Lilah ,'Not Fade Away'
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risque (and frisque), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
However, in "The Queer Eye Guys have just looked in the Emperor's closet and commented on the lack of clothes in there" land, we have this.
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Abstinence-only sex education programs, a major plank in President Bush's education plan, have had no impact on teenagers' behavior in his home state of Texas, according to a new study
Oh my god. Who can afford to buy into this fucking "ownership society"? I haven't heard the phrase before but it sent chills down my spine.
I'm still partial to another two-word phrase Bush doesn't like "Social contract." He won't know it because, of course, it's about government's responsibility to its citizens.
The lack of instruction and/or contrary to earth logic instruction from their parents on the subject?
Most parents - who were in fact taught this stuff in school - may well be assuming their kids aren't being shortchanged. I made that assumption; Jo was told to ask questions.
Even without the stupidity of much of the current testing, teachers can only teach so much, and most value judgements are learned not in school, but in the home.
Um, I don't think that knowing what the Bill of Rights covers is a value judgment, do you? They weren't questioning, for instance, whether the kids thought burning a flag was right or wrong; they were asking these kids whether the kids thought it was legal.
And the kids mostly didn't know.
I was taught that stuff back in junior high school. I was also taught about Dred Scott and related things at the same age, in an American junior high school. Not value judgments: history and social studies.
Um, I don't think that knowing what the Bill of Rights covers is a value judgment, do you? They weren't questioning, for instance, whether the kids thought burning a flag was right or wrong; they were asking these kids whether the kids thought it was legal.
"Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees."
In that case, they're making a value judgement on the text.
I wish I had more experience with regular public schools, so that I could argue the point, but I think what they're not getting is critical thought. From what I read, it seems to be a lot of fact memorization without questioning those facts. I didn't realize that it was odd for a Free Enterprise class to discuss Marxism until I read Lies My Teacher Told Me. Lots of things get glossed over in the attempt to make History and English a sort of "Rah Rah Western Civilization" thing.
Look folks, I'm getting a little defensive here. Please do not assume that kids aren't being taught these things because of one article. Statistics are not to be trusted.
High school students and public schools in general are grossly misrepresented in the media. Yes, there are kids who see things in very black and white terms and who don't understand that flag burning relates in any way to their own freedom of speech. But truly, it is not the norm for history and social studies teachers to not teach the Bill of Rights or critical thinking. That's an anomoly.
Critical thinking is our main focus in English and history. It's what my state test is based on, in fact.
The SAT, which is national, now includes a critical thinking writing piece which it never did before.
No, it's not perfect, but please don't assume it's all gone to shit, either.
"Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees."
The truly frightening part is that they're making this value judgement based on faulty assumptions that the First Amendment is less permissive than it actually is. Imagine what the responses would have been had they known that you can find porn on the internet.
Wow. Someone's not happy that Toto's home. Bastet just scratched him. And he's bleeding. Poor guy. She's never done that before. I mean, she's batted at him, but never actually scratched him.
When I was in high school, I generally was very trusting and innocent. I suspect that if asked at the time, I would have felt that the First Amendment, while important, wasn't truly necessary these days because "everyone know freedom of speech is important."
I know that's not exactly what the article is saying, but I think that it sometimes takes a while for critical thinking to be clearly developed.