In Public Education & Katy I.S.D., “There Are Different Perspectives About The American Revolution, Depending On The Side You Were On”: How In Holy Hell Does District Justify Including This Description Of The American Revolution In Staff Development Training ‘Teaching’ Teachers How To Teach?

Long after your children have forgotten the myriad details and factoids about the historical figures of the American Revolution, there is a deep understanding your Katy I.S.D. wants them to cherish for their entire lives.

It is so important to the district, that staff development time is being used to teach teachers how to teach students more effectively in order to help them acquire an enduring understanding of academic topics.

As for the American Revolution, here are the synthesized understandings that the Katy I.S.D. administrators and school board members want students to never forget about the American Revolution It was:

• “The result of a series of events linked together through cause/effect”…
• “Leaders of the AR played important roles in the outcome of the war”…
• “There are different perspectives about the AR, depending on the side you were on.”

Of course this could be said about the Hundred Years’ War fought in the 14^th and 15^th Centuries or the 6-Day War in the 20^th Century. In Katy I.S.D., the American Revolution was just another war to our curriculum gurus.

The academic integrity of public education is under assault throughout the United States. Katy I.S.D. is not immune. In fact, the crescendo of decline in this district is escalating every school year. The passage above is not out of context because there is no context where these words should be put on a piece of paper and distributed to your children’s classroom teachers.

Yet, this and other examples of the metaphorical equivalent of giving the brain an enema and our very souls morphine to abate the pain of what we are doing to ourselves as a nation is happening all the time in public education.

It is happening right here in your school district in Katy. It does not matter that those words may have been penned by a consultant or vendor seeking politically correct profits in a multi-billion dollar industry.

Once Katy I.S.D. distributed it to classroom teachers, the Katy I.S.D. school board members, administrators, and curriculum gurus became its parents and co-authors.

You can attack me for the strength of my rhetoric and the aggressiveness of my assault on those responsible for this society-destroying, self-inflicted flagellation of academic integrity.

Or, you can play a role in stopping this by electing people to your Katy I.S.D. school board who won’t become automatons to school administrators who permit if not encourage this sort of anti-intellectual assault on our values and our intellect.

You can’t change the world, but you can change Katy.

The theoretical goal of staff development training in public school districts is that it is designed to help classroom teachers become more effective teachers. One thing that rank and file citizens should accept is that the dumber the acronym of the program the more useless it is to teachers.

KUDs is one of the latest staff development fads, and it stands for Know, Understand, and Do. Specific knowledge and memories of details will fade but understanding must survive. It’s the secular equivalent to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It doesn’t matter if its actual parental lineage is some vendor or consultant. When Katy I.S.D. distributed it to classroom teachers; the district became its surrogate parent.

According to KUDs what should your children’s classroom teachers understand about understandings?

Well, let’s go directly to the sheet that was distributed to your children’s classroom teachers in a recent staff development session. As you read, keep the American Revolution understandings above in mind. It is “probably” an understanding if:

• It represents subtle ideas that are not obvious at first glance
• It involves multiple layers or meanings
• It is an idea that is especially powerful in understanding the discipline and across topics in a discipline
• It can be understood on a continuum; something kinder through graduate students could study, albeit at different levels of sophistication
• It can be stated as: “I want students to understand that…” RATHER than “I want students to understand…”
• It is a statement that reveals a truth about the study/practice of concept

So now that we have a firm understanding of the understandings that the Katy I.S.D. school board and Katy I.S.D. administrators want your children’s classroom teachers to have in order to enhance the understandings of your children in U.S. history, let’s move to science.

Long after your children have forgotten the parts of a plant and the specific relationships of roots, and stems, and leaves, and flowers, and seeds and light, water, air, soil, and food, what does Katy I.S.D. want your children’s enduring understandings of “Plant Parts” to be?

Well, let’s quote your district’s curriculum gurus:

• “Plants have needs that must be met in order for them to survive.”
• “Each plant part has a job to do that helps the whole plant.”

Continuing our personal journey into Katy I.S.D.’s professional journey into its “Jack Handy Deep Thoughts-like” Saturday Night Live approach to science, let’s pose the ultimate question: What should our children understand about the crayfish other than how to eat them?

Well, let’s quote your district’s curriculum gurus:

• “Crayfish have needs that must be met in order for them to survive.”
• “Each crayfish part has a job to do that helps it survive.”

As one notices the identical nature of  longterm, desirable understandings it should be a concern that in 20 years it will leave your children unable to tell the difference between a crayfish and a plant. Stop laughing. This is not funny. It is tragic. It is beyond tragic.

To quote Jack Handy in honor of Katy I.S.D. school board members, administrators, and curriculum gurus:

I think there should be something in science called the “reindeer effect.” I don’t know what it would be, but I think it’d be good to hear someone say, “Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect.”