At Public School, Anti-Americanism Hides in Plain Sight
This little true anecdote — based on firsthand knowledge — is terribly sad. A pre-teenage boy, living in the United States with his affluent family from South America, attends an American public school in the eastern part of the country. They are not immigrants. He speaks English without an accent and is not physically identifiable as belonging to any particular ethnic group.
Recently, he was raising money for the homeless with a friend at a school fair. At the first of the tables he passed, the salesman invited him to take a look at his merchandise — soccer balls and shirts. The boy became very upset.
“That’s racist,” he complained to his friend.
“Why?” asked the schoolmate.
“That’s what they think of us Mexicans. All we are interested in is soccer and tacos.”
In other words, he innocently had turned a simple situation — a guy wanted to sell merchandise, for charity, to boys of a soccer-crazy age — into a racist incident.
The boy didn’t do anything or say anything to anyone other than his friend. That’s just the way he reacted to it. And this is happening in America — not to mention Canada and Europe — tens of thousands of times each day. We just don’t hear about it.
To take a small incident as proof of a much wider phenomenon is always open to question. Yet I can’t help but think — especially since I know what he’s been taught in the classroom — that this boy’s paranoia and quickness to anger is a result of the indoctrination he is getting in public school.
He lacks an interest in politics. He enjoys a very calm personality. He isn’t prone to exaggeration or anger, which makes this incident all the more shocking. Oh, and one other thing: he does love soccer.
Tell people over and over again that America is mostly or even mainly characterized by racism, and you are teaching people to hate America. Or, as one eleven-year-old girl from another South American family told her classmates: “We hate America, but our parents are making us live here.”
Kids in the class constantly use the word “racist,” even when colors completely unassociated with human beings are mentioned — a black cat, for example, or automobile.
What happens when you tell young people over and over again that the most important fact of American history is the internment of Japanese during World War Two? In a single year, I watched as fourth graders were assigned four different readings on that topic while spending ten minutes on George Washington and zero on Abraham Lincoln. Their sole reading on September 11 was a story on how Kenyans reacted to the event — with no identification of who had carried out the attack.
I could supply four score and seven more very specific first-hand examples, based on a close observation of my son’s almost two years in an American public school. Whether he is being subjected to one of the school plans developed by unrepentant anti-American terrorist Bill Ayers, who has had a certain influence on contemporary American leadership, I cannot say.
Yet this is what’s really going on in the America experienced by our eleven-year-olds, and, no doubt, by their older and younger siblings as well. This daily experience isn’t covered in the media. Parents hardly ever hear about it.
Hmmm, why was a kid in school on Memorial Day in the first place?
In any case, many of the PJM readers already know about this. The question is what do you propose to do about it? Even should we get rid of government-run education, plenty of parents would pick the same kind of indoctrination, because that’s the sort of thing the nice and good people believe.
You ask Mr Rubin, “what do you propose to do about it?”
The proper question is, “what can we do about it?” In order to take direct action focused on the specific place this problem is claimed to exist, Mr. Rubin would need to name the school in which these incidence are claim to have occurred.
Mr. Rubin: the name of the school please.
If these “nice” and “good” people choose to send their kid to a Maoist indoctrination camp instead of a school, then in 10 or 15 years time those kids will be scrubbing shit from the toilets of other kids whose parents made sure they received a genuine education.
Bullseye.
Oops! More gun culture slang. Can’t seem to bag that habit.
Aw, shoot!
Oops.
Only if the Left doesn’t implement campus-wide what they’ve already implemented in college Education departments: “We don’t recognize high-school diplomas from non-accredited (not teaching the Party line) schools. No college for you.”
No, they’ll be the next teachers, professors, principals, etc.
They already ARE the teachers, principals, and professors. I’ve been an educator for over 40 years and can tell you that “teachers” like this have been in the classroom at LEAST that long, but are now a huge majority. And look at the results we’ve gotten from them.
The only way to reverse this is make it illegal to prevent teachers from voicing THEIR opinions at all. At least NOT in the classroom! That, and do complete replacement of all texts, especially history and sociology. At least it would be a start!
What to do about it?
Get your kids and your grandkids OUT of government-run schools!
Barry – Thanks for writing this. I’m sending it to my sisters and friends who have school aged children in America and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, please see this video: “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZJoCfgAEuE&feature=player_embedded
suzanne
This film raises some good points, for instance the use of whole-word recognition instead of phonics, but it gets into tin-foil-hat territory with its comments on vaccines and genetically modified foods. I don’t recommend it.
Charlotte Iserbyt, the woman in the video who wrote the fantastic book, “Deliberate Dumbing Down” is a friend of mine. The entire book and many other documents are available for free as PDF files on her two websites. She recently wrote a great 12 page article “The Death of Free Will” that is in pdf format.
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/pdf_downloads.html
http://www.americandeception.com
All part in parcel of the Left’s totalitarian tendencies:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/we_beg_to_differ.html
Great article. sad but true. In our area, all hell broke out last year when a teacher (supposedly well -liked by peers and students alike) handed out a math worksheet with a funny face on it. He later said he thought the funny face would help make math more fun, and the character was saying a word that he used in class. WELL, the character, upon examination, looked like a black hillbilly, and after one student said to one of the few black children in class “Is that your Daddy?” he went home and reported it to his mother. Soon it was a local and national story, apologies and sreaming at the School Board meeting, the Naacp was brought in. All over a funny face that the teacher, in no way, considered racial. Had it been seen as a white hillbilly, or, let’s say, a fat farmer, and someone had asked the fat kid in class, ‘Is that your daddy?” I would not be writing. It was ridiculous. This teacher was simply FLOORED by the accusations. But now the teacher will forever be “on guard.”
I believe that had the picture been of a ‘fat farmer’, then the cry would have been equally as loud. Don’t you realize that ‘making fun’ of fat people is just as ‘evil’ as making fun of anyone not meeting some unspecified standard as ‘normal’. Fat people can’t help it they are fat anymore than ‘mentally challenged’ people can help their condition or that ‘people of color’ can change their color. The aim of the leftists seems to be to create more and more divisiveness by attempting to make us all think alike. We all discriminate every time we shop for any item in any market yet discrimination itself is a thought-crime. The Who said it in ‘The Wall’, ‘leave the kids alone’.
The Who said it in ‘The Wall’, ‘leave the kids alone’.
Actually it was Pink Floyd. But point taken.
Huh? What cave are you living in? Fat people are fair game for ridicule and ostracism. Genetics plays a large part in your size (unless you really believe short people just “lack willpower”), but that doesn’t stop the First Lady from starting a nationwide (and ironic!) “No Fatties” campaign aimed at children…just in case kids weren’t making fun of their fat peer already.
That was Pink Floyd, not The Who.
@Coeurmaeghan
Respectfully, you are crazy if you think that a picture of “fat farmer” would have drawn any attention at all.
Fat farmers have no political action committees or national organizations.
My Mexican husband from Mexico loves soccer and tacos.
Hell, I’m a middle-aged white guy from Boston, and I like ‘em too.
You couldn’t have said it any plainer….”This situation, to put it mildly, is a social disaster. The bills for this calamity will be paid in the future, just as today we are living in the shadow of the radical 1960s come to cultural, ideological, and political power.” What we always could rely on to combat the radical 1960′s folks is the consistent conservative movement. However, I think that conservatism dies with my generation (those of us born in 1965,1966,1967). I am not looking forward to aging in this country1
Yes, I agree. I’m 63 and comfort myself with the fact that the majority of my years have been spent in a mostly free country. I don’t know if I can look forward to that in my remaining years. My children will certainly live part of their later lives in government slavery. My grandchildren will live their entire lives in this slavery. The ironic thing is that whether the leftists succeed or fail, the Muslims are right behind them in their quest for a global caliphate, and most people are in denial about both threats. Having said that, I still have hope and optimism that people will wake up and somehow be able to turn the tide.
One can only hope that these kids act like normal teenagers and reject their parents’ indoctrination. Once they realize they haven’t a clue what their Mandarin- and Hindi-speaking bosses are saying about them, they might wise up.
I saw an interesting aspect of this while living in Berkeley. While it is certainly true that “children love to contradict their parents” is a Gospel Truth of Social Psychology doctrine, it didn’t take me too long to figure out that I could see a great asymmetry: the leftnoids kids were, if anything, even more whacked than their parents! White boys with stringy dreadlocks, virtual worship of Che/Bob Marley/anything Foreign; I often wondered if there were any closeted conservatives anywhere at all. One thing though, from the graffiti that showed up on in the departments of the technology-oriented fields on the U.C. campus, you could see that the students who had to do real thinking in their studies exhibited a real contempt for the “setaside/affirmative action” mentality that runs the University–outside of the technical fields where there were objectively right or wrong answers.
My two kids attend public school here in New Jersey. In Fourth Grade, both of them had to spend an entire semester talking about the Lenape Indians, a local indian tribe that died out about 200 years ago (although there may be a few of them still around), rather than study colonial America, let alone anything about why or how the American Revolution took place. They literally examined every aspect of this indian tribe’s life, but not one thing about what it was like to live in Colonial America and how the Colonists broke away from England. In fact, if you asked these kids what part England played in the American Revolution, they would probably have a hard time giving you an answer.
That is why I MAKE them read children’s books on the American Revolution. Sadly, it is up to us to teach these kids more about our history and about how a group of colonies became a nation. It’s a great story, one kids need to not only read, but understand as well. I urge all parents out there to take an interest in teaching your kids more about American history. Because, heaven knows, our public schools aren’t doing anything about it.
I’m a retired elementary school teacher. Several years back, I wanted to check out some books about American history from our school library. I was appalled to find out that there were NO books about American history in our library. The school librarian told me that, since American history isn’t taught until sixth grade, she was not allowed to buy books that didn’t correlate with the curriculum taught in our K-5 school. This was an across-the-board policy in my district. The librarian was about my age and was just as appalled as I was, but what could she do? The kids in K-5 in my district were taught about Ireland, Canada, Mexico, China, England, and every other country except their own–until grade 6. These kids were also taught about every foreign holiday, including foreign religious holidays, but not their own. We are the ones who are committing national suicide by trashing our own culture and traditions and putting other cultures and traditions on a pedestal. May God help us.
At least they had books about England, Ireland and Canada!
In about the 5th grade I discovered a series of books called “You Were There. . .” with the rest of the title referring to an incident in history. They were written as in a first person format so it seemed like you were one of the characters in the story. I can’t remember all of them (there were quite a few in the school library), but I do remember the Alamo, the shelling of Ft McHenry, Gettysburg and a number of world war two battles (including Iwo Jima and the battle of Britain). Along with with non military events such as the Oklahoma land rush, the California gold Rush etc. There were a lot of them.
I tried to find them when my kids were at that reading level and was unsuccessful. Since it was pre – internet, maybe I’ll try again for my grand kids.
Sad that we can’t take pride in our history. Granted we made some mistakes, but overall, we created a pretty good country and became a light in the wilderness for freedom seeking people everywhere.
Most of the real history of our country is now the domain of extended basic cable and satellite television (e.g. History Channel). The concept of history class was an outgrowth of needing to bring the Ellis Island contingent of immigrants up to speed about their new nations founding, beliefs, governmental system et el. . It also helped that they were often minorities (Slavs from the Austro-Hungarian empire, Jews from Russia, Ireland from John Bull, Sicilians from a northern-dominated Italian empire) untethered to a sovereign nation.
If the children are taught to disdain their country, they will not feel obligated to defend it, and will probably actively try to destroy the culture.
That’s why I keep saying that we’ll have shari’a in place by the end of this century, if not sooner.
I remember some books with “We Were There …” in the title; one that I particularly loved was “We Were There With Lincoln in the White House,” and it was a well-written book told in first-person narration by Tad Lincoln, with lots of lively incidents (the two young boys, Tad and Willie, cutting up on the train coming East for the start of Lincoln’s presidency; hijinks in the White House; the coming of the War; the tragic death of Willie).
As a parent and teacher of elementary-school-aged kids, I have had occasion to read what’s currently sold as historical fiction for children. All too much of it is so hampered by ‘correctness’ issues–working girls into everything, and so forth–although I will say there are two brothers named Collier who write somewhat formulaic but nonetheless worthwhile novels for preteens set in colonial times and at the time of the Civil War (e.g., My Brother Sam is Dead, about the Revolution, with a Vietnam-tinged defeatism about war, still a serious treatment of its subject).
I thought you would like to know that the Collier brothers you mentioned have also written an entire set of books, the Drama of American History, that present a good overview of American History. It’s probably a middle school reading level, but has some good analysis- enough to act as an antidote to the poison of Howard Zinn and other similar authors.
Suzanne: Reread “My Brother Sam is Dead”.
Sam, a revolutionary soldier, is executed by his own army because he is falsely accused of cattle theft of his own family’s cows. Sam’s (and the narrator’s) father, a monarchist, is executed by the British for some other mistaken reason that I can’t remember.
It makes a strong case that the Colonists and the British were equally immoral during the Revolutionary War. A stunning case of moral equivalence education for pre-teens.
We CAN take pride in our history. The people who demand that we do otherwise are OUR ENEMIES. Doing things to make bad people like you is generally an unwise move. Going along to get along just doesn’t work when the other guy wants you dead.
Are these children, living in the US, likely to notice that US holidays are indeed occurring? Are parents generally unable to teach their children the meaning of the holidays in the US?
On the other hand, how many parents have direct experience of the holidays in foreign lands. Or, are you saying it is not important for children to understand these countries – many of which are our allies or toward which we direct our aid – and their cultures?
When you consider how likely those children are to even GO to those countries – and if they do, then they’ll have plenty of time (if not the inclination) to learn about them, it makes a lot of sense to learn about OUR country first. Touch on then briefly? Sure. Ignore ours to concentrate on other countries? That’s stupid.
“When you consider how likely those children are to even GO to those countries” Not likely at all. And yet, the children will hear about these countries in the news. They will hear about our relationship with them. They need to have an understanding of their cultures and ways. Learning about their holidays is a good introduction.
