and why I think it's stupid. Here I am, a high school senior, playing America the beautiful and battle hymn of the republic. Trust me, I'm patriotic. But I think the schools are handling the remembrance of Sept. 11 wrong. Very, INSULTINGLY wrong.
For example, they showed two slideshows during the assembly at my high school. All of the pictures are either of buildings on fire, people dying, or middle easterners celebrating. and the way the administration is talking... it all seems to me like propaganda, designed to make us HATE the people that DID this to us. THey always talk about how "those easterners" are celebrating that we lost 3,000 people that day. But that's a very small percentage of the middle eastern population. There were many, many more who helped as much as they could, who prayed and fasted for the sake of the USA. But do we hear about them? No. Never. Those "easterners" and those "Muslims" hate us, and they ALL want us dead.
They didn't say it wuite as I have, but that was the general vibe. Why are they trying to scare us? They show these pictures and videos every year, to CHILDREN. Are they trying to get us to grow up thinking that everyone who's not an american is evil? That everyone wearing a turban, every child from Iraq or Iran is toting an M-16, just waiting to blow our heads off?
Whatever happened to "Love thy neighbor"?
Please, someone tell me what the point is of these yearly assemblies. I really don't get it.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
Everytime I see a photo montage with inspirational music from 9/11 it affects me less.
I think that's sad. It's like they're doing nothing but grabbing for more emotional reactions.
Sorry to hear about the undercurrent at your school.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
Wow. Have they finally started doing the Two Minutes Hate in public schools? That slideshow sounds morbid.
Oh, and the point of all high school assemblies and pep rallies is to practice skipping out on them.
--Enigmatic
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
You're kidding me.
Other high schoolers, please check in. Is this a common practice? That totally sucks, Tinros.
Posted by Tinros (Member # 8328) on :
What is Two Minutes Hate?
Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :
I'd like to hear from more HS students, too. That innapropriate to me- can you opt out of assembly in protest? Write an editorial for the school newspaper?
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
Tinros, sorry to hear that your school is handling things that way; I hope it's not a widespread practice! There are certainly lots of better ways to foster a positive patriotism. Also better ways to honor those killed.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
Appalling? Yes Surprising? No
Schools are the perfect place to indoctrinate the future of America.
Posted by Father Time (Member # 7985) on :
I request to disagree agreeably.
We must never forget what happened to us that day. Never. The point of showing this is not to enhance hatred, but to instill in you a desire to ensure this cannot happen again. We need you to stand tall and protect America for the future generations as I have done all my life for your generation.
Until we understand that there are some people who desire to erase us from existence, we are vulnerable.
I am sorry that the program upset you. Remember, your perception is how you think it was meant to be received, not necessarily the message they intended to send. Maybe you ought to let them know? It may surprise them how it was perceived and it may cause them to change.
Also remember, we celebrate Memorial Day, we remember D Day, we have veteran's day and flag day etc. These are to remember things much like 9/11--times when America was vulnerable.
I personally have never felt animosity towards muslims or anyone because of 9/11. But I will not tolerate those who pervert these wonderful religions for their personal gain to desecrate my country.
I sincererly hope things work out for the best at your school, and thank you for allowing an old man to speak openly.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
And yes, it is insulting to have one's emotions manipulated in order to foster patriotism.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Exactly how many Rememberance Days do you have over there?
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
I say make a slideshow about the Middle-Easterners who love america and make the school go through that one as well.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: We must never forget what happened to us that day. Never. The point of showing this is not to enhance hatred, but to instill in you a desire to ensure this cannot happen again. We need you to stand tall and protect America for the future generations as I have done all my life for your generation.
Wow. This is a load of steaming crap.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
Father Time,
If the purpose of this was to honor the victims and those that risked their lives to help others, then they are going about it the wrong way.
If the purpose is to ensure that this cannot happen again, then they are still going about it the wrong way. They should not be creating a picture of what the enemy looks like in the minds of impressionable youths, and they should not be using fear to foster patriotism.
Posted by Parsimony (Member # 8140) on :
Slideshows should be banned from high schools. The only things more boring than slide shows were pep rallies, so a slide show rally would be a horrible day of school.
--ApostleRadio
Posted by Father Time (Member # 7985) on :
If you are so concerned about what pictures go into the minds of impressionable youths, then we should begin a lengthy post about what comes across the TV sets and what is coming out of Hollywood disguised as movies.
Tom Davidson: it's not crap. What's a load of steaming crap is to have us beleive that we are brain washing our impressionable youth about 9/11 and patriotism while at the same time feeding them the trash they get every day in regular doses of lewd music, semi-porn books and magazines and trash TV. We'd rather fill their heads with this then with a sense of appreciation for America. So who's doing the brainwashing? The TV, Movie and record industries.
And--Camus--patriotism is the manipulation of emotions--just in a good way.
Glad I could stimulate some discussion!
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"We'd rather fill their heads with this then with a sense of appreciation for America."
