A reader writes;
[This] is a scanned copy of a brochure used in one of the Ontario schools to teach ‘Social responsibility’.
It is astonishing how much this resembles indoctrination a subject of which I used to be in the USSR. This brochure bears a sticker with a student’s name and they are told not to take it home.
One of the most horrible chapters is on page 20 – Oswald’s reeducation session. Can we afford to remain silent and do nothing about this? But I don’t know what to do and where to go.
The full pdf is a bit large (8 megs) to offer up on the server, but I’ll make a copy available to those who request one privately.
From the Is our children lurning? file – “And, isn’t it “Macbeth” without the capital B?”
This is really wierd, and I cannot imagine what grade level it is aimed at.
I thought the part where “Oswald” realizes that “humiliation” is actually good for him was very illustrative of where these people are coming from.
So you take prayer and scripture lessons out of the schools.
You deny the Judeo-Christian basis of our moral, ethical and legal systems.
You disdain the great cultural inheritance we get from Western Civilization, and in particular the British Empire.
You undermine the very structure the family, and the role of fatherhood
You abandon the part of the education act that once insisted it was the duty of every teacher to inculcate pupils in morality
You train a generation of teachers in values clarification, where essentially you do what feels right.
You establish school systems devoid of discipline and consequences.
Then in a few years, you find to your shock, that kids in school have no idea about morals, value and virture, and are mistreating each other out of selfishness.
What are you going to do? You are going to create a secular, left wing, religion to replace everything you so carelessly threw away.
badly. Voila! The pamphlet about little Oswald learning why it is so very important to learn to be a prole.
As someone who has a child in the school system now, I am facing this all the time. They are taught topics that should be taught at home or topics that are incomplete or just completely wrong. The new one is “David Suzuki helps to heal the world”. Obviously a young child would not come up with this and when asked he really had no clue what he was saying.
To all the seasoned parents…How do I deprogram my child when he comes home with this obvious blithering nonsense but at the same time ensure that he is not penalized at school by the teachers (I use that term loosely) for not thinking approved thoughts?
Observant @ 2:29 PM: “There are no more “communists” … they prefer to be called “social environmentalists” … and most are found teaching in public schools and universities.”
What about the self-described “social justice” activists? Where do they fit in?
My definition of ‘tolerance’ is
CONSENT TO ABUSE.
I refuse
to be tolerant.
Phantom,
my wife was telling me that now employees are supposed to be very careful about pictures they might have on sites such as Facebook.
On the other hand, it was suggested that a picture of someone in a nice business suit making a “contribution to society” could actually be an employment enhancer.
So I guess now we’ll have a bunch of guys in three-piece suits (charcoal, with a faint white stripe, Windsor knot in the tie, big smile) serving the winos down at a local soup kitchen.
I’ve noticed that BS seems to be reproduced exponentially. Maybe we should have men in Armnai suits doing community service among the unfortunate ladies employed at the Mustang Ranch.
Da Wife:
I know where you come from with your question and feel for you. In a same boat. But if you have to ask how to behave so that your child is not punished by the marxist teachers, you already surrendered.
How about parent/student strike? The teachers go on strike when they don’t get a bone, we should do the same thing.
Seriously, education must be privatized under a federal law, enough paying for something we neither need nor like.
Okay, from a parent who was in the trenches for years, if you’ve got kids in the public system:
* you have to spend as much time as possible with them when they’re not at school. I stayed home, I was Mrs. Volunteer in my community, and I was always home when my kids came home from school. I asked them what they’d learned, I probed, and I corrected.
* you have to have a “family table,” meaning you have to sit down at the dinner table every night with your kids to eat dinner together and to discuss the day’s events.
* you need to be totally aware of what they’re taking at school: what they’re teaching in history, social studies, English, geography, even science and maybe less, math. Go into your kids’ school, volunteer in the classroom, ask to see the curriculum, be very intentional: the Education Act (at least in Ontario) says that it is the right of the parent/s to see the curriculum
* grow thick skin. You’ll be blindsided by many teachers and administrators and treated like a leper. Don’t take it personally!! 😉 See it as a badge of honour that when they see you coming they groan and say, “Oh no! Not HER again.”
