Do No Evil – Throughout my life, my teachers have told me that school is a neutral environment where my classmates and I can count on teachers and textbooks to provide us with the factual and unbiased information that will equip us for life. Lately, though, I've begun to wonder whether they really mean it.
There is many un-truths in the text books that our children are being taught from. Give both sides of the subject and let the students make up their own minds,otherwise it is nothing but indoctrination. Neophile, while I agree with most of your post the fact you tend to always attack conservatism shows me you don't think it is possible to hear both sides.
Without specifically addressing your gripe with neophile, I would point out that we are all indoctrinated to some degree or another during education. Among the things drilled into me by well-meaning teachers (all qualify IMHO as indoctrination)--
* We rural folk were much purer of thought and motive than our city bretheren.
* Farmers were inherently "better" than miners.
* All unions were bad; had I gone to one of the nearby coal area schools, it would be that all unions were good.
* Taking a "least cost" appproach to solving a problem was wrong.
* Etc.
It usually takes a lot of living for students to shake off this indoctrination, that is if they even want to. Some never progress beyond it.
If we don't agree with these things, they're called indoctrination. If we do, it's called "learning the realites of life."
Chevydog, What I am speaking about is not only in the lower grades of schooling but the upper and college courses also. As Libs stated during a good portion of my college, the professers would prostilize their view point, and when you stood up against them you were ridiculed or worse yet, given a poor grade. I have also had run ins with my son's high school teachers with their onesided teaching.
McCarp--
My point was that indoctrination is happening always and everywhere all along the educational chain. It's not that it happens that we dislike; it's that what is propounded is stuff we may not like. No problem if our children are indoctrinated with our own prejudices, etc. That's good and "normal". Make up your own mind; but if your thinking is any good, you'll think like we do.
Any student worth his/her salt can spit a prof's prejudices back to get a grade, while keeping his own intellectual independence. I a person can't, I'd almost question whether that person belongs in college. If that makes me "elitist", I guess that I confess. It's not really fair; but as Mrs. Chevydog often reminds me "Life isn't fair."
"Neophile, while I agree with most of your post the fact you tend to always attack conservatism shows me you don't think it is possible to hear both sides."
He has his own agenda to push. Religion and politics should stay out of the classrooms unless that is the specific topic, in which case a well-rounded discussion is in order.
I had a teacher in junior high school who was a racist and made no bones about expressing her bigotry using pejorative racial terms. She was reported to the school's administration to no avail because a few years after I left that school, I found out through a younger cousin of mine that she was still there spouting off her bigotry. It takes a conscientious kid like Matthew LaClair to press these issues until something is actually done. We need more Matthew LaClairs around.
Partly I'd agree. Our educational system is not set up, nor has it ever been, to accept the rabble rouser. The nail that sticks up gets hit. Most teachers are not Socrates, nor would school administrators have them be so.
On the prejudice part, been there, done that. Our children are not Caucasian, and they sometimes suffered for that; often from people and in places that one wouldn't expect.
There are some on this tread that continue to attack the messenger rather than address the issue he raised. Granted, some educators , whether liberal or conservative, push their agendas. But I commend this young man for taking a stand and calling his teacher and school system out to address the blatant bias promoted and allowed in that school system.
And for those who decry liberal bias, post your own stories and don't expect others to do it for you. Do you think if you cry enough and complain, you'll make it go away? Be proactive instead of reactionary! Give us your examples instead of continually complaining.
Ugh. I still remember the day in college where I realized everything I liked during my childhood was a lie.
When I found out the brontosaurus wasn't actually a real dinosaur, I told a man who DISCOVERED the crylophosaurus that he was, in fact, full of it.
Yea, he wasn't, it's not real. But Dr Hammer still rocks, even if he did destroy my childhood with his facts and truth. Hrmpf.
I must assume you mean the name brontosaurus and not the fact that the creature known as brontosaurus was actually, in fact, a dinosaur.
Brontosaurus is more properly known as Aptosaurus, however brontosaurus is still used (improperly) in popular literature.
I think what you're talking about is the whole wrong skull, right body episode. It's actually a funny story.
It made me cry! Brontosaurus was my favorite!
I'm sorry. Don't cry!!!
I was always partial to Stegosaurus. I liked its style.
C'mon, could ANY of them fly like the #1 coolest dinosaur ever???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterodactyl
Nuff said : )
In high school one is supposed to learn critical thinking. The biases one carries in later life is not necessarily developed there, it's done at home and the small circle of the society where one is surrounded by.
It's in college or the workplace where those biases develop further. And in those areas of adulthood, the challenges of critical thinking tests those biases.
I've yet to meet any college professor whose biases challenged me and molded my own character. Instead, those biases, or lack thereof, have only provided opportunities to pose arguments and debates which have garnished me more information and views which I've understood more intuitively; professors put the criteria for the class and you respond in context.
That others among you seem to be bothered by those views is already telling just how far your own biases have been challenged and just how little they've changed. It's as if one didn't question views. Not wise for students that want to learn.
The kids don't learn critical thinking in high school anymore.
I learned it in grade school, but I went to a one room schoolhouse with 14 kids K-8.
I have no problem with presenting any alternative view, but it must be understood in context and I'm not sure our society allows that anymore.
However, teaching falsehood or bias as fact is not appropriate and does not stimulate the intellectual honesty that our country so desperately needs.
FTA:
"The text contains a statement, repeated three times, that students may not pray in public schools. In this edition of the text, the authors drive the point home with a photograph of students holding hands and praying outside a school. The caption reads: "The Supreme Court will not let this happen inside a public school.""
That is simply false. But, I hear it repeated time and time and time again. It's a lie, told as truth.
CONT
More:
And that isn't a good thing. If we continue to lie, not only to ourselves, but to the future generations where will we be twenty years from now? Thirty? Forty? Do we even have forty years left?
Education is not about agendas. Education is about learning how to think critically, write correctly, speak well, cypher appropriately and reason through a problem. That is not the education our children are receiving and we are ALL to blame for it.
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The author of this op-ed, Matthew LaClair, last made headlines when he exposed the conservative/anti-science bias in a popular high school textbook:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jbrQTGcd9yRq...
Prior to that, LaClair busted a teacher of his for proselytizing in class:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=...
And I busted a college professor blatantly pushing her liberal agenda in a graduate-level class and clearly illustrated the myopic, group-think mentality all too pervasive in my master's program before I exited with my degree in hand.
For every "religious" nut in the classroom, there are hundreds of liberals acting just as badly.
"And I busted a college professor blatantly pushing her liberal agenda in a graduate-level class"
Or that other college professor who was teaching his class that Bush did 9/11 and got fired for it.
"Or that other college professor who was teaching his class that Bush did 9/11 and got fired for it. "
Bush didn't do 9/11. That's amateur hour compared to the terrorism and murders Bush has committed.
College is different than high school and you know it. In college, we are supposed to be learning to think as well as learning the material. Arguably, we should be learning that in high school as well. We probably don't.
You're an educator, at least that was my impression, if you are arguing that we shouldn't do anything to push any impression of culture on our children would you then also argue that the Pledge of Allegiance should not be said in schools? How about patriotic songs? Supply side economics?
Is it only wrong when liberals do it in colleges or is it wrong all the time?
"and you know it."
You're taking an awful lot for granted.
Change to NEG.
Change to NEG.
Apparently, only Conservatives can be biased. We know what a stronghold of Conservativism the NEA is.