Mario wrote: > Mario wrote I am quite surprised to read that, at least in some cases, marxist teachers had (or still have) an influence in the >US educational system. This was totally unexpected from my italian point of view!<<<
I think even if I were to compile lots of hard and anecdotal evidence indicating it were true here, some people would still not believe it, so I will just relate some of my experiences. The Marxist teachers I had in high school and college admitted they were Marxists and made no secret of it. Keep in mind that they were "American" Marxists and back in the late 60s when they taught me it was kind of "radical chic" in some circles to be into Marxism and the related ideologies. They may or may not resemble Marxism in other countries. I had interesting experiences, the first of which was very bad but it taught me a lesson and probably served to prejudice me. My high school Government teacher was of the young and hip of the day and ironically, for a Marxist, drove a brand new $70,000 (in today's dollars) Porsche. I had gone through almost the entire school year getting straight As on every test and paper. Then he gave us an assignment where he handed out political cartoons and asked us to write a paper analyzing them. The cartoon I received was of a Mickey Mouse-like creature turned into a rat holding a bomb and labed as a "Weatherman." You may know that the Weatherman and in some cases the SDS were 60s era anti-war, anti-establishment groups present on many university campuses, who were considered very radical because they used violence and bombings to get their points across. Kind of like mini-terrorists. So I had to research all about the groups (the old fashioned way by going to books and newspapers at the library in the stone age before the internet) and prepare an in-depth paper about them. I compiled all the information that I could and wrote a very extensive paper which presented just the facts. In my conclusion, I did briefly add my opinion (which was usually always allowable back then in such school papers) that I felt they should use peaceful, non-violent means to achieve their ends. Imagine my surprise when the teacher gave me a "D" on the paper. It was no different than any of my other work product that had received "As" except that I perhaps had stated a politically incorrect opinion by not presenting the Weatherman in a favorable light. I know many people personally from all over the country of all ages who have had similar experiences and received bad grades when they did not follow or agree with a certain "party line" of a Marxist professor. Later when I was in college, I learned to either not express my opinion with those of my professors who always said upfront that they were Marxist, or to challenge their opinions, and thereby did not jeopardize my good grades. I did have one (again admitted) Marxist Political Science professor who, to my amazement taught the subject straight, in that he never tried to insert his personal slant in teaching the U.S. system of government. I respected that and consider him one of the best teachers I ever had. To those who will challenge me about Marxist teachers gaining hold in the 60s I have two prominent names for you: Herbert Marcuse and Angela Davis Kakki
