I think 13 year olds are smarter than some are giving them credit
for. If teachers were merely distributing Klan pamphlets without
comment or randomly giving out the URLs of their websites, that
would not be good. But the given context is a study of
the KKK. Let them see the material themselves. Let them see
how reasonable (or blatant or slanted) it seems, and discuss the
use of propaganda and recruitment and racism. What you will
find is that the kids will intuitively figure out right from wrong.
Some of the kids are already racist due to family or peer programming,
and that is that. Maybe a few fence sitters will rethink their
positions. The rest will figure it out. Why hide it?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Many on this list have mocked religion and its manifestations
> for instance but that is precisely what it is for. To provide an anchor that
> regardless of how much raw intellectual wind blows aganist the body of moral
> and ethical thinking that the child/teen is held fast to ethical and moral
> judgement that serves to reveal such mutant thinking as espoused by the KKK.
I have a few problems with this.
1. Religion has caused more death and division than any other field
of human activity, not just in history, but right now. Ethnic cleansing,
etc etc every war has been fought with 'God on our side'.
2. The same people that go to Klan meetings in the south go to
church the next day. It's no coincidence that they burn crosses.
They find stuff in the Bible to justify their superiority.
3. Religion has had thousands of years to get rid of hate and
violence and has not done it. On the contrary it's often used to
justify or promote it. Some muslims believe if you kill an
infidel (a Christian, American or?) you get sent directly to
heaven. Some American Christians hate Jews.
4. I agree with your point that the kids need a moral compass, and
they need it get it from their home life. Racism or the abhorance
of it is almost always learned in the home, and has nothing to do
with the presence or absence of religion.
RR
Jim L'Hommedieu wrote:
> Okay, here's a case for discussion. My sister-in-law is a librarian at a
> public middle school housing 13 year-old children in a rural atmosphere.
> She told me that they are studying the Ku Klux Klan so she, *the librarian*
>
> "opened up the web browsers so the kids could read the Klan's web sites
> firsthand".
>
> I was completely shocked. I said that kids should *never* have access to
> Klan sites in a public school. She countered with, "Well, that would be
> censorship. They should have free access to do research."
>
> I said, "No Anne. Let's say it's 1960 and there is no Internet. Are you
> saying that if the kids were studying the Klan, that you would allow the
> Klan to distribute a pamphlet (written *by* the Klan) to the school kids?
> Kids don't need to see the Klan's point of view in their own words. The
> Klan is pretty good at portraying themselves as a religious group and it
> might seem reasonable to a child if they are exposed to primary material,
> recruiting material from the Klan.
>
> "School children need to have the Klan *interpreted* for them. I mean, if
> not, there would be no stopping point.
>
> "In sex ed class, if you told the 13 year-old kids about masturbation, are
> you gonna distribute still photos of couples having sex so they can make up
> their own minds about pornography? Or let's say you're discussing Current
> Events. If there's a bomb on a bus in Israel, are you gonna distribute
> instructions on building pipe bombs? Are you gonna let 13 year olds read
> the manifestos of terrorists like the Unibomber too?"
>
> I think my sister-in-law is way wrong on this one. Other opinions?
>
> Lama
