A few years ago I came across an article on the Internet that was talking about Common Core.
I am opposed to Common Core because I believe it is a vehicle of indoctrination. Moreover it will reinforce the idiotic trend of replacing critical thinking with algorithms, memorization, and standardized testing.
The article quoted Chester Finn who is supposedly an expert on education.
He is also a Harvard graduate. Now, if you have read any of my pieces, you would know that I would be instantly angered by what this individual had to say especially if he was for Common Core.
It’s a Harvard thing with me, and I understand if you do not feel that way. I understand that I am in the minority when I criticize Harvard and castigate it as an inferior school.
In this article Chester Finn made a snide comment about the type of people who oppose Common Core.
Of course, he would. He’s from Harvard. He’s a noble.
I can’t remember his exact words, but the effect was to dismiss opponents of Common Core as ignorant hillbillies.
I decided immediately to write a nasty letter to Chester Finn (Checker to his friends).
So I did an Internet search and discovered that he was a professor. Since most professors have a public email, I was able to secure that email.
Success!
After completing my letter, I decided to take a second look at his resume.
His resume was littered with 1,000,001 accomplishments. He had written several papers; he sat on many committees; he had won numerous awards.
There was an even a picture of him in a very nice suit dressed up like a British noble.
As I looked at the resume and picture of him, I had a moment of awareness.
I said to myself: I totally cannot relate to this man’s experience in life. I would have no idea what it would be like to be him.
What would it feel like, I asked myself, to receive accolades such as he has received?
What does it feel like to have everyone clap when you walk into a room?
What does it feel like to be on someone’s shortlist?
I had no concept of that. I had no ability to relate to him principally because my value system rejects everything that Chester Finn believes in.
And this is where my moment of awareness, or epiphany, came in to play. I said to myself, if I can’t relate to him, then he can’t possibly relate to me.
It would be as if we were two different species; I would be a crustacean and he would be a vertebrate.
The two of us would never be able to communicate.
Once I understood this, I knew what I had to do.
I took the letter that I had written and I trashed it. There was no way he was going to be able to understand my experience.
I mention this to underscore one of the fundamental problems that we have in our society today.
We have a group of leaders in Washington DC, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia who have a value system that is completely divergent from those of us who are regular people.
We regulars are completely incapable of understanding them, and likewise they are completely incapable of understanding us.
There is a fundamental gap in our understanding.
At this point in time, this gap is unbridgeable.
As long as that gap is unbridgeable, we will be unable to resolve serious problems within the United States to any fruitful degree.
We are stuck.
We are a vertebrate trying to communicate with an invertebrate.
Our leaders have grown too far and too distant from us. Or, we have grown too far and too distant from our leaders.
They prosecute a value system that we cannot comprehend or live within.
We will be in a world of pain until we can bridge this gap.
Sincerely,
Archer Crosley
Copyright 2020 Archer Crosley All Rights Reserved
Cowboy Archer 