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Are We Dumbing Down America? It sounds like the kind of test only a kid would dream up-one who didn't do his homework, that is. It's one that gives more points for wrong answers than for right ones. Believe it or not, such a test does exist. And it symbolizes what's gone wrong with American education. On the California Learning Assessment System Achievement Test, eighth graders were asked how long it would take to plant a certain number of trees following a forest fire. The correct answer, after various factors were calculated, was 10.5 days. Students were then asked to write an essay explaining their answer. One student crunched the numbers and came up with an answer wildly off the mark: 450 days. But the test givers said her essay showed creativity and sensitivity to the environment-and gave her a higher score than students who figured out the correct answer. She literally received an A for attitude. This test is just one more example of the dumbing down of American education. Standardized aptitude tests are another. The SAT has been revised so that students are now allowed to use calculators and take more time than their predecessors did. And the test has been adjusted to reflect the new substandard averages. This means the average student will see about 100 points added to his score. This kind of creative grading may pacify parents and students, but it isn't fooling employers. Businessmen are finding that their new hires often can't do even basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Why is it that the United States, which many consider the most technologically advanced nation in the world, can no longer educate its own children? Charles Sikes has written a book called Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add. Sikes says that the goal of today's educators is often therapeutic rather than mastery of objective knowledge. Teachers, he says, are too concerned with coddling students' self-esteem and teaching them politically correct attitudes. In the process, academic standards are abandoned. Sikes urges teachers to get basic skills and academic standards back into the classroom. I say, "Good advice." The problem is that basics and standards are simply incompatible with the worldview held by most of today's educators. _______________________________________________________ AMERICA CAN NO LONGER EDUCATE ITS OWN CHILDREN. _______________________________________________________ You see American schools of education, where teachers are trained, have been deeply infected with the philosophy called postmodernism. Postmodernism promotes the belief that there is no such thing as objective truth and morality. But if truth is relative, then how can teachers begin to teach subjects like history and science which presuppose objective truth? After all, if morality is relative, how can teachers justify teaching children that some behavior is wrong? The answer is they can't. This is an issue that ought to concern us all because even if we don't have kids in public schools, we all have to live in a culture that these schools are helping to shape. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stop dumbing down America T. J. Bulliard / March 2, 1999 Greetings. Several months ago when I took over as managing editor of The News Banner, one of my goals was to write a regular column discussing topics that not only I find interesting, but ones that will get the thought juices flowing in the readers. While on a recent vacation I saw something along the roadside on a Florida Interstate Highway that sent chills up my spine and made my already high blood pressure reach new heights. But first let me tell you what I was doing there and why. You see, I don't like crowds and thus I'm no lover of Mardi Gras and the hassles it causes us regular working people who simple want to get home in the evenings and enjoy some quality time with our families. True, we don't have alot of it to contend with in West St. Tammany, but it is here and it's hard to escape. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to do away with Mardi Gras, I just don't want to be a part of it. And for that reason, each year when Fat Tuesday draws near, I do as they said in the Old West, I "get out of Dodge" so I don't have to deal with it. This year, as in many years past, I headed down to south Florida when I have friends I've know since I was a freshman in high school. I won't say how long ago that was, but I'll let you do the math and figure it out for yourself, if interested. I graduated good old St. Paul's in 1975 and met Jimbo and his family as a freshman. Now, let's get to what caused my blood pressure to skyrocket. Somewhere around Tallahassee, I pulled over for gas and burger on my way to West Palm Beach, somewhere around a 14-hour drive. As I was getting back onto Interstate 10, there was some construction going on the on-ramp to the Interstate. Nothing unusual about that, driving and construction go hand in had with each other. I can deal with that. It was the signs the state of Florida erected to let motorists know what was going on. Rather than have a sign saying uneven road (it was being blacktopped) there was a picture with a truck leaning about 15-20 degrees to the right indicating there was an uneven road ahead. This blew me away and made me wonder what our country is coming to. I've heard the phrase, ŒThe dumbing down of America' and this was a perfect example. Pictures depicting a hazardous area. Sorry, but I fell strongly that if you're going to drive on the roads of the United States than you should be able to at lease read and understand English. If you can't read a road sign, how can you pass the written portion of the drivers exam. I don't speak French and thus am positive I couldn't pass a French