Conservatives see liberal bias in class - and mobilize (The Christian Science Monitor). The Christian Science Monitor - Concerned that public schools are becoming sites of liberal indoctrination, activists have generated a wave of efforts to limit what teachers may discuss and to bring more conservative views into the classroom. [Yahoo! News: U.S. National]
If I truly believed the purpose of public education was to educate the young, I would be going completely bananas over this article. That being said, I am still going to highlight a few things that need some serious discussion, both from the perspective of teaching perspective as well as the cold facts that are being spun to support one point of view or the other.
First, let us start with the issue of education. Education is not about teaching. If it ever was, it has long since been reduced to indoctrination and passing the test. The process of learning how to think has clearly been left behind in the rush to make sure that everything is politically correct and uninsulting to the thin skinned members of society that seem to forget that not every word is a direct attack on their way of thinking, believing or living, contrary to popular opinion.
The religious right, who tend to be wrong most of the time and are marching in lockstep with those of a conservative bent who probably would rather we return to the times of Victorian England where the most you saw of a woman was the skin of her face and where the ugliness of society was not seen at all. Sometimes I wonder how different the conservative mind set is from the Islamic fundamentalists is (after all, they would rather see their women robed from head to foot and not seen out of doors).
Of course, for all this talk of moral values we have to make sure that we are separating the hypocrites from the one or two real true believers. Diogenes would have a tough time doing it. However, just for a little fun, let's take some of the things that people are upset about in the classroom and see if they have a point shall we?
First on the agenda, from the article is as follows:
It's an important battle front, proponents say, because younger students are more impressionable. They are concerned about multicultural lesson plans that go into detail about the Muslim faith, and cite incidents such as a young child being reprimanded by a teacher for writing about wanting to become a soldier.
One of the most interesting things to come out of the September 11th Commission report was as follows:
Islam is not the enemy. It is not synonymous with terror. Nor does Islam teach terror. America and its friends oppose a perversion of Islam, not the great world faith itself. Lives guided by religious faith, including literal beliefs in holy scriptures, are common to every religion, and represent no threat to us. [9-11 Commission Report, Pg 363]
What confuses me is not the dichotomy of the two statements, but that the average American still does not understand the difference between the religion and the religious fanatic. This is probably due to the large number of religious fanatics in the United States that are not only tolerated, but in many cases are running the government and making key decisions for it.
The vast majority of people in the United States have no clue about how religions other than Judeo-Christian ones operate and therefore, since they are not Judeo-Christian, they must be bad (forgetting that Mohammed was a prophet of God as Jesus was).
Therefore, lesson plans should delve deeply into the foundations of the Islamic faith as well as those of other religions - not the teachings, although it is sometimes tough to separate the two, but it is possible and invite discussion and debate on the topics. This will lead, not only to a better understanding, but possibly a solution that might reduce the tension and violence. You will note I did not say eliminate. Only those who do not know history contend we can eliminate terrorism. You cannot defeat an -ism.
Now, a slap across the knuckles for those who reprimand children for wanting to become soldiers. While I might try to dissuade my own child from becoming a tanker, that does not give me the right to reprimand any one else's child. Fortunately, there will be enough time elapsed that the desire to become a soldier will either diminish or remain, and in those that it remains, they will go on to be soldiers. Good for them, but that sort of guidance has no place in a classroom, regardless of your leanings.
Second up:
A group known as Christian Copts of California has distributed 5,000 booklets in Florida and California this year denouncing a seventh-grade world history section as an "attempt to engrave Islam in the minds of ... children."
Now, I have not read the section, but I am guessing that again, it is talking about the generalities of the region and the fact that it IS the largest one in the world (sorry, but that is a fact and no amount of spin can change it). If children find the tenents of Islam more palatable than those of Judeo-Christianity, then perhaps it is time to take a hard look at how we are teaching Judeo-Christianity. After all, there are very few fundamental differences in the general message of the three religions. Yes, the specific rules are different but the message is generally one of peace and prosperity. All good things in my book and I am very much opposed to organized religion.
Third up:
Parents and Students for Academic Freedom formed in August 2004 to give parents a forum to address "the one-sided teaching and partisan indoctrination in our nation's secondary schools." The group urges school boards and legislatures to adopt the same speech-restricting principles that its parent organization (Students for Academic Freedom) urges at the college level.
