"That's how The Enemy enters the minds of our students...

[ulysses]

through their genitalia."

-- My employer in a discussion this afternoon of children in the school who not only display normal five-year-old facination with body parts but know their proper names as well.

I'm going to write a book about teaching at this school some day...

[Fenris]

1. W O W

Do you work for the Pope, too?

[ulysses]

2. well, we have Catholic students

but it's very much a fundamentalist/Protestant leaning school.

[Fenris]

6. That was my second guess!

[ulysses]

10. should've been the first guess.

I have only secondhand knowledge of Catholic schooling, but knowing what I do know, and given a choice of that or the fundies I work for now, I'll go with the Jesuits every time.

[Nay]

14. Agreed, Ulysses. I have bones to pick with all religions, but

Catholic schools urge you to argue, defend, attack, and debate, with nothing off the table. My son, an atheist like us, went to Catholic high school and debated like crazy in religion class, and the teachers loved him because he actually gave a shit about the subject.

Try THAT in a Christian school or a public school.

[Book Lover]

16. What Catholic school did YOU go to?

Because I feel like I was cheated out of something big time! I went for 12 years, and I never felt free to voice my dissenting opinions.

[damnraddem]

33. It helps if the Catholic school is Jesuit, or even one of the other orders

I went to a Jesuit high school. Even when they were dogmatic, we didn't believe it, thought they were just trying to get us to argue.

But this is why the Jesuits, and some other teaching orders, have been pushed out of teaching in various dioceses -- they were too 'liberal' in their religious teaching.

[ulysses]

18. there's a genuine tradition there

of intellectual development, and the problems I have with the Catholic Church (as well as other religions, as with you) aside, I'll gladly give them at least that much.

There *are* Protestant sects and schools that at least approximate that tradition, but the fundies, in my experience, come more from a stand of intentional ignorance.

[Book Lover]

23. Like anything that is as vast as the CC

I suppose one must allow for local differences.

As a medievalist, I know about the intellectual history of the Church, but I have to tell you, I never found my open curiosity was welcome. I'm glad it was different for you.

[DoYouEverWonder]

20. The Jesuits are some of the best teachers

you'll ever meet. My brother studied under the Jesuits.

Since I was a girl I was taught by nuns, Josephites (uck) and Dominicans. Especially in HS, the Dominicans were surprisingly open minded women. We were allowed to talk about anything and everything. We had male lay teachers who the nuns hired not only for their qualification has teachers but also to help out a few fellows who needed the draft deferment. We were also allowed to take time off from school to go Viet Nam War protests and they closed the school so we could go to the first Earth Day parade down 5th Ave.

I quit the Catholic Church a long time ago for assorted reasons. However, thanks to these women and the time and place (60's, NYC) I am who I am today.

[YNGW]

3. Danish government bans sex ed CD-ROM

The Associated Press reports "the Danish government halted the distribution 60,000 CD-ROMs for sexual education classes throughout the country because some of the content was deemed unacceptable." At issue, among other things, is "information about . . . bestiality and partners relieving themselves on each other while having sex."

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2004/02/13/dani...

[ulysses]

4. ok, good on the Danes.

I have no problem with the existence of "water sports" for those who are into that kind of thing, but it's not something I'd suggest be covered in a basic sex ed class. Beastiality, no.

And neither of these is comparable to simply knowing the word "penis".

[DrWeird]

9. But they already cover bestiality in schools.

It's in the school library. In the dictionary. I suspect there's more to this danish story then what get's sensationalized. The CD's probably just got a huge amount of encyclopedic information.

[ulysses]

12. that's a good point.

Excellent one in fact. Thanks, Doc!

[hatrack]

5. Satan wants your penis! Beelzebub seeks your vulva!

Good grief, bring out the feathered sticks and rattles and let the witch doctors go to work - these people NEED it!

[ulysses]

7. it could almost be an SNL skit.

One thing I have determined in all this, though, is that these folks back down often as not given a firm resistance. There's a lot of noise on the religious right, but quite often not as much backbone.

[Book Lover]

17. That is the name of my next punk rock album (nt)

[MountainLaurel]

37. Oh. My. Lord.

I think the phrase "Beezlebub seeks your vulva" has been burned into my unconscious forever. I can hear it this sort of satanic, Beavis voice.

[buddhamama]

8. i hope she doesn't utter

this tripe to the children, that is sooo unhealthy.

[ulysses]

13. oh, she can't even bring up the subject with them.

Of course, she's planning to expand to high school over the next several years, so she's going to have to at some point.

The joy of private education.

[DrWeird]

11. Protect the sanctity of marriage. Encourage premarital sex.

Nothing does more damage to the institution of marriage then horny kids running off to get married so they can have sex. We need to stop the abstinence agenda.

[ulysses]

15. much agreed, but frankly

I'd just be happy, for now, with a nation in which kids aren't taught stupidly offensive nicknames for parts of their body (it's evidently ok for a kid to tell me about his "wee-wee", but let him call it a "penis" and it's apocalypse).

I tried to teach Platonic solids to the oldest kids in the fall - "dodecahedron" very quickly became "doody-caca".

