The Silent Treatment: A Day in the Life of a Student in ‘No Excuses’ Land

[Pholus]

122. As you just demonstrated, substandard education has consequences.

For example, putting words in someone's mouth as a debate tactic.

You tried to bring this little false equivalence in post 118 with the comment that the call-response thing is used on the campaign trail, at pep rallies and sporting events. Apparently you didn't see how you undermined your own position by only citing example events where the information transfer is ONE WAY and does not require honest interaction. Being brutal with your mistake I guess I would have commented that if you found the two types of events similar in any way means you are subscribing to the overly simplistic (educorp) views of education where a list of "facts" must go from teacher to student without considering that it might help if the communication channels are two-way.

Now I've been figuring you don't want to hit my post #110 head on cause here you are trying to score points on this side thread so I thought I'd remind you I haven't forgotten about my main problem with putting on the fake happy face for the teachers. So in post #119 I decided to remind you that my problem with this is that scripted responses replace honesty. To intentionally show you that I will not enter into your false equivalency I specifically restricted my second sentence by using the word "teacher" to show that I am focused on education, not your goofball sideshow.

So then we come to your post #120 where you make pretty much the best counterargument you could have made ("a nonstandard response should lead to questions about well being&quot and then shoot yourself in the foot twice in rapid succession:

1) making the call-response thing optional for the students ("Obviously no punishment" -- so really, the student doesn't have to respond then? Why wouldn't they say those responses are optional in the proposal then?)

2) being deliberately obtuse to ineffectively try to elicit an emotional response. See, I never mentioned the President at all in Post #119 because of the above discussion. Plus, it was peripheral to my actual point which is that these student responses are coercive by design.

To make your little "interesting" observation you had to deliberately misinterpret #119 by ignoring my restrictive case "teacher" and by lying that I even gave your load-o-crap any purchase at all.

So you seem to be interested in building a strawman where I am insulting the President. I obviously am not, and I question your motivations in doing so.

Fail.