Thrasymachus Refuted: NCLB and DT

Thrasymachus in the School of Athens

From: The School of Athens


(Thoughts inspired by a thread.)

No Child Left Behind (NCLB)  had a worthwhile aim but the method it proposed was deeply flawed and produced the opposite of genuine education and learning. We should be helping students discover the joys of learning, creating life-long learners and readers. It is a tall task in the age of cell phones. NCLB worked not to promote individual development but rather conformity in which all students study for taking the same standardized tests. The result was to destroy the love of learning and the sort of natural curiosity and thinking for oneself that is essential in college. Here is a good article on the details.

No Child Left Behind’s test-based policies failed. Will Congress keep them anyway?

WASHINGTONPOST.COM

Donald Trump is an example of education gone wrong. All he has learned is materialism, bullying, egotism, selfishness, and aggression. He has no ethical sense, no respect for learning that is other than business, no sense of fairness and, worst of all, no compassion for others. Learning can provide the essential quality of empathy, especially in reading literature, that seems to be utterly lacking in DT. Don't you wish you could sit him down, get him to read Plato's Republic, and explain to him why Thrasymachus is wrong?

Unfortunately, as Aphrodite Kavyas remarked, DT  "is Pacman - - never stops moving or reflecting, just devouring." 


--Jack