Posted on 09/25/2002 11:51:24 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
I'm glad to hear that. My point in posting this story from 1992 was to warn people about the education goals of the Clintons and the education elites (teacher colleges, Dept. of Ed) that think like them.
It is important to note that I have found some first-hand accounts from Governor's School alumni in various states who report similar experiences as those posted above. I urge people to do their own research and draw their own conclusions.
I attended Arkansas Governors' School in 1992 when this was written (while X42 was running for Prez the first time). I don't have time to respond to all this right now, but I will say the truth is somewhere in the middle. The whole thing was slanted hard to the left, but it wasn't really brainwashing. Overall, I'd say it was a positive experience, but there were also obvious problems with the way it was structured.
If anyone has any particular questions you want a first-hand account on, fire away.
Parent of Governor's School in N. Carolina
August 1994
The following is information which I picked up from a phone conversation I had with a mother in North Carolina. Her daughter attended the Governor’s School in North Carolina from which The Arkansas Governor’s School was patterned. This mother had not seen the Guiding Hand video made by Jeff Botkin, which gave me my first knowledge of the school. She sent me a letter because her daughter had obtained a copy of one of our newsletters which was condemning the school. Apparently someone in Arkansas, I am assuming that it was someone directly connected with AGS, had sent a copy of this newsletter to the school in North Carolina showing them what criticisms were being made about the school in Arkansas. They were evidently using the newsletter to help counter objections either from the students or from others who might object to the school.
3 different campuses
...By the end of the second week she was saying things like, "well she and her dorm mates have decided to basically say we will just say we will go along to get along". And then there was this immediate flip flop in her personality. Then we had some time with her and we asked her to share some of the literature, the types of things she was getting there. We just found them all to be so depressive, morbid. One was about a hanging party for a friend. They were more interested about how it would appear to society than actually hanging the person.
There was more and more. She didn't want to come home to her friends and school. They were not challenging, not intellectual. A total elitist attitude...
They did a personality profile and as a side line to that they gave them this quiz about this defense mechanism. It was a handout called "defense mechanism".
Q. Even though he hires prostitutes and uses pornography, Jimmy Swaggart claims he opposes it _________________what mechanism
Q. Joe has no memory of the time he raped a woman
Q. A young woman might be attracted to a young female but tells herself she hates all lesbians.
This goes on and on and on. 22 of these questions. Everything that I saw had sexual overtones. It’s very morbid. I don't feel that we’re terribly conservative but these questions, I don't understand the connection to education. I just didn't like the sexual overtones that were in every part of this.
I told you about the T-shirt that I saw. Every single one was like that that we saw.
Science students do it with cadavers was one.
The impact was just there.
There was a semi-formal dance where a young man came dressed in full drag with an evening gown, long hair and make up and everything and that was tolerated and accepted. It was no big deal. A nice semiformal event after school. That was certainly inappropriate behavior for that environment.
They had a masquerade party, a dance kind of thing, and she told me about someone came as a "dictator" and what that costumed involved was a potato behind his fly. These are the kinds of things that I'm extremely upset by. I questioned what validity they had when this program was presented as an enrichment program for education. I keep thinking, am I the only parent?
... The paper work said the school started in 1969 by Governor Terry Stanford. It is sponsored by Carnegie. Their money is withdrawn after 3 years.
It's almost as if every point that we have questioned or had a thought of doing they've already planned for it. The director has already said there was a movement afoot to get him ousted. They wanted to put in a good old boy network. So basically he's already said he knows all of these criticisms are there. I don't understand why your newsletter was handed out 3 days before the end of the class. Basically it was done to say, hey we know this is out there, we know this is going to be the criticism.
... One teacher was telling about a friend of his who is a masochist who ended up in the hospital for numerous tortures. What in God's name does that have to do with literature?...
And basically they tell them they are elite. I was particularly interested, I mean your quotes in that newsletter were so much like what I heard from her. She had not seen that newsletter until a couple of days before she was let out of the session so basically everything that was there was something that I heard in one way or another. And the director himself at the end of the session and the other students confirmed this that if anyone asked what went on here just tell them you had fun because they won't get it anyway. I don't want to understand a lot of it. It's just so unbelievable that this kind of thing went on.
