English Lesson #1

The question has arisen, can anything be done to wrench MAGA supporters from their cultish allegiance to Trump and, as usual, naysayers form an outsized presence on social media.  Even if we posit that there's no 'magic wand' or 'silver bullet' or 'one-size-fits-all' solution, yet I don't accept that their support does not get eroded by direct verbal confrontation.  In this brief essay, let's consider the role that all of us have to play in educating MAGA supporters using good old-fashioned American English.

Here's the kind of statement that will seem ludicrously obvious to half the nation, and insupportably rude to the other:  Most MAGA supporters engage in their support as a result of poor education.  They received poor education as children initially, then followed it up with no education as an adult, and now Trump stands poised to eliminate the Dept of Education altogether.  Lacking in formal education as they are, statistically speaking, they simply aren't equipped to parse language critically enough for the 21st century.  

We all suffer from the ignorance problem - each of us more ignorant than knowledgeable as a quantifiable phenomenon - and some of us live even more low-information, even more fact-resistant, even more willfully ignorant lives than others.  We the people DO NOT have to accept the presence of such poorly educated humans in our society.  We can re-invest in public education AT NO CHARGE to anyone under the age of 21.  We can fold Baccalaureate programs into no-charge public education for students across our nation.  

It's not the heel Linda McMahon who's going to do that.  Nor were the Republicans going to give you that, so if you're one of those know-nothing small-towners who likes to run your mouth about how 'both sides are the same' that's just like admitting that you're too sub-literate to read the party platform, fool.  When I hear people speak that way nowadays, I remind myself - this one belongs in a cage.  Not a prison, you sadistic would-be punishers of the world, but the cage of my classroom.  

And don't expect such a fine service from me for free.  If, every time I deign to speak with you, you walk away thinking about matters even a little bit differently, you owe me money.  The day teacher pay started dropping might have been the day teachers stopped rapping their students' hands when they got the grammar lesson wrong, or else they weren't grammar nazi-ing with sufficient professional elan.  All nazis do not look alike, you know.  In small rural towns, the nazis often wear ties to work and administer the local schools.  Who could do battle with those evildoers better than the righteously enraged English teachers of the world?

Academic freedom meant a thing only to the extent that teachers don't conceive of themselves as apparatchiks of the administration.  If you'd like to reform public education to enhance the degree of so-called 'local control', then do away with the top 10% of the administrative staff and place more decision-making authority directly into the hands of your classroom teachers.  Yes, those committees will hash it out internally as regards what constitutes in-bounds/out-of-bounds within the curriculum, and they might not always get it right, but yes, they'll keep a closer watch on the students' academic progress than a professional superintendent of desk-jockeying.

Protecting academic freedom isn't free, after all!

Whatever direction your particular district might take, you will require curriculum enrichment to round out the education students receive where you live.  No school district or private institution anywhere in the US can do it all on their own.  If they're attentive to providing your children with a well-rounded education, strong in liberal arts, strongest of all in critical language skills, then they do your children, yourselves, and your community(s) a favor.  

If, on the other hand, the school administrators where you live seem to favor a narrowing down of educational topics, if they seem to prefer shortening the academic cycle as opposed to lengthening it, if they advocate for fewer teachers per student instead of more teachers per student, then your school could be in the hands of a know-nothing.  

Yes, all of my aforementioned proposals have been heard before and (supposedly) the American people rejected them.  But the fact that we had succeeded to an extent in better educating the nation's children gets reflected in the strong pushback against education that so many parents evince.  What parent wants to feel like their own child outsmarts them, I guess?  Enforced stupidity for children has long been a preferred parenting tactic, if we take the historical view.

To reiterate, no we don't have to accept their infernal know-nothingism as if it's an inborn trait over which they have no power to affect.  They can save their minds from the brainwormrot of conservative ideology or they can have the brainwormrot excised by others.  Either way, it's no more natural for a citizen to stand down in the face of an insulted intelligence than to stand by and watch physical abuse take place.  Better intelligence can damn sure impose its presence upon them and they know it, or else why would they run around so awfully afraid of getting 'woke'?  

If MAGA supporters wish to live under anyone's thumb, let it be our thumb instead of Trump's.  

Stop apologizing for that you have more brains than your neighbor(s) and start exercising your natural advantage over them to forestall this nation's slide into know-nothing autocracy.

Harper E. Lee