Samuel: Hey Deep Daddio -- talk is cheap. What do you intend to DO about it? (I know you've started to answer this question here, but give us more of a strategic plan if you could, please.) Would you ally yourself with fundamentalist Christian politicians who rant and rave about public schools but who will probably cop out with voucher systems which will make both private and public school systems worse? DADDIO: Good question. I’m fascinated with how Christianity and the Public Education rub each other the wrong way. Not having very good feelings about either of these institutions, I feel it is divine justice that they have to deal each other. Sometimes I froth at the mouth in epileptic ecstasy watching these two evil behemoths expose each other’s insanity to the whole country.
Public Education, however, robbed me of my childhood, whereas Christianity just plain annoyed me in my childhood years. I’ve actually seen good things come indirectly from the influence of Christianity, but Public Education seems to deplete our humanity all the way across the board. Everything it touches turns to shit and, right now, more so than Christianity, its in a position to put the final screws in our coffins and establish a truly self-perpetuating Orwellian nightmare (I’m referring to OBE and other neo-social programming agendas being mandated by the Feds).
I hate both teams, but in the Superbowl of life, I’m obliged to root for the Crazy Christians. I hope they tear the Putrid Public Educators a new asshole. I’d get behind just about anything that would stick it and stick it good to these fucks. Let the Christians have their stupid vouchers – I hope it DOES make the public education system worse. Maybe vouchers will be the boot kick that finally topples this abomination over into a heap of rubble. I’m gonna cum just from THINKING about vouchers.
As far as strategic plans go, I have nothing at the moment that would deserve that description, but I do give considerable thought to what such a strategy might entail. I think of my participation in this forum as a possible breeding ground for a more organized and coordinated assault. Currently, my greatest weapon is my own passionate disdain for this demented institution. I’m quite certain that, given access to the minds of large numbers of kids and parents of public school children, I could plant some very potent seeds of revolt.
I’d like to start, or be part of, a grass roots movement to educate parents and children ABOUT public education: where it comes from, what its for, what its doing right now, how it performs. For example: I think if more parents knew that their child has a 50% chance of coming out the other end of this system as a functional illiterate, they would take alternatives to public education much more seriously. An ad campaign publicizing such statistics could do wonders: newspapers, TV, radio or, with a smaller budget: mail, email, flyers, etc.
I’d favor a strategy that would piss some people off right away, get the boat rocking harder, draw some attention, but without appearing too fanatical. I can see making some borderline slanderous (but defendable) public comments regarding the public school system’s atrocious record and social agendas. Done correctly, this could attract some very interesting lawsuits. Once in court, we’d appeal to Christian congregations around the nation to lend their vocal, moral, and financial support to our cause. We’d use the lawsuits to draw a line in the sand that no self-respecting Christian would dare to stand on the wrong side of. The media, unable to resist the spectacle of indignant Christians, would pick up on all of this eventually. I’m sure that, somewhere and to some degree, this type of event has already unfolded or is currently unfolding, but, regardless, this scenario would be well worth repeating, especially if it was instigated intentionally in a coordinated and planned fashion.
Samuel: Would you encourage lots of people to drop out?….
DADDIO: Either that or encourage kids to bring fake guns, knives and drug "look-alikes" (such as Tic-Tacs) to school thereby invoking the new "zero tolerance" policies that have some parents gasping in disbelief already. Mandatory expulsion or suspension is usually the punishment for violating these policies. Aside from being a very effective way of getting your child out of school, this could have some distinct advantages over just plain withdrawal. Its more political on its face and would be more attractive to the main stream media, it reveals to the parents just how incredibly stupid most of the people are that are in charge of educating their kids, and, I suspect, it could cause a comical train wreck with state truancy laws.
Samuel: ….(Will they get jobs if they can't show their prospective employers a high-school diploma?)
DADDIO: Let’s save their souls first and worry about the jobs later – their just kids for God’s sake. And who says they won’t have a highschool diploma? There are already excellent alternatives to a public highschool diploma (home school, private school, Christian school, correspondence school, GED). A mass exodus from the public schools would provide a fertile customer base for these alternate institutions which would naturally and happily expand to accommodate the influx of new students (necessity is the mother of invention). And this is a market where demand should drive price down instead of up, making these alternatives more accessible to lower income families. (I’m not an economist. I would appreciate being checked on this last point)
Samuel: Would you become a teacher and subvert the system from within?