“it makes a lot of sense to learn about OUR country first.”
You know, being born and raised in the US gives these children quite a lot of first-hand knowledge of the US. Remember, the author is discussing how these children are taught about foreign holidays. Being born and raised in the US gives these children quite a lot of first-hand knowledge of US holidays.
When I was in school, we did not have a “civics” class (then called “social studies” until the 7th grade. Is it so wrong that schools still wait until children reach this age to help them gain a mature and deeper knowledge of this country?
And since when do conservatives advocate that school do a job parents can and should do?
This is a phony controversy, especially since the authors accounts can not be verified.
These are among the most powerful reasons that every family with the wherewithal should homeschool its children, all the way through “high school.” (The private academies are almost as badly infected with anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism, besides which, property taxes being what they are, few of us can afford them.) To permit the Left’s indoctrination centers to operate any longer on young, impressionable minds is a betrayal both of this country and of our children’s futures.
Not just kids. Not just now. But for three generations.
The brainwashed knee-jerk anti-American interpretation of minutia of current events is also shown by 50 year old journalists. These kids handle their daily observations in the same way. The journalists had teachers too, and the teachers themselves are cascades of the third generation of teachers of anti-American propaganda, much of it promulgated by the Soviet disinformation and propaganda machine from the 30s through the 80s.
These attitudes have been inculcated to the children for 50 years now. Few said bumpkis. And when the few did object they got ostracized from the dialogue.
How do you think we could possibly undo this?
How do you think we can avoid the wreckage done and that they will continue to do to the Republic?
It took generations of Americans ignoring it for this to happen. It may take forever to undo it.
“Lincoln answered that one in another speech: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” That was in June 1858, three years before a Civil War broke out.”
And so by misrepresenting the truth with ridiculous fabrications, Mr. Rubin is advocating civil disobedience; even outright war to destroy our educational system and overthrow our government.
Nowhere could this be any clearer than his compulsion to take a right-wing swat at our beloved president than with his “Vote Obama” back on a deck of playing cards.
Our schools do not, they would never, ever teach children how to play any kind of card games.
What a freaking mess…
Prove your allegations or stand indicted of slander.
Mr. Rubin’s reports closely correlate to incidents that have occurred in my stepdaughters’ schooling, in which I had to take an active hand to achieve redress. So: Where’s your counter-evidence? By means of what objective evidence do you claim that Mr. Rubin must be lying to us? Do you have any, or is this another case of leftist propaganda about “right-wing hate speech” that you can’t substantiate?
It was ironic misdirection intended to falsely lead one to the topic of politicizing our children and then veering onto the card game.
The word “beloved” should have been a clue. Even Oprah wouldn’t say that.
You certainly didn’t get your money’s worth out of the educational system
You really ought to get out more and read up on what’s going on – instead of relying on what is fed to you by the leftmedia. You are the living evidence of what Rubin is talking about.
You could start by reading #18. Larsky (and 20.)
Rubin seems to be a little too slick for some. I read this as a joke thanks to this last line:
“Our schools do not, they would never, ever teach children how to play any kind of card games.”
Now if he’s serious that’s a different story all together.
It’s also a problem outside the schools in the homes, when kids want to interact on the Internet with kids and adults from English speaking Canada and Europe. Many from those countries already bought and sold with these prejudices against America help influence propaganda taught here. It’s a global community the kids want to be a part of but not as racist, sexist, homophobe bigots.
Wow. Just wow. Powerfully written. I too have sensed that this issue of political correctness and victimhood has damaged our culture far beyond what even we conservatives realize. Runaway spending, unconstitutional lawmaking, corruption and voter fraud are all important, sure. But when my own military neighbors (base housing) get upset at the fact some kids played cowboy and indians because their children are 1/8th Navajo, well that’s when I get really worried for this country.
When a fine Navy captain is removed from command of a carrier set to deploy in mere days, over nothing more political correctness, that’s when I get really, really worried for this country.
When I see the building blocks of progressive ideology in my eight-year-old’s third grade textbook when I paid for private school in order to avoid typical public school indoctrination, that’s when I get really really really worried.
Thanks for writing this and sharing your experiences. I know the caveat regarding anecdotal evidence, but if you would like to see some more of it, follow the link to my blog and click on my parenting category.
And the worst part is, you get to pay for it with crushing property and income taxes!
I told the wife we may (if we cannot afford private school) to be prepared to home school if we have children. I suspect even our charter schools (which are now demanding the same $20k per student funding) will not be immune to the suffocating PC indoctrination. The people I run into that are heavily involved in the education system are by in large, hard core leftists.
When the kids are young, I want them learning basics (reading, writing, math)free of politics and social engineering. A little older, physical sciences. Older still, critical thinking skills. Sadly, I suspect I will have to teach these skills at home.
first hand: obtained by, coming from, or being direct personal observation or experience
“Some examples, all based on first-hand experience:
A math exercise in which the teacher uses a deck of playing cards, each of which is marked “Vote Obama” on the back.”
You’re trying to tell me the author was in the classroom when this occurred? I doubt it.
“The mentality of perpetual victimhood, endless grievances, and bitter divisiveness is set to cripple the United States. In Europe and Canada, the results are likely to be even worse.”
Why are the results in Europe and Canada likely to be even worse? First-hand experience?
Essentially a list of hearsay and baseless leaps of “logic”. I could easily list twice the number of examples from my 10 years in the classroom to show that public schools are turning our kids into gun-toting, intolerant xenophobes who believe every culture other than ours is inferior and “fundamentally contemptible”.
No use teasing us, that you could list twice as many examples of “gun-toting, intolerant xenophobes who believe every culture other than ours is inferior and ‘fundamentally contemptible’” indoctrination. Let us see your list.
Well observed motter. You may wish to comment on my solution to the problem of this being an unverified account.
All Rubin need do is name the school.
That way, we can not only verify his account, but also take direct action aimed at this specific source of the problem.
Again, if others can do the same for the school of their children, we can verify this is not just an isolated incidence, if it did happen at all. This is the path, but only the beginning, of validating the authors unfounded conclusions.
Unless, of course, people prefer to whine and moan about imaginary problems, or not take effective action again a problem, should it exist.
Mr. Rubin, please name the school.
Your link doesn’t work. Too bad – I’d love to see it.
I went to a private school, from which I graduated more than twenty years ago. We were told in our U.S. History class that Fidel Castro was a good person who was doing great things for his country and was being made to suffer from the U.S. embargo; that it was wrong to speak against Jane Fonda’s visit to North Vietnam; that clearly Jesus would be a communist if he were alive today (really don’t know why Jesus came up in a history class titled, “U.S. since ’45″.)
All parents and grandparents need to be on high alert. The situation has only become worse.
Great article! Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The only way to reverse the trend is to keep exposing it and refuting it as tenaciously as those who promote it.
Great article. I knew about the problems regarding post-K-12, but when I was tutoring younger kids in Atlanta, I was utterly shocked by the absence of anything other than serial grievance in the materials presented in practically every subject area — this is all they learn. The situation is devolving quickly.
And I doubt it will change. Few parents are in the position to challenge “the whole curriculum.” The status quo for these kids is self-policing and policing each other for transgressions of an extreme political correctness. They accept it as natural.
It’s like the next-to-last scene in Dr. Zhivago.
‘In Europe and Canada, the results are likely to be even worse.’
No it already is worse. Anyone who has followed Mark Steyn’s/MacClean’s journey with the Canadian Thought/Language police will understand that it is already underway.
However, I’m thinking things will be much worse here if we get to that point (probably will)as Americans are simply not as tolerant of government intervention as Canada and Europe and certainly not as meek. When I lived in Canada, I loved the people, but was astounded at what they LET their government do to them. Didn’t even raise a whisper, ‘Ottawa Knows Best’ from what I could see.
Still, I see many young people here with lots of common sense who seem to be able to work through the propaganda they are submitted to in school. Even an old guy like me was liberal in my youth until by the age of 24 the left was not interested in someone like me who might want to succeed on their own merits. They needed victims and I wasn’t one. I think there will always be a sizeable number of achievers in this country.
If I were marching on the left I would not be so sure that their Utopian Socialist takeover strategy is going to work out quite the way they planned, as even 30 years from now I think there will be plenty of American citizens unwilling to lie face down and fawn at the feet of the annointed ones.
Thank you Mr. Rubin for another example of the attack on American Exceptionalism, the foundation concept that kept us the most successful society in the world…until January 20, 2009.
We are in trouble, serious trouble.
Addendum:
Then again in 100 years maybe Bill Ayers’ great great Grandson Commissar Vice-Count Ayers The Immaculate will be running things, but then none of us will be around and people like him usually don’t last that long and then we have to start…. ALL OVER AGAIN (tea party, patriots, revolution, confederation, constitution, war, peace, war, peace, corporations, wealth creation, freedom, movement to the left, Bill Ayers’ great great great great great great great grandson again and so on). This Human Nature stuff is just a big circle game and tiring as well and we humans never seem to get it and probably never will. Oh well. Hope it all works out the way it is supposed to. Thanks
I grew up in South Dakota. In grade school I was taught that the American Indian deserved everything they got and Custer was the ‘salvation of the white man’. I wasn’t allowed to associate with American Indians. We didn’t have any black people so I didn’t really know about them until I moved to Maryland. As a child I was taught to look at color. That was in the 1950′s. Racial divide will continue as long as democrats and liberals are allowed to influence society. Perhaps making a law that only Christians and Conservatives will be allowed to teach in our schools would turn our society from hate to compassion.
Non sequiturs aplenty! That’s the way to be constructive!
Not to outstay my welcome here….
…but I grew up down the road from you in Nebraska next door to an Indian reservation. I knew many Indian families, many occasionally worked for my Dad and other farmers/ranchers. Indians were certainly looked down on by one and all for the most part. Blacks? we had no idea who they were or what they were about as there were none. I didn’t speak to an African American until I was at least 18 and only saw a few on our infrequent trips to Omaha. Hell I didn’t know how to be racist, it wasn’t discussed, didn’t concern us. We weren’t taught racism that I can recall other than some old timers really didn’t like Indians. Didn’t much matter to me, I just got along.
I went (I’m 61) to a one room school house with 8 grades, one teacher and 26 students. Out of the school came Doctors, 3 bankers, numerous successful farmers/ranchers, several excellent business people, many teachers, and generally the sort of people that have made this country great.
As I’ve noted before, if we want education in this country to succeed I would suggest that we go back 40 or 50 years to when it worked and copy it as closely as we can while incorporating newer technology, etc., but not include the new new directives of how to teach from a Harvard PHD who has never taught in a classroom. There are plenty of PHD’s locally with minimal classroom experience who top down manage our teachers and there’s the rub in much of this discussion. Egalitarian ideals of little practical value from above pushed into the classroom. Fear of lawsuits another issue preached endlessly by the administration and school boards.
My wife is an ex-32years-teacher and Union member. When I bring up the NEA or the Dept of Education she goes defensive (she was indoctrinated well). Even though I do not blame teachers but rather the powers who control them. Doesn’t matter. We have a hard time talking about education.
I suspect that as long as the Dept. of Education is around and we control education from the federal level rather than the local level,we will continue to see the same and worse results in education.
Short term the Egalitarian Socialist Utopians aren’t going to win, long term who knows.
2012 will surely tell us much more.
Thanks
Just a minor point–it’s not “Ph.D.”s so much that control teachers and teaching, but –even worse– people with doctorates in education. (Ed.D.is probably the real name of their degree; they like it if you call it a Ph.D., though.)
Yes, there is a difference–there is actually some content in a discipline like English, history, Classics, what have you (even if current and fashionable practitioners are doing their best to get rid of the content and replace it with “theory” imported decades ago from Europe)–whereas there never was any content in a “department of education.”
We should want people who teach math to have degrees in math, not in education! Guess which department has the students with the lowest attainments (based on test scores and grades)–did you say education? That’s right! Some of those countries that are light-years ahead of us in student achievement have high standards set for people who train to become teachers. Not here!
I’m also pretty old (in my fifties)–old enough to have benefited from the bad old days, when extremely intelligent women–like so many of my elementary school teachers–had few other career paths open to them, and they poured their knowledge and culture and so forth into us. God bless them! That was a good education.
The problem is the kind of people drawn to teaching. Liberals will dedicate their lives and careers to their cause. They routinely become teachers, lawyers, politicians, professors, clergy, or whatever gives them an opportunity to further the cause.
I grew up in South Dakota in the fifties. In grade school, I was not taught that the American Indian deserved everything he got, nor that Custer was ‘the salvation of the white man.’ Admittedly, I was in a homogenous white community, but I was not taught to be racist.
Stimulating article.
I have two daughters in a public Middle School. Indoctrination of students by and to a leftist ideology in K-12 is as real, strong and direct as is in almost all US Colleges and Universities, save a few religious (Christian) and small private ones. It’s a fact, as strong and accurate as any social science “fact” can be. So, I have to deal with the issues the author brought up on a daily basis.
But I also look at the big picture: putting down, accusing, attacking, marginalizing, in effect trying to deny a nation’s “national identity” and particularly its positive components, isn’t merely an American phenomenon. It is happening in almost all Western European educational systems I know.
The moral of the story? Well, that the issues the author addresses are in effect largely global (prevalent inside the Western World, that is) and long term in nature. They’re intrinsically linked to sweeping gales of perverted liberalism that has covered the Western landscape over the past half century or so. For God’s sake, look who’s sitting in the Oval office.
I am certainly against many things in a nannyish pc curriculum, but any honest teaching of history has to include the dark side or down side of every triumphal event in US History. I want the history taught, but I am not going to freak out if some of the darker side is also included. It is not that Howard Zinn was wrong, it was that he was not giving a complete view. What historian ever can?
