Saturday, April 7, 2007

WAS THIS HEAD START, OR NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND?

NEW ORLEANS - Five fifth-grade students face criminal charges after authorities said four of them had sex in front of other students in an unsupervised classroom and kept a classmate posted as a lookout for teachers. The students were arrested Tuesday at the Spearsville school in rural north Louisiana, authorities said. Two 11-year-old girls, a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year old boy were charged with obscenity, a felony. An 11-year-old boy, the alleged guard, was charged with being an accessory. Authorities said the incident happened March 27 at the school, which houses students from kindergarten through 12th grade. A high school teacher normally watches the fifth-grade class at the time, but went to an assembly for older students and the class was inadvertently left unattended, Buckley said. The class, which had around 10 other students, was alone for about 15 minutes, he said. "When no teacher showed up, the four began to have sex in the classroom with the other elementary students in the classroom with them," he said.

13 comments:

Papa Giorgio said...

I think the schools need a little more religious ethics taught and a little less sex-ed.

Anonymous said...

Ethics, yes. Not necessarily religion based, which will never happen in public schools.

I think the horse is out of the barn so to speak. I read in horror at the thought of two 11 year old girls actively engaging in sex period, but in public? My daughter is 10, and thankfully is in the "hot dog / hot dog bun" period of innocence.

Kimba

Papa Giorgio said...

Wasn't the Bible in public schools when you went? In the sixties the number one complaint from teachers was chewing gum, the next was cutting in line. Today its threats on life, foul language, and the like. What paradigm shift took place in the sixties that was rooted in actions from the seventies on? The sexual revolution. Now I have to give a legal document every year to my son’s teachers and principle to have my kids withheld from sex-ed. Putting condoms on bananas and having books recommended that tell girls and boys how to masturbate in fifth-grade isn’t what the majority of American’s want. Did these programs and paradigm shifts come through the progressives or conservatives?

Kim said...

First and foremost, lets not politicize this and find someone to take the blame. There has been an ongoing deterioration of the family unit, personal ethics and character brewing for decades now.

Were their bibles in my classroom? No. Not Monday through Friday. My bible training came on Sundays at Bible class, or in the summers during (Baptist) Vacation Bible School. My parents insisted. When I finished, I worked the playground as a teachers aide. So did my brothers.

If in deed teachers are now teaching their students how to masterbate and install protection (something my LAUSD teaching wife has not heard of), then it is a knee jerk reaction to todays times, and a feeling of helplessness and despair over the world we live in. They cannot stop the tides. If society is more and more loose", for lack of a better description, then they can at least attempt to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted dieseases.

The deterioration of the family unit is to blame. The family unit has eroded over the course of 30+ years. Divorce is acceptable. Deadbeat dads abound. Gary Cooper and James Stewart are dead. Dead, and replaced by our new role models, Bruce Willis and Chris Rock.

What passes through our entertainment censors is mind boggling. Nickelodeon, even Disney channel is not safe anymore. The content is overtly sexual, but in a somewhat innocent way. Not to mention the level of violence on every channel, every day.

I sent my daughter to Sunshine day care (affiliated with Legacy), and she came home knowing every Britany Spears song and all of the dance steps. She has gone to Stevenson Ranch and Pico Canyon elementary schools (both blue ribbon distinguished schools), and she comes home with new slang words every week. Only she doesn't understand they are wrong. She hears them on the schoolyard, on the radio, and sometimes on TV as well.

I do see your point about the "sexual revolution", but lets not forget that we also have undergone a drug ridden society (at all levels), and a severe change in the role models each generation are shown. Ever hear a rap song now days? Our kids have.

But, in my mind the number one problem, besides a strong family unit, with parents worthy of being acceptable role models, is access.

Children today have access to everything. Drugs, guns, pornography and yes, girls who no longer say no. They are allowed to wear more provocative clothing, more adult make up. They appear older than they are. They act in a more adult manner than we did. They know more, they demand more, they expect more. Most of the children today either get what they want, or know how to get what they want.

Why would a girl from a broken marraige say no when their single mother, despirately trying to attract a husband and stepfather, dates, has boyfriends over, and dresses provocatively? OK, so that probably goes too far. Thats a carry over from my Vermont childhood.

But my father was a strict disciplinarian, and never spared the rod. He was a role model. He never swore in front of me, never cheated on my mom, never stole or lied, he was Gary Cooperish. He was my hero growing up.

