awesomeness2:

Click this :http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia

Read this : http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/04/move-over-leftists-real-feminists-reject-subsidies/#ixzz1u37n2Ub7

The Obama campaign released a new ad on Thursday that should be offensive to all of the women…

Reblogging for thescarletwoman’s commentary, which says everything that needs to be said on this particular issue.

technicoloring:

“In short, at the top of the meritocratic ladder we have in America a generation of students who are extraordinarily bright, morally earnest, and incredibly industrious. They like to study and socialize in groups. They create and join organizations with great enthusiasm. They are responsible, safety-conscious, and mature. They feel no compelling need to rebel—not even a hint of one. They not only defer to authority; they admire it. ‘Alienation’ is a word one almost never hears from them. They regard the universe as beneficent, orderly, and meaningful. 

They have woven their way through the temptations of adolescence and have benefited from all the nurturing and instruction and opportunities with which the country has provided them. They are responsible. They are generous. They are bright. They are good-natured. But they live in a country that has lost, in its frenetic seeking after happiness and success, the language of sin and character-building through combat with sin. Evil is seen as something that can be cured with better education, or therapy, or Prozac. Instead of virtue we talk about accomplishment.

Maybe the lives of the meritocrats are so crammed because the stakes are so small. All this ambition and aspiration is looking for new tests to ace, new clubs to be president of, new services to perform, but finding that none of these challenges is the ultimate challenge, and none of the rewards is the ultimate reward.”

I want to print this article out and mail it to every. Single. Person. That I know.

Reblogging for truth (at least in the first half) but also for a more critical take on the latter half.

There is a bit of a self-righteous air to the article—a certain “everything was better and freer when I was a youngster.” And while I think that it’s a little silly to assume that all modern “contrivances” and “the end of chivalry” are automatically restrictive and wrong because Brooks seems to disagree, he brings up a number of really thought-provoking points about the sheer…achievement-based ethos of today’s children and students.

(I am, nonetheless, somewhat alarmed by the neocon-ish slant of his take on morality—perhaps it’s an instinctive “generational” recoil from the concept of pure Evil (with a capital E) and a general distaste for mixing religious doctrine—because, let’s be honest, there’s a lot of that when he discusses character and “virtue”—into an otherwise enlightening article about hyperachievementism.)

mycultureisnotatrend:

Dirty Redskin Devils

I have a confession to make: I am addicted to Disney. I think it would be difficult to have been a child of my generation and not been, considering I spent all of my pre-adolescent years in the company’s “Renaissance” period. For every year of my…

I was aware of the true Pocahontas story after a project in seventh grade, but one passage later in this article really struck me:

Not to mention that the history of marginalized peoples was hardly brought up that often in the history/social studies classes I attended when I went through K-12. I can’t speak for what’s being taught now, but as of this time 4 years ago, I went to a high school history class where the students were being taught the Civil War wasn’t actually fought over slavery. I’ve only once heard Pocahontas referenced in a history class, or even as a real, historical figure, when it wasn’t me bringing her up. What children are told and shown may well be what they believe, and when they can’t separate reality from fiction because they’re not dealing with fiction, you end up with a generation of children whose only experience with Native American history is Pocahontas until they’re old enough for Dances With Wolves.

tsg2010:

I got a full tuition scholarship to college. Not my first choice college. Honestly, I refused to even apply to my dream school (Columbia) because I knew I couldn’t afford it and it would break my heart to turn down an offer. Just like it did when I had to turn down U. Chicago, and U….

Preach. Go forth and be awesome—I’ll be rooting for you all the way.

lazybookreviews:

Obviously, this is pretty gross.

But I noticed a surprising amount of self-righteous privilege in the comments about “my kid only had a book of sample SATs and some No. 2 pencils, and he got into Yale juuuuust fine.”

To which, may I very nicely remind you, one could say:…

The linked article in the post should surprise no one currently or recently in high school, particularly people in relatively wealthy districts, like yours truly. But the post I reblogged brings up terrific points about how test prep availability and access affects your education and opportunities.

If you have SAT or AP books (especially the former) that you no longer need, please consider donating them to a poorer or less privileged district.

Bringing the K-12 debate up into the post-secondary. I don’t know if I agree with all the sentiments expressed here, but if you have any interest in education and/or academia, this is well worth your time.

I always found it beautifully apt that my old department occupies the same space where the infamous Milgram obedience experiments were conducted in the early 1960s. (Yes, really.) Pay no attention to the screams you hear coming from the next room, the subjects were told as they administered the electric shocks, it’s for their own good—a perfect allegory of the relationship between tenured professors and graduate students (and tenured professors and untenured professors, for that matter).