Once, a student was given several detentions and a phone call home for speaking out about homosexuality, saying that he felt it was abnoral.
This is either a propaganda statement or something very serious. It all depends on the answer to one question:
HOW exactly did this student go about speaking out against homosexuality? Did he say something like "I don't think homosexuality is natural because *insert reasoning here*" or did he say something more along the lines of "OMG YOU GAY FAGS UR GOIN TO HELL blah blah blah"?
Religion is hardly "taboo at school". While it is, especially in the more liberal and secular areas of the United States, an anathema to be taught in the classroom, there are no rules prohibiting the free exercise of religion while attending a public school. You are, for example, free to spend a moment in prayer before you eat your lunch. You can read the Bible during break. You can wear a necklace with a cross. Essentially, you are free to practice your religion.
I am (well, sort of. You can expect to have other students harass if you're "too religious," as if there's such a thing), but the teachers aren't. I've talked to teaches on this subject before. Simply put, they're afraid to talk about their religion. They're basically forced to teach what the government says to teach and only what the government says to teach. Now, I understand why people wouldn't want their science teachers teaching creationism, but the fact that, say, Bible Class isn't even an
option kind of scares me (at least, I don't know of any American school that has religious courses, and I live in the Bible Belt, so it's somewhat safe to assume that they'd be here if anywhere).
They are simply educating you on equality, something that is very American.
Really? Last I checked, America was capitalist, with a strong materialistic culture. Not to mention that like 95% of the wealth is controlled by 1% of the population, or something like that.
You can't have it both ways. Either you are making the case that schools discourage religion, or you are saying that they encourage all religions equally. They seem to engaging in religiosity only when convenient for your case.
Actually by trying to treat all religions equally, they end up discouraging religion. The general attitude seems to be "You shouldn't practice your religion in public because it might offend someone with a different religion." "Tolerance" means shunning and making fun of anyone who thinks that homosexuality is wrong, it means being forced to accept contradicting beliefs lest you offend one of them, it means keeping your mouth shut when you disagree with someone. It should not be this way. Tolerance should be... well, tolerance, not suppression. The solution to bigotry and intolerance does not lie in silencing of conflicting beliefs or the forced compromise of one's religion. While all religions have an equal chance of being correct (theoretically, anyway, I'm sure some have a higher chance than others), they cannot all be correct, for many of them preach conflicting beliefs (ie, "an eye for an eye" and the whole "forgiveness" thing. Ok, I know that wasn't a very good example, but that's all I can think of for now. Give me a break, it's 9:30 XD).
The amount that people get taught in public schools is appalling. My sister who is 9 can read and write better than one of my mates, who is 14. He's not stupid, but school just doesn't teach him that much.
Well said. I'm having to go to college 2 years early just to keep up with foreigners.
Good luck finding a government over 50 years old that doesn't teach propaganda in their education system.
Power is no longer based on how well a person can wield a weapon and strike another down, rather now based on the system of control known as school, media, entertainment, and such. This topic brings about a much larger discussion than just schools, rather the entire system at a whole. Power grips those with it stronger, and the thirst makes them do things to gain more. Our news has been proven to incorretly portray information (Some say its just Fox News, some will say the news is truth), our government teachs youths to hate other counties at a young age through history books, and then decides to tell the whole truth at a later date in their education (Civil War, Cold War, Pacific Theater with Japan, Korea and Vietnam Struggles). By that time the mind is too naive (Through media and entertainment as I belive) to understand what it is now being tought, and clings to the old information. Examples of such would be hatred for the Iran, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries, Islamic religion, Russia and due to the Cold War, Karl Marx and the Communist Style of government, China and other such countries that still practice the government style, and others. Some get so cought up in this that they continue to refuse the truth and think of their own country as "The Best", and others are inferior (If they are even tought to use the word) and continue to live their lives listening to the media, and entertaining themselves more. With that being said, these things that are brought up in schools, the sexuality discussons, religion, and others, are just a harrassment to your mind and just stalling ones form becoming truly thoughtful. As long as these distractions exist in school, we will never learn as much as we should, the standerds are lowered every day, and most imporntantly we are tought to hate those who oppose us. Propaganda is instilling people with a false feeling of Pride for this country, and will make those who are not yet capible of thinking for themselves belive anything they hear from this country. Open minded people are diminising, because less learn to become open and unbiased due to the distractions in school, and the falsehood of the education it provides.
Disclaimer: This information was gathered by my own personal experiance of living in a small town that has an exponential growth as of late.
Your experiences match mine rather well. Do I count as a source?
I think there can be a strong case to be made that these two apparently different points are one in the same, which lies much at the heart of this issue. If we take the source Zany provided for example, the student in question was denied the equal ability to report on his or her religious figure. To the student, this makes a separation between his report and the others, a separation both physical in that he had to report in private, away from the other students, and mental, because everyone else's choices were "okay" while his religious choice was "not okay", by means of having extra attention drawn to it. If no one is taught to look up to religious figures in school, in essence that sends the message "we do not accept religious figures as idols." This by itself is not necessarily the same as "religious figures are bad", but it could easily be misconstrued as such.
Well said. Why is it that everyone else can state what's in my head better than I can?
Dark_Marine, this paragraph does not constitute Serious Discussion. I would have deleted it, but I think it would better serve the community to be called out for what it is as an example of what NOT to write. This is only an example of rhetoric in writing, does not address the issue at hand, lacks citations, is full of unsupported assertions, and lacks any argument for or against the topic at hand whatsoever.
How does it not address the issue? The OP was about the government teaching students what to believe religiously, and DM's paragraph was about the government teaching students what to believe politically. He is not that far off topic.
As for lacking citations and having unsupported assertions, I'd say his experience and mine are pretty good support. Unfortunately, they are not sharable support, and you have no reason to believe either of us. While I do like it when arguments actually have citations, I find it rather ridiculous that they would be absolutely necessary for a good argument - Why is the word of some source better than the word of the poster? All a source does is provide claims and data that support the poster; a source can lie just as easily as the poster can if not more easily.
I guess what I'm trying to say is "Why is 'so and so said so' a better argument than 'I think so because *insert reasoning here*'?"
None.