From: robert@slipknot.rain.com (Robert Reed)
Subject: Re: educational system (was: Re: new initiative)
Reply-To: robert@slipknot.rain.com.UUCP (Robert Reed)
Organization: Home Animation Ltd.
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 11:38:44 GMT

In article <1jgderINNjv1@leela.CS.ORST.EDU> downsj@atlantis.CS.ORST.EDU (jason downs) writes:
|
|i fail to see how a system that points out the differences among people, be
|it due to race, gender, or whatever, can in the end make everyone equal.
|it, like all liberal ideas, goes against logic.

It's very simple.  Prejudicial treatment stems mostly from fear, and fear from
ignorance.  Eliminate the ignorance by revealing cultural accomplishments and
history, and you can simultaneously build self-confidence and trust between the
categories of people you define.  It's a lot easier to be nonjudgemental about
someone you trust.  It's a lot harder to be prejudiced against someone you know
and understand.

These are not particularly "liberal" ideas, but rather simple observations about
human nature.  You seem to paint things in very stark and shallow terms.  

|a good education system would actually get back to teaching children what
|they need to know in order to get something out of life, say for instance,
|how to read and write, rather than how to have sex.

Our society has gotten too complex for the educational system to stop after
teaching "the three Rs."  It certainly should do a good job in teaching these
basics, but it needs to do much more to prepare children to deal with the
problems they may expect to face in their lifetimes.  Technology, puralism and
population growth have made it much more difficult to life the "pure and
isolated life."  Schools should teach reading, writing, and math, but they
should also provide guidance on how to deal with their bodies, which reach
puberty at a much younger age.  Understanding sexual function is necessary
whether you teach abstinence or how to use a condom.  And if you do nothing, you
certainly are NOT going to eliminate teen pregnancies.

|it's interesting that the liberals continue to shove multi-culturalism and
|sexual education down the throats of the students of the most crime-ridden and
|overall worst school districts in the nation. makes perfect sense, does it not?

You bandy the term "the liberals" around as if it is interchangable with "the
devil" and that is to your loss.  Whether or not you agree with liberal ideals,
you should at least recognize that they are honorable and well meaning, and at
worst, misguided.  Inner city youth suffer primarily from living on the small
end of the economic system, where it is easy to see how rage, despair and
criminality can fester.  Yes, for them, learning the basics is fundamental to
preparing them to break out of their economic hole, but that hole compounds
their problems.  Teaching multi-culturalism, far from being shoved down their
throats, provides a basis for building self-confidence so that they can gain the
will to resist the temptations of their environment.  And if the inner city
youth have difficulty climbing the economic ladder, how much more difficult must
it be if they have children of their own?  In this light, teaching sex education
makes perfect sense.  Makes perfect sense, does it not?
________________________________________________________________________________
Robert Reed			Home Animation Ltd.		503-656-8414
robert@slipknot.rain.com	5686 First Court, West Linn, OR 97068

Why is the alphabet in that order?
Is it because of that song?
--Steve Wright
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Newsgroups: or.politics