Formal Education: Societal Indoctrination or Liberation?

[Gatorubet]

The people not wanting to hear their kids watch a message from the President would have gone bad [censored] crazy if the liberal parents had planned a walk out on a Presidential speech by Ronnie or one of the Georges. Thing is, the Elephant Presidents had similar education themed speeches and no similar craziness was seen from the left. What is the difference? Hmmmmmmm.

To think that a 15 minute conversation with their President about why to stay in school will turn your son or daughter into a walking "I luv abortion and teh Gays" zombie is so specious that we should be talking why it is OK to instill such a disrespect for the President. And what the [censored] is wrong with thinking about how to "Help the President"? If any of you have kids in Scouting, how are you going to reconcile teaching respect for government officials and boycotting the President because your dad and mom's candidate lost and they are just ubber bad sports?

Jeez, yesterday while driving to the range I heard an hour of a local talk show where callers where saying that they did not want to let their kids hear the talk because "they did not want them to be indoctrinated into his socialism." Essentially, it seems that those in GOP leadership positions who support the non-participation are essentially acknowledging their corporate inability to engage in critical thinking, as by any rational analysis of the bottom line of the anti-Obama speech proponents would show that mere minutes of watching a chat by Barry will not entirely wipe out the values and lessons learned from years of constant exposure to their own family and teachers, and i doubt that whatever Barry says will be of such power and eloquence that the kid will turn all "librul" on 'em by the time they get off the bus home on Tuesday.

Words cannot express how much I loathed Bush II. But as worthless a President as I thought and think he is, it would NEVER have dawned on me to angrily call up my kids' school and demand that they be removed from the taint of seeing a President talk to them about education.

For one, such a speech is normal Presidential fare.

Two, I am not so dim as to think that Barry will work some mind control over my kid in the 15 minutes he is on TV or the computer. I doubt that he is gong to hold up a red Queen of Hearts and the little dears will suddenly stiffen and march glassy eyed over to the secret closet at their school and don "I love Socialism" buttons. He is many thing, but Kaa is not one of them.

YouTube - Trust in me - The Jungle Book

[jimotis4heisman]

Originally Posted by Gatorubet

The people not wanting to hear their kids watch a message from the President would have gone bad [censored] crazy if the liberal parents had planned a walk out on a Presidential speech by Ronnie or one of the Georges. Thing is, the Elephant Presidents had similar education themed speeches and no similar craziness was seen from the left. What is the difference? Hmmmmmmm.

To think that a 15 minute conversation with their President about why to stay in school will turn your son or daughter into a walking "I luv abortion and teh Gays" zombie is so specious that we should be talking why it is OK to instill such a disrespect for the President. And what the [censored] is wrong with thinking about how to "Help the President"? If any of you have kids in Scouting, how are you going to reconcile teaching respect for government officials and boycotting the President because your dad and mom's candidate lost and they are just ubber bad sports?

Jeez, yesterday while driving to the range I heard an hour of a local talk show where callers where saying that they did not want to let their kids hear the talk because "they did not want them to be indoctrinated into his socialism." Essentially, it seems that those in GOP leadership positions who support the non-participation are essentially acknowledging their corporate inability to engage in critical thinking, as by any rational analysis of the bottom line of the anti-Obama speech proponents would show that mere minutes of watching a chat by Barry will not entirely wipe out the values and lessons learned from years of constant exposure to their own family and teachers, and i doubt that whatever Barry says will be of such power and eloquence that the kid will turn all "librul" on 'em by the time they get off the bus home on Tuesday.

Words cannot express how much I loathed Bush II. But as worthless a President as I thought and think he is, it would NEVER have dawned on me to angrily call up my kids' school and demand that they be removed from the taint of seeing a President talk to them about education.

For one, such a speech is normal Presidential fare.

Two, I am not so dim as to think that Barry will work some mind control over my kid in the 15 minutes he is on TV or the computer. I doubt that he is gong to hold up a red Queen of Hearts and the little dears will suddenly stiffen and march glassy eyed over to the secret closet at their school and don "I love Socialism" buttons. He is many thing, but Kaa is not one of them.

