Monday, October 11, 2010

Learning About Old Dead White Men

I fully expect politically-correct nonsense in the schools in California, New York, New Jersey and Michigan. But I must admit to a certain amount of schadenfreude finding out that even Oklahoma has its educational nutcases trying to foist off ignorant garbage as "educational material designed to assist the student in learning in a non-traditional manner."

Already in use in the shooting galleries and gang factories passing themselves off as schools in the big states, this program, called Flocabulary has cancerously metastasized itself into poor little Oklahoma. The Oklahoma City public school district has postponed full implementation of the program. But this is not because sane board members saw the inherent evil in the program, but rather because fifteen brave teachers called them on it and went public. And the public was not pleased.

This program is precisely the kind of debilitating educational tripe that vigilant parents must constantly look out for, lest liberal school boards and illiterate union teachers sneakily force them onto students who actually want to learn something. That "something" being genuine history, civics, English, and intelligent speech.

The program? Well, it's an "educational tool "that uses rap and hip-hop music to "help students learn and memorize basic principles of vocabulary." The underlying reasoning, standing by itself, would not be too outrageous. Kids use songs, lyrics and rhymes as a convenient mnemonic device for memorizing things. So far, so good. But rap? Hip-hop? The logic there is that the kids like it, so why not use it? Well, that's a whole other story entirely.

The simple fact is that I can write rhyming lyrics about almost anything. I'll do The Communist Manifesto, or maybe Mein Kampf. How would that be? Not good if it's being used to indoctrinate American kids, most of you would say. And you would be right. It's not just that the program uses the mind-numbing beat and cadences of rap to "teach," but it's equally important that they are using the noxious semi-literate version of gangsta rap to promote race-hatred, distorted history, terrible grammar and jargon, and anticapitalism. And in the process, the program also teaches great literature by turning it into unintelligible trash.

Here's a sample lesson for you. Let's learn about Founding Father James Monroe. "White men getting richer than Enron. They stepping on Indians, women and blacks. Era of Good Feeling doesn't come with the facts." Where to begin? Skip the de rigeur oppressive white man part. These students have absolutely no frame of reference to start with, and now some ignorant rapper is going to conflate the Founders with Enron (they probably don't know what Enron is, either). And isn't there a verb missing somewhere in there? Also note, "blacks" rhymes with "faks."

Without even a basic knowledge of history (thanks to the union teachers and leftist ideologues), the rapper throws Indians into the mix. Their later hate video about Andrew Jackson makes a certain amount of sense, but what does it have to do with James Madison? Dolly Madison was one of the most important figures in America during the War of 1812, but she mustn't have realized she was oppressed. Oh, and Madison was one of the earliest advocates for freeing the slaves, and never liked the compromise that brought the South into the Union via the Constitution. But I guarantee you that the students won't learn any of that from Flocabulary.

They use rhyme, stretched nearly to the breaking point to teach Shakespeare. Shakespeare? It would be interesting to see them deal with Shakespeare's sonnets. How do you teach Shakespearean poetry and rhyme by changing both the poetry and the rhyme? The program has been praised by Cornel West (too much the ignorant racist professor even for Harvard) and Howard Zinn (the man who writes history from the perspective of its worst and dumbest). That alone would disqualify the program for any thinking parent.

Missing from the program are rap tunes and rhymes praising the Bill of Rights, or the multiple anti-slavery actions of the northern Founders (and even Washington and Jefferson). Also AWOL from the program are hip-hop "songs" about immigrants from around the entire world who fled to America for liberty and opportunity lacking in their homelands. We're also still waiting for the video that rhymes America's major role in ending two World Wars, liberating the death camps, and promoting freedom from communist tyranny in most of Eastern Europe.

Not only does the program promote the concept of preventing hard-working black students from "acting white," but it also encourages white kids to stop acting white. I'm not making that up. I'm linking to just one video that is an outgrowth of this program. Look carefully at those geeky white kids learning English grammar by, well, learning English grammar. See how cool the black kids are, not to mention how cool the white rapper wannabe is.

Frighteningly, according to the Flocabulary website, these insidious and worthless videos are being used in more than 10,000 schools nationwide. Oklahoma City had already spent $10,000 of the $97,000 set aside for this garbage. There is not a single positive historical vision of America in any of the material. It is all relentlessly anti-white, anti-American, and anti-western civilization. Worst of all, there's not even much evidence to suggest that those actually paying attention to these videos are learning much of anything--good or bad.

The rapping educators tell us that the "Era of Good Feeling doesn't come with the facts." I'm waiting for them to do the video that shows that the post-racialism praised by Barack Obama died with his election. And it wasn't because white kids weren't getting their education from Flocabulary. It's much more likely that the decline in racial relations is at least partially symbolized by the Flocabulary incendiary propaganda and promotion of pure ignorance--that rhymes.

Oh, and here's that sample I promised you: Dissin' Da Geeks. You might want to read some of the comments written by students, black and white, who have been subjected to this diversion from education.

22 comments:

rlaWTX said...

I'm trying to come up with a comment worthy of this idiocy... maybe I DO need Flocabulary since words are failing me.

Unknown said...

rlaWTX: They have lots of words for you. I could learn even more words from the program if I could understand more than half of the words they are saying. Unlike Ebonics, it's not that I don't know what they mean, I simply don't know what they're saying.

Joel Farnham said...

LawHawk,

This is horrible. Thanks for the heads-up.

It almost is as if they deliberately are giving these kids a head full of mush.

Unknown said...

Joel: And thanks to the dumbed-down curriculum that precedes this foolishness, the students watching this crap have no frame of reference or historical knowledge of what the truth is or even that there is an opposing, evidentiary and historical view.

