Remember The Bob Newhart Show? The one in which is was a psychologist. Anyway, there used to be a drinking game associated with the show. Every time that someone on the show said "Hi, Bob," you were to take a shot (I preferred Jack Daniels) of whatever alcohol was available. At the end of the show everyone would be quite zoinked from all the shots consumed in the half hour. I once counted the amount of times "Hi, Bob" was said on a show. It came to about 45 mentions.
So why do I bring this up? In watching the 6:33 interview, Lasher used the term "Students First" or some other type of derivative 6 times, and this is not even counting the amount of mentions by Errol Louis.
But is is not only Lasher who wears out this phrase to know end. It is all the deformers. "Students first, students first, students first, blah, blah, yadda, yadda yadda...." The more it is said by these people the less and less meaning it has. Not that it ever had any meaning to these types in the past. It's an empty, hollow phrase that means nothing. Like a dorm director once shared with me after getting nailed for the umpteenth time getting nailed with a keg in my room, "Your sorrys mean nothing.
So how do we deal with these deformers and their overuse of "students first?" Simple. I propose a new drinking game. Every time you see a deformer on TV, get some friends, some shot glasses, and your favorite distilled spirits and sit around and have a shot every time you hear "students first."
Watching the deformers will become so much more tolerable.
If "students first" is the mantra,we should have the speaker explain how their policies will help students. The forces of "free market" and "privatize" have already drowned kids in a pool of self-centered consumerism and family-destroying profiteering (speculation/investment/free-trade/multi-nationalism...). As our students and schools suffer, when compared to schools in places that test less, pay teachers more, and have more equitable society (or those where society might be less equitable but only the best and brightest go onward and upward), is the response to follow more successful models? Is it pointed out that kids with resources perform very well? No. The response is do even more of the stupid stuff.Funnel more money up and away from the foundation. Test even more, and make it the cornerstone of teaching. "Students first" is not even true, and Mike Wallace woulda tore a new one in one of these clowns."Stay the course", "Cake walk", "Shock and awe", "investors and job creators"...somewhere right now, people are gathered somewhere very expensive, figuring out how to get more money and fool more people using "students first".
ReplyDeleteLong ago, I was taught that "Students First" actually means "Screw the teachers." This definition has passed the test of time.
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