« Freedom Isn't Free | Main | Good to Know » Swarthmorofascism18 Dec 2007 08:18 am
Despite Jonah Goldberg's notions, it turns out that you can't really major in education at Swarthmore. Sara was also telling me that a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore under any major wouldn't ordinarily qualify you to teach grade school without some additional certification. Comments (26)
what kind of fascist school doesn't let people major in whatever they like? 
"some additional certification" actually is made available to students at Swarthmore.
It's darn strange to see the word "fascism" pop up in three quarters of all comments. It's like Jonah Goldberg imitating Hobbes: "Actually, I just like to say fascism. Fascism fascism fascism fascism fascism fascism!" Hobbes the fictional stuffed animal, of course.
"The quintessential liberal fascist isn't [a fascist]; it is [something that doesn't exist]."
Brown has traditionally had an excellent, if tiny, teacher education program, by the way, of which I'm a proud graduate.
"Sara was also telling me that a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore under any major wouldn't ordinarily qualify you to teach grade school without some additional certification." That's actually a bad thing. Having spent a few years teaching, I can tell you that the "ed school" courses they require for certification are worse than useless. I had a subject matter degree (Mathematics), and that wasn't good enough to teach with. Teaching should operate on an apprenticeship style system. Learning from an experienced teacher has value; learning from an ed school is nothing but seat time. It's a waste of time and money.
It's the Quaker Influence. They're everywhere, controlling the banks and the unions. And those 'meetings' where everyone sits around and achieves 'spiritual communion'-- we all know what that's about.
When I was in grade school, my female teacher (I never asked her where she got her degree) made us all draw Clinton/Gore '92 posters and hung them around our classroom. My friends and I have been fascists ever since.
I'm torn. On the one hand, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism is clearly the dumbest thing that any human being has ever produced out of fibrous material. On the other hand, Swat sucks. So, I'm torn. He shoulda laid off Brown, I guess.
I find it amusing that he's using the term "Friendly Fascism" at all, since it has a very particular meaning and derivation that is totally different from and opposed to what he's using it for. "Friendly Fascism" was coined as part of the liberal critique of Reagan, specifically his policy -- advanced most prominently by Jeanne Kirkpatrick -- to forgive regimes almost any authoritarian tendency or human rights violation so long as they denounced communism loudly enough. Bit ironic, really.
Gee-- you mean, like the torturers and murderers in Chile and Argentina, and the apartheid regime in South Africa? Conservatives love to pretend that liberals heart communism, but no Democrat who's ever been near the presidency, or the Senate, would ever make excuses for Castro the way that the Reagan Right did for those regimes, and Jonas Savimbi, and Guatemala, and El Salvador. And Reagan saw fit to sell arms to Iran-- funny, given that the conservative line du jour is that We Have Always Been at War with Iran, at least since 1979. Oh, and the mujahadeen in Afghanistan. What ever happened to those guys?
Hey, remember, this argument has never been made in such detail or with such care. Hiring a fact-checker would have been superfluous.
Teaching should operate on an apprenticeship style system. Learning from an experienced teacher has value; learning from an ed school is nothing but seat time. It's a waste of time and money. Posted by James Robertson | December 18, 2007 9:08 AM In "Annie Hall" Woody Allen notes that "Those who can't do, teach, and those who can't teach team gym." That's not quite right. Those who can't teach teach "education". As someone who went through teacher certification and took education classes - and not coincidentally is no longer teaching - I second James's point. I also think they should replace student teaching with a paid apprenticeship lasting at least one full school year. It would be far more valuable than student teaching and produce far better teachers out of the gate.
Very true Elvis. People forget that some of the biggest mistakes JFK and LBJ ever made was attacking popular communist-leaning regimes in Cuba and Vietnam, one of which almost led to nuclear war and the other led to the longest (and one of the most unnecessary wars in US history). They were anything but insufficiently anti-communist. I wonder if Goldberg's book means that conservatives have moved from their "liberal hippies are pinko commies" (which, while BS, at least was closer to liberalism than fascism is to liberalism on a socialism to fascism left-right linear political scale) to "liberals are somehow right-wing extremists," which is beyond borderline retarded into dunce cap land.
I learned more in my semester student teaching and the week long workshop I did in pedagogy as part of my graduate work than I ever did in an education class. It would have helped if education programs were more evenly focused between elementary and secondary education. Most of the theory is on teaching young children. I take that back, educational psychology, while still geared for teachers working with younger children, was fascinating. It was also taught by someone with a degree in psychology. I've never quite figured out what the rest of the education department had a degree in. I think a year long internship program would be invaluable for beginning teachers. Teaching is something you learn by doing. All the education and learning theory in the world cannot make up for what you learn as an active teacher. As for Goldberg's comment, I'm not clear how a grade-school teacher would even have the time for indoctrinating a class with so-called liberal fascism ideology. Most days, I'm doing good to make it through my lesson plan.
To sum up to idiot conservatives, you can't argue that somewhat is a pinko homo god-hating communist, a racist anti-Semitic fascist and a crazy suicidal Islamist-sympathizer all at the same time. If such a person does exist, their head would explode in cognitive dissonance before they could put on their jeans backwards and host a roundtable on Fox News.
When I was in high school, I got into a small argument with my sister over a friend of hers who was going to Brown to get an education degree, based on the fact that (at the time) I thought it was silly to spend more on annual tuition than your annual salary would be upon graduation. Had I known that her friend would also be indoctrinated into the "friendly" version Waffen SS, the argument would have been entirely different.
I love Goldberg's dig at ed degrees. It would be so much more credible coming from someone with something other than a Poli Sci BA. It's like the guy who drains the port-a-potty tank making fun of garbagemen for having a messy job. Of course, what do I know? I just have a history BA. Well, also a math BS, a comp sci BS and a law degree.
That's an argument that's never before been made with such detail or with such care, or with such onanism, or with such schizophrenia. Indeed, it's never before been made at all. And for good reason. What a stupid, pampered weenie.
Teaching grade school is harder than anything Jonah Goldberg has ever done or will ever do, and makes a greater contribution to the betterment of society. The additional certification that you need to teach includes courses, but also practice teaching. As any good Marxist will tell you (I _did_ go to Swarthmore), both theory and praxis are important. Especially if one is bent on forming a cadre to bring on the inevitable socialist paradise. Because, you know, grade school teachers drive the political agenda of this nation, and all that.
I might make some sort of a joke, but I fear that the Teachers' Union shock troops would have me rubbed out within moments.
Mrs. Lenin writes: "Teaching grade school is harder than anything Jonah Goldberg has ever done or will ever do" This is not entirely true. Jonah once brought Dick Cheney and two Podhoretzes to a roaring, simultaneous climax. (This is referred to as a "Triple Axis of Evil.")
Gee-- you mean, like the torturers and murderers in Chile and Argentina, and the apartheid regime in South Africa? Precisely. Also El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Among others.
Well, hell, Matt: of course you'd expect a Fascist to lie and SAY that she had an education degree from Swarthmore. (You can usually identify subversives by these little slipups, such as their tendency to smoke foreign brands of cigarettes.)
Comments closed January 01, 2008. |
Search
Subscribe to this blog by Email Books by Matthew Yglesias
Recent Comments
Recent Posts
Weekly Archives
Categories
|
Copyright © 2008 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
| 
Heads in the Sand.jpg){kind=link}
Those that can't do it teach it, those that can't teach it teach fascism.
Posted by steve duncan | December 18, 2007 8:23 AM