driving test. I feel the same should apply here. But here's the gist of my anger, I don't believe these signs are directed at foreigners driving in our country while on vacation, though it may be of help to them, I believe it's directed at Americans, who for one reason or another have not learned to read and are unable to understand the ways of the road in written terms, hence, unable to function otherwise. I realize it's not always the fault of the individual if he or she is unable to read, but driving is privilege, not a right, and it should remain so. An automobile is a dangerous weapon and in the hands of an unqualified individual can be deadly to all in its path. I was fortunate at an early age to earn a pilot's license, and one of the first qualification was, to be able to read and write the English language. As a pilot in command of an aircraft, my actions affect very few as compared to the number of people an unqualified driver can affect. Let's look at the licensing laws and do a through review. It's just possible that with higher standards, auto accidents and related deaths may just decrease. The percentage of accidents and deaths per mile traveled in an automobile is astronomically greater than that of miles traveled in the air. Let's use that as a start. I received this from a friend in the States. VERY POWERFUL! Dennis >>>TUESDAY editorial page - Paul Harvey >>>April 27, 1999 Letters >>>How can we blame it all on guns? >>>For the life of me, I can't understand what could have gone wrong in >>>Littleton, Colo. If only the parents had kept their children away from > >>>the guns, we wouldn't have had such a tragedy. >>> >>>Yeah, it must have been the guns..... >>> >>>1. It couldn't have been because of half our children being raised in > >>>broken homes. >>> >>> >>>2. It couldn't have been because our children get to spend an average >of >>30 >>>seconds in meaningful conversation with their parents each day. After > >all, >>>we give our children quality time. >>> >>> >>>3. It couldn't have been because we treat our children as pets and >our >>>pets as children. >>> >>> >>>4. It couldn't have been because we place our children in day care >>>centers where they learn their socialization skills among their peers >under >>>the law of the jungle while employees who have no vested interest in >the >>>children look on and make sure that no blood is spilled. >>> >>> >>>5. It couldn't have been because we allow our children to watch, on >>>average, seven hours of television a day filled with the glorification > >>>of sex and violence that isn't fit for adult consumption. >>> >>> >>>6. It couldn't have been because we allow our children to enter into >>>virtual worlds in which, to win the game, one must kill as many >>>opponents as possible in the most sadistic way possible. >>> >>> >>>7. It couldn't have been because we have sterilized and contracepted >>>our families down to sizes so small that the children we do have are >so >>>spoiled with material things that they come to equate the receiving of >the >>>material with love. >>> >>> >>>8. It couldn't have been because our children, who historically have >>>been seen as a blessing from God, are now being viewed as either a >mistake >>>created when contraception fails or inconveniences that parents try to > >>raise >>>in their spare time. >>> >>> >>>9. It couldn't have been because our nation is the world leader in >>>developing a "culture of death" in which 20 million to 30 million >>>babies have been killed by abortion. >>> >>> >>>10. It couldn't have been because we give two-year prison sentences to > >>>teen-agers who kill their newborns. >>> >>> >>>11. It couldn't have been because our school systems teach the >children >>that >>>they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some > >>>primordial soup of mud by teaching evolution as fact and by handing >out >>>condoms as if they were candy. >>> >>> >>>12. It couldn't have been because we teach our children that there are > >>>no laws of morality that transcend us, that everything is relative and > >>>that actions don't have consequences. What the heck, the president >gets >>away >>>with it! >>> >>> >>>Nah, it must have been the guns. >>> >>> >> > > ARE WE READY? at Excite Communities | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Dumbing Down" the SAT and More by George Roche, President, Hillsdale College "SAT Scores Rise Strongly After Test Is Overhauled" read a recent Wall Street Journal headline. The continuation of the article carried the title "SAT Scores Post Strong Increase." Good news? Hardly. The "higher" scores came from a "dumbed-down" test. Students now have an extra half hour to complete the "new" SAT I. They now use electronic calculators and answer fewer questions in general and fewer multiple-choice math questions in particular. Reading passages now ask definitions from context. And the difficult antonym section, calling for linguistic and intellectual subtleties long lost, has been dropped entirely. More time, calculators added, fewer questions, definitions from context and the antonym section cut entirely: hardly a recipe for excellence. Here`s the College Board's rationale for the changes: "Students taking the SAT in the 1990s are substantially different from those who took the test in the 1940s when the scale was created. Continuing to force-fit their scores to a scale established for a very different group of students reduces the interpretive value of the score within the population for the sake of a slavish consistency to the original scale and comparisons over time." They'd like you to be persuaded by exaggerations like "force-fit" and "slavish" and breeze past their statement that today's students are "substantiallv different" from those who took the test in 1940. I'd like you to be persuaded that they