Great piece. by Janet Albrechsten in the Australian this moring. I left a comment on it that I will repeat here.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/no_place_for_ideological_agendas_in_our_classrooms/
Hi Janet, The kids might not be learning much but I learned alot about the indoctrination in schools from your piece. I feel very strongly about this kind of herd tyranny that prevails in schools because it crushes the spirits of every inquisitive child that desires even the tiniest bit of respect for their brain-power. It's institutionalised bullying. Maoist political indoctination of kids destroys their innocence. It intrudes into their home lives and splits loyalties like one parent in a divorce trying to turn the traumatised child against the other parent.
Might I make one point however in slight dissagreement with you and that is that while telling children who to vote for and encouraging them to behave like a rabble is inexcusable, there IS a place for ideology in schools, and the curriculum and teaching methods will inevitably be influenced by some ideology or other. The challenge is to find a BETTER IDEOLOGY than the so-called progressives. One that encourages excellence, discourages envy, promotes both team-work and individual resourcefulness and makes no apologies for rewarding on results. If we start with AWA's in schools and performance based pay for teachers this might trickle down to the students and lo-and-behold the values taught in the classroom might start to correspond to those you need to succeed in real life.
BTW I'm one of the kids who went through the schooling under these teachers so please forgive my spelling errors.