YouTube - Trust in me - The Jungle Book

many good points, however it was poorly planned and prepared by the obama admin. (or maybe it was perfectly planned with a misguided conception on how it would fly) [hard to say without totally digressing]. rather than providing worksheets and thoughts to the kids on things
President Barack Obama Makes Historic Speech to America's Students

http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/lessons/prek-6.pdf
http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/lessons/7-12.pdf


like i said before i didnt doubt hed go anywhere near controversial, and that his intentions were likely good, and that a presidential kickoff to the school year is a generally good idea. however once again poor management prevailed. it would/could have been less controversial and more effective if with those releases he outlined his speech, rather than "spring" it on folks less than a week before and potentially viewed as protected by the holiday weekend. i learned a long time ago that holding a meeting in front of larger groups you can much more effective, less nervey for the folks and things sail smoother if you send out your talking points (more than once, and in different mediums) before the actual event.

[MaxBuck]

Originally Posted by jimotis4heisman

... poor management prevailed. it would/could have been less controversial and more effective if with those releases he outlined his speech, rather than "spring" it on folks less than a week before and potentially viewed as protected by the holiday weekend.

Did the schools require of Reagan that he submit a copy of his speech for them to "approve" prior to his addressing the nation's youth?

[AKAKBUCK]

Hey guys, great discussion... wrong forum... completely... but, great discussion.

[MaxBuck]

Originally Posted by AKAKBUCK

...wrong forum... completely...

Thats you're opinion.


Oh, wait a minute, it's also m'ine ...

[Gatorubet]

Originally Posted by AKAKBUCK

Hey guys, great discussion... wrong forum... completely... but, great discussion.

I'm sorry, but it does not sound like you were musing there....

[jimotis4heisman]

Originally Posted by MaxBuck

Did the schools require of Reagan that he submit a copy of his speech for them to "approve" prior to his addressing the nation's youth?

no where did i say any such thing. my point was rather that it would have been more effective. granted the release of the speech idea came up after the initial furor over the address.

no one "required" obama to do that, rather instead he-obama tried to quell the controversy by saying it would be released before hand (less than 24 hours before and with no "business day" as it was a holiday).

[MaxBuck]

Originally Posted by jimotis4heisman

no where did i say any such thing. my point was rather that it would have been more effective. granted the release of the speech idea came up after the initial furor over the address.

no one "required" obama to do that, rather instead he-obama tried to quell the controversy by saying it would be released before hand (less than 24 hours before and with no "business day" as it was a holiday).

Obama was treated differently by the public schools than was Reagan, and for the primary reason that a bunch of halfwit reactionary right-wing pundits and their "Dittoheads" (God, I'm proud that I never would allow myself to be characterized as anyone's "dittohead") raised a bunch of ludricrous objections. That was my point.

Now let's get the hell off this forum and back where we belong.

[BuckeyeMike80]

Originally Posted by Taosman

Is it wrong to be a good Christian steward of your house? Even if you can't see value in that maybe you should do it for your daughter.

So when are you going to hit Jeffcat levels of weirdness?

[Gatorubet]

Originally Posted by Taosman

Is it wrong to be a good Christian steward of your house? Even if you can't see value in that maybe you should do it for your daughter.

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMike80

So when are you going to hit Jeffcat levels of weirdness?

[Apache]

Originally Posted by buckeyegrad

As a professional educator, I'm always amazed by how often formal education is spoken of as a liberating experience. This not only contradicts my own experience, but it also is considered a myth by critical scholars (i.e. neo-Marxist, feminist, post-modernists, constructivist). Although I think it might be a nice ideal to hold and seek to achieve, I am becoming more convinced that formal education cannot be anything else than a mechanism for societal indoctrination (note: I'm not saying that is a bad thing in every single instance).

I would love to hear others' views and experiences on this topic..

I have not read the rest of the posts, but in reply to your thoughts.

People whether educated or not tend to be gullible and easily led. It is only when they stop thinking for themselves or narrow their thinking are they "indoctrinated". It is just like people who blame newscasters for reporting what they want. While this may be true in cases, I would never allow 60 minutes or MSNBC or any other source, be it professor or media to form my thoughts and "brainwash" me. It is only when we become lazy minded and cease to examine and think that we become indoctrinated.

Example: One of the most brilliant college professors I ever had caused me to think at many levels. it would have been easier to believe everything he said as gospel. But he forced us and allowed us to question and in some cases argue or have heated discussions with him. In the back of his mind he was grinning like a Cheshire cat. I spoke to him many times and at the end of the course he merely asked us, "What do you believe and that thinking through is all that matters.

There are very limited undeniable truths. Always question.

