Are you familiar with Peter Greenes Curmudgucation blog? Peter describes himself as a grump old teacher trying to keep up the good classroom fight in the new age of reformy stuff. Below, he comments on Campbell Browns attempt to be the reformer du jour. She is suing the state of New York over teacher tenure, in a case very similar to the recently California Vergara case. Campbell Browns appearance on the Colbert Report included one of the popular reformster mini-themes-- the desire to be insulated from any manner of dialogue. Granted, this is not exclusive to reformsters-- there are many groups of people in American society who have trouble distinguishing between being disagreed with and being oppressed. But among the privileged there seem to be some folks who just find it too, too unpleasant when the little people try to talk back to them. Brown mounted the defense of her super-secret backers list by declaring that these poor defenseless deep-pocketed must be protected. When Brown says she wants to protect her donors from those people out there, shes acknowledging that there are a lot of people out there. Weve come a long way from the days when reform opponents were characterized as tiny fringe elements. Once again, we hear the plaintive cry of the Child of Privilege who finds democracy unpleasant and messy. Look, all we want to do is make the country run the way we think it should. Is that too much to ask? Why do people keep interrupting us by, like, talking and stuff? We should be able to do this without interference. Shut up, do as youre told by your betters, and dont talk back. And some like Brown dont just find little people talking back inconvenient, but really upsetting. There are times when I believe that some of the reformsters really dont get that they have started a fight. Brown just wants to gut the foundations of teaching as a career; why are teachers saying mean things about her? On one level, shes not wrong. When we find out whos financing Browns little mini-series on court-based activism, we will undoubtedly have a few words for those people, and some of them will not be nice. But it will still be an uneven fight. On one side, well have teachers writing strongly worded letters and blogs and-- well, I was going to say speaking out in the media, but of course thats crazy, because what media outlet would interview a teacher. But well have words, and well use them to attack these folks, who will undoubtedly turn out to be unelected gabillionaires who are answerable to nobody, least of all, little people. On their side will be millions of dollars, high-powered lawyers, the federal Department of Education, and the mainstream media outlets. Given the disparity in power, influence and tools, one wonders why folks like Brown even care. What are they afraid of? I can think of two possibilities. One is that they feel their victory is assured, but they are leery of sacrificing the fiction of democracy. They dont really want to have to come out and say, Okay, were not playing any more. We didnt want to have to say this, but in our current system you have no say, and were just going to do what we want. We were hoping the illusion of democracy would keep you quiet, but play time is over. This isnt a democracy any more, and what we say goes. The other is that they know democracy is NOT dead, and given enough noise and political pressure, politicians will have to listen not just to the money, but to some people as well. If people decide to actually pick up democracy and use it like a pointy stick aimed at overinflated balloons, somethings going to pop. If enough people start talking about the emperors new clothes, the whole court is going to get caught parading naked, embarrassed, out of power, and finally having to face what they really look like. I would like to pick the second, please. curmudgucation.blogspot/2014/08/pushback-from-little-people.html nydailynews/new-york/education/protesters-slam-teacher-tenure-foe-campbell-brown-colbert-report-studios-article-1.1888025
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 17:14:25 +0000
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