SelwynDuke.com

Why Anti-bullying Programs Should be Bullied Out of School

By Selwyn Duke

Many commentators have noted the irony of anti-bullying “expert” Dan Savage’s “bullying” (as defined by his ilk) of high-school students at a recent journalism conference in Seattle, Washington. Yet it seems that the most important points about the matter have not been made.

In case you missed the story, homosexual activist Savage called two dozen students “pansy-a***d” as they were walking out of his anti-bullying presentation last month. Their offense? They took exception to his profanity-laced criticism of Christianity, in which he equated biblical condemnations of homosexual behavior with the prohibition against eating shellfish and said “We ignore the b******t in the Bible about all sorts of things.”

Now, I could emphasize that Savage targeted minors with his bile, which was reminiscent of the 2000 Democratic National Convention attendees who actually booed a contingent of Boy Scouts who appeared on stage. And this typical leftist lack of class, self-control, and sense of propriety brings us to the first point. It’s not just that Savage issued intellectually vacuous criticisms of the Bible, conflating ceremonial and moral law, which was bad enough. It’s that he couldn’t even — while speaking to kids — manage to mind his tongue while doing it. He’s a good example of why adults no longer command youths’ respect: Adults are no longer respectable.

Read the rest here.

Was Boy in K.C. Fire Attack Burned by His School’s Racist Teaching?

By Selwyn Duke

The boy raised his hand, eager to answer the question.  “What would you know about it?” exclaimed the teacher dismissively.  “You’re not our race.”

This was not dialogue from a Hollywood movie.  According to a woman named Melissa Coon, it was what a teacher at East High School in Kansas City, MO, told her 13-year-old son, Allen, when he attempted to answer a question during Black History Month.  Coon identifies that teacher as Mrs. Karla Dorsey, who is black; Allen is white.

High-school Shocker: Lesson Sheet Elevates Communism over “Capitalism”

By Selwyn Duke

When parent Jeff Travis saw a lesson sheet his son received in social studies class, he was shocked. Using propaganda that could have been disgorged by the KGB, the flier seemed to elevate communism over “capitalism.”

Distributed in Theodore Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, Iowa, the lesson sheet includes a cartoon (portion shown below) that purports to illustrate the differences between the two systems. In the left panel are two unhappy-looking workers with balls and chains tied to their ankles who toil away on one side of a machine while all the profit spills out the other side into a bag held by a smiling, stogie-smoking, portly business owner in a hat. It is labeled “Capitalism — In theory.” In the right panel, communism is presented “in theory” with two smiling workers standing relaxed at the same machine while all the profit comes back their way.

Moreover, the poorly written, error-riddled worksheet relates the following (mis)information to the students:

Read the rest here.

Penn State's Sex-abuse Scandal Far From Unique

By Selwyn Duke

The Penn State University sex-abuse scandal certainly seems unique. College-football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky (shown at left) could have been investigated as early as 1995 for abusing young boys, but instead was allowed to commit his crimes for another 10 years. School athletic director Tim Curley and senior vice president for business and finance Gary Schultz face charges of lying to a grand jury investigating Sandusky, and university president Graham Spanier has been fired. And even more headline-grabbing, famed head football coach Joe Paterno has also been discharged. While not accused of any criminally actionable behavior, the gridiron legend is condemned for failing to do enough to stop the abuse after becoming aware of it.

Yet, in reality, the only truly unique aspect of this tragic story is that it was reported at all.

It may be hard to imagine a sex scandal more troubling than the one we now see engulfing Penn State. Yet far larger is one we don’t see: Child sexual abuse in American schools that is rampant, regularly covered-up and rarely reported.

Read the rest here.

College Islamization: Yale Closes Initiative for Study of Anti-Semitism

By Selwyn Duke

It was 60 years ago that William F. Buckley published God and Man at Yale, a book critical of the hostility toward religion prevalent at the Ivy League school. But now religion may be poised to make a comeback at the institution — at least, that is, if its god is called Allah.

Just this month, Yale took the striking step of shutting down the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA), supposedly at the behest of powerful Muslim forces. Writes FrontPageMag.com’s Phyllis Chesler:

The Palestinianization and Stalinization of the American professoriate coupled with the likely prospect of funding from the Arab world made this outcome inevitable….

