2 + 2 = Global Warming

Just when you thought liberals had exhausted all avenues of opportunity to screw up the education of this nation’s children, along comes the bright idea to infuse the subject of math with socialist liberal themes and messages. New York University’s Diane Ravitch, introduces the new cutting edge in the liberal contribution to our children’s indoctrination, oops… I mean education: “Ethnomathametics”.

In an article she wrote over at the Opinion Journal, Ms. Ravitch describes ethnomathematics and the motives behind it:

"Now mathematics is being nudged into a specifically political direction by educators who call themselves "critical theorists." They advocate using mathematics as a tool to advance social justice. Social justice math relies on political and cultural relevance to guide math instruction. One of its precepts is "ethnomathematics," that is, the belief that different cultures have evolved different ways of using mathematics, and that students will learn best if taught in the ways that relate to their ancestral culture. From this perspective, traditional mathematics--the mathematics taught in universities around the world--is the property of Western civilization and is inexorably linked with the values of the oppressors and conquerors. The culturally attuned teacher will learn about the counting system of the ancient Mayans, ancient Africans, Papua New Guineans and other "nonmainstream" cultures."

"Partisans of social-justice mathematics advocate an explicitly political agenda in the classroom. A new textbook, "Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers," shows how problem solving, ethnomathematics and political action can be merged. Among its topics are: "Sweatshop Accounting," with units on poverty, globalization and the unequal distribution of wealth. Another topic, drawn directly from ethnomathematics, is "Chicanos Have Math in Their Blood." Others include "The Transnational Capital Auction," "Multicultural Math," and "Home Buying While Brown or Black." Units of study include racial profiling, the war in Iraq, corporate control of the media and environmental racism. The theory behind the book is that "teaching math in a neutral manner is not possible." Teachers are supposed to vary the teaching of mathematics in relation to their students' race, sex, ethnicity and community."

This is rich. How do they come up with stuff? Little Johnny and little Sally might not know how to balance a checkbook, but, by golly they’ll know where they’re told to stand on global warming and other liberal issues! Is it really any wonder our public school system is in trouble and heading in a downward spiral?

This is just another example of blatant liberal plans for the systematic brainwashing of America’s children, from Kindergarten to the voting booth, with their socialist claptrap. If this is not a deliberate attempt to push a liberal socialist agenda, then it would serve to indicate that when it comes to American Education, the idiots are running the asylum. Basically, we have allowed a bunch of idiots who have been educated beyond their mental capacity to be in charge of the education of our nation’s most valuable asset: her children.

If this nation is serious about ensuring that “no child is left behind”, then I would suggest we start by leaving the liberals behind. Here are just some of liberal educational ideas that have directly contributed to the downfall of American public education:

- Outcome Based Education: the loopy idea that no one gets an “A” because it might hurt other children’s feelings who didn’t get an “A”, even though they didn’t study enough or do the hard work to earn one.

- Creative Spelling: there’s no need to hurt little Johnny’s feelings just because he spells poorly, or better yet, it’s not that he misspells words, that’s just his creative self-expression.

- “Sally Has Two Mommies” and other liberal themes injected into reading curriculum.

- Evolution taught as fact, rather than a theory in science classes.

- Sex Education: hey, let’s praise homosexuality, pass out condoms, demonstrate how put on condoms, and supply kids with the locations of nearest abortion clinics, and oh, by the way, did I mention praise homosexuality?

As long as we continue to allow academicians with a socialist political agenda to experiment with our public school education, we are going to continue to graduate students who aren’t fully prepared to be successful in the job market. Even worse, the nation’s next leaders will be a class of citizens who are not only poorly educated, but parrots of the dangerous anti-American, socialist propaganda that has been systematically drilled into their heads.

It’s high time we throw out all of the idiotic liberal agenda that is poisoning the minds of our young, and return to the basics of education: reading writing and arithmetic. While we’re at it, let’s teach critical thinking skills so that we don’t allow idiotic liberal drivel to infect our public education again a few generations down the road.