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June 2, 2018

Utter Contempt

By Susan Lee Schwartz

I am writing a piece called "Utter Contempt;" Thus, I have collected a number of links that demonstrates that the behavior we are witnessing defines 'utter contempt.' Here, I share with you, but a few examples of utter contempt . Read the last one because it defines 'utter contempt' as the result of the "dramatic change of direction" and the loss of humanity promoted by our President, our Congress and our Supreme Court

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President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump
(Image by tammy anthony baker)
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I am writing a piece called "Utter Contempt;" Thus, I have collected links that demonstrates how the behavior we are witnessing defines utter contempt. I share with you in this post, a few examples of utter contempt but the letter from Sandy Hook Promise, at the end --defines, this moment in time. Please read the letter.

"Is the United States Losing Its Humanity?" The country is being steered towards a "dramatic change of direction" that is rewarding the rich and punishing the poor b yblocking access even to the most meager necessities."Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur who acts as a watchdog on extreme poverty around the world, has issued a withering critiqueof the state of America today. Asked to define "ruination," Alston said: "Severe deprivation of food and almost no access to healthcare."

* The Supreme Courtmakesitimpossible for workers to bargain for their rights, undoing decades of effort by the unions to make collective bargaining a right. And, Womens' Rights are at Stake., c.org/resources/women's-rights-stake-why-federal-courts-matter-women/

* The Congress gives a port of gold to the richest people, and wants to pay for this grand theft of our national wealth, by farther trashing all the social programs that offer health care, food or education that are necessary to 'provide for the common good.

Wall Street banks have been handed $16 trillion in bailouts and other subsidies by the Federal Reserve and Congress at nearly zero percent interest since the 2008 financial collapse. They have used this money, as well as the money saved through the huge tax cuts imposed last year, to buy back their own stock, raising the compensation and bonuses of their managers and thrusting the society deeper into untenable debt peonage. The CEO of Disney gets 400 million and the workers get zilch! Teachers, Not the 1%, Deserve Raises. As of 2016, weekly teacher pay in the U.S. was 17%lower than comparable workers. In a 2018 survey, 18% of U.S. teachers reported working additional jobs to pay the bills.

* The Executive Office is run by a the consummate charlatan. Read this Atlantic Magazine piece, which demonstrates how the total lack of accountability empowers and perpetuates his scandalous behavior. His tweets model contempt. Roseann's behavior is no accident. The Impossible Poverty of American Discourse

Maybe "The Antidote to Trump IS Decency" but with the 24/7media circus out there and the anarchy of cyberspace, it will be a hard push, unless we all get busy" not just to bring back our INSTITUTION of Public Education but tobring back civility. "History is not going to be kind to those who were silent" about Trump's attack on truth, norms, civility and so much"

THIS model of Utter C-o-n-t-e-m-p-t at the top-- promotes this, which I received from which I received from Sandy Hook Promise:

"Susan, my beautiful butterfly-- Dylan's murder --isn't a game. My baby boy was shot at least five times in his first-grade classroom. He died in the arms of his special education assistant when he was just six years old."

"Yet more than five years after Dylan was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, a company called Revived Games has turned that day into a game. They have created a video game where the objective is to murder people in a school -- and even after it was removed from one gaming platform, they're still planning to release it."

"This is absolutely sickening. It disgusts me to think that someone saw what happened to my son, and every person injured or killed in a school shooting, and thought it would make a fun game for other people to play. They're actually trying to make money by glorifying school shootings."

"I'm demanding that Revived not release or sell this game, and I need you to join your voice with mine to make sure we're heard. Will you stand with me by signing our petition right now?"

Please sign our petition to demand that Revived Games not release the "Active Shooter" video game and tell them that school shootings are not a game.

"This video game makes light of Dylan's murder and the deaths of everyone who has been killed by gun violence. It's abhorrent. I know the real toll school shootings take. I'll never see my little boy again, and that's a reality I still struggle to live with. "

"Thank you for standing with me today to stop this game from being distributed."

"With love,

Nicole Hockley (Dylan's mom)"



Authors Website: http://www.speakingasateacher.com

Authors Bio:

I began teaching in 1963,; Ba and BS in Education -Brooklyn College. I have the equivalent of 2 additional Master's, mainly in Literacy Studies and Graphic Design. I was the only seventh grade teacher of English from 1990 -1999 at East Side Middle School, which opened in 1990. My students placed amongst the highest reading and (eventually, when the ELA tests were instituted) writing scores in NYC. This attracted Harvard, looking for teachers who could be matched to "The Eight Principles of Learning", the thesis by Harvard's Lauren Resnick, that powered the Standards project, funded by Pew.


In 1998, based on the assessment of my teacher-practice by the Learning & Research Development Center, at the University of Pittsburgh, which studied my teacher-practice after I was chosen to participate in THE Standards project , I was awarded the NYSEC (New York State English Council)) "Educator of Excellence of Award," a much coveted and PRESTIGIOUS award. I have been included five times, in "Who's Who Among American Educators". Now that I am "googleable" as former students tell me, I get scores of letters from former students describing the enormous impact that I had on their life.


Currently I am a freelance travel writer and photographer, but I also write widely, about real education reform in order to change the national conversation to where it needs to be -- ABOUT LEARNING, and what makes genuine learning possible, or impossible, rather on the bogus subject of poor teachers and teacher standards. Learning how to learn--critical thinking--not rote memorization-- is the object of the PRACTICE OF PEDAGORY for which teacher who wish to PRACTICE THIS PROFESSION get a degree and a license.

I write because people with loud voices and personal agendas have destroyed the practice of pedagogy, and silenced the voice of the only ones who can set the record straight, the grunt on the line -- the teacher-practitioner--a genuine professional trained to know exactly what is needed to facilitate learning in each particular classroom.

I speak as a teacher and write because:


* those who have the national stage, are pushing tests, and pointing to bad teaching, as the reasons schools fail, but that is pointing in the wrong direction and thus a genuine solution and real reform eludes the people of this country..


* the national conversation has been usurped by businessmen and pundits with no understanding of the emergent learner, or the actual classroom practices that enable creative and critical thought. (Everyone who went to school believes they know what is needed "to teach".)


* What is REALLY NECESSARY for children to LEARN in school, is pre-school literacy, parent involvement in shaping attitudes and monitoring home activities, and classrooms where the teacher-practitioner sets the agenda based on curriculum objectives and the knowledge of pedagogy, rather than AN AGENDA SET BY some administrator who never taught, and who promotes the scripts and tests that enrich privateers who thrive on failing schools.


I speak as a teacher and write because:

* corrupt administrators, use a process that targets senior teacher-practitioners, despite exceptional dedication and huge success in their career, for harassment and egregious, criminal deprivation of due process.


* there is a hidden and scandalous deprivation of due process -- allowed and empowered by unions which do not fulfill their obligation and contract for immediate investigation and fair, promt, grievance procedures, thus permitting a "waiting game" which prevents due process.


* the national assumption expressed in the media is that the unions protect teachers BUT the truth is the unions have looked away from the breaking of tenure, and THUS, as they are the legal arm that protects teachers, teachers have lost their civil rights, and have no genuine access to the courts.

I speak as a teacher and write because:


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