“Teach your children well.” That advice comes from the refrain of a song recorded in 1970 by sexagenarian rockers Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. Stephen Stills, who recently opined that the woolly mammoth, which is extinct, would be a more fitting symbol of the Republican Party than the elephant, would doubtless approve of the lessons being taught to children in Wisconsin’s Union Grove school district.
EAGnews reports that eighth-graders in the district were assigned a “liberalism vs. conservatism” crossword puzzle in which they learned, among other things, that conservatism is “the political belief of preserving traditional moral values by restricting personal freedoms.” Liberalism, in contrast, was defined as “the political belief of equality and personal freedom for everyone, often changing the current system to increase government protection of civil liberties.”
The crossword puzzle meantime was part of a supposed “civics” assignment. On the back side of the handout was a political survey which students were instructed to fill out in order to identify their beliefs.
So how do the above definitions square with real-world applications of the terms conservative and liberal? Consider a recent comment made by quintessential nanny state mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, who declared on CBS’s “Meet the Press” that “there are certain times we [in government] should infringe on your freedom.” Of course, Bloomberg thinks of himself as “independent,” so his assault on civil liberties (as liberals would be the first to tell you) doesn’t count.
This is not the first time, incidentally, that conservatism and the GOP have taken bum raps in the name of education. In April 2012, a Virginia elementary school teacher told her sixth-grade class that “Republicans are stupid” and that “they don’t care about anyone but wealthy people and businesses.” A month earlier, a middle school teacher in the same state tasked her students with finding vulnerabilities in the then-wide open field of Republican candidates and forwarding their findings to the Obama campaign. Then there was the South Carolina teacher who in May 2012 told her students they could be arrested for speaking ill of President Obama.
Related Articles
- CT school teaches that Americans don’t have constitutional right to bear arms
- NYT op-ed celebrates the nanny state?
- Teacher tells 6th grade class that ‘Republicans are stupid’
- Middle school assignment: Find flaws in GOP candidates—but not president
- LI teacher attacked by student after asking him to turn down music
- Left desperate for stories supporting its ‘conservatives are stupid’ narrative
- News flash: Barack Obama says, ‘American people aren’t stupid’
- NYC math teacher captured on video spitting in face of student
- NYC teacher tricks 5th graders into sending Christmas cards to prison inmate
- NYC teacher making $100K in rubber room refuses to retire
- Elementary school teacher tells second graders Santa Claus isn’t real
- GA parents incensed over 3rd-grade math problems that reference slavery
