Posted on 05/13/2005 6:13:11 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Rush Limbaugh said on his nationally syndicated radio show that Evanston Township High School students "don't know anything about World War II" and "they've probably never heard the name Adolf Hitler" because they're so focused on a multicultural curriculum.
Some Evanston kids want to show Limbaugh what they know. They want to debate him on American history.
"I think [a debate] would be great because then we'd prove him wrong and open up his opinion a little bit," Sarah Loeb, an ETHS sophomore, said Thursday.
'Balkanizing this country'
Limbaugh's comments came after he read a Christian Science Monitor article Tuesday that profiled global studies courses required at ETHS. Limbaugh railed against multicultural education generally and singled out the North Shore school.
"What multiculturalists is, is balkanizing this country," Limbaugh said Tuesday. "People are coming here from various parts of the world and they're bringing their cultures with them and the multiculturalists are saying 'your culture is better than the American culture. The American culture is discriminatory, it's racist, sexist, bigot, homophobic.' "
Limbaugh's producer did not return a call on whether Limbaugh would agree to a debate.
"Maybe he might be a little intimidated because I don't know his basis for saying we don't know anything," Sarah said. "But I think he might be interested if he wants to live up to his reputation and back up his ideas so he doesn't look stupid."
All ETHS sophomores choose among several "global perspectives" courses covering the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Asia and Russia. In the Middle East class, for example, students adopt a new identity for the semester -- a Syrian baker or a medical student in Qatar -- and try to view what's transpiring in the region from that perspective.
In 2003, ETHS won an excellence in international education award from the Asia Society and the Goldman Sachs Foundation. ETHS offers seven languages, including Japanese and Hebrew, and has several clubs with an international flavor, including Model United Nations and Amnesty International. Students and staff also point out that the school requires yearlong courses in U.S. history and Western civilization.
"It's funny to me that someone would say we don't know about World War II -- we live in a large Jewish community," said Jane Biliter, a senior. Each year, the school hosts activities for Holocaust Remembrance Week. "Until 10th grade, all we did was U.S. and European history. It's just so false that what he says is funny."
School officials haven't decided how -- or if -- they intend to respond to Limbaugh.
Tests show he's wrong
"It struck me as incomprehensible that somebody would think multiculturalism antithetical to American values," Supt. Allan Alson said. "I was stunned that he had such certainty that our kids were not knowledgeable about basic American history when in fact our student do extremely well" on standardized tests in that area. "It's a shame he lets his conclusions determine his evidence."
Aaron Becker, who teaches the Middle East class, said his students also are considering sending Limbaugh essays they've written on American history.
"This is a perfect teachable moment," Becker said. "Kids are angry and want to respond by showing they know a lot, that it's not a zero-sum game, that you can learn about more than one history."
Becker said the kids will decide how best to respond.
"It's not even worth responding to," said Aaron Hamilton, a senior. "He has nothing to say about my education and my future. He's just a guy talking on the radio."
How quickly would the culture shut down students who want to start a Christian Club?
From what I've seen here, it seems that the studies are more current events than history.
I can't find any information on anyone taking an identity as, say, George Washington, or Abe Lincoln, or even Gen. Patton or FDR.
And even the current events are not U.S. based, as if a US perspective is unimportant. They are global in scope. I wonder how many of them have taken identities as Bin Laden or Zarqawi or Kim Jung Il.
Becki
If they're anything like some of the people on Leno's Jaywalking they're all idiots! Some of those people make you wonder if it's set up like that.
My money is on Rush also...he is a rib rock constitutional conservative, as am I and I have always said, I stop listening to him when he starts putting out stuff that the DNC spews daily. He knows the Democrats like noone else does, and understands how they work. Just listen!!
If they're anything like some of the people on Leno's Jaywalking they're all idiots! Some of those people make you wonder if it's set up like that.
If they're anything like some of the people on Leno's Jaywalking they're all idiots! Some of those people make you wonder if it's set up like that.
Baloney!
Liberalism is a Mental Disorder
Let's see them go one on one. When any group gets a many on one, the one doesn't get to say much and their words will be used out of context.
I bet these shiiildren will use the liberal view of "history".
At least the original old-money North Shore residents produced quite a number of captains of industy, business, finance, literature, entertainment and the arts. They had money, but in general, they were conservative Middle-Westerners, had good manners and work ethics.
Today, thanks to busy parents and determined liberal, leftist teachers and professors which abound in Evanston, third and fourth generations of old money have and will have more than the average amount of dilettante socialists, limp-wristed wussies, charity-ball lizards, pseudo-intellectuals contemplating their navels, bleeding hearts, perpetual students, vegans, conspicuous consumers, converts to Islam, aspiring writers at Nation magazine, Europhiles, Hillary-moms, snail-eaters, pantheists, UN interns, MoveOn donors.......and languorous trolls on Free Republic.
This generational shift isn't confined to the elite in Evanston, by the way, as we all know.
Leni
She is a bright 17 year old and a victim of public uneducation.
If you have a good Internet connection it can be seen at ... Jay Walking Click on Battle of the Jaywalk All-Stars
It's true that Rush Limbaugh doesn't claim to be objective.It is also true that claiming to be objective is sophistry.
Not a Rush fan?
When my wife went to North Shore Country Day, she had to tutor the "less fortunate", so they sent her to ETHS. She was not very impressed. It might have been the magnetometers at the doors turned her off first turned her off, but then again the students that she dealt with were not incredibly bright.
In that case Rush should at the last moment says something came up and have his conservative replacement Ben Stein (Win Ben Stein's Money fame) debate them.
No matter how prepared they was I would put money on Ben Stein.
Who gets to decide what the questions are.
You can set your watch by the fact that Rush isn't going to "debate" in a forum in which others control the microphone. You want to debate Rush, you call his program . . . and stay on the air at his pleasure.Which is more consideration than Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite ever gave any conservative.
Reminds me of that scumbag teacher in NYC who had his students write crap to the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In Universities they bleet out this crap themselves. Think Ward Churchill...in High School they say "That big, bad, meanie Rush Limbaugh upset me...get him students!"
What was it that Ann Coulter said was the most asked question at the DNC convention is Boston last year? Oh yeah, it was "So, where do you teach?"
I'm glad that many of the teachers at my kids schools are Conservative. Whenever I talk to them I leave them without a doubt where I stand. And I've seen two different reactions. They are either quiet as a church mouse (libs) or they agree and chime in with reasons of their own why libs/dems should be taken out with the trash.
Most of these teachers chime in... :)
Comments like this about students who are being taught the wrong lessons in public schools say much more about those who make them than about the children.
I often agree with Rush, but these students are simply telling him to put up or shut up.
The fact that some on this thread insult them for that is contemptible.
This says everything I need to know about what these airheaded kids are being spoon fed.
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