Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Teaching Children...

... I was wondering last night why young children are being taught about AGW in many schools. My daughter hasn't been taught much about it that I have seen (she is 7) but I do know that her teacher is pretty conservative minded and tries to keep that sort of thing out of the room and deal with issues the children have a good ability to actually understand. But my 12 year old has been inundated with GW issues in Science and other classes for the past 3 months.

It bothers me not just because of my personal thoughts on AGW, but because it seems totally ridiculous to scare the crap out of young children when there really isn't a whole lot they can do about it. What the heck can an 8 10 or 12 year old do about factories, coal mines, oil rigs, MPG on vehicles, etc???

If the argument is that they 'need' to learn about it so when they are adults they CAN do something about it, I call B*llSh*t. They can learn about it in the last few years of highschool if the school system deems it that important. I do NOT agree with teaching elementary children about it at all, I do not agree with making them think that they are going to wake up one day and find a desert in their backyard, or be starving to death. Why on earth would anyone think it is okay to put fear into young children like that?

You can teach them about recycling because it's a hands-on thing they can SEE and actually take part in. Our school has each class put their recyclable goods in diff containers in the classroom, and then the Grade four kids collect them each week and put them into a storage room. That is something the children CAN do, they can have control over it, and they can learn about what happens when we don't recycle. I don't mind if they are shown photos of overflowing landfills and are shown that we don't really have much space to pile up junk like this. They can learn to collect food for the needy (right now my daughter's school is trying to fill the Vice Principal's office with non-perishables). I don't mind if they are taught about the importance of not littering because again, it's something they CAN do in their every day lives and in turn talk to their parents about recycling, reducing waste, not littering, etc. I think that is all good.

But teaching children that polar bears are dying, showing videos of them wandering around on a tiny piece of ice, making children think all of the cute whales and dolphins in the ocean are going to die, telling them that if we don't do something about it, we face death as well --- are you freaking kidding me???? That is totally uncalled for in my opinion. What can a 7 yr old do about CO2 emissions and polar bears? Tell their mommy she better fork out $40,000 for a hybrid car on her $25,000/yr salary? Tell daddy his job as an oil rigger is killing polar bears up north? What can a young kid so about this stuff right now? I should imagine it just scares them and makes them feel like they have no control over the earth dying. What exactly is the point of that? All my personal thoughts and disagreement with AGW aside, how can supporters of it think this is a good tactic????

I will now cite a vid that I saw on WCVarone's blog that was apparently shown at the opening of this Copenhagen Climate Summit on Monday. I have not verified if this is true but I have heard about this vid from many other sources. Take the time to watch it and see what you think about our children being exposed to this kind of information. I would be having nightmares constantly if I was a little kid involved in the making of this vid, or forced to watch it::

http://wcvarones.blogspot.com/2009/12/copenhagens-opening-video-aka-if.html

Click above to view the post containing this video.

It reminds me of the old fairy tales like Grimms that children were taught over 100 years ago. We changed the wording and some story lines of many tales because they were so morbid and icky. The woodman cuts open the wolf to find Little Red Riding Hood's granny inside (and some versions have the wolf eating Red as well); a family starving in Hansel and Gretel who then encounter a witch who locks Hansel into a shed to feed him up nice and plump, the witch tries to cook the children but she dies instead; you know the tales, and you know how many different versions have come about because many people thought the stories were too hideous to tell young kids. So the wording changed to the woodsman chasing the wolf away before he could eat anyone, hansel and gretel do not kill the old witch, etc etc. Why did we bother cleaning things up in fairy tales but then turn around to tell children a supposedly REAL story of how the polar bears and everything else on this planet is going to die, and it was all man's fault? How did we get to this point and think it is okay??

4 comments:

  1. I wonder if you could charge a teacher with child abuse for teaching AGM, or showing Al Gore's movie in school.
    If one was to teach Mein Kampf as gospel to children you would certainly be charged, so why not for teaching something equally as evil and false.

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  2. My children were also taught AGW. I used it as a learning experience to teach them that the system is largely full of socialist crap and to think for themselves. The way to succeed in school is to remember it, regurgitate it on the test and forget it.

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  3. Of course, you are right.

    Sadly, those pushing this agenda the hardest see nothing wrong with filling kid's heads with fear, insecurity and that special brand of anger bred from hopelessness. Rather, it is par for the course for many who grew up during the cold war.

    It's an "either-or" mindset. Back then, you only had two choices: beat them or join them. Neither included ignoring the big bad wolf.

    If you chose the "beat them" side, as represented best by Reagan and Pope John Paul, it required a healthy measure of faith and hope to win the day as opposed to the angry, cynical narcissism of the "join them" crowd.

    As you can imagine, there remains a lot of angry lefties demanding to know why this generation of hopefuls should feel so special.

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  4. Kez I read this post a while back and debated about commenting. The post raises and interesting question as to how much freedom should teachers have to veer off the curriculum in the name of current affairs which could effectivily produce views in the child that is either different or not acceptable to the parent.

    A fair amount of conversation has occurred about the topic in Bill 44 debates.

    My last child graduated a year ago and we were fortunate to recieve course outlines from the teachers that we could review etc. At that time I had confidence of the content delivered and never questioned it much further.

    Just thoughts.

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