Were Freedom and Patriotism Different Then? Immigration Ire and Irony

Something I wrote years ago about freedom to just be home with your own family and still think and learn:

If the home cooking type argument works, then we can add to it the general agreement that the very worst kind of food is the mass-produced institutional food which is packaged, frozen, bought and then reheated and served at the kitchen table, a pale, puny, tasteless and uninspiring version of home cooking imitated by an institution and then re-imitated back into the home. Like some school-at-home curricula I have seen!

Hmm. Presumably librarians don't object to us teaching our own children to read. Far from putting them out of work, we keep their jobs for them by delivering new book-lovers. Maybe that's the real challenge in this issue -- to figure out how to transform public schoolteaching into a service-oriented resource field, populated by learning consultants who need to cultivate willing patrons, instead of clutching so desperately at the chains that bind unwilling ones.

Thing #1:

The whole time I was reading the story about the g/t kids who got the field trip to Ellis Island, I was thinking ANY kid would benefit from that sort of outing. I don't think it's irrelevant. It may be too pre-packaged -- and I have seen my own kids' disdain for that sort of museum experience. But it could be about all of us. How immigration was handled. How not to handle it now. (Not that we need more help with that. )

And this is not to suggest that the g/t kids don't need different things -- they do. But why do we insist on making things so unpalatable for the rest of the school population.

Thing #2:

Another disagreement.

About the protesting ps students -- I don't think they're accomplishing nothing. I don't think they're accomplishing all they could -- like truly appreciating how much power they have (when they aren't in school, the school doesn't get money -- that gets adult attention real quick!). But they are having an impact.

And it's about damned time we saw some rabblerousing in our streets! Goodness knows we've had good cause!

Nance

but not as disagreements.

You give the upside of these groups of kids being out of school to be out into the real world engaging with something more real than canned classroom fare, and I certainly agree there are upsides! You say neither group is having an optimal experience, that they aren't doing and being all they could do and be, and I certainly agree with that too. . .I suggest because School is in their way more than not.

But I'll look again and see if we can find some difference to discuss!

Or maybe you can help me learn something new today - have you ever been to Ellis Island, or have any stories? My daughter is fascinated with it, has done her own geneology research and fancies herself Irish, adores the book and musical Ragtime, etc.

I wasn't dissing Ellis Island as a valid educational experience or marching as valid political protest, just remarking that the only involvement School has in these real world student experiences seems to be making them less real, less free, less personally and socially meaningful -