Interlude >>>>> Nativity 2021

 

Nativity 2021

 

Three sets

of

dichotomous realities

in a

national history

struggle                                                                                                                                        

for

resolution:

 

Rationality versus Superstition,

Liberty versus Bondage,

Knowledge versus Ignorance.

 

From the

Darkness

to the

Light

run those

long

 

abused

refused

defused

 

but

 

no more:

not without

 

contention

dissension

reinvention.

 

And in that

Struggle

waged

in the Light

of the Light

for the Light

the Light

shall

Prevail.

 

 

GMD

Christmas 2021

Interlude >>>>> Article #2 of a Two Article Series >>>>> Christmas as an Indicator of the Cross-Cultural Values for Impartation to All United States Citizens, with the Public Schools as Major Conduit

Pertinent to my vision for a nationwide, highly intentional focus on ethical values to be embraced by all clear-thinking citizens of humanist and various religious orientations--- with the public schools as major conduit---  I observe that the Christmas spirit at its best includes those values that we should want to proffer as candidates for widespread dissemination.

 

There is the proclaimed reason that we celebrate Christmas   >>>>>  the birth of Jesus, who was offered in Divine Sacrifice and who Divinely Sacrificed His earthly opportunity for life in the interest of Life for all---  metaphor for selfless action in behalf of the General Good, an exalted state that incorporates individual joy into Happiness for all humanity.

 

There is peace on earth, peace as an abiding general and individually internalized state of being in which the mere thought of violence is abhorrent and any violent action beyond comprehension.

 

There is joy to the world, the whole world of human beings in familial bond living on this one earthly sojourn with shared hope for the well-being of all---  all, the aggregate of each, regarded as sisters and brothers loved as fervently as those in consanguineous relationship.

 

There is silent night, holy night, when all is calm, all is bright---  the capacity to be enthralled by those serendipitous moments when one feels that all is well in her or his personal universe and perceives intimate connection to a world graced with a moment of universal calm, a vision of a world in which that sense of calm is frequent, considered perpetually possible.

 

Implicit in values exalting selfless individual action in behalf of all humanity, all living creatures;  embracing peace as abiding reality in thought and action;   elevating joy into an ethereal space to be experienced by human beings who regard one another as sisters, brothers, family;  and proclaiming the necessity of a state of psyche and spirit in which individual and collective calm may be attained at any moment desired----  implicit in these four values is a fifth, a sense of gratitude for living in such a world, a gratitude of that sensibility abiding when one realizes one's immensely good fortune at Christmas gatherings full of familial love, abundant food, and excellent health.

 

And thus does Christmas at seasonal best suggest to us those values of selfless action, abiding peace, universal joy, attainable calm, and life in identity with gratitude---   worthy of dissemination throughout the nation, across the world.

 

Interlude >>>>> Article #1 of a Two-Article Series >>>>> Organizing for Impartation of Cross-Cultural Societal Values, with the Public Schools as Major Conduit

 Synchrony of imagination and reality is possible.

 

To imagine the possible is to assert that the imagined is attainable.

 

Some people imagine their ideal future life and devise a plan to realize the life envisioned.

 

That is what we must do as a society  >>>>>  decide what we want and devise a plan for achieving our goals.

 

We as a society must decide what we want

 

and

 

devise a plan for achieving our goals.

 

...............................................

 

I have always admired thinkers who accumulate massive detail in the service of a unifying principle  >>>>>

 

Einstein  >>>>>  Energy is the product of an object's mass times the square of velocity.

 

B.F. Skinner  >>>>>   Behavior is produced when genetic inheritance encounters experience.

 

In this spirit, I assert that the quality of the human future will be determined by deciding what we want and devising a plan.

 

But this will not be easy.  

 

........................................................

 

An initial vanguard of activists will have to realize the necessity of deciding the goals and devising the plan.  

 

The vanguard must then issue an initial statement of goals and the essence of the plan for realization. 

 

Others should be invited to comment on the goals and the plan.  

 

Multiple groups considering evolving goals and plan should form, first locally, then across a given state, then across a given region, then under the aegis of a national organization.  

 

A consensus should be formed in national meetings of representatives to the national organization.

 

Local affiliates must advocate for the goals and plan in churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples----  inviting comment from religious leaders.  

 

This advocacy should be publicized so as to invite comment among scholars and among interested members of the public.

 

The national organization should issue a statement of the maturing goals and plan.

 

This statement should be embraced and promulgated in religious institutions, on university campuses, and in civic groups.

 

The national organization should establish a committee for advancing the maturing consensus as a guide to curriculum and teacher training in preK-12 public school districts.  

 

Subcommittees should be organized for advocacy at the level of the locally centralized school district.

