Marni, is she accurately parsing Ted Sizer at the end of the article?
Doesn't her analogy of sharecropping as equivalent to school garden seem terribly fallacious?
I mean, I see some of her points, but could she be right that these school gardens are responsible for the achievement gap between white students and Hispanic or African American students?
Discuss.
Haven't had the attention span/time to read the whole article, but I do think it's an interesting point/flaw in any movement that romanticizes physical labor and self-sustenance that most of us fairly well off Westerners will and have never had to do. The positive trade-offs that come with all the trappings, good and bad, of modern technologies are very real, and it always seems a little tacky to me when people get self righteous about their decision to "live green" or "eat local". For most people, that's not a decision they can make one way or the other.
ReplyDeleteThat's probably not what the article is about, but the opening few paragraphs just brought that thought to my mind.
I dunno. I'm kind of on a pro-modern-society kick for the moment.
Ok, not modern society. Pro-access-to-medicine-and-leisure-time-in-exchange-for-a-little-bit-of-existential-despair.
ReplyDeleteKay, I'm reading it right now and it's pretty snarky. Kinda funny, but I don't think quite on point. Also, what middle schooler is going to be writing a paragraph, or anything, about The Crucible?
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