Idiot Nation

  Okay, I’m not going to lie, when I sat down to do this blog and saw that the reading was about twenty pages long, all I could think about was the insane amount of work that I have to do for this final week of classes and how there was no way that I would be reading Idiot Nation in its entirety. I figured I would skim the passage, write a quick blog, and move on to the rest of the books that I have to finish, papers I have to write, and art projects I have to complete. But when I started reading I found that I became very interested and really couldn’t stop. I expected it to be interesting since it was written by Michael Moore, (and I am a fan of most of his documentaries), but I didn’t expect to spend so much time reading and re-reading his work. 

  One of the big reasons why I enjoyed Idiot Nation was Moore’s sarcastic sense of humor, but above that I think I continued reading long after I had planned because it was so relatable. For example, I remember the “library” in my elementary school being very much like what he described most school libraries to be: a small room lined with bookshelves that were filled with outdated and water damaged books. I also see how teachers are constantly being blamed for all of America’s underachieving children since my mom is a teacher in the New York City public school system and the representative at her school for the United Federation of Teachers. I would hear horror stories every day of good teachers in jeopardy of losing their jobs because of low standardized test scores, or just because too much money was cut from the school budget to keep them. 

  Moore points out that the same people who are cutting funds for education are often the biggest critics of America’s teachers. Its obvious that more funding needs to be set aside for the public school system in order to prevent overcrowding, allow students access to up to date books, and keep good teachers in the classrooms. However, this funding doesn’t seem to be coming any time soon, and so many schools are looking to big name companies for money in exchange for advertising rights. People need to wake up and start trying to make a difference in the ways that schools are funded before the children of America are completely brainwashed with advertisements.