Agreed. I wouldn't trust either one of them further than I could shoot them out of my . . . . nose.
A history question: Would you have trusted Uncle Sam to defeat the Axis in the 1940’s? If so, what has changed?
Perhaps. But it seems to me they're doing the exact opposite. From my best understanding (I may be wrong), most K-12 schools in the U.S. teach kids what to think, and they do so in a way that suggests their own authority is not to be questioned.
I'll never forget what George Carlin had to say about this subject.
He said he went to a very liberal progressive Catholic school as a kid and they encouraged the students to think for themselves and question authority.
They did such a good job that by the time they were teenagers, most of them had left the faith.
I remember it so strongly because that's exactly what happened to me and my grade school friends.
This imagined indoctrination critique of teachers of flawed for this reason:
If we wanted to indoctrinate students, surely a sign of our capability to do so would be evidenced in simpler successes, like putting away their phones.
…demagoguery and enforced ignorance, however, ARE things that schools with leaders like Musk may well create.
I have been in schools my whole life (well, since I was 5 years old anyway). I would not entrust any school to teach non-biased critical thinking. There are many teachers who could do it, but there are just as many with an agenda that would infiltrate the process. I see this every day at the university. For every professor providing a forum fro open-minded evidence-based inquiry, there's another who is blatantly indoctrinating students with their biased world view.
If this is your take, then you’d surely also wish to see Mr. Keating — and tolerant, inventive teachers like me — dismissed.
The “that page is torn out sir scene”
As a public school teacher with 31 years of service in the different school districts, and adjunct professor at SUNY Potsdam, Clarkson University, and most recently Syracuse Univeristy, I can unequivocally confirm the truth of those statements. I'm retired from all public and private institutions of supposed higher learning, and resigned from SU. The environment there was absolutely toxic with the amount of hatred towards anyone expressing, regardless of how kindly, thoughtfully, and rationally, other than "accepted" viewpoints.
Kind of like this thread. It's cool and fun to put down Musk, and express one's distaste for everything about him in extremely strong terms. Express admiration for anything he's done, including allowing actual factual statements on Twitter/X that were banned under the previous controlling/controlled entities, and you expose yourself to the same vitriol. I tried early in the thread. No thank you.
It's always amazed me that those expressing the virtues of tolerance, diversity, and acceptance seem to be devoid of those qualities when differences of opinion arise, and often quite willing to express hatred. I am of the opinion, based upon 63 years of experience on this planet teaching thousands of students, that we are all extremely flawed. When flawed people do amazing things, that should still be celebrated and admired.
There's so many statements in this thread that could be countered, but not without crossing forum boundaries. Perhaps forum boundaries should be expanded to either prohibit unspecific bashing of people, or allow counter opinions that may contain some political content. To be honest, none of this enhances the enjoyment of this site.
As a teacher with a similar amount of experience in the same region of the US, I can unequivocally say that I’m not surprised that your take met with a good deal of disagreement and pushback. Of course those who I imagine disagreed with you about Musk also enjoy freedom of thought and speech, hopefully especially in the halls of higher learning, which you term “so-called.”
Nothing about free speech — especially in the workplace — says that unpopular, controversial, or contrarian opinions need be celebrated and accepted.
If you’d like to message me any responses that may as you say cross over TB thread norms, I’d welcome it in the spirit of openness and respect.
That's the case with almost every subject. I had several teachers in high school and college inject their ideologies and politics into completely unrelated subjects.
But you could teach a class on the scientific method, including a guide to recognizing logical fallacies, as a science course.
There are multitudes of textbooks on this already available that could be very easily adapted, verbatim, to a high school classroom.
As long as the teacher stays faithful to the textbook and keeps their biases out of it (which they're supposed to do anyway), the students would be learning how to think critically.
Whom would you play in this clip about “the importance of conformity to the textbook?”
Nonconformity *IS* thinking critically, at least it is a common hallmark of that. A conformist, blind follower of a teacher can never lead youth to their own self discovery and true independence.
“Whoso would be a man, must also be a nonconformist” (or something to that effect) — Ralph Waldo Emerson, in “Self Reliance” I think.
