Friday, October 08, 2004

Homosexual advocacy disguised as education: "A new same-sex marriage curriculum for high schools is running into scholarly opposition from three authors led by noted sexual orientation researcher Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D. Warren Throckmorton, Gary Welton, Ph.D. and student Mike Ingram wrote a white paper that examines the curriculum produced by The Gay Lesbian Straight Educational Network (GLSEN) entitled "At Issue: Marriage. Exploring the Debate Over Rights for Same Sex Marriage.... The white paper found ...."The curriculum would more aptly be titled 'How to Advocate for Gay Marriage: A Teachers Guide.' The curriculum clearly points students to one conclusion: A truly fair and educated person will support same sex marriage... The white paper recommends that schools pass on adopting the GLSEN curriculum.






TIRED TEACHERS

Buck-passing: Stuff kids should have learnt in Grade School does not get taught in High School either


"Three-quarters of high school seniors never get writing assignments in history or social studies, according to a 2003 report. Even in their English classes, many students only get short writing assignments. A few weeks before Rachel Vosika graduated this year from Pacific High School in San Bernardino, she worked on the biggest research paper she'd ever been assigned - a three-page biography of Virginia Woolf. She needed at least four sources, all of which could be from the Internet.

The effects of this trend show up in college classes. Fewer than half of students turn in papers relatively free of language errors, according to a 2002 survey of professors at California's public colleges and universities. Jim Cataneso could see that coming. His students' research papers got so bad that about seven years ago he, too, stopped assigning them. "I don't have time to get through the grammar, punctuation, spelling," said Cataneso, a history teacher at Apple Valley High School. "The frustration level for me was too much of a burnout."

While most history teachers value student research papers, three out of five never assign any longer than 3,000 words (about 11 double-spaced pages), according to a 2002 study sponsored by the Concord Review. John Fitzsimmons, who teaches U.S. History at Carter High School in Rialto, is one who does. "They're going to be doing it in college, plain and simple," he explained. But Fitzsimmons has an advantage over other teachers - a speed reader, he can grade a 10- to 15-page paper in about 15 minutes. Plus, he doesn't fix spelling and commas. "I teach history, not English," Fitzsimmons said. "I just don't have time to correct grammar and English. I just go through and mark factual areas and the big ideas."

Jennifer Norton has to correct grammar - she's an English teacher at Kaiser High School in Fontana. So she assigns shorter papers - none longer than three or four pages. Grading longer papers from each of her 175 students would be impossible".

More here. (Via Joanne Jacobs).





POLITICS MAJOR STILL IGNORANT OF THE BASICS

"I regret that I am now unable to intelligently analyze what these election results mean for Germany, the EU, and the European right wing in general.

That said, I would like to consider why a student majoring in politics at an American college could have graduated said program without any knowledge of the European political climate other than : "They hate Bush. They oppose the war. They hate the U.S. because we're imperialist bastards and ignore the U.N."

Now, your fabulous Flip once took a course that purported to be about Radical Political Theory. One would presume that "radical" would in fact address both political poles, a presumption backed up by the full title of the course and the course description (neither of which will be reproduced here in order to avoid unnecessarily blaming a single professor and/or school for what I see as an institutional problem). A quick look at the course syllabus, however, confirmed that "radical" in fact meant Marxists, Socialists, Communists, and the neo- forms of all the above. When questioned, the professor confirmed that fascism or any far-right extremism would not be covered, and implied that they were irrelevant to our study of political theory and its practice in history.

Now, Flip may be a little dense, but she's not quite sure how a form of extremism that facilitated a world war is historically and theoretically irrelevant, but maybe I'm laboring under a false impression here. Oh, and weren't the Oaklahoma City bombers affiliated with a right-wing militia movement? More false impressions, I guess.

I would like to know why Fascism and the sort of right-wing zealotry that is, apparently, politically and historically irrelevant is largely ignored by the (American) academy as a legitimate topic of study."

More here.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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