Posted on 02/27/2006 12:44:06 AM PST by freespirited
For months, 17-year-old Andrew Saraf had been troubled by stories he was hearing about a Peace Studies course offered at his Bethesda high school.
Last Saturday, he decided to act. He sat down at his computer and typed out his thoughts on why the course should be banned .
"I know I'm not the first to bring this up but why has there been no concerted effort to remove Peace Studies from among the B-CC courses?" he wrote in his post to the school's group e-mail list. "The 'class' is headed by an individual with a political agenda, who wants to teach students the 'right' way of thinking by giving them facts that are skewed in one direction."
He hit send.
Within a few hours, the normally staid e-mail list BCCnet -- a site for announcements, job postings and other housekeeping details -- was ablaze with chatter. By the time Principal Sean Bulson checked his BlackBerry on Sunday, there were more than 150 postings from parents and students -- some ardently in support, some ardently against the course.
Since its launch at the school in 1988, Peace Studies has provoked lively debate, but the attempt to have the course removed from the curriculum is a first, Bulson said. The challenge by two students comes as universities and even some high schools across the country are under close scrutiny by a growing number of critics who believe that the U.S. education system is being hijacked by liberal activists.
At Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Peace Studies is taught by Colman McCarthy, a former Washington Post reporter and founder and president of the Center for Teaching Peace. ...McCarthy makes no effort to disguise his opposition to war, violence and animal testing.
"Unless we teach them peace, someone else will teach them violence," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Let the liberals have whatever partisan, agenda-driven, anti-capitalist, hate-America-first class they want - - just so long as taxpayer dollars don't play any part in funding it. That teacher can always go back to the Washington Post where he's among his fellow travelers.
That makes two of us.
Exactly. I hope they have some success. I hope they further look into what idiot thought there was an academic discipline of "Peace Studies" even if there are equally bad college courses.
Of course liberal never can comprehend why the world doesn't think as they do. It's rooted in an arrogant, ignorant assumption that they have the only true picture of the world.
Pathetic. Whose someone else?
A young boy learns early that when he's hit, he hits back. Big f'n deal.
Why don't they just start IV delivery of estrogen for the all the students and be done with this nonsense.
who's (sigh)
Yes. I will. And how to keep clean, and square away a bunk. And how to have fun on a day pass.
I'll teach 'em respect, by respecting them. And teach 'em KP.
/johnny
"is being"?
Try 1829 and this blueprint offered by Frances Wright, a follower of socialist Robert Owen. Is this not very essence of American public education?
"That one measure, by which alone childhood may find sure protection; by which alone youth may be made wise, industrious, moral, and happy; by which alone the citizens of this land may be made, in very deed, free and equal. That measure -- you know it. It is national, rational, republican education; free for all at the expense of all; conducted under the guardianship of the state, at the expense of the state, for the honor, the happiness, the virtue, the salvation of the state."
Of course, the notion that state schooling makes children "wise, industrious, moral, and happy" is demonstrably ridiculous.
If I had much more time than I do, I'd be willing to argue that real ("classical") education was gone by 1900, replaced by state schools offering vocational training in the hallowed name of education. I'd also argue that schooling that does not transmit the moral values and the standards of civilized life from one generation to the next is not education at all, but tyrannical indoctrination.
Read the article.
"Saraf and Avishek Panth, also 17, acknowledge that with the exception of one lecture they sat in on this month, most of what they know about the course has come from friends and acquaintances who have taken the class."
Anyone who expresses an opinion about a course that they attended for one class and then formed their opinions about what their friends told them is lacking the maturity to go on to University.
When I went to University we were given forms to evaluate the performance of our professors AT THE END OF THE COURSE.
I've known students like this both conservative and leftist and I never found them worth fifteen minutes of my time and the price of a cup of coffee.
If your heart still has cockles you are in good shape. I burned mine out long ago.
< When I went to University we were given forms to evaluate the performance of our professors AT THE END OF THE COURSE. >
I didn't need to go see Fahrenheit 911 to know it was a propaganda film from the liberal left. I gave it a "0" without seeing it.
Hmmm. A lot of us have formed pretty strong opinions, and I believe correct ones, about Ward Churchill based on what others have told us and not even attended one class. Are we wrong?
-Eric
who's (sigh)
No worries. When you are writing brilliance sometime the grammar gets a back seat. We all understood what you meant and we do it all the time as well. Just keep up with that great analysis and those discussion points.
Mine, too. Surprised the Post covered it.
Ping for the Public Schools List.
Equally heartwarming is the fact that the Washington Post felt constrained to report it.
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