Today a guy running for president of the United States tweeted a picture of a gun with his name engraved on it and one word, "America". Say what you want about this, but this is the message he chose to send to the world about himself. (Or what he wants us to think about him. It rings as hollow as the bullet points he dreams about to me, like a kid acting like he thinks the other kids want him to act.) Politics are an educational issue, and we've not shied away from politics before. What do we want our leaders to know? What should they think? How involved should they be?
But, since we already hit that, I thought I'd take advantage of the recent holiday to talk about what we imagine our presidents could be like. Let's look at our fictional presidents and see how they have inspired our country. What great feats have these (still almost all) men accomplished? Flying a fighter jet at an alien spaceship*. Sleeping with a lobbyist. Caving to the Cylons. Getting baddies the hell off his plane. Being shouted at by Corbin Dallas' mom. Being the only president who is also a wrestler and a porn star.
"Doug," you shout. "Surely you can't make these presidents relate in some way to education? I mean sure, once you wrote a whole chat about narwhals, but this is going too far!"
Oh is it, audience who lives in my head? Movies are where we put our aspirations and our dreams (see Bartlett, Jed) and our fears (see Bush, Jeb!**). In the movies we imagine a leader who looks upon an asteroid falling from the sky and knows just what team to call. This, without a doubt, is a president who can handle Common Core. President Scroob, even with his head on backwards, would know that we're overtesting our students. When the Martians attack (having learned about Earth culture from Matt Damon) Jack Nicholson will be there to defend our education system. And we know Jack Stanton (who's fictional in name only) could talk his way through any funding quandary.
*WHY are we getting a sequel? Who asked for that?
**he's not fictional yet, but he will be
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