Reading, Writing, and Propaganda

While reading one of those longish annual lists full of useless holiday trivia yesterday, I learned 4% of Americans believe Thanksgiving commemorates the defeat of the Canadians. So, naturally, I'm over-joyed to learn our schools have so much free time, they can fill children's heads with this vital knowledge:

An essay contest at a New Mexico high school asks students to explain why preserving marriage between men and women is vital society and why unborn children merit respect and protection.

The contest, at Farmington's Piedra Vista High School, is being held in connection with an essay contest sponsored by United Families International, an organization whose primary mission is "to strengthen the family by promoting marriage between one man and woman and the protection of human life, including unborn children."

Not to be outdone in the race to indoctrinate our children, the Left has its own heroes:

The school superintendent whose district includes Mount Anthony Union High School has labeled "inappropriate" and "irresponsible" an English teacher's use of liberal statements in a vocabulary quiz.

"I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring (sic) him Republican votes," said one question on a quiz written by English and social studies teacher Bret Chenkin.

I cannot wait to see how the next generation turns out.

Comments

[Rhymes With Right]

Maybe it is because I am a teacher that I have a different take on these two situations that you do. Frankly, i see only one of the two incidents as unethical -- and it is not the essay contest.

Let me explain.

As a social studies teacher, I get essay contest material all the time. When I taught English I got even more. Because the contests often had scholarship money awarded as prizes, I posted them and encouraged kids to enter. Were some of the contests ideological in nature? You bet -- ranging from the UN Association and Planned Parenthood to the NRA and the Ayn Rand Foundation. While this contest was made an assignement in a class, there seems to have been an additional option made available for those who did not aggree with the slant of the questions given as part of the contest (which I would never have put to my students in the first place). While I question making this or any other contest essay a class assignement, the availability of the additonal option minimizes my objection to the assignement.

On the other hand, participation in the vocabulary quiz was mandatory. Students had no option but to take the test, and no non-ideological option available to them. Taken further, that the quiz items were insulting and extreme in their ideology, they really had no place in the classroom -- as I indicate over at my site.

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