|
A few months ago I wrote of a
study that found nearly half of American parents consider
“negative societal influences” their biggest challenge. That boat’s
big enough to haul pretty much anything you choose; I happened to
toss in a passing reference to school curricula promoting
“everything from open sexuality to ‘alternative lifestyles.’”
This got me heaved overboard by a few public school
teachers who alternately accused me of gay bashing and denied their
schools taught any such thing, but I was a homophobe for thinking it
would be bad if they did, which they didn’t, although it would be a
good idea, even though they don’t. Or something like that.
For the record, if you don’t like what your kids hear in
school, don’t bug the teachers. Most have little say in the
matter. I have heard from others who get more than a bit oinked off
at having gone through four or more years of college to parrot some
of the material that has been foisted upon them.
This February, Zogby International released two new
polls on parental attitudes toward education. In the first,
commissioned by the American Family Association of Michigan, 71
percent
opposed sex education programs
that compare homosexual relationships favorably to
heterosexual relationships and marriage. The second survey, done
for the Coalition for Adolescent Sexual Health, discovered as many
as 75 percent
dislike school condom training
and that about the same proportion favor abstinence education.
The latter
poll also dredged up what may be my favorite statistic of all time:
A mere 46 percent of parents oppose teaching high school students
how to get contraceptives without parental consent – unless their
kid is in the class. Then the negatives jump to 70 percent.
This
suggests that the way to end these debates might be to forbid anyone
from setting school curricula their own child won’t be required to
take. We’d be back to the three R’s before you could say “writing
and arithmetic don’t begin with R.”
Despite the
struggle some schools have meeting basic academic standards,
diverting time and resources to lifestyle education continues in the
name of tolerance. The problem with “tolerance” is that it has come
to mean acceptance, just as the teachers who blasted my earlier
column thought I used “alternate lifestyles” as code for
homosexuality because their curricula does. It is a symptom of the
fact that many folks are no longer able to directly say what they
mean, assuming they even know after a lifetime of scholastic
doublespeak.
Try this for
direct: What’s wrong with simple
civility? How about teaching kids that it’s socially
acceptable not to hassle or beat the stuffing out of everyone with
whom they disagree. Or go nuts and tell them that it’s OK to just
leave people alone. Or make like Mother Teresa and suggest they can
catch more flies with honey than a flyswatter, and leave them in
better shape to boot. In place of mindless, knee-jerk tolerance of
anything and everything, why not teach the ancient arts of critical
thought and civil debate, skills that might actually come in handy?
I’d like to
see a poll on what parents want rather than what they don’t. My
guess is that 95 percent of parents from all ethnic and income
groups prefer their kids learn the skills necessary to reason and
find decent employment. Or survey employers; I’d wager precious few
are looking for someone to help put condoms on bananas.
If schools
must teach an alternate lifestyle, my vote is for public manners and
courtesy. Until the kid at the fast food restaurant can make change
for a $20 bill without looking at the cash register, they should
leave the rest to parents. |
