Posted on 02/23/2010 4:53:30 AM PST by ConservativeHideout
I live in a small Midwestern town of not quite 12,000 people, and there are about 35,000 people in our entire county. So it is safe to say that I do not live in a metropolis. Until a recent article in our local newspaper, I thought that indoctrination in our schools was something I needn’t worry about. WRONG.
A couple of days ago there was an article titled, “North [grade school] students study facts about polar bears.” Now the words “polar” and “bear” caught my eye and I immediately feared the worst. As I read it explained how the students “found a website” that told them the polar bears are endangered. That we need to recycle to help them because that reduces global warming. And that the bears need ice to get their food. Directly from the article:
"Students in Tammy Reindl’s second grade class have learned how recycling efforts in Taylorville can have an impact on global warming which can lead directly to the plight of the polar bears who live in the circumpolar north.
The main threat to polar bears today is the loss of their icy habitat due to climate change. Polar bears depend on the sea ice for hunting, breeding, and in some cases to den. The summer ice loss in the Arctic is now equal to an area the size of Alaska, Texas and Washington combined.
Scientists predict that, if current warming trends continue in the Arctic, two-thirds of the world’s polar bears could disappear by 2050."
I sat down and penned a letter to the editor, we shall see if they publish it, but here it is for our loyal CH 2.0 readers:
Dear Editor,
This is in response to an article that appeared in the Breeze Courier on Feb 22. It explained how second grade students at North School studied polar bears, their dwindling population and the effects of global warming on Arctic ice. I believe that in the interest of being fair, the other side of the global warming debate should be presented.
First of all, the polar bear population is not decreasing; in fact, their numbers have greatly increased in the last decade. Some estimates have their numbers as doubling. In Canada’s Nunavut Territory, Harry Flaherty, chair of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board in the capital of Iqaluit is on record saying the polar bear population there has doubled in the last 10 years. He doubts the figures put forth by global warming alarmists who rely on helicopter surveys.
“Scientists do a quick study one to two weeks in a helicopter, and don’t see all the polar bears. We’re getting totally different stories [about the polar bear numbers] on a daily basis from hunters and harvesters on the ground,” he says.
Gabriel Nirlungayuk, director of wildlife for Nunavut Tuungavik Inc. also doubts the reliability of helicopter surveys. “Helicopters have many limitations, including fuel capacity. They can’t go far out into the open water,” he says. Hunters crisscrossing the area by snowmobiles, sled dog teams or boats “are seeing polar bears where scientists and helicopters are not traveling.” He said that old timers living in the area rarely saw the bears forty years ago, but “now there are bears living as far south as James Bay.”
Both men ridicule the claims by alarmists that polar bears are threatened or in danger of becoming extinct. “Polar bears are very intelligent…they have adapted through many climate changes for thousands of years. They are not going to wait around for the ice to freeze to start hunting. They live on more than just seals,” says Nirlungayuk.
And Flaherty adds that, “at the end of the day, the King of the North will always be here. When we hear that polar bears are headed towards extinction, we just kind of smile at ourselves.”
Now the second graders at North school also were told that the Artic ice is melting because of global warming. According to the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and our own University of Illinois, Arctic ice was 30% greater from 2007 to 2008. In one year, the Arctic ice grew, it did not shrink. This is not to say that the Arctic hasn’t experienced some warming trends. Greenland has shown to be warmer as of late, but the reality of the situation is that this isn’t anything new. The earth warms and cools in cycles; that is called climate. In fact, the Vikings settled Greenland and grew crops in temperatures that were much higher than those of today.
NASA published a study that determined that the thinning Artic ice in 2007 was the result of “unusual winds” that had blown the “older, thicker” ice out into the warmer southern waters. So it would seem that any ice loss was to be blamed on differing wind patterns and not CO2 or man made global warming.
