bore me to tears

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged barack obama, bigotry, christianity, parenting, politics, religion, socialization, world of children | 36 Comments

36 Responses

1. on September 12, 2009 at 9:06 pm Ben Hoffman

   … and indoctrination

   
   
2. on September 13, 2009 at 12:01 am boremetotears

   …and without an “opt-out” choice available to them

   ~Lynn

   
   
3. on September 13, 2009 at 2:27 am Daryl Cobranchi

   That sign is awful. And I’d guarantee that that girl hasn’t a clue what the issues are in the health insurance reform debate.

   This is what happens when kids are allowed to watch FNC.

   
   
4. on September 13, 2009 at 11:22 am boremetotears

   I’ll actually go out on a limb and say,

   “I’d guarantee that the PARENTS haven’t a clue what the issues are in the health insurance reform debate!”

   and

   “This is what happens when ADULTS are allowed to watch FNC!”

   :)

   
   
5. on September 13, 2009 at 7:59 pm Audrey

   I’m sure she’ll make a good little soldier someday. 8-(

   
   
6. on September 13, 2009 at 8:02 pm JJ

   At Jesus Camp.

   
   
7. on September 27, 2009 at 8:39 am I Too Was Raised by Republicans « eat, sleep, learn

   [...] found this picture here with the post title “What TRUE exploitation of a child looks like” and a multitude of [...]

   
   
8. on September 27, 2009 at 8:41 am crstarlette

   I posted a reply on my blog

   http://eatsleeplearn.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/i-too-was-raised-by-republicans/

   
   
9. on September 27, 2009 at 8:28 pm Lynn

   So, apparently we have no “proof” that this girl is being used by her parents to hatemonger. Maybe she just happens to agree with her parents that mocking a dead liberal is fair game (as long as you do it in the context of clever word play).

   Of course, other children prefer to evaluate issues and express their own personal opinions on their t-shirts.

   

   They’re such adorable little foot soldiers independent thinkers, aren’t they?

   
   
10. on September 27, 2009 at 8:36 pm JJ

    I posted a reply to “crstarlette” whoever that is, on her new blog, but it did not appear — and I figured I cared more about here anyway:

    “What are you, twelve? You barely have one child old enough to begin “homeschooling” and you quote HSLDA as the source of hs law, and you want to talk to me about what I’ve learned the hard, hard way, about religion and schooling and the exploitation of children. Grow up, spend 15 years getting a clue and then you can scold those of us 20 years older than you are and with long painful experience in schools and churches (and the Republican Party of the South) about our assumptions. . .
    JJ Ross, Ed.D.”

    
    
11. on September 27, 2009 at 8:37 pm crstarlette

    These much younger children are unfortunately being taught, or deciding on their own and being allowed, to hate people who are still alive and have feelings. If it weren’t clear to you that this is worse, you wouldn’t have considered it a good reply.

    
    
12. on September 27, 2009 at 8:45 pm JJ

    That’s ridiculous.

    
    
13. on September 27, 2009 at 8:57 pm JJ

    Lynn, did you see this? — along the lines of how kids exploit each other with the help of the insulated and entrenched:

    The whole New York Times Sunday magazine today is about various individual “identity” issues with education, from family background to sexual orientation. (Don’t miss the cover story, Coming Out in Middle School.)

    
    
14. on September 27, 2009 at 9:20 pm JJ

    Hmmm – so I’ve been censored at the new blog and she came to our blog on an unrelated thread to scold me again (like Monty Python, I shall taunt you a second time!) lol

    Just to keep the record straight for Lynn (since she started this) here is what’s been wrought –

    “I think blogs are for sharing ideas, not hate. It is unfortunate that in your old age you have decided to waste your time hating people who are different from you, and in their differences may just be wrong. It doesn’t matter what you may or may not have gone through with religious people. It is never okay to make assumptions about people and then make fun of them based on those assumptions. Furthermore, if you have found a good reason why you should do so, you may post THAT on my blog, not defensive hatred.”

    
    
15. on September 27, 2009 at 9:26 pm crstarlette

    It is unfortunate that you think homeschoolers with young children are not real homeschoolers as you implied with your cute quotation marks.

    Being older than someone does not make a person wiser, more experienced, or more knowledgeable than them. Everyone gets to age, even people who haven’t learned anything. Why bother to reply if you have nothing worthwhile to say, just random insults?

    
    
16. on September 27, 2009 at 9:34 pm Lynn

    Thanks for the link, JJ. Even for my (straight) son, “middle school (was) more survival than learning”; I can’t imagine what it must be like for a gay tween. I’m only on page 2, but, so far, I’m impressed with these really brave kids. Their pain is so unnecessary; it wouldn’t even be an issue if shaming homosexuals wasn’t Priority One for religious conservatives.

