Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Half-Baked Pedagogical Thought Of The Day 

If our whole American way of life is a great war of ideas, and librarians are the arms dealers selling weapons to both sides (James W. Quinn), it is frustrating -- for school librarians, at least -- that the National Education Association spends membership dues on non-educational political causes at all...and especially sad that it does not do so impartially.

Did you know 97% of the National Education Association's politically spent dollars go to liberal and Democratic causes, from the Democratic National Committee to special interest groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), People for the American Way, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the Human Rights Campaign Fund, and many others? (Source)

How can we claim to help students make their own conclusions about what they believe if we continue to allow moral standpoints and radical beliefs to proliferate throughout our pedagogy? As an educator, if it weren't for the moral issues clouding their own mandate (which themselves seem ironically contradictory to the rest of their materials), I'd join the Conservative Educator's Caucus today just for their strong belief that the National Education Association

...not support or politically align with organizations whose mission is not primarily education related or organizations that do not represent the compensation interests of teachers...

Instead, though I'm not going to go so far as avid libertarian realist John Perry Barlow did in switching his political affiliation from Republican to Democrat merely to pick the lesser of two mandated moral agendas despite increased commodification of such agendas within the neo-liberal Democratic universe, I guess I'll just continue to vote party, not politician, and then carp from afar at the corrupt political game.

Why must moral issues be part of political positioning, anyway? Unless it hurts you directly, leave me my rights, and get out of my bedroom, damnit. And don't spend my public school teachers' dues on the erosion of those rights, either. Not when there's so many cash-poor educational and teacher-support initiatives out there.

posted by boyhowdy | 9:38 PM |

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