I'm SO unworthy!

U Minn group knows how to deal with diversity.. stamp the fucker out!
Reeducation camps to re educate future re-educators, maybe?
Tell ya what, though.. I continually 're educate myself' and I'm one step ahead, I guess.
I'll be glad to post my own biases and bigotries, then you all can reeducate me.. you know like Mao's Cadres usedta do!

 

Re: RE: I

Well, that's a start, pick one and re-educate me!

'course you have to out YOURS if you elect to do that...

 

Thanks for actually CONTRIBUTING on the issue, Spencer.

As anyone who thinks about this knows, it's one thing to gather in a diverse group and share your background and biases.. that's a good thing.
It's another to formalize it, make it a part of the curriculum and hand out 'grades' on it.

The answer is to shine a light on this sort of nonsense and push back.

 

Ok, here's my unsolicited opinion.

First, without a link to read the actual policy, and a little too much on my plate to do so in any event, I am going to assume that this University's policy is not nearly as strident as it is made out to be by this reporter. Possibly wrongly, but I will assume it anyway.

I found one of the comments interesting -- an educator claims that this has been the de facto case since 1945. I can say, as a conservative in education, that I have got the occasional pushback for some of my less-government-is-more views, but it's nothing that I wouldn't expect to hear from people that disagree with me. If you have character and intelligence, it's nothing that cannot be overcome.

The most interesting debate I had was in an adolescent lit class, and the topic of book banning came up. Now, to listen to some authors speak, they have a right to put anything at all on any shelf they want; this includes some school libraries. Well, no. One of the 100 most banned books for 2006, according to some notes I have from this class, is Private Parts, by Howard Stern. Some books by usual targets like Judy Blume, Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, etc, are also on this list.

As far as Howard Stern's book is concerned, go ahead and try to get this one in your local high school and not raise a stink. Come on! Can't our kids find out about naked lesbians they way that we all have done it, on the street corner?

Some authors made the point that it isn't an all-at-once book banning that happens, but a more insidious (to use their word) form of censorship that happens, where their book is not featured as prominently as they say it should. In other words, a book like The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, which is the tale of a heavyset teenaged girl who discovers romance, kissing, and soemwhat graphic foreplay, is not kept in the teen section of a bookstore, but moved to the adult section. A fairly popular graphic novel, Skim, by Mariko and Jilian Tamaki, features a teenaged girl who is in an inappropriate lesbian relationship with one of her teachers. No one is saying you can't write or print these kind of themes. But are you going to get them in the adolescent lit section of your local Borders? Maybe not -- to the adult section for you.

I submit this is not a particularly horrible fate -- your audience will have to walk from one part of the store to the next, or may have to go to the local city library rather than the school library. If you don't like that, or if your audience doesn't want to do that, then too bad. Everyone has a degree of professional pushback in their careers. Why should writers be any different.

These are relatively easy points for a conservative in education to make. Similar points on the global economy and mindful stewardship of resources should be just as easy for a Democrat to make in business, as long as you have the courage of your convictions to make a coherent argument.

So I don't totally hijack this thread, I would see no reason why I could not have gone through this Univ's program and had no problems with my opinions. Believe me when I say that Cleveland State University's college of Education has a more liberal ethos than what I subscribe to. Yet, here I am, almost done with the durn thing.

 

Steve, the problem is that not all students have a well rounded attitude as to, want of a better term, Meaning of Life.

I'm sure you've recognized there are a diversity of personality types in higher education: leaders and followers; and not all of them exercise critical thought processes. Know anyone particularly adept at rote recall? They get good grades, right? How are they in 'not written/spoken analysis?

And, if Don has no problem with spirited debate on the subject, perhaps he wont mind me posting a link to a blog site that does have a problem with a guy appointed to 'keep schools safe'.
Warning: This is probably Not Safe for Work.

Now NOTE that these examples are NOT especially promoted by the group for school libraries, but not excluded either. ARE advocated for reading lists from school classes.

Nowhere in any of the stuff I've read on the subject {and this is by far NOT the first I've heard of this} is the actual findings of earlier papers that homosexuality is NOT a 'normal' condition in either the human or animal kingdoms. 'Always has been, always will' is not the same thing as normal.

And note, the idea which we all know, or at least generally accept: Abuse leads to abusers.

So, the question being 'Okay for Me but not for thee' comes up.. I think I could have dealt with it, my exposure to gays and molesters was gradual, and I generally accepted that these guys existed. But I didnt need more than what I got from background noise to know that.

I ALSO saw, first hand, merciless teasing bordering on bullying of an obvious gay. By that I mean he came to school dressed bizarrely, and had pronounced prance and lisp.

Now... who exposed him to this! Even in the mind of the fifties era eighth grader 'bullies', the answer was obvious: His Mother.

 

you made me read pornography 'Fog, I will never forgive you

 

The headline:
Breaking: Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Is Promoting Child Porn in the Classroom– Kevin Jennings and the GLSEN Reading List

Who appointed him, Don?
That's about ALL the 'bashing' there is.
But.. while were talking about this;;
On -probably- whose advice Don?
Oh.. wait.. just like Alinsky and he were not trading notes, neither does Ayers have anything to do with.. just a guy who lives in the hood.

Did I mention that Jen nings book was endorsed by the founder of National Association for Man-Boy Love Advocacy?

More critical thinking from Don.
DO YOU HAVE A VIEW ON THE ISSUE?
- - - - - --
I didnt tell you to vote for Carter, I didnt tell you to invest your adult political ideals in that crowd. I'm sorry your world view is turning to crap, but I didnt cause it.
Lump it!
- - - -- - - -
Sorry Mo. That's what NSFW means!
OF course it's alright for 'unsettled' junior high and high school kids, though

 

I'm going to point out once again the original post... as well as the one about Jennings...
WTF is it determines what's appropriate if not parents.

And WTF are you to tell us what kids should or should not see, OR that you trust the sages of academia, of which Jennings is one, to teach student librarians. In just what way is yours any different that the strident book-banners?

So... I got your drift .. your drift is 'TRUST US' we are the trained elite intellectual experts you are just parents.

Yeah right... you got your right to your view, though you sure have a tendency to try to deflect.

Your view is wrong.

FURTHER...Jennings is a pedo supporter, he was appointed by Obama. That's the extent of that 'Obama bashing' you refer to.
Now run off and pout again.