This scares me. George Orwell would have a field day with the group's name as it is very much in line with both newspeak as well as his essay on Politics and the English Language. More over, it is in direct violation of one of the most fundamental tenants of the United States Constitutions (another document most people have not read much less understood). The minute we start restricting speech in school is the minute we start restricting it in the population in general and begin to throw away a freedom that the United States government claims it is instilling in Iraq (and other places). I continue to find it interesting that there are more discussions about rights and privileges in Iraq as they are being eroded more and more in the United States. If you can explain why this is happening you are a better philosopher than I am.
A cybercommunity, Republicanvoices.org, based in Massachusetts, is soliciting testimony from K-12 students about political bias in the classroom. Led by a 12-year-old editor (with guidance from adults), it aims to leverage support for reform of what it calls "the liberal, bureaucratic, public school indoctrination machine."
Further, I have to wonder how much guidance this 12-year-old is getting, especially since, at 12, I remember I had some pretty wild ideas. Of course, I was also reading Dune and Heinlein at that age while most of my peers were still reading comic books. This is not to say that the child does not have a right to do whatever he desires and make his opinions known. It does, however, mean that those opinions should be as free of adult influence as possible, and that is not what is implied here. Also, it is clear that if they are his opinions, he flunked history. Napoleon set up the first educational systems and they were exactly for that purpose - bureaucratic indoctrination, in all its ugly forms. In fact, it probably was considered liberal, too, at the time.
Fourth, from the other side of the table:
American Federation of Teachers spokeswoman Leslie Getzinger would not comment specifically on the trend, saying the group is for the moment focused on priorities such as meeting the standards of the federal No Child Left Behind law. But the AFT does oppose on principle efforts to curtail a perceived liberal bias at colleges, stating in a 2004 resolution that "political control and/or interference in scholarship and teaching are totally incompatible with the maintenance and development of a free, democratic and progressive society."
Teachers seem to be between a rock and a hard place, regardless of their personal views. Under the straight jacket that is every child left behind, they are so busy making sure they meet the measures that there is little time to teach grammar, let alone citizenship, which further results in a degradation of the ability of the student to form any sort of rational decision based on the facts and input, rather than just accepting what is presented to them. One of the reasons that I am of two minds about the mandatory Constitution day [see my post on this]. Most people do not understand the Constitution and what it represents, let along begin to fathom the issues that are behind it. Yet in order to belong to this free and democratic society, it seems that the children actually need to be instructed. Of course, since quite a few members of Congress also need to go back to school on it (including the Majority leader and several Republicans in the Senate, not to mention several representatives to state legislatures).
Finally, I will run with this:
In class, Tyler says, he still keeps his views to himself. When a world history teacher last year characterized the Iraq war as an empire-building bid for oil, he says, "I just shook my head and went along with it because I didn't want to get a bad grade."
An interesting position, and one held by a large number of people in the United States - not for keeping his view to himself but the idea that the Iraq was based around empire-building. While it may never be fully understood, there is little evidence to suggest that the Iraq war has anything to do with the many goals stated by the current administration. The facts just are not there to back them up or support any of the arguments they have put forward. If the excuse was weapons of mass destruction, then, even forgetting that there have been not one but three reports indicating the evidence was flawed or a flat out lie, why did the United States not also take out a known source of weapons of mass destruction in North Korea? If the excuse was delivering the Iraqis from a dictator, I imagine many will argue that the current state of affairs is actually worse than anything they had under the previous regime. If the excuse is delivering freedoms, then, as we have seen and only history will truly show, there are fewer freedoms in the United States than when the invasion began.
And frankly it was an invasion. There was no aggression against the United States from the sovereign nation of Iraq prior to the invasion. Yes, Saddam thumbed his nose at the United Nations and the international community, but the United States was far more insulting than anything Saddam ever did. Feel free to disagree with me, but bring your arguments, not your emotions because from a factual standpoint, you have very little solid ground to stand on.
So what have we learned? That there is a core group of individuals that would rather see ignorant children than educated ones. That the ability to think, discuss and formulate an abridgement is secondary to the brainwashing of an entire generation. And that most people do not understand the purpose of education.
3:31:48 PM 
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