Education or Indoctrination

The latest from Phyllis Schlafly. She, as usual, hails public education as the end of the world.  Well, her insane far right world.  And that's probably a good thing.


Here is the trailer from the film her latest podcast focuses on:


As a public school teacher, I am clearly on one side of this issue.  And my attitude is simple: this is insane.  As far as I'm concerned, a student's religion is their personal business.  It can be used to supplement their learning in my class, but it is not my job - nor do I hope it is ever a part of my job - to proselytize.  My biggest fear is that we would give in to just what this documentary suggests: educated kids in 'our' ways.

What if kids don't want to be part of 'our' ways?  What if they are Muslim? Jewish? Secular?

That's dangerous.

But in the eyes of Schlafly and her cronies, anything that isn't exactly how they want it to be is dangerous.

And public education doesn't have to be godless or Godless.  My College Comp class just wrapped up reading "Young Goodman Brown," which is Nathaniel Hawthorne's attack on the Puritan religion of his ancestors.

The story is littered with Christian religious symbols and doctrine.  This led us in to great faith based discussions.  As a result, the Catholics shared their takes, as did the Lutherans, and evangelicals and even our lone atheist.  Now, this would be impossible under Schlafly's proposal.

And in our country we have a great system of religious based schools.  Look at the very strong Catholic school tradition.  Even the bane of Schlafly's existence, Diane Ravitch, a strong union and teacher defender, contributes cash to her neighborhood Catholic school because she knows that first and foremost the teachers and leadership there are dedicated to the education of every student enrolled, regardless of how hard they have to work.

But Schlafly isn't going to be satisfied until everyone thinks and believes just as she does.

Now, that would truly be frightening.