CNN.com – Freedom of what? – Jan 31, 2005 — This is just peachy after reading the article about the bogus reporters and paid off columnists.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech.
It turns out the First Amendment is a second-rate issue to many of those nearing their own adult independence, according to a study of high school attitudes released Monday.
The original amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of the way of life in the United States, promising citizens the freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly.
Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees.
John,
You’re not putting the proper spin on the story – you should be complimenting the school system on successfully training their students to be ready for the coming “Papers please, Citizen” world.
Remember the standard movie cliche during the Cold War? A Soviet escapee lands in America and asks “You mean I don’t need papers to cross from state to state? I love this freedom.” Not for much longer.
I blame this in part on our schools zero tolerance policies where someone eating a gum drop is treated the same as someone who sold a pound of crack. Such bizarre punishment certainly doesn’t breed any trust in the law. It only make kids learn that they are going to get punished no matter what they do.
Secondly, I blame it on your school’s anti-gang programs, which I affectionately call “conformance at any cost” programs. If kids cannot wear a cross, a star of david, or a red shirt, it’s quite obvious that kids will not understand freedom of expression.
In my humble opinion, if we want our kids to act like adults, I think we should treat them as adults with rights. If we want them to understand the US Constitution, we should have it apply to them.
Oh, I nearly forgot. Two decades of political correctness in our schools hasn’t helped much either.
Schools are less about “teaching” and more about molding….and have been since the 70’s. Who gets taught “civics” anymore? Are there “current event” classes? Nope. What about basic law and accounting….. again, no.
Yet, these were common classes in the 50’s and 60’s.
Beyond political correctness, beyond dumbing down of materials, beyond no child left behind (no matter what the cost)….the real failure of schools is in the tenure system of teachers…where the worst ones survive, and the best ones are laid off, or go on to other careers because no one can stand the tenured ones. That and the fact that most schools now have more administrators! (Principals, secretary, support staff…vice principals, blah blah blah). The administrators make all the decisions…the remaining teachers….just do what they’re told. Same with the kids….”just do what you’re told, or else!!!” Student government must abide by adminstrators decisions……the school board doesn’t listen (for the most part) and are often overrulled by the district administrators……policies are made to give them something to do!
…The school system is a rats nest of special interests, agendas and mismanagement. The kids….well, they endure the twelve years until graduation, then go work at Walmart.
The developers are turning an old mental institution in our area into a big box Supercenter Walmart shopping center for $30 million. Freedom of more cheap stuff is what drives the economy. There is a group fighting the Walmart and the entire development seems kind of nutty in my opinion. There were about a hundred other things that could of been done with this site, but it appears that the asylum is being replaced by the shoppers asylum. We have become a bargain crazed culture. Where we 20 locally owned stores, we now have one big Walmart. The schools centralized like this. In our town, there were neighborhood schools that all got consolidated into a big educational center in one building. The old schools became apartments or were torn down for house lots. Even the YMCA was turned into apartments. Many of he grand old homes in town were turned into makeshift duplexes and apartments. I really see this as the future. No manufacturing, with lots of people renting their housing and working for low wages and shopping in corporate stores like Walmart, riding public transportation. The mental health hospitals began shutting down in the 1980’s, along with the steel industry here in our area. In the 1990’s the developers started a retail building boom, but no manufacturing would return. The airport boomed in the same time period and it is now a bust. They even put a retail mall into the airport. For 2005 and beyond, real estate development will consist of more rental units and national retail sweatshops. New housing has developed here with a trend toward $300,000 and up executive McEstates. A number of residential developments have been anchored with new golf courses. Some are of the gated community type with a clubby atmosphere. The older working class housing stock had over 10,000 sheriffs sales in 2004 because people are getting shafted on home loans, wages are going down or nobody wants the old housing stock or the population has declined. You can really see the a new political order coming of age in the physical world. You have these little pockets of expensive homes and private schools and these large areas of the community with bad schools and older housing that isn’t affordable. The affordable housing isn’t even affordable anymore. High school kids want more free stuff, but there are no free lunches. There is free software. I guess if we have more free software, we will have more cash for important stuff like better housing and better computer hardware. It is a physical world. I hate cheap, poorly designed stuff. Electronic commerce really got screwed up somewhere along the line. The next generation might get it right.
Here is a tip. Open source everything you can and don’t depend on one company or one industry for anything in the future. Decentralize everything you can and avoid concentration.
I remember current events classes. We learned about branding and brainwashing. People are like brand robots today. This was a big part of the first dotcom boom and bust. Every Tom, Dick and Harry was trying to create an online brand. Big companies like Microsoft started turning generic words into brands. Windows, word, explorer, front page. Spoofing was built around branding instead of thinking.