Teaching political view points

[spajohn]

OK, maybe the title is a bit strong for this topic but I'm keen to hear what people think about this. The thought of sending kids to school one day and having them brain washed really concerns me...I guess you have to rely on your parenting getting some sense into them at home?

" Dr Newman said concerned parents contacted her after An Inconvenient Truth was shown in schools in 2007.
They were concerned that teachers were not pointing out inaccuracies in the film and were not explaining that there were alternative viewpoints. "

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3607019/An-Inconvenient-Truth-sparks-school-indoctrination-debate

[Winston001]

I think we need more education of our children in terms of politics and the functioning of society.

What Muriel Newman is getting at is biased presentation of ideas. Ideally different political systems and points of view should be taught so that children become aware of the differences in the world. Personally I have no problem with An Inconvenient Truth because it points to important issues in an understandable way. There are criticisms of it and it would be fair for children to be told that not everyone agrees with environmentalism. They should also be told there is a financial cost to the community of changing the ways we obtain and use energy.

The delicate point of teaching children is to avoid indoctrination of one view. That aint easy. On the other hand many kids are indoctrinated by their parents so its healthy for them to be exposed to counter views at school.

I remember my own parents horror at a school teacher who had a poster of Che Guevara on the class-room wall. Communism!! How dare he. Well, he was exposing us to a different point of view and a person who was a hero in South America. I've never forgotten that.

[Ronin]

I don't mind what they teach in schools but then I teach my son to think for himself. To make up his own mind and form his own opinions from the information given to him. Even at 11 he is bloody good at it too.

[MisterD]

The delicate point of teaching children is to avoid indoctrination of one view.

Which is hard when the teaching unions and Labour party are joined at the hip and both see the education system as a tool for their social-engineering agenda...

[avgas]

I don't mind what they teach in schools but then I teach my son to think for himself. To make up his own mind and form his own opinions from the information given to him. Even at 11 he is bloody good at it too.
Seconded.
However I do feel that they did need to show a balanced argument with this particular movie.
Politics and Religion in school needs to be neutral. So if they show one side of a coin, they have to by default explain the other.
But then again they teach you in school that electrical current goes from positive to negative........

[slofox]

Hell yeah - when I was a teacher I taught the kids to be as subversive as I possibly could!

(i.e. NOT to take anything at face value but to assess it for themselves in terms of their own value systems...basically I advocated questioning everything. I don't think too many of my pupils turned into terrorists...that I know of anyway)

When all is said and done, teachers are a distant third in terms of the impact they have on children's beliefs. Peer group is numero uno, parents are second and then way in the distance come the teachers. I meantasay - did YOU listen to your teachers when you were at school? 'cause I sure as hell didn't...dorks the lot of 'em

[Jantar]

Maybe this should be a good counter.

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[Swoop]

Stressed children? FFS let them be kids and enjoy life for a while without giving them crap like Global Taxing and politics to get stressed over!



Today's children are worried about (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/youth/news/article.cfm?c_id=107&objectid=10639763) more than just their homework and peer pressure - they are also worried about terrorism and climate change and whether there will be a future for their own children.

These are just some of the serious issues a group of more than 170 New Zealand children have cited as major stresses in their lives.

Auckland University Researcher Fiona Pienaar interviewed children aged 8-12 for her PhD to find out what stressed them out and how they coped.

The study, which only involved children with no obvious stress, identified 29 common issues that caused stress, the majority of which were clustered around school and family.

There were others based on interpersonal issues, such as not being able to trust friends, being left out of things, fear of punishment and being confused by what adults did or said.

The fourth category was intrapersonal problems, such as worries about the future and what's happening in the world.

By comparing her results to studies from previous years she has found the source of a child's stress has changed dramatically from years gone by.

In the 1970s and 1980s, problems identified by children included family issues, friends and peer pressure. By the 1990s bullying, being hurt, stranger danger, disasters and being touched inappropriately had joined the list.

Ms Pienaar said the inclusion of bigger global issues like terrorism and global warming in today's tensions reflected a greater awareness by children of what was going on in the world.

Images of war and conflict around the world were particularly challenging for children, with one saying;

"Recently I've been worrying about some of the wars that are happening on the other side of the world, why are we just killing people, why can't we just kind of stop it? I kind of just think, I hope it doesn't get any worse."

Global warming and how a natural disaster would affect their lives were two other issues for children.

"I'm worried about the environment and the global warming, the ice and how it's going. I write it down in my little notebook ... I'm thinking people should actually stop the global warming before it's too late for their children," said one child.

Many children also worried about the future.

"The future, if we have children, would there be a future for them?" asked one child

Ms Pienaar said that in the past children tended to think of themselves as immortal but these days things have changed.

They are far more exposed to the media and their parents' stress issues, which has led to a greater awareness of potentially stressful world issues.

