But here's my dirty little secret--when a few of us tiny hotshots were hit with algebra in 6th grade, I could not even begin to grasp it. It was as foreign to me as the pheromones that would alter my life just two years later. (I wanted to be a priest--Robin cured me.)
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| Pre-algebra brain |
Algebra did not make sense to me until girls, mysteriously, started smelling good. Before that, I could no more will myself to solve a quadratic equation than throw a 105 mph fastball.
There's a correlation--brain development matters, and does, indeed, happen to correspond to the hairiness of one's genital area.
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| Algebra brain, just a few short years later |
Hate to be so damn coarse about this, but I'm a retired pediatrician with a better grasp of neurodevelopment than most folks, and certainly more than our current Education Czar Arseny Duncan.
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Back in the 1940's, a Russian "scientist" Trofim Lysenko held erroneous belief in Lamarckian inheritance and led the political silencing of true scientists who dared point out his flawed (and dangerous) reasoning.
And here we are, decades later, letting our own Lysenko pseudoscientist Arne Duncan propagate propagandist nonsense that will lead to years and years of harm. Not everybody is developmentally ready to tackle algebra in 8th grade.
It's the 21st century, and here we are clicking our ruby heels together three times hoping for miracles, in a land where more of us reject evolution than accept it. Arne, do you truly believe the nonsense you preach?
If you do, you're a dangerous fool, and if you do not, a corrupt one. Either way, you have no business at the helm.
Mr. Obama, are you blinded by political loyalty?