13th Cendrars article, posted 11/14
The “No Teacher LEFT Behind” Test
by Marcelle Cendrars

“Seriously, teachers should be given spot quizzes too. I’d love to see some of these Social Studies dudes be put on the spot, like what they do with their students…forcing them to show what they know. Students not in the know fail. Teachers should be put in the position of having to change. As it stands, they’re perpetuating ignorance without paying a price, keeping their jobs, massaging The System.” — High School Senior

Every child should be educated to his or her full potential? Isn’t that the No Child Left Behind mantra?

How ’bout teachers? After all, they do have so much to do with how the kids turn out. You might say that no child signs up for duty with our military forces without the psychological imprimatur of his/her teachers.

Teachers should be tested too, but in a non-mainstream way. Let’s see how our local instructors do with the following questions, shall we? And let me know how they do, if you will. I encourage you to add whatever to the list for your purposes.

Let me know if you need help with getting teachers to participate.

Special note: Answers to the multiple choice questions (with documentation) and the True/False question will be provided upon request. This is seriously designed to provoke meaningful discussion in your local school district…and to encourage attitudinal adjustment. This is something you can do locally –confront teachers– and this test should enable you to switch roles with teachers so that they become vulnerable, more open ideally. You can find out what they are teaching, and ask them to defend it all.

Administrators charged with implementing the time-consuming, arduous, spirit-breaking (counter-productive) NCLB sometimes cancel students’ physical activity and/or arts activity to accomplish their federal directive. They should be asked to post this test, although it’s highly unlikely that they’ll do so. One has an excellent chance in some schools, however, of getting the test published in a school newspaper.

The point here is to do what you can to generate a little light midst the darkness of school halls where, today, it’s always 1984, a Cowardly New World.

NTLB TEST:

1. In the 40s and 50s conventional wisdom held that the population of the entire Western Hemisphere in 1492 was about eight million. Few serious students of the subject today, however, would say that the figure was less than
a) twice that   b) four times that   c) seven times that   d) over 9 times that

2. Write an essay explaining the significance of your answer above. And add what it means that conventional wisdom has changed.

3. The authors of The Federalist Papers (#63) explained what the institution of “representative government” is really for. As they (Madison or Hamilton) put it, in speaking of the Senate:

“I shall not scruple to add that such an institution may be sometimes necessary as a defence to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions…. There are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens in order to heck the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind.”

That passage suggests that whites as well as blacks, men as well as women, might look with suspicion on the claims of modern representative government — that while it is indeed an improvement over monarchy, and may be used to bring about some reforms, it is chiefly used by those holding power in society as a democratic facade for a controlled society and a barrier against demands that threaten their interests.

The experience of black people reveals this most clearly, but there is instruction in it for every citizen. The Constitution did not do away with slavery; it legalized it.

True or False?

4. Justify your choice in #3. And explain what abolitionists had to do to so as to not depend on the regular structures of government to push for change.

5. Helen Keller can best be described as having been
a) apolitical   b) conservative   c)suffragist   d) socialist

6. Following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. military
a) stopped bombing   b) bombed one more Japanese location accidentally   c) intentionally bombed additional Japanese cities, killing tens of thousands more, knowing that Japan was about to agree to surrender (accepting U.S. conditions)   d) recommended “c”

7. Who wrote the following passage?

“The nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are.”

a) L. Frank Baum (”The Wizard of Oz“)   b) Irving Berlin (”God Bless America”)   c) Andrew Jackson   d) None of the aforementioned

8. Why is the answer to #7 important?

Let the teachers you test know that correct answers to both #1, #3, #5 and #6 are necessary, OR reading assignments will be recommended.

This is not meant to be a lesson in humiliation, but do let them squirm.

After all, “The Left” has been left behind in our schools, as usual. And the conservative, reactionary points of views (which have made it possible to create horrors like NCLB) only get more deeply embedded in our institutions…as teacher time is more and more taken up with meeting The System’s self-serving standards.

Marcelle Cendrars, freelancer from L.A., welcomes contact at bcendra@yahoo.com. Again, answers will be provided upon request.