Bush Lover Two: It doesn't make much sense to accuse me of sanctimonious blather, then say I was nice about it.... But okay. I typed my long-ass response in less than three minutes. And it had complete sentences and punctuation and capital letters. But again, okay. Really, it was a plea for sense. If you read my whole post, you'll see that I want to engage with those who disagree with me. And you'll also see that I criticized those who call Bush silly names, too. I used to play that game, and I don't anymore; I realized that it's counterproductive to conversation. If you want to call that sanctimonious, okay, but we don't understand the word the same way. Oh, and it's not about the office for me--it's about human courtesy, plain and simple. I call people what they want to be called, not what I think they should be called. But I don't think the office deserves some magical respect anymore than I think soldiers immediately deserve hero status simply because they're soldiers (as too many people seem to think these days).
Too, I'm not sure why you feel a need to bash the education system, which you do inaccurately, by the way. Have you visited a school recently? Have you looked in depth at how schools conduct their business? Have you engaged in any study of the history of reform--it's not teachers or liberals who have "ruined" education. It's social pressures. Parents get in the way as much as anything else--parents who want to be their kids' friends, who don't want to discipline their children, who work against the school system instead of with it. (And by the by, those parents are not all liberals or all conservatives. They are _people_ trying to live and survive, and some are well-intentioned and some are... not.) Most schools I know of want to engage parents and students and hold them to high standards, but when parents piss and moan and threaten frivolous lawsuits, and when kids curse teachers out or act out violently and get away with it... *sigh* I'm going to stop now before I get all worked up and forget my grammar. If you really want to get into an education discussion, we probably need a whole website devoted to that. It seems to me that on political sites, education critics tend to parrot some party line or particular agenda, not really discuss anything. (Oh, yeah, in case you didn't figure it out, I'll out myself: I am a teacher in a *gasp* public school. My kids know my politics, and we respect each other even when we disagree. I have had some ripsnortin', fun, and informative--for me--discussions with these young people. Oh, and I have spent a great deal of time and energy exploring and refining instruction, assessment, and learning. As any teacher should admit, I am not perfect. Any work is a work in progress, and I am one.)