just admitted that the educational system's "substantially different" students are really "substantially deficient." For years, "progressive" educators have vilified memorization and rote learning, with special venom directed at math tables and vocabulary. Surprised that the two areas of the test singled out for weakening are math and vocabulary? Did scores on different tests rise as well? Look at the American College Test (ACT) results, as reported by the Wall Street Journal: "Average test scores for the class of 1995 for the American College Test. . .showed no rise at all." And the reporter also quoted senior researcher Waiter Haney of Boston College, who noted that "... the prime suspect for such an anomalous one-year change would be the change in the format of the test." But there's more to "dumbing down" the SAT than merely weakening the test itself, just one part of a destructive and deceptive pattern. Emphasizing feelings and counterfeit self-esteem, outcomesbased education (OBE) will produce less literate students who cannot possibly do well when tested on history or vocabulary, or almost anything else. An easier SAT would serve them well. The history standards of the government's new "GOALS 2000" program, drenched in political correctness, highlight America's admitted faults and leave out much that remains positive. OBE students going through the "GOALS 2000" program wouldn't have much of a chance with the older, tougher SAT test, but the easier version, plus the "recentering" changes scheduled for next year, will help disguise actual deficiencies. Putting an artificially higher number on actually lower academic performance only highlights the problems facing American education. You can fiddle with the figures forever, but as long as education "professionals" refuse to be honest with taxpayers, matters can only worsen. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GEORGE ROCHE IS PRESIDENT OF HILLSDALE COLLEGE, A PRIVATE, FOUR-YEAR LIBERAL ARTS INSTITUTION, LOCATED IN MICHIGAN; WHICH RECEIVES NO FEDERAL FUNDING. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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OBE: A Crash Course in Dumbing Down | by Cathie Adams ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Historically, American public schools have known how to educate children. The traditional focus of education has been on standards known as Carnegie units: 4 units of English, 3 units each of math, science, and social studies, 2 units each of arts and humanities, 1 unit of health and PE, and several electives. After learning these academic courses, a student graduated from high school. But since we must acknowledge the poorly educated students coming from today's public schools, we must analyze the changes in academic content and methodology of teaching to discover the reason for our modern public school failure. During the turbulent '60s, "progressive" educators began usurping teaching time with classes in self-esteem, death education, sex education, and other fad courses. They also dumbed down textbooks by removing the classics and taking out big words because they did not want to push kids too hard. Consider a simple math problem, subject it to 30 years of new, improved teaching methods, and deduce the formula to yield our average yearly drop in SAT scores. A math problem in 1960 asked, "A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price. What is his profit?" In 1970's new math, the same problem became, "A logger exhanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100, and each element is worth $1. Make one hundred dots representing the elements of set M. The set C of costs of production contains 20 fewer points than the set M. Represent the set C as a subset of M, and answer the following question: what is the cardinality of set P of profits?" In 1980: "A logger sells a truckload of wood for $100. His cost of production is $80, and his profit is $20. Your assignment, underline the number 20." Finally in 1990: "By cutting down beautiful forest trees, a logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making money? (Topic for class participation: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?)" These "new and improved" curricula and teaching methods have ruined our children's education. In order to reverse the decline, it would be logical to return to pre-'60's curriculum, textbooks, and teaching methods. But the 1990's "progressive" educators have a new reform idea: outcome-based education (OBE). In Texas, it is called "Real World Education." The problem with OBE is its teaching method. Former Secretary of Education William Bennett says, "OBE is all about mind-changing and attitude changing rather than real education. When you combine this with 'political correctness' and the ambitions of a lot of professionals in the education business, it's meant to recruit people to a political point of view- not to educate them but to sign them up." OBE unfairly asks students to use "higher order thinking skills" (application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) without giving them skills and knowledge which are "lower order" thinking skills. Parents are deceived by "progressive" educators because of this labeling, and our children are cheated by its nonsense theory. An example of this "method" is given by a pro-OBE principal from Littleton, Colorado: "It is more important to know how to find states on a map than to memorize their locations." He also refused to believe that students should know something about the Depression, the Holocaust or World War II because he suggested that "any definition of cultural landmarks was arbitrary and therefore, presumptuous." Students cannot use "higher order thinking skills" (application, analysis, etc.) without "lower order thinking skills" which