Posted on 07/23/2003 3:59:15 PM PDT by ZGuy
A conservative educator from Pennsylvania received a chilly response while addressing delegates to the National Education Association's annual convention held in New Orleans earlier this month.
Sissy Jochmann, a second grade teacher from Pennsylvania and chair of the Conservative Educators Caucus, delivered a two-minute speech in which she urged the NEA to support students in their right to choose not to engage in homosexual behavior. But Jochmann says delegates booed and shouted angrily at her while she spoke.
Jochmann's speech called on the NEA to provide "a full range of information and support resources available on homosexuality" and to be more tolerant of people on all sides of the issue. But the audience met Jochmann's proposal with antagonistic heckling and jeers.
"At one point -- the representative assembly -- I was speaking to over 9,400 people. It was a thunderous roar -- they didn't even want to consider debating it," she says.
Apparently the powerful educators' union is less tolerant than it purports to be -- and Jochmann is not the first to call attention to the organization's double standards.
In an editorial written for the organization Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, Dr. Warren Throckmorton revealed that the NEA convention for the past two years has denied exhibit space to PFOX. Last year, convention organizers told PFOX, an organization that supports homosexuals' right to choose to change their sexual orientation, that no space was available -- although they continued to sell exhibition space to other groups. This year, the NEA refused even to accept the group's application.
Throckmorton is director of college counseling and an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. His research, "Initial Empirical and Clinical Findings Concerning the Change Process for Ex-Gays," was published by the American Psychological Association in the June 2002 issue of their journal, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. The researcher believes in the work of PFOX and decries the unfairness of the NEA in excluding its members' viewpoints from the convention.
Throckmorton says it is time for the predominantly liberal educator's union to work through its ex-homophobia. "With the NEA stonewalling attempts to present ex-gay information, one wonders what the leadership fears from ex-gays. What possible educational purpose is served by suppressing information?" the doctor asks.
Jochmann would agree that the NEA convention creates an atmosphere hostile to alternative points of view.
"It's just amazing how people are even afraid to say that they are Republicans at the NEA convention, because it's overwhelmingly Democrats that are represented," she says. Throughout the event, conservatives tended to be timid about expressing their views, Jochmann adds, particularly on the issue of homosexuality.
The Pennsylvania teacher says she has often considered leaving the NEA but fears if she and her conservative colleagues all drop out, there will be no one to speak up on behalf of children, as she did at the conference.
"It was a wonderful spiritual experience. I'll never be the same as a result. God really blessed me for my obedience, and to experience His power in that circumstance," she says.
Despite being subjected to liberal delegates' hostility, Jochman does not regret her decision to speak out. Her Conservative Educators Caucus gained ten new members at the meeting.
A lot of conservatives don't want to make the hard choices when it comes to their kids:
(a) We don't want to take to time to debrief our public-schooled kids each day to see what they've been unnecessarily indoctrinated in; (b) We don't want to do much of any formal or informal ed of our children--even if they remain in public school; (c) We don't want to consider home schooling or online learning ops so readily available these days (even folks who say they don't have the ability/time to do this are not off of the hooks I mentioned above in (a) and (b);
With all due respect................wrong.
They're a self-appointed instrument for "social change" first and foremost. Second, they're a Socialist organization.........fact; an ideaological group. Third, they're a political organization, purely to drive the agenda(s) of the above.
They aren't.......and never were..........an educational organization.
Actually, most conservative teachers join the nea for legal protection. The first time you have a nutcake parent upset about how you handled little Johnny's behavior complain to district, then all the politics; anyone would pay the 600 bucks to join. Necessary evil if you plan to teach as a career.
I'll add that to the list, as well.
No it isn't. Most of the 2.5 million NEA members vote for every tax raising, family killing, depravity creating issue the left puts out there. They are tapped out. Working two jobs to support the people who are supposed to be teaching their kids.
With the money people are paying, there is no excuse for the schools being the way they are.
I'm sorry. I didn't realize that the character ed described in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 was written to dues-paying educators. I thought the "your children" (verse 7) was meant for parents, not the "it-takes-a-village" conceptual folks.
I guess I was misled by the "sit at home" and "walk along the road" and "lie down" & "get up" locales mentioned along with the "doorframes of your houses" and "gates" (vv. 7,9).
Forgive me. The all-encompassing nature of that passage I guess just swept me away.
Otherwise, tis a shame what Josh McDowell wrote about one time: How many conservative/Christian children, if asked to name who their fave teacher was, would point to someone outside of the home? As Josh points out, that wouldn't have been true a few generations ago.
We get your message, but wasn't that "fruitcake" insult a little strong? Don't want to be intolerant now.. < g>
SFS
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