Looney Labs Educators Mailing list Archive

RE: [Edu] objectionable to the staff/parents?

  • From"Kate Jones" <kate@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • DateSat, 16 Dec 2006 19:53:07 -0500
Oh dear me. Are we now on the slippery slope of totalitarian political
correctness and censorship? What else about our past history has to be
denied because it might be controversial? What is controversial - that which
does not fit the memes du jour? "Don't discuss" - keep them in permanent
blinders?

Freedom of thought, freedom of the mind are not possible without freedom of
knowledge. Is our society entering a new era of tyranny over the mind of
man? A new Dark Ages ruled by a few who empower themselves to dictate to the
rest of us? 

Only knowledge will set you free. We cannot structure all of society, and
set all of our standards, to the level of the emotionally dysfunctional, the
cognitively inert, and the intellectually barren. You wouldn't cut off the
feet of the able to make everyone equally wheelchair-bound (or would you?).

Freedom - don't give it up, don't yield to the forces of darkness.

Knowledge and Truth - don't hide it and censor it. In the age of political
spin,
have we so lost our compass that the truth is whatever we want it to be?
Kids are born to want the truth. Give it to them. Discuss, explore, learn
from the mistakes of the past. 

The only objectionable thing is to distort truth and reality, and to stand
by and let it happen without protest.

I hereby protest. 

War and Peace and Hippyism are all legitimate concepts to study, along with
everything else the brilliant minds at Looney Labs have thought appropriate
to include in their Fluxx product. 

Every concept is a valid subject for discussion, even at the simplest levels
that a young child can understand and build on. You people have a priceless
tool in this product for stimulating minds, far beyond its overtly
entertaining uses. Doesn't any teacher in this group know about and use
Socratic method? You might like to look it up - it's the coming thing to
improve education.

-- Kate Jones







-----Original Message-----
From: edu-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:edu-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kimberly Terrill
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2006 11:40 AM
To: Looney Labs Education Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Edu] objectionable to the staff/parents?

My kids asked me what hippies were. I just told them "People that love
nature and like to use natural things instead of manmade and love being
peaceful."
I give my kids informatioon on a 'need to know basis' and I figured that is
all they needed to know right now. but, that is easy for me to decide with
my students, being homeschoolers. So my teaching and school examples don;t
always work well with larger scale schooling. 
--Kimberly

 
On 12/16/06, Yves Bouyssounouse <icehouse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 



	I would probably leave out the hippyism from the deck when playing
Fluxx
	with my students; simply to avoid any controversy. In general, I
have 
	found that our community, while very tolerant of alternate
lifestyles,
	prefers the "don't discuss in our schools" attitude