Let the Indoctrination Commence!
I was forwarded a great email by a reader this afternoon. Apparently, Davidson College is playing host to an event for middle and high school students called the “YouthDavidson Impact Summit”. Sounds great. Young folks getting involved, making a difference. Here is the program description from the Davidson College website as part of an ask for volunteers.
The Impact Summit is a large-scale youth leadership and civic engagement conference for local Middle and High School students. The event is scheduled on Saturday February 16th from 8:30 until 3:30 (we will need volunteers from 7:30 until 4:30) and the attendees will participate in a variety of issue-based workshops led by local non-profit leaders, social entrepreneurs, and academics. Volunteers will be served lunch and will work in one of many different teams performing tasks such as hall and classroom monitoring, registration, food preparation and tear down, and mentoring student attendees. All volunteers are asked to sign up for either a full or half day time slot and must attend one of the volunteer training meetings the week before the event.
Local schools are getting involved in this effort and are promoting it to students. Here is an email sent to parents of middle schoolers at the Community School of Davidson, a charter school.
Dear Middle School Families,
The Director of Youth Davidson, Aric Reviere visited our school this morning and spoke to the middle school students prior to dismissal from the gym. He told the students about The Impact Summit. This event is a day-long youth leadership and civic engagement summit, during which students will attend workshops led by non-profit leaders and community issue experts from around the Charlotte Mecklenburg area. Further the event is entirely free and the group will be serving food as well.
He would love to have as many Community School of Davidson students at the event as possible! We have attached the registration form and flyer for the event. We also have extra copies of the form at the front desk. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Aric with the information below: Aric Reviere Director of Youth Davidson Davidson College ’15 arreviere@davidson.edu<mailto:arreviere@davidson.edu>
—
Kathleen McMillan
Student Enrichment
I can only imagine that this program is being equally encouraged by faculty at other area middle and high schools as well. (If you are a parent and have received any such correspondence, please let PunditHouse know!)
Now, here is the kicker.
Let’s take a look at the mentioned flyer and get a sense for the activities our little heads full of mush will be asked to participate in.
I won’t list them all here as you can click the link above to view the sign-up form, but jumping out at me are such important courses as:
- Environmental Sustainability
- Gender Identity and Conflict
- Immigrant and Refugee Populations
- Religious Tolerance
- Access to Food and Water
I’m guessing you are starting to see the point.
Conspicuously lacking from course offerings are “How too much government is hurting families” and “The Founders Principles of Freedom”.
I’d certainly never dare to prevent any group from meeting and talking about whatever they want to, but if public school resources are being used to help promote this event, that is where a line needs to be drawn. I can almost guarantee you that the same courtesy wouldn’t be shown to a conservative group offering to host a Youth Summit.
1- Environmental sustainability….. code for…. bash the American lifestyle while showing the need to raise taxes.
2- Gender Identity and conflict… code for …..embrace homosexuality.
3- Immigrant bla bla bla………… code for ….. cater to everyone who shows up here and then pay for their every demand.
4- Religious tolerance… code for…… bash christians and all that they believe.
5- Access to food and water… code for…. The poor need more government services.
I’d just like to say for the record that I was not the reader who sent in the email about this event in Davidson. Just wanted to make that clear since I post a good bit about the town..
Regarding the event mentioned here…
CSD is a great school as are several others in the area. It’s is also a Charter school, and the families that send their children there do so knowingly and very willingly. It would be one thing if an event like this was mandatory for students, but in this case it was not. Ultimately, it’s the parents’ decision on whether or not to send their kids to it.
If you want to look at the schools in Davidson for an example of the results of political decisions, check out this article. Davidson Elementary enrollment falls -Lake Norman News (Charlotte Observer).
It’s about as good an example as you’ll see regarding the results of improved school choice. Even though Davidson Elementary is one of the best in CMS, it still has challenges keeping students because the CMS system itself has so many issues. If the proliferation of school choice was more universal, systems like CMS would be forced to address those issues. Those issues could/would include promoting programs like the one mentioned here if enough people thought it was inappropriate.
Rick, thanks for commenting. You address two different issues.
Yes, it is certainly the parents decision whether to send their children or not. What this illustrates, however, is the absolute liberal bias that our schools have. You bet your bottom dollar that a Conservative Action Summit would not enjoy the same level of promotion. That is my point.
This program is clearly designed for liberal indoctrination, as Bruce points out so well. To get our taxpayer funded schools to promote this summit is just in bad taste, IMHO.
I agree with your follow up. I am highly in favor of pure school choice utilizing a tax credit system where dollars follow the students. When parents have choices, certainly, varying schools will have varying political underpinnings…be they left, right, or non-partisan. Choice is the operative word.
Hey, if they really want to pump up attendance (and attention!!), they should just run an ad saying only colored children can attend their program. This school in Colorado did:
“AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) – A school principal said no white children were allowed at an after-school tutoring program, and now some parents call it discrimination.
The principal at Mission Viejo Elementary in Aurora sent a letter telling parents the program is only for students of color. Parents CBS4 talked with said they were shocked to see, in this day and age, what they consider to be segregation.”
Source: http://tinyurl.com/ao7bbbh
That is beyond insane for a public school. Obvious discrimination, and a public school should never discriminate. If it was a private school, they could have tutoring for only kids over 5 ft tall with black hair or only blonde hair and blue eyed as far as I’m concerned. If it’s run by gov-co though, everyone should be equal.
So should we argue to a) remove racism from public schools, or b) remove public schools? Methinks “B”.
What else would you expect from Davidson College?
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In a recent post, I said you could tell someone from Davidson College by being able to count their nose hairs.
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I like Bruce’s #4: Religious tolerance… code for…… bash christians and all that they believe.
.
That sums up the liberal/progressive definition of religious tolerance.
Thanks for the warning post which 99% of the parents will NOT see, so they will be unaware of the agendas that are being promoted.
I’m all for school choice. I would add that Davidson ES has long been an excellent school and thanks to the efforts of Larry Gavreaux and Rhonda Lennon there is also Bailey MS and Hough HS. Both excellent schools with great faculties and facilities.
Get to them when they are young and malleable.
It’s been going on for decades. Just a little more out of the various closets now.
Christian…I just now caught this post of yours. Very good! Just as the gentleman mentioned this evening …colleges and universities indoctrinating students in the same dogma. Would be interesting to know where the funding for this “Youth Impact Summit” came from. The usual Foundation suspects no doubt.
Great to see you tonight!
Cheryl
Just wanted to point out something: Aric Reviere, the founder of the program is a Sophomore at Davidson. This is a student’s project/program. Oh, and he is a born and raised evangelical Baptist from Spartanburg. I sincerely doubt he bashed Christianity… or that the program had an extraordinarily liberal bent. Contact him for comment, I bet you he’d respond.