[Jax]

19. I'd read that book

You are so sharp on these forms ulysses. I love to read you here.

I hate that you are in that school, but then I feelglad for the kids who have a chance to be taught by you there. I believe the kids you teach and have taught there will be better people having had you as their teacher.

Jax

[ulysses]

25. thanks

In spite of all the bullshit, I've gotten a lot that I can take away in terms of how knowledge about children learn and think. I hope that the kids have gotten and are getting something like as much.

[salin]

21. oh my goodness...

rush limbaugh and the echo chamber grab hold of new minds through... *gasp*

[ulysses]

27. yes, that's right.

It's all about the naughty parts, after all.

[kodi]

22. so VD is the Enemy according to this fella?

.

[ulysses]

26. heh

Nietzsche, please pick up the white courtesy phone.

She doesn't even get as far as STDs, I'm fairly certain.

[kodi]

38. germ theory is still just a THEORY & microscopes are the devil's tool

i wonder, is pointing out how utterly stupid these people are on par with pointing out when someone has red cabbage stuck between their teeth?

you have a moral and ethical imperative to settle them back into reality, for their ownsake.

[ulysses]

41. about that imperative...

I suppose that I could try, but I'm not sure what the point would be other than mutual aggravation and my early termination. After all, it would be my word against a faith that will find justification in the will of God for any happenstance, including the exit of a long line of good teachers.

[geniph]

24. I suppose anyone whose mind was forever on their own

genitalia would think that EVULLL could get straight into the mind from the 'wee-wee'. Or wait - is it that it can only get into a penis or a vagina, but not into a 'wee-wee' or a 'thingie'?



Demons in the pudenda!

[ulysses]

29. ROFL!

Demons in the pudenda!

Bless you, Geni.

[boobooday]

28. It would be funny

In some kind of SNL skit, maybe! That's some crazy shit.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[PVnRT]

30. Ye gods

No wonder so many fundies become sex addicts and general perverts, if they repress themselves like that.

[ulysses]

34. seems like it's such incredible desperation

against a culture that, liberal political fortunes notwithstanding, is tilting inexorably away from fundie moralism. I just read a Harper's article from several months ago (I'm behind in my reading) about the intersection of religion and environmentalism in which the author talks at some length about the recent prophesies of doom and armageddon as a desperate reaction to declining influence. I suspect that that's true, and it influences the fact that my students seem to know almost nothing of Atlanta (City of Sin) a mere 20 miles to the south.

Fundamentalists are fleeing anything that reeks of the modern because they know they're losing the battle, even if they can't admit it.

[maggrwaggr]

31. my fundie stepmom thinks Satan can enter your mind during yoga

or other forms of meditation. She thinks you have to be forever on your guard, you can't relax, you can't empty your mind, or SATAN might take it over.

I don't know how she justifies sleeping. Maybe I should ask her.

[Chovexani]

32. What's next?

I swear these kinds of people would use the Malleus Maleficarum as a textbook if they could get away with it...

--C.

[LWolf]

35. What a sad situation

when you have to view your students' minds as vessels of the "Enemy."

<sigh> America would be a lot better off, in my negligible little opinion, if we could stop obsessing over our bodies in any form. Evil, dirty, shameful, or just sexual statements.

How about houses for our souls, that should be honored in all aspects, and appreciated regardless of form?

[ulysses]

36. it is.

These folks are out there. Kids aren't born with an innate hatred of the mortal coil, they're taught it.

[LWolf]

39. And you are working in the thick of it.

I always hope that if I model kindness, inquiry, integrity, and openness, that it is a seed planted for them that may someday bear fruit.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

40. Fear of sexuality seems to be the root of all evil. We primates like sex.

Cultures that are more comfortable with sexuality and physical displays of affection and love are much less violent.

Dig this: Here's where we are STILL at in puritan/vulgar Murica.

I found a used book in Chattanooga written in 1966 by a fundamentalist preacher, David A. Noebel, called 'Rhythm, Riots and Revolution.'

It's by the the same author as 'Communism, Hypnotism, and the Beatles.' No-I'm not kidding!

He contends that the Commies are using Pavlovian brainwashing techniques in rock music to program our children to dance with the devil and hate their government. The author calls rock music 'negro fertility music.' Yes, he gets in racism, too.

The shrieking teens of Beatlemania prove this to his mind.

And the folkies who sing for social justice (Pete Seegar, Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs) are all tools of the godless Red Menace.

What's ironic is that many people behind the Iron Curtain say that their love of Beatles music is what helped them reject Communism and embrace the west!

"Can't Buy Me Love..."

Here's a Baptist joke from Glen Campbell:
(Many Baptists don't believe in dancing-too sinful to do in public.)

Q: Why don't Baptists make love standing up?
A: Someone might think they were dancing.

[knight_of_the_star]

42. Dear Gods!

I believe that their sanity has taken permanent leave of their minds.

According to them, weren't humans made in God's image? So ergo, God would have a penis. And if we are made in his image, then would it be too far a leap to assume that he can have pleasure from that penis? So wouldn't it be defying the will of God to say that sex is immoral and wrong and all that crap?

Gotta love being a Wiccan and a student of Philosophy and Human Sexuality!