Who has that anymore? I am not half the father my dad was to me. And he probably wasn't half the dad his father was to him. As we progress as a society, each of us grows weaker and weaker. Our role models grow weaker.

Clergymen, politicians, doctors, even teachers have grown weaker and are not the role models I wish for my child, not the role models I had as a child. For gawd sakes, there are teachers out there on drugs, teachers caught selling drugs to their students, teachers out there having sex with their students. Suddenly a banana doesn't seem so bad by comparison.

I wish I could afford a private school education, I hope you can for your boys. My daughter goes to temple and hebrew school, and I am confident your children go to church. They are the lucky ones. I hope all the bananas in the world will not change their mindsets of what they have been told was right and wrong.

All I know is, the only reason I wasn't having sex in high school was because my girlfriend Donna said no. Over and over.

Kim said...

Did I mention that Obama is an admitted cocaine user? Clinton smoked pot....well Bill did alot of things. Openly, over and over. Bush drank, smoked pot and used cocaine. Kennedy was a womanizer. Nixon was a liar. Reagan got a divorce. Priests and other religeous leaders are child molesters, some have admitted using prostitutes, and using drugs. Caught stealing money from the collection plates. Doctors are filling their patients full of prescription drugs (Anna Nicole, et al).

We can't even count on our elected officals or religious leaders to serve as role models.

Papa Giorgio said...

(last comment you made…) So your voting for Newt??

Kim said...

Newt? Nyet! He is an oddity I cannot support.
I haven't seen the leader I am looking for.
Are you sitting down? Hillary is my fall back position.
However, I will consider Mr. Thompson. He has leadership, he has a command presence. He just seems presidential. Everyone else running so far just seems either preprogrammed, or sickeningly weak. Thompson is far more conservative than I wish. If he could gravitate more towards center, he could make a showing for himself. I do like the fact he was strongly for states rights. He has experience, he does have some amount of charisma.

I think we (the American electorate) vote for what we do not have at the present.

Nixon begat Carter (Mr. Honesty)
Bush sr. begat Clinton (charisma)
Bush jr. will prompt everyone to look for strength. A no nonsense, intelligent leader.

Papa Giorgio said...

A Few Articles On “Sex-Education”

Article 1


…On March 25, the Massachusetts Department of Education, the Governor's Commission for Gay and Lesbian Youth, and the Gay and Lesbian and Straight Education Network co-sponsored a statewide conference at Tufts University called "Teach Out." Teenagers and children as young as 12 were encouraged to come from around the state, and many were bussed in from their home districts. Homosexual activists came from across the country to take part in the conference.

The May 2000 Massachusetts News described what took place at the workshops as "every parent's nightmare." The participants discussed oral sex, anal sex, vaginal sex, oral-vaginal sex, clitoral sex and a homosexual practice called "fisting." Margot Abels, Coordinator, HIV/AIDS Program, Massachusetts Department of Education, told the students that "fisting" is not about forcing your hand into somebody's "hole, opening or orifice" if they don't want it there. She said that "usually" the person was very relaxed and opened him or herself up to the other. She informed the class that it is a very emotional and intense experience. The article reveals:

At this point, a child of about 16 asked why someone would want to do that. He stated that if the hand were pulled out quickly, the whole thing didn't sound very appealing to him. Margot Abels was sure to point out that although fisting "often gets a really bad rap," it usually isn't about pain, "not that we're putting that down." Margot Abels informed him and the class that "fisting" was "an experience of letting somebody into your body that you want to be that close and intimate with."

By now, everyone in Boston knows what fisting is. It's been discussed on radio talk shows, written about in the newspapers, and, needless to say, talked about in classrooms. The article in the Massachusetts News, which graphically described what was discussed in the workshops and presentations, was written by Brian Camenker and Scott Whiteman….


Article 2

…Let's consider It's Perfectly Normal, a popular elementary-school sex-ed text written by Robie Harris, a member of the Planned Parenthood Board of Advocates. The book is designed for 10 year-olds and contains material recommended by the Connecticut Department of Education for fourthgraders. Over fifty graphic colored illustrations of naked boys and girls are used to teach little children about various sexual practices and to assure them of the normality of homosexuality. The book shows children how to masturbate and how to engage with others in sexual activities, short of intercourse. It discusses contraceptives and illustrates how to put on a condom. It also lists nine reasons for having an abortion.

