http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/featu ... t_open2010
Yeah! Art and music classes are being canceled, but NOT sports!Topic:
Education
Failing schools will drag the economy down with them
Our schools create a kind of capital more important than anything Goldman Sachs produces, and they need our help
Monday, Mar 8, 2010 15:09 EST
By Robert Reich
Any day now, the Obama administration will announce $4.35 billion in extra federal funds for under-performing public schools. Thatâ??s fine, but relative to the financial squeeze all the nationâ??s public schools now face it's a cruel joke. The recession has ravaged state and local budgets, most of which arenâ??t allowed to run deficits. Thatâ??s meant major cuts in public schools and universities, and a giant future deficit in the education of our people.
Across America, schools are laying off thousands of teachers. Classrooms that had contained 20 to 25 students are now crammed with 30 or more. School years have been shortened. Some school districts are moving to four-day school weeks. After-school programs have been canceled; music and art classes, terminated. Even history is being chucked.
Pre-K programs have been shut down. Community colleges are reducing their course offerings and admitting fewer students. Public universities, like the one I teach at, have raised tuitions and fees. That means many qualified students wonâ??t be attending. Last year the nation committed $700 billion to bail out Wall Street banks, the engines of Americaâ??s financial capital, because we were told weâ??d face economic Armageddon if we didnâ??t.
Weâ??ve got our priorities backwards. Our schools are the engines of our human capital, and if we donâ??t bail out public education we face a bigger economic Armageddon years from now. Financial capital moves instantly around the globe to wherever it can earn the best return. Human capital -- the skills and insights of our people -- is the one resource thatâ??s uniquely American, on which our future living standards uniquely depend.
Starting immediately, the federal government should give states and local governments interest-free loans to make up for all school and university budget shortfalls. The loans can be repaid when the recession is over and local and state tax revenues revive. Over the longer term we must shift incentives away from financial capital toward human capital. A tiny one half of one percent tax on all financial transactions would generate about $200 billion a year, according to the Economic Policy Institute. That might put a crimp on Wall Street bonuses but itâ??s enough to fund early childhood education, smaller K-12 classes, and lower tuitons and fees for public higher education.
The Street's financial capital is important to the American economy, but over the long term the classroomâ??s human capital is absolutely crucial.
Art and music is almost as essential as science and math, because art and music enriches our culture and culture has a civilizing influence on the human race, while sports only teaches aggression and brutality, another words, uncivilized behavior.
History is also important.
Of course, since we live in a complex technological society, science and math should always be given top priority. But history is also very important.
When I was in school, science was my favorite subject, especially Astronomy.
Now, many of my history classes were kind of boring because it was mostly wrote memorization of names of people and places, and dates. But there are ways to make history classes more exciting.
During summer vacations, I would go to the public library to check out books and I would come home with a load of library books, mostly Astronomy.
But one does not read up on Astronomy without also getting some history along with it.
When I read about how Copernicus back in the 1500s came out with his theory of the sun-centered solar system verses the earth-centered system (the Helio-centric verses the Geo-centric system) I also learned that when Copernicus wrote his book titled De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) he did not have his book published until shortly before his death in 1543, because he knew that once published it would be a source of controversy.
Back then, the Roman Catholic Church held to the belief that the sun and the planets revolved around the earth, while Copernicus said the earth and all the planets revolved around the sun while only the moon revolved around the earth.
Copernicus died after his book was published, and he was found laying peacefully on his back on his bed with the first published copy of his book in his hands.
Then in the 1600s Galileo was the first astronomer to use a telescope shortly after the invention of the "optik glass" as it was called back then. He saw that Venus went through phases just like the moon going from a thin crescent to full phase and back to crescent phase again. This proved that Venus revolved around the sun and NOT around the earth. He also discovered that Jupiter had four moons revolving around it. All of his observations proved that the earth and all the planets revolved around the sun. Galileo also published his observatons.
Galileo's observations and theories cause quit a controversy and got him into a lot of trouble with the top officials in the Catholic Church and The Holy Office. He was brought before the Inquisition, charged for the crime of heresy, interrogated for many hours, was even threatened with torture which of course wasn't carried out, but he was forced to sign a confession saying that his assertions that the earth and planets revolved around the sun were in error. After he recanted, he was placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.
Also, the writings of Copernicus and Galileo were placed on the index of forbidden literature by the Holy Office of the Roman Catholic Church. It was not until 1979 when the Catholic Church finally apologized for what they did to Galileo and officially pardoned him.
Yeah! too little too late!!!
So, one can not read about Astronomy without also getting some history along with it. And it was from reading about Astronomy, and the history of Astronomy, that I learned about the Inquisition and The Holy Office.
And so, I started checking out any books that I could find in public libraries about the Inquisition. I never learned anything about the Inquisition in history classes when I went to school, so I had to go to the public libraries and the University library at NMSU when I was living in Las Cruces New Mexico.
The Inquisition has a long bloody history from about 1100 to about 1830 and during that 730 year period of history, over 60 million innocent people were either tortured to death, or burned at the stake or executed in other ways. The Inquisition officially ended in 1830 with the last person being burned at the stake for witchcraft in Mexico.
As I had mentioned so many times before, I'm in the process of converting to Judaism and I go the Synagogue on Saturday mornings for Torah studies and Shabbot services.
Anyway . . . . . one of the members of my congregation, his great grandfather living in Mexico was accused of witchcraft and executed sometime after 1830 when the Inquisition was to be officially over. So, I actually know somebody who's ancestor was falsely wrongly of witchcraft and burned at the stake after 1830, and I have heard of a couple more cases that occurred after 1830 when the Inqusition was supposed to be officially over.
So, I really don't believe that the Inquisition is really over yet. Not by a long shot!
There was McCarthyism back in the 1950s and a lot of innocent people were falsely accused of being communists. McCarthyism was just another "witch hunt" a modern latter day Inquisition of sorts.
No, it's very important to continue teaching history in school, because we need to know where we came from, and who our ancestors were. But what we need in not the white-washed accounts of history as taught in our schools, but the deep dark aspects of our past.
So, I scrounge around in the history section of our libraries and I like to dig up the dirt and throw it in people's faces and rub their noses in it. I once came across an old book published way back in 1900 and the pages were yellow with age. It was titled, "A Short History Of The Inquisition" by someone named Ingersoll. The title was a misnomer because it was anything but a short history. The book had over 2000 pages.
History should not be dropped from the school curriculum. If school budgets are tight, and they're dropping art and music, then they should also drop sports and start firing athletic coaches.
History is obviously very important. Not the white-washed versions as presently taught in our schools, but the deep dark dirty version with the whole rotten truth!
Those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it!
I'm fat and sassy! I love to sing & dance & stomp my feet & really rock your world!
Nice to see u back.
