd world outhouse. No matter the tribe. Stop the echo chamber nonsense. Demand fulfilling the oath of office end good governance from every single person in government. All office holders. Starting with the ones you support.
Um..... the entire electorate is uneducated. Neither platform offers the possibility of good governance. Tribalism is our downfall. It's a race to the bottom. Exit the echo chamber and research best policy practice. Demand. Neither currently offers it.
We do not remove the big and dark money along with barriers to accessing the ballot, there is no path to restoring this intended constitutional republic. FULL STOP
I taught Junior American Lit, and always, always, always believed that it and American history should be taught together. And just today I told my husband to spare a thought for all the teachers, just trying to get through the last day before Christmas vacation begins. I’m retired now, but the teachers and students are much on my mind.
I taught American History along with the Art teacher and English teacher. We did a unit on WWI with the novel War Horse, the Viet Nam War that in included a story teller, a unit on Child Labor with Jacob Riis photos and the movie Newsies and a unit on WW II with Swing Kids. We also did research papers DURING class time we could teach the students how to gather, organize and present information. Like Mary Beth, I, too, am thinking of the teachers at this time and often throughout the year. I've never heard of Unbound, what an appalling thought. Thank you for alerting us. BTW, Jess, you are so on target with context. Sequence, cause and effect and compare and contrast are necessary concepts our students need to understand.
To you both, Jess and Mary Beth.... the most iconic or greatest American literature contributor, Mark Twain or John Steinbeck?
Ok, ok, Pearl S Buck, Maya Angelou, Willa Cather, or any of the indescribably talented women authors this country has produced is a perfectly acceptable answer. 😜🫵💪
It's one of the things I liked about the project based learning high school my kids attended. History and Language Arts were always a combined class. They also brought books into other subjects, like reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks with the science unit on DNA. When I was substitute teaching I noticed that the other high schools offered a similar blended History/Language Arts course. It seems to have been team taught and scheduled as a double period.
A companion comment to the one I made already (not as a reply to anyone): for grades 0 through eight I was home-schooled because there was no other school for twenty-two often-impassable miles. My brother was six years older and not part of my life; my companions were two cats (who had to stay outside).
And you are right. When I went away to ninth grade, I had no problem with the subject matter; I was ahead in most places. Social skills - that was another matter. I'm still (at age 76) discovering what I didn't learn.
Jayna, I wish I could reassure you that not all of your social skills learning needs are related to your isolation in childhood. “Other people and what makes them go” is a lifetime learning task for most of us. Everyone, that is, who interacts with a variety of people, and cares about the outcomes. Not to mention the fact that rules change as we go, lol!
PS I don’t mean to diminish your main point, that socialization is an important component of growth.
I do agree! From that isolated and improbable beginning I went on to a PhD at Stanford (I've described a tiny bit of this odyssey on my website), and a career in industrial science. And at the end I've concluded that while STEM courses are very important, those in real human understanding are probably even more so, and neglected in our system.
Today I still network with a lot of women who work as coaches in the general business world, trying to fill that gap in. And that's great, but they would accomplish even more if their students had a "Human Nature 101" class or two behind them!
My novel ("Hanna's Ascent" - it's listed on both website and Substack) is my latest attempt to explore that myself. There is so much left...
GREAT POINT!!! For some unknown reason, I piss off nearly everyone that I so kindly inform just how ridiculous and stupid their ideas are....... 🤷♂️
Pffft try to be helpful, see what I get!
In full disclosure, admittedly, my possession of middle class sensibilities is scant. My PR skills non existent. That said, it really bothers me when people judge my direct, blunt, forward and absent of butt kissing communication style as rude.
But that sounds like "socialism", an evil system taught by evil people. An attitude held by toooo many politicians and pastors here. Unbelievable how so many people believe that Orwell's 1984 is fictional literature and not a warning...
Socialization is light years from socialism. It is important to learn skills like compassion and empathy. It is important to understand that negotiation is not bullying to get your way but instead finding common ground where each side feels respected and gets some of what they asked for.
Part of what allows a society to flourish and grow is caring about, honoring, the needs of every participant in the community, not just select members, keeping life needs of all members top of mind. When a society takes on the structure of respecting only certain members' needs it turns to dictatorship, autocracy, oligarchy, caste/class systems of rule that elevate a minority and demean the majority.
