The intertubes are all abuzz with another
"controversial" bill passed by the Arizona legislature. ("Controversial" has come to mean, simply, "offensive to the Left".) This bill, if passed into law, would prohibit courses in public schools which...
- Promote the overthrow of the United States government.
- Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.
- Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.
- Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.
After a little thought and reflection, I can see why this bill might be offensive. By censoring certain ideas from public schools, the schools would be promoting other subversive ideas, such as...um... respect for one's fellow man...and um...respect for our country and its laws? Um...yeah. I guess those ideas are really not subversive after all. My mistake. Sometimes I confuse respect and patriotism with resentment and armed revolution. It's one of my many eccentricities.
I have a few reservations about the
other recent bill, but I wholeheartedly support this one. It is not the job of a teacher to pontificate on his anti-American political views to a captive audience of impressionable young students. Public schools should also emphasize our common heritage as Americans rather than pitting one racial or ethnic group against another.
1 comment:
When I read this post, it reminded of a news story about a high school in Illinois that is not permitting their basketball team to participate in a championship tournament in Arizona because the state "doesn't share their values" (due to the illegal immigration law). The students on the team worked very hard to get into the tournament and raise the funds to make the trip, and now they can't participate because the school's administration wants to make a political statement. This politicization of high school has to stop. Teachers and administrators should not be indoctrinating students in any kind of political or social views, whether conservative or liberal. Part of the reason our country's school system is such a mess is that many schools spend more time pushing a social and ideological agenda (including various types of ethnic studies) than they do imparting to them actual knowledge of history, math, English, etc.
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