Lo & behold, I found a perfect example of Common Core vs. homeschooling conflict in which there is ad hominem argument made to misconstrue or misrepresent the underlying purpose for the increased complexity of the language (vocabulary). This is from my own perspective but I'm thinking there might have been people involved who understood the socioeconomic issue, or class disparity, regarding higher education and the encouragement received (or not to whatever degree) for those pursuing some vocation that requires college level education.

The point is that the blending of more complex wording (like "quantify") could prove helpful to students to be accustomed to more "flowery" language, for lack of better description. The homeschooling expert in this video is supportive of an ideology in which an average person avoids learning any kind of more descriptive words, and by extension there's tendency to mock , ridicule, torment, etc., anyone who aspires to.

People who were born into families with more educated people would be in an advantaged position, regardless of their pursuit of higher education, and (to cut to the chase) the whole fiasco lends to facilitating a racist posit (overall). I contend that there's a cultural appropriation of the demographic of socioeconomic disadvantaged people of color by a culture of whites who have that very purpose as a goal. It's the resulting indignation expressed by people who understand what it means to be the ones to b-lamed (type thing) but the concept is expressed as "Fundamental attribution error", meaning the emotion expressed is misconstrued as being because of whatever twisted idea that's meant to be degrading.

I've mentioned elsewhere that, from what was explained to me by a man with a masters in social work & decades of experience in the field, is that it's (simply expressed) a kind of initiation (like "hazing" or "jumping in") that is behind deliberate stigmatizing or outright violence toward me by other white men, so it's still racist in nature. My counselor was a shorter Black man with a degree from Regis and would help me & his other clients with vocabulary. He would say that he understood that a person's knowledge of words wasn't an indication of intelligence because some people weren't raised in environments in which there was intellectual pursuits but there are other facets of life that a person can be more experienced in, e.g., mechanical vocations, etc.

Is this WHY kids are confused？？!! Textbooks TODAY vs 1877!!

See the original: Is this WHY kids are confused？？!! Textbooks TODAY vs 1877!!

There were a few particular instances of examples of Common Core content that were popular social media discussion topics. One was a critical thinking exercise having to do with Holocaust denial, which exists, and the teachers' intention was to introduce the students to the possibilty of internet users who misrepresent established, verifiable historical facts in order to acquire reinforcement for bigotry, etc. It is an important possibility that should be presented to students that are expected to use the internet for research, but a very sensitive subject. It was that fact that it was a sensitive subject is what provided the fodder for the "critics". It was obvious in the lesson plan that the teachers made every attempt to make it very clear that the denial was the focus of the critical thinking exercise and that was evident with the resources that were provided to confirm the event's historical reality since they were all legitimate, substantiated websites. One was the relevant section of "about.com" and the other was hosted by the British government. ("Conservatives" in the U.S. are notoriously xenophobic!) The website example for the denial was obviously amateur (created in c. IE7, era) and wouldn't render correctly in common newer browsers (see blurred screencapture below). The teachers eventually retracted the entire exercise. (There probably is a copy of the original assignment existing online, but of course there lacks the additional context. The teachers acted in good faith but there's always the ad hominem!)

The other examples that were popular to create controversy over were mathematics exercises. Common ones were examples of various ways substraction of relatively large numbers (for example) could be accomplished that are not used in everyday life, but intend to reveal the consistant logic ("you can check your work", is the way my father puts it & he taught math for awhile in the USAF). I created an example which is included below this paragraph. The point (obviously) is to present the subject to students has fun and interesting. The (middle-class white) parents hate the idea that education can be fun and interesting since education is only necessary to make lots of money and that is the example that they want to set & want their children to enjoy their inherited white privilege. The other popular controversy was about Spatial reasoning because the exercises in the workbooks didn't appear to be perfect. Parents with no college degree in education insisted that the exercise was pointless. It occurred to me that the type of instruction was probably included in the older generations' education curriculum but none of us recall it. In any event, I cannot have any interaction with the young family member of mine that was so vehemently crtical of the exercises since the person never would acknowledge my explanation and adequate defense of the educators' work.

I think the controversy and details surrounding the Common Core education program would be great content for a contemporary social science lesson since it exemplifies "cancel culture" attitudes. I truly understand however that the local politcal clique will stay true to form & I get ignored. Elsewhere I've pointed out that along with my military service (I received medical discharge, Honorable, because of my ankle reconstruction surgery), but I also worked in construction plumbing and the work was strenuous & sometimes dangerous. Most of my oldest friends are already dead. My parents' first son died a month after he was born due to medical error. I'm the last man of my family's branch of lineage. I'm a good person, and compassionate so it does take me a bit of time to quantify the idea of white people wanting to make money in the political realm and so thereby avoid doing any actual work. When I was a young man I had violent crimes committed against me and that is not my only personal assessment but people with masters degrees and decades of experience in the human/social services field. They also pointed out to me that considering my history, I have not had the same opportunities that most other people had in my demographic. These educated people explained to me that I was disadvantaged. I've still helped some people out though, and yet I still have people that would never do the same while stigmatizing & judging me as deserving violent attacks. Evil is as evil does. (I finally had to accept that nobody cares about what happened to Miki Manigualt even though she had an apartment in the City of Northglenn for awhile.)

One other point that I may have mentioned elsewhere, but probably not expressed this concisely. One of my old counselors, a five & half foot Black man with a MSW from Regis College, came straight out and told me that he knew that white people can be abusive to other white people; intentionally so, because it's a way to feel superior to other people without appearing racist. Oftentimes they will target those white people who are not racist … can't beat them then join them, ideology. The other thing that was pointed out to me by my counslors was that since physically abusing somebody isn't easy to get away with if the people know each other, there's an alternative way and that is to cause the tormented person to defend themselves and that action can be misinterpreted as aggressive. The person then is stigmatized as a violent criminal, it doesn't matter to them who started it. The tormented person can then be targeted with vigilantism violence and, as with the previous scenario, any defensiveness can be intentionally misconstrued & embellished as aggression… merely the willingness to resort to physical violence in self-defense is what can be exploited. The idea, of course, is that the person is supposed to be completely passive and "turn the other cheek" since that is what their posit is that they're Christian so that is what's expected of them, that they allow themselves to be physically abused. Of course if the tormented person then feels accepted because of willingness to fight back then they might learn to feel more comfortable in that stereotypical role. How the person maintains that facade they create to interact with the world becomes their persona. The first person that I think of now is MaKhia Bryant. MaKhia was a tall Black adolescent girl who was shot & killed by local police in 2021 because she was brandishing a (kitchen) knife. The context of the incident is what is tragic because there was a break-down in the human services "safety-net" where there got to be too many unlicenced, & therefore uneducated, caregivers involved. There's a Wikipedia article about her and it mentions that the police action was ruled as a justifiable homicide, but from a sociology perspective I would point out that every adult present at the scene shared culpability.

Note: This lady, Dr Paula J. Caplan, has passed away but she was highly respected in the international "trauma-informed" community. She knew who I am though, and we had a message exchange. I told her that the idea of "restorative justice" (practices that emphasize repairing the harm caused to victims and the community by offenses) sounds great in theory but people will want to get creative and one example is "public humiliation" (like forcing a person to hold a sign up in public stating they did wrong and are being punished- "scarlet letter" type thing) … Paula replied to me saying that she understood my point.

My credentials, or my reading list actually.

I thought I'd try this route, go with common blog software for this website. The old content is in subfolder here: old html version (This isn't working too well in mobile.)
(The cookies notification is just default so for the software platform's purposes only. )

(Screen captures included here in conformance with fair use in this criticism.)