Posted on 05/28/2002 7:15:55 AM PDT by johnqueuepublic
~ Why Your Kids Hate America - Indoctrination, Colorado Style ~
By William A. Mayer - Editor & Publisher
May 27, 2002
For the last 30 or so years many people have questioned the direction that education, especially public education, has taken.
Low test scores, increasing violence, querulous teachers looking out only for their next salary increase are all often cited as problems, and indeed they are.
But consider an even more far reaching, potentially fatal development - a substantial number of U.S. citizens actually hate America and the culture that it represents.
Now, we are not talking twisted Middle Eastern fanatics here - for whom hating America is an article of faith - but rather, supposedly main-stream middle and upper class citizens whose perspective is one of detestation of what this country is all about.
We all know these people exist; they grow - seemingly in the most inhospitable of places - much like noxious weeds pushing up through cracks in a sidewalk.
Some of them, as judged by outward appearances, are among the best and brightest of us, they are intelligent, educated, well spoken, good looking go-getters.
It is from these ranks that our media elites are drawn.
Where do they come from?
Is this some anomaly like a recessive gene, a bad seed that yields bitter apples?
Possibly.
My guess is that we manufacture them, in little factories.
My job here as editor is to weave together whatever is going on in our society in such a way as to be comprehensible, consistent with our editorial perspective.
As a result I spend a great deal of time talking to people, reading all manner of things and spending an ever increasing amount of time on the ‘Net.
During one of those meandering forays I recently came across the website of a relatively small school district in what would seem a thoroughly bucolic area of Colorado, Roaring Fork – it even sounds like a wholesome and healthy place to live and bring up kids.
As they describe themselves.
“The Roaring Fork School District is located in a beautiful mountain valley setting approximately 150 miles west of Denver and 50 miles north of Aspen. The District is composed of five elementary schools, three middle schools, and three high schools along with a charter school on two campuses, an alternative school, and a Career Center. These facilities are located in the three communities of Glenwood Springs, Carbondale and Basalt.”
Talk about bedrock.
But looks and first impressions can be, and often are, deceiving - this one proves to be no exception.
Further examination - made possible by very complete online lesson plans and suggested reading materials – revealed a veritable hate factory disguised as a school district – a school district employing approximately 640 full and part time instructors and support personnel, with an extremely enviable student to teacher ratio of approximately 11:1.
Let’s delve a bit into the ninth grade civics/social studies course syllabus, keeping in mind that these are 14 and 15 year old freshmen with - as a certain national commentator is want to characterize - “young skulls full of mush.”
How now Mao
Chairman Mao’s 1966 Cultural revolution produced at least 30,000,000 deaths, untold hardship for hundreds of millions more and was a key factor in our huge loss of life in the Vietnam war; the North Vietnamese effort having been underwritten by the Chinese communist government in Beijing. The following is the lead in and part of the conclusion by a Yale college type, which is presented as fact and offered to these impressionable students:
“…In order to establish how Chinese democracy was changed during this upheaval, it first of all had to be determined how far Chinese democracy was in place before the Cultural Revolution…Hence this essay sets out to explore how far the theoretical model of Chinese democracy was in place by 1966…Did China have democracy? Certainly it did not have a Western model, which begs the question: what of Chinese democracy? China attempted to attain economic equality for all, resulting in the executive amassing power beyond that which the system stipulated. However, Lenin said that one party should become the vanguard party and be able to act on behalf of the proletariat. Thus it should not have mattered how much power the CCP had as long as they were acting in the interests of the people…Does this fact constitute a "greater good" and thus constitute democracy? Possibly, as after all, China is a communist country based on a proletariat and peasant dictatorship.”
It is hard to find an explanation, outside of intentional misrepresentation, in these words. That they would be used to characterize and soft-peddle Mao's institutionalized mechanism of state murder sets the tone for most of the content in these lesson plan suggestions.
Laboring to obfuscate
“In the post World War II economic milieu patriotic restraint burst into a period of "strike-frenzy". A Republican dominated Congress (over Democrat Truman's veto) passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. In the lexicon of hated labor terminology Taft-Hartely is given special dispensation and allowed to pass all the other letters to the front of the list. Government could now intervene in strikes and put limits on some of the most potent weapons of labor confrontations.”
Note the gratuitous digs at the Republican party, which had – as much of America had – grave questions about radicalized labor unions being able to shut down basic industries at the height of the Korean War and on into to the Cold War.
“America at the beginning of the 20th century. While we alleged that we were a political democracy, it seemed that those basic civil rights did not carry over into the economic arena. Workers were exploited and government intervened to limit their freedom of expression and protest. The struggle for worker democracy was crucial to the establishment of organized labor…Unlike their European counterparts, the American labor movement primarily focused on economic issues and avoided radical politics.”
Reddish tinted prose is operative throughout.
Skipping ahead lets look at politics in the land of radical Islamic superpowers.
“The United States and Iran: The Allocation of Weapon Systems as an Imperialist Tool to Protect Capitalist Interest”
The title pretty much says it all. Included in the body of the piece a generous caveat that the content in the essay is suitable for students as young as 7th grade – the source? The Yale-NewHaven Teachers Institute.