is knowledge of factual information. Facts are not arbitrary and therefore, presumptuous! OBE's methodology is based on the unrealistic notion that every child in a group can learn to the designated level and must demonstrate mastery of a specific outcome before the group can move on. Individuality is ignored; creativity is stifled by group-think because a child cannot excel beyond his group. Equity is the goal- not excellence. Goose Creek ISD in Baytown has ousted OBE and instead adopted a uniform, academically rich curriculum which is driven from the top and stipulates what children should learn and gives them a finite amount of time to learn. Further, it stresses education more than social considerations. It reaffirms discipline in the classroom and expects that rules will not be broken. The school board has called for administrators to address retention. These issues had to be dealt with because OBE had purged them from their educational system. Ed Hildebrand, president of the Goose Creek ISD, expressed dismay that he and the board had to detail what was common sense for the schools. OBE is expensive. The state of Kentucky has spent more than $1 billion of additional money changing to OBE, and the taxpayers have witnessed their investment fail completely because their schools have shown no academic improvement. The Texas Education Agency is not discussing what it would cost to change Texas' entire educational system to OBE/Real World Education. But, we should expect the price tag to be astronomically higher than Kentucky's. The educational establishment's excuse for not educating our children is that they need more money. But American taxpayers have increased education spending by 225% since 1960 (allowing for inflation) as SAT scores have fallen by 80 points. We can be assured that more money will not help, since studies show no correlation between education spending and academic results. Goals 2000: Educate America Act has been signed by President Clinton and implements OBE from the federal level. The gauntlet has been placed! Senator Daniel Moynihan remarked: "We would do well to ask whence came this official delusion. Is it evidence of a dysfunction in the political world far more portentous than in our high schools? Are we in fact legislating an official lie? That is a goal governments achieve all too readily. Goals ascend as standards decline. The whole scheme," he argued, "is doomed to fail. Why are we in a state of denial about this?" Parents, are you preparing for the battle? America's schools need reform. The reform needed is a return to teaching factual information in classrooms using traditional teaching methods as delineated by Goose Creek ISD. Reading should be taught phonetically so that children can eventually enjoy the rich works by Homer, Melville, and Hemingway. Writing should be taught and precise spelling required. Traditional math with right and wrong answers should be taught without allowing exceptions in order to not harm a child's self-esteem. History must be taught from textbooks free of any errors. Remember the error-filled history textbook presented to Texas' State Board of Education that recorded that the atom bomb was dropped on Korea rather than Japan? Cultural landmarks are not arbitrary and therefore presumptuous as suggested by the Littleton, Colorado high school principal. Geography should teach students where states are, and that knowledge will prepare them to find those states on a map. Science must be taught devoid of politically correct influences. Our children deserve nothing else because what they do not know is hurting them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cathie Adams of Dallas is president of Texas Eagle Forum. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Columbine High and New Age philosophy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Samuel L. Blumenfeld © 1999 WorldNetDaily.com One of the reasons why the educrats have focused on guns as the chief cause of the Littleton massacre is because Columbine High School was supposed to be the kind of progressive school where such things could never happen. Columbine High, built in 1973 and renovated in 1995 at a cost of $13.4 million, was noted for its academic and athletic records. To many educators, it was a model of what an American high school should be. But perhaps we can better understand the moral permissiveness of the school if we review some recent history. In 1990, the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McRel), based in Denver, Colo., received a $12.9 million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Education to help implement Outcome-Based Education (OBE) in Colorado. The plan was called Direction 2000 and adopted at Littleton High School. In the Direction 2000 newsletter of June 1, 1990, Littleton High principal Tim Westerberg stated: "Littleton High School is proposing a system of schooling which will be driven by a new set of 'outcome-based' graduation requirements, will provide a Program Advisor to work with each student during his or her stay at LHS, and will award diplomas to students who have demonstrated mastery of the 'outcome-based' graduation requirements through portfolios and exhibitions before a graduation committee. Balanced assessment and attention to each student's intellectual, social, physical, ethical, artistic, and emotional development are central to the project." Although Columbine High School is not in the Littleton school district, it is hard to believe that it completely escaped the influences of the OBE-oriented school restructuring movement. The fact that the two little Nazis, Harris and Klebord, were able to freely express themselves by dress and by a video advocating violence suggests that the school's educational philosophy is based on anything but biblical