Despite their blowhard blather about "rugged individualism" and "individual rights", the stuff emanating from the Libertarians, they seem intent on creating a crowd of clones. They fear diversity, are uncomfortable if they are not surrounded by people just like them, panicked by not being surrounded by their own herd.
Boring. Stultifying.
Killing of creativity and innovation.
No where is this more apparent than in a comparison of the GERM (Global Educational Reform Movement) with the far more individualistic Finnish model of education.
What are schools? In the GERM scheme of things schools are institutions, institutionalized entities for which individual children must squeeze either through a square hole or a rigidly round hole so that all the little kiddies in the institutionalized school will all be exactly alike.
In Finland, the schema is the other way around. Schools accommodate kids as individuals, not little clonish replicas.
Under the auspices of GERM, every kid is supposed to emerge "college-ready", whether or not that is what the kid really wants to do, or if college is even appropriate for a particular individual.
Finland focuses on grooming kids to be innovative, creative, flexible, the stuff of human survival -- as opposed to corporate survival.
Standardization is the stultifying, boring motto of GERM. Whoopee! One size fits all of the little clone-like kids.
As opposed to finding the special talents of an individual, focusing on those to some extent and maximizing the value of those individual skills to society in general.
But, ironically, GERM focuses on the teacher as an individual, the individual teacher is the one responsible for success or failure of the little clones. Finland looks on education as a team sport, teamwork making up for the possible deficiencies of individuals, but even more wisely, not isolating teachers from each other.
"Census-based standardized testing" Jaysus Kerist! Bring in the God-damned bean counters as they look over the herd of little clones. Anyone who uses the term "Census-based standardized testing" should be shot as soon as they utter the phrase.
Finns, being basically well-trained in the mathematical arts, are able to do a bit of judicious sampling to see how kids are doing.
GERM focuses on convincing an individual that their way of education is good for that individual, a direct appeal to the "rugged individualism" of Libertarians. Finns have the basic and sensible idea of a school that is good for every kid.
It can be done. If you are innovative enough, if you are creative enough, if you are inventive enough. If you are flexible enough. In other words, if you are smart enough not to be stupid.
Thank you, Teacherken.