Equal Education is the Bedrock of Society

Equal Education is the Bedrock of Society
Nomad Notes 1/20/2020

I have wandered to Portugal and back without writing, but more of that in a later blog.

Word for the day, METACOGNITION: Being aware of how you learn and what you have learned. We have a capacity for this as humans, usually from adolescence, but sometimes earlier. 

If you are in the practice of thinking about yourself and your life, metacognition seems to happen naturally once you hit “the middle third” of life, and by the time you are rounding out that era, you — well, I — can see my life as chapters in a book, all of which have brought me to the present chapter.

The present chapter is one in which my ANGER at our corrupt president has surpassed FEAR and SELF-DOUBT as a songwriter, and I now have understood what it feels like to have a song come through me. Apparently I AM worthy of that experience after all. 

Our present day is also an era in which the video image has taken over society. So I am choosing, in this chapter of my life, to create artistic work that is fulfilling to me, and that speaks the language of Now. At this time of critical societal challenge, that must contain music and images that can be of help, with message, with compassion, and with hope.

Back to thinking back.

It appears I have taken my father’s career path, in my own way. Teaching for stability and mission; performing for creative fulfillment and community with other performers. The songwriting now seems to reflect all of that. 

Education. I’ve come to respect Education; to see the changes it can create in a child, in me, in a group, and in society. I do believe Education is part of the fundamental bedrock of a compassionate society.

Our country needs national education standards and national teacher standards with egalitarian pay. I believe we will not have the ever-fleeting EQUALITY I dream of if we cannot give EVERY CHILD an EQUAL START with an Education. That includes children who speak other languages or have special educational needs.

Heavens! Can you imagine the effect that would have on the prison system, just for starters? We need an education system that educates every child to be able to DO something that society needs for it to keep going and improve. We are a work in progress, each one of us and society as a whole. 

An ignorant person can be DUPED by propaganda or by other people. We are seeing the effects of that play out as the tragedy of criminality and corruption unfolds before our eyes. It is already more than a screenplay could cover. It’s a mini-series in the making, and we are living it. And it’s not over. 

An ignorant boy from Queens made it through the education system because his family was rich. He even graduated business school, so how could he have turned out to be so dangerously uneducated?

Because he had LEARNING DIFFERENCES that were not understood at the time. I know, because not too many miles away from Queens, right about the same time, my brother also had learning differences. And nothing could be done for him at the time except put him in what was cordially referred to as “THE DUMB CLASS.” At the time, Special Education was not developed as it is today, so if you had processing issues or dyslexia or other differences, either academic or psychological or emotional, you went to the same class.

And everyone made fun of you.

My brother did not emotionally survive that experience, and neither did the ignorant boy from Queens.

The ignorant boy from Queens developed his own coping mechanisms. His money and his enablers, eventually, through the years, put him in a position to be DUPED by a foreign power to become their corrupt puppet.

That is where we stand in the mini-series right now, today, as of this writing, as the reverberations are felt around the world. 

EVERYONE needs to be educated with the same standards. So there is no “elite” class and there are no “rednecks.” No ignorant credulous folk who believe the propaganda heard on Fox News. And there are no “dumb kids.”

That is why EQUAL EDUCATION  is the  BEDROCK of society. I’ve been teaching for years, but I get it now. 

NOTES:
NOVEMBER 10, 2020; WASHINGTON POST OP ED
Entertainer, author and beloved NPR radio personality Garrison Keillor has had plenty to say about Donald Trump during and after Election Day. On November 10, an article about Keillor’s Washington Post op-ed went viral. Keillor wrote: “Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out, and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president.”

SEPTEMBER 17, 2019; COMMON DREAMS (common dreams.org)
Why Trump Can’t Learn: An Educated Guess by a Veteran Teacher
Dyslexia may explain a lot about the twisted behavior of the president.
by Harriet Feinberg Ed.D, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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