"When children have those concerns it can be very distracting and I don't think it's surprising that we have increasing behaviour problems, increasing diagnosis of childhood anxiety disorders and childhood depression."

The positive thing was that children weren't passive recipients of stress.

"They have a very wide range of coping strategies."

Dr Peter Coleman, a developmental and educational psychologist, said many of the world stressors indicated by children were reflective of their surroundings.

"You'd expect it from the point of view that their parents are concerned about it, talk about it. They see it on the news so they would pick it up."

'I'm worried about people killing animals'

Nine-year-old Joanna Laxon stresses about finishing school projects, "stuff outside of school", the environment and "what will happen later on in life".

It's a lot for the Auckland girl to worry about but she has plenty of ways of coping with it, from talking to her parents to writing it all down.

According to research into what many 8- to 12-year-olds stress about, Joanna seems to be typical of New Zealand children these days.

When asked what things outside of school caused her stress she said "things that just don't have to do with school". Some are things she's read in the paper or heard from friends.

She had plenty of environmental concerns, including global warming and Iceland's erupting volcano.

"I don't know much about it but I know it's not very good," she said about global warming.

Joanna said these environment issues stressed her out because they "could make a problem". She also worried how they could affect her and other people in the future and the potential harm from pollution.

"Sometimes I just kind of worry about how so many people are killing animals, like in Africa a lot of people are killing lions because their territory is being ruined and then they come to the farms and kill the cows and the farmers shoot them."

[Edbear]

Seconded.
However I do feel that they did need to show a balanced argument with this particular movie.
Politics and Religion in school needs to be neutral. So if they show one side of a coin, they have to by default explain the other.
But then again they teach you in school that electrical current goes from positive to negative........

That's not true..???? :gob:


Hell yeah - when I was a teacher I taught the kids to be as subversive as I possibly could!

(i.e. NOT to take anything at face value but to assess it for themselves in terms of their own value systems...basically I advocated questioning everything. I don't think too many of my pupils turned into terrorists...that I know of anyway)

When all is said and done, teachers are a distant third in terms of the impact they have on children's beliefs. Peer group is numero uno, parents are second and then way in the distance come the teachers. I meantasay - did YOU listen to your teachers when you were at school? 'cause I sure as hell didn't...dorks the lot of 'em

LOL!!! I bet the kids loved you, too!

Personally, I believe the parents have the greatest influence. One thing I learned from my kids , was that despite their reactions they do tend to believe what you tell them, so be very careful what you tell them!

I also encouraged my children to question everything and not to believe sonthing just because someone said, (even me...), no matter who that someone was. We suffer the consequences of our choices in life for the better or worse, (along with our family if we make decisions that affect them), not the person(s) we listened to, so it behoves us to find out for ourselves what is right or wrong and if that means personal study and research, so be it.

[MisterD]

That's not true..???? :gob:


Time for some of that famed Edbear personal research methinks...we so need a facepalm smiley...

[oldrider]

I think we need more education of our children in terms of politics and the functioning of society.

What Muriel Newman is getting at is biased presentation of ideas. Ideally different political systems and points of view should be taught so that children become aware of the differences in the world. Personally I have no problem with An Inconvenient Truth because it points to important issues in an understandable way. There are criticisms of it and it would be fair for children to be told that not everyone agrees with environmentalism. They should also be told there is a financial cost to the community of changing the ways we obtain and use energy.

The delicate point of teaching children is to avoid indoctrination of one view. That aint easy. On the other hand many kids are indoctrinated by their parents so its healthy for them to be exposed to counter views at school.

I remember my own parents horror at a school teacher who had a poster of Che Guevara on the class-room wall. Communism!! How dare he. Well, he was exposing us to a different point of view and a person who was a hero in South America. I've never forgotten that.

There was a large framed picture of Joseph Stalin in our school room but it just helped me to understand that our "State" schoolteachers are majority pinko communists!

I was caned, strapped or put on detentions many times for asking questions that did not line up with their "socialist" indoctrination syllabus!

Funny thing is, I didn't really know what it was all about until later in life, as I became educated by the "great university of life"!

New Zealand is a "socialist state" and our "state school education" system is it's greatest means of keeping it that way! :yes:

Then when we reach voting age we con vote for any political persuasion we like as long as it's "socialist" in it's outcome! Democracy, New Zealand style! :brick:

[Edbear]

Time for some of that famed Edbear personal research methinks...we so need a facepalm smiley...

Yeah, and the tongue-in-cheek smiley too! Where's that one? :p

[avgas]

Time for some of that famed Edbear personal research methinks...we so need a facepalm smiley...
In his defence it is a common misconception.
Much like the one where if I get $100 in the future it is worth $100 now. Financial analysts say no............they say its worth more than zero and less than $100.
The pessimist in me states that $100 is worth nothing until you get it.

