Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The Kindle is Better than Public Schools. Kneel before its mighty visage.

Here is your teacher. Revere it as I do
for it will save the world.
It will remove the shackles of
the evil teachers from the necks
of our precious children.
Deus in Machina. Amen.
I read, with some amusement, A World without Schoolteachers by Richard F. Miniter over at American Thinker.

The Kindle and Nook may make for not only the most important advance in reading since Gutenberg, but also, quite likely, a major lesson in unintended consequences. Especially for the educational establishment, because for the first time in history, Americans should be able to envision a future without public-school teachers -- indeed, a future without public-school administrators or state departments of education with their rigidly enforced, politically correct social-transformation curriculum. A future without onerous school taxes, "education president(s)," self-preening school boards, or million-dollar classrooms. But most happily, a future without a single supercilious finger wagging in our face as we're forever lectured about how much a securely tenured, part-time, self-important, overpaid class of public employees "cares" about our sons and daughters. Really, really, really cares. And, of course, knows much better than we do how to bring them up. And it's all possible because these cheap, handheld, downloadable reading devices such as Kindle and Nook now give parents a choice between tutoring and classroom education.
If only I'd known. It seems so simple. It seems so perfect. So ... egalitarian and utopian.

Call me when it works.

3 comments:

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  2. I'm pretty sure they said the same thing about the printing press. The printing press was way more revolutionary than the Kindle. No, I don't expect it to work--it takes a pretty unusual student to learn everything from books.

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  3. Yes because there is never anyone who misinterpreted a book before or didn't know enough about its context to gain a true understanding.

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