Sharp as a Marble - Remember how morose I was about the future of our country?

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Remember how morose I was about the future of our country?

Shortened story - 8th grade girls decides to see how "tolerant" other kids in her school are by wearing a McCain T-shirt. Turns out, not so much

"People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

Now, I fully expect kids to be mean to anyone not like them. It's a human thing. However, today's schools are supposedly awash with "sensitivity and tolerance" training and we're constantly told that it's for their own good and how wonderful it will be when kids learn how to deal with those who are different.

Not working out so well, is it?

Of course, it wasn't just the kids:

"In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain," Catherine said.
...
"Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said," Catherine said.

Wow, what a coward her teacher is. I believe in my convictions and would never be embarrassed by them. Then again, I don't try to shove my political views down the throats of 8th graders.

Think about it. Schools like this girl is going to are only going to crank out mindless drones. Again, I must admit that my new foray into Facebook makes me believe that my school managed to miss the socialist claptrap. Practically every person I've managed to say Hello to is Conservative or Libertarian. Only one girl appears to "be happy living in a blue state" that I can tell.

However, these kids aren't being taught tolerance, they're being taught the exact opposite. Doublespeak that Orwell wouldn't believe possible. As long as you 'conform' to the group, you're tolerated.

Hat Tip Breda, who owes me some blood pressure medicine

posted @ 11/13/2008 2:11:04 PM

Comments

Matt says:

on 11/13/2008 2:54:44 PM

My poor girls are going to have a hard life if they remain in public school. They're going to have a father who teaches them real tolerance, self reliance, what it means to be free citizens, with a healthy smattering of firearms thrown in for good measure - everything the indoctrination centers fear and loathe.

Robb, this is exactly why I think this is the most likely way I'll wind up in prison. Not gun rights or politics but promoting individuality and critical thought.

My having kids and having to deal with the school system I fear more than anything. Because I know the first time they come home with some touchy-feely bullshit or with a discipline letter for speaking their mind as I had raised them, it will be game over. I want the teachers, principal and school board to tremble in fear every time they send something home with my kids.

That can't end well. Like you, I will raise them the way you were raised and that prospect, although making them productive and successful citizens, does not bode well for people like us in avoiding conflict.

Breda says:

on 11/13/2008 3:16:31 PM

Beer is like blood pressure medicine, right?

kaveman says:

on 11/13/2008 4:20:30 PM

Matt/Robb

Just wait until your children are given a survey asking them to tell if their parents own any guns.

Joe Huffman says:

on 11/13/2008 4:23:20 PM

I worried about that with my kids too. Luckily they are all out of K-12 now and the odds of me being sent a note from the teacher are pretty remote.

Our son James refused the sign the non-violence for any reason whatsoever paper in high school. They finally said that he just had to sign something that said he had read it so he agreed to sign that. Daughter Kim started to fight same battle and they dropped it almost immediately with the same out for her.

There was one old Marine who taught history and government to our kids (who also attends Boomershoot sometimes). He frequently complimented us on raising such great kids. In class discussions he would let the lefties go on about how the government should provide health care, child care, ban guns, and create
utopia in our lifetime. Then he would call on one of our kids so they could explain everything the lefties were advocating was
unconstitutional. This same teacher praised Xenia when she wore her Celebrate Diversity shirt to school.

The chemistry teacher demo of an "exothermic reaction" brought a ho-hum response from Xenia and she brought in a CD with her sister
Kim's demo of a real exothermic reaction.

That doesn't mean all the teachers agreed with my kids or that my kids weren't pretty irritated with some of the crap the teachers said. But the teachers didn't take it to the point where my kids couldn't handle it on their own.

No note from the teacher ever came home about any of our kids about their Boomershoot and gun clothes, or their opposition to the
leftist agenda. But, YMMV.

straightarrow says:

on 11/13/2008 5:14:38 PM

My mileage did vary. I raised my kids the same way. I was always having to go to their schools.

And on two occassions I promised violence if he school continued in their plans to persecute my children. I was considered crazy. All that time, though I thought I was just committed to the truth and liberty. I must have been more committed to my agenda than they were to theirs. Because it did finally stop.

I am somewhat of a history nut. So when my kids would come home with revisionist history lessons we would discuss it and I would show them the sources to verify for themselves the truth of the matter. One principal was going to expel my youngest daughter for pointing out a blatant lie in one of the textbooks. When I disproved the text, they decided they would expel her for not showing the proper respect for the teacher when she wouldn't agree that she was wrong and the text was right, "thus undermining his authority."

My repsonse was simple, "Go ahead. Our next conversation won't be verbal."

They skipped that part of the book that year.

I have had similar episodes with all my kids but one, and he was excellent at making a purveyor of falsehoods reveal him/herself as a fool. They finally quit challenging him. He is now a major in the Air Force. He has studied the constitution thoroughly since joining the service. He told me "I swore and oath to protect and defend it, I should know what it says." He is very disappointed in level of ignorance he encounters among peers as regards their duties to that document.

Yeah, my mileage varied. I was so pleased when my youngest, soon to be 32 was out of school. Now dammit, we are facing the same shit, only worse, with grandchildren. And the defense I forwarded for my children now would be considered terrorist activity, even though, they were wrong, and intentionally so, and wanting to punish my children for not being wrong with them.

Everybody's mileage is varying in today synthesized society.

hsoi says:

on 11/13/2008 5:21:40 PM

This is why I'm glad we homeschool our kids. Never been in public school, never will. I spent my youth in public school, and I know it's far worse these days.

Heck, part of my older son's lessons this morning was proper use of the scope on a Ruger 10/22, and a first experience at shooting an AR. :-)

Life is good.

