it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.
yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.
right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.
the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.
these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.
it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.
we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.
secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)
whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.
they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")
and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."
i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.
one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.
i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.
5K notes
·
View notes
man. the entirety of the summoning is a banger but when i tell you i literally had to pause the video and stare into the distance with my jaw hanging for a good few moments at ‘what’s in your pocket, stephanie? stephanie has got a gun’ etc. like holy SHIT. i think part of the reasoning it was so effective for me at least was because i kinda thought it was like. oh steph’s just gonna have to say ‘i give up pete’, she wouldn’t have to physically kill him haha, and then the lords in black mention the fucking GUN and i’m like wait FUCK. and even if you realized that steph would be the one to have to kill pete, you’d be like ‘oh. well she can’t really kill him that easily, so it’s not really feasible’ and then you remember she can end it with just one fucking shot to the head
56 notes
·
View notes
have you played the newest loz game?? your fics for the series are my favourite ever
so here's the deal. i bought totk the day it released. i got it. i started playing it but then we went on our long awaited planned it for 3 years 1 week vacation and less then 48 hours after i'd returned from that BAM, i was in australia. and what was there to do now? we played taiko, dog, so much taiko, we lived together, 3 college kids in an apartment with a balcony with a view of the city skyline. it was the craziest thing i'd ever done. i loved and cried and fought and learned and grew and got so mf good at taiko and learned that there was still more to do and cooked and cut onions and ate obscene amounts of yogurt and then when it was over it was already august and we were standing at the airport sobbing into each other's shirts not wanting to let go but eventually we did we got on our planes home and then, only then, did i find the space in my heart and schedule and hands to play totk. three weeks later, i was in america
photo intermission
photo intermission end
the real problem at the heart of this affair is that i still haven't found my motherfucking glider. where the fuck is it. i've combed the map north to south east to west i've found every goddamn character in the game but purah. purah you selfish selfish lady. where are you? where are you??????
photo intermission
photo intermission end
and so it was that they would not finish totk not for another several months not for possibly years. which is not to say that i don't want to, i miss writing fanfiction, i missed the drama and the scope of our ambitions and the burning need to write write write but i was also madly depressed and anxious and not doing well and that's where the writing came from, yknow dog? it existed because there was nothing else i could do. it saved my life. and now i am no longer in need of saving, now i've saved myself, i've been searching for years and years for the place where i can have my friends and lovers and stories and also have this. i still haven't found it. but i'll let you know when i do
25 notes
·
View notes
I'm back talking about Harry Potter and Snape's worst memory because while I hate the author y'all bug me.
Snape worst memory isn't James bulling him or string him up in front of the school, (that was bad I'm not saying it wasn't) it was Lily ending her friendship with him because he called her a Mudblood. With evidence.
To prove my point we have to go read the Deathly Hallows when Snape gave Harry his memories! We get to see the scene again but this time the thing that sticks out the most is Snape calling Lily a Mudblood. Now if that's not enough proof the next memory goes like this.
*Outside Gryffindor Tower*
Snape: I'm sorry
Lily: I'm not interested
S: I'm sorry!
L: save your breath... I only came out here because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.
S: I was. I would have done. I never ment to call you a Mudblood it just-
L: Slipped out? It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends- you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you? I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine.
S: No-listen, I didn't mean-
L:-to call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?
*Lily leaves. Memory ends*
The next memory is Snape becoming a turn coat for Dumbledore so he could keep Lily safe because Voldemort wouldn't spare her.
Snape has had worse experiences then a teenage James Potter being a bully (even if it was shitty). so we look at the rest of the memory and lo and behold what do we see? The actual worst moment of Snape life, the moment he lost Lily forever.
11 notes
·
View notes