I do have a copy of the drama which the school put on. A play called JB which I guess is taken from the Bible. Now you understand that this school attracts THE best students, the most talented. The cover of this play pamphlet looks like the devil himself. I mean I looked at it and it looked like something out of satanic rituals that you see on TV. It was just appalling to me that they couldn't come up with anything better to put on a play bill than this. It was unbelievable and at every turn this is what we are seeing. But we have her T-shirt put away. She is not permitted to wear it. And her whole thing was you have to look past the word and to the underlying meaning.
Well I'm sorry. On her shirt it talked about, I think it started out like there were characters you could choose. You could be the hero, the heroine, the bed or the newly pressed suit. The hero takes the heroine out for the evening. They went to the movies and came back and decided to have sex so he laid her on the bed like a newly pressed suit. And then some intruder breaks in, knocks the hero out and proceeds to rape the female, the heroine. The words of the poem says "and the rape continues for many stanzas." And then it goes on and asks, "which character did you choose? I hope your choice was better than mine and I hope your story ended better than mine.
The director said they couldn't allow the logo to go on the shirt. But what the students could do with the full approval of the director and all of these teachers in her discipline was they could go across town and have as many printed as they wanted. So there was no saying, "no this is definitely not permissible." The poem was a selection from one of their readings that they all voted on. (60 students) That poetry selection was not in the group of papers that she was allowed to bring home. The readings she was allowed to bring home was sort of literary analysis from aristotle. Very okay literature that you would normally find in most English classes in college. However, of all the other short stories and all of these other poetry, there were no copies to be brought home. And I just don't understand. It's in every Governor's school. I know kids who have attended others and they say they are a little off the wall. When I mentioned something about strictly academics this parent said, "I didn't see that much in the English area. I don't know who was in charge there. I just didn't get the sense that there were any adults who were really in charge. They just sort of allowed these kids to be totally free. I know my daughter will be off to school in a couple of years but the concentration of this garbage was so intense. They didn't have access to anything outside, not even television. I saw a change at the two week mark. Before that she was like, "gosh, you know I can't go along with this kind of stuff. It makes no sense. It's not what I thought it would be." In two weeks it was "well my friends and I have decided to get along or go along" and at that point it was just a total difference. Even though we saw her, even though we are extremely close there was a wall between us. I'm just glad we went every day and that I persisted in talking with her because she really didn't want to talk about it. Finally we had a discussion all night long one night and at 3:30 in the morning she said to me "I see now why you're concerned."
I didn't like the fact that they said the friends couldn't come to visit. My daughter has a strong circle of friends here and when she came back it was like they didn't matter. She wasn't interested in her school and yet she has been involved in government there at her school. She has been top of her class. She has been involved in outside programs and all of a sudden she didn't want to come back to that. My daughter is very strong and I'm thankful for that but I seriously wonder about some of the others.
After I showed my co-workers this, because we felt it was such an honor that she was selected and it's written up in the paper and it's promoted as if it is a very special honor, they were all very proud of the kids that went. I took this in and I said this is what we are paying for. This is what the tax dollars are paying for. And this is what went on. One of the young mothers said she will never allow her child to participate in anything like that. The question that everybody asks is "if this is so prevalent, all of these kids go every year, why hasn't anybody ever said anything? I don't know. I can't be the only one that's appalled by this. I just feel extremely strong that something has got to be done about this.
End of testimony
Tell us about it!
Did all groups participate in all the activities at the same time? Were you divided up? How would you describe Area II and Area III?
I was there.I attended Arkansas Governors' School in 1992 when this was written (while X42 was running for Prez the first time). I don't have time to respond to all this right now, but I will say the truth is somewhere in the middle. The whole thing was slanted hard to the left, but it wasn't really brainwashing. Overall, I'd say it was a positive experience, but there were also obvious problems with the way it was structured.
If anyone has any particular questions you want a first-hand account on, fire away.
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