Probably the most popular sex-ed text in American high schools is Changing Bodies, Changing Lives. It teaches that "bisexuality is an openness to loving, sexual relationships with both sexes - our true nature," and graphically describes sexual practices of homosexuals. Then there is Learning About Sex, which is, says the blurb on the cover, "a must for all young people." This textbook blithely observes that "Sado-masochism may be very acceptable and safe for sexual partners who know each other's needs." All texts for older students recommend fornication. Learning About Sex also in effect recommends adultery:

"Some people are now saying that partnerships - married or unmarried - should not be exclusive. They believe that while a primary relationship is maintained with one person, the freedom for both partners to love and share sex with others should also be present."

Bestiality is similarly given space, in the blandly normalizing statement that "a fair percentage of people probably have some sort of sexual contact with an animal during their lifetime...." (Animal-rights activists may want to check how their clients feel about this.) Wardell Pomeroy, author of Boys and Sex and Girls and Sex, also writes of "a loving sexual relationship with an animal," but Pomeroy is more interested in human fornication from a consumerist point of view. "Premarital intercourse does have its definite values as a training ground," he advises the children, "like taking a car out for a test run before you buy it." He neglects to mention that couples who fornicate before marriage are much more likely to divorce than couples who are chaste before marriage. (But maybe he likes the idea of a large supply of preowned spouses available at bargain prices.)

After reading such books, one can understand why the schools in New Haven instituted a program to provide condoms to their overstimulated fifth- and sixth-graders. But one wonders if the obvious question was ever asked: "If little boys in fifth and sixth grade are putting on condoms, how old are the girls the condoms will be used on?" Or maybe they figured that with homosexuality and bestiality normalized, the little girls might not be pestered at all.

So much for what the "professionals" are saying. To whom can concerned parents listen? Perhaps they should listen to their children. Few young people really want to participate in the frantic, barren games engendered by contemporary society's obsession with sex. Recently Seventeen magazine and the Ms. Foundation commissioned a nationwide study of teenage boys and girls. Seventy-three percent of the girls said they would have sex only if their boyfriends pressured them. The boys complained that "they are pressured by their peers to have sex and are considered wimps if they don't score." Eighty-one percent of sexually active girls said they were sorry they had become sexually active. That last statistic agrees with the results of a study by Marion Howard, a professor of obstetrics at Emory University in Atlanta, who surveyed a thousand teenage girls about what they most wanted to learn in their sex ed classes and found that 82 percent said they most wanted to learn "how to say no without hurting the other person's feelings." …


Article 3

…The Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) was promoting its own curriculum at the NEA convention last summer. Inclusive Curriculum: The Silent Minority Comes to the Classroom states in the preface:

Since each of our schools has a significant gay population, since these students, teachers, and parents have needs and concerns that we have been ignoring for too long, and since everyone in our school community would benefit from increased awareness and education about homosexuality…

It then continues for many pages about how best to correct this oversight. Of course, it ignores the fact that the vast majority of parents do not believe that this is the responsibility of the public school system. Even many parents who do not disagree with the concept of homosexuality disagree with having public schools focus valuable classroom time on a biased social agenda. They, along with those who disagree with homosexuality, believe that schools should concentrate on educating children.

Of course, once you get to the higher-grade levels, the agenda can become even more offensive. A Los Angeles schoolteacher sent me a huge stack of material used or recommended in the Los Angeles Unified School District. One example includes recommended reading from a book called Young, Gay, and Proud. I’ll only quote you a small section because the language quickly becomes pornographic in describing masturbation, and oral/anal sex.

In sex there are no rules. One of the great things about being a gay person is that we’re not held back by a lot of the same limits and fears of heterosexual society. The body is a temple … But it’s also a playground. Have a good time, and explore however few or many of the unlimited possibilities for pleasure that you choose … Get to know your body. Use a mirror for all those hard-to-see places …

Another book on the recommended reading list by LAUSD includes One Teenager in Ten. This particular book describes a sexual encounter between a teacher and a twelve-year-old student while they are away for a weekend dance performance.

She slipped the leotards over my shoulders … leaving the costume hanging at the waist with my breasts bare … she licked her index finger and began …

I won’t read any farther—you get the idea.

Forgetting the idea that this is about lesbian sex, it is pedophilia! And yet LAUSD believes this is appropriate reading for high school students. How safe is the promotion of pedophilia?

Another book that has been used in several states is called Changing Bodies, Changing Lives. This book is in its third edition. On page 147 it discusses homosexual sex.

