Why Donald Trump Hates Our Educational System and Demonizes Teachers- A Personal Reflection

Why Donald Trump Hates Our Educational System and Demonizes Teachers- A Personal Reflection

As someone who is exactly the same age as DJT and went to school during the same years, I look at his rise to the top of our society with astonishment. As a young person from a family of modest means, going to public schools in Brooklyn, I did everything people told me to allow me to move into the middle class and become a respected professional. I got good grades. I scored well on standardized tests and on my SAT's. I became a successful athlete whose exploits were written up in school newspapers and occasionally the local press I applied for every scholarship in sight. And it worked. I got into Columbia where, after a slow start, the same pattern emerged.Starting in my sophomore year, I got excellent grades in my major. My sports exploits were written up in the school paper. With the support of my professors, I received numerous fellowships to go to graduate school. Every single thing I mentioned here is a matter of public record- the grades, the standardized tests scores, the articles in school newspapers the fellowships. Yet our President, who went to school during the same years, is a person who not only didn't register those accomplishments in academics or sports , but has threatened to sue every school he went to to prevent his grades and test scores from being released! Not only that, he sees the people responsible for recording such information, the teachers, the school administrators, the journalists, as his enemy! And he has taken half of the country with him in venting his rage at the professional class, those with the credentials he never achieved and who he could circumvent because he had a multi millionaire father with limitless political connections. To DJT, intellect is something to be mocked; and those who have played by the rules just "suckers" to be laughed at, bulldozed, and pushed aside. That half the country cheers him on when he does this- using the term "loser teachers" to refer to people who work in our public schools- scares the hell out of me. We have seen this before, in Nazi Germany among other places.... and the results have always been disastrous.