* Totally keep in touch with your kids. Be interested in their lives. Take them places. Take them on holidays. Take them to church on Sundays, etc., etc.
The #-1 reason, IMHO, that schools have been able to become so intrusive in our children’s lives is parental neglect, even if it is begign neglect. Too many families/parents have abdicated their responsibilities to their kids, They’ve spent far too little time with their kids. They’ve been too busy with their own adult agendas to keep an eagle eye on what their kids are “learning” in school.
Take back your kids and your responsibility for their education. There’s kidnapping going on right under parents’ eyes. Name it and fight it.
Da Wife, I just read your comment.
There’s a huge cost to pulling your kids out from the under the clutches of the so-called “educational system.” I found it difficult and very discouraging at times, but I was tenacious about not accepting a lot of the things my kids’ teachers were telling them.
My Christian faith really helped me; it strengthened my resolve to stand my ground–and to not back down (my girls always tell me that Tom Petty’s song “I won’t back down” is my theme song!!). I realized that it was far preferable for me to be able to face myself in the mirror every day, knowing that I had shielded my kids from utter socialist crap, than to be liked by all the teachers and the principal at their school. It was difficult to bear the sideways looks of and rejection by some of the “progressive” parents in town (I lived in a small town), but I had to remind myself that they weren’t going to be around when my kids got older and were dealing with an overload of info they were getting at their school which, in the long run, would be of no help to them.
Spending time with my children, “being there” for them 24/7, making my husband’s and my values very clear to them over time–and their father spending a lot of time with them–having family time at the “family table” pretty much every night made a big difference. I’m not the perfect mom. My kids aren’t the perfect kids. BUT, they didn’t fall for a lot of the crap they “learned” in school and my husband and I have a very solid relationship with each one of them.
In other words, we their parents spent more time with them discussing things, than their teachers. Parents have to invest A LOT of time in their kids if they want to counteract much of the garbage the schools are doling out.
Somebody posted a similar article in another thread. This one’s worth a read as well.
The Origins of Political Correctness
http://www.academia.org/lectures/lind1.html
Kate, the reader who sent you this mentioned they didn’t know what to do with this.
If I could shout it from the mountaintops…everyone in Ontario needs to phone and holler at their MLA AND MINISTER OF EDUCATION.
Don’t get stressed; cause stress.
The teachers can’t fix this, nor the principals and the school boards can’t even do much.
None of this will change until people start figuring out they need to complain to the ones in control…and ultimately that is your elected representative.
Until the (elected) provincial reps are feeling the squeeze of public dissatisfaction they will NEVER lean on the Ministry of Ed bureaucrats and things will only continue to “progress”.
It has to trickle down from the top and the public needs to remember who ultimately controls the top.
It’s time for all Kate’s people in Ontario to print off a copy of one of those pages and write a blasting letter or email or pick up the phone.
Your MLA’s & then ultimately the Minister are the only ones who can change this.
I’m serious.
Forget about barking at the peons and go to the top.
One would have to be very foolish to send their children to the leftist atheist indoctrination camps we call public schools. Send your children to a Christian school.
This is just the formal stuff that kids get taught. Imagine what is being taught informally!
>>After reading the whole thing I’ve got to agree with Erik Larsen, teaching civil behaviour is not necessarily harmful and I’m a little torn.
Teaching civil behaviour as part of the curriculum eats away at the role of the family and leaves the door wide open for all kinds of indoctrination.
Pro-social vocabulary development (mentioned at the end) is often innocuous, but lots of times it isn’t.
Schools need to go back to the 3 Rs. And quite frankly if they did, student behaviors would become more “pro-social” because the kids wouldn’t be bored all the time.
Seriously, Ontarians, take this opportunity to contact your MLA and demand to have the 3Rs back.
Leslie, you are only partially correct.