Only last year, there were bitter and very public complaints the Palestinians and their supporters made in response to YIISA’s best-ever conference on contemporary global anti-Semitism, which was held last August. And why? Because the scholars gathered by YIISA from at least five or more continents dared to focus on the Muslim and Islamist face of genocidal anti-Semitism.

The YIISA global conference…was utterly unique in focusing not only upon the politically correct view of anti-Semitism as a Christian, Western, and European phenomenon, but also on its current and lethal incarnation in the Islamic and Islamist worlds.

Read the rest here.

U.S. Students Ignorant of History; Will Repeat Mistakes of Past

By Selwyn Duke

Once again, a study has show that American students are woefully ignorant of history. Test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress demonstrate, writes the Wall Street Journal, that only “20% of U.S. fourth-graders and 17% of eighth-graders who took the 2010 history exam were ‘proficient’ or ‘advanced’…” and only 12 percent of 12th-graders were so. In fact, their knowledge is so lacking that fewer than “a quarter of American 12th-graders knew China was North Korea's ally during the Korean War, and only 35% of fourth-graders knew the purpose of the Declaration of Independence,” the paper continued. Other studies have shown similarly stunning results. In 2008, the New York Times wrote about how fewer than “half of American teenagers…knew when the Civil War was fought, and one-quarter thought that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World sometime after 1750, not in 1492.” The Times also reported that “[a]bout a quarter of the teenagers surveyed were unable to correctly identify Adolf Hitler as Germany’s chancellor during World War II, instead identifying him variously as a munitions maker, an Austrian premier and the German Kaiser.”

Now, of course, this educational dysfunction inspires many to sound the alarm about America’s decline. And we hear many proposed solutions. Unfortunately, though, the typical ones will do nothing to right the ship.

Read the rest here.

Yes, Violence Can be the Answer

By Selwyn Duke

It was the body slam heard around the world.  When some Australian schoolboys decided to videotape themselves bullying 15-year old Casey Heynes, one of them got more than he bargained for.  Casey, who had been pushed around and humiliated for years, responded to a punch in his face and other attempted blows by hoisting his tormentor WWE style and introducing him to the pavement.  The result was a video that went viral in a way the bullies had never imagined and for a reason they certainly had never hoped: Casey has become a hero worldwide.

That is, a hero to everyone except the “experts.”  Ah, the experts, uncommon people you can rely on for all-too-common senselessness.  As The Sydney Morning Herald writes:

Wrestling with Morality: Boys vs. Girls on the Mat

By Selwyn Duke

Imagine that you’re a young adolescent boy.  Like many your age, you’re shy around girls, perhaps to the point at which even talking to one might make your heart race.  You also like sports, so you go out for your school’s wrestling team.  Then, lo and behold, you’re at a meet, and something hits you like a load of bricks.

Your opponent is going to be a girl. 

You’re going to have to grapple with her.  In front of spectators.  Touching—and being touched in—intimate places.

Texas Schools Instituting Mandatory Arabic Language and Culture Classes

By Selwyn Duke

It seems that it was a well-kept secret. Residents in the Mansfield Independent School District in Texas found out just this Monday evening that the district had decided to force some of their children to take Arabic language and culture classes.

As for the impetus behind the move, as they say, just follow the money: The program is a condition for receipt of a federal grant. CBSDFW.com provides some detail, writing:

Read the rest here.

The Great Race Deception

By Selwyn Duke

Just about two years ago, people were speaking of a new era: post-racial America. Well, it occurs to me that if we get any more post-racial, we’ll have a race war. And the latest on this front is a new exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science (MOS) called “RACE – Are we so different?” Reports American Thinker’s Peter Wilson:

The exhibit offers a fascinating window into the fun-house mirror world of race theorists, racial "scholars," and a good part of the anthropology profession.  Even a sympathetic reviewer in the Boston Globe admits that "there's a wearying didacticism to the show," and it's no surprise that the didactic lessons about race are all slanted toward the left.

As for that Globe reviewer, Mark Feeney, he writes: