Essay Required: Why America Sucks

My Neighbor | Today | Me

[4U2OUI]

Hello, FRiends.

My neighbor's daughter, a junior in high school, told me she is required to write a 1000 word essay on "why America sucks". Her teacher quotes from Zinn, and pretends to be "open-minded".

I recommended she read Swifts, "A Modest Proposal", which she had never heard of, as a guide for crafting a satirical answer to an asinine assignment.

ANY help/insight/wisdom in this matter will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

The other David in Eugene.

[headsonpikes]

Thanks for clarifying.

As you well know, many teachers are not as scrupulous as you about fairness.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Now you may not agree that it is important to see two sides of a story, but that's alright, that's just your side of the story...

By the way, on occasion, students have opted-out of the assignment for personal reasons. This has always been allowed. Their alternative assignment is simply to change the statement to "The US is wonderful."...

I am sure your just trying to protect her from liberal revisionism...

I'm only a writer with over 15 years' experience and a college degree so I can't teach English in the schools (to be certified to teach I would have to get the equivalent of a master's degree first, since my education classes are "out of date," whatever that means). But I'm pretty sure there's no such word as "alright." I think the phrase is "all right." You don't need a hyphen between the words "opted" and "out." You'd only need that if the phrase were an adjective-noun being used as an adjective (i.e., "students can use the opt-out option and write an alternative essay"). Finally, "your" is the possessive form of "you," not a contraction of "you are," which is actually "you're."

Nope, I guess I'm not qualified to teach English.

[litehaus]

Sucks? Sucks? ....A half century ago I won an award from the American Legion for writing "Why America Is the Best Country".....Damn how these libs are screwing over our kids/grandkids!

[Skooz]

In college, of my history professors liked to point out that, in spite of his having a PhD in history and 25 years of teaching experience, having been published many times, with expertise in Japanese, European, and Russian history (plus, his knowledge of the French Revolution is extraordinary), we was not "qualified" to teach history in any public school.

Any grade.

[4U2OUI]

Are you really? Tell me the name of the school.

[Veto!]

We are taught to hate ourselves. As a result, we--the young generation--do not have confidence on ourselves whatsoever!"

Brilliant! You might add a few facts on how quickly San Francisco picked itself up after the 1906 earthquake and fire to build a brand new city of more than 28,000 buildings in a mere three years, thanks to everyone's pitching in and getting to work.

Contrast this with the whining that's threatening to wipe New Orleans off the map -- not the hurricane, the flood, the evacuations. The WHINING.

Then take a look at a PBS documentary, "Pink Ghetto," about areas of San Diego where white kids are the problem children because they have no sense of who they are or where they came from. They have NOT learned their own history -- American History. In schools that teach ONLY black, chicano, women's history classes but no American History classes, American children, some of whom come from families that have been here for hundreds of years, are being made to feel like outsiders, thanks to the moronic liberal-hijacked education system. I have no doubt whatsoever that the Eugene schools are every bit as SUCKY as the San Diego schools.

[Quix]

Great points.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

I apologize for my post to you yesterday. It was very rude of me. I am a little bitter for not being considered qualified to teach public school, but I shouldn't have taken it out on you. Please forgive me... I should have waited before posting anything.

[admiralsn]

Did he ever conform this with you?

[4U2OUI]

Yes, he did.

I'm glad that he clarified the writing assignment as well. I think he's an OK guy, who is trying hard to help get kids to think. Sure, as a conservative, he and I will disagree on many things, but we can agree that we all want what is best for the kids.

I should've got a copy of the assignment before I posted. Live and learn.

*****Why do so many people in other nations dislike the USA?

1. Envy.
2. Ignorance.
3. Fear.
4. The image the MSM and Hollywood portrays of our nation to the rest of the world.
5. Religious intolerance.
6. The USA is the only power that is interrupting their own closet drive for world dominion.
7. Arrogance.

Those are my ideas.

[admiralsn]

I agree, and am glad he did clarify the information. I, too, jumped to a conclusion based on little information. If what he says about allowing students an alternative assignment is true, and I have to take him at his word, then I have no problem with it.

Just like the libs who secretly listen to Rush, and those at the Washington Post who secretly read the Drudge Report, it is intersting to know that he comes here (or at least that once) to read what we have to say. Hopefully he will be enlightened in the end.

[cricket]

How about the child 'goes for it'. . .something like. . .

The first cause of the problem of 'where. . .what. . .when and however, America sucks is Liberals and Liberalism. At the root of every miserable problem that America faces there is a Liberal idea. . .carried by a reason-impaired Liberal determined to make a difference; a miserable difference.

Which is to say. . .where there is a Liberal; there is a giant and forboding, 'sucking sound'. . .

. . .and there are remedies. . .all of which Liberals detest. . .sooooooo. . . .

[Yaelle]

When I was in college in the late 70s, the shortened insult "XYZ sucks!" had not yet been shortened. The actual insult was "XYZ sucks [a rooster-like term for a part of the male anatomy]!" It took a few years for the shortened version to catch on.

I would like a parent of one of those kids to write to the teacher, copy to the principal and the school board, and query how a country on the face of the earth could even realistically perform some kind of vacuumlike condition upon a male human reproductive organ, and indeed to question why the teacher even brings up this Clintonesque topic to a classroom of hormonal teens.

[Terriergal]

My hubby (Cyrano, a lurker here on FR) laughed at the mention of "a modest proposal" --

Yes, absolutely, construct a satirical essay. America sucks because (and go on to name all the good things about America that we have done, like helping to save the world from fascism and communism, feeding most of the world, coming up with medical treatments for innumerable crippling and deadly diseases, etc. etc...) and then conclude with "But what really sucks are their PUBLIC SCHOOLS which flush zillions of American tax dollars down the rathole each year and only get worse and worse."