I wouldn’t say that’s 100% the case in GA, though. Although it is true that the “metro” area is spread pretty far north at this point…
True, but there are plenty of films that are historical and claim to be based on a true story… so people might not understand how historical events can be compressed for drama, and mistake that for “the real history”… which might explain some of the extremist coming out of North GA (the 14th and the…9th, I think it is - some guy running is a literally white supremacist, as in he has ties to white supremacist groups over the years). So… yeah, maybe that’s the case. But it’s also giving new voice to these groups that existed already.
But I also get your point about compartmentalization… this is kind of veering into some serious Guy Debord territory, though… with the mass media being more real than reality…
Just like this piece on a small town in Minnesota:
Even in places where they are nowhere close to being in the minority, they find the presence of people who are different to be intolerable, and take it as a sign that their way of life is ending.
FTA:
“There are a lot of people coming through that I don’t recognize,” said Terri Collins, Benson’s cheerful mayor, whose family has been in Benson for five generations. “I used to know all of my neighbors and now that’s different. And I don’t know what to blame for that.”
The idea that something/someone must be blamed because lives of the townfolk haven’t continued like some unchanging version of the movie Pleasantville is chilling.
According to that AP article, it was the election of Obama that started them down the slippery slope, along with gay marriage and “identity politics.” They’re described like people drowning in a sea of strange, new ideas - so they clung to 45 like a life preserver. However, there’s nothing new about any of the racism, homophobia, antisemitism, intolerance, or violence they embrace when things don’t go their way. This is why they have a vested interest in revisionist history and hiding the truth from the next generation.
a rainbow flag says “I am proud to be me” the swastika says “Let’s round up and kill the others” — surely people who can’t discern the difference are open to reason.
In instances where a child’s parents are arguably more intelligent than the people running schools like this, then home-schooling might indeed be a smarter choice?
I suspect your comment was sarcastic, but I’m going yo answer it seriously. For many who are smarter (interpreted as better read, educated, experienced, open to new thoughts) than school administrators, home schooling is not an option. We considered it strongly, as our youngest is nonbinary and has Aspergers. However, I am a physician and my wife a small business owner. There was literally no way to home school effectively. I see it all the time at work, where “home schooling” translates to 45-90 minutes of worksheets per day, and then off to do whatever. We were not willing to do that to our kids. And the whole concept of “public school” should be that education is a right open to all, not just those who have the resources and abilities to do it themselves. Not to mention that the ability to teach kids relies on training and experience as much as intelligence. I know some very smart people, but if they one day decided to “home doctor” I suspect it would go poorly. Same with folks who think educating their kids is “easy, I’ll just do it myself.” There are exceptions, but it frequently ends poorly.
To provide an n=1 example of your excellent post, I was often asked when my children were little why I wasn’t homeschooling them, because I had a flexible work-from-home job and am highly intelligent/educated. Also, I was taking them to a lot of different outside programs to fill in gaps that weren’t provided by their preschool or early schooling. I would explain that the skill set necessary to educate a child was pretty much the exact opposite of my particular strengths and weaknesses. That’s why I didn’t go into teaching in the first place!
This is the core of the problem, really: people don’t understand that (good, effective) teachers are skilled and trained. They are professionals at what they do. Ah, just fit ‘teaching’ in around what you were already doing, what’s the big deal? Well, teaching IS a big deal. You wouldn’t go to someone’s house and say “when you finish making lunch, could you take out my appendix?”
It seems to be happening on a county scale, though - this is true for particular parts of California, for example, even though as a state the opposite is true. And I forget how well it correlates with general Trump support, but it heavily correlates with extreme Trump support (e.g. Jan 6th participants).
Not to mention time consuming. My wife and I are professional educators but we would never homeschool our own kids as that would basically be taking on an additional full-time job.
“Make the administrator read Maus”??? He can’t get a copy because the book has been banned. Besides, he’s a School Administrator; therefore he already knows everything.
While that’s true, another angle is that not every trained teacher is good and effective. I always thought I had an excellent public school, but selective bias is at play, if I really think about it, there were just as many stinkers as good ones, but the good ones are the one that stand out in my memory. I understand why many people wouldn’t choose homeschooling, but I can understand why some do despite the as noted extra full time job plus the extra extra full time job of learning how to do it. Usually bullying or an actively hostile teacher have something to do with it.
That’s beside the point… the point is that educating people is not just about giving them information… it’s a set of skills that is more than just “having the knowledge” and “being smart”…
Every single profession has people who are not good at what they do… they does not mean the profession isn’t based on a set of acquired skills.
