Biased political indoctrination fills education, local conservatives said following a controversial video posted online that showed Asheville elementary school students singing President Obama’s campaign slogans.
The video, filmed at Sandhill-Venable Elementary School and entitled ‘Yet another Obama indoctrination video of kids,’ collected more than 13,000 hits in its first few days and attracted national media attention.
Asheville’s conservative city councilman, Carl Mumpower, compared the chorus program to the indoctrination of German youths under Hitler.
“The program involved ritualistic chanting of a sitting president’s campaign slogans,” he said in an interview last week.
In response to the YouTube video and Mumpower’s initial comments, teachers and school board officials received outraged letters, mostly from conservative parents. Some letters even made death threats against school officials for incorporating Obama’s slogans of hope, change and personal empowerment into classrooms, according to school officials.
“My statement was attempted as an insult. I wanted to punch someone in the nose to get their attention,” Mumpower admitted, refusing to apologize. “Sometimes you have to throw a Baby Ruth in the swimming pool to get peoples’ attention,” he said with a chuckle.
Those blanching at Mumpower’s comparison should examine his specific language. Many negative connotations surround “indoctrination,” but the meaning is neither bad nor insulting. Classrooms are full of indoctrination, one of the most commonly used tools in education. However, whether schools are conservative or liberal, comparing the American application of indoctrination to that of the Nazis is a far stretch.
“I didn’t say the teachers were bad guys. I don’t think they are. I think they were misguided, and I think they were wrong,” Mumpower said. “The teachers I know are good and well–intentioned people, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make mistakes.”
It is hard to argue education as anything more than selective indoctrination; students learn via rehearsing, studying and repeating information in the majority of classrooms. Taking offense to claims that students are “indoctrinated” is ridiculous. Of course they are indoctrinated.
“The question is which methods of indoctrination teachers use and what kind of information they try to put in our children’s heads. I happen to believe we have a definitive liberal bias in our education today. That concerns me,” Mumpower said.
The short YouTube video of the Sandhill-Venable event is a perfect example, he said.
Up for re-election next month, the councilman said he is concerned about driving biased messages into children’s heads before they can decide for themselves.
The ethical line between “fair” and “right” is difficult to decipher when it comes to teaching children political values. Along with most of the letters received after the program, Mumpower said teaching these slogans to schoolchildren clearly demonstrates liberal bias in education.
“No one has the market cornered on wisdom. One of my favorite quotes is from George Patton. He said, ‘If everyone is thinking the same, then nobody is thinking.’ I have found this to be true,” Mumpower said.
Mumpower should apologize to students, their families and school personnel for his statement, City Council candidate Gordon Smith said in an online statement.
“Asheville’s children and schoolteachers deserve our highest praise and encouragement. Instead, we have a city leader insulting them and stoking the fires of violence,” Smith said. “Everyone has become so desensitized to him that Mumpower thinks he can get away with saying stuff like this.”
Responding to Smith’s claims that he was “stoking the fires of violence,” Mumpower said he would “cut off at the knees” anyone seeking his approval for threatening letters of violence.
“It’s intellectually lazy to get violent. Anyone can get mad, and anyone can write threatening letters,” he said.
Some, agreeing that Asheville’s schools incorporate liberal biases, point out that other schools embrace conservative ideals.
“The school I went to, Greensboro Day School, is mostly conservative. The few liberals, or those coming from a liberal family, seemed out of place. Everyone knew who they were, and often their ideas seem repressed or undesirable in classrooms conversations,” UNC Asheville student Ashley McGroarty said.
The split between liberal and conservative school might not be equal she said, but there are certainly plenty of schools supporting either ideology.
However, those supporting the use of Obama’s slogans in classrooms claim the message is essential to improving lives of children.
“It’s a pity some people are taking Obama’s message of hope and change in such negative context,” said Sarah Duffer, a teacher at Asheville High School. “Whether you are Democratic, Republican, white, black, yellow or purple, the message is positive.”
Duffer showed Obama’s address in her class, providing her students the opportunity to leave without consequence.
After the video, Duffer said she led willing students through an exercise in creating realistic, achievable academic goals.
“Let’s remember that the presidential office is a leadership position, and that it’s a good idea to encourage students to academically excel, practice persistence and seek a future vision for themselves and our nation,” Duffer said.
Political minorities often receive imbalanced reinforcement for their ideas in public classrooms, a major problem in today’s America.
Republican students attending Asheville’s public schools will likely hear very few messages supporting their party’s beliefs, while other schools demonstrate the opposite type of thought oppression.
Mumpower is right in saying this type of behavior is both damaging and restrictive to intellectual development.
While there is no place for the fairness doctrine in media, he said, it should be the only doctrine used in educating children.
“I believe the word ‘diversity’ is more than just a socialist buzzword,” he said. “Also, diversity of perspective is one of the most important versions of diversity.”
It is important that our educational system embraces diversity.
If teachers find it too difficult to present both sides, political bias in classrooms is a valid concern for all parties, parents and individuals.
Teaching biased opinions about any situation, problem or belief system without presenting the counterargument inhibits school children developing ability to formulate their own answers.