principles. If the school's operating philosophy did not come from Judeo-Christian principles, where did it come from? The answer is to be found in the New Age philosophy that was the moving spirit behind OBE. Carol Belt, a former school board member in Englewood, Colo., was chairman of a Strategic Planning committee in charge of drawing up "vision statements" about the future. She writes: "As background material to help with the process I received materials on globalism and books by 'futurists.' One of those books was 'The Aquarian Conspiracy,' authored by Marilyn Ferguson. I was told that it was the 'best reference' to the 'new curriculum' that was coming into our school district. I read the book and decided if the 'future' that Marilyn Ferguson was predicting was in fact going to become a reality, I wanted no part of it. I discovered that this was the 'foundational book' of the 'New Age' movement." To help the teachers in Littleton become effective change agents, they were required to attend training sessions given by the Strategic Options Initiative. The trainees were requested to read the second, third, and ninth chapters of "The Aquarian Conspiracy." Marilyn Ferguson writes in Chapter Nine, "You can only have a new society, the visionaries have said, if you change the education of the younger generation. Yet the new society itself is the necessary force for change in education. ... Of the Aquarian conspirators surveyed, more were involved in education than in any other single category of work. ... Tens of thousands of classroom teachers, educational consultants and psychologists, counselors, administrators, researchers, and faculty members engaged in colleges of education have been among the millions engaged in personal transformation." In other words, American schools like Columbine High have been completely paganized by educators who have adopted the occult philosophy of the Aquarian Conspiracy. It is a philosophy in conflict with Judeo-Christian teachings, and it is a philosophy that opens the door to satanism. It is impossible for a member of the Aquarian Conspiracy to be indifferent to Christianity. He or she must oppose it, for Christianity is based on absolute biblical principles that condemn pagans. And that is why the public educrats are so adamantly opposed to any acknowledgment of the biblical God in the schools. What happened in Littleton, and what has happened in other schools and will happen in the future are the results of the rejection of biblical moral absolutes and the adoption of New Age moral relativism. Paganism is so morally permissive that it could not find a reason to interfere with the two Nazis planning to blow up the school and kill far more students than they actually managed to kill in their rampage. The fact that they also killed themselves as part of the process indicates how completely they had given their souls to Satan, the ultimate enemy of the God of the Bible. It is obvious that no one will blame the schools for anything that happened. The New Age pagan philosophy permeates the public schools, and any child who believes in biblical religion will be at risk. Yet, it was interesting to see how totally bonded the kids at Columbine had become with their school, unable to understand how the school's permissive moral philosophy had made them vulnerable to such murderous attacks. The two trench coat murderers would have never been able to get away with their behavior in the kind of public schools I attended as a youngster in the 1930s and '40s. In the first place, we had a dress code, which would have made such eccentric dress impossible. We had a principal who read the 23rd Psalm from the Bible at assemblies. Student behavior was far more regulated by the rules of discipline. Teachers stuck to their jobs as teachers. They were not interested in your feelings or self-esteem or sexuality. They were not change agents trying to get into your heads with pagan ideas. They respected your religion, your family's values, your individualism. They wanted to improve your life, not manipulate it. And that's why we loved our teachers and never vandalized our schools. Pity that today's kids can't enjoy the safety and security we had in those days. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of eight books on education, including "Homeschooling: A Parents Guide to Teaching Children." His books are available on Amazon.com. alt="Add Me!" border="0" > The Usurping of Values "Values Clarification" is touted as an approach to student decision-making which emphasizes feelings and personal growth, but with a non-judgmental attitude toward self or others. This is another form of OBE. It is a fraud. William K. Kilpatrick wrote in his book Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong: "With our children having been taught psychiatric and psychological methods of 'Values Clarification' in their schools' programs, it becomes clear why their scores are low and why morals are on a steep decline." 47 Tom DeWeese of the American Policy Foundation, and an expert on the subject of OBE, told a Washington press conference in 1995 about a case he had come across. "A 9-year-old boy told his mother that he ranked lumberjacks in the same class as murderers and bigots after a values clarification class. These psychologically-based programs are harming children.... OBE is not education, it's mind control from womb to tomb," he stated. 