AndrewPrice said...

Wow. Let me go all liberal/gangsta on you for a moment. They need to take everyone responsible for this and bust a cap in their asses. Word.

Unknown said...

Andrew: I gather you already saw their video on how to deal with conservatives. LOL

LL said...

It's no wonder that kids can't pass any sort of objective test based on facts.

Unknown said...

Ah, LL: Don't forget that there are your facts, and my facts, and their facts. Truth no longer exists, only the individual's version of the truth. You are suggesting that white truth is superior to black truth. How dare you? You must be a racist.

All kidding aside, I had an employee who was attending San Francisco State University who could barely control his laughter telling me about the class he was taking that taught Native American math. 2 + 2 = 4 is only true if the Great Spirit wills it. How primitive and Eurocentric could we be missing that juicy tidbit?

I can't wait to view and hear the Flocabulary version of oppressive white mathematics (not to mention those Joos).

T_Rav said...

LawHawk, this sort of thing doesn't surprise me in the least. The college class I'm currently TA'ing for tries to interpret all history through gender and class struggle (read: old white men oppressing virtuous women and minorities). So it's to be expected that the rocket scientists in the education field would dumb down history and literature this way.

What is kind of surprising, as you say, is that this happened in Oklahoma. Really? Don't know if you've ever visited the Sooner State, but I used to have family out there, and, well, let's just say it's not exactly a source of hip-hop "culture."

Unknown said...

T_Rav: By the time they get to you at college, it's usually too late. Bring up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Bring him up wrong, and you can send him to college. I hope you're getting an occasional chance to disabuse the little ignoramuses of their earlier "education."

I guess big cities share the cultureless culture, even when they're in Oklahoma. Too bad for the Sooners.

Tam said...

No wonder charter schools, private schools, and homeschools are becoming more popular. I have a feeling I am going to be a pain in some educators' butts once my kid starts school, assuming I have the stomach to send him.

T_Rav said...

Unfortunately, I think most (or at least many) people nowadays are raising their kids the wrong way, or at least aren't giving them enough pointers to keep them from drifting into the college version of reality. On the few occasions when I've lectured so far, I do try to cut out all the crap, but I don't like to sway in either direction, so I probably haven't actively counteracted the poison.

BevfromNYC said...

Well, words is words and grammar is relative, isn't it? Shakespeare is old and too hard to understand. And history is just whiteman lies.

BUT, I just can't imagine mathematics being politicalized though. However, if Bill Gates has $20billion and I have no billions, then I can just take it from Bill Gates or anyone who makes $250K or more.

Unknown said...

Tam: I'm having my daughter do some nosing around in the Bakersfield/Kern County High School District. Grades K-9 are part of the Caliente District where this garbage would never get to first base. But if it could happen in Oklahoma City, it could definitely happen in Bakersfield. It's the problem we've discussed before. When government (including school systems) become so large that the parents and administrators lose touch with the day-to-day operations, this kind of stealth attack can take place.

Unknown said...

T_Rav: It's hard for a T.A. to reverse course and teach against the grain of the instructor's thinking. I don't envy you. Worst of all, you're doing the right thing by not trying to indoctrinate, which leaves the field to the distorters of education. It's an insidious and thorny problem which doesn't lend itself to an easy solution. Fortunately, as an outsider and a grandfather, I can raise all kinds of hell. And I learned all their tactics when I was part of their movement.

Unknown said...

Bev: They is, ain't they? Mathematics aren't being directly politicized. But they are being downgraded and fiddled with so that just like English and history, the students become compliant tools in the leftist movement. They don't learn anything, so they'll believe anything when it's handed to them by people who claim to love them.

Unknown said...

StanH: Apropos of absolutely nothing in this article, were you able to watch the final game of the Atlanta/San Francisco playoff today? It was a real nail-biter. San Francisco ahead by 1 at the bottom of the 9th, with Atlanta at 2 out and 2 on. I kept waiting for a grand slam that would crush the Giants, but it never came. So the Braves go home for another season, and the Giants move on to the big playoff. Sorry.

Tehachapi Tom said...

What the fxxx is flocabulary?
I looked it up in my new Websters copyright 1955 that I used in Creative Writing 101 At the University of Kansas. Its not in there so it must not be a real word.
Even my spell check flags it as misspelled and it is only three or four years old. No wonder the Burger King clerk is confused when I give her a twenty and then after she rings it up the correct coins differential.

StanH said...

Yeah Lawhawk the seasons over for the Braves, hats off to the Giants. The really sad part however is Bobby Cox retiring. When the game was over, the crowd started chanting “Bobby, Bobby…” He popped out of the dugout for the last time, and all of the players, both teams and coaches clapped for the great manager. No need to go through his stats, just wow.

I have a niece that wanted to be a nurse, and innocently signed up at a small college here in the Atlanta area. As she got started with great anticipation and arrived at a certain class that had a black professor, who taught the class in ebonics. She complained, as did her father, and fortunately, she was able to move to a different campus to continue her quest to be a nurse. The dumbing down of America continues apace.

Unknown said...

StanH: Well, even though they lost, the Braves were brave. They've come a long way since the joke asking "Why are the Braves like Michael Jackson?" "Because they wear one glove for no apparent reason."

I remember well during the O J Simpson murder trial how the defense lawyers went bonkers, screaming that it was racist to insist there was such a thing as "an African-American" accent. The same guys were great advocates for Ebonics, insisting that African-American accents and jargon exist and must be preserved. And after all, "ebonics" simply meant "black sounds."

Anonymous said...

LadyHawk what conservative video are you talking about?

AndrewPrice said...

Anon, It's "LawHawk" and, unfortunately, he has passed and is no longer with us.

Post a Comment