Jess, I absolutely agree with you. Communities that offer "school choice" are first, stacking the deck against guaranteed public education at taxpayer expense; and, second, offering to substitute inferior, biased, slanted, conspiracy-theory rife and religiously slanted education that does not meet state standards - again, at taxpayer expense. People are ALREADY abysmally educated - maybe from not being coerced into paying attention to lessons, maybe from learning disabilities, maybe a combination. But I find it appalling that there is such a lack of understanding of English, civics, history, ethics and economics in Americans at this point in time. Reading tales of folks asking what tarriffs are, a lack of understanding of how cons and grifts operate, a broad lack of understanding of basic morality and ethics and oligarchy is chilling. Our country's children need and deserve quality educations to keep up in life and keep up in the world. They cannot afford to be lackadaisical about their education and the opportunities a quality education provides to them.
There are many comments in here deserving of many "likes", but yours stood out for me by highlighting that elusive "understanding" of the interrelation of topics. Communication with other people is really the heart of education; it isn't rote memorization. How many times does it have to be said...
Deliberately underfunding and undermining public education amd 'reality' tv are chief contributors, imho. It's getting more pronounced here in 🇨🇦, too, fearfully.
Part of a plan to dumb down our electorate that got its inception under Ronald Reagan and is going strong. We must fight it with every tool we can find.
Thank you, Jess, from a fellow English major. I’m really worried about AI in its many forms, and I hope such a school does not become a reality. Human interaction, please.
Khan Academy is a wonderfu supplemental learning tool, but it shouldn't be used for an entire school curriculum. Charter schools lose their credentials all the time here. This purposeful killing of public education is anger inducing and heartbreaking.
Jess, you have me, the many-moons-ago English major, nearly in tears as you speak of this travesty/tragedy. Especially so as I am a tour guide for students coming to Washington DC on school trips and I witness their crying need not only for historical perspective and understanding but also, often, for the sheer ability to enjoy themselves away from a screen in social situations. And more so, since I’ve just spent part of this afternoon on Facebook communicating with classmates whose friendship I enjoyed in public school half a century ago and still enjoy now.
And Jessica, I was thinking that in a strange way moron one and two are threatening house rep with the new verb, primarying (?), now they will have to “run” and campaign and invest time and money like you made your republican opponent have to do. Just a strange twist of fate.
Thank you for this Jess- I remember in 2002? when my 2nd grade students entered our new "computer lab" to play gamified versions of drill and kill basic math facts- all the kids were engaged, all teachers did was monitor from the "control panel" and all my colleagues thought it was the best invention ever...and all I could see was the allure of handing over teaching (knowing each students strengths , providing context to story problems, etc) to a software company was not going to end well. Now as a middle school social studies teacher I see my colleagues gamifying world history factoids to keep their studetns engaged...and it just makes me sad and mad.
Spending some 30+years in a classroom, I absolutely loved connecting with high school students, and teachers in workshops. But often, there would be somewhat of a mind battle, when it came to evaluation time with a principal who's had a minimal time, actually teaching. Sometimes, it would go fine, others, it was a mind struggle. I've never liked the concept of private, profit-oriented schools, many of which I think "entertain" rather than teach. Admittedly, there are exceptions, such as church-oriented "academy's," but neither are asked to follow the stringent educational guidelines put in place by legislators who are "gifted" by donors to build an educationa ststem, mimicking a Rube Goldberg mechanical machine. In short, if it's profitable, it works. American Capitalism at it's finest.
As someone who was home-schooled through eighth grade long before this was a "movement," I have a unique comment.
My mother had a degree in library science (meaning she was qualified to be an elementary school librarian) before marrying and moving to a remote (and I do mean remote) part of western Colorado. We had our own school district, and she was officially the teacher and principal (my father was the president of the school board).
After a few years I got bored with the arithmetic flash cards (since I was already solving six-figure problems while also bored with driving a tractor endlessly around a field at two mph), and largely taught myself after that. (For the last few years I also gave myself tests and graded them; yes, I got As which I had honestly earned...)
But she was always there. And just typing that made me cry.
