Reading the post today that I have written about in the comments that follow has changed my approach. The need to stop the further socialization of learning has become critical, with what Obama is pushing. In the face of that threat, Handschooling is a major way to get local nurture and individual teaching to the children of America and across the world.
This is this what I read today: an explanation of what Obama and Arne Duncan are up to in taking over education, by Susan Durand:
As Durand points out, Texas Governor Rick Perry has said “no” — as have some local districts in various states. Still, I am horrified for what this means for the current generation now in schools.
But can these Obama/Duncan moves really be a ploy to make community organizers out of the already under-served class created by failing public schools? After some further investigation, I think the answer is: yeah, that’s right. As the article points out, by authorizing charter schools the folks who run those can teach 1) what they want to, and 2) what the fed tells them to. Scary.
When I read the parts in the article about indoctrinating kids, I thought: What is this woman saying? She must be a conspiracy theorist. I have had, for example, only the most positive thoughts about Wendy Kopp and Teach for America. Controlled by AmeriCorps? Who are they? So I did some digging.
This is AmeriCorps — our .gov taxpayer paid bureaucracy which is, self-proclaimed: “A program of the Corporation for National Community Service”
It took some real digging in the Teach for America website, but sure enough, as it says buried down in this page, “Teach For America is currently a member of AmeriCorps, the national service network.”
And there I found an example from the Teach for America website how AmeriCorps sets the rules for the their members who teach under TFA and AmeriCorps grants:
My guess is that learning itself is going through a phoenix-like collapse and rebirth. I have thought for a long time that the delivery of knowledge by the internet will inevitably liberate individual students from captive classrooms. It think it will also liberate teachers to become independent professionals. How funny it would be to see the system they are sending out tentacles to control withering in the paws of Arne and The One.
A major part of the ongoing mission of handschooling.com is to shed light on this crucial struggle between educational control and individual learning.
