I’m wondering what the teachers who taught Scott Walker and John Kasich think about their former students now.
I offer for your consideration that teachers throughout the nation have the greatest opportunities ever to really motivate their students to learn like never before. History teachers can get their students involved in learning how their governments can work against the interests of their own electorate while attempting to hide powerful truths from the same. English teachers can use this time to show students how politicians ‘frame’ issues to focus people’s attention from what they need to see to what the politicians ‘want them to see. Math teachers have a chance like never before to teach their students how people can lie with statistics, manipulate data, and manufacture economic fear when, in truth, there should be none. Let’s get students involved in every case. From debate to civics, to economics and media. If there are no such courses any more, then insinuate the knowledge into the existing topics.
Engage your students by asking them:
What were the founding ideals underlying the birth of this nation?
If all men were created equal, why did we have slavery? (Human rights, economics, all sorts of discoveries await.
Have students define, “What are Entitlements?” If the working people willingly contributed monies from their pay checks every week for decades so they would have retirement security, why is this system now labeled an ‘entitlement’? Was it not their money in the first place?
Ask, “Why was George W. Bush so eager to privatize social security? Was it because the system was broken, or because the investment community saw this HUGE pile of money that it couldn’t tap?’
The lessons of history are replete in the present. Teachers, start teaching real world issues and light a creative fire under your students, College teachers should do the same, and stimulate thought throughout academia.
Next time a politician says he’s going to do something like Ohio’s governor did (to get a handle on out of control economics, perhaps someone will have the good sense to ask, “How?” before the election.
Joe Malgeri
Other Questions for your consideration:
If the republicans were so concerned that our stimulus spending , underpinned by taking on debt, why did they push so hard to fund the $800 Billion in tax breaks for the richest among us by throwing the nation further in debt?
Add your own here:
Students. Please respond! Are you up to the challenge to answer these questions, and more of your own making? March on! This is your future were talking about!å