The problem in Ontario is that the school boards are corporations.
As a corporation, the board is uncontrollable by the ministry. The ministry can only set the provincial curriculum, the rest being the board’s domain.
Then, the power of the principals reminds me of feudal Europe: they are kings and judges in their feuds. This nonsense has to be rooted out altogether, otherwise it will find its way back in.
It’s “The Scottish Play”. One by tradition does not ever utter the given name of the play aloud.
Thank you for bringing up this good point Aaron.
The setting of the curriculum is what is causing this whole mess in every province. And, yes, it is the government doing it. I promise you that textbook would not be in Ontario schools if it didn’t meet “curriculum objectives”.
For instance, I took a quick glance in Ontario’s Grade 1-8 Language Arts curriculum and found the money paragraph:
Suddenly, the teacher is either obligated or given free license to bring in the book, “My Two Dads”. And the school board can’t really complain to this unionized professional if they don’t want it and further more, don’t think the bureaucrats aren’t leaning on the superintendent to promote the curricular objectives…namely diversity.
Scroll down to page 29 and read the “AntiDiscrimination Education” portion of the Ontario Language Arts Curriculum.
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf
The government set that.
Here is the web page where Ontarians can read the curriculum for all subjects. Parents it’s really worth wading through. It stinks. But it’s is a tremendously important read.
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teachers/curriculum.html
Click on elementary curriculum or secondary curriculum.
Like I’ve been saying for years. This Country under PET became a Soviet State. Its now come to fruitarian. In Ontario at least, the epi-center of the Personality cult. In every institution but especially academia & education. The HRC’s are manifestations’ of this Federal drive to change us against all facts of human nature. By introducing a competing system with no democratic wards. This has been repeated at the provincial level as well for conformity. I can foresee a day the public system is gone over these stupidities like this & adding the gay agenda to education. By a mad electorate who see’s an entity that instead of being an asset to their children’s future. Have become parasitical propaganda mills that keep people down while promoting an hereditary elite.. Its more than a catastrophe, its suicide.
Aaron, it is exactly the curriculum that is the problem. I had a longer comment but it disappeared.
You are right. The government sets it. The government has done this to us.
Attn: Don Uthole…
I’m would be more concerned with what is taught in a so-called Christian school informally…not what is taught formally in the Public system….in the system you speak of…the formal and the informal “sont la meme chose!!”….
Hey you guys all have a choice. Homeschool your kids and STFU.
Next problem please.
I was reading what my kids school workbook said about the UN the other day. Basically It said that because there are so many dictatorships as members it can’t really work very well. Private school has it’s merits.
Leslie writes: “Teaching civil behaviour as part of the curriculum eats away at the role of the family and leaves the door wide open for all kinds of indoctrination.”
Much depends on how one goes about it. Civil behaviour, respect for persons, open-mindedness (not empty-mindedness), rationality, and a number of other virtues are *essential* to the whole idea of education (as opposed to training). That means, among other things, that some things that are quite common and legal in our society — e.g. abusive language, ad hominem arguments, and many other treasured features of internet comment boxes — are out of place in an educational setting. Unfortunately, too many educators don’t really understand those virtues and either end up pushing the soft indoctrination into “what everybody thinks” or buy into a variety of behavioural modification programmes just so they can get through the day.
We can teach things and we can train people using a variety of anti-educational methods — it works in dog obedience classes and, perhaps to a lesser extent, it works with children. But without mutual respect, civil behaviour and discourse, insistence on logical argument and attention to evidence, and open-minded, critical, and dispassionate analysis, amongst other things, we cannot and do not *educate*.
This pamphlet, however, tends to fall rather into a long tradition of educators to try to use schools to create the kinds of citizens they want to see, marginalize those who disagree, and use children to “reform” their parents. It takes some ugly forms today, but it has been part of public education since its beginnings in Canada in the 1800s.
