Mish Mash
Now, the Michigan Department of Education can youknowwhat itself. It’s a bureaucratic mess, the sniveling weasels of academia, a breeding nest of liberal dinosaurs, a wampum pouch of guilty-feeling white folk, etc. I could go on. I have to research their BS standards for my boss this morning.
But I’m surfing around their curriculum website, a dense jungle of imaginary children hoops, and for some reason, Content Standard 4 of Section II of the Michigan Content Standards and Draft Benchmarks handbook, subsection Early Elementary, entry #1, catches my eye:
“Recall situations in their lives that required decisions and evaluate the decisions made in light of their consequences.”
Then in Content Standard 1 of Section III (Civic Perspective), subsection Early Elementary, entry #2:
“Describe the consequences of not having rules.”
And finally, in Content Standard 4 of Section IV, Early Elementary entry #3:
“Describe how the choices people make impact business decisions.”
My boss dropped by my shoulder and saw what I was reading. “Oh,” he said. “That’s old. It’s been replaced.” I asked if he meant the whole thing. “The whole thing. They decided to get rid of that a few years ago. Why, I don’t know…” And he walked away.
I’d been reading the handbook for about half an hour, and I was peeved that they had taken what seemed to me a fine way of doing things and chucked it. I can’t imagine what it would be like following this thing for three decades, running a business based on it, and then having it stripped out from under me.
--
I then found a curriculum breakdown developed by an education studies professor at Central Michigan. I explored this handbook for fifteen minutes before I noticed that it was for Texas.
“Texas!” my boss laughed, when I told him. “I can’t believe a place like Texas, with all its historians, would have to ask someone from Michigan to do their curriculum.” I nodded. He went on, “Of course, a few years ago, Michigan invited some ‘outside consultants.’ Look what they did.”
And then he walked away.
But I’m surfing around their curriculum website, a dense jungle of imaginary children hoops, and for some reason, Content Standard 4 of Section II of the Michigan Content Standards and Draft Benchmarks handbook, subsection Early Elementary, entry #1, catches my eye:
“Recall situations in their lives that required decisions and evaluate the decisions made in light of their consequences.”
Then in Content Standard 1 of Section III (Civic Perspective), subsection Early Elementary, entry #2:
“Describe the consequences of not having rules.”
And finally, in Content Standard 4 of Section IV, Early Elementary entry #3:
“Describe how the choices people make impact business decisions.”
My boss dropped by my shoulder and saw what I was reading. “Oh,” he said. “That’s old. It’s been replaced.” I asked if he meant the whole thing. “The whole thing. They decided to get rid of that a few years ago. Why, I don’t know…” And he walked away.
I’d been reading the handbook for about half an hour, and I was peeved that they had taken what seemed to me a fine way of doing things and chucked it. I can’t imagine what it would be like following this thing for three decades, running a business based on it, and then having it stripped out from under me.
--
I then found a curriculum breakdown developed by an education studies professor at Central Michigan. I explored this handbook for fifteen minutes before I noticed that it was for Texas.
“Texas!” my boss laughed, when I told him. “I can’t believe a place like Texas, with all its historians, would have to ask someone from Michigan to do their curriculum.” I nodded. He went on, “Of course, a few years ago, Michigan invited some ‘outside consultants.’ Look what they did.”
And then he walked away.