The summer vacation has ended, and by now most 1 students have settled in to face the challenge of the year ahead. No doubt, some students are dreamily gazing out the classroom windows—wondering about the beauty of the autumn leaves, and letting their minds wander to the fun and frolic of the picnics, bike rides and holiday outings during the summer of 1985.
As a rule, parents are not inclined to approve of such day-dreaming. After all, those who pay the ever more hefty tuition bills to send their children to Catholic primary and secondary schools expect their offspring to concentrate on the subjects taught. Young people have a duty to assist their family’s educational enterprise by preparing themselves to contribute to society in ways consistent with the Catholic view of the world.
However, if teaching material provided in “peace and justice” workshops during the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) convention last April finds its way into Catholic classrooms, some parents may find themselves in the unlikely position of not only understanding their child’s flights of fancy, but actually encouraging a bit of daydreaming when questions of “peace and justice” are discussed.
Remember the “Big Bad Wolf?” He dressed up like “Grandma” to fool “Little Red Riding Hood” into trusting him so that he could get close enough to devour her. Another “Big Bad Wolf” lied to the “Three Little Pigs” so that they would not think it necessary to build a house sturdy enough when he came to “blow the house down.”
These stories were told to us as children to teach us about the world we would enter when we left school and home. The lessons are clear enough: There are some (people and wolves) who are not as kindly as they appear, and there are some (people and wolves) who tells lies, which if believed, can bring great harm to us and others. Moral: Plan to avoid such harm and don’t believe everything everybody tells you. Through the lessons in such stories children are able to understand they will grow up in a fallen world, and that they can protect themselves from those who harm them by being prudent. The little pig that built the house of straw was foolish. Had it not been for the wisdom of the little pig who built the house of brick, to which he ran when the wolf destroyed his straw house, the foolish pig would have paid with his life for his folly. Little Red Riding Hood was lucky the kindly hunter was nearby to save her from her misplaced trust in the creature who dressed as her grandma in order to deceive her.
Picture, if you will, a little tyke being given a classroom exercise intended to rewrite these children’s stories from the perspective of the “Big Bad Wolf.” If the child’s teacher uses material suggested during a NCEA workshop, such a lesson will be taught.
During the “Fostering Global Awareness In Our Children” session, a work sheet with a benign-looking wolf in the upper left corner was handed out. The exercise prompts the child to “identify” with the “Big Bad Wolf” by completing a short essay, which has been started for the student as follows: “Sometimes I feel lonely. No one ever talks to me….” It’s obvious that with such prompting the student will perceive the wolf as simply misunderstood, a harmless creature lacking bad intentions, who just needs a friend to talk to.
This sort of classroom exercise is far from harmless when it is placed in the context of the NCEA convention theme, “Gateway To Global Understanding.” It’s easy enough to see that Catholic teachers and their students are being directed to “understand” global politics from the perspective of the Soviet Union’s politburo—dare I say the “Big Bad Bear?” It would go something like this: We (the politburo) may seem a little paranoid to you, but you would feel badly too if no one liked you or talked to you. If only you will be nice to us and trust us then we will be nice also. The only reason we act the way we do is because your leaders won’t talk to us.
Unfortunately there are totalitarian regimes and political systems that enslave their citizens. I want my children to be aware of this reality and to understand that evil is not simply a matter of psychological deprivation, nor is it necessarily amenable to good intentions alone. I would encourage my child to disengage from such a class exercise and daydream.
During another workshop, the “Global Education Consultant” from the “World Community Center” advised the educators that a little ditty called “Global ABC’s” can help children understand the world. Among the rhymes were:
G is for Germany, both East and West
H is for Honduras with bananas well blessed
K is for Korea divided in two
L is for Lebanon where peace is due
I am bothered that the Berlin Wall division is cast in terms of acceptance (i.e., Germany is “both East and West”) but Korea’s division is recognized as what it is: “divided.” Oh well, maybe that should be written off to the constraints of verse.
U is for USSR the largest of all
V is for Vatican City which is small
I am bothered again. What is the purpose of describing these two world forces in terms of “largest” and “small”? Is this the distinction a young person should learn to draw between the USSR and Vatican City?
As the rhyme draws to a close, a fear rather than a place in Earth is introduced.
W is for Western Samoa where Robert Louis Stevenson is buried
X is for Xenophobia which we hope is also buried
Of course, parents don’t want their children to have an unreasonable fear of strangers (xenophobia), but we do want them to avoid wolves dressed as grandmas or sheep. Children should be taught the history of divided countries like Germany and Korea. And, if the only difference between the USSR and Vatican City is size, then aren’t all those “anti-Communists” simply neurotics suffering with xenophobia?
I spy a forbidden “value judgment” in this verse:
Y is for Yugoslavia on the Adriatic sea
Z is for Zimbabwe that is finally free
Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s openly stated intention to turn Zimbabwe into a Marxist—Leninist “one party” state surely offers little hope for “freedom” in that country. In recent months there have been persistent reports about a campaign of terror waged by Mugabe against his political opposition. The nation’s Catholic bishops have called for an end to “wanton atrocities,” and Methodist Bishop Abel Muzorewa has compared Mugabe’s rule to that of Hitler and Idi Amin. I suspect the Catholic bishops of Zimbabwe would caution their American counterparts against teaching United States school children that “Zimbabwe is free.”
Finally, the NCEA convention workshop provided a variation on the “life boat” scenario—in a spaceship format. The “test” was provided by the “United States Committee for UNICEF,” and asks the question: “WHAT WOULD YOU DO? There are serious shortages of food and water—the economy passengers are crowded together—mutinies and fighting have broken out—there is concern the conflict will spread. We could go on, but the point is: What would you do if you were on the spaceship? Now that you’ve imagined, are you ready for reality? You are on such a spaceship right now—spaceship Earth!”
Well now, how is Johnny or Suzie going to concentrate on reading, writing and arithmetic with the doomsday destruction to deal with?
Catholic educators who believe that there is no such thing as a really bad political system, that Marxist-Leninist regimes like Zimbabwe are “free,” and that it profits the moral and intellectual development of children to foster depression by “games” like “Spaceship Earth” are robbing children of truth and the joy of a child’s world. Such teaching is a form of child abuse, and when it takes place in Catholic schools parents should strongly protest. If, as is too often the case, the protest fails to alter “peace and justice” education in the classroom, we can remind our children about the fun of daydreaming.