Roseberry,
Generally I would agree with you. I used the “civil behaviour” phrase because Erik did, I think the textbooks label “pro-social” values is more accurate. However my main problem with whatever it’s called isn’t so much the concept itself, but the act of entrenching it in the curriculum. Once it is entrenched in the curriculum it is subject to assessment and once it becomes a matter for inspection, the focus suddenly becomes whether or not one is civil enough.
You said, “This pamphlet, however, tends to fall rather into a long tradition of educators to try to use schools to create the kinds of citizens they want to see, marginalize those who disagree, and use children to “reform” their parents.”
That’s what happens when pro-social values as defined by the government, are entrenched in the government curriculum.
A curriculum that focuses on the 3Rs avoids a lot of that.
In a nutshell, parental vigilance and intentional and frequent time spent with their children is the only effective antidote to this kind of social engineering which is rife in the public system.
Teachers no longer have time to actually teach the basics, they’re spending so much time being “quasi” or surrogate parents and “teaching” their little pagan barbarians civil behaviour. Ironically, the more the ed system talks about respect for all and foists anti-bullying programs on students, my observation has been that students show more disrespectful and bullying behaviour. Go figure.
Teachers are teachers. They are NOT surrogate parents, social workers, psychologists, nurses, paramedics, or pastors … please be my guest to add to the farcical list. The teacher’s union should be addressing all of these issues–but, of course, all they’re interested in is perks and benefits for teachers … nothing about working conditions or what constitutes reasonable expectations from the Ministry, admin and too many negligent parents.
Oy vey, aka, Lord, have mercy …
Homeschooling actually saves a lot of time and most important stress. It allows to simply teach instead of correcting the wrongs and filling the gaps (which need to be identified first which takes a lot of time).
What I am finding from the two boys who now attend two different schools in Ontario is that the principals love to ban things natural to children of their age (at least one principal is head over hills with the bans of all nature).
Not allowed to walk on snow in winter…
Need a pass to go to washroom, another pass for the office, another pass for a library… Papieren!
Talking in the halls is banned, because the breaks are at different times for different classes. Nuts!
There is no time allocated for the breaks, they must move between the classrooms in 1 minute. They are always late and always reprimanded. The next teacher does not care if the previous delayed the class – reprimand is imminent.
The most often used punishment is staying inside for a nutrition break, which leaves students tired as hell w/o fresh air and change of activity, which in turn causes dullness and irritation.
The bullies are never punished, in 99% cases bullying is ignored. Complaints about bullying fall on death ear and are met with hostility – no fact of bullying must be ever recorded to keep statistics clean. On the contrary, defending self against a bully is guaranteed to receive harsh punishment.
I can go on forever.
Could you send me a copy too,pleae?
This is an interesting pamphlet. Our daughters were encouraged to show ‘social responsibility’, but this stemmed from our faith and the attitude that ‘to whom much is given, from him much is expected’. We made it very clear that the talents the girls were given were not to be used for purely selfish purposes. But these were family values, not harnessed for the good of the state.
Respect, etc., should not be subjects; they should be evident in the teacher’s behaviour to all pupils and in what he/she allows as behaviour in his/her presence. Teachers: stick to teaching the basics, but do it competently, fairly, compassionately, and with the high standards that show you truly care for all your students, no matter how unloveable (and no matter how miserable the parent).
Let’s see. MacBeth doesn’t pass small, dead-minded muster, but It is astonishing how much this resembles indoctrination a subject of which I used to be in the USSR. does?
Uh… Manny. English is the second language of the Russian person who posted the thing, vs. proof-read educational literature produced for the Ontario school system.
You’re so -tolerant- Manny. You got an A on this booklet I bet.
I don’t blame the fellow for missing the B. Shakespeare was never the favourite topic of the Soviet schools, plus capitalization is quite different in the Cyrillic languages.
You’re so -tolerant- Manny.
Right you are, phantom. My tolerance for right-wing retards is absolute zero.
manny, do you happen to work for any school board?
ADD = Attention Deficit Disorder
Lack of attention from parents … as usual, we medicalize a social problem so that the “grownups” don’t feel guilty or offended.