There’s a new fad in teaching called “trauma-informed pedagogy.” It means students can’t be disciplined or punished for terrible behavior in any way. If they beat other students, harass the teacher, create mayhem, vandalize the school property, or interrupt class to scream insults, you have to assume they do it because they’ve been traumatized. The only allowed reaction to this behavior is “oh, you poor bunny.” Of course, this creates even more terrible behavior. Some schools have descended into total mayhem as a result of this.

The goal of trauma-informed pedagogy is to make public schools so unappealing that people wouldn’t use them unless they are completely desperate. Public schooling will be reduced to a few hours of online propaganda a day. Once again, this is all about austerity.

“Culturally responsive teaching” is a synonym of “trauma-informed pedagogy.” And by God, do the people who come up with these ugly verbal constructions have any respect for language? Culturally responsive teaching is based on the belief that everybody who is not white is a complete idiot incapable of behaving in a civilized way. As a result, you can’t teach anything of substance or require any discipline because that’s isn’t respectful of the “cultures” that are congenitally dumb and violent. I kid you not, this utterly racist gobbledygook is now treated as holy dogma in teaching.

As a side note, if you are seeking psychological help, please avoid “trauma-informed therapists.” They are as useless and faddy as “trauma-informed teachers.”

Parents of small children do a particular form of penance before Christmas. It’s called Elf on the Shelf.

The elf appears in different unexpected places around the house every morning for a month before Christmas. Every night you have to conduct a military-precision extraction operation and then reposition the elf someplace fun. Sometimes parents forget to reposition the elf and then, rumors have it, their fate is unenviable.

Then there are the dreaded Insta parents who come up with whole installations for their elf and proudly post the photos on social media. It’s as if the whole point of their existence were to make busier / less perky parents feel bad about ourselves.

Jokes aside, nothing beats creating some magic for a little human being even if it does entail tying yourself into knots to make the elf appearances go smoothly.