Last week I hosted a bruising conversation about education. And now one of my favorite bloggers, onetime St. Louis schools communication chief Glynn Young, leans on C.S. Lewis to write a fine post about would-be education reformers—and, for us, a perfect postscript.
Thanks for the mention, David. I lived with that “it’s for the good of the children” line for a year. The people I tended to trust were the people who never used the line at all — the treachers who were making a difference in the face of insurmountable odds. They didn’t have to say it because they were doing it.
It resonated, because my wife has to deal with it. It’s a rhetorical club that people use–teachers, too–to justify whatever they’re advocating. It’s unanswerable except to say, “FUCK the children!”
Or, as my wife usually retorts through gritted teeth, “We’re ALL working for the good of the children.”