That'll Do, Shills. That'll Do.

So education has really been making the headlines over the last six months, eh?

Last fall we were introduced to the "Waiting for Superman" documentary where charter school reformers were essentially lionized while teachers and their unions were demonized. In the midst of it all, we learned about Michelle Rhee, a Korean-American educator who was and still is championed as a savior of sorts, spreading the gospel of school and teacher reform from sea to shining sea. Heightening the fears of a failing public education system (as well as the belief in Asians' ability to get desired academic results), we were made aware of China's dominance on the PISA test scores, which only added fuel to the fire.

But then...

Soon afterwards, we started hearing lamentations in the media about how students are too stressed out and how we need to rise against the cultural tide of high-stakes competition and anxiety-riddled students as we witnessed the release of a documentary called "Race to Nowhere." And this "race to nowhere" zeitgeist wasn't a monopoly of American sensibilities. Apparently, even the over-achieving Chinese were expressing doubts about the limits of standardized testing (further evidenced by their glowing reception of the Indian version of "Race to Nowhere.")

But then...

Just when Americans seemed galvanized in a collective campaign to reduce stress and rally against high-stakes testing and competition in secondary education by participating in nationwide screenings of "Race to Nowhere" (even at Harvard), out of nowhere prowls this self-proclaimed "Tiger Mom," stirring up more confusion as she gloated about the superiority of Chinese parenting methods--methods that are completely antithetical to the ethos of the "Race to Nowhere" phenomenon yet seemingly justified by the Chinese students' PISA scores.

And now after several spins around the revolving door of public sentiment, I'm getting quite bored with the transparency and predictability of the PTB's formula. The elites must be having a field day, paying their media shills to unleash their strategically-timed, contradictory, and sensationalized news stories whose only purpose is to direct us (the profane) into adopting the herd behavior they've programmed for us. They command their "reporter collies" to steer us in one direction, nip at our heels to make us change course, then drive us into other uncharted territories, over again and over again, until we're finally fenced in right where they want us: dazed, confused, and hopeless.

The question is, where exactly do they want us? Do they want us to remain in this growing state of frenzy where we react to their strategic synchronizing of Asian faces with worrisome statistics so that we'll embrace charter schools, teaching-to-the-test, and slave-driving disguised as "tiger parenting?" Are we supposed to be herded into blaming teachers and parents for our students' mediocre academic performance, while ratcheting up the rote memorization practices that will produce androids and followers rather than the creative thinkers and leaders that will challenge the PTB and foil their plans for world domination? Or do the elites want the other extreme where we give up on pushing our students to excel and instead coddle to them, implementing ridiculous policies that obviate their need to think (critically and be leaders so that they can challenge the PTB, etc., etc.? Either way, the elites win and we drone.)

Which side of the pendulum swing are we supposed to be on? Or is the goal to not have us settle on any one solution, but to have those who've already taken sides dig their heels deeper into their polarized stances, while the rest of us undulate wildly back and forth, never finding a solution and never getting a clue? Yeah, I know. All of the above. Well, none for me thanks. I know the real answer lies somewhere in the middle and not at the extremes that they constantly herd us into choosing. I refuse to play the part of "unwitting pawn" in their game of Hegelian dialectic as they instruct their media "heelers" to "cast" and "come-bye" to the rest of our detriment.

Now if only enough of us would invoke our inner Farmer Hoggetts and tell these reporters to "stop working and return to handler," we might have a fighting chance at fixing this mess of a world we live in. Some may call me a dreamer but hey, it's apparently my nature to dream in my "imaginary world of happy people and happy endings." So I'll just keep following N'Dea's and Steve's advice and make it do what it do. Smoochez!