Most homosexual sex is just like heterosexual sex: kissing, fondling, fooling around with someone you like or love and are attracted to, telling each other what is exciting to you, making love. … People sometimes wonder what it is that homosexuals do. A young lesbian told us, “I thought there’d be something that girls did together that I didn’t know about.” In fact, there is nothing so different about what girls do together. Sometimes they might lie together and press their bodies against each other, or one might caress the other’s …

It then goes on to describe oral or anal sex and using dildos. The next paragraph does much the same thing in discussing male homosexual sex.

Page 95 of this book tells its young readers: “For many people, rape fantasies are a way of letting you imagine yourself having sex.” How safe is that?

Programs promoted by the Centers for Disease Control urge schools to have children as young as nine shop for condoms and conduct condom races in which students line up in teams and practice putting condoms on dildos or cucumbers. Of course, the team that finishes first wins! By the time they are 14, students are urged to shop in grocery stores or convenience stores for alternative lubricants. They are told that maple syrup, honey and grape jelly are examples of alternative lubricants that can be used with condoms. Grades nine through twelve are told to call a clinic for a list of services and hours of operation, or better yet, to visit a clinic “with their boyfriends or girlfriends, even those that aren’t in the class.” And finally, students are, of course, told that they don’t need their parents’ permission to get birth control at a clinic.

What is interesting about the recommended CDC programs is that the CDC fails to mention that their own studies, which they use to flaunt their “safe sex” message, are in fact seriously flawed. Twenty-eight experts released a report published by the National Institutes of Health in July 2001, in which they found that the so-called safe sex studies cited by the CDC for years do not support that condoms are effective barriers against sexually transmitted diseases. Instead, what they found is that condoms do not offer any protection for women against the leading cause of cervical cancer — the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV); that they are only 85 percent effective against HIV/AIDS; that they do offer protection for men from contracting gonorrhea from women but do not provide the same protection for women. In all other instances the studies are inconclusive about whether condoms offer any protection against STDs.

This shouldn’t be so surprising when we realize that condoms aren’t all that effective in preventing pregnancy. And they were designed for that purpose!

And we wonder why the HIV/AIDs rate has risen among 13-19 yr olds 126.8 percent since 1988…

Papa Giorgio said...

Kimba,

I would like a response from you on the last post about some school districts pushing morals on kids while not allowing parents to withhold their kids from these classes.

Some books I will recommend to your wife are the following:

Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add by Charles J. Sykes

The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools by Martin L. Gross

Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong: And What We Can Do About It by William Kilpatrick

NEA: The Grab for Power : A Chronology of the National Education Association by Dennis Laurence Cuddy

Anonymous said...

You've got it, although it may take some time to solicit a response from Lydia, she keeps so busy. Frankly, she doesn't see my blogging as a worth while endeavor.

I am also passing your last two comments along to two of my sister-in-laws, both research librarians in the Florida college system, and my father-in-law who is a retired elementary school principal from the New Haven Conneticut school system. I also have a sister-in-law currently teaching elementary school locally. I am looking forward to their comments as well.

Your comments were as shocking as they were titillating. Are these things being taught in the Newhall School District? This seems to be a fight worthy of fighting, if they are.

Kimba

p.s. You may wonder how I am related (by marriage) to a world full of educators, yet remain unable to master the (written) English language. They do to, and bristle at my spelling, content and syntax.

You will be happy to hear I have spent many an evening arguing the need for school vouchers and a pay for performance system of compensating teaching professionals.

Papa Giorgio said...

HA! My wife cannot see the value in it either. The funny thing is that I was listening to Dr. James Dobson interview the author of my book of the month and Dobson said the same thing. His wife can't understand his "obsession" (as she calls it) either.

As for if these things are being taught in our area. I do not think so, usually inner cities with very liberal city councils and school boards are the places where they are taught. Although, I am sure that when these kids hit high school, the above books are mentioned as worthwhile reading.

I think I told you - maybe I didn't - that my uncle is an atheist. He put his (then) second-grade daughter into a Baptist school because they read "Heather Has Two Mommies". He is all about the schools teaching abstinence and allowing parents to inculcate the sexual mores they wish. He is all about the schools not taking a moral and political view on marriage and allow the parents to take such positions.

I quote my KWANZAA blog... I also want to quote another small example, but I have to go grab my kids. I will return:

=========================
=========================

Neutrality?

I do not mind if the school teaches my son true history, which includes the history of Africa, as well as other Continents. However, having said this, I do not pay my hard earned tax dollars for the school to meet some need of trying to teach and include all the cultural holidays of the world, which apparently must include racist holidays founded right here in California’s radical [recent] past. That is not the schools job; it is mine, if I so choose!