    By the way, I was thinking along the same lines as you about the value of time spent in the trenches of homeschooling alongside fundamentalist culture warriors. “Foot soldiers”: It’s that damn dog whistle, again, isn’t it? ;)

    
    
17. on September 27, 2009 at 10:04 pm Lynn

    JJ:
    

    Just to keep the record straight for Lynn (since she started this)

    Wha?? This is my fault?? ROFL :)

    
    
18. on September 27, 2009 at 11:24 pm Lynn

    JJ:

    …how kids exploit each other with the help of the insulated and entrenched

    Yes, the article’s mention of “Day of Silence” immediately reminded me of “Day of Truth,” the conservative Christian response to this blatant display of “homosexual activism.” As I recall, “Truth” *children* (pls excuse my cute asterisks added for emphasis) go to school refusing to participate in silence; insisting, instead, on talking “truthfully” about homosexuality… Their message is, basically, the same as that in the t-shirts above, but re-stated in a nicer way. And, it’s *their* message, I’m pretty sure — not the one scripted by their parents and youth pastors (ahem).

    Btw, this year, “Day of Truth” will be observed on April 20th, which also coincides with Hitler’s Birthday and National Pot Smokers Day! (Did you know that “420,” in drug parlance, is a term signifying the time to light up a joint? It’s true. I can’t get into why I know this, but I do!)

    .
    

    
    
19. on September 28, 2009 at 4:43 am Nance Confer

    Hey, maybe a little pot will help these Crusaders remove the giant sticks from their asses.

    Or at least not care enough to spend their time harassing the innocent.

    Nance

    
    
20. on September 28, 2009 at 4:44 am Nance Confer

    Everything is always your fault, JJ. Didn’t you notice? :)

    Nance

    
    
21. on September 28, 2009 at 4:54 am Nance Confer

    CRS –

    Chill out. Really.

    Being in our 50s doesn’t really make us old. It may seem that way from your perspective but you’ll get here soon enough.

    As you continue hsing, you will come across all sorts of strange politics and stranger bedfellows.

    After a decade or two of thinking about all the things you encounter, you may (or may not) modify your views. But there’s no sense wasting energy on being upset with us now.

    Have a great day with your kids! :)

    Nance

    
    
22. on September 28, 2009 at 6:10 am JJ

    Last year’s back-to-school magazine focused on higher education, more “teacher” than “student” stories. For example the hard-knocks rigidity John McCain was taught at Annapolis:

    . . .the call to duty and obedience, the ancient principles and the shining absolutes. . .The real action at the Naval Academy involved the endurance and infliction of suffering. Upperclassmen were permitted, indeed encouraged, to subject plebes to a campaign of bullying, brutality and psychological terror.

    . . . contrasted in another story with how law professor Barack Obama taught and thought:

    Escuder was impressed by his teacher’s ability to see both sides of an argument [and] saw his professor as “a street smart academic” . . .Obama’s rootedness in the real world shaped every aspect of his teaching. . .
    “That class was a catalyst to examine biases you might have developed throughout your own life. . .”

    I vividly remember reading that issue cover to cover; one piece in particular captured my view of real teaching and learning, at home or school or church, at any age — you could call it the ethically perfect opposite of exploitation:

    Teaching is about being what people are now prone to call “counterintuitive” but to the teacher means simply being honest.
    . . .The high-school teacher, struck by his kids’ conformity, performs an experiment. He sends the hippest guy in the class off on an errand and while he’s gone draws pairs of lines on the board, some equal, some unequal. When the hip kid comes back, the teacher asks the class, who are in on the game, which lines are the same length and which are different and, as they’ve been instructed, they answer the wrong way.

    They’re surprised at how often the cool kid disobeys the evidence of his own eyes and goes along with the pack. A few hours later, at home, they’re surprised at how good they were at fooling their friend and how much pleasure they took in making him the butt of the experiment.

    From the standard vantage point, these gambits can look like pointlessly off-beat things to do. But the good teacher knows that they can crack the shell of convention and help people to look at life freshly. The good teacher is sometimes willing to be a little ridiculous: he wears red or green socks so a kid will always have an excuse to start a conversation with him; she bumbles with her purse to make her more maladroit kids feel at ease.

    
    
23. on September 28, 2009 at 6:51 am Nance Confer

    A few hours later, at home, they’re surprised at how good they were at fooling their friend and how much pleasure they took in making him the butt of the experiment.

    ********

    And did they learn not to do that or was this encouragement to take advantage of others?

    Nance

    
    
24. on September 28, 2009 at 7:14 am JJ

    An excellent question! Depends on the individual, maybe mostly on what each has been taught are the important American and family values — seems to me the universal Golden Rule we all learned at home, church and school, e.g., is more like the pirate’s code for Captain Jack Sparrow these days: just guidelines. :(

    
    
25. on September 28, 2009 at 7:29 am JJ

    Hat tip COD for this new Salon article online, “Confessions of a Home-schooler.” Note this young dad though a writer, is so new to hsing he hasn’t even learned not to hyphenate it yet! ;-)

    We aren’t Bible-thumping Christians or off-the-grid hippies, and we definitely don’t feel isolated. You certainly encounter both of those groups in the home-school universe, a fascinating realm in which social dissidents from the left and right margins of society struggle to communicate and coexist. But home schooling has become a broad and diverse phenomenon found at all socioeconomic levels and in all regions of the country, and it can’t be summarized with easy demographic labels.

