An Elitist Rant

Sometimes, teachers make mistakes. They may give consequences instead of getting a kid to open up about her outburst. They may have the class put their heads down for 5 minutes instead of using a brilliant learning activity to get them to calm down. They may not correctly predict how long it will take students to do a particular assignment. They may not always be able to tell which students have serious issues going on at home. They may not study all pieces of student work closely as they grade papers.

And sometimes teachers are so fucking stupid they are an insult to the profession.

Recently some third grade teachers in Georgia created some word problems for their students. Here are some samples:

Can't you just see the third graders making connections between these problems and their lesson about Frederick Douglass? I mean, of course a painful issue like slavery should be reduced to multiplication problems, right? Maybe next week they can do division problems about the Holocaust. 

I have been an over-worked, stressed out teacher forced to create lessons and homework to match district dictated guidelines. And I have no sympathy for these idiots. I do think their careers should be ruined. They are not smart enough to be teachers. And not just because they think that a cross-curricular activity means plugging in vocabulary words from the social studies lesson into the math homework. I really don't understood how they could think that parents wouldn't raise hell about this. How ignorant of history do you have to be to not grasp how inappropriate this is? 

I admit I'm an elitist. I want the president to be smart. I want the doctors who care for my family to be smart. Yes, there are different kinds of intelligence. No, I don't think you have to be conventionally smart to be a valuable member of society. But yes, if you are teaching children how to read and write and multiply and think then I think you should be smart. If you are a surgeon, you should have steady hands. If you are a bus driver, you should be a good driver and have a high tolerance for noise. If you work in retail, you should know how to smile and make small talk. And if you are a freaking teacher, you should be smart enough to create meaningful cross-curricular activities that aren't culturally offensive. 

Is that really too much to ask? 

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

I'm an elitist.

After all, I have a master's degree.

Both of my degrees are from private colleges, no less.

I read the New York Times (on Sundays, anyway).

I eat arugula.

I've never hunted.

Never mind that I've actually worked with and taught the children of the poor and working class. Never mind that our budget is so tight these days that I'm using the Amazon gift certificates I get for reviewing things here to buy my kids winter clothes. Never mind that I know how many homes, cars and pairs of shoes I have.

You'd think budgeting and a husband who grew up in an actual small town in the heart of America would give me some "regular people" cred. And maybe they would, until I opened my mouth. You see, I don't care that Sarah Palin is a mom like me. I don't care that Barack Obama was raised by a single mom. I don't care that John McCain was at the bottom of his college class. I don't care about their "regular" credentials.

They are powerful politicians (yeah, even Sarah, seeing how she runs the entire state of Alaska and all) and no matter how humble their origins (you all realize that technically, Obama wins the humble origins sweepstakes, right?) they will never know what it's like to be an "ordinary" American. AND THAT'S OKAY.

Ordinary Americans eat at McDonald's - even though they know it's bad for them. Ordinary American's can't find Iraq on an unmarked map. Ordinary Americans watch "The Hills". Ordinary Americans wear Crocs to decent restaurants. Ordinary Americans don't understand economic theory. Ordinary Americans don't watch Friday Night Lights.

Are these SERIOUSLY the people you want running the country?

Personally, I would like a leader who understands economics, political science, world history, the Constitution, how to behave with foreign dignitaries and in various foreign countries, geography, English grammar and SAT words, what the vice-president and the rest of the Cabinet does, sociology and educational theory.

Because, uh, the president is responsible for making decisions in all of those areas. So s/he should know something about them. And be able to remember it for more than ten minutes. And I don't know many "Ordinary Americans", brilliant though some may be, who can converse intelligently on all of those topics.

So I suppose what really makes me an elitist is that I want the smartest person to win. My dad is having major surgery in December. I really don't care if his surgeon is an asshole, as long as he's brilliant at what he does. In fact, I hope he (not being sexist, it really is a he) graduated first in his class at an Ivy League medical school. And got perfect scores on his boards. Because this is my dad we're talking about. And I bet everyone understands my feelings, right?

So why don't people feel the same way about who they vote for? The president is responsible for the life of our country, after all.

That's An Insult? Seriously?

"So and so is accusing (fill in name of Presidential Candidate here) of being an elitist. . . ."

I don't care what your politics are (well, I do, but not for the purposes of this post), but if the idea of the President being an elitist bothers you - you're an idiot.

I don't care how down home W. seems, he's elite. And so is anyone else running for president. By virtue of being a senator, governor, vice-president or whatever other job qualifies one to run for president (congressperson? general? Is there anything else?), that candidate is ELITE. How many senators and governors do you hang out with? Hmmm?

According to Dictionary.com, elitism is the practice of or belief in rule by an elite.

And no matter how humble a candidate starts out, by the time his or her name is on the presidential primary ballot, he or she has become pretty damn elite. He or she makes more money than the average person, has handlers and assistants up the wazoo and gets photographed for eating in diners. Doesn't that only happen to a small group of people in this world, comparatively speaking? (Though the group grows as more and more people join the ranks of the famous through reality television)

But elite implies that the candidate is better than the average American! We can't allow that, say the handlers and the media and the candidates. So Obama tries to bowl and Hillary talks about hunting affectionately and McCain makes jokes on Saturday Night Live and I get depressed.

I want the president to be better than the average American - smarter, more creative, more courageous, more independent. I don't care if he or she doesn't know the price of a gallon of milk at my grocery store, I want him or her to understand the economics of why the damn milk is so expensive and how to fix it. I don't want a president I can drink with - I know tons of great people to drink with but I don't want any of them leading the free world. I want a president who's too damn busy reading and researching to drink beer.

Do we really want a president who's just like us?  Mired in credit card debt? Lacking health insurance? Had a C average in college? Unable to find Iran on an unlabeled map? Can't remember what rights are protected by the Bill of Rights? Unsure of what the Geneva Convention is? Never studied history, the law or economics?

Give me an elitist any day.