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I would like to add a couple of points. First, if you don't currently have children in school, some of what is being said will seem outrageous. I can tell you from experience, the curriculum being taught has significantly changed from when I was in school. I will provide an example. My 6th grade son is learning about different cultures and forms of government. They recently learned about the Maya, and Inca. Reading his text books, you would have thought that the Maya and Inca were a bunch of hippies sitting around getting stoned, making hempen sandals and listing to alternative music. The ritual sacrifice, forced slavery of conquered tribes, genocide, were all removed. The Spaniards however, were described as maniacal religious zealots, blood thirsty conquerors who raped, pillaged, and destroyed everything they touched. This was so one-sided, that I had to have my son independently research this subject. I was taught in school that the Maya, Inca, and Spaniards were all a bunch of horrible people. We were taught about the atrocities on both sides. The same with the Civil War, again the Southern misdeeds were covered in detail, however the Union burning of southern cities in Virginia, etc, were not covered at all.
My problem is this, when you make one side to be the boogie man, you influence viewpoints. Both sides of the story need to be told, in all the gory details. Much of the true horror of the past is being left out. Our children can't learn from the mistakes of the past, if they are never taught them.
the atrocities by the Spaniards were not actually commited until they learned about the barbaric practices of human sacrifice. If I were the Spanish commander I would have ordered the genocide of all those people as well because those could have been my men had we not had overwhelming technological advantage.
An extinct people cant cry and whine about how its not fair that the Spanish had awesome military tech and that they were unable to cut out their beating hearts. Also when you render the entire cultures exinct you never have to worry about your kids or your kids kids having to deal with these people again.
Sure the Spanish probably went over with the intent of trying to bambozzel them for a little extra gold but I don't think thing turned out how they thought they would.
Just like we are still having to deal with Arab nations only now under a bleeding heart leadership (at least until a few days ago), that is extremely dangerous for the people that are working hard to keep an upper hand over their enemys when our leaders keep giving stuff away.
Just because you exist on a piece of land gives you no rights to it if you cant keep it militarily. Those rights are artificial given to our enemys by weak leadership that is selling us out.
I think that current events should be taught separately from history. History courses should give a solid foundation about how we as a nation got to where we are. Yes, that's Amero-centric but too bad.
I think that is mostly true BUT we have far too many courses already whether college or even high school already.
For high school, we need three years of science,; three years of history (both US AND World)); one year of government and economics; at least three years of math (one year of algebra is optional); one to three year of foreign language (depending on the state and degree option) and several electives. I've lived in one state as a student, and work in another as an educator and these are big limiting factors. In the district I work in, it's set by six, one-hour blocks for the state, while in the district I went to school in it was nine, 40 minute blocks BUT we also see double periods (especially for science.) For the district I work for, it is five out of the six right there, before learning job skills for about three years. For the district I went to, it was six to seven of the nine periods right there (seven-eight if you include lunch) for up to three years. There's far too much to squeeze it in unless states drop and swap requirements.
For college, it's wide open but available in many schools whether community college or university. The issue lies that for most degree paths, there is no way to really shoe-horn current affairs/events as a mandatory course.
Now, don't get me wrong, they ARE important, but I'd argue that there is already too much on a student's plate educationally to truly worry about a separate
I would like to add a couple of points. First, if you don't currently have children in school, some of what is being said will seem outrageous. I can tell you from experience, the curriculum being taught has significantly changed from when I was in school. I will provide an example. My 6th grade son is learning about different cultures and forms of government. They recently learned about the Maya, and Inca. Reading his text books, you would have thought that the Maya and Inca were a bunch of hippies sitting around getting stoned, making hempen sandals and listing to alternative music. The ritual sacrifice, forced slavery of conquered tribes, genocide, were all removed. The Spaniards however, were described as maniacal religious zealots, blood thirsty conquerors who raped, pillaged, and destroyed everything they touched. This was so one-sided, that I had to have my son independently research this subject. I was taught in school that the Maya, Inca, and Spaniards were all a bunch of horrible people. We were taught about the atrocities on both sides. The same with the Civil War, again the Southern misdeeds were covered in detail, however the Union burning of southern cities in Virginia, etc, were not covered at all.