    At the time of the 1970 census, there were a reported 15,000 home-schoolers in the entire United States, nearly all of them presumed to be members of religious minorities who objected to the contents or method of public education. By 2007, the Department of Education estimated that there were 1.5 million home-schooled children in the country — almost 3 percent of the school-age population — but admitted that the real number was likely higher. Furthermore, in the same DOE survey, only 36 percent of home schooling parents picked a desire to provide “religious and moral instruction” as the No. 1 reason for their decision.

    Now, I suspect that response fails to capture the full extent of faith-driven home schooling, but it does suggest that the phenomenon is more complicated than many people suppose. A rough but reasonable guess might be that one-quarter to one-third of home-schoolers — say, 450,000 school-age kids — come from more or less secular backgrounds, and that proportion is probably growing. Just as important, not every home-schooler who happens to be religious is home schooling solely or primarily for religious reasons. There’s a vibrant African-American home schooling scene, for instance, and while a lot of the folks involved are Christians, many say their top concern is the destructive culture they see in public school.

    
    
26. on September 28, 2009 at 8:23 am COD

    For the record, I picked up the Salon link from Lost Cherrios Twitter feed. http://twitter.com/lostcheerio

    
    
27. on September 28, 2009 at 8:49 am JJ

    Meming of Life wisdom about schooling religion as pro-freedom education rather than anti-freedom indoctrination:

    Religious parents can take advantage of whatever religious education is offered at church but have the detriment of a single, limiting point of view. Nonreligious parents reverse the polarity—the responsibility for the religious education of their children is primarily theirs, but unhindered by an organized doctrinal system, we have a greater opportunity to bring multiple perspectives to bear.

    And we must. Children who are ignorant of the elements of religion will be easy targets for religious zealotry and will be hobbled in their own free decisionmaking.

    Ignorance is impotence. Knowledge is power.

    
    
28. on September 28, 2009 at 1:38 pm NanceConfer

    I dunno. I get uncomfortable with the insistence that we need to acknowledge, and teach our children, that different religious perspectives are (equally?) valid. Or is it supposed to be that different perspectives toward religion are valid? How about a heavy dose of science for the first twenty years. Then let’s see how susceptible the kids are to religious zealots.

    Nance

    
    
29. on September 28, 2009 at 2:14 pm JJ

    I think of it more like teaching about the different cultures and customs (including slavery and war) that people have believed in and perpetuated in different cultures and times. You don’t teach kids to accept any of those beliefs much less all of those beliefs, by teaching that other people believed it.

    
    
30. on September 28, 2009 at 2:16 pm JJ

    Unless you do privilege one over all the rest. Or maybe it’s more like teaching different schools of philosophy?

    
    
31. on September 28, 2009 at 2:18 pm Lynn

    I recently glanced over the comparative religious history section in my daughter’s 6th grade social science text and liked that the subject matter is treated responsibly. As long as the teacher behaves himself, I’m happy it’s there. I’m most concerned about “Bible Curriculum” (that has been in Texas news lately), which is a complete farce, masquerading as a remedy to religious illiteracy. I’ve even blogged about it before.

    
    
32. on September 28, 2009 at 2:23 pm JJ

    I can “give testimony” that it’s also possible to entirely unschool comparative religion to a very high level, even if you don’t know much about it yourself. See Favorite Daughter. ;-)

    
    
33. on September 28, 2009 at 2:24 pm JJ

    Of course she “came out” as a self-proclaimed atheist right after she started learning about all the religions. Not the school system’s learning objective, no doubt! I think she was 14 or 15. Now she is applying to start a chapter of the Secular Student Alliance at her university . . .

    
    
34. on September 28, 2009 at 2:29 pm Lynn

    JJ,

    Yes, how could one make sense of slavery and war without considering religious motives? :)

    
    
35. on September 28, 2009 at 2:41 pm Lynn

    JJ: “I can “give testimony” that it’s also possible to entirely unschool comparative religion to a very high level”

    Yes, your daughter is a brilliant thinker. :)

    So far, at my daughter’s school, the work has been shockingly simple. I planned to supplement anyway, but, I’ve got my work cut out for me. Plus, I didn’t factor in how exhausted she’d be at the end of the day (as Nance was saying, too). :(

    Gotta go. I drive afternoon carpool, don’tcha know :P

    
    
36. on September 28, 2009 at 3:01 pm JJ

    Sounds like she isn’t the only one who is getting worn down a bit by School. The schedule just blots out the sun, doesn’t it?