teachers vs. soldiers

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If I believe the war is wrong and unjust, I believe the soldier who volunteered to fight for it is also committing a wrong, but most of them I see as pawns rather than fully culpable. Many young Americans are indoctrinated to believe that going off to a foreign land killing is somehow a patriotic or glorious thing to do. War is never glorious but occasionally necessary. I see soldier worship as a way of culturally propping up the military-industrial complex, which is why channels like Fox News push it so heavily. If people didn't find soldiering respectable, no one would be willing to go to the front lines and die for Bush's and now Obama's wars.

The recent events in the Middle East show that democratic change is better done from within rather than forced from without.

education can keep us - you - anyone out of conflict.

You think we have to invade some country for silicon to make solar panels or carbon fiber for wind power generation? No, someone had to think of a way to create this stuff without having to use fossil fuels which some backwards and tumultuous nations are sitting on top of. Someone had to be taught. He or she then taught others and along the line, someone got the idea, they thought of ways to generate power using the sun or the wind so we don't have to go to Iraq or Iran and deal with them.

It all starts at home. It's carried on in the classroom.

The two need not be mutually exclusive.

I note some snide swipes at teachers which, truth be told, may be a tad unfair. Teachers do not get to control the budgets that their schools receive, nor do they control how those budgets are spent. For example, school districts are (at least in this provinced) rationed in their access to diagnostic services, meaning that fewer children are identified as requiring access to special education supports, which allows the province to claim to meet the requirements of children with special needs at a much higher level than is truly the case.

Teachers are at the coal face of the delivery of education, but they do not exercise the kind of control over the industry that public policy makers would like us to believe.

I think the soldiers will win because of their superior weapons and training.