Yet another “progressive” usurpation of government schools is taking place on Wednesday, March 14, 2018 at 10:00 when without permission students will leave their classrooms for 17 minutes—one minute for each person killed at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Of course, it will take 10 minutes for all the students to exit buildings and another 10 to get back to classes and settle down, so realistically, their political protest will waste closer to 35 minutes of instructional time. This anti-gun political protest (#ENOUGH #NationalSchoolWalkout) is organized by EMPOWER, the youth division of the far-Leftist Women’s March organization—you know, the pink beanie-bedizened “nasty” women.
This Leftist political action may waste even more instructional time in Elgin, Illinois schools if School District U-46 CEO Tony Sanders has his way. If he gets his druthers, it looks like the entire day will revolve around this anti-gun political action. Here are the troubling parts of the email Sanders—who can’t seem to keep out of Leftist-inspired messes—sent to staff, faculty, and administrators:
We have guided administrators to establish a plan to support student-led activities on March 14…. This is a “teachable moment” across our nation, and we will be encouraging students who want to participate in this event to plan for meaningful activities that reflect the best principles of civic engagement…. School administration will allow students to participate in this event on school property without fear of reprisal. We respect students’ rights to free speech. Our role as school and District employees is not to participate in the activities or voice our own political opinions during the school day but to guide students toward research, reflection and advocacy as civic-minded citizens. Activities can range from conducting research, delivering presentations, writing to legislators, creating art, discussing issues in a Socratic Seminar format, and more. (emphasis added)
“Guiding” administrators to “support” student-led activities contradicts the spirit of his instruction not to “voice” opinions. Isn’t “support” an expression of an opinion? If someone were to say she “supports” a particular gubernatorial candidate, wouldn’t everyone understand that to mean she has an opinion on the candidate and wouldn’t they know exactly what that opinion is?
It appears that Sanders’ guidance extends way beyond the 17 minutes when students will hang around outside. It appears he is guiding teachers to shape their day’s activities around the anti-gun agitation of Leftist teens. Is that appropriate guidance? Shouldn’t teachers resume the regularly-scheduled activities free from the influence of political activity?
Let’s imagine what would happen if a group of students organized by an outside conservative political activist organization were to stage a walkout to protest the silencing of women in Muslim countries, the murders of Christians in Muslim countries, the efforts to narrowly circumscribe or overturn the Second Amendment, illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, co-ed restrooms and locker rooms, or legalized human slaughter (also known euphemistically as “abortion”). Would Sanders “guide” administrators to establish a plan to “support” these “student-led” activities? And how do you think Leftist teachers—and most teachers are Leftists—would respond to being “guided” to support these student-led activities?
Now that I think about it, maybe kids should leave government indoctrination centers for 60 million minutes—one minute for each human slaughtered in the womb since 1973. The average school year is 75, 600 minutes, so this would take kids out of government schools for 796 years. Sounds like a plan to me.
We all know that this kind of adolescent activism comes mostly from Leftist kids, but what if conservative kids rose up and decided to organize walkouts like the ones just mentioned. And what if other Leftist students organized other protests in support of other causes. How many protests would Sanders and his compeers in other schools permit? Would administrators tolerate 2, 5, 10, 20?
And that leads to the question of whether instructional time in government schools should ever be exploited for political purposes. Sanders referred to respect for “students’ rights to free speech.” Surely Sanders knows that students do not have the full complement of speech rights while at school. Moreover, prohibiting students from leaving class does not abrogate their speech rights. As all administrators, teachers, and students know, students have multiple ways available to express their views that don’t involve 17 minutes of playing hooky.
Let’s not forget in all the exciting hubbub about Leftist teens engaging in Leftist activities at school about how conservative teens will feel during this half hour (or the entire day). Will they feel compelled to leave school during the walkout? Will they feel self-conscious remaining in the classroom? Will their non-participation be interpreted as not caring about school violence? Will they fear their non-participation will be interpreted as apathy about school shootings?
Everyone desperately wants to find solutions to the problem of mass shootings in schools. Full and open discussions of all the factors that contribute to school shootings and of all possible solutions are necessary. Discussions must include examination of the effect of family dysfunction; absent or abusive fathers; violent video games, tv programs, and movies; the industrial education complex; the drugging of children—especially male children—to force compliance within the industrial education complex; the systemic failure of schools and law enforcement to identify and treat properly seriously troubled teens; and the loss of Christian faith. A 17-minute walkout by Leftist teens organized by Women’s March agitators is unhelpful and only exacerbates division.
Take ACTION: Parents, your mission—should you choose to accept it—is to contact your children’s teachers via email ASAP, asking whether they will be planning classroom activities for next Wednesday that pertain in any way to the National School Walkout or school gun violence. If even some of your children’s teachers are planning activities around the National School Walkout, keep your children home for the day if you can. Allowing Leftists to determine what takes place in instructional time ensures that it will happen again and again and again.
#dontbedoormats
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