Far too many people believe what they read, see on tv, or hear from other people. Education should force you to think for yourselves, question and solve.

[MaxBuck]

Originally Posted by Apache

...Far too many people believe what they read, see on tv, or hear from other people. Education should force you to think for yourselves, question and solve.

In a general sense, I couldn't agree more. Yet it raises the point that, in education, there are things that are appropriate to question and things that are not.

Things that are not appropriate to question include:

• 2+2=4
• You don't properly make a word into a plural by adding an apostrophe-s ()
• Mixing hydrogen with oxygen in stoichiometric ratio yields water

Things that are essential to question include:

• Man is the primary cause of global warming
• The white man coming to the New World was (or was not) a bad thing for the indigenous people
• (Insert your own example here)

Do schools very often inform their students of this differentiation? Maybe not. Do parents very often inform their kids? Maybe not.

It's hard for me to see how anybody can characterize teaching points such as the first three bullet points above as "indoctrination."

[Steve19]

About the White Man and the New World...let's not forget Australia.

Diseases brought by European settlers nearly wiped out the Australian aboriginal peoples. Fine. That was unintended.

But many atrocities were not. For instance, the government sanctioned annual Aborigine hunts in which settlers were rewarded for each Aborigine killed. The last sanctioned hunt was in the 1950s.

In the 1960s, official government policy was to remove Aborigine children from their parents so that they could be raised by Whites. The government apologized for these atrocities only in this decade.

This is indisputable historical fact. There is no debate.

After so-called Aborigine 'rebels' launched an attack to protect their land, killing several whites and wounding British Captain Arthur Phillip, the settlers launched a plan to eradicate the so-called trouble-makers from the planet. They set out on systematic slaughter missions. They poisoned entire tribes and destroyed sacred sites. They raped women and stole children.
As if this barbarity was not bad enough, the settlers also launched a campaign to hunt Aborigines for sport and for reward, whereby white settlers would be paid for each Aborigine they murdered.

Survivors of the slaughter were pushed away from their original homelands and farther back into lands with little resources and forbidding terrains. Families were split up and children were stolen and sent off to white societies in order to be 'civilized.' In order to justify their butchery, the British settlers declared that, prior to their arrival, Australia was terra nullius (uninhabited by humans).

Indisputably, these conditions would contribute to the destruction of any civilization. In just two short centuries, one of the world's oldest civilizations lost its land, its culture, its language, its traditional way of life, and its very dignity, destroying its people and breaking their spirit.

It is no surprise then that so many members of this devastated group turned to alcoholism and drug abuse to escape the horrific realities unfolding about them. The same thing happened in the present-day United States, when Native American Indians were unable to cope with the same type of tyranny. What's worse, the escape of alcohol was even more dangerous for indigenous people than for Europeans because their constitutions were not accustomed to alcohol's devastating effects.

Thus followed the break-down of the Aboriginal family structure. Alcoholism had spread like wild fire. Domestic violence rose and unemployment soared, forcing droves of Aborigines into government Welfare programs.

Crime increased at a staggering rate. In 1910, the Australian government decided that Aborigines had caused enough problems and decided to take action that would eradicate this troublesome people, once and for all. Thus ensued sixty years of 'baby snatching,' where whites raided Aboriginal homes, stole their children, and shipped them off to state orphanages and white foster homes.

The government declared this 'the Aboriginal Protection Act,' an act which declared all Aborigines wards of the state. From 1910 to 1970, this law remained in place. Over the course of six decades, 100,000 Aboriginal babies were stolen from their families and sent to government-run homes. Many of these stolen babies are still alive today, and are now known in Australia as 'the Stolen Generation.'

Parents during this time had no right to claim their children, and those who resorted to 'illegal' means to rescue them from their kidnappers were imprisoned or killed.

It is important to note that this was occurring during the time of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, a period of time well documented in history books around the world; yet the suffering of Aborigines during this same contemporary time period is rarely spoken of and hardly known outside of Australia.

Aborigines did not even gain the right to vote in their own land until 1967, over one hundred years after African Americans gained the same right and more than half a century after women's suffrage in the US and in Europe. Yet few in the global community seem aware of the magnitude of these atrocities, or if they are, they aren't speaking out about it. All that is known is the high crime rates, the victims of the accusers, and the high black prison population. Why has no one stopped to question the underlying causes of this horrific tragedy??? (link)

[Muck]

2+2=4

Nu uh!