Moving to more recent history we uncover the slant on the Iran Contra incident:
“Documents related to the Iran-Contra Affair Documents selected to put the Iran-Contra Affair in the worst possible light. It alleged that the Contras and possibly the C.I.A were running cocaine into the United States to raise funds.”
Is the “worst possible light” wording sufficient to offset the pro-communist anti-American slant of the documents attached – especially since we are talking 9th graders here again – I think not.
The fact that many of the documents came out of Democrat Senator John Kerry’s hysterical “investigation” - a politically motivated attack on Ronald Reagan and one championed by eccentric California Congresswoman Maxine Waters - is not at all surprising.
Some additional suggested topics.
“Gender and race based schooling” – a defense of making determinations based on color and gender as opposed to achievement.
“An Internment Experience" – a whitewash of Japanese “deprivation” at the hands of America after Pearl Harbor.
Cold war gets cold shoulder
“The Hollywood Blacklist The work of HUAC probably destroyed 10 careers for every threat to American society. It was a time for ambitious young politicians to seize the public spotlight by becoming a "Commie Hunter." Such politicians included Richard Nixon, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, and Lyndon Baines Johnson.” - you can tell the truly radical sites when even the Democrat enablers of socialism are tarred as being too conservative. Of special interest is the commentary by - “a 16-year old Russian emigrant as a very personal project. He did solid research into the causes of the cold war and the goals and methodology of Senator Joe Mc Carthy.”
Yes the Soviet experience, leavened with a 16-year-old’s wisdom, brings true perspective to an examination of this topic.
Unbelievable!
“Brotherhood of the Bomb” – poignant contrast between the sensitive [very likely Soviet agent] Robert Oppenheimer and the less than sensitive Edward Teller who took issue with Robert’s Soviet sympathies.
“Law and discipline in the classroom” – A primer for future ACLU types - lets not even go there.
I have been in email contact with one of the eighth grade teachers and this is what he has to say, in part:
“…Though you might disagree with this approach, I choose to present all sides and let the students decide for themselves who was right and who was wrong. We discuss Japanese atrocities, but it would be unfair to ignore Wounded Knee. Yes, we teach Marxism, as well as all other forms of government... Please don't worry that I am presenting all sides of the story. I would hate for the children to encounter someone of your one-sided views and not be able to discuss things maturely with actual historical data…”
Aside from Mr. Lefty's little temper tantrum at even being questioned, this might sound like a reasonable approach except for the fact that the majority of the links offer nothing but left wing lies, what 8th grader is mentally prepared to separate the wheat from the intent to indoctrinate?
The “let the students decide” approach works well at the college level, say in a selected problems in contemporary politics honor’s seminar, where something can be examined in exhaustive detail by bright motivated adult students with a PHD at the helm.
Leaving kids to “make up their minds” on such things is irresponsible, because it is an abdication of teaching responsibly, which presupposes both the ability as well as the intention of imparting knowledge.
It is akin to turning kids loose in chemistry class with formulas for explosives.
It also reeks of the whole disgusting multicultural/diversity-at-all-costs/moral relativism game which really are code words for beating up on Western European achievement, plain and simple.
Just to help frame the setting, we also did a bit of checking on the test scores in this district – maybe this system of self-instruction at least produces high levels of technical skills.
Unfortunately, the high school scores on the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) were, for some reason, not available online but the middle school scores were. Not so surprisingly, in reading and writing ,the average level of competency is less than 50% - hovering at approximately 47% overall and this with a vaunted 11:1 student teacher ratio – so much for the concept that "self instruction" is effective - so much for the concept that more teachers build better students.
More to the point, we are being asked, if we are to give any credence to the above teachers approach, to believe that students who can barely read and write have the intellectual tools to discern carefully crafted lies from the truth when the lies are given such prominence?
If you believe that - you, ladies and gentlemen - have more faith in this process than do I.
If you have watched the evening network news for any extended period of time, you know the tired threesome – Peter, Dan & Tom – you may have noticed a certain attitude – an emphasis on things vaguely and sometimes not so vaguely dismissive of traditional America; its core values, the overriding cultural imperatives produced by the inexorable power of Western political thought.
Maybe I’m getting old, maybe you just caught me at my softhearted worst, I don’t know – but maybe it’s not all their fault.
Maybe it’s not their fault that 90% of them vote for quack fakirs who use elective office to undermine everything from individual liberties to the war against terror – maybe it’s not their fault – maybe, just maybe, they too graduated from one of these anti-American madrases and never had a chance.
© 2002 PipeBombNews, all rights reserved.
My apologies to your roommate. Obviously, my comments were not directed at honest hard working third world immigrants who deserve to be here, like her, it was directed at the other 99% who give her a bad name.
Mexico and Pakistan are encroaching on my NY neighborhood, do you really think that cheap produce is a consolation? Diversity is overrated.
HA!!!
I've got an idea for a civics lesson for your kid.
Go down to the courthouse and help him learn how to file a lawsuit in small-claims court, demanding that the school district refund the portion of your tax dollars which they have used fraudulently in presenting this anti-American class while representing it as teaching good citizenship.
Then once you've filed the suit, help him contact the media with a press release to publicize his case. That'll be a useful education in "public communications" for him.
Win or lose, you'll expose the little rodents for what they are...
Her appeal lies in her making socialists and leftists choke on their quiche.
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