Posted on 04/20/2002 7:55:47 AM PDT by pabianice
Michelle Malkin
See Dick and Jane weep
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Home-schooling is looking more and more like the only sane educational option these days.
The latest news of the weird in our public schools comes from Seattle. Last week, the Seattle Times reports, nearly 300 students from two middle schools were subjected to three long days of gut-spilling seminars aimed at "creating a safe school environment free of teasing and harassment."
Principals and teachers traded in phonics for histrionics. Children learned the Oprahfied alphabet -- A for apologies, B for blame, and C for crying. Uncontrollable crying. Kleenex must have made a killing. Here's how the Times reporter described the workshops:
"Sitting in small circles, their knees touching, students shared their own hurt and the pain they had inflicted on others. The tears flowed. In some groups, half the WashingtonMiddleSchool students were crying at once. Applause followed, as the seventh- and eighth-graders stepped up to roving microphones and declared what they would do to mend broken relationships with their schoolmates. Two boys shook hands after one apologized for making fun of the other, and said he hoped to be more supportive."
"A girl owned up to snubbing an old friend. 'I'm sorry that I've been very distant and that I've chosen other friends in school,' she said. 'I'm going to work on that, and I'm going to be a better friend.' The girls embraced."
All bounds of privacy and self-restraint were erased as seminar "facilitators" encouraged their young guinea pigs to confess whether they - or friends or family members -- had ever faced addiction problems, sadness over the death of loved ones, guilt over teasing others because of their weight, or thoughts of suicide. The public sniveling and sniffling ended with a "final exercise -- hugging as many people as possible in two minutes, to the theme from 'Rocky.'" One child, showing uncommon wisdom, dubbed the dolorous debacle a "psycho cry-fest."
It's only the beginning: This bizarre emotional circus may be coming to an unacceptably dry-eyed classroom near you.
Sponsored by a for-profit company called Resource Realizations in Scottsdale, Ariz., and run jointly by a nonprofit organization called Challenge Day, the chief operator of these weeping workshops says he smells a "a huge potential growth area" in the public schools. Seattle students received information packets from Resources Realizations founder David Gilcrease. "While Challenge Day is a critical first step, a one-day learning experience only goes so far," Gilcrease wrote in literature distributed to the children. "To create truly lasting transformation in their lives, most teens need more."
For starters, there's the company's three-day, $295 Teen Discovery seminar. Which leads to pricy summer camps, parent-child workshops, and retreats full of self-esteem-boosting babblers who teach participants such vital skills as learning "to interrupt unconscious mental and emotional cycles which tend to sabotage results." According to the Resources Realizations website, public seminars are also being run in San Diego, San Francisco, Dallas, Ft.Lauderdale, and Chicago.
Unbeknowst to Seattle school officials and parents who raved about the workshops, Resources Realizations has a dubious history. It is connected to a shady racket of companies peddling kiddie rehab programs with names such as "TranquilityBay" and "Paradise Cove" that have been accused of brainwashing youngsters. Yet, the Seattle schools superintendent, Joseph Olchefske, seemed only mildly perturbed that the company coaching Seattle schoolchildren to get all choked up - and then foisting their promotional flyers on the overwrought kids -- is also a defendant in several lawsuits involving claims of emotional abuse at its behavior-therapy facilities.
Where are all those anti-corporate lefties who protest the commercialization of the schools - you know, the ones always complaining about cafeteria junk food being stuffed down the throats of helpless students? These mindless p.c. workshops are junk food, too - completely devoid of academic calories.
Now, there may be legitimate private businesses out there that provide real help to families with emotional problems. But even so, they have no place in taxpayer-funded schools whose primary function is supposed to be filling students' heads - not emptying their lachrymal ducts.
Part of the bargain was mandatory attendance in these seminars pushed by Resource Realizations. The parents also had to attend their own seminar(s). I did research and discovered that, basically, this seminar is a descendant of est, Werner Erhard's "Erhard Seminar Training". They will tell you no, it is not from est but from Lifespring...but guess where Lifespring came from?
They are called LGAT'S, LARGE GROUP AWARENESS TRAINING Seminars, and like est their goal is somehow to get the attendee to get "it". "It" in est was undefined ("In life, understanding is the booby prize"—Erhard). In the others it can range from personal improvement or, as in the school scenario above, "sensitivity".
The methods they use to get people to get "it" have been called brainwashing by some, or simple manipulation of people in groups in small, controlled spaces, by a domineering seminar leader (Erhard used to verbally abuse his audience—"You are miserable because you are all a bunch of a#$@^%*s!" When this, among other things, eventually brought negative reviews he handed the program over to his brother, est was re-branded as The Landmark Forum, and Erhard disappeared for years).
My brother tried and tried to get me to go to the seminars, but this relentless promotion by attendees is just another part of the whole scam. Like Gilcrease said "While Challenge Day is a critical first step, a one-day learning experience only goes so far,".
Read that: "While getting a bunch of students to fall for our controversial first seminar is a good first step, this will only go just so far to create the kind of sustaining wealth and power over young minds we are truly seeking."
Gee I need one too :)
Ah yes, there's where the columnist goes astray.
Or so I was told by a school official when our two oldest were in public school. I had voiced a similar thought, that we sent our kids to school for education in the basics, not for therapy. That was the province of the family and our church. Or so I thought.
I was informed in condescending tones that this was an "older model" approach, and that now schools felt that "anything that affected the children in any way was their concern."
A polite version of my wife and my thought was "the heck it is," and not long after, we began homeschooling — a decision we have never, ever regretted.
To say the least. (Articles such as this increase our non-regret factor.)
Dan
When and where? I have a hard time imagining what an FAA employee would be fired for, it just does not seem to happen.
Does any Freeper know anything about the USDA-located "Graduate School"?
I fear that more often than not, parents don't care what their child is being taught. It's free childcare for many. Who would want to "rock the boat" when it's all they can do to get them up and dressed before they have to be at work? You ask too much of them. /sarcasm.
Aren't we fortunate that we're special, and such things could never happen to us?
"I God has intended for children to be raised by their peers, He would have had them born in litters, instead of one by one." (Rick Bowyer, home school giant)
I prefer the "John Galt" approach to government school reform. Let the dead bury the dead. The living have work to do, and a future to claim. Life's too short and resources too scant to waste on fool's errands.
This is sick stuff. Ok everyone cry.
If that's not what you meant, please explain??
We haven't either. And I'm very grateful for all the help we received here on FR (from folks like you) that helped us over the fence!
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