Here is a short video from the Save Our Schools March that took place July 28-31, 2011.
My favorite parts include:
- Matt Damon gives a lesson on the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. "Do you think job insecurity makes me work hard? A teacher wants to teach! Why else would you take a shitty salary and really long hours and do that job unless you really love to do it?"
- When the "reporter" sarcastically "asked" the question: "Are first grade teachers intellectuals that need to be protected?" I damn near swallowed my tongue. The gentleman's response was well put: "I hope that they have studied child development.
- When Deborah Meier was asked about funding for education she replied: "We should give as much money as rich people think they need to for their children."
- My local grocery store is not analogous of my local public school. Period.
- Jonathan Kozol was asked about vouchers being a solution to poverty: "Vouchers and charter schools are the worst possible answer because first off all they will never serve more than two or three percent -- maybe five percent at most of the population."
- Reporter: "So we need more charter schools." Kozol: "No, that's insane. First of all charter schools on average are no more successful than public schools. The only ones you hear about are the super schools - the ones that get on Opera.
- Competitions have winners and losers. Public Education is for everyone.
Near the end the "reporter" implies we are all losers with public education. This of course plays on the fact that there are problems in public education. Yes there are problems in public education, and I blog about how we can improve almost everyday. But I see these issues as problems to be solved, not destroyed or ignored.
If something is broken, you don't destroy it -- you fix it.
The reporter seemed more suited to do sports reporting. Many of her questions were illogical and most interviewees seemed, rightly, baffled by her innateness.
ReplyDelete"If something is broken, you don't destroy it -- you fix it."
ReplyDeleteWhat do you say to someone like John Holt who spent his life trying to fix it and decided that the schooling system is founded upon problems of control and authority imbalance? He very adamantly argued that the act of trying to fix it only further empowered it.
Do you think the SOS March did anything besides make a fun Youtube clip?
I don't mean to sound argumentative, these are just the questions I am currently struggling with.