*Reject “Adults Versus Children” Subjective Rubbish. There is No Chinese
Wall Between Adults and Children.*
The rich and their cheerleaders in politics and the media are never at a
loss for promoting division, irrationalism, and disinformation in order to
impose their own self-serving agenda on everyone.
One of the many ideological devices they have been using in recent years to
pull the wool over the eyes of people is the “adults versus kids”
subjective rubbish. Such a dichotomy, used more than a few times by local
newspapers, “leaders,” and politicians in Rochester, is false and
self-serving. They are all on the same page.
The rich and their allies want people to think that:
1. there are two separate disconnected groups out there with completely
opposite interests: “adults” & “kids”
2. “adults” are a huge block to progress
3. “kids” are vulnerable and being harmed by self-serving “adults”
4. only the rich and their allies care enough about the “kids” to
intervene and “save” them
The “adults” in this sustained and condescending disinformation campaign
are usually teachers and unions (and school board members), while the
“kids” are the students the “adults” supposedly do not care about and whose
interests they do not serve.
Everyone should reject and condemn this violent disinformation that seeks
to confuse, divide, and mislead people. In Rochester, this demeaning
dichotomy is being cynically invoked by the rich and their entourage as a
pretext for a state coup of the heavily-demonized RCSD—something they will
keep pushing for through the 2020 legislative session.
Teachers, parents, students, and principals all have the same *objective*
interests. None of these groups want students to fail or suffer.
The slogan that “teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning
conditions” is one that every student and teacher understands intuitively.
There is no Chinese Wall between the kids and the adults. Students cannot
learn optimally when their teachers’ working conditions are poor. The two
go together. The fate of teachers and students is inextricably linked.
Neoliberals, privatizers, and corporate school reformers want people to
always forget that there exists an unbreakable connection between teachers
and students.
The real divide is between the rich and everyone else: the top one percent
and the 99 percent.
It is well-known that the rich and their state have been consciously and
deliberately starving, over-testing, demonizing, and privatizing public
schools for decades. It is the rich who block progress and then
hypocritically pose as the solution.
Regards,
Shawgi
