kitchen table math, the sequel: Secretary of Education

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Secretary of Education

Lots of fun stuff at Flypaper:

Reader Contest
Cheers and Frets

And, a Concerned Parent find at the Chronicle of Higher Education: Obama's Possible Candidates for Secretary of Education.

Colin Powell is on the list!

I'm pretty sure Colin Powell would be fine by me, assuming he didn't round up the usual suspects and hand "execution" of policy over to them.

I don't remember whether I've mentioned this, but on my second visit to Hogwarts, back in the spring, I realized that the place felt like a happy military school, or what I imagine a military school to be. I've never visited a military school & don't know anyone who's attended one. Nevertheless, I had a distinct sense of "military-ness": really, really fun military-ness.

Then this fall, when we attended the all-day Family Orientation, the principal told parents that the Jesuits in general and the school in particular have a military cast. I don't recall his exact words, but that was the jist. He told us about the life of Loyola, who was a soldier, and pointed out that the head of the Jesuit order is the "Father-General."

So: quasi-military schools for America's over character-edded boys!

And possibly for America's over character-edded girls. Why should boys have all the fun?


About Face! A Case for Quasi-Military Public Schools
Mayor Daley letter re: military academies

9 comments:

concernedCTparent said...

If you believe MSNB, Colin Powell isn't a candidate:

MSNBC reported: "One person who will not be serving in an Obama administration: Colin Powell, who said he has not been approached by the transition team. He says he wants a new generation of leaders to step up and serve."

We'll see.

Anonymous said...

I do. Military school is not fun and it is not Parochial School by any stretch of the imagination. There are some things that should not be taken lightly.

Catherine Johnson said...

What is military school like? (I should say "military schools"?)

I have no idea.

Here's Jerry Brown's short article about his military school: A Few Good Schools

Catherine Johnson said...

Oakland Military Institute

Catherine Johnson said...

oh, this is funny:

As for those who ask whether he thinks inner city kids need more discipline, Brown told KQED-TV, "If I had been sent to a military academy like my parents threatened to do, I believe I would have been president a long time ago."

That's Jerry Brown

Catherine Johnson said...

Jerry Brown, for people who don't know this, was a Jesuit seminarian.

Catherine Johnson said...

Long ago — long before he served two terms as California's governor and made three runs for the Democrats' presidential nomination — Jerry Brown, who has won a second term as mayor of this city, was a Jesuit seminarian and, one suspects, a test of the Christian patience of his religious superiors. He recalls that while doing his chores he was prone to flights of philosophizing, to which his supervisors would respond, "Brown, age quod agis."

Translation: Do what you are doing. Meaning: Concentrate.

Jerry Brown has come a long way

Catherine Johnson said...

But the state supported the idea for this novel charter school — Gov. Gray Davis attended a military school — and the first class, about 160 seventh-graders, boys and girls, just finished its first year at what Brown calls "a pre-Vatican II Jesuit school in the form of a military academy. I am applying the truth I was brought up on." The truth of the Jesuits' founder, Ignatius Loyola, whose principles, says Brown, have "worked for 400 years."

Jerry Brown has come a long way

Catherine Johnson said...

I wonder if Hogwarts can be called a pre-Vatican II Jesuit school?

It's possible.

I don't know enough about Vatican II to say.