Poltical Ghosts

I'm ticked about an incident this week, in which I returned to teach at a school I hadn't been to since last November. The principal entered the room twice to sit and observe, which was confusing, but not unprecedented. At break she came in and broached the subject with me that on my previous appearance I had made statements and/or done something that made them 'uncomfortable' with having me teach at the school. Yeah, thanks for being adult about it and letting me know at the time.

Apaprently, they perceived me as having said something about the election. Now, I know exactly what I said.

I took the 4th grade class to the library to 'vote'. This was a program the entire district did, in which classes went to monitors set up in the IMCs to 'vote' by simply choosing a picture of either McCain or Obama with a mouse click. I had a number of problems with this, firstly being that there are more than two political parties in the US, but my big issue was that the 'voting' was done in clear view of all the other students. It wasn't private or secret. As a result, due to the racial politics of the district, and the unbelievably blatant political proslytizing of the teachers (sample: "Kids, go home and tell your parents to vote for Barack Obama! We have to have CHANGE!"), anyone witnessed voting for McCain was subjected to harrassment and bullying, which I personally witnessed in more than one school.

After the 'voting', during which, as each student took their turn at the monitors, the entire class shouted at them to 'Vote for Obama! Vote for Obama!' under the beaming countenances of their teachers, who were also watching them 'vote', I gave them a little talk.

I told them voting was a vital, important part of citizenship; that it was a critical exercise of a precious right. I also expressed my disagreement with how the 'voting' was handled, with everyone screaming at classmates to vote for a particular person, as voting had to be secret. I told them secret ballots were a critical part of the voting process, and that voting was to be done with their conscience, not as the result of mob pressure. During this statement, a teacher was in the doorway, and as I spoke her face went from beaming happily to very angry.

After that, I discussed voting fraud, and how people could not buy or sell their votes; and discussed the Starbucks, Ben and Jerry's, and Krispy Kreme promotions giving away product to voters on Election Day, and whether that was legal or not.

Okay, back to the present. This administrator tells me I had been reported as telling the kids that people who vote are given free stuff, which had resulted in them not wanting me teaching at their school again. Shocked, I informed the administrator that I had merely discussed the promotions with Starbucks and Krispy Kreme, and asked the kids if that could be construed as bribery or not. It was in the news, for crying out loud! It was a big deal! It was on TV! The administrator tells me, with a straight face, that she had known nothing about any such promotions, and if a business engaged in such a thing, it would be illegal. I responded, "Well, they did it, and you can go look it up".

She did not return to the classroom.

You know what I think happened? I think that 'teacher' at the doorway with the sour puss got mad that I had said anything negative about their piss-ant-poor 'voting process' which was biased criminally in favor of Barack Obama.

So screw those people.

I'm really sick of hearing about money.

I've been subjected to conversations about investments, 401Ks, retirement programs, health benefits, stock purchases, and mortgages for long enough to where I'm utterly, completely sick of it.

Who really believes, truly, that a 'retirement package' consists of money placed in an investment account, that will for-sure and no-joke and absolutely without fail result in an increase in value? Well, a lot of people. Who are morons.

It's a capitalist system, and therefore someone must lose. I'm now hearing a resurgence of idiocy, with people discussing stocks at work, shuffling their 401Ks, trying to recapture something that cannot exist. I'm sick of the greed, stupidity, and profligate money-grubbing. It is physically impossible for an entire culture, system, and nation to invest every dime they make in loans to corporations and have every single one of them return a profit; and yet that's what people seemed to fool themselves into believing.

Sick of it. God forbid you spend any of your time improving your immediate environment, or making an effort to create a neighborhood of mutually supportive persons. No way should you waste any of your time living around losers who make less money than you. Buy your way to security.

Yeah, that's it: buy your way to happiness and physical security.

Kids Like Arithmetic.

I was reading HOW MATHEMATICS HAPPENED over the weekend, and the author makes the utterly clueless statement that "children like learning to read and write, as it's based on speech" while disliking math because it's confusing.

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. My biggest, most hellish, 'this-is-death' subject is reading and writing. Everyone here hates it with an almighty passion. Mostly because it does not in any way reflect how they talk. When I have kids coming to school arguing with me that words like 'ain't' and phrases like 'don't got' are perfectly proper English, there is a problem. The material being presented to them is literally a foreign language. They can't make sense of it. They love, love, love to talk, but they absolutely hate reading with a fury that has to be witnessed to be believed.

But this same group likes math and science... significantly...

...up to 5th grade. And then they simply hate school altogether.

So what does this mean? I think it means a loss of understanding, which is in itself a loss of control. These kids love counting, addition, subtraction, the basic stuff; the Neolithic pebble count, the half-moons scored on a reindeer bone. They love all that stuff, and for the same reason early humans did: it gives them a qualifiable sense of control over their environment, and therefore over their lives.

But when you introduce abstract concepts, algebra, fractions, etc. it all falls apart. The love of numbers is lost. And I strongly suspect it has to do with that loss of control: to try to imagine an unknown ruins it.

I'm thinking about that today. I'm glad I read that book.