I remember my days in our sophomore civics class at St. Pius X High
School. Our teacher was Father Alan Cushing. (We put his VW in a hallway one day.) He taught a course on communism. During the first part of the course we were indoctrinated to become communists. We had cell meetings, wore hammer and sickle armbands, and generally espoused Karl Marx and Lenin. We were encouraged to say that "religion is the opiate of the people." Stuff like that.During the second part of the course Father Cushing dismantled everything we had been told during our indoctrination. He assinged us a book to read, George Orwell's "1984". It was a breathtaking class experience that taught us the danger of totalitarianism and government thought control.
Yes, we were in a private school and we could do things like that. But the object was to teach us to think and the class was one of the best I ever experienced in that catholic high school. It is frightening that kind of thinking and learning experience doesn't work in the T of C schools or maybe any of our public schools these days. The kids will be the losers after the lawyers and bureucrats finish with this. This might be the totalitarianism and thought control we learned about.
1 comment:
As a black woman, I can tell you that there is a pretty big difference between pretending to be a communist and replicating racist moments in our history. There is a famous experiment with blue-eyed and brown-eyed students that would have been a better way of teaching the same message. Since there isn't already a hierarchy between blue-eyed and brown-eyed students, and since neither of those terms are derogatory, it's a more sensitive way to approach things. Just because only one student complained, doesn't mean only one student was upset. More importantly, why weren't MORE students upset? I think the teacher(s) involved showed a major lack of judgement and at least some disciplinary measure is called for.
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