"An uneducated voter is our best voter", said not-so-quietly in Republican statehouses across the land. Par for the course. Underfund education, infrastructure, health etc. - then decry the poor conditions of same. Write your state representatives and senators. Better yet, go visit them. Tell them you want schools funded. You can do it! I triple dog dare you!!
Democracy and great wealth cannot coexist. Democracy cannot function without educated, thoughtful voters.
Those ships have sailed. The Reagan Revolution has reached its ultimate conclusion.
Quite frightening to say the LEAST!
Where is this democracy you speak of? The US has vacillated between corporate oligarchy enabled fascism and totalitarian despotism since 1980.
Uh yeah, when Reagan began his war on education and balance in media
Sumpin' like that.
We did have a few years of sanity and attempted democracy with Clinto and Obama - which the GOP obstructed at every turn.
Um.... no. Clinton ushered the party into its corporate oligarchy current model. Obama would've loved to have tore it down but he was not in a position to between the DNC and Mitch McConnell is a wonder he got anything wasted one of the most brilliant people ever sit at the Lincoln desk.
Democracy is not inherently intertwined with a macro economic model. Capitalism should be implemented. The "rape and pillage" model we currently exist under is correctly labeled iMPERIALISM. That is where big money rape the planetary resources, kill the biosphere but the wealthy and corporate interests control government.......Sound familiar?
I do agree with you on that, sadly.
As David Pepper writes, state legislatures are our “Laboratories of Autocracy.” In addition to contacting our state legislators (regardless of party, since their staffers track incoming communications), we need to support progressive Democratic candidates through strategic donations. That’s the mission of The States Project Giving Circles.
https://statesproject.org/
https://www.grapevine.org/giving-circle/1XQhnyD/Tending-to-Democracy
Understanding what candidate to vote for in a primary is actually really easy. It's the one that DNC is NOT supporting.
Seriously? Calling your federal government representatives?
Where have you been since 1980? Both parties only answer to the donor class benefactors.
We need to take to the streets. On a general strike, practicing peaceful civil disobedience with a list of no compromise demands by the tins of millions. Not leaving until that list is fulfilled.
First, REMOVE and PERMANENTLY BAN the damn money! I don't care your political ideology, your policy acumen, party allegiance for lack there of, legislative mandate policy should never be for sale! It is by definition, anti-the ideal that is The United States of America.
A conscious and patriotic citizen would fulfill his or her #duty as per the Declaration.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
We're lucky. At the moment all we need to do is remove most of the people and barely tweak the architecture. If we wait any longer, we will have to start all over. #ConstitutionalReaffirmation is past due.
You're suffering from the illusion of choice. Tribalism, the coach that ushered us to their 3rd world outhouse. No matter the tribe. Stop the echo chamber nonsense. Demand fulfilling the oath of office end good governance from every single person in government. All office holders. Starting with the ones you support.
There is a reason why it was illegal for slaves to learn to read and write. Knowledge is power.
Along with critical thinking skills which IIRC the Texass education board explicitly forbids the teaching of...
Nobody's gonna give you you the knowledge it takes to overthrow them?
Disturbing to say the least thing for such a bad choice!
Glad to hear from you!
You just “nailed it.” More ways to dumb down the electorate.
Um..... the entire electorate is uneducated. Neither platform offers the possibility of good governance. Tribalism is our downfall. It's a race to the bottom. Exit the echo chamber and research best policy practice. Demand. Neither currently offers it.
We do not remove the big and dark money along with barriers to accessing the ballot, there is no path to restoring this intended constitutional republic. FULL STOP
I taught Junior American Lit, and always, always, always believed that it and American history should be taught together. And just today I told my husband to spare a thought for all the teachers, just trying to get through the last day before Christmas vacation begins. I’m retired now, but the teachers and students are much on my mind.
Saaaaame! I always thought the same
I taught American History along with the Art teacher and English teacher. We did a unit on WWI with the novel War Horse, the Viet Nam War that in included a story teller, a unit on Child Labor with Jacob Riis photos and the movie Newsies and a unit on WW II with Swing Kids. We also did research papers DURING class time we could teach the students how to gather, organize and present information. Like Mary Beth, I, too, am thinking of the teachers at this time and often throughout the year. I've never heard of Unbound, what an appalling thought. Thank you for alerting us. BTW, Jess, you are so on target with context. Sequence, cause and effect and compare and contrast are necessary concepts our students need to understand.
