OK folks, here we go. I am going to tackle a very controversial subject today. Online learning.
With all the Covid 19 controversy taking place in our nation today, the schools from K thru 12 as well as colleges and universities have turned to online learning.
At first glance it looks like a great idea. But let me in on a little secret. Academia has been pushing for online learning for years. I experienced it first hand during my teaching career.
I have a real problem with it and I spoke up and said so at the time.
The response was, “You need to get with the times”, “Your teaching methods are old and outdated”, “Kids today prefer online learning”, “If you cannot accept the change in the way courses are taught, maybe it is time for you to retire”.
Well, let me tell you what is really happening.
In the old days, teachers were hired for their knowledge and expertise. They chose the textbooks they used and developed the lesson plans for their students. Not anymore.
The first step in the academic takeover was by the big publishing companies and the powers that be in our education system.
These publishing companies hold huge influence over the education system and vice versa. Billions of dollars change hands based on books sales.
Check it out. The majority of textbooks being used in our schools and colleges are published by just a handful of major publishers.
So what happens when a teacher is told it is mandatory that they must use a history textbook that starts with the opening sentence, “Our country was founded by white, slave holding, imperialists.”
That teacher has a choice to make. Teach using the book provided, or find another job. With online courses, teachers will lose complete control of the content of their lesson plans.
It is not just history courses. It is, and has been happening across the curriculum for years. I don’t blame the teachers at all. They are victims of big money influence by national publishers and far left academic administrations.
Publishers are in it for the money. They don’t care what the book says. They just want the exclusive contract for the sale of millions of textbooks.
Now it is this secret that has forced many good teachers out of the profession and allowed the far left to indoctrinate our kids.
There I said it. I can. Current teachers cannot for fear of losing their livelihood.
I know what you are thinking. Wow, Professor Pasley is just a bitter old man with an axe to grind.
Think about this. If everything goes online, how much control will the teachers have as far as textbooks used and lesson plan development. Not to mention personal interaction with the students?
Don’t take my word for it folks, let’s look at some recent articles I pulled from the past week’s research.
Let’s start with an article by Walter E. Williams, a professor of economics at George Mason University in The Daily Wire.
He states, parents, legislators, taxpayers and others footing the bill for college education might be interested in just what is in store for the upcoming academic year.
Since many college classes will be online, there is a chance to witness professors indoctrinating their students in real-time.
To see recent examples of campus nonsense and indoctrination, visit the Campus Reform and College Fix websites.
George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley warned congressional lawmakers that antifa is “winning” and that much of academia, whether wittingly or unwittingly, is complicit in its success.
In his testimony before Congress Turley said: “To Antifa, people like me are the personification of the classical liberal view of free speech that perpetuates a system of oppression and abuse. I wish I could say that my view remains strongly implanted in our higher educational institutions. However, you are more likely to find public supporters for restricting free speech than you are to find defenders of free speech principles on many campuses.”
The leftist bias at our schools has many harmful effects. A University of California, Davis, mathematics professor faced considerable backlash over her opposition to the requirement for “diversity statements” from potential faculty.
Those seeking employment at the University of California, San Diego, are required to admit that “barriers” prevent women and minorities from full participation in campus life.
At American University, a history professor wrote a book calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. A Rutgers University professor said, “Watching the Iowa Caucus is a sickening display of the over-representation of whiteness.”
A Williams College professor has advocated for the inclusion of social justice in math textbooks. Students at Wayne State University are no longer required to take a single math course to graduate; however, they may soon be required to take a diversity course.
Maybe some students will be forced into sharing the vision of Professor Laurie Rubel, a math education professor at Brooklyn College. She says the idea of cultural neutrality in math is a “myth,” and that asking whether 2 plus 2 equals 4 “reeks of white supremacist patriarchy.
Math professors and academics at other universities, including Harvard and the University of Illinois, discussed the “Eurocentric” roots of American mathematics.
Rutgers University’s English department chairwoman, Rebecca Walkowitz, announced changes to the Department’s graduate writing program emphasizing “social justice” and “critical grammar.”
Remember what I told you. As a teacher, you either accept this, or you are gone.
Then there is the nonsense taught on college campuses about white privilege. The idea of white privilege doesn’t explain why several historically marginalized groups outperform whites today.
For example, Japanese Americans suffered under the Alien Land Law of 1913 and other racist, exclusionary laws legally preventing them from owning land and property in more than a dozen American states until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.
During World War II, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned. However, by 1959, the income disparity between Japanese Americans and white Americans had almost disappeared.
Today, Japanese Americans outperform white Americans by large margins in income statistics, education outcomes and test scores, and have much lower incarceration rates.
According to Rav Arora, writing for the New York Post, several black immigrant groups such as Nigerians, Trinidadians and Tobagonians, Barbadians and Ghanaians all “have a median household income well above the American average.”
The bottom line is that more Americans need to pay attention to the miseducation of our youth and that miseducation is not limited to higher education.
A Tennessee school district is under fire for asking parents to sign a form agreeing not to eavesdrop on kids’ virtual classes over concerns they could overhear confidential information. What?!!!
After significant pushback, Rutherford County Schools is allowing parents to tune in with permission from the teacher but they can’t record the classes.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s so hypocritical because they’ve been data mining our children for years, compliments of common core,” Laurie Cardoza-Moore, founder of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, said on “Fox & Friends Weekend” Saturday.
“What are they trying to hide? What is the problem? Why won’t they let us sit in?” the home school mom of five asked.
“Obviously, because they are teaching our children propaganda that they should not be teaching,” she said. “They are trying to socialize our children.”
She added: “We have had a major problem in education, not just here in Tennessee, but across the country where they are indoctrinating our children with propaganda.”
Again folks, don’t get me wrong, I love teachers. However, they have been dealt a dirty hand. Teach this stuff or give up your calling in life.
Cardoza-Moore questioned why the school would encourage parents to snitch on one another and what would happen if a parent violates the waiver.
“Does that mean somebody from the school district is going to knock on my door and pull my kid out of my home, his virtual classroom?” she asked. “Or is it going to be my child won’t get to participate in education because I won’t sign the waiver even though it is my tax dollars that fund the school?”
The school district responded in a statement to Fox News.
“We are aware of the concern that has been raised about this distance-learning letter that was sent to parents,” James Evans, communications director for Rutherford County Schools, said.
Evans added: “We have issued new guidance to principles that parents can assist their children during virtual group lessons with permission of the instructor but should refrain from sharing or recordings any information about other students in the classroom.”
Cardoza-Moore said this is because teachers are pushing “social justice” instead of reading, writing and math, and they don’t want to be held accountable to the parents.
So, if everything goes online, what will our kids be taught?
Again, many people out there will say that this is just the ranting of a crazy old professor who is opposed to change.
Maybe so, but I struggle with throwing out a method of teaching that has worked for over 2000 years.
In the past, individual teachers were held accountable by their society, their government, and yes, their students.
The teachers of ancient Greece held classes and practiced the Socratic method of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.
This type of education is silenced in our schools and colleges today for fear of offending someone with your questions or worse yet forcing you into silence for fear of being branded a radical conservative, racist, misogynist or any number of other labels, all of which can get you suspended or kicked out of school.
So the students and the teachers really have no choice. If you want to graduate, sit there and take it. Don’t ask questions. If you want to continue to teach, teach the info you are provided.
In my opinion, the Covid quarantine and forced online learning has given our education system exactly what they have always wanted. Complete control of the classroom at both the K thru 12 and college levels.