My problem is this, when you make one side to be the boogie man, you influence viewpoints. Both sides of the story need to be told, in all the gory details. Much of the true horror of the past is being left out. Our children can't learn from the mistakes of the past, if they are never taught them.
Most of this plays into the time constraint in a previous post. You are given 180 days of 40-60 minutes of teaching this in high school or 48 days of 50-75 minutes of lecture in college. That isn't enough time to give the full picture on 150 to 200 years of complex history that we can barely give the one side to, let alone both or all sides. We are lucky we talk about the World War 2 Japanese hysteria and the Vietnam protests in history and not just the wars (let's face it Vietnam and Iraqi freedom, aren't the only two wars to have opposition, just the most famous two...)
Would someone please explain to me how teaching a student in Algebra I could possibly indoctrinate a student?
Could someone please explain to me how teaching a chemistry student about the steps needed to perform a stoichiometry problem could possibly influence a student's religious beliefs?
Could someone please explain to me how a health science teacher performing a lesson on the gastrointestinal system could affect a student's political stance?
Could someone please explain to me how an English teacher could threaten a student's moral beliefs by having them read Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"?
The only possible place in which a teacher could have any potential influence or indoctrinate a student is in a History or Political Science class. And 95%+ of the students have close to zero interest in either of these topics. (BTW, I'm a 21+ year veteran of teaching science in public high schools).
Indoctrination is too often used by ignorant people to describe something being taught that they disagree with, without having any clue as to why they do.
Dear Starman,
Wonderfully spoken for an indoctrinator! Is your head in the stars?
I am sure anyone on here have seen this claim that Schools indoctrinate students for a while now. My two questions are why do people claim that and how do these schools that are alleged to do it, do it? I've seen this claim yet do not get proof behind this claim.
School has a few functions.
1 education, people need some.
2 sorting machine, or filter to help find the clever kids and ditch diggers.
3 To break the spirit of children, to crush their dreams, to train them to work endlessly with no rewards in sight.
4 did i mention schools are designed to crush the very souls of children. From the first day children are forced to stand in line after line many times a day for no reason other than to train the kids to do as they are told, to make them unquestioning and to make them compliant
"Indoctrinate" is a weasel-word most commonly used by people who wish to raise a commotion where none is actually warranted.
As often as not in such usage, 'Indoctrination!' means 'I disagree!'. Well, la-de-da. We're a country of 300+ million people. No one is going to be entirely happy with anything. That's what happens in civic institutions comprised of large numbers of people.
Ironically, the 'Indoctrination!' types are also generally of the same group that wants the Ten Commandments posted on classroom walls, organized prayer in schools, and repetitive rote vows of fealty recited every morning before a flag.
2 sorting machine, or filter to help find the clever kids and ditch diggers.
3 To break the spirit of children, to crush their dreams, to train them to work endlessly with no rewards in sight.
4 did i mention schools are designed to crush the very souls of children. From the first day children are forced to stand in line after line many times a day for no reason other than to train the kids to do as they are told, to make them unquestioning and to make them compliant
All I got to say in response is really? This is as crazy as the individual snowflake garbage told the first days of school.
In my experience the people who claim schools are indoctrinating students are upset by one of two things:
1) their pet issue does NOT get discussed or not in the depth they think it should. Examples from this and other C-D threads: investing/personal finance, welding, plumbing or some other vocational trade (without asking where the money comes for such a thing), some aspect of (usually Protestant) Christianity, how the federal reserve is destroying the world, violence of certain pre-Columbian Meso-American civilzations, are all things that schools DO NOT talk about enough.
2) The school DOES discuss whatever the person's bugbear is. So far, I've seen feminism, climate change/environmental issues, Democratic politics, school budget issues, LGBT issues, "new math," among other things revealed as the bugbears of people on this thread.
That teachers or professors have bias is a given. If you became a teacher, you'd have a bias too. The only thing I think is unfortunate about that is if the student leaves school without being able to acknowledge & evaluate said bias.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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All education is indoctrination. Moral norms and normal perspectives are the beliefs of the majority. What people mean is non traditional views that many people disagree with are being taught to students.
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