To you both, Jess and Mary Beth.... the most iconic or greatest American literature contributor, Mark Twain or John Steinbeck?
Ok, ok, Pearl S Buck, Maya Angelou, Willa Cather, or any of the indescribably talented women authors this country has produced is a perfectly acceptable answer. 😜🫵💪
Our downfall is directly related to Junior High football coaches teaching civics/social studies.......
It's one of the things I liked about the project based learning high school my kids attended. History and Language Arts were always a combined class. They also brought books into other subjects, like reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks with the science unit on DNA. When I was substitute teaching I noticed that the other high schools offered a similar blended History/Language Arts course. It seems to have been team taught and scheduled as a double period.
Teachers are the best public servants. We must protect public schools from MAGA. Let's teach our children ways they can resist fascism: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/public-servant-democracy-defender-introduction
Kids need to be with other kids, growing up! An important part of learning.
A companion comment to the one I made already (not as a reply to anyone): for grades 0 through eight I was home-schooled because there was no other school for twenty-two often-impassable miles. My brother was six years older and not part of my life; my companions were two cats (who had to stay outside).
And you are right. When I went away to ninth grade, I had no problem with the subject matter; I was ahead in most places. Social skills - that was another matter. I'm still (at age 76) discovering what I didn't learn.
Jayna, I wish I could reassure you that not all of your social skills learning needs are related to your isolation in childhood. “Other people and what makes them go” is a lifetime learning task for most of us. Everyone, that is, who interacts with a variety of people, and cares about the outcomes. Not to mention the fact that rules change as we go, lol!
PS I don’t mean to diminish your main point, that socialization is an important component of growth.
I do agree! From that isolated and improbable beginning I went on to a PhD at Stanford (I've described a tiny bit of this odyssey on my website), and a career in industrial science. And at the end I've concluded that while STEM courses are very important, those in real human understanding are probably even more so, and neglected in our system.
Today I still network with a lot of women who work as coaches in the general business world, trying to fill that gap in. And that's great, but they would accomplish even more if their students had a "Human Nature 101" class or two behind them!
My novel ("Hanna's Ascent" - it's listed on both website and Substack) is my latest attempt to explore that myself. There is so much left...
Thanks for your comment!
GREAT POINT!!! For some unknown reason, I piss off nearly everyone that I so kindly inform just how ridiculous and stupid their ideas are....... 🤷♂️
Pffft try to be helpful, see what I get!
In full disclosure, admittedly, my possession of middle class sensibilities is scant. My PR skills non existent. That said, it really bothers me when people judge my direct, blunt, forward and absent of butt kissing communication style as rude.
No wonder we can't have anything nice......
Its called "socialization". It applies to domesticated animals as well as kids.
But that sounds like "socialism", an evil system taught by evil people. An attitude held by toooo many politicians and pastors here. Unbelievable how so many people believe that Orwell's 1984 is fictional literature and not a warning...
Socialization is light years from socialism. It is important to learn skills like compassion and empathy. It is important to understand that negotiation is not bullying to get your way but instead finding common ground where each side feels respected and gets some of what they asked for.
Part of what allows a society to flourish and grow is caring about, honoring, the needs of every participant in the community, not just select members, keeping life needs of all members top of mind. When a society takes on the structure of respecting only certain members' needs it turns to dictatorship, autocracy, oligarchy, caste/class systems of rule that elevate a minority and demean the majority.
As well as in the workplace. They learn by watching senior people and sharing amongst their peers.
Wish I had been lucky enough to be in your class, I am so very serious.
I was lucky my Dad was a career educator, and I had a lot of teachers like Jess
Jess, I absolutely agree with you. Communities that offer "school choice" are first, stacking the deck against guaranteed public education at taxpayer expense; and, second, offering to substitute inferior, biased, slanted, conspiracy-theory rife and religiously slanted education that does not meet state standards - again, at taxpayer expense. People are ALREADY abysmally educated - maybe from not being coerced into paying attention to lessons, maybe from learning disabilities, maybe a combination. But I find it appalling that there is such a lack of understanding of English, civics, history, ethics and economics in Americans at this point in time. Reading tales of folks asking what tarriffs are, a lack of understanding of how cons and grifts operate, a broad lack of understanding of basic morality and ethics and oligarchy is chilling. Our country's children need and deserve quality educations to keep up in life and keep up in the world. They cannot afford to be lackadaisical about their education and the opportunities a quality education provides to them.