I do know that when you criticize what is or is not taught in any given grade, that you have to consider the overall curriculum from year to year. Having taught, I can tell you that one can be nailed by a given situation, student, or parent for almost anything which can be spun to be too militaristic, too sensitive, too insensitive etc. Also, the lower the age of the students, the more simplistic the approach is. Andrew Jackson was a great President who beat the British at the Battle Of New Orleans. Andrew Jackson was a bad man who fought and displaced Indians. Andrrw Jackson was the first real Democrat. And…rarely, Andrew Jackson threatened to kick South Carolina’s ass and was a foreshadowing of the Great Satan Lincoln.
Students (when they are talking to their parents at all) love to say, “Guess what the teacher told us today,” also knowing what will push their parents’ buttons, and sometimes take the attention off their own screw-ups. “I failed English because my teacher is… racist, a liberal, incompetent, unfair, militaristic, sexist, etc. Any one of these COULD be true, but given the nature of communication of schooling by the schooled, investigate before you accuse.
For history, if I were administrator of it all, I would invoke the 50/25% rule to my teachers of history. At least 50% of it has to affirm, or at a minimum describe neutrally our history, our government and our sublime documents, (and there would be a list that had to be covered) and at least 25% should bring up the darker side such as what happened to the Indians, the Tories, the slaves, the interned Japanese etc. 25% is individual teacher discretion, but there will be a departmental test at the end of the year…or the high stakes state testing. Alas, lack of consensus has kept social studies/history/civics from having a high stakes test in many states.
Students are always trying to figure out what the teacher believes. In some cases that isn’t hard to determine because they get hit over the head with it. I prefer the teacher who is so balanced that you can’t actually tell what he/she believes…but your mileage may vary.
If children were being taught these events as history, I would have no objection.
But they aren’t. Material is presented not to inform about the past, but to project blame through time — guilt forward, remorse backwards, in emotional language.
The most recent example I’ve seen — and only the most recent — my friends’ daughter was required to create a project about women’s clothing “past versus present” for her history class. That’s a questionable project to begin with, but when she showed me the “research” materials, I was still astonished (I’m astonished every time I hear stories from young kids these days. It’s like a re-education camp with lots of snacks).
She was given canned information about how women were forced “by peer pressure” (!) to cover their ankles. She was encouraged — no, steered — to come to the conclusion — the only conclusion — that this was oppressive in contrast to the freedoms of today, and that these women longed to uncover their ankles. And that was the lesson, beginning, middle, and end.
None of the pre-produced “research materials” were really about early 20th Century culture, or even the suffrage movement as a theme, or anything else that might strain towards critical analysis of something like the phenomenon of “covering/uncovering your ankles.”
There was no content, only the complaint, weirdly disassociated from history and awash in banalities like “peer pressure.” And this is a smart kid, but she knew what her teacher wanted, and she produced it, using the primary research method promoted by the feminist pedagogists: the glue stick.
“…if I were administrator…” Like, If Were a Carpenter? Would you build a Pick It Fence, and sit on it anyway?
High D-White? What’s new. Nothing. But… Or. Also. Maybe, but who knows? So, the but also or “so balanced” tape loop goes like this –
I am certainly against many things in a nannyish pc curriculum, but…
I want the history taught, but…
I am not going to freak out…
Having taught, I can tell you that one can be nailed…
…too insensitive etc.
Also, the lower the age of…
South Carolina’s ass…
Great Satan Lincoln.
“Guess what the teacher told us today,” also…
Any one of these COULD be true, but…
…if I were administrator…
At least 50% of it has to affirm, or…
25% is individual teacher discretion, but…
Alas… Students are always trying to figure out what the teacher believes.
I prefer the teacher who is so balanced that you can’t actually tell what he/she believes…
A Void. The Ping Pong Tongue ping and pongs until nothing exists. Hmmmmmmm “…if I were administrator…” “Having taught”. What was that D-White. Never mind, because “you can’t actually tell what he/she believes…”
And sometimes he’s so nameless,
That he hardly knows which game to play…
Which words to say…
Since beneath your babble I infer a question, I will help you out a little. I was the head of an English Department. If I had been the head of a History Department (and knowing what I know now) I would have pushed for what I described.
No D-White, there will never be the “balance” that you crave. That Pick It Fence is something created to gain a louder voice and to project an illusion of fairness solely on the basis that giving equal weight to various ideas and actions imparts one with… D-White Power. But!!! Also!!! You do have callouses, in a One Step Beyond sense.
That past experience is relegated to be filtered by a state appointed emissary, dependent on the state for his livelihood, is nothing more than a conflict of interest. It’s obvious that many people have moved into education and devoured the opportunity like so many junkies, to the exclusion of rational discourse.
Privatize over the next 2 generations. Start with K, then move along to 12. By the time a “student” finishes that, one in the least should be able to identify who the junkies are. Some don’t make it? Gee, life can be tough if you want it that way. And life can be wonderful if you want it that way.
But wait, oh Lather’s productive you know…
Bullshit! Howard Zinn WAS wrong, and he even admitted as much. Zinn routinely used shoddy, misleading, or plain false examples of American oppression (e.g., the smallpox blanket genocide perpetrated on Native tribes) to create the false narrative that America is evil and illegitimate. When addressing those charges, Zinn famously said that he wasn’t concerned with retelling history accurately — he was concerned with prompting students to become activists.
If by wrong, you mean not balanced, then we agree. Amherst suggested the small pox blankets, but there is no evidence that any such campaign actually happened. What did Zinn say? I would certainly object loudly if Zinn were the only textbook, but not object if Zinn were one of the texts. Given the cost of textbooks, any good teacher would supplement whatever the main text with a lot of (probably illegal) reproduction of various points of view.
By the way, I will agree that one problem is that there are a lot of lefty teachers, who are no more “balanced” than many/most of the posters here. I think our solution to curriculum woes is to insist on balance, which of course p*sses of both sides of the ideological divide. I say build in the balance of the gun-toters and social activists (which is simply ONE of the dualities we should brandish); they are both part of the core of what we are, even if they are often at each other’s throats.
My daughter is in grade 1 here in Canada, already she has been told she can’t draw guns despite the fact that I shoot every weekend and she wants to go “bang, bang” (although I suspect that fact that I bring home a donut for her each time I go shooting might be part of her desire)
I have no doubt that I am going to have to fight the indoctrination of the system and pay close attention. Thankfully my wife is from Malaysia and is totally non-PC. This summer she will get to go to the range to do some “bang-bang” and a pink gun is in her future. I also bought her some tanks and toy soldiers to play with and take her to my old army unit for visits during open houses.
LOL.. Me too. I could not find a real toy cowboy gun at any of the local toystores. I supposed they gave in to the PC police. They did have garrish zap guns.
So, I had to order them online and got him my son a nice set of cowbot pistols with holsters.
My eight-year-old granddaughter is the proud owner of a pink-camo compound bow …
… and an incident in her life is another example of what Mr. Rubin describes here.
I got a call the day before Election 2008 from my daughter … telling me that my granddaughter (six at the time) came home from school the day before and proceeded to tell them that they MUST vote for Mr. Obama, because the teacher said so.
Her parents proceeded to impart some remedial education about the election, and my granddaughter ended up “wanting the girl to win”.
Let us keep in mind that, for many Progressives, the ends justify the means … and yet they’re the ones getting their panties in a bunch because WE’RE uncivil?
You’d better be careful, before you know it the left will be passing laws about kids raising money at school fairs…..Check out http://www.takingonissues.com for the truth about the left.
Too bad the boy was not asked about the soccer goods en espanol by a Chivas-jersey wearing paisa. I wonder if he would laid the same verbal whipping that he did about the salesman in the story or would he have then cheerfully descended into a spanish on spanish conversation with the paisa salesman replete with the word “guey”.
Conservatives restrict themselves to economics and foreign affairs, and constitutional issues like freedom of religion and the right to bear arms.
The people who want to overthrow the country and loot it don’t restrict themselves in ANY way. Just as one tiny example, they are willing to celebrate the killing of unborn children. Why would anyone think they put any restrictions at all, other than what they think they can get away with, on their other actions.
I’m thinking…and I don’t know where I heard this…that if they bring a knife to a fight, maybe we should bring a gun.
We pulled the plug on Puget Sound area schools when I found Howard Zinn’s screw-America book, A Peoples’ History of the United State used as part of the ‘history’ program there, complete with teaching aids and classroom posters. We moved inland, where at least the sins were sins of omission. It’s far easier to fill in the blanks than to correct out and out lies and propaganda.
I grew up in a house full of books. We had a real library. And its’ not that we were rich or very well off. It’s that we valued learinign over trivia and BS. And so it is with our home today. We have a huge library with everythiong from textbooks to the classics to contemporary works of fiction and non-fiction.
Joy Hakim’s series of children’s history are available at Barnes and Noble. Libraries are allowed to accept donations. Teachers keep books on their own shelves. The kids visit the library once a week- they are in the classroom every last single day.
The Anabasis, suitable for ten year olds, has been shrunk to a paperback- The Sea- which was handed back and forth, samizdat- amongst the fourth graders at my sons’ school.
Great Illustrated Classics- cost between $3 and $7- and have the detailed biography of Geo Washington, Davy Crockett, and seventy other classics of western civ.
If you care, consider donating one or more of these books to a teacher. Or get your Rotary Group, or something, to do it. Downtown can dictate a curriculum, but it can’t dictate what is in the teachers’ classrooms.
Stories about heroism and freedom and goodness and decency are compelling to honest young hearts. They will be read faster, more often, and with more love than any pre-done junk about understanding blood-sucking teengirl crushes. at least by boys- who will be our future heroes.
This is why my kids are in private, Christian school–and if I have to I’ll donate a kidney to keep them there. In y 3rd grader’s class during a discussion of the Constitution they had to draw an illustration of their favorite amendment; my boy drew a rifle for the 2nd Amendment. And he got a 98!
But Dr. Rubin is right about the public schools. My advice to anyone that can afford it–flee them like the plague!
‘Stories about heroism and freedom and goodness and decency are compelling to honest young hearts.’
Yes and contrary to the current Anti-American agenda of some, THOSE characteristics of human nature and America and other countries…DO actually exist.
I think given a chance to be exposed to different viewpoints/information that young people can make intelligent choices as to where they stand in the long run be it left or right.
First off, you all have to stop whining on blogs and get involved locally and be vocal.
I send my son to a private school and most of the parents and teachers are conservative. Unfortunately, most have been afraid to come out of the closest because of years of “PC” indoctrination by the media that has got everybody scared and trained into silence if you oppose.
At first, I had no idea that most of the parents and teachers ran more conservative because everyone was silent. Someone has to take a risk and be vocal. Once you out yourself as a conservative, you would be shocked by the amount of folks who agree with you. Once you get the ball rolling more folks will stand up and be counted. Now the school management thinks twice about pulling any PC crap because they know they are going to get a ruckus.
Now obviously we have an advantage because we can pull our kids out. Also, I think the company that provides our school (Noble Learning) may run more conservative than public school, but they have to satisfy the PC gods to some extent to get accreditation. (Speculation on my part) If all else fails, educate your kids yourself with the truth and that will inoculate them from that crap.
I swear though, it seems to be human nature for folks to grease the squeaky wheel. The libs have been the squeaky wheels since the sixties with great effect. It is now time for conservatives to be the squeaky wheels. The more discomfort you cause, the more other folks will bend to accommodate you. Look at the effect the Tea Partiers are having by just having a few rallies. Now is the time, most people are sick of this PC, multi-culti, Gaia worshiping crap anyway. I really sense the pendulum beginning to swing so help push it whenever you can.
Everyone one has heard the saying: “never discuss religion or politics.” If you want to save your country and culture, I say, “Always discuss religion and politics.” As long as you use logic and reason, liberals can never win a debate because facts and logic are not on their side.
You will really piss some people off, but you know what? You will also embolden others that think like you and just maybe you will convince others to your way of thinking. The point is you have to challenge people intellectually. Even if they are libs, you can get them to question themselves a little. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Folks who agree with Dr. Rubin and relate their own kids’ experiences with this p.c. garbage are not “whining” but engaging in civic (and civil) debate. Plus, it’s not mutually exclusive to opine on here AND do something about it.
There are times to “piss people off” and times not to; when a bunch of folks who agree with you are sounding off, probably not a great idea to slam them unfairly as “whining.”
Just saying’…..
Sorry “whining” is a strong word I did not mean to offend. This is a very good group of folks.
I also include myself as one of the whiners who would get very frustrated, but never spoke up for years. There are millions of us who were simply to civil to be a squeaky wheel. No more quiet for me.
The seeds of the state of our college campuses are planted in public education kindergarten through high school. If we can take back our schools in these early grades, radicalism will have much less success in our colleges and universities.
If it happened in our school district, it didn’t stick with my kids. Go ahead, tell dad (veteran) and uncle (veteran) and grandpa (veteran) about the evils of our military. Who are you going to believe, some twenty year old teacher who read a book, or someone who was there?
Want to know about Hiroshima? Ask the grandmother. “Terrible as it was, at least it ended the war.” My kids have seen the Atomic Dome and the museum. They know about Pearl Harbor and Bataan, too. Want an opinion about the Russians? Ask the wife’s uncle, who returned to Japan as a Russian POW from Manchuria in 1949. Nobody even knew he survived the war.
Travel can be pretty illuminating. Like the sign in the Strassbourg Cathedral thanking all the Americans who gave their lives to free the city. Despite being less than a mile from Germany, that sign isn’t translated into German.
Revisionism lives, only if unchallenged. My kids all took AP History and did very well. They had a great teacher who gave them a lot of material from original sources, not what some lefty wrote a year about what he thought of the Civil War.
There are facts, and there are opinions. My kids, now adults, know the difference. Do yours?
This article helps me answer a question that has bothered me for quite some time. Where do those college students who graduate with “angry studies” (e.g. women’s studies, ethnic studies, gay studies, etc.) find employment after graduation?
