Sympatheducation

Talking blues about schools

A couple of hundred years ago, in the land across the sea,
they practiced a type of superstition, a form of magicry,
wherein you take one thing that's like another, and do unto the one,
and by their sympathetic nature, the other unto was also done.
Nowadays, we know our science and all of nature's rules
and don't rely on magic, excerpt perhaps in schools.
Kids . . . backwards critters . . . do with 'em what you can.
Get a sorcerer . . . a magician . . . we need an Efficiency Man.

Schools are full of bungling folk in a place that's bureaucratic.
What we need is corporate efficiency to make education automatic.
Empower, downsize, centralize, restructure through the system.
Number-crunch the test results. Teachers? Sorry -- missed 'em!
Don't care what happens in the class. That's just not the point.
The system and incentives are what will change the joint.
Gonna get results . . . fast . . . before the place goes broke.
We want corporate results like the Edsel . . . baseball realignment . . . New Coke.

Buildings set the stage for learning, so let's change the architecture
to prevent or force rows, centers, big classes, or teacher lectures.
"Build it and they'll have to come." "As you construct, so shall you reap."
Spend a couple million bucks and then you watch the teachers weep.
Don't care if they toss around construction bonds with impunity.
Don't you know schools aren't just for books? It's all about community!
Your spelling words this week: . . . cooler . . . cola . . .
Ladders . . . drywall . . . contractor . . . payola . . .

Toddlers are like cave man, banging each other. It is no mystery
that individual development recapitulates our species history.
If a kid's not doing well in school, they sure screwed up a prior stage.
Make that kid go back and fix whatever they did at an earlier age.
Gotta crawl before you walk, or read or fly a kite.
If you can't do your lessons, drop down and do some crawling right!
Clean up your act . . . it's good for you . . . clear out personal algae.
Revisiting your past . . . with psychologists' approval . . . it's individual nostalgee.

You don't have to teach the kids. They'll do it for themselves!
Any toddler knows what pi is and can read books off the sehlves.
If a kid asks a question, don't answer. Don't debate her,
for you are not her teacher, just facilitator.
The best part of constructivist theory is the new words that are so nice,
for why be parsimonious when a neologism will suffice?
They construct their own meaning . . . baby intellectuals . . . writing just like academic articles . . .
So we don't know what they know? . . . you can't measure it . . . they're quantum-mechanical learner particles!

The politicians like to talk, and talk they do a lot
and often they say they've school reform when talking's all they've got.
Repeat after me, "I believe in reform!" -- it's just like a hymn,
and it's even better with a snappy label or a witty acronym.
They've gotta be drunk to make up their slogans, and they must have gall
to say with a straight face, "reform in five years," and "we'll fix it all."
Put it on paper . . . that's right . . . Goals 2000.
It's worth a load . . . a whole load . . . of what comes out of a cow's end.

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