There are many comments in here deserving of many "likes", but yours stood out for me by highlighting that elusive "understanding" of the interrelation of topics. Communication with other people is really the heart of education; it isn't rote memorization. How many times does it have to be said...
Deliberately underfunding and undermining public education amd 'reality' tv are chief contributors, imho. It's getting more pronounced here in 🇨🇦, too, fearfully.
Part of a plan to dumb down our electorate that got its inception under Ronald Reagan and is going strong. We must fight it with every tool we can find.
Obviously, it has worked....
Thank you, Jess, from a fellow English major. I’m really worried about AI in its many forms, and I hope such a school does not become a reality. Human interaction, please.
Khan Academy is a wonderfu supplemental learning tool, but it shouldn't be used for an entire school curriculum. Charter schools lose their credentials all the time here. This purposeful killing of public education is anger inducing and heartbreaking.
And done on purpose. It’s what has brought us to this time when about half of our voters don’t understand the ramifications of what they are doing
Jess, you have me, the many-moons-ago English major, nearly in tears as you speak of this travesty/tragedy. Especially so as I am a tour guide for students coming to Washington DC on school trips and I witness their crying need not only for historical perspective and understanding but also, often, for the sheer ability to enjoy themselves away from a screen in social situations. And more so, since I’ve just spent part of this afternoon on Facebook communicating with classmates whose friendship I enjoyed in public school half a century ago and still enjoy now.
We can throw sand in the gears!
Yesssssss!
You are so intelligent and Right On about Everything. If you could get elected….😉
And Jessica, I was thinking that in a strange way moron one and two are threatening house rep with the new verb, primarying (?), now they will have to “run” and campaign and invest time and money like you made your republican opponent have to do. Just a strange twist of fate.
Thank you for this Jess- I remember in 2002? when my 2nd grade students entered our new "computer lab" to play gamified versions of drill and kill basic math facts- all the kids were engaged, all teachers did was monitor from the "control panel" and all my colleagues thought it was the best invention ever...and all I could see was the allure of handing over teaching (knowing each students strengths , providing context to story problems, etc) to a software company was not going to end well. Now as a middle school social studies teacher I see my colleagues gamifying world history factoids to keep their studetns engaged...and it just makes me sad and mad.
" Do I dare to eat a peach?"
Oh, hell no...stuff the AI back in its box.I read sxi fi as a kid, they knew what was coming,. Right, Hal? Kids NEED teachers and context.
What are those ragingly busy minds and bodies going to do the r e s t of the day???
Work the coal mine.
Spending some 30+years in a classroom, I absolutely loved connecting with high school students, and teachers in workshops. But often, there would be somewhat of a mind battle, when it came to evaluation time with a principal who's had a minimal time, actually teaching. Sometimes, it would go fine, others, it was a mind struggle. I've never liked the concept of private, profit-oriented schools, many of which I think "entertain" rather than teach. Admittedly, there are exceptions, such as church-oriented "academy's," but neither are asked to follow the stringent educational guidelines put in place by legislators who are "gifted" by donors to build an educationa ststem, mimicking a Rube Goldberg mechanical machine. In short, if it's profitable, it works. American Capitalism at it's finest.
Those Ed majors who can teach, teach this who can’t go into administration…
I know and had wonderful teachers. I know no wonderful administrators.
I love your content, Jess. At the risk of seeming very repetitive, I feel sickened for the future.
As someone who was home-schooled through eighth grade long before this was a "movement," I have a unique comment.
My mother had a degree in library science (meaning she was qualified to be an elementary school librarian) before marrying and moving to a remote (and I do mean remote) part of western Colorado. We had our own school district, and she was officially the teacher and principal (my father was the president of the school board).
After a few years I got bored with the arithmetic flash cards (since I was already solving six-figure problems while also bored with driving a tractor endlessly around a field at two mph), and largely taught myself after that. (For the last few years I also gave myself tests and graded them; yes, I got As which I had honestly earned...)
But she was always there. And just typing that made me cry.
Our children deserve better than AI.