Apparently, the answer is that a lot of them are public schools and textbook companies. Many of the rest probably end up employed by the government in other capacities. What company would want to hire a bunch of professional malcontents trained to look for grievances?
Angry studies?
Yes, “angry studies.” Every “women’s studies” program that I’ve ever heard about focuses of how women have been oppressed. They’re angry. The same applies to every ethnic studies program that I’ve read about. They focus on their grievances while exaggerating their history.
Of course, if I came out of college with huge loan debts and a worthless degree, I’d be angry, too.
“When an opponent declares,
‘I will not come over to your side.’
I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already…
What are you? You will pass on.
Your descendants, however,
now stand in the new camp.
In a short time they will know nothing
else but this new community.’”
Adolf Hitler
#33 Fortunate Son: excellent. That is exactly what we need to do.
I’ve found that, by standing up and saying, “Well, you know, Saddam Hussein was a terrible tyrant, and it was a good thing we got rid of him,” even in a Manhattan gathering of lefties, I’ll get a surreptitious agreement from someone ex post facto. (Like Jonah Goldberg acidly remarked, “being a conservative on the Upper West Side is like being a Christian in Caligula’s Rome”).
A friend whom I’d regarded as a hopeless Obama-worshipper said to me some years later that he’d really been struck by my courage in saying that at that party: “and you were right!” he declared. He said he was amused to see the look on my interlocutor’s face (the fellow had assumed, as all Manhattan lefties do, that of Course all would agree with him). My friend then added that he was no longer a worshipper but now considered himself more of an independent, exercising some skepticism. I was floored.
I think there’s some paper-tiger aspects to all this. If we stand up to them and call them on their lies and distortions, one lie at a time (and it’s important, when dealing with cultists, to take it one fact at a time), we can drive cracks into their foundation.
In my case, I converted from being a straight-ticket Democrat who believed what she was told and was shockingly negligent in her fact-checking (I now realize) to being a born-again patriot, because the lies of the Left started to become apparent to me; starting with their investigation of the 2000 election and their Emily Latella “Oh, never mind” conclusion that the Republicans had NOT stolen the election after all. It didn’t get much play in the press at the time (natch), but I noticed it and was furious that they’d play games with the trust of the citizenry for brutal partisan advantage. I still detested Bush then, but I was on the road to enlightenment.
This problem has become infinitely worse over the last quarter century. When I was a child growing up in Austin, Texas, in the 1970′s, I never met someone that couldn’t speak English, and seldom met anyone that had a thick accent, and my grade and junior high schools were at least 40% hispanic. We all took the same classes, same tests, played the same games, and spent the night at each other’s houses.
Fast forward 30 years and head north 10 hours: English as a Second Language Classes, human geography (which the best I can figure is the study of how and why groups, races usually, move around and where to, and their contribution, etc…..) instead of civics and history. Hispanics are often grouped together in separate classes or on the other side of the school. (Visit an Advanced Placement class, 95% white and asian). Walk your childs junior high or high school in between classes or during lunch and simply watch them interact, you will find hispanics separating themselves into distinct groups. This is a learned behavior that is being reinforced by our school systems and society in general.
I was struck by the comment about the composition (“95% white and Asian”) in the AP classes.
There is a lot of head-counting going on in my district (and others, too, I’m sure) of precisely this kind. The feeling is that the absence of certain populations from AP classes can only be due to their exclusion.
I learned, more from raising my children than from teaching (my older child took 8 AP classes in her high-school career), how much goes into having a child enroll in an AP class. It’s a process that starts well before you send them to school, and is affected by how much, and what, you read to and with them, and what kind of attitude towards their schoolwork you adopt and display every day and expect and encourage them to take up.
Only in a culture where high-school graduation, and even college attendance, is now seen as a “right” instead of a privilege (and something you go out and work for, for yourself), could people think that mere enrollment in an AP course is something desirable. What’s the point of signing up or even attending it, if you are fundamentally unprepared for the work?
What’s next, by the way? Will it turn out to be racist and exclusionary, if the teacher doesn’t alter the course content and the way students are evaluated, to make it possible for the unprepared student to succeed anyway? At that point I guess the only question will be, are you allowed still to teach the real subject in the real way to students if they choose to undertake the work? (I think there will always be some who can tell the difference, and will want to learn and train themselves, not merely receive a credential.)
If only the goal were to put the unprepared students into the AP class AND also assign them enough support–mandated extra periods working on the subject, for starters–to help them have a chance at learning and succeeding.
I have acouple of points to make, if I may Mr. Rubin.
1. I don’t know you, and so I have no particular reason to distrust you, but, then again, I have no way of knowing if you are representing fairly the things you say you witnessed, or in fact, if such events happened at all.
2. You draw a lot of, I believe, unfounded conclusions based on this unverifiable account. And still, if these things happened, they should be addressed at the source.
There is one solution to both questions.
Name the school in which this happened so we can verify your account ad take direct corrective actions.
Unless, of course, all you want to do rile people up, not solve the problem. the name of this school, please.
Waldo, what’s your name?
Tina: I imagine you will ask the same question of:
meep
suztours
vb
Czar of Defenestration
Libertyship46
Major
urbanleftbehind
Sick of it
Rubin’s Secret Messages
Bear
cactusbob
Gozer the Carpathian
Hell_Is_Like_Newark
KRB
X*
proreason
Occidental Jihadist
and
Fortunate Son
Unless, these, like mine, are their names. Or you can make much more productive use of your time and talents to either support or counter my comments.
I do need to say, I am flattered by your interest in me, but it is my comments, not my person that should be the focus of your attention.
Waldo’s name or identity is irrelevant…much like his comment. If demanding to know the name of the school (and claiming that failure to do so delegitimizes the article) is the best refutation he can come up with, then his real name is MUD.
You refute my point — with name calling?
I ask for the name of this school, so that,
1. This account can be verified, and
2. Effective action be taken directed at the source of the problem.
You prefer that outrage about this situation be,
1. Uninformed,and
2. Ineffective?
Sorry, Moire, that is not my style. In fact, it is one of the roots of the problems in this country. This unverifiable account does nothing to solve the problem. It only contributes to our problems. Name-calling doesn’t help either dear.
I’ve asked Mr. Rubin for the name of the school so we can verify the incidents he writes about and take direct corrective action at the source. To help people take such action when Mr Rubin provides the name of the school, here is a letter I plan to send. You can use it as a model for your own letters. Lets fix this problem at this school by taking direct action at it’s source!
—————————
Dear (Principal’s name) and (School Superintendent’s name)
I have read one parent’s complaint about certain events said to have taken place at (name of school) and in classroom(s) of (name of teachers involved). He says he witnessed these incidents first-hand.
Attached is his account. Please investigate these allegations and inform me of any necessary corrective action you have taken.
Thank you for your attention to this request and I look forward to hearing from you about this troubling account.
————————————–
I look forward to getting the information that is needed from Mr Rubin before this letter can be sent.
Those of you who now Mr. Rubin and have a way to contact him, please do so and forward this request. Thanks.
..I call it Troll.
If asking for information to verify something is being a “troll”, I proudly accept that name. In fact, should not our legal system also accept unsubstantiated evidence, lest they also be called trolls?
If asking for information so that we can fight this specific situation at the source is being a troll, I proudly accept that name. In fact, should not our leaders in government also accept unsubstantiated evidence when making a decision to go to war, lest they also be called trolls? Oh, wait. They already did.
Be careful General P. Malaise or Tina is likely to ask you “what’s your name?”
As a so called ‘babyboomer’ (1946), college educated, military service, husband,father and grandfather, it is my opinion that our country as we knew it is dead.
As a watched what should have been in my opinion a solemn memorial to the victims of the Tuscon event, the callous ‘squeals of delight’ at Obama by the college students in attendance said it all!
If you want a real old timey book, look up “the Matchlock Gun”, an award winning book that has a boy using his grandfather’s old gun to defend his mother from Indians. Very politically incorrect on a number of levels.
Rudyard Kipling’s kids’ books, including “Kim.” Robert Heinlein’s young adult novels – not PC and great character-builders. Growing up in a typical liberal family, they made me immune to statist ideology. Robert Lawson’s kids books about famous historical figures (not that historical but fun and not PC). “Johnny Tremain.” “A Wrinkle in Time.” The Pre-WWII Scribner Illustrated Classics with the NC Wyeth illustrations. I started collecting those because I love Wyeth but what books are they? Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, Marjorie Rawlings, James Fenimore Cooper….great stuff for teens!….I think reading a REAL book is worth something in itself – these are substantial hardbound books with luscious color plates. You can find used library copies of the Scribners on Amazon for under $10. I would also say a good rule of thumb for kids books is all the Newberry award winners from the start (1920s?), in order, up to whenever they became PC, and stop then.
If you are pressed for money, you can find most or all of these used on Amazon for cheap.
Can anybody assure me that things would be better in a Catholic school? That would be my hope, but I afraid that would not be the truth. Many Catholic universities bend over backward to show how autonomous, how progressive, or “not under the thumb of the Church” they are. Marquette had a problem by trying to hire a woman from Seattle who clearly was at conflict with Church teachings. So then they hired Senator Feingold to be a law professor. Mr. “women-right-to-choose-to-abort-their-babies” and in favor of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The local parochial high schools seem to follow Marquette’s lead. But Milwaukee area Catholic high schools do win state championships in various sports, so hey, what’s the problem?
For what it’s worth, back in the 90′s, we were taught at my football factory Catholic high school that Jesus the world’s first Socialist revolutionary. The teacher who always used to say that had a big Che poster hanging in the classroom. He was/is a very popular teacher, but not many kids paid much attention to the political stuff. They were too focused on winning football and wrestling championships.
Most of the popular teachers were cocky, tough-guy football and wrestling coaches who taught real subjects & projected traditional views on things. There were a few old nuns still hanging on too, but they’re all gone now (if they’re even still alive). The young female teachers coming in tended to push the P.C. and social justice stuff though. Again, nobody other than the liberal/activist types gave a rat’s azz about all that B.S., but it was filtering in — and that was 15+ years ago. It might be different now though, especially with kids who’ve bee indoctrinated with Leftist memes since pre-school.
Can we end public schools now and go to vouchers for everyone?
Nope.
#38 Beverly: Thanks and keep up the good work and stick by your guns and never stop seeking the truth. As a die-hard conservative Bush wasn’t really my hero either, but he was a thousand times the man Gore was.
#41 sadoldman: Take heart, sometimes it is darkest before the dawn. Things seem a little distressing right now, but a couple a months ago I was sitting on a bleacher enjoying the warm sun watching as my 7 year old son, his teammates and opposing team raise their helmets during the national anthem sung just before the start of their football game. It was then I realized that America, as we knew it, is still very much alive, it’s just been distracted by the difficulties of daily life. The joke that is Obamie has been a real wake up call for that America and that America will rise and take its rightful place. Taking 65 seats in Congress was just the beginning. Now that the MSM doesn’t have a strangle hold on the media any longer, the word gets out. People just need to be more informed and now is the time to inform them.
This shows how weak and impotent the Right is.
The left can get away with all this unopposed, and the right while whine about it but will do nothing to lift it.
I know exactly what this author is referring to because I experienced it and have seen it myself in the California schools my daughters attend.
The revolution? Slipped in after endless, and I mean endless discussion of the slave trade. If you don’t take world history, you’ll think it started with the United States, never learning about muslim slave trade in africa from 800 AD (sorry–i can’t get into that new “bce” system).
The US battle to contain slavery and finally extinguish it? They focus almost entirely on the shortcomings of the Emancipation proclamation (it didn’t free everyone all at once and undo everything right away, so its proof that the US was really rascist, and Lincoln was too).
The Industrial revolution? Forget the contributions that alllowed the US to rise as an industrial power. Forget that those jobs enabled families to make money and move off the farm for the first time. Forget that it enabled the US to remain free of euro influence and defeat the enemy in two world wars. The “Walden Pond” educators make it all about those kids workig long days in the mill (as if they would have been fishing on the farm).
The United States in WWII? You mean the internment of the Japanese (and they don’t report that many of the sons of interned japanese fought bravely for their country), firebombing Japan and Dresden and Hiroshima. All with a reserved tone of horror that any of it happened. You will never hear of brutal treatment by the Japanese in occupied Asia, Unit 751, etc. Even discussions of Nazi camps dwell on the “failure” of the allies to bomb the tracks to the camps, etc. Hiroshima? you mean the impetuous decision of the US to bomb the brave little city…..
No effort to place things in context.
The films shown in classes are often of the US bombing of Japan or Germany in WWII and nothing of the other side, or civil rights marches from the 50′s with southern sheriffs hosing demonstrators(I don’t oppose showing those films, but as the only ones?)
Its not one school: its an approach by “educators” and textbok committees that feel US students need to be humbled and taught to see the short comings of the US.
Textbook committees that are stocked with people who went into “education” and get on those committees for a reason. I am fine with seeing deficiencies, but as a staple diet, its all one way.
The control of most schools has slipped away from local school boards to large broups of administrators who are pressured by political groups that are frankly not interested in commending the US for its history.
The solution: people need to find those textbook comittees and get on them or have good people with good educations on them to replace the people who feel that the only US History is its failings.
Write the School Boards and Regents that control your schools and colleges to speak up.
I’m thinking of a Monty Python sketch for 2011 that takes place at “an average American grade school”.
The teacher set up a video that purports to be a capsule history of the United States and leaves the room to the students.
The video is a non-stop compendium of images of blacks being firehosed, atomic bomb explosions, Abu Graib photos, Japanese internment camps, John Wayne killing Indians, napalm in Vietnam, the Kent State shootings, Chicago Convention Riots, dead bodies in New Orleans, etc, etc, etc.
When the teacher comes back in he says, “And next week, the dark side of American History.”
Can we end public schools now and go to vouchers for everyone?
No. The left runs this country. The Right has no power whatsoever.
The left cleverly makes the right think that Republicans winning elections means the left has lost, but in reality that is how the left distracts the easily-duped right.
