Rants
On Education
Monty
Rainey
9/27/2002
The
onset of the new school year has brought to mind the endless
plethora of problems in our educational system. A House
committee recently voted to renew a sexual abstinence program
and the left is livid! Sure there are all the arguments,
"kids are going to experiment with sex, blah, blah,
blah," but that’s really not the issue. The real issue
is, is this the responsibility of the public school system?
Where does the responsibility of the parents come in? This is
just more of the "womb to the tomb" theory of the
government being responsible for our lives.
The
schools have enough problems to worry about, such as basic
education! The more time that is spent on sensitivity training,
leftist and socialist indoctrination, and matters that should be
taken care of in the home, the less time that is spent on
teaching kids about economics, history and science.
One
need look no further than some of the ridiculous college courses
being taught on our campuses across the nation, to see what kind
of future leaders and citizens we are creating. Communication
students at the University of Minnesota study Language and
Sexual Diversity. This class teaches how language is used in
"lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender communities"
and the "ways in which sexual diversity affects language
use."
Afro-American
Studies students at the University of California – Los Angeles
are offered Cultural History of Rap. This course offers
students a discussion "on musical and verbal qualities,
philosophical and political ideologies, gender representation,
and influences on cinema and popular culture" in rap. This
course is a must for future job applicants, don’t you think?
Georgetown
University Students can "beam" into Philosophy and
Star Trek. Claiming that there is no better way to learn
philosophy than to watch Star Trek, this course asks: "Is
time travel possible?" "Could we go back and kill our
grandmothers?" and "Is Data a person?" It only
stands to reason the creators of Star Trek would know far more
about philosophy than St. Thomas Aquinas or Aristotle.
Then
there is the ever necessary Daytime Serials: Family and
Social Roles, being taught at the University of Wisconsin.
In this course, students analyze "the themes and characters
that populate television’s daytime serials and investigation
of what impact these portrayals have on women’s and men’s
roles in the family and in the work place." How can anyone
be expected to get through life without such valuable knowledge?
These
are at the college level and at least parents have the
opportunity to say no to paying for such drivel, but at the
public school level, the kids are stuck with what they get.
Which isn’t much. And don’t even think about blaming the
teachers. Their hands are tied. They face ever-increasing
scrutiny from all fronts. Recently in North Carolina, a 4th
grade teacher was reprimanded and faces possible suspension for
teaching the word "niggardly", which means stingy or
miserly, to her students during a discussion on literary
characters.
One
of the students told his mother, who promptly protested saying
the word sounded too much like a racial slur. This teachers
principal, who should have came to her defense, instead placed a
letter of reprimand in the teachers employment file and may seek
further action.
There
is an endless array of things that are wrong with our
educational system, but mostly, it is an extension of the same
problems that face many aspects of society, politics and
frivolous lawsuits. Couple that with our growing love for not
accepting personal responsibility for our lives we have a system
in shambles.
The
three S’s, sensitivity, sexuality and silliness have replaced
the three R’s. In short, parents need to parent, teachers need
to teach and everyone else needs to butt out!
Monty
Rainey
Email
montyrainey@juntosociety.com
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