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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Obama's victory: a triumph of the American education system


A few years ago, I was working with an independent candidate for congress in the Midlands of South Carolina and since I know a little about education, he asked me to give a speech to his constituents about the “failure of education in America.” While researching that speech I became more and more convinced of a theory I already held; that far from being a failure, The American Education system is doing just what it was designed to do. Its latest triumph was the election of Barak Obama in 2012.

The founders of our country understood the importance of educated citizenry. Thomas Jefferson said. “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and what never will be.”  In the early years of the country’s founding, education was mostly done by the parents. Children were encouraged to attend school, but it was not until the mid-18th century, when America adopted the Prussian system of education that compulsory school laws were enacted by the states. 

One problem with education at this time was that there were no colleges producing Ph.D.’s in America. Rich families began sending their sons overseas to earn their Ph.D.’s from what was considered the best school system in the world. The Prussians, after being soundly defeated by Napoleon had completely overhauled their system of education. The Americans who earned their doctorates under the Prussian system returned to America and implemented the system in the U.S.

There was just one problem: Instead of producing a crop of highly literate, patriotic and motivated citizenry, the Prussian system was designed to create a highly educated elite who would rule over a cadre of barely literate serfs who were well-suited to become cannon fodder for the industrial revolution. Progressives like Horace Mann and Thomas Dewy strongly advocated the system. When Edward Everette, America’s first Ph.D., became the Governor of Massachusetts in 1852, He had to deal with an influx of illiterate Irish immigrants. He implemented the Prussian system, and was successful in turning out a continuous line of undereducated workers to turn wheels and move levers and do the other mundane, drudgery that comprised much of the work of the day.

The results of the Prussian system are evident today as schooling has moved from the responsibility of ones parents, to that of government indoctrination centers, not too unlike the madrassas in the middle east that turn out the ignorant ideologues who get on airplanes with explosives stuffed in their underwear.

I have experienced the results of this system with my own children. When my youngest child was in the third grade, Her teacher, in a government sanctioned attempt to boost their self-esteem, had her students create poems of their names. My daughter Kelly’s went something like this.

Kinde

        Enthusastic

    Laughing

 Loving

Young

I’m not kidding: in all of the poems, almost every other word was misspelled. The teacher had apparently not even attempted to correct their spelling, or maybe she was afraid it would hurt their precious self-esteem, or it could have been that the teacher didn’t know how two spell either, as she thought these billboards of ignorance were appropriate to hang on the wall in the hallway outside the class for all to see. Did I mention this was a magnet school?

And yet, they had just completed a six week unit on saving the rain forest.

When my son was a sophomore in High school, he took economics as an elective-that courses like economics, and civics are no longer required subjects is another story—don’t get me started.  On the first day of class, his teacher showed off his communist party membership card and suggested that all his student join the “party.” Last I checked, communism and free market economics are about as far apart from one another as one can get.

In the eighties, PBS aired a series called The Constitution: that Delicate Balance. The programs consisted of a series of panel discussion where pointy-headed elites sat around and debated the ins and outs of the US Constitution. It was a fascinating series. Several years later, when I was Associate Dean of a small technical school, we were required to have a “Constitution Day”, where we attempted to educate the students on the constitution. I was put in charge of the festivities. The first year, I borrowed videotape of the PBS series and played them on the TV in the lounge. At one point, I walked into the lounge to find a student looking at the screen. I walked over to him. The conversation went something like this:

Student:              What’s that about?

Me:                        The Constitution

Student:              The Consttiution?

Me:                        Yes.

Student:              What Constitution?

Me:                        Our Constitution

Student:              Our Constitution?

Me:                        Yes. Our Constitution

Student                :               A New Constitution?

This graduate of the state high school system seemed completely ignorant of our Constitution.

The next year, I got several members of the staff to read sections of the constitution aloud in the student lounge during the hour before evening classes started. The reading was heavily advertised around the school. Once the reading started, the lounge, normally a buzz if activity at this hour, quickly vacated. It seemed that not one student was even the least bit curious about the document that rules their public, and increasingly, their private lives.