All this leftism in schools has happened despite the Presidencies of Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II.
Hi Barry
What most people don’t know are the details about why the Japanese were interred. There were Japanese spies in the community as revealed by Magic intercepts and decodes. If the government had gone after the known agents the fact that we were reading the Japanese mail would have been out. So instead the whole population on the West Coast was interned. And injustice to be sure. Not without reason.
Germans were interned, too–not as many as were in WWI, but still quite a few. You never hear this mentioned in schools, because it doesn’t stoke a racial grievance.
I say to those of you complaining about your children’s schools. What are you going to do about it? Yes, you could read to them at home, but they are already stressed out from all the homework. I have home-schooled from the beginning of my three children’s educations. Before my first daughter began kindergarten, I made an impromptu visit to the school she would attend. I didn’t like what I saw. We couldn’t afford private school, so we home schooled. There is some wonderful curriculum out there, and it is much cheaper. What is costly? The fact that one of you must forgo a career to stay home and teach. You won’t have a nice house or car, but your kids will be much better off.
If you are not going to home school, then you need to organize and give your schools hell until they straighten up. I remember back in the early 90′s when our home school freedoms were threatened by introduced legislation . We all called our representatives in congress to complain, and it worked. We now have more freedom than ever, but we are ever vigilant because the radicals are sneaky. I send an email fairly regularly to my senator, the (DIS)Honorable Dick Durbin to remind him that his days are numbered as a senator unless he starts listening to his constituent’s wishes. Freedom is a misleading word. If you want to keep it, you have to get out of your comfort zone.
You’re really stretched a few very insignificant examples into something way bigger than it deserves. Sheesh. If this is your evidence, I’m not sure you actually needed evidence
In other words, he innocently had turned a simple situation — a guy wanted to sell merchandise, for charity, to boys of a soccer-crazy age — into a racist incident.
Nah – he just said something stupid. Kids do that all the time. If you actually asked him about it, he’d probably confess to not really having thought about it. Listen to schoolkids’ hyperbole sometime.
Other that that, this is incredibly “not first-hand”.
And this is happening in America — not to mention Canada and Europe — tens of thousands of times each day. We just don’t hear about it.
My god – you’re SURROUNDED.
To take a small incident as proof of a much wider phenomenon is always open to question.
Indeed, but …
Yet I can’t help but think
… why let that stop you?
especially since I know what he’s been taught in the classroom — that this boy’s paranoia and quickness to anger is a result of the indoctrination he is getting in public school.
Or he’s a kid. I know, radical thinking. I just BET schools (and parents) had so much control over the things kids were influenced by. Is there nowhere outside of the school environment that he might have been exposed to racism? Or an accusation of racism? Or the politics of racism? Does his family own a television, for example? If he’s associating racism explicitly with soccer, then … maybe somebody in his team said something? Does everything have to be government mind-control?
Tell people over and over again that America is mostly or even mainly characterized by racism, and you are teaching people to hate America.
Tell people over and over again that the education system is mostly or even mainly characterized by communist, anti-american indoctrination, and you are teaching people to hate teachers.
Or, as one eleven-year-old girl from another South American family told her classmates: “We hate America, but our parents are making us live here.”
I had a friend in high school who was forced to move to australia by his (frankly quite strange) parents. He wasn’t super-keen on australia, either. Not because of any particularly deep-seated political hatred, but because none of his friends were here and he missed his old school. Honestly, kids aren’t all thinking on your wavelength all of the time.
Kids in the class constantly use the word “racist,” even when colors completely unassociated with human beings are mentioned — a black cat, for example, or automobile.
Yep. It’s also very much the thing right now for kids to use the word “gay” in a disparaging way. Not because they’re all rampant gay-bashing homophobes, either. They’re kids who pick up junk from popular culture.
What happens when you tell young people over and over again that the most important fact of American history is the internment of Japanese during World War Two?
Yep, every day at general assembly, I’m sure they truck out the story about the japanese. Yet somehow neglect to mention the civil rights movement or the abolition of slavery. Interesting.
I could supply four score and seven more very specific first-hand examples, based on a close observation of my son’s almost two years in an American public school.
I wish you would have. It’d be a lot more convincing.
Whether he is being subjected to one of the school plans developed by unrepentant anti-American terrorist Bill Ayers, who has had a certain influence on contemporary American leadership, I cannot say.
Yeah. Right. And bush had mates in saudia arabia – how far you do you reckon I can stretch THAT? Rupert’s main business-partner is a saudi. Do wahhabists have a “certain influence” on fox? Can anyone just make this stuff up?
Some examples, all based on first-hand experience:
Aah “based on”. Yep. Got that already. So these aren’t actually things you saw, am I right?
A math exercise in which the teacher uses a deck of playing cards, each of which is marked “Vote Obama” on the back.
*shrug* So what? Do the kids vote? Do you think a deck of playing cards is going to hold a candle to the onslaught of attack ads their parents will see on the TV? Nah. You might as well say they were red on the back (communist – see what I did there?)
A current-events discussion in which, even though Junior Scholastic referred to the Times Square bomber as an “Islamist terrorist,” the only correct answer is that this Taliban-backed Pakistani immigrant is a “home-grown terrorist.”
What were the other options? All of them.
Days spent in unquestioning study of man-made global warming, with no mention even of a controversy. One student remarks afterward, “Due to global warming, it will soon be snowing in Africa.”
Despite my doubts about the story, I will suggest: “Days spent in unquestioning study of evolution, with no mention even of a controversy.”
“Despite having music class, the following dialogue takes place: Father: “Did you learn the Star Spangled Banner?””
Oh, please. The kid’s never been to a sporting event? He’s NEVER heard the national anthem? How old is this kid?
On Memorial Day, son draws pictures of soldiers during free time in school; teacher confiscates, makes and files photocopies, and warns him never to do that again.
Uh, huh. And would you like to describe these pictures in some more detail? Where they artistic, patriotic renditions? Or is there something more to it?
Maybe the kids drawing the soldiers come from military families. Or do common sense answers make you uncomfortable? It’s funny how Leftists and their useful idiots in the troll community only have a problem with anecdotal evidence when it’s used against them. Sob stories about social injustice are perfectly acceptable when grabbing for more federal funds. The hypocrisy is directly linked to the kind of smear tactics and demagoguery we’ve seen this week over the killings in Arizona.
Maybe the kids drawing the soldiers come from military families.
Or maybe not. That’s why I’m asking for specifics. We actually don’t know anything about the drawing except that it was “of soldiers”. What were the soldiers doing? What else was in the picture? What was the kid supposed to be doing at the time?
Or do common sense answers make you uncomfortable?
It seems to make you uncomfortable that I might ask for all the facts.
It’s funny how Leftists and their useful idiots in the troll community
You guys just can’t help it, can you? Somebody disagrees with your prejudices and they’re a “useful idiot”. Do you not even understand a little-bit why this level of knee-jerk ad hominem crap is unhelpful? Is your first response to critical debate to ALWAYS attack the speaker personally? Have you started to notice yet that this is what almost everyone here does?
only have a problem with anecdotal evidence when it’s used against them.
I have a problem with all selective anecdotal evidence which surrounded by weasel words like “based on first-hand evidence”. That’s a sly way of saying “hearsay”. You know those TV-movies which claim to be “based on actual events” … you know they’re not factual, right?
Sob stories about social injustice are perfectly acceptable when grabbing for more federal funds. The hypocrisy is directly linked to the kind of smear tactics and demagoguery we’ve seen this week over the killings in Arizona.
I’d really love to get somebody here to answer something for me. You’re all very keen to make it all about sarah, but nobody on “teh lefts” has done anything of the sort (and I haven’t either, despite what JPT would like to claim). They’ve pointed to palin as an example of somebody who uses gun imagery to rile up the supporters, accuses her opponents of being unamerican and then points cross-hairs at them. But what do you think of sharon angle’s “second amendment remedy”, and her subsequent call to “take harry reid out”. No, don’t change the subject. I’ve seen the list of things that obama said. I just want a straight answer from one person on this blog to that question. DO you think that sort of comment has a place in a peaceful democratic discourse? Yes or no?
Or maybe not. That’s why I’m asking for specifics. We actually don’t know anything about the drawing except that it was “of soldiers”. What were the soldiers doing? What else was in the picture? What was the kid supposed to be doing at the time?
Demanding specifics in this case is simply a way of obfuscating. It’s anecdotal. You don’t like the premise and so you’re attempting to invalidate it by demanding details that can’t be verified anyway. It’s a nice little dog-and-pony show you’re attempting but unless you can prove that the anecdotes are false then you’re the one who is using weasel words and strategies to call Rubin a liar.
It seems to make you uncomfortable that I might ask for all the facts.
Not uncomfortable but rather disappointed that you don’t have the intellectual honesty or guts to call Rubin a liar. Instead you hid behind meaningless calls for “all the facts.” Do you have any verifiable “facts” to refute what he is saying?
You guys just can’t help it, can you? Somebody disagrees with your prejudices and they’re a “useful idiot”. Do you not even understand a little-bit why this level of knee-jerk ad hominem crap is unhelpful? Is your first response to critical debate to ALWAYS attack the speaker personally? Have you started to notice yet that this is what almost everyone here does?
You should stop whining…the self-pitying sob about you being a victim doesn’t bolster your cause at all. Nobody on the Left is qualified to scold anybody about the wicked ways of “knee-jerk ad hominem crap” attacks based on nothing more than rejection of somebody else’s opinion. We’ve seen way to much of that, haven’t we? If you don’t want to argue with people who recognize your insincerity than go back to HuffPo or Daily Kos and be a part of the collective.
I have a problem with all selective anecdotal evidence which surrounded by weasel words like “based on first-hand evidence”. That’s a sly way of saying “hearsay”. You know those TV-movies which claim to be “based on actual events” … you know they’re not factual, right?
Can you give me some examples of non-selective anecdotes? Do you even know what you’re saying? Or are you just tossing out fancy words to impress somebody? You’re the one relying a bit too heavily on weasel words, like “hearsay.” Thanks Jack McCoy but this isn’t a court of law. But if you want to throw in some “facts” then go right ahead. I’m sure they won’t be “selective…”
I’d really love to get somebody here to answer something for me. You’re all very keen to make it all about sarah, but nobody on “teh lefts” has done anything of the sort (and I haven’t either, despite what JPT would like to claim).
Really? Have you been asleep all week or is basic intellectual honesty simply beyond your capabilities? You’re seriously claiming that Palin hasn’t been the absolute obsession with the Left and their allies in the media all week? You can’t even be honest about that much?
They’ve pointed to palin as an example of somebody who uses gun imagery to rile up the supporters, accuses her opponents of being unamerican and then points cross-hairs at them. But what do you think of sharon angle’s “second amendment remedy”, and her subsequent call to “take harry reid out”. No, don’t change the subject.
It’s called a political campaign. It’s easy to go back after the fact and pick out comments that fit your cynical little narrative but if you’re capable of honesty than you will admit that there’s “heated rhetoric” coming from all directions. And the insinuation that there’s a direct causal relationship between the words spoken and the insane act that was carried out last weekend can’t stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. If the words are responsible than why did the guy wait till two months after election day to act? Why not run out and grab a gun the same day he first heard the “rhetoric?”
I’ve seen the list of things that obama said. I just want a straight answer from one person on this blog to that question. DO you think that sort of comment has a place in a peaceful democratic discourse? Yes or no?
Peaceful democratic discourse? Like the baseless and knee-jerk accusations that Sarah Palin was responsible for the deaths in Arizona? That meme that was sent out over the airwaves and the internet simultaneously with the first reports of the shootings? Again, who do you think you’re fooling with this nonsense? Until you’re capable of generating enough honesty to at least admit that there’s plenty of “heated rhetoric” coming from both sides of the spectrum than you really have no point to make at all.
I’ll deal with you in the morning.
Demanding specifics in this case is simply a way of obfuscating. It’s anecdotal. You don’t like the premise and so you’re attempting to invalidate it by demanding details that can’t be verified anyway. It’s a nice little dog-and-pony show you’re attempting but unless you can prove that the anecdotes are false then you’re the one who is using weasel words and strategies to call Rubin a liar.
I haven’t ever called anyone here a liar. I CAN’T call him a liar, because I don’t know the facts. I have my doubts about his conclusions, which I have explained. I also have some doubts about a couple of specific incidents. Not because I think rubin is a liar, but because I have seen enough “PC gone mad” stories which turned out to be BS to be very suspicious about important, missing information (I’ve posted before, for example, that I’ve found about 80% of UK pc-gone-mad stories to be utter rubbish – I used to check them out just for sport). He can avoid the question, but I still want to know why that picture was confiscated. All that he’s said is that it WAS confiscated, and that it was a picture of soldiers. That’s not enough to make a judgement. Why did the teacher do it? Surely the teacher SAID why he/she was doing it, so let’s hear it?
Not uncomfortable but rather disappointed that you don’t have the intellectual honesty or guts to call Rubin a liar. Instead you hid behind meaningless calls for “all the facts.” Do you have any verifiable “facts” to refute what he is saying?
No. That’s why I’m asking for them. But as I said, I have serious doubts about what seems to me to be a pretty common anti-leftist-teacher theme.
A couple of weeks ago there was much hullabaloo over a girl who was supposedly kicked out of school for taking the wrong lunchbox (which turned out to contain a paring knife for an apple). She was allegedly a straight-a dream student. Everone piled on the school, dragging out all of the usual teachers-are -evil memes. At the time, I expressed my doubts, suggested we should wait for more information, and was pilloried for it. More information came to light (as it always does) when her record was released to the press, and now I see PJM has nothing more to say on the subject. Not a peep.
You should stop whining…the self-pitying sob about you being a victim doesn’t bolster your cause at all. Nobody on the Left is qualified to scold anybody about the wicked ways of “knee-jerk ad hominem crap” attacks based on nothing more than rejection of somebody else’s opinion.