DADDIO: I don’t think I could muster up enough self-hatred to become a public highschool teacher. I’ll leave that angle to the poor suckers that are already there.
Samuel: …(Won't the students rebel against your imposition of intelligence upon their stupefied brains, as they did against me?)
DADDIO: I don’t see why they would. They don’t rebel against the imposition of the complete STUPIDITY that the teachers place on them now. Of course, if this imposition has resulted in a brand of stupidity that makes students feel threatened by intelligent and novel ideas, then we’ve got a big problem. Is this what happened to you? I’d love to hear more about that. At any rate, that’s one challenge of being a teacher that I might actually enjoy…..corrupting young sell-outs.
Samuel: Would you run for public office, presumably on a school board? (Do you have the credentials to win?)
DADDIO: No. As I’ve explained, I think my place is in more of a grass roots movement that harasses the system from the outside in, incites it to misbehave, and uses its own weaknesses against it.
Samuel: If you think there's some great conspiracy to stupefy America through public education, have you considered the possibility that most of the conspirators are doubtless products of the public school system itself, and thus might too stupid to pull off such a conspiracy?
DADDIO: Yes, I have considered that, but I’m not sure how relevant it is at this point. If the conspirators made no further progress due to their stupidity (or anything else) in implementing their twisted goals, we’d still be doomed as a nation and as a people…..it would just take longer. The schools, in this case, already have the machinery in place (and running on automatic) for manufacturing alarming numbers of numbskulls. The wheels of this machinery, if not interfered with, are still going to continue turning out degenerate morons ad nauseum, and I think just one more generation of illiterate buffoons is going to do us in for good. Of course, this ITSELF could be "Plan A", and, too stupid or not, its already been fully implemented.
Are they smart enough, in the face of individuals such as ourselves, to keep the established machinery of Plan A in place long enough to bring Hell on Earth? No, but they are STUPID enough to. And if we don’t keep sticking our foot up somebody’s ass, then we’ll rot in Hell with no one to blame but ourselves. Bad things happen because good people do nothing.
Samuel: …Or, hypothetically: if the public school system were to be abolished tomorrow, what would happen to the kids whose parents couldn't afford private education, whose parents didn't have time or resources to home-school them? Would they go back to child labor, which is what they did before the system was created? (Maybe this question is predicated upon my suspicion that America is the land of self-absorbed narcissists who don't care about kids or anyone besides themselves, thus perhaps there are worse hells for American kids than public school, hard as this may be for you to imagine...)
DADDIO: I’ve covered this to some degree already, but let’s fill in the gaps a little. The only thing I really have to add here is this: Yes, America is the land of self-absorbed narcissists, but I think you’re underestimating the role of the natural parental instincts of the average American narcissist. A child labor force, instituted too quickly, could meet with some very violent, angry, narcissistic parents, who may not care what happens to the kid next door, but would gladly put his hand through the chest of some martial law fuckwad trying to haul off a miniature version of himself to a children’s work farm. That’s a frog they’ll have to boil reeeaaal slow. Alternative school systems, perhaps even alternative ways of living in general, are ripe for experimentation, implementation, and expansion. Such developments will take up the slack before the "conspirators" even turn on the child labor stove.
Samuel: …All I'm suggesting here is that maybe the problem is with America itself and not just with its public school system... here are some questions I've been asking people, to tease them with the possibility that American education isn't all it's cracked up to being... perhaps you'd be amused to read it...
DADDIO: I didn’t have time to read all of it, but I will. Yes, it’s very amusing. I’m impressed. You seem to be someone that I could learn a thing or two from. I am here to learn as well as preach.
As to your suggestion that the problem is with America itself, well of course it is. Howard Zinn’s "A Peoples History of the United States" will set anyone straight on that point. But wait a minute…..perhaps the REAL problem resides with the whole international community, or with the fallen status of human beings in general, or when Adam bit into that damn apple…..let’s travel backwards in time and lynch that idiot before Eve returns with the forbidden fruit…….
Samuel: IMHO this Net dialogue needs to get a lot closer to what Paulo Freire called "problem-posing education," to ask the question, "what can we do here and now with what we've got?"
DADDIO: My point exactly.
P.S. I’m not familiar with this Friere gentleman. Could you bring me up to speed on him? Thanks.
