As The Third World Turns

Accuracy in Academia ^ | March 12, 2010 | Bethany Stotts

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As The Third World Turns

Bethany Stotts, March 12, 2010

Public schools are often seen as indoctrination centers due to high-profile incidents such as Diatha Harris’ in-class criticism of the Iraq war and the many examples of students praising President Obama at the behest of their teachers.

A new report by Mary Grabar attempts to put these incidents in perspective by covering a recent conference geared toward social studies teachers.

“I was becoming increasingly disturbed by the lack of age appropriateness I was seeing throughout the conference,” reflects Grabar about the 2009 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference in the America’s Survival report. “The dismay continued as the uniformed middle school Ron Clark Rappers danced and shouted out slogans about Iraq and domestic spending, categorizing them with shouts of ‘Obama on the left’ and ‘McCain on the right.’”

In the embedded video from CNN, students from the Ron Clark Academy sing “Dear Obama, hear us sing/ We’re ready for the change that you will bring/ … The time is now/Bring our troops home/Iraq can stand strong on their own. …” The students in the video traveled from the Atlanta academy to Washington, D.C. to perform at multiple inaugural events, reported CNN last January.

Grabar covered a “sampling of workshops over two days” at the NCSS conference, she writes, including a panel on how to teach Islam to high school students and a session on “Exploring the Human Rights of Illegal Immigrant Students and Communities”; Grabar asserts that in the latter session Los Angeles middle school teacher Martha Infante suggested www.icedgame.com as a possible resource. (“ICED” in this case stands for “I Can End Deportation.”)...

[The Comedian]

Dear Obama, hear us sing/ We’re ready for the change that you will bring/

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.