I’m qualified, because I don’t attack people personally and I try to engage with their arguments. I don’t accuse people of “ad-hominem” attacks simply because they reject my opinion – I do it because they make claims about me personally which have nothing at all to do with the argument, which happens to be one of the things the site rules ask posters not to do. I only bring it up because by highlighting when you’re doing it highlights when your arguments are weak. A couple of posters here are apparently now reduced to posting nothing BUT snide accusations about me.
If you don’t want to argue with people who recognize your insincerity
Apparently I DO want to argue with people, whether or not you think I’m insincere. And notice that I haven’t called you insincere? Or a liar?
Can you give me some examples of non-selective anecdotes?
Something that provides both sides of the story. Like, for example, telling us why the teacher confiscated the drawing. Give us enough information to skip the implied “teacher is rabidly anti-military” conclusion and make up our own mind. See how it works?
Really? Have you been asleep all week or is basic intellectual honesty simply beyond your capabilities? You’re seriously claiming that Palin hasn’t been the absolute obsession with the Left and their allies in the media all week? You can’t even be honest about that much?
She’s been ONE obsession, absolutely. On the right she’s been the entirety of the pushback, but on the left you’ll see (if you bother to look) an argument about a conservative-wide phenomenon of whipping up personal hatred of liberal MPs. Sharon angle did it. Glenn beck does it. Rush limbaugh does it. Sean hannity does it. O’Reilly did it – I don’t know if he still does. Personally, I michelle bachmann does it but she’s getting a bit of a free ride at the moment. Anne Coulter has made a career out of it. Numerous republican challengers made a point of using gun imagery in their campaigning, alongside comments like “And if ballots don’t work, bullets will”, “you don’t have to resort to armed insurrection, yet.”, “Gather your armies”, “Get on Target for Victory in November”, “we have a right to get rid of that government and to get rid of it by any means necessary”, and of course “the first thing we need to do is take harry reid out”.
These aren’t accidental comments. These are people who got where they are entirely on the basis of being able to say exactly what they want you to hear. The issue isn’t that they made a mistake – the issue is that they just didn’t think it was a problem. Right now, a lot of reasonable people are saying “yeah, it’s a problem”.
It’s called a political campaign. It’s easy to go back after the fact and pick out comments that fit your cynical little narrative but if you’re capable of honesty than you will admit that there’s “heated rhetoric” coming from all directions.
It’s an awful lot of comments, and nobody’s apologising. And if YOU are capable of honesty, you’ll admit that the “heated rhetoric” on one side is quite different to the other. There is one example of a democrat saying that a governor (candidate) should be put against a wall and shot … but that’s newsworthy precisely because it’s so rare. One other very important difference is that really nasty stuff on the left tends to come from the fringes. On the right, it’s the mainstream – fox correspondents, party spokespeople, candidates.
Peaceful democratic discourse? Like the baseless and knee-jerk accusations that Sarah Palin was responsible for the deaths in Arizona?
I don’t think many people have tried to claim anything that simple. Palin was leapt upon initially because of the history of her relationship to giffords. Since then, the pushback from the conservative media (who clearly want to make out it’s entirely about palin, for obvious reasons) has kept her in that spotlight – along with her own comments about “blood libel”, of course (I still can’t believe her speechwriters chose those words – again, I don’t believe it was an accident)
That meme that was sent out over the airwaves and the internet simultaneously with the first reports of the shootings?
Yes, because the congresswoman was on a map supplied by the palin team with a crosshairs representing her and she’d previously asked palin to tone it down and pointed out that comments like that can have consequences. What … you want the media to ignore that? It’s a bit HARD to ignore, don’t you think?
Until you’re capable of generating enough honesty to at least admit that there’s plenty of “heated rhetoric” coming from both sides of the spectrum than you really have no point to make at all.
Plenty yes, but of a fundamentally different kind. Obama has used “fightin’ words” (some of the quotes are even accurate), but he deserves to claim the “metaphor” defense far more than people who talk about actual insurrection, revolution, taking aim and outright “taking out” opponents. The right (at the moment) has an explicit strategy of demonising liberals – personally, in many cases. For the most part, liberals have at least kept the argument at the level of policy, rather than vague accusations of anti-americanism, or outright advocating the use of force.
Anyhow. That’s long enough. I’m not expecting a useful response.
The point is: why should a child be stopped from drawing soldiers? It is total PC nonsense.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ali_carr_chellman_gaming_to_re_engage_boys_in_learning.html
Do you know what was in the drawing, or in what context?
A simple yes/no will do.
“Do you think that sort of comment has a place in a peaceful democratic discourse? Yes or no?”
I’ll alter your question a bit to state “do you think that sort of comment has a place in democratic discourse”. The word “peaceful” creates a loaded question.
To answer, I’ll state that democratic discourse is RARELY peaceful. It is frought with violent words and images, but very rarely frought with actual violent deeds. That’s the beauty of democracy. We can say these awfully brutal and horrible things about one another, and it’s JUST WORDS (and sometimes music and, if you go to the right protests, huge puppets). Words, images, art, movies, poetry, books, magazines… It’s all there, and it is all awesome and much of it is violent!
So, to answer your question, YES! Free speech makes us great. Violent speech also makes us great. To imply that some speech is too dangerous is to tread down a slippery road, my friend. All Quiet on the Western Front was a horribly violent book about the horrors of violence. But it was banned in Germany when the Nazi’s came to power. Too violent? Or just not the right kind of violent?
Are Palin and Angle too violent, or not the right kind of violent?
So, where were you when the movie Death of a President came out? No place in a peaceful society? Or is it OK? Is Palin’s crosshairs not the right kind of violent speech but Obama’s “we bring a gun” reference OK?
What about the game Call of Duty Black Opps (you get to kill Castro!) or the music of NWA or the words of Malcolm X? Does that have any place in our democracy? Does Fred Phelps? Or is that kind of speech too violent for you?
What about this? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/09/labor-on-dems-who-block-h_n_492076.html
“Take them out”. Is that the right kind of violent, or simply too violent for our peaceful democracy?
Are you the Jared Loughner of Australia?
You write like an OCD kid..
Go away until you have something useful, intelligent or constructive to add to the debate.
“Go away until you have something useful, intelligent or constructive to add to the debate.”
I could say the same to you.. but you won’t go away either..
you are not OP anyways.. you keep acting like it though..
As per the freedoms I enjoy, I may ignore your commands because “you have no power” Goblin King.. did you catch that movie reference Bueller?
but no, really, I worry you are, deep down, ready and able to commit violence to further your zealotry like Loughner did..
Yes.. We the People LOVE to see our Representatives take their masks off..
Say who you are, do what is expected of you.. Now that we really know who Obama is, we know he cannot say who he is.. But we know exactly what to expect..
I’m a big fan of beer and popcorn..
http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/federal_politics/clips/15771/
It’s going to be quite the show.. Let me tell you, from the center of my universe, Toronto, after seeing the suburban immigrant community trash the effete downtown liberals by electing Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto, it’s my opinion that Barack Obama is destined for a complete crash and burn next election, even if he spends 2 billion dollars of completely private donations using gaza phone banks…
It’s ovah baby..
The only way Obama stays is by preventing the election…
We all know
Let it be known that Matthew loves the idea of restricting speech.. really he does..
Matt, we have two more years of Obumbler’s garbage.. He will continue to go off TOTUS script and America will keep turning against him as all the recent polls show that his decline in support continuing…
But hey Matt, “Together We Thrive” is a great re-election slogan..
As the article suggests, a whole generation is ripe for more marxist exploitation..
Did you hear the cheering at the Tucson Pep Rally?
that’s the result of the education system Mr. Rubin was talking about..
Yes.
You’re my favorite. Let it be seen that PJM just published an affirmation that threatening congress with armed violence is just peachy.
Since when was Mexico in South America?
According to U.S. foreign policy, Mexico is indeed in South America and South America is in the United States. So is Yeman and Iran and Bosnia.
The maps? All lies. If you want to see a real map of the United States, it can only be seen from the moon.
The government school system for the last 40 years has been a part of the Marxist agenda to destroy America.
We can now see what that agenda has brought. Spoiling the child who have no respect for their elders, millions of children out of wedlock, abortions, and drug abuse are some of the examples.
Now, throw in an unsecure southern border, millions of Muslims, and being in hock to the CHICOMMS brings America to the edge of massive change. Your frindly CFR controled government believe change through chaos is needed to bring the unwashed Americans, and their evil Constitution into the New Age.
The CHICOMMS have a picture of a mass murderer on their money, and they are the model for the global agenda. American tax money was used to save the global economy by the global Central bank called the FED. The FED are not Nationalists just as Andrew Jackson warned.
What will happen in the near future? A One World currency? Massive inflation?
The government school system for the last 40 years has been a part of the Marxist agenda to destroy America.
You’d think they’d get on with it, then. Don’t those marxists realise that they’re on a timetable?
You’d think they’d get on with it, then. Don’t those marxists realise that they’re on a timetable?
They’re always hindered by the fatal flaws in their ideology. But they have problems thinking outside the box and are too dogmatic to avoid the trap of doubling down on stupid. And in the United States the correct spelling of the word is “realize.” Canadian much?
Australian.
According to our Constitution, you’re actually an American. Welcome aboard, mate!
*puzzled*
How does that work? Does the australian constitution get to say anything about it? Does this mean I don’t need a green card?
You don’t need a thing and can keep your Australian citizenship. All you have to do is touch a rock on American soil and you too can get a free education, welfare benefits, get treated for cancer by entering an emergency room, enter military service, become president, sue actual Americans if they talk to you harshly and any other number of wonderful perks that we extend to every organism is the solar system.
As for the Australian Constitution, you know better than anybody that the entirety of the nation of Indonesia are de facto Australian citizens and India too.
We’re one big happy family although your suggestion that registering with the Republican Party makes one an automatic signer of a pact with the devil is kind of a klinker. The suggestion that there is more threatening rhetoric from the Right than the Left is absurd. There are buckets full on both sides and no obvious winner in this losing proposition.
no they aren’t… neither are muslims…
small doses of crap.. don’t cha know..
Did that make any sense to anyone else? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTkxQQXIWj4
Khruschev: US fed small doses of Socialism
If you had an intrinsic understanding of world history and specifically American history, my comment wouldn’t have gone over your big head..
Bueller?
Oh, I see. “small doses of crap” is a deep cultural reference. Sorry for not spotting it in the pristine form you supplied.
Well, mister intrinsic history, here’s a surprise for you … Kruschev never said it. He’s been verbaled by Strom Thurmond, benson and others, but nobody seems to have ever actually heard him say it. It’s completely unverified. Benson made up that exchange.
He also never said that he’d bury you. Sting got that completely wrong.
Now a TRUE exchange that’s well worth seeking out is the one between kruschev and Nixon in the model kitchen. Nixon at his best.
supply link to prove your assertion…
thanks..
I wouldn’t ASSert without links… (Benny Hill reference) ya dig?
btw..
not a Nixon fan.. EPA and all that.. ya know..
I’m Canadian.. I know who Maurice Strong is..
do you?
Reference one:
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/udall/khrushch_htm.html
A more recent one, which links to the previous:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2008/11/13/bogus-khrushchev-quote-makes-the-rounds-again.htm
Van, you’ve gone quiet …
#40 Waldo. I have been subscribing to Mr. Rubin’s blog for some time and have exchanged emails with him on some of these topics. He has described every one of these situations in blog posts I am confident you can find on line. They are 1st-hand the same way my understanding of what goes on in my childrens’ classes is 1st-hand. I believe he has a child in the Montgomery County school system in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC. I do not think it is necessary for him to name the school and what he describes is consistent with what I see in our own school system.
If you have school-age children, the best defense is be engaged with them and their schoolwork. Read, or at least skim the books and take home materials, talk to the teachers and principals, and to other parents. And especially to your kids and their friends. Anything weird is going to come out sooner or later and you can take action to correct it. The school can’t object to your involvement – they at least say they want parents to be engaged.
And the school has your kids a few hours a day for about 180 days. Who has them the rest of the time – you do. Take advantage of that.
Let’s have a book about the Civil War where we don’t name the states and make sure there are no chapter headings to give away the ending. No footnotes would of course be de rigueur.
It could be all, “I saw a guy in a gray uniform and he was lying in a kind of a ditch thing see. Well anyways, he said something I couldn’t hear to another guy in a navy blue outfit who was lying in a ditch thing. Evidently it made the first guy angry cuz he shouted, ‘I know you are but what am I?’”
- The Official Non-Official Anecdotal History of the Civil War Between Some States, Vol.XII Pages not numbered.
You’ve “exchanged emails with him on some of these topics.”
How does that help us verify that this incident took place? How does that help us make an effort to solve the problem at this specific source?
“He has described every one of these situations in blog posts.”
Just like he did here. How does that help us verify that this incident took place? How does that help us make an effort to solve the problem at this specific source?
“They are 1st-hand”
Sure, just like he claims here. How does that help us verify that this incident took place? How does that help us make an effort to solve the problem at this specific source?
“I do not think it is necessary for him to name the school.”
I agree. It’s not necessary for him to provide that information, if he is not interested in helping us:
1. Verify the account and,
2. Take direct corrective action.
That he seems to have no interest in doing so is very informative. He’s good at making unfounded claims based on unverifiable accounts. The Native Americans have a name for this. “Big Wind, No Rain.”
This is the result of a bunch of EdDs’ influence. Because this degree is bogus, they try to appear “enlightened” by denigrating American culture.
By the way, they did this first to the American South.
It’s easy to spot the members of the teachers’ union in this comment thread. They’re the trolls who don’t like their agenda being examined and exposed for what it is. But it doesn’t matter how deep their denial runs or how obtuse their comments. The problems so effectively highlighted by Mr. Rubin are pervasive enough so that anyone who is neither a beneficiary of the status quo or an apologist for the same knows perfectly well how all too serious the situation has become.