Is it your claim that a celebration of 9/11 produces a constructive sense of appreciation for America?
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
I would ask for a rebuttal time and do a slide show based on Mark Twain's "A War Prayer". At least get the school paper to print it on the front page. Its a fairly short story.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:If you are so concerned about what pictures go into the minds of impressionable youths, then we should begin a lengthy post about what comes across the TV sets and what is coming out of Hollywood disguised as movies.
I am concerned about the general media and Hollywood, and that general concern is discussed by many people, but not in this thread.
quote:So who's doing the brainwashing? The TV, Movie and record industries.
I agree that they are too, but that's a different discussion which is in no way related to what this thread is about.
quote:patriotism is the manipulation of emotions--just in a good way.
Patriotism should be encouraged through respect and appreciation for one's government, not through scare tactics and fear. Schools especially have a certain responsibility to provide children with unbiased knowledge.
[ September 09, 2005, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: camus ]
Posted by Kettricken (Member # 8436) on :
Father Time,
Tinros said the slideshow included
quote: All of the pictures are either of buildings on fire, people dying, or middle easterners celebrating.
This suggests to me it was more about hate than remembrance. The number of Middle Easterners that celebrated was tiny. The vast majority were appalled and expressed outrage and sympathy. To show signs of the minority rather than the majority can only serve to spread fear and hate.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
I'm with ElJay; I'd like to know if this is a widespread practice.
And, I'm curious as to what part of the country you're in, Tinros.
Posted by Tinros (Member # 8328) on :
quote:Originally posted by Father Time: These are to remember things much like 9/11--times when America was vulnerable.
I'm confused now. America is ALWAYS vulnerable- being alive makes you vulnerable. Do we celebrat the civil war? The Revolutionary War? The two world wars? If no, then why are we celebrating this one?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I don't have time to read the thread right now--I'll check back later. But for now, my quick reaction: I had no idea what "Patriot's Day" was before I clicked on the thread. I figured Tinros was in some other country.
My school does not do anything like this. It's all new to me.
More later.
Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :
Elementary and Junior high checking in - absolutely nothing was done at my daughter's schools.
On a general level, I would agree that our students should learn about what happened - from an objective, no-finger-pointing, no-hate point of view, if that's at all possible. But to smother people of any age and at any time with repeated images of that day is, to me, cruel and heartless. I did my level best to shield my kids from that footage, not only on the day in question (and immediate aftermath) but also on the anniversaries. And I think that the schools should at least warn parents of their plans to include those images in their "presentations" so that parents can plan appropriately, especially parents of more sensitive children.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Who said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel"
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
They don't do that in our school; I don't think they could pull it off.
Interestingly enough, they didn't do anything here. We had a pep rally, including streakers, because our school's fall opener is today. Perhaps there was something on the morning announcements, but I didn't hear it. I'll see if anyhting happens on Monday.
Out of curiosity, Tinros-- do you know who produced the video? (Other students? Teachers? The school adminstration? The school district? An outside source? etc.)
--j_k
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:What's a load of steaming crap is to have us beleive that we are brain washing our impressionable youth about 9/11 and patriotism while at the same time feeding them the trash they get every day in regular doses of lewd music, semi-porn books and magazines and trash TV.
I think it's sweet how you think our kids read books.
-o-
quote:Do we celebrat the civil war? The Revolutionary War? The two world wars? If no, then why are we celebrating this one?
er, we do commemorate the other wars.
My feeling is that we don't need a separate day to commemorate each incident, and that showing just the images that were described is manipulative and inappropriate.
-o-
camus, if somebody started a thread perhaps giving suggested reading that everyone should read to commemorate 9/11, would you conclude that the internet is an institution set up to brainwash our population? Or would you figure it was just one person expressing his or her opinion, which others could agree or disagree with?
I am sick of people taking isolated incidents in schools and inferring from them that teachers, or public education as a whole, has some dark and shadowy objective other than teaching our kids as much and as well as humanly possible in the face of some pretty serious obstacles.
I'd be willing to bet you every dollar in my bank account right now that this event was the brainchild of one single teacher or administrator, who pushed it through.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
Icarus, Did I imply that schools in general are brainwashing our future generation? . . .
quote:Schools are the perfect place to indoctrinate the future of America.
Yeah, I guess I did. I apologize, for I did not mean to say that public education has some objective other than to teach children. I have the utmost respect for teachers and what they are trying to accomplish with their limited resources. I guess I was just trying to express my frustration at how so many aspects of society misrepresent certain events.
I later said,
quote:Schools especially have a certain responsibility to provide children with unbiased knowledge.
and I believe they do a very good job especially considering the limitations imposed upon them by government, society, and parents. I sympathize greatly with the task that teachers have before them and the hardships that they have to overcome, just to try to teach children. My best friend is about a year away from getting her teachers license, so I have nothing against teachers or educational institutions in general.
