Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Politicized Education and the Fate of Knowledge

 

Raspberry Prosecco Pie, perfect for the holiday season, or any occasion | recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dessert

 

How important is the narrowing of school curriculum?
 
Why do we even send our children to school, anyway?
 
There are a lot of benefits, including socialization, teamwork, skill development. But the most important, by far, is the access to knowledge. Presented by professionals trained in not just the information, but in how to cultivate interest, to inspire, to encourage, and to challenge.

Critical thinking, problem solving, discerning static vs fluid boundaries, all the ways in which our minds grow, are ultimately augmented or stagnate by the amount of information introduced.

What we need, actually need, our children to do is to go out into the world prepared to problem solve. Medical, environmental, societal, technical . . . And we owe it to them to arm them with everything they need to hit the ground running.
 
Every piece of material they are capable of comprehending, that we deliberately hold back from them is a detriment. Stilted knowledge. Constrained abilities.

How is this for irony? We're actively dumbing down education.
 
 
Politicized Education and the Fate of Knowledge | graphic designed by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics #blogging

 
Florida's "don't say gay" law criminalizes the mention of diversity in sexual orientation or gender identity.

A Texas school district has banned Ann Frank's Diary.

Seven states have banned critical race theory (with pending bills in more than 15 states).

These states and districts are not about molding curriculum. It's far more insidious than that. It's about forced conformity. It's about limitation sprung from bigotry. It is the divorce of education from educators in favor of the politization of knowledge. A political agenda determined to fit the square peg of information into the round hole of White Christian Nationalism.

History matters.

So does trust. When we whitewash history, we tell our children that we don't trust them. We don't trust them to know, to understand, to process, to acknowledge, to learn, and to grow. 

Wait, isn't that why they're in school in the first place?

Listen, education is compulsory, by law, in all states. And don't get me wrong, if you have specific personal convictions or religious beliefs, there are options. There are private schools, church run schools, and home schooling. Public school is not the place for information limitation. It needs to be the place for expansion.

We cannot expect pie if we deny the existence of some of the ingredients.

But it's so much more than that. We effectively limit the breadth of flavors of any future pies, in the short term, anyway. Until these students can spend valuable time and effort finding out what we already know. And refused to tell them.


Raspberry Prosecco Pie, perfect for the holiday season, or any occasion | recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dessert

Raspberry Prosecco Pie

 


If we deny world history, our history, the existence of diversity in our society, the chance to learn from the past, the tools to develop compassion, the truth . . . not before moving forward, but in order to effectively move forward, what are we doing? To our children, to our future? We are sending these kids out there with blindfolds on. With their hands tied behind their backs.

How important is the narrowing of school curriculum?

Ever heard that old saying "it's not the end of the world?"

What these bigoted politicians are doing?

Could actually be the end of the word.



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Raspberry Prosecco Pie         
                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 stick butter, softened
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 TBSP milk
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups prosecco, divided
1 box (3 oz) raspberry gelatin

6 oz cream cheese, softened
2 TBSP powdered sugar
2 TBSP prosecco
3 oz fresh raspberries, rinse, pat dry

1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar


Directions:
*NOTE: the crust can be made a day in advance and refrigerated.
*Lightly grease a 10 inch pie plate. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
*Cream the butter, brown sugar, and milk. Mix in the flour and salt, then beat until it forms a dough. Press into the bottom and up the sides of the pie plate. Bake for 15 minutes. Cool completely, then refrigerate.
*Heat 3/4 cup prosecco to boiling. Add the raspberry gelatin and stir to dissolve. Mix in 3/4 cup cold prosecco.
*Beat the cream cheese with 2 TBSP powdered sugar and 2 TBSP prosecco until smooth. Beat in about 3/4 cup of the gelatin. Mix in the raspberries. Pour into the prepared pie crust and refrigerate for 1/2 hour. Set aside the remaining gelatin on the counter. 
*After a half hour, beat the heavy cream until soft peaks hold. Add the remaining 1/3 cup powdered sugar. Reserve 1/2 cup for garnish.
*Whisk the remaining gelatin into the whipped cream. Pour evenly over the cream cheese layer of the pie. Refrigerate for 1 hour. Enclose the reserved whipped cream into a plastic bag or pastry bag and refrigerate for an hour also.
*Garnish the pie with the reserved whipped cream.

16 comments:

  1. Excellent--and very scary--article, Karen. Control of the populace has always centered around the control of information. And we have started down that slippery slope that ends with books being burned and history being denied. It's a very, very scary time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Getting scarier by the day. What an extraordinary and terrifying time in history.

      Delete
  2. Maybe it's time to go back to teaching logic and rhetoric, giving skills for how to think, not necessarily what to think.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, but we need to do it without denying part of our history.

      Delete
    2. Agreed. When i taught history in home school co-op, i found a series of videos made my a history professor who didn't just lecture, he would dress in period costumes and perform as if he were the historical figure. The kids learned just how unheroic some of the early "heroes" really were, and i tried to get them to think long and hard about people in their historical context.

      One young lady, when i asked if Columbus was actually a great man, said, "He may have been a great explorer and a great man in history, but he was not necesarily a good man."

      Delete
  3. The things going on in public schools these days are just crazy. My 9 year old grandson goes to public school but my daughter said if she could stay home and home school him she would.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are pros and cons to both situations, but the public school curriculum is best left up to educators.

      Delete
  4. Control of thinking, control of education, has always been one of the hallmarks of totalitarian regimes. There is a story called "The Children's Hour" by James Clavell. I think I read it not long after it came out, 1963-1964, and it's stuck with me all these years. It's online, although I don't know if it's there legally. It will chill you to the bone, knowing what a twisted curriculum can accomplish in just 25 minutes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll look o the book, but I'm already chilled to the bone by what I see happening in this country.

      Delete
  5. There's certainly no easy answer to the problem, but I believe it will be solved through actions rather than words. When people get angry enough to take back what's been taken away real change will happen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know many of us are already pretty angry, I'm just not sure we have any power over politicians gone rogue who've gerrymandered districts, closed polling places, purged voters from the rolls . . .

      Delete
    2. I hope not, but it may take something like what happened with the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

      Delete
  6. The kids were stressed out enough and far enough behind in their curriculum due to a year and a half of isolation due to covid, but the effect it had on their social development and ability to get along with and collaborate with others is appalling. With the availability of virtually every written word on the internet, the info will always be available to them for their education if they choose, but also available is a wide variety of 'alternate theories' that have no basis in fact, no meaningful use in helping to form their knowledge or life skills. I am worried that the teacher shortage, due to good teachers refusing to 'teach' the garbage being proposed, will be augmented by folks all too willing to do just that, with their 'alternate facts'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree, there is another issue, and that is the loss of quality teachers, and who exactly is taking their place in the classrooms.

      Delete
  7. I couldn't agree more. I worry about the effect it will have on our kids throughout their lives when kids in blue states are much smarter than kids in red states!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I worry about, as the supreme court moves more power to the states, how we really are becoming 2 different countries.

      Delete

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