Hi Everyone!
I'd like to talk about a surprising controversy that has come up lately. Namely Obama's plan to address school children with the most controversial socialist message imaginable: To stay in school and study.
As a child of the 80's, this amazes me because it says that some people, including some of my contemporaries, have extremely short political memories. But I clearly remember the many times when Ronald Reagan appeared on a TV screen our classrooms, in both Catholic and public school alike. Or the time in 1989 when George H.W. Bush made a massive appeal to the young people not to use drugs. Of course, this was a minor part of what Ronald Reagan's wife set in motion: a massive campaign to keep young people from using drugs. And some of it really did use tactics that some psychologists would question.
Well do I remember, "getting to" miss both algebra, art, and English class as a high school Freshman in order to spend the morning in the cafeteria witnessing the burley members of the "Radical Youth Invasion" break bricks on their heads, bend construction poles with their teeth, and tear up phone books in an effort to persuade us not to use drugs. As one conservative neighbor commented at the time, "It sounds like they're on drugs." Since their rationale for tearing up phone books was that drug dealers used phone books to find buyers, I wondered if they also wanted to keep us away from pizza parlors, lawyers, and car dealers as well. And expressed the concern to my parents, several teachers, and the principal that they were using "mob mentality", even though I was an extremely straight laced kid who had no plans on using drugs, nor any decriminalization stance. Of course, almost nobody took what I said seriously. Not even the "stoner" kids at the school.
Then there was also the "inspirational speaker" who told us that boys and girls couldn't really be friends and that eventually it would lead to something more. Therefore, it was better to show platonic affection to members of the same sex, while everyone in the crowd copped their usual homophobia. To think otherwise would be fooling ourselves.
So there you have it!! I suppose this was the intermediate between the nuns that used to warn young girls about ordering ravioli on a date because it would remind the boys of beds and pillows, and today's abstinence educators that compare loss of virginity-for females of course-to becoming like an unwrapped lollipop.
Looking back on those days, I find it ironic that so much attention was given to keeping teenagers off drugs and less was given to teenage pregnancy-a much bigger problem in this school district. Also whether or not a youngster was perceived as a "stoner" had little to do with whether or not they were actually using drugs, and a lot to do with how they dressed.
But nowadays, I know that most illegal drug use does occur among adults, not teeangers. And that not all ex-addicts are anything like the people who used to come to our school and tell about their horrific struggles with drugs-complete with details that would attract the attention of certain book banning parents, were they found in a book on the school reading list-while even the kindergartners were present.
But behind this apparent contradiction, I think lies a bigger issue. Namely the idea that school age children are both parental property and little babies who have no real ability to think or form opinions. Right winged talk show host Chris Stigall said of the school speech, "I wouldn't let my next door neighbor talk to my kid alone. I'm sure as hell not letting Barack Obama talk to him alone." Besides the fact that Stigall talks as if this was going to happen in some broom closet, I hate to imagine what sort of childhood the poor boy is going to have. I couldn't figure whether Stigall's kid(s) go to public school, private school, or (God forbid with such an insular father) are homeschooled. I wonder if he objects to teachers speaking to his children. What about clergy? Having been raised Catholic, it was quite normal for us to start talking to priests alone around the age of seven or eight. I also seem to remember kids going off to scout camp in groups where at most one third of them had a parent present.
How in the world did so many parents become so protective of their kids? Why is that so many kids don't get to walk one mile to school in some low crime neighborhoods? Or even ride the subway?
Another thing that seems not to occur to people who think the President and the Right are using the kids as pawns, is that maybe the children actually care about the world beyond the metaphorical nursery world that so many parents seem determined to create. Maybe issues like global warming, the war in Iraq, jobs, and health care actually mean something to them. The younger ones, have recently just witnessed the first Presidential election that they are may be old enough to remember. Or the first one since they hit "the age of reason" so to speak. The older ones may already have been thinking about how global warming or the economy are going to affect their lives or wondered if they might be drafted and sent to Iraq like some of their parents, uncles, or even grandparents were sent to Vietnam. Some of the more aware ones may even think about issues such as health care, world poverty, civil liberties, prison reform, land minds, or nuclear weapons.
Indeed, they may not be old enough to vote. (Of course, some might just be a year or less from it!!) But where did we get the idea that children are not old enough to hear what their President has to say? Is there not a sort of authoritarianism in the idea that cops and firemen can come to school and talk to kids, but not an elected leader? Why do so many people complain of political and social apathy among young people, and yet so easily dismiss the idea that they may actually have some thoughts or something to say about the state of the world?
Maybe it's the right is so hostile to young people "getting ideas" as they *supposedly* first did in the 60's, that they would like to shut not only the voices of children and teenagers, but even their ears and eyes, out of the political dialog entirely.
But for my part, I think the idea of the President treating people too young to vote for him like real citizens, is a beautiful thing. In a small way. And much as I never liked Ronald Reagan, I can after listening to the Tea Party crowd, look back on upon the images of him out our classroom screen monitors with a certain amount of nostalgia.
(Good Lord!!! I never thought I'd say anything like that. I must be getting sentimental!)
Say Goodnight Readers!
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