But I still do believe that schools are the perfect place to indoctrinate children, and some people take advantage of that by promoting their own message. It has been done before in schools, and although I don't think it's a common occurrence now, it doesn't surprise me that some teachers may have their own agenda when teaching.
Posted by raventh1 (Member # 3750) on :
Good thing I setup a network at school where kids could play network games during crap like this. GO QUAKE2-3, Counter-Strike!!
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Darn it, Bok, you beat me to it! Patriot's Day is all about taking a day off to watch the Boston Marathon, I thought everyone knew that.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
I'm going to suggest Father Time is a regular hatracker pulling some satirical stunt. Perhaps KoM is back?
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Just for what it's worth, in the middle school I teach at we are letting Sept 11th go by without comment. There was some thought of a moment of silence in the morning, but we have students who lost parents or other family members who are still very seriously affected by what happened.
We were told by one mother that if Sept 11th ever falls on a school day, her son will be kept home.
That's the same in the middle school I taught at last year, too. The high school in that district had no mention of it on the day, I don't think, but there was a girder from the WTC installed on the high school property as a memorial to those who lost their lives.
Posted by Tinros (Member # 8328) on :
When we discuss The Revolutionary War, to we talk about how evil EVERY Brit is? WHen we talk about the World Wars, are we told that ALL Japanese and Germans want us dead? I'm in Ohio, but we aren't told that Southerners hate us and want us all dead. If that were the case, we would be dead- all they'd have to do would be stop selling crops outside state lines. I still don't see why we have to be told, once a year, that everyone wants us dead. They don't. But we don't hear their side of the story- it's all a bunch of crap about how America is right and the USA is the best country in the world. But, you know, the more I live here, the more I want to go back to Italy, where I was born.
Posted by Tinros (Member # 8328) on :
Oh, and the administration and a few teachers put together the presentation. The principal was the speaker.
On a side note- woohoo! 200 posts!
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
"Hey teachers, leave them kids alone!"
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
The teachers usually don't have much say about what the administration decides upon when the administrators are stupid. And your administrators have proven their own stupidity beyond even the shadow of a doubt.
Most of your teachers are probably there at "gun point" as much as you are. More so. Students can't lose a job and all the benefits that a job provides: eg money to keep a roof over ones head, health insurance, etc. Unless you are going to Shlomo's old private school.
[ September 10, 2005, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Tinros -
Holidays abound. Memoroial Day covers everything, then V-E day, V-J day, Armistice Day, technically you could count ID4 as a celebration of the Rev. War.
From what I've read and heard from older people about those wars, that is exactly how it worked. During the Revolutionary War, the revolutionaries talked exactly like that to get the population into a war fervor. They painted the British as one giant body of oppressive evil. Not everyone bought into it, Tories still outnumbered "patriots" in most parts of the country, but it was still the impression. They did it again during the War of 1812.
I don't know much about that aspect of the Civil War, but I'm willing to bet it was thought of in much the same way.
As for World War I and II. "WHen we talk about the World Wars, are we told that ALL Japanese and Germans want us dead?" That is precisely how it was talked about back then. America as a whole hated Japanese people most ferverently because of that.
And here we are again. This is really no different than any other time, we're just trying to pretend we are wiser now, and maybe we are. I certainly hope we are. But it'll be 20 years before we look at this differently. The nations we hated and fought with over the last 200 years, by and large, are now our friends and closest allies. Perhaps that trend will carry over to the Middle East?
Posted by Tinros (Member # 8328) on :
But we need to STOP- how much did lying and propaganda help us in the long run? WHen friendly relations are restored, what will we do when half the population still hates "those easterners"?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Do what we did in the past, and patiently wait for that generation to die off?
You can't really erase indoctrinated or ingrained hatred. My uncle is a pretty bad racist, he refers to all black people by the N word, which bother my brother and I a lot, but there's nothing we can say to him about it. The man is a patriot in his own way, he fought in Vietnam, he votes, pays taxes, defends our way of life, but still has his predjudices. And nothing but death will release him of that.
Best way to solve it is to prevent it from happening to the next generation. But that is dangerous, it swings both ways. If you teach children that the Middle East is a nice place and that all the people there don't want to kill us, you aren't giving them the full truth. If you teach them the other thing, you're teaching hatred and fear. But where is the balance? How much can we trust kids to take information like that and really form a well thought out opinion on the state of world affairs?
The problem isn't just with their views on the Middle East, it's that American kids are woefully underprepared to exist in a world as interconnected as ours is. Their protected in little bubbles until something happens to shake them out of it, and then they go off the deep end. You can't solve that problem just by educating them on a single issue.
Kids need to grow up from the start knowing their is a bigger world out there, and then giving them the tools to figure out what their place is in it. That's part of why I think History classes are so important, it's not so they don't repeat the mistakes of the past, it's so they understand why the world is the way it is, and what they can do about it one way or the other.
What is happening now is akin to trying to make them solve a complex geometry problem without a protractor, or even worse, without even knowing what geometry is. They need more information, at younger ages, and they need parents to be more involved.
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