Paul Cancellieri's Library tagged education →  View Popular

Well, maybe. It’s also worth thinking about what Neil
Postman wrote, in Technopoly:

“…those who cultivate competence in
the use of a new technology become an elite group that is granted undeserved
authority and prestige by those who have no such competence.”

In a society that reveres the new, there aren’t many people
speaking up for preserving what is good and real in old-fashioned learning. You
don’t hear many people these days saying they wish their children would write poems
in a secret diary, master singing in harmony, plant and tend a garden, make ice
cream or watch the stars over time. Why should they? These experiences and products are now readily
available without personal effort or involvement.

I’m sure that we could gather quantitative information on
our students’ preferences for any number of things. Mrs. X would certainly have
received high marks. Postman again:

To a man with a
hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a man with a computer, everything
looks like data.

Nate's opinions seem to represent the general thinking of most teachers towards education.  We constantly talk about "the system" as some nebulous, dark entity that is manipulating schools from behind a dark curtain somewhere.  Most of the time, we figure that ol' Madge Spellings and W are hidden behind that curtain pulling the strings of the marionet, too.   

What we fail to realize is that "the system" is really network of people that includes parents, business leaders, teachers, community advocates, retirees---all of whom have equal opportunity to select leaders that have clearly delinated plans for education.  Even if Nate's right (And who can't envision a legion of W's henchmen manipulating public will.  Dick Cheney would make a great Sith Lord, after all), to overlook the fact that these leaders----and the entire legislative branch of the federal government---were selected by the general public is supremely arrogant.