No Dog Left Behind

not canine curriculum prepared by commercial contract with puppy mills and sold to some Dog-Eat-Dog Congress as profitable education.
Some kids are that lucky still, to have engaged parents who let them learn from authentic play, rather than schooling them for sheer survival using obstacle course training.

By the time they reach an age to think about what they'd like to do, most kids have been thoroughly misled about the idea of loving one's work. School has trained them to regard work as an unpleasant duty. . .

Surfing classes for spotted hounds, never mind status-signaling doggy dress or kitty strollers seem to be going in in a new but nevertheless ominous direction, not toward developing the next generation in any productive way, or even letting them all play until they grow into their public lives, but instead toward some demeaning dog-as-plaything indulgence of classless and extravagantly stupid human masters.

OTOH - it's a delightful image all by itself; my children adore it and don't see any spectre of education politics in it, thank goodness! Never having suffered the loss of self-directed play, everything is fun for them, and they cheerfully bounce along like dogs out for an unleashed stroll (not in a cat stroller!) and are almost never hang-dog (cynical or defeatist) even in the face of disaster.

I do believe this comes from a life of well-protected play and preserved curiosity about the world, and maybe it IS a form of behavioral conditioning - the kind that creates happy do-it-yourself confidence, rather than some counterproductive, passive-aggressive fear response to all trainers, teachers and bosses.

I'd put a high premium on self-reliant yet socially responsible technology, schedules, lifestyles, networking, world views and income generation. The kinds of learning based on intrinsic motivation, privacy and sustainability, learning that doesn't require or prepare people to live and work in assigned dorms and barracks under constant public supervision and scrutiny.

. . .I think our kids need to learn differently and do differently, SO much better than we did and so far past school. Someday soon they'll replace us as thinkers, caregivers, problem-solvers, diplomats, designers, and story-tellers. (If they survive!)

If we really expect public education to help save every dog and a happy world for us all to share, then public support of private exploration and play in every pup's home environment would come much closer to creating the reality, than ridiculous resort surfing lessons for the elite, while the nation's puppy mill overruns are left to scrounge kibble off the floor of society's dog-pound schools. . .

How about "No Dog Dragged Outta Bed for Abuse" before we get to "No Dog Left Without a Surfboard?"

is already what school is about -- we say so openly and think nothing of it, even criticize parents who don't give kids enough negative socialization experiences early enough (getting bullied by teachers and peers, accused unjustly, losing at sports, etc)

We've already made the kids "accountable" to society and we already refuse to license them for participatory citizenship if they don't measure up to our obedience training, mastering every trick from a list of thousands.

So, we're not that far from school as "animal obedience training center" as the next compulsory public school reform. When I was a kid we actually had "reform schools" and that's what it meant, mandatory socialization and obedience training imposed by certified trainers (after their own training is complete, of course) --

If young, bright, curious humans and animals make you smile, this news will make you scowl at what one school principal can do to hurt them in the name of educating them. It puts the "public education" rhetoric propping up such state-supported cruelty in a harshly real light too, imo.

School policy was my main field, the part of my profession about which I was most passionate to the end. Reading this nightmarish story about policy as weapon of mass destruction makes me feel like Oppenheimer seeing the horror of his life's work misused and being discredited by peers and establishment for speaking against the righteous wrongness of Schoolthink -- which like Oppenheimer's time, in this case seems to be: this is war, if they hate you you must be right, blindly following orders, get them before they get us, etc.

I suggest if that's how you see dogs and children, as dangerous beasts to be broken by fearless and heartless trainer-warrior leaders, you should:
a) shut up about education issues period, and
b) never be allowed near animals OR children of any kind, much less become a parent, principal or pet owner. In fact, maybe we should just lock YOU up for your own good, and ours . .