I Confess: I’m a Socialist by Grumpy Old Teacher

Recently, Grumpy Old Teacher (GOT) was reading a piece by Peter Greene of Curmudgucation fame that mentioned the old canard of how teachers are indoctrinating students in the classroom to their wild-eyed, unbrushed hair, manic presentation of socialism as the ONLY ism that works.

His take? “Like teachers have time for that.”

Actually, GOT does have time for that. He is a math teacher and mathematics is full of socialism. Every math teacher every day is indoctrinating students in the idea that people should receive equal treatment regardless of merit.

You don’t believe GOT? Consider Distributive Property: a (b + c) = (a x b) + (a x c).

Actually, that is a mathematical property that says no matter how many terms (things we are adding) that are inside the parentheses: a (b + c + d + … + z) = (a x b) + (a x c) + (a x d) + … + (a x z), we will do the same thing to each one.

Everything inside the parentheses is receiving the same distribution of ‘a’ benefits. We don’t ask if they earned it, we don’t ask if they merit it, they just get it. Socialism: everyone is treated the same.

Oprah had nothing on math teachers. Everybody gets an ‘a’.

Or consider the properties of equality. Any equation states that one thing is equal to another. To maintain that equality, whatever we add, subtract, multiply, or divide to one side of the equation we must do to the other side. Equality must be maintained.

Don’t ask about 2x – 4 = 5x -20 and whether the addition of 4 to the left should be matched by the addition of 4 to the right. Mathematics does not allow you to ask that. We MUST BE EQUAL. Whatever happens to one must happen for all. Socialism!

What about transitive property? If a = b and b = c, then a has to equal c because a and c equal b. In other words, it doesn’t matter if a and c aren’t identical much as people come with different demographics. No matter how we organize the statistics, every number is the same as the others. Disgusting, right? But that’s mathematics.

Yes, you were right all along, flat-earthers, faux libertarians, and <censored because politics is too hot to be mentioned.>

Betsy Devos? You had our number all along, didn’t you? OMG, the equality! The socialism being taught in public school classrooms!

But don’t think we are waiting for the secondary grade levels (middle and high) to work our evil. We start early, we < censored, but insert your favorite swear word> mathematics teachers.

It starts with division. What is 24 divided by 6? That simple arithmetic problem means we are taking 24 things and giving them equally to six groups. Every group gets four.

Some groups don’t deserve it. They are lazy. Some parade grievances over past treatment and refuse to be a part of the great system of mathematics. Some will freeload as long as they can get away with it.

But we math teachers say each group gets the same. That other stuff doesn’t matter.

Mathematics: the original socialism! Oh, the horror! Oh, the threat to our great country! The only answer is to stop teaching it. After all, no one needs math to count their guns.

Or do they?

[BTW (By the way), for those who didn’t figure out that this is satire, yes it’s satire.]