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
Danny is stuck in the DC Universe against his will. He is trying to build a Ghost Portal to try and get back home, but he needs to steal a bunch from the different High-Tech Companies in the DC Universe
So now Wayne-Tech, Lex-Corp, Palmer Industries, Star Labs, and everything else you can think of has been robbed by a Meta-Human Theif who can walk through walls, disappear, and fly
Eventually, Danny gets all the parts he needs for the Portal and starts to build it in some forest outside of Gotham.
At the same time, Constantine reports to the League that the small traces of magical green goo they found at each crime scene was Ectoplasm. Basically Death Energy in Liquid Form from a Dimension called the Infinite Realms. They figure out that all the parts put together could be used to build a Portal, and the Ectoplasm makes them suspect that he is trying to open a Portal the the Infinite Realms
Constantine says that the Ectoplasm has energy readings that suggest it is from the High King, but it is mixed in with a bunch of Human DNA. He suspects that Danny is a Thrall of Pariah Dark, created so he could open a Portal the the Infinite Realms and pave the way for his Invasion of their Dimension.
They find a way to track down the Portal, right when Danny is about to open it.
A final battle ensues as Danny desperately tries to defend his Portal, while the computer reads out the Countdown to the Portal Opening. When the timer reaches 1, Batman finds a Bomb near the Portal Opening and throws it into the tunnel, destroying the entire Portal in one go.
They all stand back, watching as Danny stops and collapses in front of the destroyed Portal. Constantine warns them to be careful, Pariah Dark is a being of pure hatred, and once they piss off his Thrall he will attack them with all his angered might. "This bloke is about to explode. Once he realizes what he's looking at, he's gonna-"
But he is cut off when they hear drops of water hiting the ground, coming from the direction of the Portal. Danny is silently crying, looking at all his hard work go to up in flames.
They are all stunned. Constantine warned them that the Thralls of Pariah Dark were incapable of any emotion other than Anger, that they were completely sadistic monsters who took pleasure in ripping Mortals apart piece by piece. But this wasn't anything like that.
This was a Child, crying on his knees while staring at his Portal he had worked so hard to build.
"Why?" He asks.
"You were going to open a Portal to the Infinite Realms. We know you are a Thrall of Pariah Dark, you would have let his army through to our dimension."
"But Pariah Dark is dead."
"If he was dead, then why did we find traces of the King's energy in your Ectoplasm?"
"I'm beat him a few months ago. I'm the new king."
"Wait, so why were you trying to open the Portal?"
"I just wanted to see my family again. It wasn't even going to be open for long, I had a bomb ready to destroy it behind me..."
The Justice League realizes they all fucked up.
4K notes
·
View notes