 

With religious, post-secondary, civic, and preK-12 institutions united as to societal goals and plan, consensus will widen and pursuit of societal goals will gain ever greater force and speed.

 

A peaceful and compassionate society of fulfilled individuals will result  >>>>>

 

Joy to the world.

 

Peace on earth.

 

This can happen.

 

Interlude >>>>> The Hopelessness of the Minneapolis Public Schools Under Current Leadership

The Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) constitutes a locally centralized school district in disarray.  

Superintendent Ed Graff has never had a viable plan for providing a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete academic program, nor for meeting the needs of those demographic groups---  students on Free/Reduced Price Lunch and those of African American, Latina/Latino, American Indian, and Hmong ethnicity--- who have been even more ill-served than the general student population.  

To provide knowledge-intensive education, a scholarly superintendent would dismantle the Department of Teaching and Learning and its 27 members, then she or he would commission university-based or independent scholars in major academic disciplines to design logically sequenced knowledge-intensive curriculum for grade-by-grade implementation throughout grades preK through twelve.  

Subject area emphasis at preK-5 would be on mathematics;  biology, chemistry, and physics;  history, government, geography, and economics;  Western classic, world, and ethnic-specific literature;  music and the visual arts;  and health and physical education.

This emphasis would continue at grades 6-8, with increasing student access to courses in world languages and in the vocational and technological arts.  

At grades 9-12, all but those students with grave learning challenges would be prepared to take Advanced Placement courses in all major subjects and  otherwise to select courses according to driving interest and life vision.  All high school students would produce a minimum 10-page research paper based on multiple sources and with proper citations.

...........................................................

To implement these changes, Ed Graff would be released as superintendent;  the Department of Teaching and Learning and the Office of Black Sudent Achievement would be dismantled;  the legislatively mandated Department of Indian Education would be overhauled for staffing with subject area expertise; and tbe position of associate superintendent would be terminated. 

Replacing ineffective central office bureaucrats would be a new Department of Resource Provision and Referral, led by current Office of Black Student Achievement director Michael Walker and staffed with people comfortable on the streets and in the homes of families facing elevated challenges of finances and functionality.

Teachers at all levels would have to be retrained in order to impart the new knowledge-intensive curriculum.

.......................................................

As matters currently stand, Graff's four-point program of social and emotional learning, multi-tiered system of support, literacy, and equity is a predictably massive failure.  Neither this program nor the academic portion of the MPS Comprehensive District Design (CDD) has academic heft.

The academic portion of the CDD is full of jargon emanating from education professors at such institutions as the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development (CEHD).  Overwhelmingly, academic decision-makers, principals, and teachers in the Minneapolis Public Schools have been trained in such programs and share the anti-knowledge ideology that has academically abused public schools students for at least four decades. 

That Graff and staff would therefore turn to the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development to improve academic results at the Minneapolis Public Schools demonstrates complete failure to grasp the source of the district's failures and the nature of the needed overhaul.

Article #12 >>>>> Origins and Consequences of Wretched Public Educatiion Throughout the United States

The Demise of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the Vacuity of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and the Return to Unabashed Intellectual Corruption in American Public Education

As soon as No Child Left Behind legislation was passed (2001) and implementation began (2002), the education establishment and politically purchased left of center politicians in the Democratic Party moved to undermine the effort to establish logically sequenced, measurable academic standards.

Predictably, hordes of students failed to demonstrate grade level proficiency in mathematics, reading, and science;  and many schools theretofore considered to be good or even excellent were identified as failing due to dismal results revealed in disaggregated data.  

When this happened, teachers unions such as the Minneapolis Federation.of Teachers (MFT), Education Minnesota, and similar local and state unions across the United States blamed the messenger, claiming that NCLB and standardized tests (objective assessments) were at fault, rather than curriculum, teacher quality, and skill remediation (or lack thereof) in failed schools.

Then former NCLB supporters among Republicans began to receive political pressure of their own, from constituencies lamenting loss of local control under NCLB;  and from voucher proponents contemptuous of public education and having no interest in the necessary overhaul in curriculum and teacher quality.  

Thus did forces of tbe left and of the right work with antipodal impact to terminate No Child Left Behind.  Early in the Obama administration, states were offered opt-out under the new Race to the Top program from NCLB, with the opportunity to submit aternative plans for ending differential results by income and ethnicity.  In Minnesota, this induced development of the intellectually corrupt North Star Accountability System that included the inept, ludicrously named Regional Centers of Excellence.

But the race was to the bottom, there was no accountability under the North Star, and there was no regional excellence pertinent to public education in Minnesota.  

In 2015, the United States Congress voted to replace NCLB with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), another mere proclamation with no correspondence between appellation and fact.

After the evanescent hope offered by the standards movement and NCLB, public education in 2021 remains a travesty, the United States a nation at risk.