48 The response by parents and children has been resoundingly negative, so much so that in 1984, the U.S. Department of Education held hearings into Proposed Regulations to Implement the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, also known as the Hatch Amendment. This amendment ensured that no student could be required (under any federal program)--without prior written parental consent--to submit to psychiatric or psychological examination, testing, or treatment. However, the Department of Education refused to issue regulations to enforce the law and consequently psychiatric abuses in the classroom continue to the present unabated. Much of the following testimony is from Phyllis Schlafly's book, Child Abuse in the Classroom. Mrs. Schlafly, the founder and president of Eagle Forum, a grassroots organization dedicated to promoting pro-family policies, has been a tireless campaigner for children's right to read. As Schlafly points out: "These hearings speak with the thunderous voice of hundreds of parents who are angry at how their children have been emotionally, morally, and intellectually abused by psychological and behavioral experiments during classroom hours when the parents thought their children were being taught basic knowledge and skills." 49 Kay Fradenecks, a pupil of Values Clarification, testified: "I have personal testimony to share concerning Values Clarification and the effects it has on an individual, both short and long term. As a result of the indoctrination I received as a student, I began abusing drugs and became sexually promiscuous. I became pregnant twice, and twice aborted my babies, the effects of which are still evident with me today. I was applauded by my teachers for my decision to abort and encouraged to share my experience with my peers." Another student related the following: "We had an English course in the ninth grade junior high whose title was 'Death Education.' In the manual, 73 out of 80 stories had to do with death, dying, killing, murder, suicide, and what you wanted on your tombstone. One girl, a ninth grader, blew her brains out after having written a note on her front door that said what she wanted on her tombstone." At a Grand Rapids, Michigan school, the local Community Mental Health Service (CMHS) provided staff to instruct 20 students in grades 7 through 11 on "Self-Pleasuring Techniques" and "Sexual Fantasies." The materials used by the instructors included graphic descriptions of masturbation as well as oral and group sex. Parents were forced to file a suit against the school and the CMHS. A class of sixth grade school children were asked to play a "survival game" in which they were to decide which three people they should eliminate from the group, according to their age and contribution; in another class they were told to write down their own epitaphs or obituaries. In 1991, surveys were handed out to 13- and 14-year-old boys in a California class asking them about how many different times they had had vaginal intercourse with a girl or anal sex with a boy in the previous year. It also questioned them about whether they intended using a condom in the next year, and if they did, to rate how their mother or father would feel about them doing this. 50 In a fifth grade "health" class in Lincoln City, Oregon, homosexuality was presented to 11-year-olds as an alternative lifestyle. Anal intercourse was described. In this same class, a plastic model of female genitalia with a tampon insert was passed around to the boys to encourage their understanding of tampons. Birth control pills were also passed around and explained. A parent who observed this said, "At no time was there any mention of abstinence as a desirable alternative for fifth graders. The morality that was taught in the classroom that day was complete promiscuity. As a result of this kind of education, we are experiencing pregnancy among 13-year-olds with resulting abortions." Another class of children were told to write essays on, "It's okay to try anything once," "A drug dealer is just a business person like anyone else," and "Do you think it's all right to lie, cheat, break laws once in a while, or only at certain times?" The mother of an eighth grade girl reported how the assignment given her daughter had torn apart her daughter's values: "She was instructed to write a poem and tell a lie. This was repeated throughout the instructions. Another time, she was instructed to write a paragraph in a private journal on the subject, 'It is OK to cheat.' Her paragraph ended with the words, 'When you cheat and don't get caught, it feels good.'" A mother told of her son's drug use and subsequent suicide on September 7, 1981 following these classes: "He had used marijuana since junior high school and, about a month before he died, he told my husband that he had decided to give up smoking pot. He went into deep depression and took his life by carbon monoxide poisoning. He left a note saying, 'I did it because I couldn't think or nothing.'" Only after his death, did the parents discover he had been part of "Values Clarification" with the objective: "We will attempt to teach the different categories of drugs, their effect and, hopefully how to make a knowledgeable choice, using your own value system." Joey, an 8-year-old African American boy, was part of a "problem solving" class in his school and was shown a film which depicted a young boy trying to kill himself by tying a rope around his neck. In the film, the boy talks about not being liked at school, being teased and worrying about growing up. Joey's mother did not know about the program as the school curriculum merely stated that it was "social sciences." Two days after her son watched this video, she walked into his room and found him hanging by a rope from his bunk bed. Most parents don't even know this is happening to their children at the schools they attend. Nor, of course, does the child know he is being ruined. Meanwhile, psychiatrists and psychologists pontificate on TV, radio and in newspapers about the "tragedy" of teenage suicide. And, quite shamelessly, they claim the only solution is increased funding for more psychiatric "help."
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