Critical Thinking is not for Everyone.

The latest act in the worldwide WikiLeaks comedy: on Friday, the White House told federal employees and contractors that they're not allowed to read classified federal documents posted to WikiLeaks unless they have the proper security clearance.

It's posted for all the world to see, but if I work in Gov't, then I must adhere to the security limitations so the only people who won't read it are in Gov't.

Stunning.

Update from the drive home:

And then I thought about it a bit. Those with clearance randomly undergo security screenings and occasionally polygraph testing.  One question usually deals with "Have you seen, read or otherwise had knowledge of classified documents for which you did not have the proper security clearances?"  If I had seen something on Wikileaks, the honest answer would have to be "Yes."  That would lead to a whole lot of unpleasantness.

This advice might just save a few jobs.

It's not an agrarian thing, okay?

If Education Secretary Arne Duncan has his way, kids would be spending a lot more time at school — and a three-month summer would be a thing of the past. He continued by explaining that the American school calendar is antiquated and must be modified so that American students can compete at the highest levels internationally.

“Most people realize that our current day is based on the agrarian economy, and we don’t have too many kids working out in the fields nowadays,” Duncan said. “Schools in countries that are beating us are going to school 25-30 days more than us. If you practice basketball five times a week, you’re gonna be better than the people who practice three times a week.”

Most people realize, huh? Then most people would be wrong. And so is our benighted Education Secretary.

First, the summer months are hot. When the yearly schedules were decided upon, it was easier to heat buildings in the winter than to cool them in the summer because, you know, duh, there wasn't any air conditioning. Factories closed. Schools closed. Everything closed. People with the wherewithal escaped the cities and went to the Adirondacks. Why does everyone traditionally get two weeks in August?

Second, if the whole thing was done for farmers benefit, wouldn't it make more sense to have the time off when the real heavy work was done on a farm? Like planting and harvest? You don't see vacations in October, do you? About the only farm work done around here in the summer is haying and watching the corn grow.

Finally, schools in countries that are "beating us" are different:

1. They give a damn about the PISA testing and their students give a damn. The American schools who participate ... not so much. When was the last time any of our elite schools took that test? Right, they don't.
2. The other countries are remarkably monocultural. Surprising, but the American melting pot isn't the easiest group to get motivated and educated.
3. The other countries have single nationwide set of common standards and fewer choices for books and curricula. Again, it matters because you can tailor you curriculum to your culture.
4.  Those longer days in Japan or England do not bother with sports.  We have chosen this aspect of our kids lives to focus a large part of our schools' attention on.  Again, it matters.  Other countries, if they have sports at all, have morning calisthenics but not school sports.  Sports teams are done as a town, not as a school.  Those who excel are not part of those in school - they're taken out.  

If you did these things with the American schools who took PISA or TIMSS, we'd blow the world away.  How do I know? I've taught these kids, both the top-of-the-line American students (the kind who get 5s on every AP test they take and win academic scholarships from Middlebury) and the top-of-the-line foreign students (from Japan, Korea, China, South America, Middle East Europe -- lots of them from all around the world.)  Look where the world want s to go college.  The US.  Who does well in US colleges. Americans and those foreigners who pick up the Calvinistic, work hard - be nice attitudes.

Oh well, Arne.  Sucks to be stupid.

Spreading the Joke - Classrooms in the Movies

Huston's list is here, and repeated below.
Classrooms in the Movies ...

1. …never have more students than desks.
2. …have every student in class, every day.
3. …have mostly the same group of kids at the end of the year as they had on the first day of school. If someone moves in or out, it’s a big event.
4. …have some loud or obnoxious students, but only because they want attention. Inside, they’re all decent people who just need someone to reach out and understand them. None of them are consciously choosing to act like jerks or thugs, and all of them are secretly very, very bright, once you get to know them.
5. …never have more than one kid having a serious emotional crisis at a time. Once that issue is resolved, another kid can have a problem.
6. …never have any students who have been mainstreamed into that class due to politically correct special ed policies. They certainly don’t have ten of them.
7. …never actually seem to do much intensive studying, drilling, or practice. All those feel-good group discussions of emotional discovery someone produce students who achieve very well academically.
8. …are always full of students who look well groomed, healthy, and alert, despite involvement with broken homes, poverty, gangs, and substance abuse. No student in a movie looks or acts any differently than, say, your average young Hollywood actor. For some reason.
9. …are always full of curious young adults who, despite being hard-partying hedonists, speak with the kind of vocabularies that, oddly enough, Hollywood screenwriters would have. They all know the difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. They know their times tables. They can read for more than five minutes without falling asleep.
10. …rarely have students who come to school high. If they do, they’re just good, smart goofballs who do it for a laugh. All ends well.
11. …never have students who refuse to take the medication prescribed by their psychiatrist.
12. …never have students who bounce back and forth between the classroom and juvenile hall.
13. …are staffed by teachers who can magically command attention with a single request, who enjoy instant rapport with their students, and whose off the wall teaching ideas always work like a charm. They’re certainly more effective than the crusty, strict teachers, who are invariably the villains.

This list seems incomplete ;-)

Might I add ...
... seem to be staffed with teachers who only have one prep.
... have teachers who don't have a life other than school.
... don't ever get interrupted by announcements over the intercom right when the teacher is about to make a really, good point. "Pardon the interruption, the girl's soccer team will leave at 2:40 instead of 2:30."
... don't seem to have kids leave early for appointments, sports.
... never seem to have students go to the counselors office to discuss their difficulties in THAT class.
... never seem to have appointments to miss class to meet with a counselor about the proper ways to prepare for college and to pass their high school classes.
... don't seem to go on field trips in their other classes. "Please excuse..."
... don't take five days to do AYP testing ... and don't eliminate swaths of course material in order to practice test-taking skills.
... don't have a new principal every two years.
Expanding on #6
... don't ever seem to be a homogeneous class of students who are below average.
... has one kid who must really be a misunderstood genius. and he is. Instead of being a whiny, self-important little brat.
... don't seem to have the selfish, overbearing helicopter parents. They're all fighting against an oppressive school system that's just wrong about their kid.

But I am probably repeating things now.