Tag Archives: Public School

Commentary

How socialism undermines the traditional family in Sweden

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Take a look at this guest post by LN at Gates of Vienna. He describes how socialism in Sweden has undermined traditional marriage and traditional parenting and caused health problems for children. For example, he discusses the effects of day care and schooling of children from the ages of 1-12 years.

Excerpt:

In large parts of the world it is natural — or at least it was — that young mothers work less than men or not at all. Career women and mothers with small children gave notice and abandoned their top skilled jobs to become “stay at home” mothers. In countries where motherliness and motherhood is a large and accepted part of life, women could leave work to become full-time mothers without losing prestige or merit.

But not in Sweden. Taxes are now so high that today it is generally required that both parents work and pay taxes to the yawning chasm that the state has become.

And this has profound effects on the children.

Excerpt:

Professor Jay Belsky is an internationally recognized expert in the field of child development and family studies. His areas of special expertise include the effects of day care, parent-child relations during the infancy and early childhood years, the transition to parenthood, the etiology of child maltreatment, and the evolutionary basis of parent and child functioning.

[…]Many hours in pre-school, regardless of quality, results in increased behavioral problems. Nor can pre-school compensate for the weak mothering of young children. A one-or two-year-old child with a less responsive mother develops better in the mother’s care than in many hours (10 hours/week) at pre-school. Children with a less responsive parent (mother) seem to need more time with the mother, said Belsky. Nor is there any evidence that preschool would improve the child’s social development.

And here’s another excerpt:

Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a clinical psychologist from Canada with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues, and the author of the internationally recognized book Hold On to Your Kids — why parents need to matter more than peers. Dr. Neufeld’s message was that the younger generation’s lack of adult contacts in the Western world is one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time — peers replacing parents in the lives of our children. Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation [jämnårigorientering], which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour.

But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for conformism, aggression, schoolyard bullying, and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity.

Gates of Vienna also had a recent post about the epidemic of gang rape that is currently going on in Britain. (Click here to watch a British documentary which features interviews of women and men talking about this gang rape problem). This is especially sad because young unmarried women who are the victims of the breakdown of the family actually voted 77 percent for Obama, who favors the same socialist policies that cause mothers to leave the home and put the children into the hands of strangers.

News

Canadian pro-life student quarantined by public school principal

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Here’s the story from LifeSiteNews.

Excerpt:

16-year-old high school student Jennifer Rankin fully intended to unite her voicelessness with that of the unborn as part of the annual Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity when she arrived at school yesterday, reports Bill Henry of Sun Media.

She was impeded, however, by her school principal, who stated that the right to free speech does not apply on school property and who forced Rankin to remain in isolation for the entire day as long as she participated in the event.

Rankin, 16, arrived at Peninsula Shores District School in Wiarton, Ontario yesterday morning, with the red tape over her mouth and with the simple word ‘life’ written upon it.  She and her mother were stopped at the door, however, by school principal Patricia Cavan, while police cruisers stood nearby.  Cavan initially told Rankin that she could not enter school property, but then consented to allowing her in the building, separated from other students.

“I was taken directly into a small room that was opposite the vice-principal’s office and I was in there all day,” Rankin told Sun Media.  “I wasn’t allowed to speak with or see any other students and students were not allowed to come and see me and I was isolated in that room for the entire day.”

[…]The youth pastor at Rankin’s church, Ken Holley, expressed disappointment and insisted that the school’s actions violated her rights.  “It’s a day of silence and basically they lose their voice for those that never had a voice,” he said. “It’s pro-life. There’s no arguing. They can’t talk all day. They just stay silent and if anybody asks why they’re silent they hand out a little sheet that says this is why.”

[…]Cavan, who did not return a message left by LifeSiteNews.com, told Sun Media that the right to free speech does not apply on school property.  “School property is not a public place,” she said. “So while absolutely we support the right to free speech in a public space, that’s not school property.”  She said that school policy prohibits the dissemination of one-sided information on religious, political, or other issues that are controversial.

Pastor Holley pointed out that the school does an annual ‘Gay Pride’ day “where everybody wears pink shirts,” and that the school allows nude pictures on the wall to stand as ‘art’.

It’s strange because this school is located in a tiny town in a very rural area, hundreds of miles from any major city. I would think that a rural school would not be so backward as to thwart basic human rights like free speech. Oh well. It’s Ontario, Canada. Land of Chief Censor Jennifer Lynch and the Canadian Human Rights Commissions. You can read more about how Canada discriminates against Christians here. You can read more about how Canada discriminates against pro-lifers here.

UPDATE: It’s happening here! Student sues for right to wear pro-life shirt (via Ruth Institute Blog)

News

Ontario board pushes for all-male school to fix decline in male achievement

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Story from the leftist Globe and Mail. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Boys left behind by Toronto’s public schools are about to feel a firm force pulling them forward: the strong hand of Chris Spence, the Toronto District School Board’s new education director, who is calling for an all-male school and more “boy-friendly” classrooms to address male underachievement.

Boys’ disengagement at school not only leads to poor grades and unproductive lives, but also can lead to the kind of violence Toronto schools have struggled to control in recent years, Dr. Spence told reporters before presenting a sweeping vision document, his first since becoming director this year, to the board’s planning and priorities committee last night.

“The real objective is to cast a critical eye on how we reach and teach our boys,” said Dr. Spence, whose 2008 book, The Joys of Teaching Boys , makes the case that boys learn differently from girls and have suffered under a “unisex model for child rearing and teaching.”

In Toronto public schools last year, boys were 3.5 times more likely to be suspended. They underperform compared with girls regardless of age, socioeconomic class or ethnicity, and are more likely to need learning support programs.

[…] [Spence] has long advocated for strong role models for boys, to offset what he calls a “fatherless world” for youngsters. A decade ago, he pioneered a mentoring program called Boys 2 Men, which remains popular among Toronto and Hamilton students.

His new vision calls for a significant extension beyond that, to include the boys-only academy that would open for kindergarten to Grade 3 students next September and add a grade with each successive year. It would operate as a “school of choice” for interested families.

[…]Dr. Spence pledged to extend a sampling of a male-focused curriculum across all his schools. Within existing co-ed schools, he wants to set up “demonstration classrooms,” some all-male and others using “boy-friendly” teaching techniques that recognize their different learning style.

He hopes the initiatives will also lure more male teachers to work in elementary schools, where they are underrepresented.

“Boys really thrive in environments that are hands-on; they thrive in environments in which there is structure, but also where they’re empowered” to move about the classroom, he said. Under the traditional unisex approach, “When every bone in a boy’s body is telling him to get up and move around, we’re usually telling him to sit down and be quiet.”

Read the whole thing. Highly recommended. This is what I would love to do in my second career after I retire from computer science – but I refuse to join a teachers union! Especially not one like CUPE, which is notoriously leftist. Like, “Van Jones” leftist.