Tuesday, August 16, 2005
AISD Believes in Absolute Truth
But - SHHHH - keep it quiet
After years of decreasing performance and increasing behavioral problems, the public education establishment has decided that a morals-free, values-neutral teaching environment is counterproductive. At least, the Austin Independent School District, it seems, has arrived at this conclusion according to a story in last Tuesday's Statesman. Says the Statesman,
The AISD website gives more detail on this character education and lists values intended to be taught in this educational program:
The problem for AISD is that absolute truth rests upon the presupposition of a personal, transcendent creator, who never changes and interested in the affairs of mankind. You see, it's kinda' hard to teach values when there's no moral authority behind those values: why should anyone believe these values are good and why should anyone obey the directive to live by these values? Just because the school peer assistance program coordinator says so?
Lacking an internal transformation and connection to a loving, all-powerful God, I fear this values education will just lapse into legalistic code of rules and regulations. Through external coercion and manipulation, AISD may enforce superficial adherence. But when the Man is not looking, kids will revert back to the mean, perhaps worse than before.
I applaude AISD's recognition that values matter and character counts. But will they look deeper to the true Source of values and the One whose character is flawless?
After years of decreasing performance and increasing behavioral problems, the public education establishment has decided that a morals-free, values-neutral teaching environment is counterproductive. At least, the Austin Independent School District, it seems, has arrived at this conclusion according to a story in last Tuesday's Statesman. Says the Statesman,
I'm glad to hear that AISD wants to look at all of the puzzle pieces, but I wonder if they can because of the worldview it implies.But the district is not just hoping to build better citizens for the future. Administrators hope that teaching character will help address the root causes of everything from poor grades to school violence.
"We've found there are close ties between character and academic achievement," said Jane Nethercutt, Austin's peer assistance program coordinator. "Most of our discipline referrals have to do with not respecting ourselves or others appropriately. . . . You can't just work on one piece of the puzzle. You have to work on all of the puzzle pieces."
The AISD website gives more detail on this character education and lists values intended to be taught in this educational program:
- Respect
- Courage
- Caring
- Honesty
- Perseverance
- Responsibility
- Integrity
- Fairness
- Self-Discipline
- Trustworthiness
"Character education holds, as a starting philosophical principle, that there are widely shared, pivotally important core theoretical values that form the basis of good character. A school committed to character education explicitly names and publicly stands for these values; promulgates them to all members of the school community; defines them in terms of behaviors that can be observed in the life of the school; models these values; studies and discusses them; upholds them by making all school members accountable to standards of conduct consistent with the core values. Good character consists of understanding, caring about, and acting upon core ethical values."Who knew AISD was capable of making dogmatic assertions such as "there are ...important theoretical values that form the basis of good character"? It sounds like something Rush Limbaugh would say. Of course, I agree with the premise articulated above, I'm just concerned that AISD cannot back up this values bark with any lasting, behavioral change bite.
The problem for AISD is that absolute truth rests upon the presupposition of a personal, transcendent creator, who never changes and interested in the affairs of mankind. You see, it's kinda' hard to teach values when there's no moral authority behind those values: why should anyone believe these values are good and why should anyone obey the directive to live by these values? Just because the school peer assistance program coordinator says so?
Lacking an internal transformation and connection to a loving, all-powerful God, I fear this values education will just lapse into legalistic code of rules and regulations. Through external coercion and manipulation, AISD may enforce superficial adherence. But when the Man is not looking, kids will revert back to the mean, perhaps worse than before.
I applaude AISD's recognition that values matter and character counts. But will they look deeper to the true Source of values and the One whose character is flawless?
Culture Clash
Voice in the Wilderness invited to lefty blog aggregator;
"Should I stay or should I go now?"
I received an unanticipated email this morning from Kari Chisholm in Portland, OR. Judging from the subject line, " Building the progressive blogosphere", I thought it was a joke of some sort. Key text from the email is excerpted below....
My first reaction was, "Uh....what?" Voice in the Wilderness, a conservative blog serving Austin and central Texas, on a left-wing blog aggregator? A quick perusal of the leftyblogs.com site reveals the usual DNC and MSM boilerplate that often courses around the left-leaning blog echo chamber along with stories of local interest told from a liberal point of view. I suspect one of my local blog friends gave them my email addy on a snarky lark. The audience and purpose are not a fit for VitW.