 In World War II, the army began testing the literacy of its soldiers. It found that of the 18 million people tested, 96% of whites were literate, and 80% of blacks. By the Korean War the number of illiterates had jumped by 500%. In the70’s, during the Vietnam war, the army was tested again and they found that only 27% of draftees and enlistees were capable of reading at a level needed to complete their military duties.

Testing by the national education association in the 90’s showed that 40% of blacks tested could not read at all and illiteracy among whites had quadrupled.

Attempts to reform the system have met stiff resistance, including opposition to home schooling and vouchers. Obama’s first foray into public education after his first election was to take action to close down several charter schools in Washington DC, forcing the underserved minority population of those schools back into the maw of the Prussian monster.  The NEA, perpetuates mediocrity in America’s school by fighting against teacher ratings and the dismissal of poor performing teachers.

For over 150 years, our public education system has defined literacy down.  It’s little wonder that on election day 2012 the most popular Google search was “who’s running for president?” The American public education system has finally achieved its goal off having an ignorant, complacent voting populace who, like a school of fish, chases after the shiniest object, even at their own peril. How else do you explain that the people who voted for Obama overwhelmingly prefer spending cuts over higher taxes, when Obama promised the opposite, they overwhelmingly oppose Obamacare, yet they voted for it. They overwhelmingly oppose gay “marriage,” yet they voted for it. Videos about  Obama’s stash” and Obama phones on YouTube have led to Obama’s victory being called the Santa Clause vote. Ignorance of the founding documents seem to have left many of us believing that our rights come from the government, not from God. If it’s true that Americans get the government they deserve, then let us await our just deserts. We now have a nation that ignorant. How long will we be free?

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Backcountry Barbecue

My friend Marc Hoffman has been nagging me to check out this restaurant for a couple of years. Over the recent holiday weekend, I finally got a chance. Backcountry Barbecue is located just off I-85 at the Linwood exit near Lexington. Which any Lexingtonian will tell you is the barbecue capital of the world. It is also the home of the world famous Lexington Barbecue Festival held in October, which draws thousands of people to the area.

Lexington is where I cut my teeth on barbecue, so to speak, when I was living in nearby Salisbury and through my girlfriend at the time, I was introduced to “The Monk”, which was the local name of the world famous Lexington Barbecue restaurant, where I experienced my first “lean brown course chopped tray.” For aficionados, memory of their first real barbecue often ranks up there with memory of another first (if you know what I mean.)

One of the features of Lexington barbecue is that you can get the regular “chopped” meat or “course chopped.” Mentioning the word “pulled” is likely to have the same effect as the guy who used to say “Would you please pass the jelly?” on the telly.

Back Country Barbecue is in a non-descript building by the side of State 43. Like most good BBQ joints around here, interior decoration seems to have been an afterthought, but, as I always say, you don’t eat atmosphere, you only pay for it.

Like the rubes we were, we sat out front on the Formica®, while the locals opted for the cozy dining room with its red (painted) brick wall and faux mantel. There was also a counter, but it was crowded with papers, menus, spoon and fork dispensers and the like.

I ordered the course chopped sandwich and received a bun full of thumb-sized chunks which, though slightly dry, had excellent smoke and the bark(which is the reason you order course chopped) was immensely acceptable.

The hazard of ordering course chopped pork on a bun versus the tray mentioned earlier, is that the watery Piedmont sauce soaks through the bottom of the bun much faster than with the regular chop, giving it the consistency of mucilage. This is a feature which I had forgotten in the thirty years since I had eaten my last course chopped Q.  As I mentioned before, turning the bun over mitigates the issue to some degree, but alas, by the time I remembered this, it was too late.

An indication of the quality of the meat is perhaps reflected in the fact that I can usually count on eating one and a half sandwiches at these places because my wife seems never to be able to finish hers, but here I was out of luck. I looked up from my plate to see my wife wiping the last morsel from the corner of her mouth.

It’s tough in the BBQ business in these parts because the competition is fierce and the expectations are high. Backcountry Barbecue is in for the long haul.
Diner rating : 3