Rubin’s article describes “A pre-teenage boy, living in the United States with his affluent family from South America” as saying “us Mexicans.”
Am I the only person who thinks that’s odd? Mexico is not in South America.
Leftist seeking to find all that is wrong with our schools find it in commercialism, militarism and the uniformity of an education system that is still somewhat industrial.
Conservatives seeking to find all that is wrong with our schools find it in inappropriate displays of multiculturalism, pluralism, environmentalism and a kind of bizzare demasculinization.
I’m a teacher. I’m a social studies teacher at a public high school. I teach senior level economics and freshmen level civics. In this political climate it is difficult to teach without pissing-off someone. Everyone assumes bias. On the right there is an assumption that you are a lazy, politically motivated hack who went into education for the long summers and to dis Jesus and America out loud to young students. On the left there is an assumption that you are part of the corporate machine that is modern education and you are trying to force conformity and the military down the throats of young brilliant minds yearning to be free.
All I want to do is to teach. I, like many teachers, don’t agree with my union. I work hard (60 hours a week minimum as a teacher and coach) and I don’t complain about my pay. I try very hard to be balanced and avoid bias. Many of my students ask my opinions on subjects, but I don’t share. I just play devil’s advocate and challenge their opinions.
Look, you guys have good reason to be skeptical of education. I did not go into education to turn my students into mini versions of myself. But this IS the goal of some teachers. Some. Not all, and not even many, but some. They view indoctrination as being the same as education. They view themselvs as being smarter then their students and parents, or as having superior values. The very worst instances I’ve seen are on the right, by the way. One teacher would hand kids invitations to his church with a message that stated that Jesus loved them. Another teacher would spend time in-between classes trying to convince kids to join his Amway network. But these were isolated instances and both teachers were eventually disciplined.
The problem with some teachers on the left is that they are simply unaware that bias is a problem. There is an arrogance of correctness here. When An Inconvienent Truth came out many teachers showed the movie in class. I asked some of these teachers about bias and indoctrination and they were shocked. “Isn’t it science? There is no bias in science; global warming is a fact”. How do you fight that? How do you dispute that train of thought with a true believer?
On the other hand, how do you dispute the fact that Thomas Jefferson had sex with his slave or that the US interned Japanese Americans during WWII? How do you dispute the fact that Native Americans really got the shaft in this country? Should we not talk about those things? Are they not part of the greater picture? The problem is that those on the left want to only talk of these things at the expense of discussion of the Declaration of Independence or Guadacanal. The right, on the other hand, dosn’t want to discuss lynchings in Mississippi or the Trail of Tears or Woodrow Wilson’s ties to the KKK. And no one trusts teachers to find that balance. To be fair, we deserve this distrust. But, on the other hand, no one asks me what I am doing in class. They just assume the worst.
So, if you really, really, really distrust your local schools, but you haven’t set foot in them, and you are using “firsthand” knowledge of things that happened to other people to form your opinions, then you didn’t learn much in school after all. You are as guilty of bias and selective information as those supposed teachers you mention. Still, I’d recommend getting to know your local high school and your local teachers. I think you’d find that they are, for the most part, pretty well-grounded people.
But stay away from the English teachers. They are crazy bitches, the lot of em.
I’ll ignore that last remark, and otherwise you give a great overview of education as you see it and do it.
Lefties push me toward becoming a righty and then the righties push me the other way…. not a bad mindset for a teacher to have.
If I remember rightly, I ignored pretty much everything I heard in the public schools after about third grade.
Especially the you have to follow school rules part.
When my younger daughter was in high school, she had to watch Al Gore’s Global Warming film in at least two different classes as part of her education/indoctrination. I agree with this article.
What ever happened to the basic ability to write a coherent multi-character narrative?
Was the pre-teen boy from South America or Mexico? (Hint: Mexico is NOT in South America) Were he and his friend fund-raising for the homeless, or attending a fund-raising event as prospective donor/customers viewing the available wares?
What may have been a great example was lost in the disconnect between the description of the characters and their actions.
In addition to over-focusing on race-hustling indoctrination problem in our schools, it appears that we also have a problem with teaching basic composition skills.
Matthew is quite a bot..
only crazy people and mercenaries bother to make such detailed comments..
like he’d ever tell me.. but..
How about an NGO funded Pajamas monitor?
–
If it’s just a hobby, well, the audience draws their own conclusion.. because they are perfectly capable of discerning zealotry when they see it..
62. Van Grungy
“Matthew is quite a bot..”
At least I address the arguments. Have you got anything at all to add to the thread itself, or are you just going to keep barracking for the team?
Seriously, there should be a “we hate matthew” thread so that this stuff would be relevant to something.
“like he’d ever tell me.. but..”
Why not?
How about an NGO funded Pajamas monitor?
No. I am not a member of any organisation – not even one. The work I do is technical, and not at all political, and I am not even a public servant. I have no links to any NGO, and I have never joined a political party (nor will I).
“If it’s just a hobby, well, the audience draws their own conclusion.. because they are perfectly capable of discerning zealotry when they see it..”
Actually, I’m just looking for a decent argument. And I have to admit, the level of reasoning reflected in most posts here really irritates me on a deep biological level. The thread articles – they’re mostly written by intelligent people. But the feedback really irks me. I’m doing my bit for reason.
Contrarian Zealot
since you don’t live in America, every word you write is hypothetical claptrap..
In any case, you have a noticeable hate-on for ‘regular folk’ who don’t ‘feel’ what is going on is right..
You don’t really add anything.. I just scroll past your posts anyways..
Why don’t you actually write an essay expounding on your solutions for Americans? If you have any.. it just seems like you don’t want America to solve any problems..
“I’m doing my bit for reason.”
We have discussed ‘reason’ before.. you specifically deny ‘reason’ because you are a contrarian zealot and you are entrenched in your ‘unnamed’ ideology..
It’s not a debate when you cannot ‘intrinsically’ understand America and Americans due to your physical disconnection to the ‘life experience’ of living in America..
Why do you bother? Really?
“the level of reasoning reflected in most posts here really irritates me on a deep biological level.”
Yes I know you hate stupid people.. they make you angry it seems..
baa baa black sheep, have you any wool? (original ideas)
Once again, you’ve ignored the actual topic of the thread and posted some ad-hominem drivel. Maybe you should go back to scrolling past my posts.
“Once again, you’ve ignored the actual topic of the thread”
How would you be able to add to this thread?
you are a subtraction.. and you know it..
Again, you ignore the point of the thread and wave conspiracies about me. Is that ALL you’ve got?
I am well aware of the indoctrination in public schools. Which is why we pulled our kids out, homeschooled, and never looked back.
Most people are shocked when I explain that there were more protests against the implementation of mandatory schooling at the beginning of the 20th century than you saw during the Obamacare protests. They refuse to believe.
Public schools are “unfixable”. The solution is to refuse to feed the beast.
The federal government has no business in education. Education was originally meant to be the responsibility of the states and local school districts. Conservatives need to work to get the feds out of local schools. Get involved in puting conservatives on your local school boards, and follow the example of Texas and challenge your state school boards on the use of leftist-biased textbooks. Bill Ayers is involved in creating and disseminating instruction materials for children! Isn’t anybody going to speak up and accuse him and the other communists working for the ovrthhrow of our republican government with sedition? Our meek acceptance of the Marxists’ slow and steady totalitarian predation is intolerable.
As author, let me respond to some points.
First, everything I mention was witnessed directly by my son and reported to me on the day that it happened. Second, I have written about these and other things in my blog http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com and repeatedly mentioned that the school is in Montgomery County, Maryland. I could easily have written an article three times as long with other material, much of which has been published on the blog.
I have also pointed out that not all schools are the same and that they vary on a state or county basis. A number of people have written or told me that this is typical of Montgomery County and their experiences in that jurisdiction.
I might add that my son has not been influenced by these teachings. There are also variations among teachers and years, with the fourth grade situation being much worse than in fifth grade. I was only recounting direct experience. When I asked other students they confirmed the specific stories recounted here. When I asked other parents if they knew about these things they always said no.
Finally, by quoting Lincoln I was not advocating Civil War but merely suggesting that these policies will lead to increasing conflict and problems for the United States. My only suggestion is for other parents to ask their children what is happening in school, to share their own observations, and to play a role in their children’s education.
Thanks to all of those who made nice remarks and who have recounted their own experiences.
“thanks to those who made kind remarks and shared their own experiences.”
You are welcome! It really helped to read your article, because otherwise I feel a teensy bit alone in my concerns. Most other moms “on the playground” just look rather blankly and have no response.
cheers!
By the way, to number 51 I would say that a writer starts with a good anecdote to draw reader’s attention. Every specific example can be said to be trivial. But I could add more examples of children expressing dislike of America and similar views to the boy cited at the beginning. As I wrote, I found his remark to be very sad and a good way of starting the article.
Honestly, Mr. 51, I only wrote about what happened and I can respond in detail to every point you make. Japanese internment was covered in four books read in one school year. That’s pretty intensive.
As for implying that I’m lying or making things up that makes me mad. I didn’t add one thing to what my son told me and whenever possible I checked the books and readings directly. I have no hidden or partisan agenda whatsoever.
Regarding the Junior Scholastic you don’t seem to understand my point. The magazine described the man as an Islamist terrorist but the students–in a test about what they read in the magazine–were not allowed to give the answer about what they had actually read in the magazine. Is that clear?
I also want to make it clear that generally I do not blame teachers. In fact, the worst teacher I am describing was in no way an ideological or political person. The problem is the curriculum which is drawn up on a county level. The teacher implements the curriculum, although there is some latitude.
The drawings of the soldiers were not on Memorial Day which was of course a holiday but one or two days before it. The soldiers were not murdering anyone and there was no blood. They were just pictures of soldiers holding guns. He is not from a military family but I am a historian and I deal with strategic issues and my son wants to be a military historian. He inherited a large library on military history and affairs from his deceased grandfather.
I do not condemn American schools as a whole as the situation varies totally depending on the state or county. I’ve been told by a friend in Pennsylvania, for example, that where he lives nothing like this has happened. As one can see from reader’s responses in some places things are very similar. Only if we have reports can we draw maps of what goes on where.
It’s getting late, and I will respond to your other post in the morning, and also the post by the bozo who started this “liar” meme.
If I thought you were a liar, I wouldn’t have asked for more details. I would have just called you a liar. I have no reason to believe you are one, but I have some serious doubts about your conclusions, based on the information you’ve given us.
“Japanese internment was covered in four books read in one school year. That’s pretty intensive.”
Yeah, well, ok. That is quite a lot for one year. I would have thought that even if the education system were riddled with al-quaeda operatives, they might have thought to mention slavery, jim crow, the civil rights movement, womens’ suffrage, the slaughter of indians, the conservative support for nazism and their opposition to the US’ involvement in WWI or WWII .. obviously contrasting with the general fawning, eager support for gulf war I, gulf war II, the spanish wars …
I mean, it’s a bit specific, right? If they wanted to bash america, why not mention the iran/contra scandal, and other less-verified deals with iran? Why not mention noriega’s past, or kermit roosevelt? If I wanted to make american kids hate america, I wouldn’t start or end with internment. That’s small change. It MIGHT make them wonder about whether the constitution really applies to all, of course …
“As for implying that I’m lying or making things up that makes me mad.”
I’m not. Like I said, if I thought you were a liar, why would I bother to ask for details? I’ve obviously disagreed with your interpretations (on the basis of what you’ve told us) and I’ve been pretty up-front about that. But I flat-out have my doubts about a teacher “filing” an innocent picture of a soldier drawn by a student. I just don’t believe that. I want to know more information.
“I have no hidden or partisan agenda whatsoever.”
Now THAT I have my doubts about
“The magazine described the man as an Islamist terrorist but the students–in a test about what they read in the magazine–were not allowed to give the answer about what they had actually read in the magazine. Is that clear?”
I’m going to have to take your word for it, because I can’t see what the readings were, or the answer choices. If it was a reading comprehension test, then it might have been perfectly sensible.
“I also want to make it clear that generally I do not blame teachers.”
Hmm …
“The drawings of the soldiers were not on Memorial Day which was of course a holiday but one or two days before it. The soldiers were not murdering anyone and there was no blood … He inherited a large library on military history and affairs from his deceased grandfather.”
Fair enough. So … did the teacher explain why the drawings were confiscated and filed? What did he/she say? What’s the other side of the story?
Now … to everyone reading this … this is called a “debate”. See how it works?
Barry, do you happen to remember one of Eddie Murphy’s minor comedies called “Boomerang”? There was a scene therein in which Eddie and some buddies (all black) are at a restaurant for dinner. The white waitress advises one of them that the dish he asks about comes with “asparagus spears”. When she leaves, he grumbles “Hey man, that waitress is racist.” Why? “If we were white, she would have said asparagus TIPS.” Eddie Murphy rolls his eyes at his friend’s stupidity.
Funny then, not so funny now in real life.
If an essay ever cried out for footnotes this is it. Otherwise it sounds like the imperative involving the Czech Rump.
Barry, #51 is obviously the product of a public school education, as he doesn’t understand the difference between advocating and observing, and obviously hasn’t read enough real history to observe the parallels with the times we live in.
The biggest difference between Civil War One and Two is that modern-day Copperheads keep their slaves on a “collective” rather than a “plantation.”
Matthew’s lack of understanding of America is due to not having any idea what it’s like to live in America..
most of the time you end up trying to impart knowledge that Matthew cannot assimilate because of this detachment..
just remember that when you engage his version of contrarianism..
He is ignorant of America.. it’s like chatting with an Eskimo about living in the Amazon…
More precisely, Matty mate is under the illusion that because he has read a few things about America, he “understands” America – typical delusion by a leftist.
he also thinks that by “debating” minutiae he makes major points.
Keep trying.
Here’s a sample section of ‘just’ being contrarian on a line by line basis by Matthew.. adding nothing, just trying to provoke a reply by commenting on any little thing a commentator writes..