Dr. Phil Jones, the former head of the CRU (Climatic Research Unit) in East Anglia, UK recently told the BBC in an interview that the earth has not warmed in the last 15 years. For clarification, the CRU provides the main body of research to the United Nations for their IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
I think it is wonderful that our school children are learning about polar bears, but I think that it should not be taught that man made global warming is a foregone conclusion. It is unfair to let second graders think that the polar bears are dying out of existence when they simply are not. The debate on global warming is most usually centered on rhetoric and emotion. It is easy to feel all warm and fuzzy about a polar bear and therefore when a child is told that they are in danger of becoming extinct it is easy to lead them to the conclusion that there is man made global warming. When the global warming alarmists say that the debate is over, there is a consensus, well that is faulty thinking. Science by its very nature is the attempt to prove the null hypothesis, or in other words, prove something wrong, not right. Dissenting opinions are the key to good science. As British scientist and mathematician, Jacob Bronowski said, “Dissent is the native activity of the scientist…” and if you remove dissent, “what is left will not be a scientist.”
There is an old Jesuit saying: “Give us a boy until the age of eight, and we will give you the man.”
Matters of faith are best taught when the student is very young, because when people have reached the age of reason, they tend to look at things critically and judge things against objective reality. The facts are not on the side of the people who are arguing that Anthropogenic Global Warming exists, so they have to indoctrinate children in order to spread their message.
This is the number one reason to keep your children out of government schools.
This is worth repeating.
Well said. It’s also why the government seems so interested in “universal preschool.” Why not start at age three?
Most excellent letter - hope that it gets published. Given the proclivities of current print journalism, I am not confident but localities do vary. Still, unless all of us do try, we are the sheep. Kudos!
It’s in private schools, too, maybe even WORSE
My DD gets it in Cattholic school (the bleeding heart liberal Catholics many of who also voted for the post abortion killer obama, are all guilted into believing they have to be better stewards of the earth yada yada yada ... everyone seeks the “coveted” designation of being a “green” school
I tell my DD “Of course you know that what they are going to tell you is untrue and based on false evidence” and she says “yes, I know”- so we are cool
BTW, the best letters to the editor are those that make the point about 20 sentences or less- otherwise it’s an editorial
One's fondness for large predators varies proportionally with distance...
If you had a catch-and-release program that relocated polar bears to Central Park, folks would not be so sentimental about them...
The Climate Change Argument in a nutshell: “When I woke up this morning, the temperature was 30 degrees with a light frost. Now it’s noon... it’s 50 degrees and the frost is gone. If current trends continue, we will wake up tomorrow to 110 degrees... the world as we know it will be forever altered and manbearpig will roam free... women and minorities will be hardest hit.”
Next morning, the temperature is 32 degrees and the message is “This morning, we woke to temperatures 2 degrees higher than yesterday at the same time. If current trends continue...”
MARXISM IS OUR NATION'S **MOST** SERIOUS THREAT. GOVERNMENT k-12 SCHOOLS ARE THE MARXIST'S **MOST** POWERFUL WEAPON!!!!
(Yes, I am shouting. I am **amazed**at the number of conservatives who continue to send their kids to government school and utterly fail to understand that they can NOT be reformed!)
“Keep an eye out for a publication called “Time For Kids.”
That’s what they mass-distribute in our local school districts.”
What have you done to stop this?
There is no such thing as winning any sort of a culture war while sending your children off to the enemy for indoctrination. Public schools need to go.
I had heard the number of polar bears has quintupled since 1972. It seems there has been a population explosion amongst polar bears.
As always, winny, your diagnosis is true, and your only error is imagining that you can reason adults out of their delusional faith in politicians and public institutions. They weren’t reasoned into this faith; they were conditioned in public schools themselves.
Only the children of America have the power to shut these socialist madrassas down - by refusing to attend!
Go John Galt, kids - your parents’ generation is happy to consign you to the camps.
