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Jewish World Review June 29, 2005 / 22 Sivan, 5765 Namby-pamby nation By Michelle Malkin
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
White House senior adviser Karl Rove caused a firestorm last week after observing that liberals favor "therapy and understanding" to fight terrorism in a post-Sept. 11 world.
Rove spoke the truth. But he barely scratched the surface.
The left-wing Kumbaya crowd is quietly grooming a generation of pushovers in the public schools. At a time of war, when young Americans should be educated about this nation's resilience and steely resolve, educators are indoctrinating students with saccharine-sticky lessons on "non-violent conflict resolution" and "promoting constructive dialogues."
Peaceniks are covering our kids from head to toe in emotional bubble wrap. They are creating a nation of namby-pambys.
The latest example of Hand-Holding 101 comes from the New York City public schools. According to Lauren Collins of The New Yorker magazine, the school system is introducing a new curriculum called "Operation Respect: Don't Laugh at Me" into all of its elementary and middle schools. The program is now used in at least 12,000 schools and camps across the country.
Among the mindless training exercises teachers undergo is the "Caring Being" session. Collins quotes a conflict-resolution expert in Brooklyn leading middle-school educators through the lesson: "I want you all to share a time in your career as an educator where someone did or said something that made you feel like you were not cared for or respected...Now do the opposite." After drawing figures encompassing their negative and positive experiences, teachers shared their finished products, "Caring Beings," which would be used to "explore creating agreements around behaviors."
Blecchh.
Teaching students to respect each other is all well and good. But a closer look at the program's founder and its sponsors shows that, beneath all the fuzzy-wuzzy, touchy-feely jargon, is a clear pacifist agenda.
"Operation Respect" was founded by radical lefty Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary last seen in April publicly apologizing to Vietnam. During last year's presidential campaign, you may recall that Yarrow traveled and performed with his old friend and anti-war mate John Kerry, who pretended to smoke a joint while Yarrow sang the ostensible children's ditty, ""Puff the Magic Dragon."
No wonder they favor "Ridicule Free Zones."
The teaching materials for "Operation Respect" were created under the direction of Linda Lantieri, founder of something called the "Educators for Social Responsibility's Resolving Conflict Creatively Program." Educators for Social Responsibility promotes pedagogical material from the likes of the militant "War Resisters League" to "understand" war and peddles lessons on (hyped) anti-Muslim discrimination in America to "understand" the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Additional guidance for the lessons came from the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center. The program lays the groundwork for children to take a "peace pledge" and commit to non-violent conflict resolution to solve problems.
Translation: Therapy and understanding over vigorous self-defense.
In their brilliant book, "One Nation Under Therapy," Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel diagnosed the public school's pacifist pathology dead on:
Just what we need to combat throat-slitting, suicide plane-flying Islamists: young eunuchs swaying to moldy old folk music while their "Peace Place" signs flap in the wind.
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JWR contributor Michelle Malkin is the author of, most recently, "In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)
© 2005, Creators Syndicate |
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