============
You’re really stretched a few very insignificant examples into something way bigger than it deserves. Sheesh. If this is your evidence, I’m not sure you actually needed evidence
In other words, he innocently had turned a simple situation — a guy wanted to sell merchandise, for charity, to boys of a soccer-crazy age — into a racist incident.
Nah – he just said something stupid. Kids do that all the time. If you actually asked him about it, he’d probably confess to not really having thought about it. Listen to schoolkids’ hyperbole sometime.
Other that that, this is incredibly “not first-hand”.
And this is happening in America — not to mention Canada and Europe — tens of thousands of times each day. We just don’t hear about it.
My god – you’re SURROUNDED.
To take a small incident as proof of a much wider phenomenon is always open to question.
Indeed, but …
Yet I can’t help but think
… why let that stop you?
====================
To quote Matthew again… “Go away until you have something useful, intelligent or constructive to add to the debate.”
Matthew isn’t just a troll.. He’s a useful autistic contrarian zealot..
No, really… he is useful.. he does help..
You can’t learn from his mistakes if he doesn’t post them for us to see and study..
Bravo Matt!! I understand..
There it is again. Ad Hominem. Do you have anything to say about the thread topic? At all?
sorry this took so long…
AD HOMINEM ONLY APPLIES TO REAL PEOPLE…
both of us don’t qualify…
suck it up buttercup…
Mr. Rubin, when you mention, ‘Parents hardly ever hear about’ regarding the nonsensical actions of their children, teachers, freidns etc., I think you’re wrong.
If a parent is THAT aloof to these goings-on, it’s not the parent ‘hardly hearing’ or noticing, but in fact.. care.
And THAT is the true crime of it all. JMO.
The author may have highlighted some of the more egregious examples of political correctness, but he is absolutely right about what is going on in schools, at least judging from my experience as a parent in Maryland. My kids were taught about obscure African leaders but not, for example, James Madison. They were drilled in finding Djibouti on a map, but not Delaware. In some cases, the “history” books changed the facts to fit the narrative, Soviet-style. English books overwhelming focused on themes of oppression and misery. The political correctness even extended to math books, where for example not one of the “people who use math in their jobs” was a white male.
Being a single parent, home schooling was not an option, but I was able to spend enough time monitoring what was going on with homework to point out what the teachers were ignoring or misrepresenting. It also helped to have a nice collection of encyclopedias so I could show them where some of what they were learning was simply wrong. This had the added benefit of teaching them not to trust what they were being told simply because it was coming from an alleged authority. Happy to report that now they are all either professionally employed or in top colleges, and are also libertarianish center-right, so maybe they’ll help put a stop to the government madness going on now.
It may surprise you to learn that Mexico is not in South America, and therefore your fictional pre-teenage South American boy would be unlikely to refer to himself as Mexican.
As you correct this error in your fable, you may also wish to reconcile the change in POV of the protagonist; he starts as “raising money for the homeless”, i.e., a vendor at the school fair, and then suddenly becomes a browser, shopping the tables. Make up your minds; which is he?
It may also surprise you to learn that few schools are open on Memorial Day, and if then, it’s to make up for “snow days”, which generally means they’re playing catch-up with the curriculum, and have no time for the kind of busywork you suggest occurred on that day.
And of course, in addition to the above, you provide no links to news coverage of any of the events you made up.
In other words, and forgive me my saying so, but you’re simply a liar, and not even a good one.
So we are forced to choose between a “liar” and a “useful autistic contrarian zealot..” What a robust conversation, eh?
So’s your mother.
Dude, you just make shit up.
I am not sure how I could post links to events that have never been reported anywhere, except on my blog. My 11-year-old son is standing here as I write this and he is rather shocked and outraged that you would dare say that he and I are making things up. All of these things happened in his presence and were reported to me on the same day, checked with other kids and against texts. He says that he does exist.
You can analyze this any way you want but again we are merely reporting what happened. Remember that in the class for the entire year they read fewer than 10 books so the fact that four were on the internment issue does say something. As for my having an agenda, I am a registered Democrat and consider myself a liberal.
I am reporting on what happened. If something very different happened I would have reported that. I was genuinely shocked by what happened and if you’d have asked me beforehand I would never have believed it myself. You could find a school in Texas perhaps where the exact opposite prevailed but, again, that isn’t what we saw.
Now, to say this isn’t typical or to find a rationale for it is one thing. You might also say that this county is the most extreme in the United States (I don’t know but that’s possible) But to say that it didn’t happen at all or these are just extreme things chosen to prove a point is not acceptable. I’m not leaving out examples to the contrary because there weren’t any.
When I went to public school one of my teachers was a veteran of the Bataan Death March and told us about it. In my son’s class, when a British boy asked about Japanese atrocities in World War Two he was told, “That was against soldiers so it doesn’t count.” I have friends whose families were interned by the Japanese by the way who have their own stories), there is a clear pattern going on here, at least in this place.
What was interesting to see was how the three or four kids who were most critical among the students were all foreign-born students who questioned the picture they were being given about America, like the British boy I mentioned above.
As for your sarcasm when I say I don’t blame teachers. I don’t blame teachers. The teacher who was mainly doing the things I described seems to have no ideology or strong political views at all. They are merely doing what’s in the curriculum. If the curriculum were different they would teach it that way. Apparently, it is well known that this political slant comes from a county official who designs the curriculum, though I have no direct knowledge of this. I also note that Bill Ayers’ specialty is curriculum design and that he is trying to get programs like this accepted in public schools.
I have no problem with balance and have taught U.S. history myself. An extreme balance in either direction is not good. Thanks one more time to the people who responded constructively. I’m not intending to read any more of this discussion or to respond again here.
ok one more, in response to an implication that I am lying because I said the boy referred to himself as a Mexican, I don’t want to be so detailed as to make it possible to identify the boy. I will merely say that this is what he said and knowing all of the details of his background it was a logical thing for him to say.
As for the analysis of the text to suggest I am making it up, you are misreading. So here is what happened. The school was having a fair to raise money for the homeless, the two boys walked in the door, they came to the first booth, at the booth they were selling soccer gear, the person selling asked the boy to look at his stuff, and that’s when the boy made the remark to my son.
As for Memorial Day, it was close to that day in time.
One might ask why you seem to have a need to suggest I am making things up. It is part of the really bizarre way that debate is held in this country at present by both sides in which the truth must be 100 percent one way and people shut their eyes to any contradictory point no matter how small. It is as sad a symptom as anything written about in this article. A country where debate is conducted in such a way cannot prosper–and that’s not a call for civil war but a final observation.
Don’t take it personally; that’s what usually happens when liberal trolls are allowed to take over a discussion. Alinsky wrote about these tactics, and lefties practice them well (no doubt, some of them under SEIU/ACORN/Soros’ payroll).
Not questioning the veracity of the story, just questioning the abilities of your composition teachers.
Perhaps if less time was spent teaching public school students to be overly sensitive to perceived racial slights, there might be more time available for teaching composition skills.
Sorry if this seems grammar-police-esque, but readers have fairly high expectations for material at Pajamas Media.
As I see it, the remarks are about the distance between anecdotes and footnotes. The more one ventures toward the anecdotal, the more references are required.
Some stories are only interesting if one can be confident they are true and not merely think they probably are.
It’s like the difference between a photograph and a xerox – both are used in fine art photography exhibitions but when you snap that thread to reality provided by the former and use the latter in a painterly fashion, little is left.
People are saying you’ve given them an accurate painting but that it’s still a painting and they want a photograph.
Wow, way to transfer responsibility for your complete lack of veracity to your 11 year old son. Classy. I trust you did not invent him too.
But by all means, keep digging, Barry, the bottom of the hole has got to be down there somewhere.
““We hate America, but our parents are making us live here.”
We have a new Congress…that will reinterpret the 14 amendment to relieve these interlopers….these America haters of their hate.
I pray for the day that you’re welcome back to where you came from. French, English, Irish, Polish…but above all…any illegals. ANY.
Maybe this should be the next push from th right. If my tax dollars are going into schools that teach distortions, not truths and historical false hoods not the truth and true facts regarding this great country, then maybe we don’t want our tax dollars spent this way? I don’t want my money spent teaching our kids to hate this country and what it stands for!
The Government should have schools focus more on the Sciences and Math. And not focus on PC, Hatred, and racial overtones and dertones, its shameful and it weakens our nation. Quit fueling this kind of rhetoric.
No wonder why we are falling behind other countries.
I’ve written before that this is where the Rhetoric that creates a heated ‘political’ climate begins. In the indoctrination of young minds through oue Education System funded by tax dollars. And I can’t help but feel that it is intentional and by design. Otherwise why distort the truth? Why distort history?
If a half black half white man who looks more black than white, had a white grandmother who did not like to be aggressively panhandled, but who reacted negatively when aggressively panhandled by a black panhandler, would the half black half white man be considered racist if he took offense without first speaking with his grandmother about the incident to see whether it was the aggressiveness or the color of the panhandler that upset her?
When the invasion of Iraq was about to commence, the powers that be at our local elementary school (K-8) built a “peace shack” in the plaza in front of the school, so the kiddies would have walls on which to write anti-American and anti-Bush graffiti….which they did with a will.
Anyone who thinks Public Schools aren’t lefty indoctrination centers is nuts.
At least where I live, it’s true.
It’s time to shut down the federal Department of Education (as well as a few other federal agencies). We must find patriotic Congressmen willing to oppose any increase in the federal debt ceiling until the DoE is closed.
I remember when I took my first University level course through my high school.. Sociology 101, U of Toronto..
The big lesson was ‘cultural relativity’.. It all seemed so make sense at the time.. especially considering the high school I went to was, and is still, an English as a Second Language school (the third floor was nick named the 3rd world).. A veritable united nations of students.. I floated around all of the different groups in high school, as I am a sponge for opinions and perspectives of people..
One of my favorite experiences was reading the speeches of Malcolm X and delving into discussions of ‘black history’. At the time, BET had just been relegated to basic cable in my area (cable 49).. Everyone I knew had BET on 24/7 (for rap music vids)..
I had never looked at ‘black’ people as a monolith before, I had always seen each person as the result of their unique country’s culture and history (the difference between a Jamaican and a Trinidadian for example).. It never occurred to me to see ‘blacks’ as just ‘blacks’.. but thanks to BET, everyone else started to see things that way.. suddenly ‘race’ was a cultural determinant thanks to the mind numbing cudgel of BET..
My school had a proud history of anti-racism.. winning OFSSA Gold with ‘black guys’ on the hockey team.. I wish I could supply links to some history, but it seems to be scrubbed..
I have lived through the ‘multikulti’ ‘social justice’ milgram experiment..
I want America to excede my expectations.. marx is a cow pattie in my world… it’s time to show the world that.. Americanization is Salvation..
Spread the word..
Here’s a big hint…
I’m not Marc Lamire.. kudos to him for forcing the crushing of section 13, but… I’m only a contemporary..
same high school, but I took the opposite path.. lets just say that Mod Jackets and Doc Martens didn’t mesh with Basketball and Dramatic Arts which was my choice..
My Saviour is a grade 10, born again Christian who make it a point to include me in the tryouts for the basketball team.. My break free point..
I would rotflmao if someone tried to call me racist…
I knew I wasn’t a ‘racist’ when my ‘black’ team mate related his former idea that he thought that ‘white people crap white crap’ when he was a kid.. because he is black, he logically surmised that color was all encompassing..
We all had a good laugh.. It’s all good.. baby baby..
I am Canadian!!
.. shhh.. I hate Trudeaupia…
vangrungy.blogspot.com
come here and converse on the level of acceptance of fact and acceptable peace…
Matthew.. I would even allow mohammed to sit at my table.. (only because I’m ready to slit that *uc*ers throat if he gets fidgety)…
just be ready to accede the existence of mecca..
evil must be obliterated.. yes, the quran is an evil screed..
===
I used to think ‘multiculturalism’ was the ‘norm’.. I thought the world operated on the idea that ‘equality’ mattered to everybody’s culture..
That ideology is false…
There is a difference between EQUALITY and equity…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity
Smarten up..
knowing is half the battle..
So … did we ever find out why that teacher confiscated the picture? I can’t see it in any of the posts.
“…I’d rather bet my future on a country governed by people who have learned from experience and who have no choice but to let reality guide their behavior rather than relying on lack of knowledge, political correctness (rather than factual correctness), and wishful thinking.”
We live in a world of doublespeak. US universities have become PC indoctrination factories, poisoning young minds and reinforcing the lack of critical thinking that permeates the K-12 public school system.
In US universities these days being PC means being anti Israel. Small example-my son was directed by a professor to use a book by Chomsky in a paper he was writing about the media. In the middle of unrelated material, Chomsky diverges into an anti-Israel rant. My son used the theoretical content, but in order to be intellectually honest, added a repudiation of Chomsky’s example of Israel. My son is rare. Most college students take the PC Pablum like eager fledglings with open, eager minds.
We have an entire generation of young, open minded Jews being taught self hatred in the name of “social justice”, the “as a Jew Jews” who have ingested poison and don’t even know they are committing suicide by PCness.
The danger of denying reality is that you can’t live there. Israelis live in the real world, warts, our own, and others, and all – but it is real. Denial is always a poor long term defense mechanism against harsh realities. Doctors can’t help patients unless they know the reality of their condition, people out of touch with reality are considered psychotic–so why do we accept the artificial construct of a PC universe as an acceptable reality? To deny reality is to deny oneself or ones people, the opportunity to exist, to thrive, and to make the world a better place for all who live in the real world.
Whoops! My post was a response to Rubin’s piece on the First Day of School. Sorry, I meant to post it there in the conversation about denial.
Heya i am for the primary time here. I found this board and I find It truly useful & it helped me out much. I hope to provide something again and aid others like you helped me.
My brother suggested I might like this web site. He used to be entirely right. This post truly made my day. You can not consider simply how so much time I had spent for this info! Thanks!