Shot in the Dark

Your Education Dollars At Work: Bun In Summer School, Part II

Bun’s “history” teacher was out most of the day today, but the substitute wasn’t much of an improvement.

The first order of business was watching a movie, Right America (Feeling Wronged), made by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra, about people who didn’t vote for Obama.   Calling the movie “heavy-handed” and “one-sided” would be a little like calling Nick Coleman “unctuous”; it focuses (like certain leftybloggers) on a thin film of outragous-to-the-point-of-cartoon-y racists:  even the  Huffington Post panned  it.

The teacher added after the movie that most people in the documentary were provincial “country folk” who had never seen a black person, and were motivated by racism.

The teacher handed out a “worksheet” on John Hanson – he was black, don’t you know? – and got a quiz on the other five “black” presidents and why they concealed their “blackness”.

And there was a “worksheet” – I’ll get that out over weekend.

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Mitch Berg

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25 responses to “Your Education Dollars At Work: Bun In Summer School, Part II”

  1. flash Avatar
    flash

    Where is this ‘school’ you claim she is going to, and specifically, which ‘school’ is it.

    Flash

  2. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Check your email.

    And there’s no scare quotes on school.

  3. flash Avatar
    flash

    If anything you are saying is even remotely true, the ‘school’ deserves scare quotes *smile*

    What is the actual name of the class?

  4. bubbasan Avatar
    bubbasan

    Again, as a taxpayer, I do hope you name names when more data are in. Bias is one thing, arguing with reality is another entirely.

  5. Lars Walker Avatar
    Lars Walker

    Disappointed to learn John Hanson wasn’t Swedish. But he sure as heck wasn’t black either. I ran into the “John Hanson was black” story a while back, on Dick Gregory’s web site, here: http://www.dickgregory.com/dick/14_washington.html

    Back then, Gregory illustrated the page with an old photograph of a black man in clothing from the mid-19th century. He seems to have removed that photo now. Too bad. It raised an amusing, stupid argument to the level of a hilarious, insane argument.

  6. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    It appears that the instructors’ scholarship is, at best, skin-deep.

  7. Jeff Kouba Avatar
    Jeff Kouba

    Ladies and Gentlemen, please proceed in an orderly manner to the exits…

  8. Mr. D Avatar
    Mr. D

    The only advantage of dealing with this addled ideologue is that Bun will learn a valuable life skill — understanding the difference between what you are taught and what you learn.

  9. Bill C Avatar
    Bill C

    I was under the mistaken impression that Bill Clinton was our first black president.

  10. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    Does growing up in NoDak automatically make onw a ” “provincial “country folk”?

  11. Dog Gone Avatar
    Dog Gone

    Why is Bun taking this class again?

    Um, may I suggest to her that she try what worked for me in class – challenging the statements made by the teacher or curicculum, if they were in error – respectfully, but factually?

    What Flash said.

    And what Mr. D. said too, sort of; education is not passive, it is active. Teachers help (except when they don’t) but students do it for themselves, it is not done to them. I hope this will not discourage la Belle Bun, but rather prompt her to come up with a reasoned, supported alternate view to present to the teacher and the rest of the class. (Go Bun!)

  12. Dog Gone Avatar
    Dog Gone

    Psssssssssssst. Mitch!

    You wouldn’t be exaggerating just a little bit here, would you? hmmm?

  13. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    DG,

    No. In fact, I’m leaving the stuff that sounds “exaggerated” out; not because I don’t believe Bun, but because I want to make sure I’m keeping things straight down the middle and dropping outliers.

    As to challenging the teacher – there’s another aspect to the story that i’m not going into just quite yet. More perhaps later; in the interest of “keeping things straight down the middle”, I’m ignoring that other factor for now.

    But nobody need worry about Bun; she’s enjoying relating the story to me.

    Much more as the situation warrants it.

  14. Yossarian Avatar
    Yossarian

    I remember challenging my fifth grade teacher on a matter relating to grammar, and being rewarded for my efforts by standing at the chalkboard for an hour with my nose in a chalk circle.

    And I was RIGHT, damnit!

  15. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    Yoss, you need to lighten up. Many fifth grade teachers do not understand that the proper objective second person, objective case personal pronoun is “thee”, not “thou”.

  16. bubbasan Avatar
    bubbasan

    DG, with a teacher as far out as this, do we really want to risk them being able to stay in the profession longer by doing as you say, or would it be better just to bring the matter before superiors? Reality is here that the most likely reason they’re doing this is a reckless disregard for facts–and such a person will, give a chance, “escape” this time to bother more innocents with such tripe.

    Terry, “thee” is actually the informal second person objective case personal pronoun. (sorry, just couldn’t resist)

  17. Dog Gone Avatar
    Dog Gone

    I look forward to the rest of the story from Mitch.

    I was fortunate, in that so long as it was done respectfully and politely, we were encouraged to challenge our teachers — heck, we’d get organized about it occasionally in a sort of casual study group.

    Good teachers (which this presumably is not) seemed to enjoy having students get involved and engage them, and the teachers were bored by passive students who trated class like they were watching tv.

    More fun and a better education for the student, better experience for the teacher as well, ideally.

  18. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    Terry, “thee” is actually the informal second person objective case personal pronoun. (sorry, just couldn’t resist)

    Yoss, do you like standing at the blackboard with your nose in a chalk circle?

  19. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    Sorry, Bubbasan, not Yoss.

  20. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    Mitch, you should bring Bun to the summer MOB party; I think she and Tiger Lilly would hit it off.

  21. mnbubba Avatar
    mnbubba

    Yet more evidence, were any needed, of the importance of getting and keeping your (or anybody elses’, for that matter) kids out of the gubamint skulz.

  22. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    I was fortunate, in that so long as it was done respectfully and politely, we were encouraged to challenge our teachers

    Maybe instead of challenging your teachers, you should have listened more. Then you would know how to find Pinal county and Prescott on the map. But then you would have to know where Arizona is in the first place, DogPrescottPile. Yet more proof of “gubamint skulz” education.

  23. kel Avatar
    kel

    Here’s the red star arguing that state and local governments should not be forced to lay people off even though their revenues are falling
    http://www.startribune.com/business/97731174.html?page=1&c=y

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