You can’t change the schools from within. They are top-down controlled. Teacher education itself is indoctrination, so a growing percentage of the teachers are useful idiots as well. The only way to save the public schools is to make them irrelevant. The best way to do that, for now, is to not feed your children to them.
If Christ didn't use ( or should I say abuse) children as missionaries, then neither should we.
To name call either side is unproductive, and creates a fissure where one shouldn't exist.
It's similar to the Mommy Wars they are always trying to encourage - get the stay-at-home moms to fight against the working moms. Isn't the bottom line that each family is working with all their hearts to care for their children, whether at home or in an outside job?
You may wish to check out John Taylor Gatto's outstanding book titled, "Weapons of Mass Instruction." It is written by a NY State Teacher of the Year who points out that the system seeks to create followers and consumers, not leaders and entrepreuners; it's not light reading for the squeamish, but provocative. An honest study of the government school system founders (e.g., John Dewy, Horace Mann) will net you info on what these folks thought of the role of the public school system.
Just because some folks view public school something like the scenes in Pink Floyd's Up Against the Wall, with those poor kids in that factory system on conveyor belts....well, that's one opinion.
Families just a few decades ago, endured criminal prosecution in order to homeschool according to their consciouses - I wouldn't call that cowardly behavior.
I fought the school system from the inside, when I was an inmate it in, and got an education DESPITE it. As a student, I got one teacher demoted in the science department for her ridiculousness and incompetence (nice lady, but incompetent to teach biology); but I wasted hours and days, weeks and months of my life in a public school chemistry class with not ONE DAY of instruction, because the teacher was "tenured," despite all our protestations. No, my opinion, for what it's worth, is that I wouldn't put children on that battle front....
Now, for all those grandparents out there, retirees, people with some time on their hands, who aren't in the throes of raising families, perhaps they can step up to the plate and run for school boards, city councils, zoning boards - to keep property taxes down so families can survive, to keep school boards accountable.
Now, about the school unions, I don't know what to tell you about that. I only know about their corruption, and their interests in their union members, even at the expense of the children (e.g., look at the New Hampshire school closing, and the union coming against the students who support the school closing; look at the DC school system - scary).
You can experiment: send your child to school with a 1 inch plastic lego weapon and see what happens (o.k., I'm being silly, but really....).
Let's remember that we're on the same team - freedom for parents to manage their children's education as they see fit.
A Letter To The Editor will only give himself satisfaction, as he admits, it may never get printed in the paper. What he should have done is sent it to his School Board, and 'cc' the Editor. And he should go to the School Board meetings and complain express his concern in person.
The School, the 2nd Grade Teacher, nor the Teacher's Union, decides what is to be taught (aka Lesson Planning). That is decided by the School Board. And by Law, School Board meetings are open to the Public, except for 'an executive session' part. So that's where 'Don' should be. And if the School Board members are dismissive, or are outright leftist barking Moonbats, Vote Them OUT of Office. And I speak from experience.
Decades ago when our children were young there was a group in our Village who didn't like the way our Board was being run or what was being taught. They were 'The Gang Of Five'. They wanted a more 'progressive' Lesson Plan for our Elementary & Jr HS Schools. Well they got elected, were now the majority on the Board and with 'their progressive lesson planning', SCREWED EVERYTHING UP. None had any experience in education. no Degrees, no Teachers, just 'feelings' and 'progressive' ideas)None of 'us' were political junkies back then. We voted and that was that. Well we learned a hard lesson that the 'inconsequential' Local 'off year' Elections were as important as voting for POTUS. Heck, maybe even more important since items voted on then pertained to our children.They lasted One Term and were ALL tossed out in the next election! They were replaced with people who actually had experience in Education and Administration. Our School Board and Schools went back to 'normal'.
So that's where 'Don' has to be - at the School Board meetings 'Raising Cain'.
I would classify our Board, Schools and teaching plan as 'conservative', or 'old school'. The same where our oldest daughter & family live, and where out youngest is a Teacher (we snuck one of us into the NEA ;-)
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