This is why this subject is so “political,” you have in a sense undermined my family’s values and put it upon yourselves to teach my son “multi-culturalism” in a “politically-correct” fashion. This, then, requires the school to make value judgments on how to teach this to my child. Which is why I pointed out that by doing so, you have strayed from being neutral to taking a position on how to present other peoples cultural mores (which now includes racism as mainstream) to my child (in rejection of America’s cultural mores… which is Christmas and Hanukah, i.e., Judeo-Christian).

Papa Giorgio said...

Okay Kimba, I found it (and saved it into my Microsoft Word so I don’t have to search Google with “’forced’ ‘genital’ ‘exams’ sixth-grade’” again). How would you feel if this happened to your sixth-grade daughter? Probably outraged, to say the least. Thank God the Rutherford Institute (a conservative Christian organization -- of which I have given about $700 dollars in donations to) got involved to make sure this doesn’t happen again… what might happen again? Read on my political friend:


===============================
I will post this and then back to my champagne… the wife just got a position in Princess that will lead to bigger and better things.
===============================

On March 19, 1996, government employees herded fifty-nine sixth-grade girls into a room, forced them to strip and forced them to submit to genital exams. The girls were scared. Some girls were crying and tried to leave, but one government employee blocked them from leaving. At least one girl asked if she could call her mother before she was subjected to this violation but they refused her request.

Where could something like this happen? Was it in some third world dictatorship, or some backward society where girls are considered chattel?

No, this happened in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania!

The girls were students at J.T. Lambert Intermediate School. School officials herded them into the school nurse's office. They were forced to undress by these school employees and then forced to submit to genital exams preformed by a female pediatrician.

After parents complained, the school investigated, and claimed the exams involved "no improprieties". The school district stood behind these actions. The school district claimed they sent home notices that they intended to preform "physical examinations" on the children. Outraged parents sued. With the help of The Rutherford Institute, an international legal and educational organization dedicated to preserving human rights and defending civil liberties, the parents set out to seek justice. It was a long and difficult battle.

The parents showed that the notice did not explain that "physical examinations" included gynecological exams. The jury hearing the case decided that the school did not have parental permission when it forced the students to submit to genital exams. Following this finding, the judge in the case found that the school engaged in an "unreasonable search" of the young girls thus violating their Fourth Amendment rights.

Subsequently, the jury awarded the girls $60,000.00 in damages. Finally, last month, September 1999, three years and six months after the incident, the girls and their families got some justice.

Of course the bureaucrats who perpetrated this atrocity do not have to pay this. The taxpayers of the school district do. According to Mr. Steven H. Aden, Esq., Chief Litigation Council for The Rutherford Institute, "the jury verdict was against the school district."

When asked what happened to the doctor who took part in this horrible incident Mr. Aden said: "The doctor who examined the girls was dismissed from the case by mutual consent of the parties."

Considering what was done to these girls the award seems very small. A young girl's first gynecological examination is an unpleasant experience under the best of circumstances. Most parents give a great deal of thoughtful consideration to choosing the doctor who will preform the examination. They then spend time carefully and lovingly preparing their child for the experience.

The school officials treated these children like cattle or some other form of livestock. Their treatment bordered on assault and could scar the girls for years. They were violated.

Asked if the verdict included any assurances that the school district will not engage in this type of conduct again, Mr. Aden said: "You don't get an assurance like that in a jury award. The signal is clear to them, and other school districts, that they cannot get away with this type of action. The school district is no longer doing business with the doctor and we haven't heard of any more actions like this. This is a solid victory for parents and students across the country."

That is probably true. These bureaucrats may not do this again and others may think twice about doing anything similar.

Still, one is left to wonder when something like this will happen again. The fact that the school district squandered tax dollars to defend this abomination in court, shows that they never figured out that this was wrong.

The whole incident reeks of the elitist attitude prevalent in so much of government today. The attitude is that parents cannot be trusted to be responsible for their children's education so why should they be expected to be responsible for their children's health?

The political class believes education is too important to entrust to parents. They think the village must take over and see to it they turn the children into good citizens of the village.

Papa Giorgio said...

Kimba,

the question remains: Would the above policies I highlighted (I have many more examples) regarding teaching sex-ed to very young kids in such graphic ways be supported more so by a liberal ideology or a conservative ideology? Which view would you prefer, a more conservative outlook or liberal?