DirtCrashr says:

on 11/13/2008 8:10:50 PM

Oak Park, Menlo Park, Palo Alto - how I went to school. Not much toleration for too much "difference."
They rely on the insecurity of teenagers and kids who are trying to fit-in and not stand-out too much - they don't want to be singled-out because that means ridicule at a time when a kid's self-consciousness is overwhelming - so it's pretty easy for Teachers and Administrators to get the kids to "go along in order to get along."
They are cheap-ass thugs to do that to kids, and in their own twisted Edu programs they re-word everything to hide that aspect of social-coercion and how they conduct business.

straightarrow says:

on 11/13/2008 10:10:26 PM

I was very fortunate in that we were so poor, I went to work when I was 7 years old. The only stipulation put on me by my mother was that I had to keep attending school. Don't go there, she was working her ass off too.

By the time I was in my teens any hopes I may have had about "fitting in" were long dead. I drank, I smoked,(Mama would have killed me if she knew, and I would have let her) I worked, I went to school, I boxed on the side for extra money. I was always respectful of others and tried to be considerate, unless they sought to punish me for being different. Which some did. Believe it or not, the adults were the worst offenders. They just knew that a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks whose mother was divorced couldn't be any damn good. But they didn't have enough guts to go after my mother. They came after me, thinking they were immune to retribution, they were wrong.

Though, their kids were inculcated with the opinions they heard from their parents, I never went after any of them. Though they were often cruel, as long as it wasn't physical I let them alone. When it was physical I had no mercy. I was too small to indulge that behavior as it would be destructive to my family. A large part of my success in living long enough to grow up, was the fear others had of being embarrassed by having their asses thoroughly and completely disassembled by a runt. It took them awhile but they learned.

I finally grew, but not in time to employ it as a deterrent while in school.

That is not to say, I didn't have friends. I did. People who wanted nothing from me, except friendship and had no designs of harming me or mine by word or deed.

All the above is prelude to my response to DirtCrashr. He is correct in his assessment of how and why this indoctrination is so successful. I witnessed it, but by being an outsider who was so completely outside I was not affected by it. Except, of course, sometimes to be lonely. But lonely is better than stupid.

straightarrow says:

on 11/13/2008 10:22:12 PM

Left one thing unsaid, I was not alone. There were other kids treated worse than was I, but they weren't runts, so they only had to deal with teachers and other adults who would try to abuse them. I was the most combative and least accepting of abuse by kid or his dad. Of course, I had more opportunity, because not many people are afraid of skinny kids of very short stature.

Of all of us, only one of these kids was a friend of mine, we didn't have a gang, we didn't clump together in our misery, so to speak. In fact, I wasn't miserable, speaking only for myself. R.G., the one who was a friend went on to become a Superintendent of Schools,and eventually a state representative. He was turned more like me. He had lost all hope of ever being "accepted" by our self-proclaimed "betters". He was also much more gifted in dealing with people than was I. Still is. I still love him, (don't go there, either, like a brother). Sometimes have wished I could have been more like him, but my size wouldn't allow it. Where they would look at him and pause, they would look at me and think "Oh yeaaah!".

bob r says:

on 11/14/2008 2:23:04 AM

Jane Elliot did a little exercise in the wake of the MLK assassination to teach something about racism. Some of the results of the exercise were unexpected: kids would treat those labeled as inferior badly. When the good/bad labels were reversed, the treatment also reversed. This in spite of never having told them to treat the "inferior" people badly.

While her exercise was about racism, I suspect it tells us something about humans in general. In the story you relate, the girl wearing the t-shirt is surrounded by people who have come to believe that they are part of the "superior" group; tolerance need not be shown to your inferiors. It appears that this type of reaction will occur naturally without anyone instructing it to happen.

Youtube video of the exercise:
Part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6

RAH says:

on 11/15/2008 8:31:33 AM

I sent my child to private school since I thought the schools taught pablum. I wanted a good education. I allowed 2 years at middle school and my son learned laziness. I had to go to that school constantly arguing with teachers, In parents teacher meetings the principle or ass't principle was there to protect the teachers from being reamed out. It did not help I did it anyway. Finally sent him back to private school before I lost it.

High school I sent him to Catholic school, It coist less and was closer. We are not Catholic. He learned a more complete history with the inclusion of religion. He never turned to God though he attended sermons. The students were mainly liberal. My son was the outspoken conservative, Teachers would loverto let him run on class discussion and often asked his input if he just rolled his eyes or sighed.

He livened the place up and he was good friend with the Dean of students and the principal.

Catholic school was very tolerant of the non comformist. The pro 2 A and the ardent capitalist.

One incident I remem ber was that 2 males were involved in horse play and one fell against a large glass window, broke it and was seriously cut. The punishment was that the parents of the two boys paid for the glass and the solution was to install a board to prevent that happening again. NO punishment to my son who was at the scene at not involved. No police or crap.

NO zero tolerance crap. The school was very decent and too each case separatly and judged on the merits. Boys were understood to be boys.

The only will issue was when a coach tried to bully my son physically and my son was enraged. The Dean sent him to another teacher that he liked to cool down. I called The Dean of students and told him to keep the coach away from my son if they wanted to avoid violence since he would not restrain himself again. They agreed.

He only got suspended for smoking and being tardy. Never for misbehavior other than that.

I very much recommend Catholic school. They have the same issues with drugs in schools as all the others even if the parents are better off.

BUt the education is better, The schools are not prisons and the teachers really like the kids and the school remembers that they only exist with parental support. So the school will call if a child doesn' show up . Skipping is impossible unless a parent calls in the absence.

I was involved all the time. A first years parents social had a wine and cheese in the school in the evening. Now that is a school.

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