Friends,
This has been an interesting thread and one somewhat related to the recent
'Darn Kids' thread. This is also an ongoing and heated debate within
schools and communities. My response comes from the perspective of teacher
of jr. high school in a rural community as well as parent.
Teachers today are charged with promoting moral responsibility to our
students. It's a heavy responsibility and one more fitting to parents, but
too many parents avoid it. [Work too much, can't control kids, too drunk,
etc.] Many students get to us with years of subversive / subliminal or,
sometimes overt training in hate from their parents. KKK is alive and
quietly thriving in small communities.
So, how do we teach our children to respect another's right to free speech
while thromping the message? Understand: kids at this age are highly
emotional and prone to act within hormone-promted responses rather than cool
logic. (Remember the Salem witch trials? Joan of Arc?) Understand: a huge
proportion of these kids learn charged attitudes from MTV. (I feel really
old saying this, because I was addicted to MTV in its early years. After
years of training in the studio and richly diverse life experiences, I'm far
from a prude, but I feel quite Victorian when I watch MTV these days...it's
not the subject, per sey, but the negative attitude toward the subject that
I find offensive. But, I digress...)
Our kids have access to so much more than we did at that age, purely by
virtue of the internet. We cannot turn a blind eye to what they see and do
when they are not with us. In our school alone we have lost two students in
as many years because they found out about autoerotic asphixiation on the
internet. My point is that without a guide to understand what is being
disseminated a _young_ teen lacks the experience to always make good
decisions. And, NO, I am not suggesting that we delve into outre sexual
education...
We cannot simply trust that the kids will inherently understand what is
right or wrong. We have to teach them that. We have to hope that those
teaching our children are motivated to work for peaceful resolution of
conflicts. There are so many bright young minds out there! How much better
it is to encourage them to work toward positive ends rather than mindless
violence.
Emotionally I think our kids would be better prepared to deal with these
issues in high school. They are, however, often targeted by extremist
groups because of their volitile emotions. In the end, I would support the
education of kids regarding things like the KKK. I do not support visiting
the web sites in school. They already know how to find those sites and will
do so on their own time if they are motivated enough to do so. It becomes
our collective responsibility to teach them it's not worth the time to do
so. And, yes, it is tough to do without becoming the thought police.
Peace,
Diane
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