"Food processing techniques include freezing, canning, baking, drying and pasteurizing."
"Child
processing techniques (in Florida) include freezing, canning, baking, drying and pasteurizing."
Processed
children. Processed public school children. Processed K-12 darlings. They're frozen to seats in front of
computers. Their creativity is dried--parched, withered, shriveled, wilted, and (love this one!) wizened--as they tap
the buttons of keyboards yet again for another FSA practice drill. Year after year. By God, another big day (well big
two months) of testing is a-comin'! Dried children lack learning "adornment" (see Webster's definition of "dry")
as mostly they've done nothing more in their classes but practice to take the FSA.
The state
"freeze dries" our children. That's more efficient.
We bake ("harden by heat")
them too. And it doesn't get any hotter for our public school children and our public school teachers, administrators and
counselors than the state's punitive consequences of inadequate FSA scores.
Children
are held back in third grade no matter what. They are forced into intensive reading and math classes, thereby having
no electives. Recess is considered too much time to lose to test prep, so there's not even a respite for our seven, eight,
nine year old children.
Our high school children don't receive diplomas--after thirteen years of
learning--even if they've met all graduation requirements but the test.
Teachers and counselors may lose
their jobs. Teachers because their children's scores don't demonstrate "adequate gains" and counselors...well,
because they're paid and judged on their schools' reading scores. Yepper. That's right. Counselors are NOT
evaluated on their contribution to a positive school culture, nor on their counseling skills. Their salaries (oh dare I be
sarcastic and write "big" salaries?!) are tied to school wide reading scores. 'Nough said.
Administrators
won't lose their jobs no matter what because they're friends with district big whigs and mucky-mucks. That's a story for another
day. It's a big story.
All public school children in Florida are pasteurized--exposed to extreme
heat (THE TESTING DAY!). Creativity must be destroyed...without appearing to be destroyed. Children--freeze dried, baked
children-- must still look like people. Test "administrators" must still look like people too. Neither,
however, is allowed to DO ANYTHING but sit, stare and stand (in the case of the test administrator).
Once
our pasteurized and processed children are baked, dried and frozen, we can them. There's the "Going No Where"
shelf where we put the "Certificate of Completion" canned children. There's the "Diploma" canned children
shelf. Those canned kids passed the tests.
There's no "Occupations" shelf because those canned children
are sitting on the "Certificate of Completion" shelf and didn't get a diploma.
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From
Webster's Dictionary:
Freeze:
1.
(of a liquid) be turned into ice or another solid as a result of extreme cold.
2.
store (something) at a very
low temperature in order to preserve it.
Dry:
1.
free from
moisture or liquid; not wet or moist.
2.
bare or lacking adornment.
"the dry facts"
Bake:
Canned:
lacking
originality or individuality as if mass-produced
Pasteurize:
to expose
(a food, as milk, cheese, yogurt, beer, or wine) to an elevated temperature for a period of time sufficient to destroy certain
microorganisms, as those that can produce disease or cause spoilage or undesirable fermentation of food, without radically
altering taste or quality.
