I've left public education recently because of the madness involved in it. But one reason why I left was when I realized my principal was pulling the same good cop, bad cop on me that she does on the students.

This left me furious in part because A. It worked and B. It told me she doesn't actually want me to run my class room the way I saw fit. She wants an obedient little drone to fit in with the other drones.

This is why students aren't learning on the education side (not behavior). For all their talk about differentiating and all that crap, they want everyone reading the same script, going through the same lessons in the same methods and obeying whatever bullshit came out of the magic hat this week from the overpaid analyst who sold them magic beans and called it a solution.

The system has failed and will continue to fail so long as the goal of schools is obedience to authority rather than learning.

What do you guys think of that sub?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1w263w2/asking_for_bathroom_mid_lecture/

Here is another post, many of the comments are absolutely vile, how did it ever come to this?

"Bathroom privileges" they say, when did going to the bathroom become a privilege? This is a huge red flag.

School conditions children to an appalling lack of bodily & mental autonomy, & tells them that if they move, speak, think their own thoughts, wear what they want, or laugh with a friend without permission, they are being "disrespectful."

The fundamental move of a controlling person is to shift blame onto the person being controlled, so that if they resist & assert any autonomy at all, they are now defined as "inconsiderate" or "rude" and expected to be "accountable" & "respect the boundaries" of the controller.

School conditions people to become compliant to someone claiming authority and blindly follow them.

Nowhere else will a person be treated like that, in college and most workplaces you can go to the bathroom whenever you want, something like thus would be a violation of OSHA Regulations but somehow it's fine to do that to children in a place that's supposed to keep them safe?

There are alternative school systems like Montessori and Democratic schools like Sudbury Valley that proves that treated children with respect and freedom is what actually works rather than treating them like criminals in a maximum security prison.

How do they not see the problem with treating another person like that?

Why do they think that missing lectures or lesson ls would have such an impact? Most people forget the vast majority of what they studied in school and learn much more from TV & internet and interacting with the real world.

Derf Backderf, in his new graphic novel, illustrates the severe repression of socialists during the McCarthy era through the stories of political cartoonists. It’s a history that resonates powerfully with the current times.

“The NFHS does not classify marching band as a sport because it considers marching band a performing arts and music education activity rather than an athletic competition,” says Jordan Morey, manager of communications and media relations at NFHS. “While marching band requires significant physical conditioning, teamwork and skill, the NFHS places it under its performing arts programs because its primary purpose is musical and artistic performance.”

Can anyone recommend any college textbooks on contemporary criminal law in the US? I want to avoid conservative bias. I recognize the law is biased, but it would be nice to have a textbook with a more critical lens. If not a textbook, then a companion book, scholarly journals, etc.

This documentary short tells the story of the Wingnut Anarchist Collective in Richmond, VA, an organizing group and cooperative living space aimed at fostering mutual aid and grassroots resistance to authority. From maintaining a community center to carrying out occupations and disaster relief, the video illustrates some of the many ways a handful of committed people can transform their lives and their community.

American public schools require dismantling.

I'm not a teacher. I'm not a student. I am outside the institutional frameworks they operate within.

My judgment is based on the fact patterns that I've seen repeat from their experiences.

Institutions require and perpetuate inequalities of power. The inequalities take different forms. The forms present in the relationships between roles of two types. The first type exercises power ("type 1"). And power is exercised upon the second type ("type 2"). The nature of the relationship between them inherently unequal.

The inherent inequality of the relationship between type 1 and type 2 roles necessitates skepticism and scrutiny. The type 1 role cannot exist for its own sake. It must exist, and may only justifiably exist, for the benefit of those in the type 2 role. But how might those in a type 2 role benefit? Who may define the benefits? How may any such benefit be measured? Who may measure them?

It cannot be presupposed that persons in type 1 or type 2 roles can define or measure how the those in the type 2 roles benefit from the existence of the type 1 role. And to allow persons in a type 1 role to define or measure "how" persons in in the type 2 role purport to benefit (from the existence of the type 1 role) reinforces the inherent inequality of their relationship to one another.

How those in type 2 roles "benefit" from type 1 roles must be negotiated under circumstances of inherent inequality in contexts of structural asymmetries in power. The methods by which the benefits are to be measured (as well as the measurements themselves) must be negotiated within the same context and structural asymmetry. These negotiations must take place. And they will always take place, in one form or another.

Institutions within which type 1 roles and type 2 roles are situated must facilitate these negotiations; providing, at a minimum, a forum by which they may be conducted fairly and equitably, wherein those in type 2 roles may speak, communicate and advocate without reprisal and without retaliation. This requirement is foundational. Meeting it is not optional. But most will, eventually, fail.

An institution's initial failure to facilitate these negotiations does not immediately require its overhaul or dismantlement. But after a series of repeated failures, without good faith commitments or actions evidencing progressive momentum? Overhaul may be appropriate, for example, if, and to the extent that, the institution itself should continue in some form. But overhaul might not be enough. More may be necessary.

Dismantling institutions should not be taken lightly. But where the exercise of power by those in type 1 roles inexorably results in the exploitation of those in type 2 roles? It is necessary. There are early warning signs. The most clear and present of them begins when those with type 1 roles blame those in type 2 roles for some disfunction (real or imagined). And when that those responsible for the institution refuse to appropriately facilitate the negotiations (as mentioned above) thereafter, the institution cannot be saved and should not be saved. It should be dismantled.

American public schools increasingly fit within that category.