[scissorhands]

Sadly, the war for our minds is only going to get worse in the short term.

Saturday morning tv has hundreds of references to fizzy drinks, sweets and fast food.....white guy heroes and darkish badies....

I would start by throwing out the TV and newspapers from their new impressionable lives and take them on lots of holdays to the third world.

[Edbear]

In his defence it is a common misconception.
Much like the one where if I get $100 in the future it is worth $100 now. Financial analysts say no............they say its worth more than zero and less than $100.
The pessimist in me states that $100 is worth nothing until you get it.

The financial institutions reckoned it was worth $110.00 now... :yes:

As for the electricity flow, it's the old story. It's not quite that simple. My reply was tongue-in-cheek... :innocent:

[Edbear]

Sadly, the war for our minds is only going to get worse in the short term.

Saturday morning tv has hundreds of references to fizzy drinks, sweets and fast food.....white guy heroes and darkish badies....

I would start by throwing out the TV and newspapers from their new impressionable lives and take them on lots of holdays to the third world.

But, but... how are they going to babysit without TV...? :shutup:

[slofox]

Personally, I believe the parents have the greatest influence.

In the long term, I agree - parents DO have the greatest influence. BUT. When the kids are at school and their peer group is at its biggest size, then that peer group has a greater influence than do parents. As a person grows older and moves out of school and into the work force and beyond, the peer group size usually decreases and its influence on viewpoints decreases as well. Eventually we tend to revert to our original value systems - viz. those we learned as little kids - from out parents.

[MisterD]

Yeah, and the tongue-in-cheek smiley too! Where's that one? :p

My apologies...in all the arguments we've had, I'd never previously encountered irony...

[Edbear]

In the long term, I agree - parents DO have the greatest influence. BUT. When the kids are at school and their peer group is at its biggest size, then that peer group has a greater influence than do parents. As a person grows older and moves out of school and into the work force and beyond, the peer group size usually decreases and its influence on viewpoints decreases as well. Eventually we tend to revert to our original value systems - viz. those we learned as little kids - from out parents.

Yeah, I think you are right in general. Kids don't like to be rejected and want to fit in and have friends and can succumb to influence, especially as they reach their teens when they are in turmoil from hormonal changes and suffering self-doubt along with growing self-awareness. It's a troubling and confusing time and leaves them vulnerable to outside influences against their better judgement or the standards set by their parents.

The role of parents is cruicial and we always encouraged openness and frankness with our kids, trying not to react to emotional outbursts and allowing their emotions time to cool, when they would come back and talk, usually apologising for their outburst.

Best thing a parent can do is take an interest in their children, go over their schooling with them and keep in touch with their teachers. Takes time, but kids need that time and interest.

[Edbear]

My apologies...in all the arguments we've had, I'd never previously encountered irony...

How ironic... :msn-wink:

[MisterD]

I would start by throwing out the TV and newspapers from their new impressionable lives and take them on lots of holdays to the third world.

No need to do that...just be selective with the channel button. I get mithered more to find a program about dinosaurs at the moment than whether Ben10 is on, simply because all else being equal, he watches the former with Dad and the latter on his own.

[MisterD]

How ironic... :msn-wink:

Thanks Alanis.

[mashman]

It's hardly surprising that kids are confused, scared, unsure etc... when their parents can't even get their government to look into the issues that concern their kids because they're too focussed on financial security... it's fucking pathetic.

Kids should not have to worry about politics, they don't even know what politics are... we should be doing that on their behalf, to allow them to enjoy their childhood by being children and not worrying if the guy with a towel on his head sitting next to them is wired... shit we can't even get our government to listen to our issues... they are always dictated to us... so it's hardly surprising that the kids are worrying about issues that really shouldn't be their concern...

[SPman]

Personally, I believe the parents have the greatest influence.
Parents are an influence for a while, until you get out into the world and form your own opinions. My folks influences lasted about 6 months!
Teaching kids to enquire and think outside all the boxes is the way to go. Don't blindly believe, question everything, from every angle!

[mashman]

Parents are an influence for a while, until you get out into the world and form your own opinions. My folks influences lasted about 6 months!
Teaching kids to enquire and think outside all the boxes is the way to go. Don't blindly believe, question everything, from every angle!

People don't like that. But in the spirit of the thread. Political Studies first thing Monday morning. Pick an "issue" on friday. Have a look over the weekend if you want. Monday, let the class discuss the "issue" and it's further reaching consequences, teacher only there to keep it a debate and within the realms of possibility. Monday "homework" due Friday morning on simple list of pros and cons on issue discussed prior Monday. And on and on, then give an "exam" at the end of the year. wonder if the teachers will be able to handle kids trying to wrap their head around the issues of life... Political Studies PAH Life Preparation Class they can call it.