Or are they?
Upon further reflection, VitW might be just the thing leftyblogs.com needs: a worthy foil and a portal into a collection of voices dissenting from the leftist orthodoxy. Exposing this audience to competition in the market place of ideas might help keep the moonbat, tinfoil hat wearing fringe from driving the Democrats into further irrelevancy, as they are now. I'm not saying this would happen just because of VitW, but it might catch on with other conservative and libertarian bloggers.
I hold that the Republicans need a viable opponent to help keep them honest and push them towards conservative principles and policies. Of course, I'd never want to see the Dems in power again anywhere at the moment, given their love affair with the hard left, complete lack of new ideas, and inability to prosecute the War on Islamic Fascism. However, without some meaningful debate and opposition, the Republicans are apt to lapse into the same type of organizational hubris that infected the Democrats during their 40+ year reign of power in Washington DC. In some ways, they already are. As we've seen in Texas with the school finance debacle, the public suffers when the Democrats are irrelevant and Republicans do not unify under conservative principles.
Thus is my dilemma about accepting Mr. Chisholm's invitation. I accept, and VitW is thrown into an ill-fitting milieu of leftist bloggers. I decline, and chances for a true, governing majority of conservative leaders are diminished. In other words, as an old song by "The Clash" once intoned
"Should I stay or should I go now?"
I received an unanticipated email this morning from Kari Chisholm in Portland, OR. Judging from the subject line, " Building the progressive blogosphere", I thought it was a joke of some sort. Key text from the email is excerpted below....
Hi there --
Kari Chisholm here, from Mandate Media. I'm a political consultant and internet strategist in Portland, Oregon - and I wanted to let you about a new project we're launching later this week.
It's LeftyBlogs.com - and we think it'll become an important part of the progressive infrastrucuture across the country.
http://www.LeftyBlogs.com
[snip]
I'm emailing you in advance of our launch - because I want to make sure all the best blogs are being indexed. Drop by, and make sure your favorite local progressive blogs are listed (including your own, if you have one.)
http://www.LeftyBlogs.comEnjoy!
-kari.
p.s. If you have a blog, feel free to tell your readers about LeftyBlogs.com. Let's get it started...
Kari Chisholm
President
MandateMedia
My first reaction was, "Uh....what?" Voice in the Wilderness, a conservative blog serving Austin and central Texas, on a left-wing blog aggregator? A quick perusal of the leftyblogs.com site reveals the usual DNC and MSM boilerplate that often courses around the left-leaning blog echo chamber along with stories of local interest told from a liberal point of view. I suspect one of my local blog friends gave them my email addy on a snarky lark. The audience and purpose are not a fit for VitW.
Or are they?
Upon further reflection, VitW might be just the thing leftyblogs.com needs: a worthy foil and a portal into a collection of voices dissenting from the leftist orthodoxy. Exposing this audience to competition in the market place of ideas might help keep the moonbat, tinfoil hat wearing fringe from driving the Democrats into further irrelevancy, as they are now. I'm not saying this would happen just because of VitW, but it might catch on with other conservative and libertarian bloggers.
I hold that the Republicans need a viable opponent to help keep them honest and push them towards conservative principles and policies. Of course, I'd never want to see the Dems in power again anywhere at the moment, given their love affair with the hard left, complete lack of new ideas, and inability to prosecute the War on Islamic Fascism. However, without some meaningful debate and opposition, the Republicans are apt to lapse into the same type of organizational hubris that infected the Democrats during their 40+ year reign of power in Washington DC. In some ways, they already are. As we've seen in Texas with the school finance debacle, the public suffers when the Democrats are irrelevant and Republicans do not unify under conservative principles.
Thus is my dilemma about accepting Mr. Chisholm's invitation. I accept, and VitW is thrown into an ill-fitting milieu of leftist bloggers. I decline, and chances for a true, governing majority of conservative leaders are diminished. In other words, as an old song by "The Clash" once intoned
If I go there will be troubleSo come on and let me know, VitW readers, should I stay or should I go?
If I stay it will be double
